zeegoeshere

As Long As You're Alive And Care
by Zee
Summary: Gerard plows right into him.
Pete/Gerard, NC-17, 16,457 words. Content some readers may find disturbing.
Disclaimer: Very very much not real.

Notes: Part five of the Weekenders series, an AU based on the music video for "A Little Less 16 Candles...". The series begins here. Thanks to gigantic for looking this over, and to everyone who's listened to me be ridiculous about this series.




Pete stands up, brushing burrs from the bush off of his arms. “This is pointless,” he says, scowling at the offending bush, and Patrick swings the flashlight from over where he’s searching to light on Pete. “There’s nothing here.”

“We haven’t searched the whole park yet. Don’t whine.” Patrick moves the flashlight so that it’s shining directly into Pete’s eyes, and Pete flinches and snarls. He hears Patrick laugh softly, and flips him off.

“I’m not whining. I’m just saying that we’ve been here forever, we haven’t found any signs of activity and we don’t even know what signs we’re looking for to begin with! I mean, fuck, who knows what traces a vampire living in a tree leaves. We haven’t found any bodies. What does Brian expect, that we’ll come across wrappers from blood packets littered on the ground or something?”

Patrick swings the flashlight back away to illuminate the area he’s searching. Pete’s eyes adjust to the dark immediately, and everything is bright enough. “Brian thinks it’s really important that we find this runaway gang,” Patrick says, as if Pete never heard the details of their little assignment. “If they split with Gabe, they might have information we can use and we just might be able to get it from them. If they were squatting here, there’s got to be some kind of sign.”

“There doesn’t. There really, really doesn’t, I mean come on, if they’re hiding from Gabe? They won’t—“

“Brian thinks you might be able to get a sense of how long ago they were here or something like that.”

Pete shuts his mouth. He glares down at the ground, rubbing at the dry brown grass and dirt with his shoe. “Right,” he mutters. “I’ll just use my keen spider sense to feeel whether any of ‘my kind’ have been here.” Louder, he calls out, “Tell Brian I’m not a fucking bloodhound.”

“Tell him yourself. Besides, you do have senses different from any of ours.” His voice fades off as he ventures further into the park, the flashlight’s light bounding away.

“So, fellow vampires,” Pete says to the empty trees in front of him, putting his hands on his hips. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Let’s hang. Or, hmm, maybe I’m supposed to howl to hook up with other creatures of the night. I’ve heard that’s how werewolves do it.”

“Stop narrating to yourself,” Patrick says, voice already distant.

Pete walks down to the edge of the pathetic, polluted little trickle of creak, half-heartedly patting down trees for some kind of clue. He can smell plenty around here, but no vampires.

Until. Wait. He can smell that.

He finds the source of the outhouse smell and yells for Patrick. Patrick shines a spotlight on the mound in the park, looking thoughtful.

"So you can smell it?"

"Yeah."

"And uh. It's not.... human waste?"

"Right."

"Can you tell, um. How, uh--"

"It's been there for a week, maybe." Pete is holding his nose. "I think. I'm not, like. An expert."

"Hm." Patrick flicks the flashlight away, up at the trees. Pete tries not to gag at the smell; Patrick, apparently, can't smell a thing.

"This is really gross," Patrick says conversationally.

"I hate my entire life," Pete replies.

Brian stares when they tell him, incredulous. "That's what you found? Their waste? They--they buried it?"

"They dug the same kind of latrine my family always did on camping trips," Pete says. "It was the only trace we could find."

"And you sniffed it out?" Joe says. "Wow, uh. Gross, dude."

"No shit," Pete snaps, and winces at his choice of words.

"Okay," Brian says, rubbing absently at his cheek. "Okay, so they were there a week ago. That's--I can work with that." He's already typing, a freaky gleam in his eye, and Pete and Joe trade smirks. In the months since they got here, Joe has somehow ended up as Brian's assistant and research buddy, something that Joe is flattered and baffled by and that Pete finds hilarious.

Pete hangs out in the office, watching Joe peer over Brian's shoulder at various computer screens and listening to Patrick and Frank debate Black Flag versus The Descendants, chiming in every once in a while on both sides. He can feel the sun coming up, the tired itch in his skin that starts dragging him to bed more and more insistently the closer dawn gets. He stands up and stretches, waves goodnight to everyone hanging out, and yanks Patrick's hat to the side on his way out, dodging as Patrick angrily tries to slap him away.

When he gets to the empty classroom he's using as his bedroom, Gerard is sitting cross-legged out in the hall next to the doorway, taking a swig from a flask. Gerard's been making one of his team stand watch outside Pete's door every night since they first got to Jersey, in case Pete goes homicidal and bloodthirsty in the night or something. Gerard's guys seem to think it's mostly pointless, but they take the shifts anyway; Pete thinks it's pretty whatever.

“Great,” Pete says. “It’s your turn to babysit me. I’ve been looking forward to this all night, you know that?”

Gerard puts his flask away without smiling. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

Pete dawdles in the doorway. "So some drunk guy is really gonna stop me from going out and sucking all your guys' blood, huh?"

Gerard's eyes go childishly wide and he bites his lip, mock-worried. "I hadn't *thought* about that. You wanna test my reflexes?"

The one thing about Gerard that creeps Pete out the most (one thing out of a list that just keeps on growing) is the edge in his voice at all times. Even when he's talking to people aside from Pete, even when he's laughing softly in Frank's ear, it's... there's a harshness. A quality that never lets Pete forget that Gerard would as soon kill Pete as look at him.

What's even creepier is that Pete knows that's actually one of Gerard's virtues.

"Maybe some other time," Pete says, and goes to bed. He can hear Gerard's breathing, and it never slows down into a sleep pattern; he can smell the alcohol through the night, but Gerard's scent doesn't change, either. Pete thinks Gerard only lets himself sleep every few days.

Pete rarely remembers his dreams, but lately he's been waking up with his heart racing and his dick hard with a distant feeling of fingers all over him. It makes him shake slightly to get up and dread going to sleep; it's never a good kind of turned-on. It's the feeling he learned from William.

Pete hears Gerard start singing softly to himself. He does that sometimes--it must not occur to him that Pete can hear, because Pete is certain it's not something he's *supposed* to hear. Gerard has a pretty decent voice, and usually he sings something from Queen, but tonight it's something Pete doesn't recognize. The singing definitely goes on Pete's list of things that creep him out about the guy.

Pete turns over on his stomach and closes his eyes, tries to block it out.

***

Gerard just nods to Pete, then turns around to walk back to his own room when Pete walks out of his room that evening. The others that stand guard are always asleep when he comes out, but Gerard never is, going back to Pete's theory that he doesn't actually need to sleep. Maybe he got his sleep glands removed for the cause, or something. Maybe he's as inhuman as Pete is.

He can already hear the whirr of the blender as he pushes open the door to their main office. Patrick has it set up on a little table next to Brian's info center, instead of in the cafeteria where they get the rest of their food, and there's a cute little frown of concentration on his face as he adds ingredients and hits the button to make it go.

"You didn't have to do it for me," Pete says. He's staring at the ground because the hunger is always sharpest right when he wakes up, and he doesn't want to catch himself zoning out at anyone's neck. Gerard would probably put him on a leash like a disobedient dog if he started that.

Patrick shrugs. "I don't mind." He finishes, eyeing the concoction before handing it to Pete, who gulps it down gratefully. It's strange, it tastes nothing like blood, and yet. He wipes his mouth when he's finished and meets Patrick's eyes and smiles gratefully.

"It puts kind of a new spin on the whole 'inhuman till I've had my coffee' thing," Bob says, looking thoughtfully at the blender.

"Better than Starbucks," Pete says, smacking his lips and grinning. He knows it's creepy when he does that, knows it exposes his fangs, and Bob shudders predictably.

Patrol that night is the four of them, just like back in Chicago, and that wasn't long enough ago that Pete should be feeling nostalgic; and it wasn't good times all the time, either, no matter how wistful Pete's thoughts get. But at least it was just them, his band in a different context, the same ties Pete has felt since Patrick and Joe were still in high school. At least they weren't in someone else's territory, playing by someone else's rules, trying to fit their old patterns into another gang's completely different slot. At least their unofficial leader wasn't a crazy unwashed alcoholic and a deeply unpleasant person.

"You're brooding again," Patrick says, nudging Pete's side as they take care of three vampires that had been roaming one of the old city libraries.

"I am in a constant state of brooding," Pete says. "Geez, I thought you'd be used to it by now."

Patrick nudges him again, then takes Pete's elbow. "Gerard getting to you again?"

"Fuck off, you're not psychic."

"No, I'm just right all the time," Patrick says, grinning, and Pete sticks his tongue out childishly.

"He just always makes such a fucking point when it's his turn to 'stand guard' or whatever," Pete says. "Like, I don't know. Like he wants to make sure I know that he's watching me or something. He's like a walking cliché."

"I'll be kind and not point out the irony in you calling someone else that," Patrick says. "You know he wouldn't be that bad if you didn't bait him all the time."

"He doesn't even think of me as human! Shut up, I know I'm not, that's not the point," Pete adds when Patrick opens his mouth to state the obvious.

"I'm not saying he's right to treat you like a walking time bomb, but do you remember how you would barely even let us near you those first few weeks after you came back? You thought you were a danger to everyone around you, and we kind of agreed. We all had to get used to your thing. Gerard will get used to it eventually."

"I'm not holding my breath until he does," Pete says. Patrick kindly doesn't point out that Pete has no breath to hold in the first place.

November passes quickly, and it's strange to see signs of winter but to be unable to feel the drop in temperature himself. He's always hated the cold, but he finds that he wants to feel the difference between New Jersey and Chicago winters, wants to be able to compare. He watches the last of the leaves fall instead, going back to the park he and Patrick had to explore in his free time, as it's one of the only places around that even has trees.

Things are mostly quiet and boring on the home-front. Brian is obsessed with the idea of tracking down the gang of escapees from Gabe's clan; they've been completely unsuccessful in finding anything anywhere else that might give them enough of an edge to attack Gabe and Maja's enclave, so Brian is throwing himself after anything that could lead to information. He sends Pete off on wild goose chases, making him look for the gang in the ruins of abandoned highways, in old malls, in the next town over, and Pete almost always finds traces, signs that they've just left.

He doesn't even realize that Christmas is coming up until Ray and Frank reveal their presents to the group on Christmas Eve. "And to all a good night, motherfuckers," Frank says, grinning as he opens up the back of the van to reveal three guitars, one acoustic and one bass, several hand drums, and a small keyboard.

"How--" Patrick says, his eyes wide as the rest of them whoop and yell and grab instruments, slapping Frank and Ray on the back.

"We found them in the gutter one night on patrol," Ray says, laughing as Joe hugs him, burying his face in Ray's neck. "Someone must have just dumped them when they decided to run for it. They were all pretty beat up, but we've managed to fix them up pretty nice."

"Thank you," Pete says, and it comes out embarrassingly heartfelt as he takes in the look on Patrick's face as he reaches out to touch the guitar Frank is already jamming on. Bob kisses Frank's cheek.

They scavenge several six-packs for the night and light a bonfire in the middle of the school soccer field to celebrate. It's the first time Pete has touched a bass since he got turned, and it's scary how good it feels to be playing with Joe and Patrick again, even though after so much lost time his skills are pretty clumsy. A couple of times he looks up and sees Gerard looking at him, frowning--no, looking at his hands, looking at him playing. Pete supposes that it must be a surprise for him that a monster can play bass, even badly.

They're all getting rowdy, drunk and giddy on something good happening. "Fuck!" Frank bellows, punching his fist in the air. He follows this by reaching his other arm back and throwing his beer can, hurtling it across the soccer field. His momentum makes him stumble and he just laughs, keeps yelling up at the sky. Gerard laughs, too, their distinct voices vying against each other, and when they move for a clumsy hug their foreheads knock together.

"We made it this far," Patrick says, his voice sounding just like Frank's had, albeit at a softer volume. "Can you seriously--I mean, we're a bunch of stupid punk kids, and we've been fighting for our lives and actually, you know, winning, kinda." Patrick's cheeks are flushed as he drains his own beer, tipping his head back with a soppy smile on his face. Pete grins back at him, grabbing Patrick's empty can and throwing it in the same direction as Frank's.

"We are totally kinda winning," he agrees, taking his own drink. Consensus is divided over whether or not vampires can get drunk, but Pete is doing his best. Just for the hell of it, he leans forward to pour a little into the bonfire, a celebratory sacrifice of booze. Or something like that, something important and special and significant, a neon sign to himself and the world that they're still here and still fighting, all of them.

"Trying to put it out?" that's Gerard next to him, sudden and out of nowhere. Pete didn't hear him or smell him come up; Patrick is gone, he must have wandered off somewhere. Gerard's stare makes Pete's neck tense up, but for once Gerard doesn't sound like a bad-ass motherfucker who wants to knit a sweater out of Pete's entrails. Pete has a feeling that might even have been a joke he was trying to make, like: 'Ha, I'm being faux-suspicious of you doing something innocent because of the way I'm always suspicious of you. But I'm not this instant! Funny, right?' It might have come off better if Gerard were more sober.

"Fire is the doom of my kind," Pete says, pulling a grimace and stepping dramatically away from the fire, throwing his hands up protectively in front of his face. "Graargh!"

Gerard's eyes go wide and his face twists for a second, a painful expression that makes Pete freeze. But then Gerard's gaze drops down and he turns his head away from Pete to glance out at the field, saying "Right" in an even tone.

They stand in silence for a while, Pete sipping more of his drink and not sure what the point of this is, what Gerard is trying to prove. Then Gerard says, "Why are you doing this? Why are you invested, why are you risking your life to hunt them, why--I mean, you don't have a stake in this. They don't want to eat you."

For a moment Pete is so offended he can't even speak. When he opens his mouth, his voice comes out thin and shaking. "Are you fucking kidding me? It's not enough that they've gone after my friends, the human species, the people I love? Fuck you, you don't know what I've seen of them, you don't even know what they're really like, you don't know a god damn fucking thing."

"You seem to hate them so much," Gerard says, unphased by Pete's fury. "You seem as invested as any of us. Why bother, when you could just walk away from the fight on either end?"

Pete spits at Gerard's face. Gerard's reflexes aren't slowed by the alcohol, and he instantly grabs Pete, yanking him in by his shirt and almost off of his feet. Gerard is holding Pete like he's about to shove him away or hit him, his face wild with hate. Pete leans in fast to put his mouth above Gerard's neck, his teeth almost grazing the skin and poised to bite, and Gerard lets him go and shoves him away with a yell as Pete laughs.

The others don't notice; they've gotten into a game that seems to involve running around and chasing each other and knocking each other to the ground, spread across the high school field. Gerard is panting and keeping his distance from Pete now, his hands clenched into fists.

"You distrust me more because I'm fighting on your side," Pete says, realizing it suddenly. "You really--damn, you think I'm more fucked up than other vampires."

Gerard shrugs and wipes Pete's spittle from his cheek. "You've said yourself you're unnatural."

"Unnatural because I'm more human than vampire," Pete says. "You don't know how much I wish that wasn't the case sometimes, especially after I came back to Patrick and the others. It would be so much easier to just... give in and live like the rest of them do."

That actually makes Gerard smile, the creepy fuck. "So you're saying that I'm right to be so paranoid around you?"

Pete meets his eyes. "Yeah. Guess I am."

There's a ringing in his ears that might be inebriation--it's been so long that he doesn't really remember the feeling. He takes a step forward and doesn't know why. Gerard walks away to get another drink.

Patrick catches him up in the backwards drunken game of tag, and Pete finds out that when you've got Frank pinned to the ground in the grass he fights dirty, all sharp elbows and teeth and a knee to Pete's groin, never mind that it's a fucking game. Pete lies groaning on the ground and rolls onto his stomach, defeated with the ringing still in his ears. He can see the fire flicker out of the corner of his eye, close. Warm if he could feel it.

"Fuck!" he hears Gerard yell, and then a foot hits his side dully and Gerard stumbles, falling almost into the fire. Pete reaches up, grabs the back of Gerard's jacket, his clumsy brain thinking to pull him back even though Gerard has already stopped himself from meeting flame-y death when Pete grabs him.

Gerard whirls around to stare at Pete, then bends down and shoves at Pete's shoulders, urging him to roll over. "Up." Gerard tugs him up, pushes him belligerently to his feet. "Up, come on!"

"I'm motherfucking up!" Pete stares at Gerard, bewildered, before Gerard says,

"Tag. Duh."

Oh. Pete takes off running, long parched grass swishing at his ankels as flees from Gerard, who's laughing and yelling behind him. Gerard is fast, but Pete is superhuman. Pete also doesn't care about escaping, and he slows when the ringing gets louder and Gerard plows right into him.

They roll and Pete can smell everything Gerard is, the booze, the sweat, the fear and anger and the smoke from the fire and the flesh and blood and the humanity. Gerard's hands are on Pete and they scuffle pressed close to each other. Gerard winds up on top and Pete smells the attraction instantly when Gerard gets slightly turned on, half a second before Gerard's lips hit his mouth.

Pete wraps his arms around Gerard and hitches his leg over Gerard's hip and kisses back. Gerard's mouth is insistent and strong and his tongue is in Pete's mouth, and his throaty moan when Pete kisses back just as hard makes something behind Pete's teeth sing and buzz.

When Gerard breaks the kiss it's to kneel and then to stand, Pete stumbling up after him. They collide again, Gerard's hand cupping the back of Pete's head and neck roughly, biting at his lower lip. Pete feels caught in a tornado or earthquake or another natural (human) disaster, Gerard yanking him away from the fire and the others and into the school, Gerard throwing him against the wall and kissing him in a way that makes Pete feel like the last year never happened--like his world revolves around documenting feelings and passions for a song. Like he should be taking notes to create something out of this.

"Come on," Gerard pants against Pete's jaw, like Pete might not. "Come on."

"Yeah," Pete grunts when Gerard reaches down to squeeze his dick through his pants. "Okay--okay, Gerard, okay," and Gerard bites Pete's earlobe, presses his face into Pete's neck and hair, licks at Pete's collarbone and breathes frenzied against Pete's throat. Pete pushes hard up into his hand.

"Let's go," Pete says at the same time that Gerard says "Come on" again. Gerard leans back to look Pete in the eye, his lips red and puffy and his eyes completely unfocused. For a second Pete feels guilty because he's the one that's supposed to be in his right mind, but Gerard's mouth is slightly open and he leans in to kiss Pete firmly before pulling back, grabbing Pete's arm and dragging him quickly into the empty classroom that Gerard sleeps in. Pete doesn't give a fuck if this is a bad idea (this is an amazingly shitty idea, like an amazingly shitty idea) and he's not going to stop either of them. He's not going to control himself.

Gerard closes the door behind them and yanks his jacket off, his shirt, his pants. Naked in front of Pete and pushing Pete back towards and onto the bed, and Pete once again feels caught up in something invincible. Gerard shoves his hand down the front of Pete's pants and Pete yells, bucking up and scrambling to remove his own clothes. He ends up on his stomach, stretched out and wanting it and feeling crazy when Gerard pushes in.

When he wakes up, it's the next day. Something in his body can feel the fact of the sun even though there's no sunlight getting into the room, and it makes Pete feel sluggish and confused, his world on mute. He rolls over into something sticky, and when he glances over he can see Gerard's hair spread across the pillow. The scent of sex is almost overpowering. Pete realizes dimly that this is the first night he's spent in Jersey without a vampire hunter standing guard to kill him if he wants a midnight snack.

Pete rolls over to stare up at the ceiling and wonders if Gerard will start grabbing for a pointy piece of wood when he wakes up. He should possibly make a run for it.

Gerard wakes up with a snort and a yawn, his eyes blinking slowly open. He sees Pete and immediately scrambles back, legs tangling comically in the sheets and his mouth gaping in horror. His eyes are bloodshot, and Pete imagines he's fighting some impressive hair of the dog.

"Oh my fuck," Gerard says. "Oh my shitting fuck jesus god."

Pete is afraid to say the wrong thing, so he doesn't say anything at all. He thinks about grabbing the sheets back, because Gerard yanking them away (he's now holding them up to his chin, as if to protect his virtue) has completely exposed him. Pete scratches his thigh where it itches.

"Fucking hell," Gerard says, apparently going through his limited curse word vocabulary. "What the fuck did we."

"Please don't ask that like you don't remember," Pete says, rolling his eyes.

"Go to hell, vampire," Gerard spits, and Pete cracks up.

"Oh my god," he says, wheezing out laughter. "Are you for real?"

Gerard's face darkens, but he doesn't say anything else while Pete finishes laughing, as if realizing how ridiculous he sounded. "This is not happening again," he says firmly. "We should really both forget that it happened in the first place."

"Well, yeah." Pete shrugs and stands, starts hunting around for his clothes. His body isn't sore at all, which, huh; side effect of being supernatural, probably. "I had assumed that."

"As long as we're on the same page," Gerard says suspiciously.

"We're on the same fucking sentence," Pete says. "Trust me on that."

He's starting to get a little hungry. He needs his bloodlust-be-gone milkshake. He can hear Gerard's heart beating loud and indignant across the room.

"Right," Gerard says, getting out of bed and pulling on his clothes, too, every movement short and jerky. He doesn't say anything else, and Pete leaves.

The conversation dies as soon as Pete enters the principal's office. Everyone but Ray is up and present, and Brian coughs loudly and goes back to furious typing after they all glance at Pete for a beat. Joe looks like he's trying to hold back a giggle.

"Morning," Pete mutters to Patrick as he shuffles over to the blender table, shoving ingredients in. Patrick looks at him with raised eyebrows, and Pete is suddenly very aware that he has neither showered nor made any attempt to fight back bedhead.

"I think it was Frank's turn to guard your room last night," Patrick says, the noise of the blender covering his voice to keep their conversation private. "He said you never showed up?"

No shit, but of course Patrick is going to make Pete fucking say it. Pete glares at him. "It's not going to happen again. Nothing to worry about."

"What's not going to happen again?" Patrick says, and Pete sincerely hates him for a second.

"We're not going to sleep together again," Pete snaps loudly as the noise of the blender dies.

Everyone's staring at him again. Pete grimly drinks his breakfast.

Gerard is still hiding in his room when the sun goes down and Pete heads out with Patrick. They don't go anywhere, there's no patrol because it's Christmas and everyone is hungover. Pete just wants to drive. They end up at the same sketchy, dead park that they had to find traces of vampire activity in, back in October.

"Pete, he's an addict," Patrick says as soon as they start walking. "He's unbalanced and he's been doing this for years and he really, really hates anything with sharp-ish teeth."

"And he hates me even more than most," Pete adds. "I'm not an idiot, thanks."

"Hard to tell from your behavior," Patrick says, and Pete knows he's scowling without looking back. "Really, I know you have a penchant for people who like to yell at you, but he's constantly looking for an excuse to stake you!"

"He didn't last night," Pete says, before he can stop himself, and Patrick stops walking. Pete turns around to look at him, adding hastily "But look, I told you it's never going to happen again. Like really never going to happen again. Like, he's probably spent the hours since I left his room scrubbing his body down with bleach."

"But why'd you get together in the first place?" Patrick looks nothing but confused.

Pete shrugs. "He was drunk out of his fucking mind. I just went with it." It's not the truth, not exactly. Pete doesn't know what he was thinking, but he didn't just go with it. Patrick opens his mouth to ask Pete why he's lying, and Pete turns back around to keep walking.

Pete isn't quite sure what to expect when he heads to his room to sleep as the sun comes up, but sure enough, Bob is sitting outside his door, looking cranky. Frank and Bob are always in bad moods when they have to spend the night guarding Pete; they seem to look at it as a waste of time designed to cut down on the number of nights they get to spend together.

"Even more fucking pointless as usual, considering you didn't try to hurt anyone last night," Bob snaps when Pete says hi. Pete quickly retreats into his room.

Around midday he snaps awake, hearing footsteps and a new heartbeat in the hall. Gerard's scent is right outside his door; Bob's breathing has slowed down--he's asleep. Gerard isn't moving.

Pete lies on his mattress, staring up at the classroom ceiling. He isn't hard; he doesn't think he woke up from that kind of dream. He hears a slight stutter in Gerard's breath, a movement he can't recognize, and then the footsteps pad away.

***

Pete misses Chicago. He misses daily reminders of why William needs to die, misses news about friends and the constant, clear reason to fight. Here he just has disturbing dreams and the ghost of William's voice and faces of vampires who mean nothing to him aside from needing to die. Jersey is beginning to make him feel aimless and adrift, getting locked up every night and trying to be more invested in a fight that isn't really his and needing news from home.

Pete still thinks of William as much, but with no physical reminder the pictures in his mind shift like wisps of clouds, and he finds that his already dim memory of William's basement is becoming even more shapeless. He's beginning to forget and it terrifies him--makes him obsess over William even more.

Gerard doesn't help. He sticks to his word of forgetting that the night ever happened: he treats Pete exactly as he did before--he's not even nastier or more distrusting, and sometimes Pete catches himself wondering if it *did* really happen. If he were to go out of his way to hate Pete now, it would at least give him some drama and serve as an anchor. Instead, whenever he looks into Gerard's eyes, there doesn't seem to be anything for Pete there. Not that he looks into Gerard's eyes often or at all.

Pete knows Patrick is concerned, and he appreciates the concern as much as he appreciates Patrick being quiet about it, not pressuring Pete into talking about anything. Pete doesn't really know how to show his gratitude, never has known, and he settles for touching Patrick as much as he can, squeezing his hand or hugging him or resting his cheek against Patrick's shoulder. It makes Patrick smile, at least. Pete is positive he's just imagining the couple of times he thought he saw Gerard's gaze lingering on them post-hug.

They ring in the New Year by killing vampires, cheering and yelling when they crash a nest and, after they've gone through most of them, Frank looks at his watch and announces that it's midnight. Then they go back to the school, light another bonfire and drink; Gerard pukes three times, and Frank ends up propping him up and pouring glass of water after glass of water down his throat while Gerard slurs nonsensically about how they need to keep him awake to ward off a concussion.

"Keep me up," he says, head lolling to the side as he meets Pete's eyes. "Keep me.... right, Pete?"

Pete could probably count on one hand the number of times Gerard has actually called him by his name. Actually, he can't really remember any other time, so this might be the first. Pete stares, as tipsy as it's possible for him to get, and Gerard turns his head again to keep babbling at Frank.

"No concussions, Gerard," Pete says, and Gerard turns his face to him again, his eyes wide open. "Don't worry." Frank glances at Pete, too, and Pete can't read his expression in the dark.

Later that week, he wakes up in the middle of the night with Gerard's scent lingering outside his bedroom door again, Ray asleep and snoring at his post. Pete gets quietly out of bed and goes to the door, opens it, thinking of confronting Gerard or sneering at him or just telling him to get some sleep. But Gerard is already away down the hall when Pete sticks his head out, and he turns over his shoulder to glance back at Pete once before disappearing around the corner. Pete doesn't go after him.

***

All nine of them end up in the fight, and they're still outnumbered. Neither Gabe nor Maja nor anyone close to them is in the attacking group, but it doesn't matter: they don't have to send anyone important, all of their pawns are doing the job plenty well.

The vampires have been informed about the group, and Pete gets bombed by five of them immediately. He's so wrapped up in fighting them off that there's no room in his mind to worry about anyone else, it's all just dodging and blocking and throwing punches and stabbing when he sees an opening--

Pete hears three shots, and two hit him in the chest. The pain rips through him and everythin goes fuzzy and he's dimly aware of blood spurting from his wounds as he drops to his knees, the stake dropping from his hand. Blood bubbles up to the back of his mouth and he coughs on it, gets it up his nose, all over his chin. He swears and doesn't recognize the grated sound of his own voice.

He hears someone else yelling, and it sounds far away. He's faceplanted on the ground but the yelling is closer, the screaming, and he hears the vampire that shot him screech and knows that it's dead. He sees the gun clatter to the ground, firing off shots that seem to hit nothing with a bang. The image makes him chuckle a little bit, but fuck, that hurts, so he stops.

Someone's grabbing his shoulders and that hurts, too, everything hurts, and Pete groans, tries to struggle and twist in their grip. The someone gives a surprised cry, their hold tightening, and Pete realizes who it is just before Gerard kisses him.

Pete reacts automatically, pulling Gerard's head down and kissing back because he's thirsty and he needs this, needs it sudden and absolute, needs it like he remembers needing air. With his tongue in Pete's mouth Gerard seems to be giving him everything, and Pete is greedy. He takes it all.

When they pull apart, Pete can't hold back a gasp of pain. "Oh my god," Gerard says, breathing hard. "Oh my god, you're alive--" he stares incredulously at the sucking wounds in Pete's chest.

"Not wood, remember?" Pete says through gritted teeth.

Gerard opens his mouth and then shuts it. "Oh," he says. "Right. Fuck, so two to the chest and you're just going to be fine?"

"Uh, it fucking hurts," Pete says. There is lead in his breastbone.

"I'm getting you out of here," Gerard says, picking Pete up in what he probably thinks is a gentle, un-painful way. A wave of agony hits Pete from the already healing holes, and he passes out.

He wakes up in the front seat of Dirty's car as the tires scream to a stop and Gerard turns off the ignition. He feels Gerard help him out of the car, and he can already feel himself getting stronger, a buzzing feeling in his veins as skin heels. There's a popping sound, and Pete looks down to see the bullet that had been buried in his gut fall to the ground.

"That's disgusting," Pete mutters, and Gerard makes a noise of agreement before dragging Pete inside the school.

"The others?" Pete says as Gerard leads him to the gym showers, propping him up against the tiled wall as he starts the hot water.

"Cleaning up," Gerard says. "They have the van, I just took your little car, they'll be fine."

"Good," Pete says, and closes his eyes. He hears another pop and the sound of a small metal ball hitting the floor. Some of his blood is beginning to dry, caked on his chest and his neck and his face where Gerard's fingers have left prints.

The kiss. The memory swims back to him suddenly, not just Gerard's mouth but the sound of his voice when he'd rushed to Pete's side. The way he'd held him. Pete doesn't think he was supposed to see that, any of it, but he saw it and felt it and Gerard is still here, walking away from the showers now to Pete. He strips Pete's blood-soaked jacket off efficiently, and Pete catches on and yanks off his shirt, wincing because the pain isn't completely gone. Gerard undresses as well and pulls Pete under the spray of water.

"You're touching me voluntarily?" Pete meant for it to be teasing, something to break up the tension in the air, but it comes out as an incredulous question. Gerard just looks at him, his eyes holding a different kind of hardness than they usually do and his mouth in a grim line.

"I saw them shoot you," Gerard says. "I heard the shots and I--I forgot, for a while. That it wouldn't kill you."

"That I'm not human," Pete says, finishing for him. "Yeah, well, I'm not and I'm gonna be fine even if it hurts like a bitch. Thanks for helping me out, but I can handle it from here."

Gerard just looks at him, and Pete rubs at his chest where the highest bullet hit. The water at the drain is running pink, and Pete scrapes a fleck of dried blood off his skin, watches it dissolve in the water on his fingertip.

Gerard's mouth doesn't come as a surprise this time, but it's still overwhelming. Pete returns the pressure, pushes back into him and makes them stumble on the slick tiles. Gerard puts a hand out to brace them against the wall and Pete tangles his fingers in Gerard's hair, leverage to get their lips closer together. Gerard's teeth scrape his top lip and Pete feels water drip into both their mouths.

"Fuck," Gerard keeps saying softly, gasps of sound against Pete's jaw. "Fuck, fuck, Pete, fuck-"

Pete doesn't bother to answer back. He rolls them until Gerard's back is against the wall and Pete can push him up against it, can grind hard against him and suck kisses down his neck, the pale line of his shoulders.

Gerard's nails drag hard down Pete's spine. He grabs the back of Pete's head and pulls him up, away from Gerard's shoulder to kiss at his mouth and Pete moans into it, says "Hey--" and he doesn't know what else, because he chokes on water. Gerard kisses him again as he recovers, pushing them a little ways outside of the spray, and Gerard goes with him when Pete slides to the bathroom floor.

Pete rests his forehead against Gerard's and angles his mouth in, biting at Gerard's lips before he pulls back, panting. "Okay," he says, trying to pull back with the rest of himself because there's a cautionary voice in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like Patrick's, "okay, so this is--"

"This is happening," Gerard says, and it's simple, just like that.

***

They've been in bed for ten hours. The sun is up. Gerard's fingertips are tracing the tattoo at Pete's neck, following the thorns across Pete's collarbone and down across his chest.

"You got this when you were human?" he says. "Or--I assume you did. I don't actually know if..."

"If vampires can get tattooed?" Pete catches Gerard's hand, laces their fingers together. "Me neither. I got them all when I was trying to be a rock star, yeah."

Gerard snorts, still studying Pete's chest and arms. "What does it mean? This one." He taps at the thorns again.

"I... I thought it would look cool," Pete admits, blushing slightly. But that makes Gerard grin, the expression making his features look soft and almost delicate for a moment before he bends his head to kiss Pete's collarbone. He moves to kiss Pete's mouth next, bringing their bodies together to slide a thigh in between Pete's legs, rocking.

"I'm sorry," Gerard says.

"What for?" Pete is busy mapping the scars on Gerard's back with his hands. There are kind of a lot.

"For not thinking about that before. About your life before you were--this."

Pete pulls back to look at Gerard, and he knows that it's not that Gerard didn't think about it: Gerard hadn't even fully realized that Pete had been human, and not that long ago, either. It hadn't even occurred to him. He really means the apology, the softness in his face gone.

"It's okay," Pete says, shrugging a little. "It's not my life anymore."

Gerard's fingers are on Pete's face, drifting over his cheek and his chin and touching his lips. Pushing inside his mouth and touching his teeth, Gerard's index finger pressing against one of his fangs, and Pete remembers Patrick doing this almost a year ago. But Gerard's exploration just feels shy and almost regretful, not horrified, and after a moment he pulls his hand back.

"Someone did this to you," Gerard says, and Pete is very familiar with the smoldering anger in his eyes, but usually it's directed at *him,* not--at someone else on his behalf. It makes Pete's ribcage clench momentarily. "Someone--attacked you and made you into this, tried to take your humanity away."

Gerard doesn't know the half of it. "Yeah. The gang leaders in Chicago--I broke away from the herd and now they hate me, almost as much as I hate them.

Gerard kisses Pete's forehead. "I'll go back with you." He kisses Pete's cheek, the corner of his mouth. "I'll go back with you someday and we'll take them. We'll take them all."

Pete's ribcage stops clenching and starts twisting, because there's no way Gerard can mean that: there's already a losing battle to fight here, Gerard wouldn't leave that, and besides, Gerard is human and William would go through him in seconds. But he almost thinks that Gerard believes he means it, that Gerard believes completely and also believes him. Believes and trusts him and Pete pushes up on his elbows to knock their teeth together and kiss Gerard as deep as he can until he's stopped thinking about anything else.

***

Pete leaves Gerard's bed reluctantly when the hunger wakes him up that night. He needs to get to the blender before it gets any worse (he's already focusing on the different heartbeats he can hear in the building), and when he crawls as quietly as possible out from under the covers Gerard stirs, but when Pete strokes a hand lightly down his arm he goes still again. Asleep.

Brian is the only one in the office when Pete walks past him to the coffee/blender table, and he frowns a little when he sees Pete but doesn't say anything. Pete ducks his head and focuses on putting the ingredients together. He would really like to drink this and slip away before anyone shows up to ask what the hell is going on with him.

He knocks the liquid back, closing his eyes as it makes his mind stop racing and the hunger calm down. It leaves him still hollow, but the feeling is manageable now. When he opens his eyes, Patrick is in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and his glasses gleaming in a reproachful way.

Pete wipes his mouth. Oh, shit. "Morning."

"Let's talk," Patrick says, turning around and walking out without looking over his shoulder to see if Pete's following, because of course Pete is. Behind him, he hears Brian snort quietly.

Patrick waits until they're in an abandoned hallway before unleashing his full wrath. "What the hell? I knew I shouldn't have believed you when you said it wouldn't happen again, but this is just--are you deranged?"

Pete briefly considers pretending not to know what Patrick's talking about, but decides against it. He doesn't want Patrick to start looking for sharp pieces of wood. "Um, maybe?"

"I was trying to be nice about it last time, but I guess I have to spell it out for you," Patrick says, his jaw set. "You are a blood-sucking fiend, and he is a pathological vampire killer. This is not fucking Romeo and Juliet! He has dedicated his entire existence to wiping out anyone with a sharp overbite!"

"Like I haven't? Like you haven't?" Pete retorts, and he doesn't need Patrick's incredulous noise to let him know that Patrick thinks that Gerard's yen for vampires is incomparable to anyone else's. Pete ignores him. "It's not like any of us have a big dating pool here. It's either vampire hunters or actual vampires, and the hunters actually want me dead less."

"That makes so much sense! Wow, I can tell you've really thought this out and come to a logical conclusion based on your lack of options. Jesus, I knew you had a streak of self-loathing in you, but this--do you even know what this looks like?" Some of the anger has seeped out of Patrick's voice, but the disappointment and worry is worse. Patrick is... really upset about this, on Pete's behalf, and Pete feels guilty for not caring more.

"That's not what this is about." Pete really should be making more of an effort to argue for Gerard, to convince Patrick that this isn't the worst decision he's made since going home with William in the first place. But Pete finds that he doesn't want to try to explain Gerard to anyone; that he doesn't even know how. "He's not going to stake me in my sleep or something, come on."

Patrick just gapes. "This is a worse romantic idea than that time you slept with Andy's sister's 17-year-old girlfriend!" he splutters finally. "For fuck's sake, Pete! Do I have to rattle off all of his instabilities and problems for you? Should I make an itemized list?"

"I didn't know she was seventeen at the time!" Pete protests. He opens his mouth to argue further, and shuts it again. "Can't you just be happy for me?" he finishes lamely.

"No," Patrick says, shoving past him. "I'll be watching your back instead," he calls out over his shoulder.

Pete leans against the wall and scrubs his palms over his face. "I can smell you, you know," he says, and Gerard comes out from around the corner.

"He's really concerned about you," Gerard says, a small smile on his face. His hair's still wet, combed behind his ears; he must be coming up from the showers. "It's sweet."

"He didn't mean that stuff about you," Pete lies.

Gerard's smile turns into a grin. "Yeah, he did. Come on, he's right about me in a lot of ways." Gerard touches Pete's elbow, thumb brushing over his skin. "I like killing vampires more than is probably healthy."

"Are we going to turn this into a competition? Who has a bigger hard-on for revenge? I think I could take you."

Gerard leans his head on Pete's shoulder, tilting so that his face is pressed against Pete's neck. "It doesn't matter. You're not one of them to me."

"Changed your mind on that awfully fast," Pete can't help muttering.

But Gerard doesn't get angry or hurt; he laughs. "I know," he says, lifting his head up again, a slightly miserable look on his face. "I don't really know what happened. I feel like you've de-clawed me or something."

"I'm holding myself back from making a fang joke right here," Pete says. "I just want you to know that."

Gerard kisses him and it's warm, dry and comforting until Pete parts his lips and it starts pulling at him, becomes urgent. Pete threads his fingers through Gerard's hair. He can smell his shampoo, he can smell fear and attraction, he can smell himself on Gerard from last night--both his sweat and his blood, from almost 24 hours ago. For once the heightened senses don't unnerve him: he wants to absorb as much of Gerard as possible, on every level, close as he can.

Pete whines when Gerard pulls back, and leans forward to try and get his mouth again, but Gerard pushes him against a wall with a hand on his shoulder. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips, and then Gerard is going to his knees, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he looks up at Pete.

"Someone could come around the corner at any minute," Pete says, even though his hips are already tilting forward, betraying his good sense.

"Most of them are out, and Patrick isn't going to be coming back this way anytime soon," Gerard says, unbuckling Pete's belt and getting his pants down. His teeth flash white in a smile when he pulls Pete's cock out, half-hard before Gerard leans down and sucks with his eyes closed.

Pete sucks breaths in and presses his palms flat against the wall, trying to keep the noise buried in his throat as Gerard kisses and licks before going down again, as determined in this as he is in everything else. Gerard is--he's beautiful, his lips around Pete's cock and his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks and the expression on his face. His hands are on Pete's hips and sides, rubbing occasionally at his skin, and Pete reaches down to touch Gerard's fingers, catch his hand and hold it. He lets a gasp out when Gerard goes down far enough that he chokes before coming back up, pulling off to breathe and look up.

"You," Pete says, feeling exceptionally stupid. "Uh, fuck."

Gerard laughs again and Pete is filled with the sudden urge to have Gerard laugh like that against Pete's stomach, giggle into Pete's bellybutton. He concentrates on the idea, wanting to remember it for later, as Gerard mouths the head and slides up and down the shaft, bringing Pete closer to the edge until he slips over it, hips thrust up and banging the back of his head against the wall, groaning loud now.

"I usually don't do that before I've had coffee," Gerard says, leaning back. "You've got me all twisted up and backwards."

Pete reaches out a hand to pull Gerard up before bothering to get his pants back on. "It's mutual," is all he can manage before kissing Gerard again and tasting himself there.


*

Part 2 here.