Gerard

I slipped out of the bed as quietly as possible, leaving Frank’s tiny form asleep amongst the mass of sheets. The only visible part of him was a tuft of messy black hair sticking up out of the duvet by the pillows. I smiled and then turned away towards the window. I drew back the curtain and felt my heart sink at the sight in front of me. The sky was glowing. The moon hung there amongst the stars, floating amidst the inky blackness of the night, rays of light swimming around the luminous moon. It was beautiful. But it was bad news. The full moon meant the werewolves would be at their strongest tonight. There hadn’t been any attacks on vampires for nearly a whole year now, which unnerved me. They must be planning something, something big.

I chewed my lower lip anxiously, gripping the curtain in my fist. I unlocked the window and opened it and inhaled a lungful of the fresh night air. There was an unnatural stillness outside. It was too much, too quiet, too still. It was unmoving to a point of restlessness, as if the illusion of movement was present in the thick of it all. The overpowering sense of dread coursed through my body, my eyes never leaving the moon. I didn’t like this one bit.

I flinched and spun round when I heard a rustling movement and long breathy sigh from behind me. My heart was in my throat, my eyes wide with fear and panic. All of it faded away when I saw that it was just Frank, sighing in his sleep and rolling over onto his stomach, his eyes still glued shut in a thick, deep sleep.

“Jesus Christ Gerard, calm the fuck down,” I hissed at myself angrily.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair and wandered over to my desk. There was book lying amongst the mess of drawings and pencils and paints, half hidden by one of my sketchbooks. I lifted the sketchbook away and picked up the book. It was slim and light and was a deep crimson colour. It looked brand new. On the front, the title was written in large, basic lettering. There was nothing else on the front. The author’s name was nowhere to be found. I traced the title with my fingers, frowning.

“A prophecy,” I murmured.

“Gerard? What are you doing?”

I jumped, shocked at hearing Frank’s voice all of a sudden. He was sat up in bed, staring at me. He looked panicked and worried and almost guilty. His eyes roamed my face, darting from the book in my hands and back to my face.

“What’s this?” I asked him simply, raising an eyebrow and holding the book up for him to see.

His face dropped. “I…”

I waited. He just sighed and kept his gaze on the floor, not meeting my eyes.

“Frank?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s… I just…” he trailed off, his voice completely desperate.

I glanced at him before staring at the book. I opened it right in the middle and nearly screamed at what I saw, dropping the back with a choked gasp and stepping back.

Frank’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “What? What is it?”

He stood up and moved towards me, catching my hand in his.

“Gerard, what was it?”

I just stared at the book. Frank’s eyes followed my gaze and he dropped down to his knees, turning the book over to see inside.

Across the two pages was a scene of blood and gore. It showed Frank sprawled across the floor, every inch of him splattered with blood, his clothes dyed red, lying in a lake of crimson. His eyes were dead and lifeless and his mouth hung open, blood trickling from his lips. On his neck there was a tiny area of snow white skin that hadn’t been smeared with blood. In the centre of the blood free area were two perfect little holes leaking with blood, both of the punctures perfectly spaced apart from each other.

In the puddle of blood there was a reflection and at the corner of the page was a pair of bare feet, the blood pooling around the feet. The reflection was blurry, but I could make out who it was.

It was me.

Frank just stared at the book, holding it in his shaking hands.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “It wasn’t like this before. There was nothing here. It was all empty, all blank.”

“Frank… what are you talking about?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse and unsteady.

He looked up at me through his long, dark fluttering lashes. “I found it. In your library. It was… it was just there. I didn’t know what it was. But then she-”

“What?” I asked sharply. “Who are you talking about?”

“Emily. She was there, in your library, she sat right across from me. I don’t know Gerard, I don’t know what this means.”

“What did she tell you?” I asked stiffly, lowering myself down to the floor next to Frank and taking the book from him, staring at the drawing.

“She said this was my prophecy. But… but it’s not. I mean, it is, but it’s just been changed.”

“What? Frank, I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.”

“This,” he said, skimming his fingers over the drawing, “is what happens to me. I think. Fuck, I barely know Gerard, I just… she just appeared out of nowhere and told me this was my prophecy but it had been changed by the person who wrote it. She said it was a lie, she told me the writer had written it to suit themselves. Gerard, please, I don’t understand, just tell me… tell me what this means.”

As I opened my mouth Frank gasped in horror.

His hands were dripping with blood as he clutched the book, the pages soaked through with blood. The drawing had turned to blood, dripping off of the page and onto the floor and onto Frank. He dropped it, staring at it as the picture completely vanished from the page in the form of crimson liquid.

“Fuck,” I choked out, my throat tightening and my gums throbbing.

Frank’s eyes darted over to me and then back to the blood. He grabbed my face and forced me to look at him, his hands holding my face firmly.

“Don’t look at it,” he ordered me. “Don’t think about it Gerard, just look at me. Ignore it.”

“I can’t,” I whimpered, my hands flying up to grip his wrists tightly. “Please Frank, please.”

“Gerard…” he whispered. “Just look at me.”

I groaned, the smell burning my nostrils and blurring my vision. I felt like I was on fire, every inch of my body craving it. It hurt. It hurt just like it always did, but worse, more intense and fiery. Worse because Frank was right there in front of me, vulnerable and exposed and we were surrounded by it, the liquid soaking into my clothes and staining my skin.

“Gerard,” Frank pleaded. “Please, you’re scaring me.”

I pried his hands away from my face and lowered my head to the floor, my face inches away from the puddle on the floor. The hunger ripped through me, my fangs pulsing in my mouth, my body practically throbbing. My lips skimmed lightly over the pool of scarlet blood, moaning heavily. My chin dipped into the blood as I drank the blood, my shoulders shaking with want.

The minute the blood touched my tongue, I recoiled, withdrawing from it. It burnt my throat, searing my mouth like poison. I choked, clutching my throat and gagging. It was wrong. This wasn’t what blood tasted like, wasn’t what it did to you.

“Gerard,” Frank whimpered. “What’s wrong, what is it?”

“It’s not,” I gasped, “it’s not right. It’s not… it’s like fucking poison.”

“Fuck, Gerard, will you be OK? Let me help you, what do you need?”

I stared at him, knowing exactly what I needed from him. I needed his blood, I needed him. I needed his blood to soothe my throat, the wash away this unbearable burn.

I shifted closer to him, my head moving towards his neck. He seemed to understand and tilted his head to the side, his fingers sliding through my hair and tugging me closer. I shuddered in relief the moment I felt the soft flesh sinking beneath my fangs, the blood spurting up into my mouth. I was breathing heavily through my nose, my nostrils flaring and my hands gripping his shoulders as the pain in my throat eased and every muscle in my body relaxed, my mind focused on nothing but Frank.

Frank was gasping above me, his fingers twitching in my hair. “Is it working? Are you OK now?”

I pulled back for the briefest second to press my lips to his, smearing his mouth with crimson. He groaned against my mouth, his lips parting immediately, drawing me further into him. He crawled into my lap, briefly breaking the kiss and wrapping his arms around my shoulders and his legs around my hips.

“Fuck,” he gasped, drawing back from me. “Fuck.”

I was panting heavily and my lids felt heavy. My body felt heavy but it was perfect. I rested my forehead against his, trying to get my breath back.

Frank shifted in my lap. “Why… why does it feel so good? It doesn’t hurt Gerard. It feels so good.”

His hips rocked forwards making me groan. I leant down to lick a the blood dribbling down his neck, swiping my tongue over the two little wounds and then back up to his face, my tongue rubbing against his lips, licking away the blood.

“Want you,” Frank breathed heavily in my ear, still rocking gently in my lap.

I bit my lip harshly, stroking his hair. “Frank…”

“God Gee, please, just something, anything, I don’t care,” he groaned. “Please. I need it, I need you.”

“Frank, I want you,” I began, gasping when his hand snuck up my thigh and rubbed over my crotch. “But we can’t. We can’t do this.”

He stopped, withdrawing from me as though I’d just slapped him, making me instantly feel awful.

“What?” he whispered, searching my face, his eyes rapidly darting around.

“I can’t be with you like that,” I said. “I want to. Fuck, I want to so, so badly. But we can’t. Not when… not when you’re like this. Not when you’re human.”

The rejection in his eyes looked like it was ripping him apart. “But… but Gerard, we… I don’t get it. It doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter what we are. You’re not making any sense! Just because I’m human doesn’t mean we can’t! What about every other vampire and human?
What about them? Why can they do this and we can’t?”

“Frank-”

“If this is about you being-”

“Frank,” I said flatly. “Did you actually expect sex with a vampire to be enjoyable? It’s not like that. The only one who enjoys it is the vampire. Humans aren’t designed to be compatible to a vampire. Humans don’t get any form of pleasure of it.”

“But…”

I sighed heavily, still stroking his hair. I glanced at the book and frowned. “Frank….”

He followed my gaze towards the book and reached forwards, picking it up from the pool of blood it lay in. There was writing scrawled across the pages. He flicked through the book to the beginning.

The human that wasn’t supposed to be a human. The vampire that wasn’t supposed to be a vampire. Minds of different creatures born into the wrong bodies. He is different. He belongs with the vampire prince as an equal, as a vampire. The vampire prince’s soul mate was born into the body of a human. The problem is a simple one to solve. But it doesn’t end like it should.

My heart throbbed in my chest. I’d read this passage before. It was a prophecy of a human and a vampire who were soul mates. The love was ‘doomed’ from the beginning. They couldn’t be together because they were human and vampire. The vampire had changed the human into a vampire, thinking they could be together. But the human died and it didn’t work. The vampire died shortly after. He had killed himself out of heartbreak and in the hope that he would meet his soul mate again.

And suddenly it all made sense to me now.