Eric & Michael

[kersen]

Kersen was sitting in a chair in a room in the Blood Diamond. The room was light tight, there was a large bed in the middle, and currently there was a dead girl in it.

A girl who, sometime before dawn, would be waking up craving blood. Whose human life would be over. And who was now Kersen's responsibility for eternity.

He dropped his head into his hands, and didn't even hear the door open and Eric enter the room.

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[thenorthman]

"You'll know when she wakes up," Eric answered, considered the dead girl, then added, "And stops freaking out."

[kersen]

"Yeah," Kersen said, glancing at her and wincing as he thought about what was going to happen when she woke up. "I just have to keep myself from freaking out along with her."

Kersen ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.

"At least I'm not in a coffin right now." He winced. "Five years? I almost fucking threw up right there."

[thenorthman]

"You got off easy," Eric reiterated his earlier statement. He was silent for a beat, then added, "I'll have blood brought in, but I'll keep someone on stand-by."

[kersen]

"Thank you," Kersen said.

And then, remembering the calm and measured way that Eric had spoken in his defense, and how the Magister had seemed swayed by Kersen's loyalty to Eric, added, "Actually... really. Thank you."

Given how all of this had gone down, and how much worse it could have been, his loyalty to Eric was now even more solidified.

[thenorthman]

"Don't mention it," Eric told him, only the barest hint of dark humor in the words, before he turned to go and leave Kersen with his progeny. He paused before he reached the door, looking back at the younger vampire. "How much of a bond is there between maker and progeny, for your breed?"

[kersen]

"Too much," Kersen sighed. He could still feel his connection to Garrett like a silver chain around his neck.

"I... need to call Michael," Kersen said, before Eric could leave. "Tell him what happened. Can you tell your security to let him through, if he wants to come here?"

[thenorthman]

"Yes," Eric confirmed with a nod, and decided against pressing the matter. Instead, he opened the door and left Kersen alone with his progeny.

[kersen]

Kersen spent a few minutes just staring at the dead girl on the bed, and then he finally took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Michael's number.

[trustearned]

Michael picked up almost immediately. "Yes."

Hoping against hope that it would be Kersen at the end of the line.

[kersen]

"Michael." Kersen sounded relieved, like it made him feel better just to hear his voice. But there was also an undercurrent of intense anxiety underneath it.

"I - I'm okay." He said this before Michael could ask. "I'm going to be okay. But - there's more. It's complicated."

[trustearned]

"Where are you?" Michael asked. Whatever it was, the less said over the phone the better.

[kersen]

"The Blood Diamond," Kersen said, sounding slightly relieved again. Of what, he wasn't sure. Did he think that Michael would somehow react badly to him still being alive? "When you come just tell someone you're here to see me."

[trustearned]

"Give me half an hour," Michael answered, and hung up to get going. He did not like the club, but there was no hesitation in him right then.

[kersen]

Kersen sat there, not really sure what else to. It occurred to him that he possibely should have warned Michael about the dead girl on the bed. As it was, he was so happy to see him when he walked in that he almost forgot about everything else.

He threw himself from the chair and his arms around Michael.

[trustearned]

Michael knocked on the door quietly before opening it and walking in. Kersen was immediately on him, but that didn't prevent Michael from spotting the girl on the bed, even as he wrapped his arms around the vampire.

He had seen enough dead bodies to know one when he saw it.

[kersen]

Kersen inhaled deeply against his neck, feeling comforted by the scent of him. "I'm so glad to see you," he said.

If only Michael knew how close he'd come to not. Because who knew where Michael would be in five fucking years.

"But you shouldn't stay too long," he added, pulling away, hands on Michael's shoulders. He glanced back at the bed. "She'll... she'll wake up eventually and you shouldn't be here."

[trustearned]

"Who is she?" Michael asked, drawing his gaze away from the body to meet Kersen's gaze, hands dropped to his sides.

[kersen]

"She's... mine," said Kersen, sounding pained.

His eyes dropped to the floor. "The Magister was feeling creative. This was my sentence. A life for a life. They made me make a new vampire. Against her will."

[trustearned]

It could have been worse, Michael tried to tell himself. They could have killed Kersen. They could've silvered him away for years. They could've made him make Michael a vampire. It could have been worse.

That didn't make him any more pleased with the news. And everything it seemed to entail.

"You've got a vampire child," he summed up. He didn't know what they called it, and didn't care.

[kersen]

"I should consider myself lucky," Kersen said, still sounding pained. Sick. "I pissed him off. He was going to bury me for five years. But then... this instead. Though at least five years or something would have been over after that. This is permanent. She's my responsibility. I didn't... I didn't want this. I never did."

[trustearned]

Michael was silent for a beat, then said, "She's going to live with you."

[kersen]

Kersen winced. "For a while, at least. I don't know how long. Until I've... taught her. And besides, she almost certainly won't have anywhere to go. Look how young she is, hell she could still be living with her parents."

[trustearned]

She very well might be. "What's her name?" Michael asked, then thought to add, "Her full name."

Background checks were par for the course in his life.

[kersen]

"I don't know," Kersen sighed, pulling away from Michael. "She was too busy begging for her life to tell me the story of it."

Clearly the memory made him uncomfortable. The fact that he'd had to force her - it sickened him. She was going to think he was a monster just like the rest of them when she woke up.

[trustearned]

Michael walked around Kersen and to the girl, patting her pockets until he found a wallet, and some ID inside. He had a look at it - enough to memorise it, given his memory - then had a cursory look at the rest of her wallet, and held it all out to Kersen for his own perusal.