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“What do bloodbag slayers do about their periods?”
Gerry pauses at the kitchen counter, where he is pouring glasses of water for Sasha and himself. They’ve been working hard, and it’s July, so they’re both practically drenched in sweat. “I wouldn’t know.”
“What, you never asked?”
Sasha’s tone implies that she finds it very strange that he never asked. He blinks. “It honestly never occurred to me.”
“It’s gotta be the cup,” Sasha says thoughtfully. She is sitting cross-legged on his rug, stakes in her lap and notebook open in front of her, clicking her pen. “You couldn’t leave all that blood just laying around. A vampire could get it.”
“… I’m not sure a bond can be transferred that way,” Gerry says. “They have to bite you.”
“Not if they’re getting the bond from another vampire,” Sasha says. “The bite strengthens and cements the bond, but it’s present from the moment they taste the blood. That implies that the bond is in the blood.”
“I mean, it’s magic, so—“
Sasha waves her hand. “Do you dismiss every interesting question like that?”
Gerry raises his hands defensively and hands Sasha her water. She takes a sip, then presses the cool surface to her forehead. She looks back at her notebook. “We’ll have to test it. Easy enough, right? Just have Martin return my bond and see what it takes for him to get it back.”
She says it so casually. Of course Martin will return her bond. Of course he’ll play along with whatever experimental trial she sets up. He’s a bloodthirsty monster, but he’s also her friend, and that means she expects him to do whatever she asks.
And Gerry actually agrees with her assessment. Martin will play along with the experiment. That’s what he does every time Sasha (or, sometimes, Jon) comes to him with a new theory to test out.
Hell, Martin is, right this instant, allowing his bloodbags to take vampire slaying classes. He not only allows them to carry around vampire-killing weapons, he encourages it!
It’s bizarre.
(Gerry’s life is bizarre.)
“That is the ugliest poster I’ve ever seen,” Sasha says suddenly, looking at his wall. At the poster. A field of brown-and-green lines over a beige background. Nothing flashy or eye-catching about it. Just something to fill the wall space.
Gerry doesn’t look at it. “It’s not that bad. It’s art.”
“That is the worst excuse for art I’ve ever seen in my life,” Sasha says. She sounds almost fascinated. She doesn’t break eye contact with it. “Why do you have it? Do you like it?”
Sasha sounds scandalized by the very idea, so Gerry explains, “I needed something to cover up a hole in the wall. It was free. And it blends in.”
“Those are the only nice things you could possibly say about it. It was free and it blends in.” Sasha wrinkles her nose. “Is the hole still there?”
“That would be why the poster is still there.”
Sasha is silent for a moment. “Tim is really good at DIY. I think he still has a bucket of joint filler in his closet from a project he was helping Danny with.”
“I wouldn’t want to put Tim out,” Gerry says. “I’m fine.”
That should be the end of it. Based on everything Gerry knows about interacting with people, that should definitely be the end of it.
Sasha says, “No, don’t worry about it. That poster is awful. It’ll be a public service for Tim to fix it. He won’t mind.”
“I—“
“Actually, wasn’t he coming over tomorrow anyway? Slaying workshop round two? That’s perfect. He can fix the hole, and you can repay him by teaching him to swing a stake!”
“I might—“
Sasha already has her phone out. She is already texting Tim. Gerry doesn’t know how to stop this. It’s like he’s been swept up in a river current, dragged under and unable to swim.
Sasha grins. “He’s in!”
Gerry forces himself to smile. “Good.”
***
Gerry isn’t panicking.
Okay, he’s panicking a little. It’s fine. It will be fine. Just his friend helping him fix his wall. Nothing wrong about that.
It’s fine.
He calls Jon. The moment he hears Jon pick up the phone, he says, “Are you free to come by tomorrow?”
Jon is silent for a moment. “… from Oxford?”
Gerry closes his eyes. Of course. Oxford. “The book thing. Right.”
“Right,” Jon says, audibly grinning. “Did you forget?”
“I dunno, I just thought you might want to take the train back home for the day,” Gerry says.
“Pass,” Jon says sardonically. Then he sobers. “Is something… happening?”
Gerry regrets not starting this call like a normal person. “No, it’s fine. I just—Tim is coming over tomorrow.”
“Ah,” Jon says. “You wanted some backup?”
“Something like that.”
“You’ll be okay. Just try not to encourage him.”
“Noted,” Gerry says, rubbing his face. It’ll be fine. “How’s the festival? Going well?”
“Oh, it’s great. Jenna and Felicity had some stuff today, but Martin and I were able to walk around. I showed him some of my favorite places from uni, and we visited a lot of bookshops. And you’ll never guess who we ran into!”
“Dekker,” Gerry says immediately.
Jon laughs. “I guess it’s not that hard to work out.”
“It’s not that many people we collectively know,” Gerry agrees. “Did he… meet Martin?”
“Sort of? Martin was in bat form.”
Gerry blinks. “… Why?”
“So he could ride around in my pocket.”
“Again, why?”
“So he wouldn’t be noticed by any slayers!” Jon says, starting to sound a bit frustrated. “You’re the one who warned us that Oxford is crawling with them.”
Gerry laughs. “I meant that you should be careful. Stay together. Stay in public places. That kind of thing? Generally, slayers aren’t going to attack in the middle of a crowded festival. People call the police if you do that.”
“It didn’t feel worth the risk,” Jon says.
But it was worth the risk of Martin going in the first place? Gerry thinks. He shakes his head, allowing the subject to pass. “What did Dekker say?” Gerry smiles at the image of him shaking hands with a small, fuzzy bat tucked into Jon’s cardigan pocket.
“He seemed a bit bewildered that I was carrying Martin around in my pocket,” Jon says dryly. “But he was happy to see us. He asked about you, and I said you were fine. Just, the usual.”
The usual. Gerry smiles.
“Gerry? Sorry, but—We’re attending a panel at 8:00 tomorrow morning, so—“
“Go to bed,” Gerry says. “Sleep tight.”
Jon laughs. “You too.”
***
Gerry sleeps very poorly.
He keeps waking up and thinking about the hole. About the poster. About Tim’s looming visit.
Why does it feel like awaiting an execution? Why is the anticipation nearly as bad as he’d felt waiting on Trevor and Julia? Tim is his friend, or his friendly acquaintance, at least. Tim is not going to do anything except look at the hole.
It’s fine.
Gerry paces his flat all day, restless. He can’t stop thinking about Tim seeing the hole. He keeps trying to pin down his fear, to kill it, but it keeps slipping out of his grasp. He doesn’t know what he’s even afraid of.
He forces himself to sit down. He can see the poster in the corner of his eye. He turns his back on it. Nothing is going to happen. Tim will arrive. He’ll look at the hole. Then they’ll do their training, and then Tim will leave.
Maybe he’ll tell the others about it, but it won’t matter if he does. They already know Gerry is an unstable freak.
It is fine.
Gerry buries his face in his hands. “Calm down,” he tells himself through gritted teeth. Honestly!
A knock at the door sends a bolt of adrenaline shooting through him.
Okay!
He stands up, feeling light-headed with the desire to run, to attack, to do anything other than calmly waiting for death to arrive. He takes a deep breath. It’s not death. It is his friend.
He opens the door, and Tim smiles. “Gerry! Ready for an excellent DIY-day?” He has a bucket of supplies in hand. An excessive amount of supplies.
Gerry steps back, allowing Tim space to come in. “Thank you for… agreeing.” He swallows, feeling a bit like he’s going to pass out. He forces himself to breathe, slowly and deeply. He knows how to do this. “It’s there,” he says, pointing to the poster. He doesn’t look directly at it.
Tim goes to stand in front of the poster. “Oh! It’s not that bad. Sasha made it sound like it was an affront to God.”
“She told me it was the worst excuse for art she’d ever seen.” Get it over with get it over with get it over with get it over with.
“Ouch. I mean, I wouldn’t pick it out to hang on my wall, but it’s just… it’s hotel art. Offensive to no one, impressive to no one.”
Get it over with get it over with get it over with get it over with. “That seems to sum it up.”
“Well, you’ll soon be rid of it,” Tim says, and reaches for the first pin to pull it down.
And Gerry realizes that he cannot be here when the poster comes down. He can’t. His heart is pounding like a monster is going to come jumping out of the wall, and he needs— He needs to go. He swallows. “Well, good luck. I just need to—um—” And then he turns from the wall and goes back to his bedroom, trying not feel like he’s fleeing.
“Uh—‘Kay?” Tim says behind him, one moment before Gerry closes the door between them. He lets out a breath. His heart is still pounding, but he feels better, safely ensconced in here.
He lays down on his bed and realizes that he is exhausted. He’s been burning through energy today, wasting it on nothing. He covers his face with his hands. Why is he like this? Why can’t he keep it together?
It’s only a minute or so before he hears hurried footsteps in the hall. Then Tim opens the door. He looks… harried. “Gerry?” His mouth works. “Is that blood?”
Gerry nods.
There is a long, drawn-out silence of Tim staring at him. He’s working it out, Gerry knows. If Jon were here, he would have it already, or something close enough to the truth. But Tim—
“Okay,” Tim says, sooner than Gerry was expecting. He starts to turn back to the hallway. “Um—“
It isn’t the job he was expecting. Gerry doesn’t know how bad the hole looks now, how deeply the blood has sunk into the wall, if it is perhaps growing mold. It probably looks like a biohazard, something that no one should touch. “Could you hang the poster back up?” Gerry asks, sitting up.
Tim looks at him again.
“We can get to work right after,” Gerry says. “Just, I don’t want to see it.” He hopes Tim understands this much, at least. That he isn’t so disgusted that he doesn’t want to go anywhere near the wall or the poster ever again. That Gerry will have to do it himself, see what has become of his blood and his memory—
“No, I’ll fix it,” Tim says, interrupting his thought process. “I mean, I have gloves and a mask and everything, so that should be… fine.”
“… Oh.” Gerry doesn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t expecting this.
“Just—“ Tim grimaces. “Out of curiosity, when Sasha said you asked if I would come fix it—?”
Gerry could almost laugh. “Right. Um. More of a—a—she asked why the poster was so ugly, and I told her there was a hole, and—“
“And she asked me to come look at it,” Tim lets out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face. “That absolute menace. Sorry she did that.”
“Sorry I didn’t warn you,” Gerry says.
“No, no,” Tim says. “Let it never be said that Tim Stoker can’t roll with the punches.” He lets out a breath. “Sit tight. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
***
Gerry doesn’t intend to fall asleep, but he wakes up some unknown time later to soft knocking. He rolls out of bed and goes to the door. He still feels exhausted and wishes he’d saved some energy for Tim’s lesson instead of wasting it all on needless panic.
It’s fine. He only has to teach Tim the basics.
“Finished!” Tim says when Gerry opens the door. The words feel like… a massive relief. A weight lifted off his chest, somethign he didn’t even realize he was carrying. “Want to come see?”
“Sure,” Gerry says, and follows Tim back down the hall. Tim gestures grandly to the wall, which is now whole. Not entirely as if nothing happened—the joint filler is an entirely different color from the rest of the wallt—but it bears no signs of the violence that happened there.
“Another beautiful job,” Tim says, grinning.
“Thank you,” Gerry says. He didn’t know that it would feel like this, removing this last piece of them from his flat. He didn’t know it would matter so much.
Tim gives him a mock salute, then nudges the bucket at his feet. Gerry looks down at it and sees that it is full of crumbled drywall. “Your blood is in there,” Tim says. “I wasn’t sure if you had… some special process for getting rid of it.”
Gerry looks at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Guess not,” Tim says, letting out a soft laugh. “Sasha told me about the whole—bonded by blood versus bonded by bite question. She’s very excited about it. Martin is in for an ambush when he gets back.”
“I think I’ll be safe,” Gerry says, looking into the bucket. His blood isn’t noticeable. Theoretically, vampires could still smell it, but— “As long as the vampires don’t suddenly discover an appetite for plasterboard.”
Tim laughs.
“Ready to get started, then—?”
“Actually,” Tim interrupts, his expression suddenly turning somber. “I think we should hold off. I don’t know if—“ He glances at the wall and takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I can handle holding a stake, just now.”
Gerry’s eyes go to the wall, a little confused. Sure, it wasn’t a pleasant scene to think about, but—
Tim sees his expression. “I was the one who nailed Martin to the wall. At the church.”
Gerry blinks, absorbing it. He’d assumed that Robert had done it himself, but—But obviously not. Why take the risk of getting within striking distance when you have a perfectly useful hostage to do it for you?
“He made Martin order me,” Tim says. “And it was the worst thing I have ever felt.” He glances at the wall again, and Gerry—
“You didn’t have to fix the wall,” Gerry says, feeling a little guilty that he’d allowed it to happen. A little angry that Tim hadn’t given any indication that anything was wrong. A little guilty that Gerry had left him to face it, all by himself, hidden away while Tim faced his fears for him. “Why did you—?”
Tim lets out a heavy breath, like clearing his lungs. Then he smiles. “Actually, I did have to fix it. Sasha would have taken it upon herself to get rid of that poster, and I’ve seen how she patches plasterboard.”
“Tim—“
“And I needed to prove that I could,” Tim says. “Because it’s my turn, this week. First time back on the menu. And I want it to be normal. I really, really want it to be normal.”
Gerry doesn’t know what to say. “I hope it goes well.”
Tim smiles. “I think it will.” He nods, then quieter, more to himself, “I think it will.”
“Do you want some tea?” Gerry asks.
They sit in contemplative silence while they wait for the kettle. Then Tim says, “You know… it does help to talk about it.”
“Therapy’s going well, then?” Gerry says. An obvious deflection, but he hopes Tim will go for it.
“Therapy is going great,” Tim says. “You should try it.”
Gerry laughs along with his tone, but part of him wants to flee. He wants this conversation to be over. Julia and Trevor are dead, and now there isn’t even a hole in the wall to remember them by. Great! Good riddance!
“You don’t believe me,” Tim says. “My dear friend Gerard thinks I’m lying to him.”
Gerry rolls his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. There’s just… too much. Talking about it is all well and good when it’s just one thing that happened. That ended. It’s different when it’s your whole life.”
“But it isn’t your whole life,” Tim says. “Is it? I mean, look, the hole is fixed!”
“For now.”
“Oh, right, because we’re all going to die horribly one day,” Tim says. The mocking should be grating, but it isn’t. Perhaps Gerry is getting used to Tim.
“Probably not you,” Gerry says.
“Ouch!” Tim says, and Gerry can’t help laughing in response. He holds his hand to his heart. “I could be tortured, too! I’m great at being tortured!”
Tim is joking about it, but Gerry doesn’t know where the lines are. He doesn’t want to push. He says, “Maybe we won’t die horribly, but we won’t have this forever. One day, it’ll end. And then what?”
“Everything ends eventually,” Tim says. “Killing yourself with anxiety won’t change that.”
Gerry can’t think of an answer to that.
Tim holds up his hands. “I won’t press it any more, but… think about it. It doesn’t have to be me.”
Gerry looks at him from the corner of his eye, wondering if Tim knows that Gerry has only ever had three (okay, four) friends in the world. Tim has lots of friends, more and more every week. Does he know that, after Jon, he’s Gerry’s closest bond?
Gerry lays his hand face-up on the table between them. He traces his finger over the thick scar splitting his hand. It’s faded, hard to notice with his hands curled and active. He says, “The people at the hospital said that I would never regain full use of my hands. Don’t know why I believed them; when I had cancer, they all told me I was gonna die, and that never happened. But… it was a full month before it became clear that they were wrong.”
Tim is silent, studying the scar. He’s familiar with Martin’s scars, Gerry is sure. They’re ugly things, still fresh, worsened by Martin’s intolerance for the weapon used to create them. But they are still only round holes. Gerry’s scars cleave through his hands, dividing them between the third and fourth fingers.
“Julia ordered me to get myself down,” Gerry says. It’s like probing at a broken tooth, long since numbed. His mouth feels dry. “I knew that pushing against the stake wouldn’t work, and—you know, it’s just flesh, through there. And I had to.”
Tim nods somberly, and Gerry… appreciates that. There isn’t anything to say to that, is there? ‘Sorry that happened’? Please.
“I don’t remember most of it,” Gerry says. “I remember the hospital, but I don’t remember how I got there. I think someone called an ambulance for me. I must have realized I was losing too much blood and gotten myself outside? I know I didn’t have my phone at the hospital because I got home and it was full of messages from my boss yelling at me for missing my shift.”
Gerry shifts his tone for the last bit, into something humorous. Tim laughs disbelievingly.
Gerry curls his hand up and brings it back into his lap. He tries to assess how he feels. Better? Has it been a relief to share? He doesn’t know.
Tim respects the silence. He looks contemplatively back at the newly-patched wall. “What’ll you replace the poster with?”
Gerry frowns, considering. “I think I’ll paint it.”
