Let The Darkness Lead You Home 8 страница

The sound Frank makes comes from high in his throat and he can feel it vibrating against Gerard's tongue. Any second he's going to feel the prick of teeth, the press of Gerard's lips, but he doesn't.

"Your ink tastes like iron," Gerard whispers, the words moving against Frank's skin. "Like blood. When you're warm, I can smell it from across a room."

"You're not—" Frank takes a deep, shuddering breath. "You're not across the room."

"No." Gerard brings a hand up to Frank's jaw, fingers and thumb tilting Frank's head. "I'm not."

And now. Now is when he's going to bite Frank. To feed. And Frank's ready for it, even though the stool he's on feels frail between his legs, and Gerard doesn't have an arm around him, is just holding him steady by the five points of contact on his face, and he's not sure he won't crumple to the floor. But Gerard just keeps licking, soft-wet-rough, until adrenalin and the sensation turn Frank's joints to water anyway.

"Gerard," Frank says again, a breath, a plea, his spine curling sideways to press his throat closer to his master's fangs.

"Later," Gerard says softly, pulling away, leaving Frank's skin wet and cold, raw feeling.

"No," Frank says without meaning to, his voice small and petulant.

"Later," Gerard repeats, moving away. "You have work to do. And the sun's almost up. Come join me when you're finished, and when the sun sets I'll let you give me your blood."

"Fucking tease," Frank grumbles. But he's saying it to an empty room.

**

Now that Frank comes up to his room most days, Gerard leaves his closet light on when he goes to sleep. He's also started undressing before getting in bed, which seemed crueler before Frank realized that it's much more difficult than he thought to wake a sleeping vampire, and if he's careful, he can touch. The door is angled so Gerard's face is in shadow, but his chest is lit softly, and Frank strips his own clothes off as he crosses the room to lick it. His tongue finds the smooth-skinned place just below Gerard's left nipple where last night Frank clawed half-moons, and he fingers the place on his own side where he still bears the marks from Gerard's nails. He wants to nibble, to follow Gerard's ribs down to where the sheet cuts across his waist, pull it lower, but Frank's learned that touching Gerard's dick crosses the line of what won't wake him, so he climbs into the bed and curls up with his back against Gerard's side, tucking his shoulder into Gerard's armpit. He's asleep by his third inhale.

Though the shutters are nearly silent, Frank wakes when they start to glide open. Gerard's still pressed against his back, but his arm is moving on Frank's chest, no longer dead weight. When Frank takes a sharp breath as Gerard's thumb catches a nipple, Gerard turns, fitting his hips to Frank's ass, his cock a soft weight nudging at Frank's cheeks. "Still want me to bite you, Frankie?" he whispers when Frank wiggles a little.

Frank just twists his head to give Gerard better access.

He bites low on Frank's neck, where it starts to curve out toward his shoulder, where the blood doesn't run so close to the surface; he's taking his time. Frank jumps at the initial pain, his body going rigid in Gerard's arms, but as Gerard suckles, strokes Frank's hip, gathers Frank's hands against his chest, Frank softens into the curve of Gerard's body.

"Mmm," Gerard hums, his mouth working slow in time with the shallow thrust of his hips.

Frank wants to press up into Gerard's fangs, wants to grind against Gerard's cock swelling harder between Frank's thighs, wants to reach down and stroke himself, but those are all distant desires lost in the high from the throb of his pulse against Gerard's lips. "More," he whimpers, leaving it up to Gerard what he wants more of.

Still sucking slowly, Gerard sinks his teeth in a fraction deeper, shifts them both so his dick's riding slick in Frank's crack, nudging up against his balls, and he cups Frank's dick to his belly, the press of his palm a sweet friction each time he rocks forward.

"Frankie," he says, pulling back enough to murmur against Frank's skin. "Gonna let me fuck you."

The words and Gerard's tongue skating the edges of Frank's wound make him shiver. "Do it," he says. He'd spread his legs for it, turn ass up, but Gerard's wrapped around him too tight for that. All he can do is clench his thighs against the thrust of Gerard's cock, twist his wrists a little in Gerard's grip.

"Shh," Gerard soothes. "I've got you."

But Frank wants to be taken, not held. A twist of Frank's hips hardens Gerard's fingers, makes him push rather than guide, and Frank only has time to drag in a shaky breath before one knee's pressed to his chest and Gerard's breaching him, nothing but the blood-fueled precome slicking his cock to smooth the way. Frank goes tense, instinct kicking in before he can stop it, and there's a moment where they're both pushing and getting nowhere, but then Gerard bites him again, between his shoulder blade and his spine, and Frank goes lax, letting Gerard inside.

Wrapped up in Gerard like this, Frank feels tiny against vampire strength and speed and want, but huge in Gerard's focus, and it's like he's swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking, a heart beating heavy and full in the ribcage of Gerard's limbs. He's going to burst, be squeezed to nothing, feed Gerard forever, disappear. pleasepleaseplease, he's saying, but there aren't any words. All he can hear is the rush of blood in his ears. He's flying, scattered like dust in space, crushed by all the world's oceans, and he needs, needs something so he can breathe again.

"Harder," he gasps with the last air in his lungs, and Gerard stops suckling at Frank's blood, yanks him back into the next thrust, but it's not enough, so Gerard pulls Frank's hands up and his leg down, and rolls them so he's pounding into Frank from above. Frank's still pinned, hands above his head, thighs spread wide by Gerard's knees, but he can move with Gerard's rhythm, rock his dick against the sheets, feel friction, sweat, blood cooling on his back, and it's so fucking good.

Gerard makes a sound between a growl and a purr and grinds hard into Frank's ass, shuddering as he comes. And fuck, Frank was so close. But Gerard hauls him up so they're kneeling, Frank's back to Gerard's chest, and still buried deep, filling him up, jerks Frank off.

"Fuck," Frank breathes once Gerard's lowered him to the bed again. That was. Frank's pretty sure he actually left his body at the beginning there. "Wow."

"I keep thinking you're going to break, and you never break," Gerard says. Frank can't tell if he's glad or disappointed about this.

"Not yet," he says a little warily, even though he's almost certain that Gerard wouldn't want to break him. Not beyond repair at least.

That gets a smile and Gerard's hand smoothing down his back to his ass. "You're perfect."

"Don't you forget it," Frank answers a little more breathlessly than he intended.

"You should get some more sleep. I have a conference call." Gerard pushes a sweaty strand of hair off Frank's face, tucking it behind his ear. "I'll send Pete up in a while with some BloodPlus."

"I'm fine," Frank says, because he's fine. And he has shit to do.

"Sleep," Gerard repeats. "And BloodPlus. Or we can't do that again later. And I want to do that again later."

Frank's not actually sure he can survive two orgasms like that in one night, but he has no intention of arguing any further.

Pete doesn't get to Gerard's room before Frank's gotten up, but he does find Frank later in his lab. "I already took the BloodPlus," Frank says before Pete can open his mouth.

"I figured," Pete says. "It's addicting getting fucked while they feed, isn't it."

"He told you that? Ugh. He's the master of oversharing."

Settling on the stool next to where Frank's working, Pete punches him companionably in the arm. "He was just excited that you liked it. And wanted to make sure I understood how important it was to give you your injection."

Frank rolls his eyes, but he can't help smiling a little, because of course Gerard would have to explain to Pete why. Just telling him to do it wouldn't be enough.

"Anyway. I was talking to Christa, and I had an idea for a way to help her with watering the vegetable gardens. Wanted to know if you might have the parts."

Frank's first instinct is to ask Pete what his idea is and say he'll do it for him, but he has been meaning to see what else Pete can actually do with tech, and it would be great to have a hand in the lab. "Sure," he says. "What do you need?"

They only find half the parts necessary to upgrade the sprinkler system, so Frank adds the rest to the list of things he's running low on and calls up to ask if Mikey can spare anyone to take them shopping. "Someday I'd like to walk around without a guard," Pete says. He prods at the band around his wrist. "Isn't the damn jewelry supposed to protect us?"

Between Frank's parents, the campus gates at Rutgers, and the rules of Eastern's compound, Frank has never ventured into any of the cities or shopping districts on his own. "No pet's marker or tech's insignia is going to protect you from a vampire hungry enough to be stupid. Doesn't matter who your master is. And we have free run of the compound." He could never take being stuck in his apartments, but between the main house, the grounds and the outbuildings, he's never felt trapped here.

"'S not the same," Pete mutters, but he doesn't press his point.

The intercom beeps with Mikey getting back to them. "I'll take you," he says. "Meet me on the driveway in five minutes."

"Fuck," Frank and Pete say in unison once the line's disconnected. Mikey is a terrible driver. "See if he'll let you drive," Frank says. "He likes to make you happy."

Shopping with Mikey and Pete is a lot more fun than going on his own with two surly vamps who clearly feel like they have better things to do than babysit the gerent's pet tech. Mikey does let Pete drive, and he asks questions about what they're doing for the sprinklers, and gives Pete a fond, proud look that nearly matches the ones his brother gives Frank sometimes. Frank really isn't sure why Pete's complaining. If they were out in the world, they could be a vamp's dinner tomorrow with nothing to say about it. But then, Frank's never been a pet. Maybe it would be better for Pete if he could get a tech's badge and take off the bracelets.

"You still need new clothes?" Mikey asks Pete once they've finished with the things on Frank's list. "You need to get back, Frankie?"

Frank doesn't need to get back, and he just tore a hole in his favorite sweater the other day, so wouldn't mind hitting the clothes stores. "We've got time," he says.

But he might not have said that if he'd had any idea how much time clothes shopping with Mikey Way could take. Frank's always headed for the rack holding whatever he came in for, grabbed something if he saw it, left if he didn't. But Mikey stops just inside the door and starts going through everything methodically, pulling things out and piling them in Pete's arms until a sales person notices and comes over to get them a dressing room. Since Mikey seems to have had the same five shirts on rotation as long as Frank can remember, he's thrown, but Pete seems unfazed, so Frank does his best to roll with it.

"The jacket the gerent wanted should be in on Friday," the clerk says when she comes back for the second armload of outfits. And that makes more sense. Mikey's just shopping for Pete the way he's used to doing with Gerard. Frank could spend hours watching Gerard draw, or listening to him talk about history, and he's still really hoping they'll go driving again without the blindfold or the anemia or the deadline, but Mikey can keep the clothes shopping.

Pete tries on everything ever made, and Mikey buys him half of it, Frank finds a cardigan that's almost as soft as his old one, and they head for home.

It takes almost a week to redo all the automated systems for the garden, but Pete's idea saves time and water, and Christa's thrilled with it. They even get hugs from Ray, who is always happy when Christa's happy. It's easy to work with Pete, despite—or hell, maybe because of—the way he thinks in completely different ways than Frank. He got more computer classes than engineering under his belt before he ended up at Central as Gabe's pet, so he's not as good at building stuff from scratch, but he's got a hell of an instinct for cross-application and a willingness to think outside the box that more schooling would probably have trained out of him. In a lot of ways working together is like being back at Rutgers for Frank, but with a lot less stress, and a lot more sex in his down time.

**

Looking up from his book to make eye contact with Gerard, who's going through the district reports, Frank asks, "Who do we have to talk to to get Pete granted tech status?"

"Me," Gerard says. "And Pete. Maybe Mikey, technically, since Pete's his pet, but mostly Pete. And you. Since you're the one who's been training him."

Frank manages to keep his amusement at Gerard's compulsive over-explanation to a small smile. "So we don't have to go to a board of directors or anything is what you're saying."

Gerard smiles back, aware that Frank's laughing at him. "Nope. I can do whatever I want. Privilege of the office."

"Awesome," Frank says. "You should do me. Reports are boring."

"Reports are necessary," Gerard says, mouth curling down on one side. "But I should be done in an hour."

"Fine," Frank says. "Fine." He raises his book so it hides his grin, and palms his dick. "We'll just be here waiting for you to finish."

"Troublemaker," Gerard mutters, and lets his fangs show for a moment, a threat that looks more like a promise, before getting back to work.

**

The shutters are still down and the darkness is barely broken by the crack of light around the closet door when Frank wakes up breathless, heart pounding, dick hard, mouth brassy with the remembered taste of blood. He's half on Gerard already, pulling himself closer even as he swims to consciousness, tangling his fingers in Gerard's hair, snugging one thigh between his legs, biting his chest. That wakes Gerard up, and he tries to throw Frank off, but the hold Frank has in his hair, on his arm, is too tight, and before he can make a second attempt, he realizes who's in his bed and stills.

"Frank," he says, "what—"

But Frank's still in the grip of his dream, and Gerard's words have no more effect than his hands. A warning rumbles in Frank's throat and he bites harder, sucking at Gerard's skin as he works it with his teeth, digging into Gerard's triceps with fingers already aching with the strain. When Gerard puts a hand on his back, Frank moves his teeth to a spot right in the center of his neck, where his pulse would be throbbing if he had one, and grinds his dick against Gerard's hip.

"Frank?" Gerard's hands are bracketing Frank's ribs now, making Frank's skin feel too tight. His eyes are too big for their sockets, his jaw hurts, his junk hurts, everything is wrong. "Frank."

"No," Frank mutters, pushing Gerard's arm harder down into the bed, pulling his head to the side. "Just, I need." Frank doesn't know what he needs.

"Here," Gerard says. "Let me—" When he goes to lift Frank off this time he's gentle, and Frank does let him, even though every instinct is telling him not to let Gerard out from under him. As soon as he's free from Frank's hold, Gerard turns on his belly. "You can fuck me," he says.

And that's not— That's not what they do. "I'm sorry," Frank says, realizing only now that he just woke a vampire up in the middle of the day. Gerard should be sleeping.

"No," Gerard says. "Do it."

Even now, fully awake, dream haze faded, Frank wants to. So when Gerard says it again, he gives in to the desire, crawls onto Gerard's back, pushes his dick into the space between Gerard's legs. He means to just rut a little, get used to the feeling before he fingers Gerard open, but Gerard's scent fills his nostrils and his mouth floods with saliva and he's biting again before he can think not to, mindlessly grinding against Gerard's ass.

His hands find Gerard's, make knots of their fingers, and he uses his weight to bear Gerard down into the bed. When Gerard bites him, even with fangs retracted, he leaves a line of wheals and bruises on Frank's skin, but hard as he bites, Frank can't leave a mark. His hips work in frustration, driving his cock into the clutch of Gerard's thighs, heating the space with the friction. A part of Frank's aware that Gerard's working with him, trying to make this good, and he wants to snap at him, tell him to stop giving it up so easy, but if Gerard actually fought back, Frank would be pinned underneath him before he could blink, so he just digs his fingernails harder into Gerard's palms, gets a fresh grip on the flesh under Gerard's left shoulder blade with his teeth, and rides his frustration out until he can finally come.

He collapses afterwards, cheek resting on the still damp but already faded bite mark on Gerard's back, feeling better but not satisfied. "C'n we go back to sleep?" Gerard asks, words rumbling against Frank's chest. Frank nods as best he can in this position, and uncurls his cramping fingers from their grip on Gerard's hands. "Y'can stay there," Gerard says, and before Frank can answer, he drops into the dead stillness of vampire sleep.

Gerard isn't nearly as comfortable to lie on asleep as he is awake, and Frank feels sticky and gross besides, so he rolls off. He hasn't slept enough, but there'll be no going back now, so he keeps rolling right off the bed, pads to the hidden door in the corner that leads to Gerard's shower room and gets right under the spray without even waiting for it to warm up first. The cold blast makes him gasp, makes his muscles seize, pinpointing all the aches, but as he lets it splash on his face it clears his head, makes him feel like maybe he fits inside his skin after all. It gets hot much more quickly up here than down in his apartment, and he's letting the heat seep into his bones when the last of the weirdness leaves him.

What the fuck, he thinks, scrubbing shampoo into his hair, stretching out the stiffness in his jaw. What's he doing waking up gnawing on Gerard like Princess used to with Dad's old slipper? Pinning Gerard down like Frank's the one who's—

It doesn't matter. Just a weird dream.

Frank nods to James as he sneaks out of Gerard's room to go back downstairs, relieved that he's not the kind of guy who gets offended if Frank's not in the mood to stop and chat. He's just fit his wrist cuff to the door's key slot when a voice from the lab doorway makes him jump.

"Hey, Frankie, where you been?" It's Bob, sitting backwards on one of the wheeled chairs.

"Upstairs." Frank gets the door unlocked. "I'll be over in a few minutes. I just need—"

But Bob's at his elbow, following him into the apartment, saying "What the fuck?" as he fingers the ends of Frank's still-damp hair where they've soaked his shirt. "When did you get demoted to pet?"

That's too much for Frank, and he spins in the tight space of the doorway, tries to shove Bob back into the hall, but it's a bad angle to push someone who outweighs him by seventy pounds, and Bob hardly moves while Frank ends up stumbling over his own feet and into the back of his armchair.

"Jeeze, Frank, I was kidding about the pet thing, but don't try to tell me you're not letting him fuck you. It's all over you."

Frank doesn't want to be followed, and he doesn't want to be touched, and what he does with Gerard is his own fucking business. "Get the fuck out," he says, trying to keep his voice steady. "And stay out of my lab. You're nothing but hired help around here. Your choice."

Bob stands up straighter, and he takes a step forward instead of back. "Fuck yes, it's my choice. I'm not gonna be a lap dog for those things."

This time Frank has momentum and leverage on his side and when he lands on Bob he knocks him down. "They're not things," he grunts as his fist connects with Bob's left cheekbone.

"The fuck, Frank?" Bob mumbles through the hand clutching his face. But when Frank pulls back to hit him again, Bob manages to get it together to throw him off.

"They're not things," Frank repeats, pushing upright, but not trying to attack again. "They're people who happen to be vampires."

"You're touched in the head as well as the dick." Bob eyes him warily and gets to his feet. "Heard what happened to you in Southern. How do you get from that to 'they're people'?"

Frank doesn't have to explain himself to some fucking jerk who doesn't even have a zone of his own, but apparently his mouth didn't get that message. "Ulrich is— That's different. He's a fucking sicko. When has Gerard ever been anything but nice to you? When has Mikey? Any of the others? They pay you on time, give you rooms for as long as you want them, recommend your work when the other vamps ask for references. Bet they treat you better than most of the fucking so-called humans you know. So I repeat. Get the fuck out."

"Jesus, Iero. Get some more sleep. Sounds like you need it." Bob moves like he's gonna try to reach for Frank's arm.

"Get. The fuck. Out."

Bob goes.

**

Six days after Frank's fight with Bob, Gerard's out at the western edge of the zone doing nothing even a little bit interesting to watch, so Frank's killing time running routine diagnostics when Pete walks into the lab and says, "What's up? We wanna jam before Bob has to head out tomorrow."

Frank looks past him to where Bob's lurking over his shoulder. He can't tell if the shadow on Bob's cheekbone is bruise, or just the light. "What're you doing with Pete?" Frank says. "Thought you didn't like pets."

Pete's shoulders jerk; he flicks a glance back at Bob and gives Frank a look.

"Fuck you," Bob says. "I never said I don't like pets. I just— Last time I was out this way, you weren't doing the deed with the gerent. Took me by surprise. Then you fucking flew off the handle and jumped my ass."

"Didn't fly off the handle." Frank didn't. Bob shouldn't have said that shit.

"Dude, you gave him a black eye," Pete says. "What'd you say to him anyway, Bryar? You never told me."

"He was talking shit about Gerard and Mikey. You would've punched him too."

"I wasn't. Christ. Pete, I told you this was a bad idea. Ray'll play with us. He's got those old bongos I can use."

"What were you saying about Mikey?" Pete asks. Fuckin' right. Pete knows they're not things. He gets it.

"Was just saying they're vamps. Not a big deal. Seriously."

Pete's face scrunches up. "They are vamps. You know they're vamps, Frank. Gerard hasn't brainwashed you, has he?"

"He didn't say 'vamps'. He said 'things'. Like they weren't ever just like you and me."

Bob's eyebrows are saying see? when Pete turns toward him. Frank can't tell if Pete sees or not though, because he says, "Mikey was like me maybe," his tone somewhere between placating and joking around. "But I'm pretty sure Gerard wasn't ever like anyone. That dude's a law unto himself."

Frank can't argue with that. He's far too complicated for someone who sees him as seldom as Bob to know anything about, and the people who matter understand. Gerard, and Mikey, Pete. Fuck Bob's opinion anyway. Frank's not in the mood to have his feathers smoothed, but he's not really in the mood to keep fighting, either. Bob's not around that often, and it is fun to jam with him. "Sorry I punched you in the face," Frank says. "Just because you were being a dick, I didn't need to stoop to your level."

"Nice apology, asshole," Bob says, but his mouth is quirking a little. "Sorry I insulted your vampire boyfriend."

"We all friends again?" Pete says, looking back and forth between them.

"Sure," Bob says.

"Sure," Frank agrees.

But when they call Ray to come down and bring his guitar, Frank wants to see if Mikey's free too, and it feels like with Bob sitting behind the drum kit, he can't. That doesn't feel much like friendship.

They play until nearly sunup, until Frank's fingertips are raw, and he tries all night to get lost in the music, but it never happens.

**

When Gerard hunts with Mikey, he rarely uses his alts. They're efficient together, moving fast side by side, only splitting off at the last second before grabbing their prey. Tonight they take a pair of girls smoking outside the back door of a 24-hour diner. Frank catches a glimpse through Gerard's eyes of his girl's cigarette tumbling to the asphalt and then nothing but the black of the inside of his eyelids. But Frank doesn't need to see now; he can feel.

Frank's spine knows the twisting response to the prick of fangs, his heart how hard to beat to fill a mouth with blood. But his tongue knows too, the taste of it, his hands how hard to grip, his body learning by osmosis both sides of the equation. He can feel the girl's blood coating the insides of his cheeks, smell the copper tang and the night and the smoke. Fuck. Fuck.

Shoving away from his desk, Frank flees the lab and spends an hour banging the fuck out of his drums. The noise and the sweat burn through him, clear his head, and as a bonus unlock the piece that his brain's been stuck on trying to get in-ears with a longer range without making them bigger. What happened at the monitors was a blip. An idle fantasy that only felt real. In-ears are actually real, and with better range would be even more useful.

After sponging the worst of the sweat off his face and grabbing a cup of coffee, Frank heads back to the lab, and he's lost in his scope and micro-soldering iron when Gerard's voice comes dangerously calm from across the room.

"What the fuck am I looking at, Frank?"

The circuit he just spent an hour painstakingly building probably gets destroyed when Frank drops everything to spin around in his chair, but it doesn't matter, because Gerard is looking at himself looking at himself in Frank's monitor. How did Frank forget to turn it off?

"I—" Frank says, and then he's dangling a foot off the floor in front of the screen, Gerard's bruising grip on his biceps, with Gerard's face right there.

"I'm not in recording mode." Gerard sets Frank down with a thump, but he doesn't let go. "Why are you recording me when I'm not in recording mode. How are you recording me when I'm not in recording mode?"

"No!" Frank says. "No. It's not recording. I wouldn't— It doesn't record. There isn't even any way to record off that feed. Three layers of firewalls and a 272b scrambler."

"Then what is it?" Gerard's fingers tighten with every word and then loosen suddenly, making Frank stumble backward. He catches sight of the movement out of the corner of his eye. It's fucking weird to see himself on the monitor. Not the same at all as seeing Mikey or James or Jarrod. He barely recognizes his own face.

"It's just for me," he says, tearing his gaze away from the screen to look Gerard in the eye. "Once we— Fuck. Once we fitted most of the household with cameras, you started using yours less. And I. I couldn't stand it, wondering all the time what you were doing, where you were. Worrying that something— I don't know. And you wanted the feed from the perimeter cameras, and I wondered if I could make something like that smaller. Small enough to fit in the vision alts."

"So, when?"

"I installed it with your x-ray."

"Years then." Gerard pulls a chair over and sits like this conversation is too much for him to take standing up. "You've been spying on me for years."

Дата добавления: 2015-09-29