Page 53 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
He stroked Vincent’s hair with his free hand, watching the stars twinkle above them and listening to the quiet sounds of the night: the rustle of the nearby trees, the distant hum of the highway through a break in the hills, the chirp of the crickets, and the single coo of a mourning dove, not a sign of Babcock or his assistant to be heard. Despite all the stress and pain that had brought the two of them here, this felt right. It felt like where they were meant to be.
As Vincent finished, he let Wesley’s hand go, but the vampire stayed laying against him. He fitted his head onto the crook of Wes’s shoulder. It felt like it belonged there. “Sometimes I like to sit up here and stare at the stars right before I turn in for the morning,” he said, his voice hushed.
“So youdoactually live in a mausoleum?” Wesley gave him a soft poke in the side. “I thought that would totally be one of the things the media had made up.”
“It is, mostly. I’m special.”Specialin his tone sounded like a curse, bitter and twisted. “And I’m kind of angry at you for having so much more than me. As though part of me blames you, like somehow you’re the reason I’m living this way just because you happen to have a little old house and a fifteen-year-old minivan, when you aren’t actually the problem at all. You deserve to have that kind of stability just as much as anyone, just like everyone deserves food and shelter and peace.”
“Including you,” Wes finished for him. “To be fair though, this is a fantastic mausoleum and the trashy minivan was my mom’s. I had a pretty decent Honda Civic in college, but I sold it when I moved back in. The check got me a jump on the student loans.” Wesley groaned. “And I really, really do need a job.”
“Why don’t you get one?”
“Because jobs are boring, obviously,” Wes replied on instinct. Beneath the reflexive response, though, sat something that wasn’t fun or snarky or easy, just true. He sighed. “Because when I do, then it becomes my house, and my debt, and my car, and I’m the adult, and my mom… my mom will never come home again.” A knot formed in the back of his throat, but he spoke through it, staring at the stars and letting himself feel small, for once, to sink beneath the weight of the sadness he’d been trying to pave over all year, to not fight quite so hard. “Right now I’m taking up her couch and playing games like it’s summer vacation and she’s about to get back from a long work week. I know I am. I know I shouldn’t be. It’s been over a year. But I can’t move on yet.”
“How did she die?” Vincent shifted, turning a little onto his side and tipping up his chin to look at Wesley. “Is that okay to ask? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be prying.”
“Pry, please. I want to tell you everything.” Even if he couldn’t, because it would probably drive Vincent to the hills if he did. But he could find a piece of the truth for him, at least—something he hadn’t even found the courage to tell Kendall about yet. “Technically, no one knows. She vanished a little over a year ago, but she’d never be gone like this if she was still alive. There was a bus ticket purchased on her credit card without any sign of her at its destination, and her friends said she’d withdrawn since she’d switched back to night shifts, so the police finally decided she’d just bailed. But if she was unhappy, she would have told me, and she’d never have gone anywhere without letting me know. I think…” Wesley waited for his chest to tighten, for his brain to shout warning signals, for the world to tunnel in and the emotions to grow unbearable. But Vincent’s solid presence and listening ear were like a stabilizer, grounding him in the feelings without letting them overwhelm him. “I think she went to Vitalis-Barron’s research lab for one of their clinical trials, and it killed her, so they covered it up.”
“Fuck.” Vincent whispered. His fingers wrapped back around Wesley’s and squeezed gently. “I’m sorry.”
Something welled behind Wes’s eyes. Relief, he realized. Reassurance. Vincent believed him, and cared, and Wes could let him. Wes didn’t have to try to joke his way out of this. With Vincent, he could just be. That knowledge lodged in Wes’s chest like a gentle, warm ache. “I can’t prove it. I can’t even prove she went there in the first place. They say their patient logs are confidential, and the police refused to look into it at all. Apparently just having a flier for their research studies was deemed insufficient evidence for a warrant. But she’d been really sick a few months before with something that never seemed to go away, and a lot of Vitalis-Barron’s current research involves trying to use the vampiric immunity in order to heal humans. I know they’re fucking over vampires while they do it, so what would stop them from being careless with their human patients too?”
“Oh.” It was barely a breath, but Wesley felt it vibrate through Vincent. He wasn’t shaking anymore. That had to be a good sign. “They’re really that bad, are they?”
“Yeah.” He thought of Babcock and cringed. “I went to an interview for a research position with them to try and gather more information. They didn’t let me see anything useful, but I got the general vibe, and it wasn’t good. Those people at my door earlier were with their laboratory. They claimed they were from some weird neighborhood safety group but they’re definitely under Vitalis-Barron’s payroll.”
“I worked for them.” Vincent sounded so hollow that it took Wesley a moment to register his words. “The job I lost, it was for that man, Mr. Babcock; bringing back information on people’s habits and whereabouts, mostly at night.”
“Ah, shit.” Wesley’s phone vibrated but whoever it was could wait.
“He’s been distributing fliers about me so none of my usual haunts will let me in, and I found his tracker in my jacket. That’s how he knew I was in your house.” Vincent laughed, three bitter, wet inhales that could almost have been sobs. “The irony is—or maybe it’s not irony, maybe that was his backup plan all along—is that it’s been making those research advertisements trying to get vampires into their studies look almost appetizing. I never trusted Vitalis-Barron, but if they were my only option, I thought maybe it would be worth it. I could let myself be some asshole company’s guinea pig for the money. But I didn’t realize they werekillingpeople.”
“Promise me you won’t ever go. If something happened to you there…” There was so much more he needed to add to that:I almost brought you to their doorstep. I betrayed your trust and put you in danger and I could never live with myself if that happened to you again.But how could Vincent forgive him for that when Wesley couldn’t even forgive himself? The more Vincent told him, the more desperately Wes knew he needed the vampire to keep trusting him, to keep accepting Wes’s support, so Wes could be there for him, be everything he needed and more.
Vincent shrugged, the shift making his body rub against Wes’s. “It sounded a little dull anyway. If I was going to give someone that much control, I’d rather it be a desperate human with a bite kink chaining me up in their basement or something. As a predator of the night, I have to maintainsomedignity.”
Wesley would have made a joke off that, but right now it seemed less important than usual. He squeezed Vincent’s hand so tight the vampire stiffened. “Vinny, I mean it.”
Vincent nodded in the darkness, his jaw rubbing against the side of Wesley’s chest. “I won’t do anything that foolish, I swear it.”
“Good.” He released a breath, and ventured, “Because if you try, I’ll chain you up in the basement I don’t actually have.” The way Vincent chuckled at that made him feel daring. “Can I ask a terrible question?”
“Only if you’re alright with all my answers being terrible answers.”
“You won’t scare me off. I already saw your fangs and I think they’re sexy.”
“Fair enough.” Vincent went quiet, tracing his fingertips across Wesley’s hand as he waited.
Wes swallowed. “Your scars…”
Vincent’s tracing stopped. “You’re not going to ask the whole question?”
“I’m kind of embarrassed to, actually,” Wes admitted.
“You’re embarrassed? Think ofme.”
“Yeah, but you’re awkward like eighty percent of the time. This is a risk for me. It could ruin my reputation as an always-confident asshat.” Wesley stopped himself short as his brain registered his own words. “Sorry, I should be more serious about this.”
“No!” Vincent laughed, soft and at least eighty percent awkward. “This helps. It is serious, but it’s also something that I can’t allow too much hold over me, you know? Sometimes the only choice is between laughing and crying, and I used to do a lot of crying until there was nothing left of me. I like that you help me laugh instead.”
