Frank

The moment I opened my eyes I regretted waking up. Everything ached beyond belief. It was worse than anything I’d ever felt before. What I’d gone through back in the Institute had never hurt as much as I did now. I was aching and throbbing with pain from head to foot. It hurt to even blink my eyes. My chest felt cracked and battered every time it rose as I filled my lungs with air and my head was spinning uncontrollably. Everything was a little fuzzy and blurred as I stared up at a canopy of silk and curtains.

I tried turning my head but pain shot up my spine through my neck as I did so. I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth, my toes curling at the extra pain. Once it had died down again and I let out a sigh of relief and opened my eyes. I stared at the silk and satin curtains that were draped and hung over the dark, polished wood of the bed frame. Satin sheets slid over my skin smoothly, the soft gliding feeling over my flesh making me shiver slightly.

I found my eyes slipping closed again and the next thing I knew I was asleep.

When I woke up again, it was different. The light in the room had changed and there was the sound of breathing from another person in the room. I managed to drag myself up into a sitting position.
Across the room Gerard was sat curled up like a cat in one of the huge armchairs, a sketchbook balanced on his knees and his hand guiding a pencil softly over the page in elegant sweeps and curves.

“Gerard?”

He jumped slightly, his eyes wide with surprise as his head shot up to look at me.

“You’re awake,” he said softly, blinking in surprise. “How do you feel?”

“In pain,” I answered weakly.

The memory of Mikey’s enraged face flashed up in my mind again and I winced. I was so stupid. So completely and utterly stupid to have done what I did. I just didn’t think. I just completely forgot where I was and threw myself at Ray, getting both of us in deep trouble. Maybe I deserved the pain after all.

What was I thinking? It wasn’t my place to act like this, I wasn’t allowed to do whatever I wanted. Had I forgotten everything? Had I forgotten what I had been told every day of my life? I was below them. Fuck, this was royalty we were talking about. Could I have been any stupider?

I managed to shuffle out of bed by clutching onto the frame, steady myself as my head span.

“Frank!” Gerard gasped, throwing down his drawing and rushing over to me. “What are you doing? Lie back down, you’ll make yourself worse if you get up. You need to rest, you’re in no state to be up and moving around.”

I shook my head, instantly regretting it as my head throbbed even more. I winced and sucked in a sharp breath, my grip on the bed post tightening.

“Frank, seriously, I’m asking you to lie back down,” Gerard said, his voice still pleading and worried.

“I don’t need to. I’m OK,” I told him.

He shook his head, sighing angrily. “Frank, you have three broken ribs and a fractured ankle and a concussion. Don’t tell me you’re OK. Now lie back down.”

“But I’m OK, honestly. I don’t need to rest,” I insisted. “It’s not that bad, I feel fine.”

“Frank, stop lying. Just, please, lie back down. You’re going to end up passing out again,” Gerard told me in the same exasperated tone.

“But-”

“Frank. I’m not arguing with you. Just get back into bed and sleep. You need to rest,” Gerard cut me off, his voice changing to an irritated, firmer tone.

I swallowed and sank back down onto the huge soft mattress, my body aching as I did so. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I didn’t mean to make Mikey angry either.”

Gerard’s face softened and he sighed as he sat down next to me. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about Mikey. He’s just… we’re opposites. You just need to ignore him and you’ll be OK. I spoke-well argued with him after I made sure you were OK. Ray’s… going to be OK. I think.”

I wanted to ask what Mikey had done to Ray, but I was too scared to ask. I didn’t think Gerard wanted to talk about it either.

Gerard sighed again and pushed a hand through his long, glossy black hair tiredly, looking up at me with an exhausted face. His eyes were much darker than every other vampire I’d ever seen and he was paler too. He didn’t have that immaculate and divine glow about him. He didn’t radiate arrogance and power like other vampires. He didn’t look like other vampires because it had clearly been too long since he’d fed.

He raised an eyebrow when I started to stare at him for too long. “What? Is there something on my face?”

I blushed and looked away. “No. Sorry. I just… I just noticed you look you haven’t fed in forever.”

His face fell and he looked away from me, his jaw clenching. “And?”

“You can’t starve yourself.”

He drew in a shaky breath. “I’m not.”

“Gerard, you need to feed.”

He closed his eyes, his shoulders sagging. “I know. But I don’t want to.”

“I want you to.”

His eyes snapped open. “What?”

I swallowed. “I want you to. I don’t want you to be in pain and be hungry.”

He shook his head. “No Frank. I wouldn’t anyway, but especially not now because you’re injured.”

“Gerard, please. You need to. I don’t care. This is what I’m here for anyway.”

“But I wasn’t my choice for you to be here at all. Frank, I won’t do it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re putting yourself through this when I’m more than willing for you to drink from me.”

“Because it would hurt you! You’d be in pain and you’re already injured Frank!”

“I don’t care.”

“No Frank. Just…” Gerard trailed off wearily. “Just go back to sleep.”

He stood up then and headed for the door and looked back at me. “Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up again.”

I didn’t want to annoy him even more than I already had done so I slid back under the sheets wordlessly and watched him as he left. I felt uneasy and I felt like I shouldn’t be here, lying in my master’s bed. I felt completely out of place and my body was screaming at me to get out of his bed and sleep on the floor instead, where I belonged. But my brain told me it would only make him anger with me and it would be disobeying his orders and I should do what he’d told me to.

After what felt like hours, I drifted back into an uneasy sleep.