Chapter Text
Andrew comes when Wymack calls because he has nothing better to do, and also because he's a man who loves to take long road trips. Is he a man, really, any more? Scholars have debated it for centuries. And they'll go on debating it! The day has no hold on him any more, so he drives when he likes and stops for gas only. There's nothing like driving through the sunrise into another day, chasing the sun from the past and into the future of the new light, and it happens every night. He puts on a record, he lets himself sing a little bit, and he's across the continental United States (and perhaps, a lil bit of a shortcut into Canada) within forty-eight hours. Wow, the allure of modern technology. Somebody should invent a train for this thing.
He's been luring baby vamps back into supernatural civilization for probably, hm, the past twenty years or so? They don't always stay with the Foxes, sometimes they go back to their sire and sometimes they get swept up in whatever bullshit they were consumed by before, but they often remember the Foxes, and they remember that there was a safe place, that the eternal life is not a place you must continue the cycle of violence, that being a parasite doesn't have to blood suck so bad. He took over for Aaron, when he did this; Aaron's in his Carlisle phase again and living as a doctor in Boston, which, good for him, whatever, but people are doctors all the time. It's not like there's a shortage of doctors. There is a shortage of "guys willing to pick up Wymack's calls".
Anyhow. So that's why he's here. Okay yes, and Wymack saved his life or whatever, and he owes Wymack a life debt, but Kevin owes Andrew a life debt, so shouldn't that work itself out? Shouldn't that all come out in the wash or something? Scholars are debating that too. That's kind of what he thinks a lot about on the ride over. He thinks a lot about other stuff too: where to get a cigarette, where to buy alcoholic blood, when the Broken Bells are going to release another album, what he thinks of Linkin Park's new vocalist and if that's even a thing he should be paying attention to and maybe if he likes or dislikes Linkin Park's new vocalist and if that's feminist or not and also, if he's a man or a monster, does that make him more or less feminist? Is being a monster feminist? Is he more feminist if he is a monster rather than a man? Is it more feminist to be a woman or a monster? Is being a monster inherently gendered? Does he even have gender as a monster? Is a vampire a monster? He was working on a phD in gender studies and comparative literature like two years ago but funding was kind of weird and then also getting a phD is kind of boring, but maybe he could go back. There's a rule about how you have to do a little bit of it every six years or the college loses your number, and he's got time on his hands. He's got nothing but time on his hands.
And the wheel underneath him, and the rumble of the car around him, and the sunrise and the sunset and then finally, coming down the dusty dirt road to the little cottage where Wymack and Kevin have holed up. Wymack's a warlock, he's been practicing for a while. He's got more than time on his hands: he has flame tattoos licking up and down his arms, which fund the majority of his magic. Andrew only pretends to understand how magic works, so he's not the person to ask. Magic's like that, though; you need to sacrifice something to get what you want. What form the sacrifice comes in depends on a variety of factors. All supernatural creatures are kind of like that: parasitic creatures giving something up to get what they've got. Whether or not Andrew likes what he's given up to get what he got depends on the day.
Kevin's a werewolf, and not by birth. Was his sacrifice worth his loyalty to the moon? Andrew doesn't know what he thinks about it. He stays with the Foxes, though, and that matters to him. Five years ago, Andrew offered him protection in exchange for Kevin putting his life in Andrew's hands, and Kevin took that deal. That protection was the Fox coven; a collective of witches and Others, banded together against the only other option in town, the Moriyamas. And do the Moriyamas keep calling? They sure do. And Andrew loves to be sent out to answer that call. Who's the dog in this fight?
Anyhow. This call. It's not for the Moriyamas themselves, but those guys have been sniffing around. Metaphorically, in this case; they don't have any more werewolves on staff since Andrew killed her -- oh, three or four moons ago. And Kevin was their prized stock; they can't make any more. So they're understaffed. Still, Wymack has warded the woods up the wazoo; nobody's getting in. And nobody's getting out, either; their standard procedure is that they keep the baby vampire in smaller and smaller spaces, trapping them. It forces them into desperation, keeps them wanting. Andrew uses all that to his advantage as well as the encroaching threat of daylight. Young fledglings are so -- pathetic. It's easy to get them to sit, to stay. Yeah, alright. Maybe Andrew has a thing for strays. It runs in the family. Aaron's just doing it in a more traditional way.
He offers the wards a drop of his own blood, which lets him through, and when he gets in to the cottage there is a rush of pleasantries. Wymack's got a huge grimoire in front of him on the coffee table, sitting on the squashy sofa before he gets up to hug Andrew. He's warm; he is still alive, and even as Andrew endures the embrace he is glad that Kevin is alive to be here. Kevin Day is a paradox of a man, a peregrine turned canine; a juxtaposition of disciplined precision and raw, untamed energy. He last saw Kevin two -- three? -- years ago; a man dogged by being second best. When Andrew left, he was doing better: standing before him now is a man who is certainly doing his best. There's a self-assurance about him that Andrew hadn't expected, but had hoped for -- leaving wasn't the hardest thing he's ever done, but it might be up there. He's grown into being Wymack's student well. They even look the same, now.
"We think he's injured," says Wymack, getting down to business. Andrew perches on the other side of the coffee table, reading the grimoire upside down. "He's got his own blood strewn around the woods, so he's been easy to target with the wards. He's been eating the rats that live in the cabin; we couldn't ward them out, it's a real bad infestation. But even when there were deer in the woods he wouldn't eat them - he's not a very good hunter. Still, even with the rats, he's very hungry. He has a camping fire outside, we think mostly to get warm, because he doesn't try to cook the rats before he drains them." Wymack pauses, looks askance over him. Tries to evaluate where his head's at with just a glance. "What are you thinking?" he finally asks, when he can't read anything from Andrew's stone face.
"About the small spotted cat, the deadliest cat in the world," says Andrew, after a moment. "She has a kill rate of about 60%, she eats rodents and small birds, but she's been known to eat a Cape Hare, an animal that's bigger than she is." Wymack stares at him, so he keeps talking, even if he doesn't really want to explain himself. "Your baby vamp, do you know anything about him? You've spotted him?"
Wymack shakes his head. "Not really, only by rumors and tips from other people. We can see what he's leaving behind, but we haven't had the privilege of meeting him. Definitely male, possibly still bleeding from his sire's wound, in a bad way. He's short, maybe smaller than you. He's coping out in the woods, but I'd prefer to have him safe. Do you think you can get him?"
"Do you know when sunrise is?" Andrew returns, and Wymack turns to Kevin.
KEVIN: It's in maybe an hour.
WYMACK: What do you need from us?
ANDREW: You got a broom in this place?
Wymack thinks he's joking. Andrew stands there and waits for them to get it, or to get him a broom. Wymack doesn't do either, but Kevin at least gets him the latter.
ANDREW: You said he's bleeding?
KEVIN: Yeah?
ANDREW: Can you get me some of that -- that awful stinky stuff that Abby uses, when ever she's got one of us injured. Works on vampires?
KEVIN: Dad?
WYMACK: Yeah, in the top shelf. It'll ruin the scent of him for you.
KEVIN: It's not like I need to know him before we get back to the coven. Andrew might still kill him in the woods, or on the way home.
ANDREW: Hey.
WYMACK: Well, it is possible.
Kevin gets him a first-aid kit, full of herbs and miscellany. Wymack must have compiled it earlier. Kevin ties it all up in an old fabric pouch, patterned with daisies and a blue background. A little bit of cheer in this dark work, or whatever.
These woods are lovely, dark, and deep. Fortunately, vampires don't sleep. Andrew heads out in the near dawn: he's immune to the sun by now, it's been a million years, but the fledgling certainly won't be.
Kevin's good at finding people. In these woods, even he would have trouble. The baby vampire might be bleeding, but if it's from an injury he's using it instead of treating it; he's used his blood to mask his tracks in these woods. It's all over where Andrew might have used traditional methods to track him, find his scent of where he actually is. And he's hid his tracks well - he's a man used to running, from a time before he was a vampire. Andrew, even through his growing frustration, kind of admires him for it.
Much of the work that the baby has done is worthless, of course. Andrew knows what he's looking for. Andrew has been hunting baby vampires for a minute now. Even if he hadn't been prepared, the vampire's hunting grounds have gotten much smaller. As dawn approaches, the obvious location to wait out the light would be the rotting cabin in the center of his claimed territory. This is also where the majority of the rats live -- they haven't learned anything from being slaughtered in droves, apparently, but Andrew guesses that it's a dangerous life being a rat and anything could have gotten them in any place, so why avoid one in particular? -- so he would have the safety net of them, at least. That's also where much of the blood scent seems to live: Andrew guesses that the baby has spent much of his time sitting and bleeding here. But if he's used to being on the run, then he'll know that he's left much of the evidence there -- coming up the rotted front porch, there's an almost-invisible tripwire. Andrew activates it, just to see what would happen -- there's an interesting thunking noise farther in the cabin that he surmises would be perhaps unpleasant to experience in person, so he leaves it. Interesting, but not worth his time. His prey is waiting.
Andrew likes the killing stalking hunting prey, a task he is not often up for; he gets his blood delivered to him dead and in a bag, for the most part, like most civilized vampires do. But he likes the rush of it; the tracking by blood, the following of clues, the thrill of the chase electrifying what little blood he still has left in him. He drank hours ago, before he left for this road trip, it's enough, to get him through the week. Vampires are hardier than you'd think.
When Andrew comes into the more appealing copse of trees, the white pines sticky with sap, more uncomfortable to be under but his nose will fill with the tree scent and not the blood scent of his prey, or so he follows the logic, he uses his carried broom the brush the needles back into place, before he gathers himself into a tree and waits for his prey to arrive, clutching the broom in front of him. He thinks about the validity of killing a vampire with a wooden stake, and how that might still be on the table. He wishes, bitterly, for Kevin to be here, so that they could hunt together like they used to, before Kevin became a true Fox and Andrew was edged out of the pack once again. It doesn't matter to him, he tells himself; he's a billion years old, he's older than the sun itself, he woke up before the dawn of time and nothing can affect him any more. Yet, while he waits in the tree, his ears straining for a hint of a heartbeat, he succumbs to nostalgia, to the ache of it. When the vampire bursts into the copse, Andrew is not paying enough attention.
The fledgling comes into the copse of trees, panting, ragged, upset. He knows that his territory has been invaded and he is running, still, even though he must know at this point that there is no way he can escape. Andrew doesn't know if he admires this, or pities him. Where he bleeds sluggishly has been bandaged with some filthy fabric; he is lucky he is not human, the wound will get infected. It might get infected any way, and then where will the Foxes be? Andrew wants to lope out of the tree gracefully and purposefully, but the branch underneath him cracks as he goes and the fledgling snaps his head up to see Andrew: in the gray dawn, Andrew sees that his eyes are a strange, muddy brown. His eyes should have turned by now, something isn't right ---
The fledgeling is snarling, claws out; he won't go down without a fight, and Andrew's already on the back foot. He thinks again, of wooden stakes and vampires and the long and traumatic history between the two concepts, and swings the broom longways into the fledgling's stomach, and the fledgling goes down. Andrew follows.
Andrew is on top of him in another moment, and he feels the body under him, and he can handle it, he can handle it. The body underneath him is lukewarm, warmer than he would expect a vampire's to be, but he is struggling hard, panting. Andrew doubts it for one wild moment, doubts his family and their information -- the warm body underneath him, the wide brown eyes searching his, seeking some purchase in the gray light. Andrew gets a hand on the crook of his jaw, but he doesn't press, not yet. He's just a threat, an awful nightmare. "Show me," he snarls. "Show me your teeth."
And the boy underneath him parts his lips -- a shock of pink tongue -- and two fangs descend. Vampire, and a new, fresh one at that. That's the only thing this can mean.
Andrew snarls again -- keeps the broomstick across his chest with one knee, making sure he stays down. He uses his right hand to rest against the fledgling's throat -- you may be dead, but we both know you still need air -- and lowers his arm to the fledgling's fangs, inviting him to drink.
He struggles even against that for a minute, refusing to sink his teeth in, shaking underneath Andrew, but Andrew just increases the pressure from one hand on his throat, and his survival instincts must kick in against his morality, because his fangs do pierce Andrew's skin and he drinks deeply, the warmth of his breath against Andrew an interesting puzzle. Wymack and Kevin had said that he was feeding off the rats in the cabin, but Andrew wonders if they had just assumed this rather than actually seeing him -- the boy beneath him is barely turned, is giving the signs of never having drunk blood before swallowing Andrew down.
Andrew lets him have his fill, and then he lets him up. The boy scrambles back as soon as he's released, wiping his mouth. There are tears coming down his face, and he scrubs at his eyes with the back of his bloodied arm. He looks -- well, honestly, Andrew shouldn't judge. He looks about the regular amount of wrecked that a person should look, having recently been unwillingly bitten and turned into a horrifying night creature beyond your comprehension or desire. Andrew has better day vision than he thinks the fledgling has, so he can get a much better look, even as the fledgling sticks to the shadowed sections of the collection of trees. "Who turned you?" he asks. It's important to know, for society, or whatever. Wymack will ask later, for certain.
"I don't know," he says, and his voice is -- better when it's making words instead of whimpers. A little quieter, too. "I don't remember."
Typical. Society is so fucked up. "I'm Andrew," he says, spooling out the introduction, watching to see if the vamp has heard his name. "Andrew Minyard." There's no recognition in those eyes. He asks the return. "What's your name?"
A sharp, ragged, intake of breath. So like... trans, or something? But he seemed so bad at transitioning. "Neil," he eventually comes out with. "Neil Josten."
-.- NEIL -.-
Andrew had asked who turned him. Andrew's sharp teeth, sharp voice, in the woods and the enveloping safety of darkness around the two of them. Neil had told him he didn't know. He had lied as easily as breathing, but he does know. He keeps the truth of it in his mouth, but he cannot speak it. He wears a chosen name and he does not choose the crown that he was born into.
He does know. He does remember. He isn't the same as Andrew at all, and he can tell -- he isn't like the vampires from the city, either. When the sunlight spills from the canopy of the trees and threatens their shelter, he drags Andrew further into the forest that he knows well, into the darkest parts, where it still seems like twilight, where the sunlight is filtered enough to not burn into his skin.
Andrew's skin, not their skin, not a trait they share together. Andrew had walked into his woods like a man with a past, a man with a future. Neil is not like him. Neil is not a vampire, not in the way Andrew thinks that he is. Neil has a fractured, broken beginning, and no future. Neil has the end of the world.
That's why he's starving out in these fucking woods.
Andrew says. Andrew says. Neil focuses on him, even as Andrew's own blood thrums through his veins again, even as it thrums its way into his pulse, gives him a pulse again. "You're dying," is what Andrew says.
That's true, yes. But that's intentional. What else is there to do?
"You know how to use your fangs, though?" Why would a bright young lad like you decide to starve in the woods instead of using them, then? That's the real question he's asking. Andrew gestures to his own mouth. "It'll work, even if you don't want it to."
Fuck this guy. He's not going to leave the darkness, because that would give away his whole game. Andrew -- fucked up name, makes him sound old, like a church, or like a saint -- knows too much already.
His blood tasted so good. It was a dream, impossible. Drinking another vampire's blood -- what will that do to him? Has anyone done that? It tastes like damnation.
"I live with a coven of witches, in the South," Andrew is saying. "They warded the woods to bring you in. They want you to join them. It's a good gig. There's other vamps, they can teach you how to live. There's witches and weres, too. It's not just vampires. And there's plenty of blood, you wouldn't have to starve yourself."
He's not starving himself, he just can't drink human blood for normal and regular reasons. Rats have blood. A little bit, at least. Stop looking at him! He could have done it. He could have lived forever in the woods were it not for the way the Foxes stalked him through the forest, setting out traps for him to keep him in place, shuttering his territory down smaller and smaller. Warding him into a smaller and smaller section of space. Stalking him, but too afraid to approach him themselves. He thought they were afraid of him: he thought everyone should be afraid of him, he is the end of the world, he is the apocalypse, he is the antichrist. He thought they would come to kill him, as they should, as they must. If he will not obligingly succumb to death, then death should come for him.
He can't drink blood from another source. He doesn't even know if Andrew is safe to drink from. But it felt different -- it felt different, than his mother's blood. It was just a sip. It was just a little bit, to survive until the next night. And it damned them both, it damned everyone -- it brings them all closer to the unraveling, and it was his first blood --
"You can be safe," says Andrew, cutting through his thoughts. "The Foxes will take care of you."
Neil glances at Andrew. What does he want? Assurance from a man -- from a vampire -- who should have killed him when he had the chance? "Like they take care of you?" He's all alone out here. That's not very good care. Andrew doesn't reply, just keeps staring at him. Neil needs -- he needs shelter. He needs more than the woods all black. He needs something else to hold onto lest he goes back on his own pledges and turns on the world. When he speaks again, he means to be resolute, but -- "I won't drink human blood," -- but it comes out as a plea.
"You don't have to," says Andrew. "Not yet. You can feed from me." He sounds matter of fact, iron, unwavering. He shifts, then, reaching into his pockets to pull out a pouch of -- something. "I have herbs," he says, clearly trying for gentle. "I can dress your wound."
Neil wants. He just wants something on his own terms. "I can do it myself," he says, and reaches for the bundle.
Andrew's eyes flick over the jagged streaks of blood on Neil's skin. "It looks nasty," he says, managing to sound neutral.
Neil feels a horrible surge of anger, mean and sharp, rising in his throat. "I've got it," he says, and snatches the herbs from Andrew before retreating back to his own side. "Fuck you," he adds, mulishly, with little heat, unwisely.
Andrew gives a kind of smirk, a ghost of amusement that cuts through the weight of the dawn, and leaves him to it.
Neil doesn't return that with anything. He unwraps the soaked fabric still wrapped around his elbow, damp now more with sweat than his own blood. He wonders if his blood is human blood. He wonders if Andrew could drink it, if he thirsts for it. He hadn't known vampires could drink from each other until his fangs had sunk into Andrew's skin like it was prophesied. Like he hasn't had enough of that lately.
The cut had started as his part of the sacrifice to ward their vehicle safely, but the ritual had been interrupted months ago. It was just a little bit of blood at first, but then everything got worse, and he got worse, and now he's in the woods and the cut is jagged and leaks warmth from his own skin. Andrew's little pouch does have promised herbs, and Neil kind of knows his way around them. He picks out a couple that he thinks he can identify: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme. Sage for antiseptic, rosemary for inflammation, and some parsley to ease the pain. Thyme to speed up the healing process, of course. Neil crushes them gently between his fingers, and presses it into where it hurts the most. It settles into his skin, the magic reconciling into his wound, finally with the intention to stop the bleeding.
It was a familiar kind of discomfort, almost grounding in the honesty of it, of the process. There's spare fabric in Andrew's pouch, so he doesn't wrap the old gross scrap back around his arm.
Andrew makes some kind of face, and Neil snaps a glare to him. "You smell like a delicious pasta sauce," he says, and kind of laughs about it. "Kevin's gonna be a little bitch about it."
Oh yeah. There had been a reason he hadn't wanted to join the Fox Coven, well-known for taking in fucked-up supernatural creatures. Kevin Day.
"It's almost safe to head back," says Andrew, tipping his eyes up toward the sky. "You can meet the others. David Wymack, he's a werelock, fire-based. And Kevin Day, his son, a werewolf."
Yeah. That guy.
The Relics and Vampire Enforcement Network, also known as the R.A.V.E.Ns, were -- whatever the opposite of a crime syndicate was, but still with all the vibes of a crime syndicate. They didn't necessarily control the supernatural east coast of the United States, but they had a significant part in it. Around here, the R.A.V.E.Ns are lead by Riko Moriyama, the second son of the main branch of the Network. The Moriyamas were a lineage of powerful witches who had heralded the R.A.V.E.Ns for the past fifty, sixty years. The Moriyamas were notorious for both their power and their relentless pursuit of control in whatever they pursued. Riko wielded power, but he also wielded a hungry, corrosive ambition.
Kevin had been Riko's right hand man, a fixture at every party, every takedown of magic in this part of the country, known for his agility and the intensity of his demeanor. They called themselves the Arcane Ascendants -- they staked their claims and set standards for others to follow, leaving legends in their wake as much as they left enemies. He wore a tattoo on his face that marked him as second-best: Riko wore the first place on his cheek. There was a third boy, for a while, dark-haired and sallow-cheeked, that followed them around for a year or so, and then he disappeared. Killed? Sent upstate to a farm? It's not public knowledge. It's an omen of things to come.
The unthinkable happens: Kevin Day turned at the full moon into a werewolf. His flight from the R.A.V.E.N.s to the refuge of the Foxes was still the talk of the town.
Neil hadn't seen Kevin in eight years, back when Neil had gone by another name, when he was living a different life altogether. Kevin had been a proposition of potential and peril; Neil doesn't know where he stands now.
Andrew's eyes cut to him, his reaction. "He's part of the Foxes now," he tells Neil. "You don't need to worry about anything. We'll say a quick hello, and then we'll take the car upstate."
It's fine. It's all fine, actually. Neil isn't going to hyperventilate. He still really isn't sure if he needs oxygen, but it hurts to not have it, and his lungs are kind of screaming right now.
Neil and Andrew move towards Andrew's car, parked just beyond the cabin. "We're leaving!!!" Andrew shouts, and a light flicks on inside. Kevin comes out of the cabin - Neil has seen photos, of course, of what he looks like now, and he remembers him from before, but he looks -- he looks even better, than he was, with Riko. He looks like his own man. Beyond him, Wymack the werelock, and Neil is glad they are leaving, because Wymack is same size and shape as his father; the most pressing difference is the different tattoos. Where Wymack has flames licking up and down his arms, his father had knives.
The car unlocks with a click of the fob; the headlights blink on, weird eyes lit up in this twilight. Neil climbs into the passenger side; the stereo system bursts into life as Andrew slides into the driver's side. He slaps the dashboard until the music turns off. "Latest Linkin Park album," he says conversationally. "They have a new vocalist," like that is something that Neil should be apprised of. Neil does not know what Linkin Park is. He turns around fully as he backs out of the driveway, ignoring the backup camera's view that has lit up the screen in front of him. The car underneath them purrs, responds to Andrew's touch. Neil thinks of the way Andrew's skin felt against his teeth, and then way the moon looks in the sky, and then he is asleep.