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Some sunsets, waking is like this: blinding glare from overhead, a bizarre and breathless pause, the terror of forgetting what’s next.  Line?Fuck Tom Stoppard very much for getting to the heart of it in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead far better than Sam ever could.Open your eyes, and for a split second?  You’re nowhere.  You’re nobody.  You’re nothing.  You’re dead, or…you were.  But now you’re here.“Breathe,” someone says in his ear, arms tight around him.  “Sam.”Sam kisses the shoulder he’s cradled against.  “Fuckin’ nightmare.”“I know,” Rashid replies, kissing the top of Sam’s head.  “Same one?”“Not anymore,” Sam sighs happily, wiggling just to feel his body and the bedclothes and the way he’s tangled with Rashid.  He’d blush if they weren’t companions.  Sometimes he still does.  “Hi,” he yawns, creeping his toes down Rashid’s calf.  “Sleep all right?”Rashid laughs.  The sound vibrates through Sam’s chest, settling low and warm in Sam’s belly even though they both have yet to feed.  “Yes.  You know I don’t usually remember my dreams,” he whispers in Sam’s ear, nudging his thigh between Sam’s.  “Pretty thing.”“Fuck off,” Sam grouses fondly, but he’s already halfway to stiff and aching.  He gasps in delight as Rashid kisses him, whimpering as he squirms closer.  He loves the nights they get off kissing and touching.  Their first few years were mostly that—well, that and Sam biting Rashid’s lovely neck, drinking until they were both a trembling mess of come and blood.  They’d taken their time about everything else.Rashid grasps the backs of Sam’s thighs, his face tucked against Sam’s neck.  “I don’t hear anyone downstairs yet,” he murmurs, biting tentatively as his fangs emerge.  “The fledglings overfed on that escapade last night, so they’ll be sluggish.  What do you want?”This sprawling house in Regents’ Park is the quietest place that Sam has ever lived.  Arion and Petronia occupying the cellar level means it’s possible to go nights on end without running into them, but the Molloy fledglings’ rooms are on the same floor as the master suite now occupied by Sam and Rashid.  They’re down the hall and don’t share walls, but once everyone’s awake, they get underfoot downstairs.Kira, Finn, and a few other members of the coven who have remained in residence at Polidori in Camden are doing most of the night-to-night running of the club.  Sam’s not necessarily thrilled about that, because it means he hasn’t been performing lately and Rashid hasn’t been on the bar to personally gather intel, but Kira and Finn are canny enough to pass along information from the wider vampire world.Sam lets the sting of Rashid’s fangs grazing his skin pull him out of his head, moaning at the feel of Rashid’s cock prodding his belly.  Oh, speaking of pretty things.  Handsome things, gorgeous things.  He grinds his hips against Rashid’s, his own fangs fully engaged now.“Silly fuckin’ question,” Sam mutters, rolling Rashid onto his back.  He reaches for the nightstand, but he’s misjudged the distance.  Hissing as his nails gouge the hardwood, he makes another grab for the lubricant just in time for Rashid’s telekinesis to snag it instead.“Sorry,” Rashid says, abashed, grinning at him.  “Up,” he coaxes, nudging at Sam’s arse. Sam throws the covers off them and shifts to his knees, straddling Rashid.  “Show-off.”“Thought maybe you’d want to see,” Rashid continues with mock nonchalance, getting his fingers slick enough to ease a fraction inside Sam’s rim.  “Petronia doesn’t know I’ve worked that one out on my own.  How should I spring it on them, do you think?”Sam lets his mouth fall open, panting as Rashid teases him with two fingertips—slowly, too slowly.  “Don’t ask me now, love.  Can’t think.”“Good,” Rashid praises, pressing his fingers deeper, twisting and stroking just the way Sam likes it.  “That’s good.”  He withdraws after about a minute, shushes Sam’s wince of protest while he gets more lubricant on his fingers, and then works his way back in with three.  “Does it—”“Hurt?  No, keep going,” Sam grits out.  “Filed ’em last night.  Good job you can go every few days, unlike most of us. Fuck, that’s it.”“Close?” Rashid murmurs, giving Sam’s cock a few tugs with his free hand.Sam blinks down at Rashid in hazy adoration.  “Better get in while you can.”Rashid carefully withdraws his hand, and then surges up to kiss Sam, desperate.  He makes breathy, pleading sounds when Sam pauses just long enough to slick his fingers and pay Rashid’s cock some much needed attention.  He might come like this, and Sam won’t mind a bit.“You do whatever you need,” Sam whispers in Rashid’s ear, circling his thumb over Rashid’s slit.  “Wouldn’t make you wait even a second.”Rashid grabs Sam’s wrist.  He eases Sam’s hand off his cock, and then grasps Sam’s hips with sticky, shaking fingers. They’re practiced at this by now, Rashid steadying Sam while he concentrates on guiding the head of Rashid’s cock inside himself.  Rashid’s hips twitch, and Sam sucks in his breath as that drives him deeper.  Rashid kisses Sam’s jaw, sharing the same tremulous exhale.  You’re perfect, he says in Sam’s mind.Flatterer, Sam replies silently, laughing aloud.  He bears down with all of his weight until the pressure against his prostate is exquisite.  Lucky doesn’t begin to cover it.  Call him a size queen; he won’t even deny Rashid scratches that itch, and then some.  Sam nuzzles Rashid’s neck, crying his name as the feeling finally bursts from him, wetting their bellies with pulse after slick pulse of blood.  He’s so gone on him, so in love.“Sam,” Rashid gasps against Sam’s ear, stroking Sam’s hair as his hips stutter a few helpless thrusts up into him.  “Oh, fuck, you feel…”  He sinks his fangs in Sam’s neck, his arms tightening across Sam’s back, around his waist.  Do you have another one for me? Sam shudders again as Rashid drinks from him.  Since Rashid’s acquisition of fangs, he’s realized he can climax more than once inside a few minutes.  It’s been a wild handful of months as a result.  Not that they haven’t always been eager to please each other, but now that Rashid makes him come twice as often, he’s twice as fucking useless on the regular.  Sam is grateful Rashid dotes on him to a fault.  He’s needy in bed.“Darlin’, shhh,” Sam manages rubbing Rashid’s back as he takes his turn and sobs feverishly into the curve of Sam’s neck.  That’s the other thing, how intense their coupling is for Rashid now that he’s been turned.  He feels everything so damned much.  “That’s it.”Rashid flexes his fingers against Sam’s shoulder blades as he shivers with aftershocks.  He licks the blood from Sam’s skin.“Does that feel good?” Sam asks faintly, sagging in his arms.“You always feel good,” Rashid sighs, kissing him softly.“Love you so fuckin’ much.  Have I told you that enough?”“If I claim that you haven’t, promise you’ll double down?”“Petronia says I’m a sap and an embarrassment.  So, sure I will.”“Whatever.  Love you, mera dil.  You deserve to feel good, too.”Sam grins so hard his face hurts.  He feels sorry for everyone in the Paris coven, how they’d always been fawning over Armand to little end other than lust or fighting tooth and nail over each other as romantic commodities.  Now, here he is, in a stable relationship for over a decade, married to the most constant, devoted man—as a mortal and as a vampire alike, through every transformation in between—that he’s ever met.“Got our scheduled chat with the foster kids’ parents tonight, haven’t we,” Sam drawls, stroking Rashid’s sweat-damp hair.  He kisses Rashid’s forehead, and then his cheeks.  “Just look at those eyes.  I could get lost in ’em, so credit to our maker where it’s due.  You need to eat.”Rashid rubs his fingertip over the healed spots on Sam’s neck.  “Not as much as I might have.  You need to feed, though, thanks to me.”“Blood bags in the fridge’ll do for me,” Sam says.  “Shower, breakfast, get the fuckin’ conference over with, see if we can interest those brats in the latest Taskmaster, or whatever nonsense they’ve been trying to talk us into, instead of following them all over town.”Rashid wobbles out of bed and pulls Sam after him, grimacing at how sticky they are.  “Dropout.  Jesse’s gotten me to watch a few shows.”“Your endorsement goes a long way on top of theirs, then,” Sam replies, dragging Rashid to the bathroom.  “Come on, we’re running late.”They barely get cleaned up and set up, downstairs on the sectional with mugs of blood in hand, in time for Armand’s FaceTime call to ring through on Rashid’s MacBook.  Sam is briefly struck by the tableau on the screen, such a contrast to the exhausted faces that he and Rashid had seen at the send-off they’d held the night before Armand’s and Daniel’s departure for Venice.Armand looks serene and collected, even well-fed for once, almost like he’s posing for a portrait.  Straight-backed, shoulders relaxed, hands folded loosely in his lap.  He’s wearing a midnight blue, long-sleeved, skintight tee with…Sam isn’t sure what to call the black, split-sleeved, looser garment layered over it.  He’s wearing the kind of wide-legged dress slacks he’s been favoring lately, too, that give the effect of a skirt when viewed from a distance.  His hair is twisted back at the sides, secured with an ornate comb that protrudes above the crown of his head.Daniel looks the same as he always does, if Sam is honest.  The ratty, faded Ramones tee, the expensive-but-frumpy unbuttoned plaid shirt, the well broken-in jeans.  He has his arm extended along the back of the sofa, curled possessively around Armand’s shoulders.What do we look like to them? Rashid asks silently while Armand leans to unmute the iPad. We’re the nannies, enough said, Sam replies wearily, but forces himself to say brightly: “Hi.”“How’s it going?” Daniel asks while Armand settles back against him.  “Are the kids up?”“Quiet,” Rashid says, keeping his tone mild and pleasant, bless his heart for that.  “Not yet.”“Playing the man of few words, I see,” Armand says, fussing with his sleeves.  The gems in his rings catch the light, and there are several new medallions around his neck in addition to the emerald briolettes from Petronia.  He looks like…Sam can’t quite place it, but he looks fashionably untethered from the modern era without wholly leaving it behind.  “Sam, how would you say Paige is continuing to fare in our absence?”“Creatively,” Sam replies, leaning forward to set his mug aside on the coffee table.  He draws his legs up on the sofa cushion, because fuck sitting like a normal person when he’s in corduroys and one of Rashid’s collared shirts over a Mountain Goats tee with the sleeves rolled up.  He was never good at that around the theater anyway and got sniped at plenty.  “She continues to play with her food, par for the course.”“I’d rather hear she’s doing that than, I don’t know,” Daniel says, making an expansive gesture.  “What’s the worst thing a fledgling could do?”Armand glances sidelong at Daniel.  “Do you really want either Sam or me to answer that?”“No,” Daniel replies after a beat.  “Nope, you’re right.  Forget I even asked.  Glad she’s fine.”“I wouldn’t say fine,” Rashid says uncomfortably, shifting next to Sam.  “She’s moody at best.”“Which is proof of what, exactly?” Armand asks, his brows furrowed.  “It’s understandable given the traumatic circumstances of her turning.”“It’s understandable given that the two of you left right away instead of waiting a few weeks,” Rashid continues, and Sam feels his heart skip a beat.  He’d known about Rashid’s growing concern for Paige, but he hadn’t expected Rashid to bluntly give it voice.  “That’s what you both do, though, isn’t it?  You run.  Heaven knows there’s plenty of documented precedent where this came from.”Fuckin’ Christ, Sam thinks, his mind closed off.  We’re goners.Rashid squeezes Sam’s hand against his thigh.  He’s not afraid.Armand widens his eyes, the flicker of fury visible.  But it subsides as Daniel pulls him in by the shoulders and whispers against his ear, and his eyes slip shut as he inhales, exhales, settles.  When Armand opens his eyes again, they’re clear.“Documented precedent,” Daniel says.  “The Talamasca files on us from 1973 to 1985, right?”“Yes,” Rashid agrees earnestly.  “Just because I no longer work for them doesn’t mean I forget.”“Sometimes I forget you had access to all of that while in my employ,” Armand says distantly.“Well, Rashid’s not wrong,” Sam says in his defense.  “I’ve lived with those files even longer.”Daniel looks at him.  “Hey, Sam,” he says.  “How long did you tour?  When did you guys meet?”Sam feels white-hot panic flare in his chest.  How had it been so easy to convince himself they’d never come anywhere near the knowledge that he’d been in Dubai, too, listening in the background from the flat that he and Rashid had shared two miles from Al Sharaf tower?Rashid pulls the MacBook into his lap, focusing the camera solely on himself.  “Stop.”“Did that hit a nerve?” Armand asks, sounding uneasy.  “Rashid, Daniel has a theory…”“I’d like to go on record as Daniel’s next interview subject, if he’ll let me,” Rashid says steadily.  “There’s a story I would offer as an apology for my impertinence just now.  It’s also a confession long overdue,” he continues.  “A confession that’s long overdue to you, Armand.”Sam scrabbles for Rashid’s hand next to him on the cushion.  Please, no.  Anything but this.Trust me, Rashid implores Sam, all the while locking eyes with Daniel.  This will move them.“Fuck it,” Sam says, grabbing the laptop.  He sets it back on the coffee table.  “I was there, too.”Daniel starts to shake his head, the smug motherfucker.  “Oh my fuckin’ God, babe,” he says to Armand, cackling.  “Am I good, or am I good?”Armand folds his arms across his chest, darting his eyes back and forth between Rashid and Sam in dismay.  “Why couldn’t I…but that’s…”Sam pulls a disgusted face at Armand as something in him snaps.  “If you knew how many audio surveillance hours of your ex-companion’s boring fuckin’ monologues I had Rashid rail me through that one week you were all tarted up pretending to be him, and badly—”Rashid covers his face with both hands for about ten seconds.  “Can we please do this chronologically?” he asks, sounding absolutely miserable.Sam pats Rashid on the back, grinning smugly at Armand’s scandalized expression and Daniel’s flabbergasted one.  “Don’t know why I was scared at first,” he says with vicious glee.  “I’m going to enjoy providing those little asides.  And you?  You’re going to fuckin’ listen.”

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Sam takes satisfaction in playing the dutiful, supportive husband while Rashid tells Daniel their story starting from their initial encounter the year Rashid’s aunt had died.  He makes sure Rashid finishes what’s left of the blood in both mugs, kisses him on the cheek while Armand looks on from beside Daniel with an unreadable expression as the conversation revolves around Marius, and then takes the mugs to the kitchen to refill them.  Sam is startled to run into Jesse standing in the doorway with a mug of their own, their head tilted, listening to the proceedings.“Rashid has never mentioned this before,” Jesse whispers, pensive and troubled, both of their hands wrapped around the mug.  “Neither have you.”Sam cringes apologetically.  “That your and Armand’s maker tried to eat him as a newly orphaned teenager, and I just happened to be on assignment following that fuckin’ degenerate around for the Order, and that’s how we first met?”  He huffs.  “Afraid so.”“Awkward.  What year was that?”“Would’ve been 2007, I think.”“So Rashid was literally fifteen.”“Yeah, whereas I literally dumped him off at the motherhouse and didn’t see him again till he finished uni, if that makes you feel any better.”“Sam, I’m teasing.  You started spending time together when he was twenty?”“Raglan paired us as agents.  I started training him right out of King’s College.”Jesse leans against the doorframe, half smiling.  “When did you get together?”Sam glances away, aware that he’s turning pink.  “Two years into his training,” he says, unsuccessfully suppressing the memory.Their eyes widening, Jesse covers their mouth.  “Did you let me see that on purpose?  Fuck, Rashid might be more of a freak than Dad.”“There’s nothing freaky about having a cuddle afterward.  Where are your manners?”“Uh, no, I mean that the first time was in your coffin at the London motherhouse.”“Playing dirty, are we?  How about you and the missus going at it in the Harvard Museum of Natural History?  Got kicked out by security?”“I never let you see that.”“No, but Ricky sure did.”Jesse shakes their head at Sam.  “Unbelievable.  You’ve got to stop hiding this kind of shit.  I’ll always find out eventually.  We always do, right?”“As in undead ex-Talamasca apostates?  Sure,” Sam agrees, pushing past them to the refrigerator.  “There’s, what, four of us in this house?”“Well, technically two,” Jesse says sheepishly, trailing after Sam.  “Ricky and I were trainees.  We never made it to agent status.  You and Rashid…”“Come off it,” Sam says fondly, letting the mugs dangle from one hand as he opens the refrigerator and pulls out two blood bags with the other.“You count us, then?” Jesse asks, hanging back, taking a swig from their mug.  They look fragile, pale in their black sweater and gray jeans.“Taking a page out of your mum’s fashion playbook?  You need some color,” Sam remarks, carrying the mugs and blood bags over to the counter.“How is he tonight?” Jesse asks hesitantly while Sam snips the bags open and empties them into the mugs.  “Armand, I mean?  Dad, too, but—”“Regal as the Mona Lisa,” Sam says wistfully, sticking both mugs in the microwave.  “Maybe not so great after Daniel’s done grilling my man.”Jesse gulps the rest of what’s in their mug.  “You guys were together for three out of the five years you spent every day in each other’s company at the motherhouse before you left for the assignment in Dubai,” they say as Sam removes the mugs from the microwave, “and you didn’t break up under the strain of five years living together there while Rashid worked for Armand and Louis.  You were stuck at home on surveillance.”Sam nods, mugs in hand.  “We started making plans with Petronia for his turning while we were over there.  Knew we’d likely never be safe.”Jesse looks like they might cry.  “But you’re safe now, right?  Mom’s not going to kill you or anything like that.  I don’t think Louis gives a fuck.”Sam tilts his head, shrugging.  “Only insofar as any of us are ever really safe.  There’s this Great Conversion business and whatever the hell bee our ex-bosses have in their collective bonnet over it.  And there’s whatever geriatric horror show your maker’s got in his cellar.”Jesse sighs, discontent.  “I haven’t made any progress on that.  We haven’t, I mean.  Me and Ricky and Paige.  I’ve been brainstorming with Mom.”“I’ve got to get back out there,” Sam says.  “Any other kinks of mine need shaming?”“Just that you’re really sweet,” Jesse says quietly, raising their mug.  “You and Rashid.”“Oh, you’re grand,” Sam says under his breath, trying hard not to smile as he walks out.Rashid looks up at Sam when he re-enters the living room with their mugs, relieved.  He accepts the one Sam presses into his hand, and then carefully pulls Sam down into his lap.  That must mean he needs a break from whatever harrowing line of questioning Daniel’s stuck on.Sam slides an arm around Rashid’s neck, mindful of the mugs they’re holding.  “Ran into Jesse.  They yapped my ear off, so these went a bit cold.”“Don’t care,” Rashid replies, kissing Sam deeply.  “Thank you.  Is Jesse all right?”“Worried about you lot,” Sam says, addressing the irritated couple on the screen.“Really?” Daniel asks.  He has the look of a vampire who regrets every undeath choice he’s made since sundown.  He’s slouching on the fancy antique sofa, and Armand is lying on his back at this stage, with only his bare feet visible where they’re propped in Daniel’s lap.Armand sits up at the mention of Jesse, scooting back into the frame.  “Is Jesse—”“Jesse’s down on the fact that neither they, Ricky, nor Paige has made progress on the Marius issue,” Sam admits.  “Frankly, none of us have.”“I’m still stuck on the part where your companion’s mind is immune to tampering,” Armand says with a trace of reproach.  “He let me believe I erased his memory of being accosted by Marius.  He successfully made me believe I erased that memory from his mind, along with others.”Rashid shrugs at Armand, eyebrows raised.  “That’s why the Talamasca took me in.”“What part are we at?” Sam asks, taking a swig of blood.  “Rashid’s job interview?”“A little past that,” Daniel says, flipping pages in his notebook.  “You guys setting up house in Dubai just after Raglan got you there by ship.  That was some first-class trolling, by the way,” he admits.  “You got under that jackass’s skin with relationship TMI more than I ever did.”Sam preens, running his fingers through Rashid’s hair.  “Well, he had to look at us.”Armand seems like he’s as happy for them as ever, but there’s a component of bafflement that’s new.  “Rashid was going home to you.”“Correct, maître.  I’m the mysterious housewife behind his mending, ironing, and laundry.”“Skills transferable from our theater days I’m sure, but—it was you the whole time?”“I understand that this is difficult,” Sam sighs.  “Nobody’s ever mindfucked you worse than you’ve mindfucked them, without even trying.”Daniel taps his notebook with his pen, thoughtful.  “Are you still impervious to being tampered with even now that you’ve been turned?” he asks.Rashid nods.  “Petronia’s tried.  Arion’s tried.  Sam’s tried.  Nothing ever goes away.  My thoughts can still be read if I don’t close my mind, but that was also true when I was mortal.”  He glances at Sam with mild trepidation and thinks, Should I tell them what else?Sam strokes Rashid’s cheek, hesitant.  That call, I can’t make for you, sweetheart.Rashid nods, and then glances back at the screen.  “There’s something else.”Armand sits forward on the sofa, the comb falling from his hair.  “There is?”“When I was mortal, you trusted me,” Rashid says.  “Vampires trusted me.”Armand doesn’t blink, his pupils visibly constricting.  “Yes.  Too easily.”Rashid looks down, nodding.  “I wielded some kind of…placating effect.”“That’s fucking…”  Daniel scribbles something in his notebook.  “What.”“Now that I’ve been turned, the placation no longer seems to be a factor,” Rashid says, “but Arion and Petronia have noticed something peculiar on the nights we’ve split up to hunt.  Even Petronia, our maker, can sense Sam’s presence within London city limits.  They can’t sense mine.”Armand exhales shakily, just shy of soundless laughter.  “I don’t understand.”Daniel, though—Daniel appears to be tracking.  “Arion can’t sense you, either.”“No,” Rashid says quietly, in despair.  “And neither can the fledglings.  Or Sam.”Sam rubs between Rashid’s shoulder blades.  “That’s only when he’s out of sight.”Armand makes the most confused face Sam has ever seen on anyone.  “I don’t…”“Rashid has to be in another vampire’s field of vision to be sensed by them,” Sam says.  “We have no fuckin’ idea what’s up with that, so…right there with you.”  He kisses Rashid’s temple, soothing the agitated static he can feel radiating off Rashid in waves.  “Think about it like…we have no idea why Ricky can’t summon spirits anymore, or Jesse can’t see them anymore.  They can both sense and talk to ’em using the Mind Gift, which is kind of an odd twist, but it’s indicative of certain talents you have when you’re human shifting once you’ve been turned.”Daniel is scribbling furiously in his notebook.  “Hey, so, uh, let’s talk about this later.”“What does that mean, exactly?” Rashid asks, making a disgruntled face at the screen.“Don’t worry your pretty head,” Daniel replies.  “So, playing house in Dubai.  Louis’s bad habits from San Francisco are back with a vengeance.”“Daniel,” Armand says, grabbing the notebook and pen so swiftly that Daniel jumps.  “May I have a moment to speak with Rashid, please?”Daniel just kisses Armand on the lips, mumbles “Sure, princess, yeah,” and walks out.Sam clears his throat and shifts off Rashid’s lap, settling beside him.  “Do I need to—”“No, Sam,” Armand says, attempting to compose himself.  “Please stay if you wish.”Rashid takes Sam’s hand between his own.  “Armand, please understand that I never—”“I am sorry,” Armand says haltingly, his eyes a livid, distressed vermilion, “for everything.  I pressed you for secrets about your home life when I knew full well there was a boundary.  Understanding now, in hindsight, why that boundary existed?  I can’t…”  He closes his eyes, snapping his head sharply to one side.  “I crossed a line with you, time and again, out of loneliness.  I tried to treat you like a friend when no such parity could have existed even if you had wished for it, although…”  Armand blinks, tearful.  “I deluded myself.  I am sorry.”Sam has to resist the urge to clap.  He feels shitty about that within seconds, because he knows that this isn’t a performance like it might have been in decades past.  Rashid deserves this, deserves it even more than Sam does.  The apology is going where it needs to go.Rashid circles his thumb against Sam’s palm, thinking as his striking chartreuse eyes remain fixed, unblinking, on Armand’s shaken visage on the screen.  He turns his head toward Sam after about a minute, his gaze vulnerable.  There is no thought that accompanies the glance.You can only do as much as you can, darlin’, Sam thinks.  It’s for you to forgive or not.Rashid shifts his eyes back to Armand, and then says, “I did what I could to protect you.”Armand brings one ringed hand to his mouth, stifling a tremulous sound.  “Yes, I know.”“No one,” Rashid continues, “no one in this world ever did.  I knew your history before I walked through your door.  The defining event of my young life was my narrowly averted ruin at the hands of the monster that ruined you.  I would do everything over again.  Everything.”Sam slides his fingers between Rashid’s, clasping his hand. Rashid is better than all of them, and he’d chosen this ruin anyway.  Chosen to turn his back on the waking world and love the very monsters he might’ve been made to destroy, judging by the gifts he’d been given.“I’m not a good friend,” Armand says, his voice strained, “but you’ve been one to me.”Rashid shrugs at him, pulling a smile from fuck-knows-where.  “I used to tell Sam I didn’t know if I liked you.  That was disingenuous, I think.”Sam squeezes Rashid’s hand proudly.  “Gorgeous and a heart of gold, how rare is that?”Armand manages a brief, helpless peal of laughter, wiping his eyes.  “I’m glad I spared you.”“Why, for the comic relief?” Sam scoffs, vaguely offended.  “You’re welcome.  Fuck off.”“You like him?” Daniel asks Rashid, leaning back into the frame, pointing to Armand.“More than I like you,” Rashid says.  “Can we continue tomorrow night?  The kids are up.”Sam listens to the footfalls upstairs; there’s bickering.  “Ah, yep, there.  Ricky and Paige.”“Can I say hello to my daughter, at least?” Daniel asks, resuming his seat next to Armand.Sam pulls Rashid to his feet.  “Let’s catch ’em on the stairs.  They can take over the call.”“Why?  Where are you taking me?” Rashid asks as Sam drags him from the living room.“Turns out I find your integrity unbearably hot, so…bed or coffin, where the fuck else?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam can sleep comfortably in a bed with Rashid most nights now.  That hadn’t always been the case, especially not in Dubai when his stress levels had run so high that Rashid was in the double-wide coffin with him more nights than not.  And sometimes he even found himself missing his narrower, but nonetheless cozy one in his cellar room at the motherhouse.  He’d never forget that was where they’d first held each other.“Good dreams?” Rashid whispers, his breath skimming the back of Sam’s earlobe.  He nuzzles there, sliding his hand under Sam’s t-shirt to touch his belly, and then dips to fondle him through his boxers.  Rashid is so patient while Sam muddles his way toward consciousness.“Jesse caught me thinking about our first date,” Sam sighs, his breath quickening as Rashid presses with the heel of his hand, rubbing gently.  “I couldn’t help myself.”  He cries out softly.  “Wanted you so much, darlin’.  Couldn’t believe it when you came for me like that.”“I thought the night you returned to London was our first,” Rashid says with mild amusement, but he takes pity and pushes the coffin lid open to give them more room.  He sits up, situates Sam on his back, and then glances at the bed across the room.  “Do you want to stay here?”Sam makes grabby hands at Rashid until he tugs Sam’s boxers off.  “Yes,” he murmurs, running one hand over Rashid’s bare chest as soon as Rashid has gotten him naked from the waist down.  Maybe it’s not sexy that he’s lying there in his wrinkled t-shirt from the day before leaking pink against his belly, but the way Rashid looks at him makes him feel sexy.  “The night you made that awful joke about needing to invite me in?”Rashid shrugs, giving Sam a sheepish smile.  “You looked like a sad, stray…I don’t know, something on my balcony,” he says.  “I couldn’t just leave you out there.  Turns out you were hungry, too.  Good thing I let you bite my wrist to get those nerves out of the way.”Sam feels dizzy at the memory.  “Off,” he gasps, hooking his index fingers beneath Rashid’s waistband, his fingernails tearing the fabric.  Sam lets Rashid get rid of his underwear, and then pulls him down against himself.  “If you’d offered me your neck that night, we would’ve fast-tracked the fucking for sure,” he mumbles against Rashid’s shoulder.  “Oh, you’re lovely.  Do you have any idea what you do to me?”Rashid runs his fingers through Sam’s hair, kissing his temple.  “Hamesha sab ton sohna,” he whispers, working hips in taut, grinding circles against Sam’s.   “You’re always so beautiful to me, Sam.  Of course I do.”  He kisses Sam on the lips, deep and hungry.  “Like this?”Sam feels his orgasm building already, and the tremor in Rashid’s thighs is delicious.  He sinks his fangs in Rashid’s neck, groaning in pleased surprise when Rashid grasps his knees and splays his legs wider.  They’re graceless amateurs in comparison to the rest of the lot, but Sam absolutely can’t be arsed to care when it feels this amazing, when it reminds them they’re still head over fucking heels for each other.They’re laughing by the time they finish, wheezing with the exchange of that thought as they recover their breaths.  Sam kisses Rashid in return, taking his leisurely time like they’re not in danger of being late for their next session with Daniel and Armand.  He sucks Rashid off slow and worshipful in the shower, and then comes again himself while he’s pinned to the tile with Rashid’s fangs driven deep in his thigh.When they head downstairs, Petronia, Arion, and the fledglings look up from mugs of blood around the dining table with the kind of affectionate reproach that indicates they might’ve missed a coven meeting, but have already been forgiven for it.  Rashid mutters an apology and something about their own breakfast, releasing Sam’s arm to head to the kitchen.  That leaves Sam as the sole recipient of five expectant stares.Great, just what Sam had been missing for the past century: being put on the spot when some mess or another is perceived as his fault.  Then again, judging by Petronia’s expression, there has been no meeting, and this is just Sam’s and Rashid’s maker taking the piss.“Daniel ran us hard with the questioning last night,” Sam says snippily, focusing his attention on Jesse.  “Not my fault if we needed a lie-in.”“Is that what we’re calling it?” Ricky asks.  Non-biological chip off the Molloy block.  “You sure had a lie in something, from the sound of—”“Oi, mind your business!” Sam snaps, and then desperately appeals to Jesse with his eyebrows raised.  How about you mind your girlfriend?Paige mock gags into her mug.  “Send Dad and Armand away, but you can’t even escape the excessive sappy shit because of these two.”Jesse sets their mug down and rubs their face.  “Guys, knock it off.  You don’t need to defend my honor, honest, we were teasing fair and—”“Oh, I see,” Sam cuts in, making his way to the sectional, crawling onto it so he can lean over the back and pull one of Jesse’s hands away from their face.  “Told ’em about the risqué anecdote you pulled from my thoughts during that heart to heart in the kitchen, didn’t you.”“What about the one you apparently pulled from Ricky’s one time, and flung in Jesse’s face in retaliation?” Paige points out.  “Rude!”“Come on,” Ricky sighs.  “I let him have it.  We were trading museum stories.”“Museum stories?” Petronia asks, finally daring to wade into the conversation.“Yeah, as in who’s fucked in one,” Ricky says gleefully.“Oh my God,” Jesse mutters, covering their eyes again.Sam rocks back on his knees against the sofa cushion, folding his arms as Petronia gives him a weary look.  “I’ve fucked in more than one, thanks for asking.  Maybe not in Paris, sad as that sounds, but the New York trip when Rashid delivered the tapes?  You fuckin’ bet.”Paige looks like she’s trying to count on both hands.  “Not that I have confirmation, but I’d be willing to guess which ones Dad has hit up.”Arion rests his chin in his hand, grinning slyly.  “Please do enlighten me.  This is the strangest conversation I’ve been privy to all week.”Jesse stares at Sam from between their parted fingers.  “Sorry.  I’ll keep my mouth shut next time, I swear.  I didn’t think they’d do this.”“You didn’t?  Could’ve fooled me.  Next time, better remember who it is you’re dealing with.  Anyway, thanks, you’re a gem,” Sam drawls, twisting around to sit with one leg tucked under himself just as Rashid enters the room with a pair of mugs.  “Oh, I take that back,” he adds, accepting the blood gratefully as Rashid takes a seat close beside him and reaches to open his MacBook on the coffee table.  “That’s you.”“Have a relaxing morning, Rashid?” Ricky asks smugly.  “You and Sam?”Paige elbows Ricky hard enough to make her hiss.  “Don’t answer that.”Rashid turns his head, not quite looking at the girls.  “Yes.  We needed it.”Sam knows Rashid will troll the fledglings mercilessly if that’s what it takes to shut them up.   He rests his head on Rashid’s shoulder, warm all over as Rashid broadcasts…not details, but enough of the gist to make Ricky sarcastically coo “Awww” and Paige yell “Gross!”“Then mind your business next time,” Sam chimes in.  The irony of the situation is that he and Rashid had both barely been thirty at the time they were turned, Paige had been twenty-nine, and Jesse and Ricky had both been closer to Armand’s age.  There are days when his seniority as a vampire means nothing, when they’re a bunch of young adults sniping at each other about trivial mortal nonsense.  It makes him giddy.Petronia and Arion stay just long enough to exchange pleasantries with Daniel, who is alone on the screen when the call first rings through.  Sam can hear Armand in the background speaking rapid-fire Italian with someone, which piques the fledglings’ interest immediately.  All three of them leave their seats at the dining table and come lean over the back of the sofa, peering at the laptop screen with their eyes narrowed.“You have company?” Rashid asks Daniel as he flips through his notebook to find his place.  “We didn’t imagine you’d be making friends.”“Uh, yeah,” Daniel replies distractedly.  “Armand’s got one of the locals here setting up a router.  We’ve just been using my phone as a hotspot.”“One of the locals,” Paige repeats.  “Dad, what does that mean?  Local as in, like…to snack on once they’ve finished the job?  Are you being careful?”“Relax, honey,” Daniel says, looking up at her.  “Local as in, there’s a coven that’s not really a coven.  Bunch of young tech freelancers.”“Whoa,” Jesse says.  “That’s really cool, actually.  Are any of them on reddit?  I think maybe I’ve run into some others who are incognito there, too.”Sam hears the voice responding to Armand switch from Italian to English mid-sentence, and the owner leans into the frame.  “Did you say reddit?”Paige slams her fists into the back of the sofa, startling Rashid.  “Wait!  It’s you?”“Sorry, I’m lost,” Sam says, turning sideways in his seat so he can peer in concern at Paige, and then back at the admittedly attractive young vampire with olive skin and long, dark brown hair hanging well past her shoulders now seated on the sofa next to Daniel.  “Who’s this?”“Paola from instagram!” Paige says, giving Ricky and Jesse simultaneous shoves. The vampire next to Daniel laughs, her steely, cobalt blue eyes unnatural-looking on the screen even for ones belonging to their kind.  “Got me.”“Oh,” Ricky says, her expression changing immediately.  “That Paola. Hey.”Jesse rolls their eyes, but they’re not mad otherwise.  “It’s not your insta that interests me,” they tell Paola.  “I think I’ve found you elsewhere.”Paola smiles innocently at Jesse, and then tracks her eyes back to Ricky and Paige in turn before glancing at Daniel.  “These are your kids?”“Paige is my youngest biological daughter,” Daniel sighs, “and also kind of Armand’s due to the 1970s bullshit, long story.  The other two narrowly escaped the Talamasca, and we adopted them.  Or they adopted us.  Still not sure how that happened, but we got stuck with each other.”Fuckin’ Christ, Sam thinks to Rashid, meeting Rashid’s glance.  Is this cause for concern?Amsterdam would’ve tried to recruit this one, Rashid replies.  Does her name ring a bell?“Speaking of,” Sam says, snapping his fingers to catch Paola’s attention, “do you know what the Talamasca is outside the context of Daniel bringing it up, and have they ever tried to recruit you?  They would’ve been a bunch of MI6-looking fuckers out of Amsterdam, maybe London.”Paola shakes her head.  “I only know because of Daniel.  I might’ve even accepted the offer if they’d ever approached me.  Money’s tight.”“Well, they’re unlikely to approach you now,” Sam sighs.  “Rashid and I quit under less than savory circumstances, as did Jesse and Ricky.”“Because your coven killed their boss for trying to kill her,” Paola says to Daniel, pointing to Paige.  “Right, right.  Connecting the dots.”  She looks at Rashid, studying him closely.  “You got a neat shade, didn’t you.  Your eyes.  They really pop.  And Paige—are those purple?”Armand enters the frame and takes a seat next to Paola, preening slightly.  “Lilac, I think.”Paige shrugs, pretending to waive off Armand’s doting praise.  “Dad’s are kinda blue-violet.”Paola glances at Daniel, and then back at Paige.  “Do yours get like Armand’s sometimes, too?”Armand’s smile flattens.  “Yes, as do Jesse’s.  Not a phenomenon that I encourage, however.”“Mom,” Jesse groans, straightening up and turning their back on the laptop screen.  “Stop.”Ricky takes Jesse’s shoulders and turns them back around.  “My baby’s the steadiest, though.”“Mmm,” Paola says, fluttering her eyelashes at Ricky.  “I would have guessed that was you.”“Introductions have gone far enough for now,” Armand says.  “Paola, please get back to it.”Paola waves at the fledglings.  “Wonderful to finally meet all of you.”“Literal understatement of the century,” Ricky replies, waving back.“You heard your mum,” Sam says to the fledglings.  “Interviewing isn’t a spectator sport.”Rashid tries not to laugh as Paige and Ricky file out first, getting the impulse under control when Armand gestures to capture Jesse’s attention.“Yes?” Jesse asks, hesitating with one hand still poised on the back of the sofa.  “Is everything all right?”  They lower their voice.  “Is it about Paola?”“No, she’s fine,” Armand says, and then rises.  “I’ve been thinking about something since we last spoke.  I’m on my way outside.  Call me shortly.”Sam watches Armand leave the room.  Daniel doesn’t look fazed, so Sam isn’t inclined to worry much when Jesse takes off in the opposite direction from Ricky and Paige, who have gone back upstairs, making their way into the farthest reaches of the house from everyone else.Rashid takes Sam’s hand.  He brings it up to his lips, kisses it, and then wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulders.  “They’re a handful.”“Yeah,” Daniel says.  “You say that like I don’t already fuckin’ know.”  He sighs heavily.  “But they’re worth it.  You already know that.”Sam curls his hand around Rashid’s, twining their fingers as he presses his lips to it.  “Wouldn’t be here otherwise.  Of course we do.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam isn’t quite awake on what’s set to be their third evening with Daniel—mostly letting him ask follow-up questions—when he feels Rashid’s fingertips skim from his temple to his jaw.  He squirms closer, pressing his forehead against the tip of Rashid’s nose, curling his arm around Rashid’s waist.  They’re chest to chest, legs tangled, holding each other beneath the duvet like they’re each afraid the other might vanish.“Being interviewed is stressful even with low stakes,” Rashid whispers.  “I don’t know how Armand tolerated it.”Sam smooths his hand over Rashid’s cotton-covered back, pressing a kiss to his neck.  “I know, darlin’.  You’re brave.”“You were so much braver,” Rashid sighs, tucking his chin over the top of Sam’s head.  “Following me to Dubai.”“Hush.  I would’ve followed you to the ends of the earth,” Sam murmurs.  “Not just because it was Raglan’s orders.”“I can’t imagine my life without you,” Rashid says after a beat.  “And my death without you would’ve been…bleak.”“I was never going to let Marius have you, that bastard,” Sam replies.  “Even if you’d shown no psychic promise, I would’ve…”“There’s no shame in saying you would’ve put me out of my misery that night.  You would’ve been honorable about it.”“I would’ve killed the future love of my life without a second thought.  There’s nothing honorable about that.”Rashid tilts Sam’s chin up and kisses him, so forgiving it makes Sam’s chest ache.  “I would’ve been yours either way.”“Enough with that,” Sam wavers between kisses, tearful and desperate.  “I won’t lose you, Rashid.  Won’t consider it.”“Shhh, mera dil,” Rashid says, kissing the blood tears from Sam’s eyes, licking the traces from his lips.  “I’m so sorry.”Sam smiles at him, giving him a playful smack in the back of the head.  “There you go, calling me your fuckin’ heart.”“It’s all through your plays,” Rashid teases.  “Even that conversation you had with Claudia about the rats, and she wrote it down—”“Shut up,” Sam says.  “Rats love hearts, sure.  Just the thought of it makes me cringe.  Don’t even know why I fuckin’ said that.”“I do,” Rashid offers, nuzzling Sam’s cheek.  “You were trying to make her laugh.  You make me laugh all the time.”  He kisses Sam fondly.“Knock it off,” Sam begs, but he’s disingenuous.  He could listen to Rashid’s praise until his silver clock in a room as vast as the universe stops.“I’ve always liked that one,” Rashid breathes against Sam’s ear, intercepting the passing thought-reference to his play.  “Always loved it.”Sam swallows, trembling against the solid press of Rashid’s body.  If Rashid is trying to get him off just saying nice things about his repertoire, it’s working.  He gasps with pleasure when Rashid eases him onto his back, ducks under the covers, and tugs his boxers down.“They should’ve let you—”  Sam whines breathlessly as Rashid takes his cock in his mouth “—let you study Arts & Cultural Management.”Rashid strokes Sam’s thighs soothingly, humming in soft agreement.  He dips his tongue so tenderly in Sam’s slit, over and over, that the raw bliss of it makes Sam’s eyes sting.  He moves one hand to cup Sam’s balls, rubbing over them with the pad of his thumb.Sam should be mortified that he’s already coming so hard he’s crying, but Rashid has both hands molded to his hips now, steadying him.  He doesn’t know how Rashid does this, reduces him to a quivering, untethered wreck before gathering him close, telling him he has him, he’s here.“Why should I have enrolled in that course at King’s instead?” Rashid whispers teasingly as soon as Sam can think again, smiling patiently as he strokes Sam’s hair back from his damp forehead.  “So I could’ve been your talent agent instead of your Talamasca partner?”“You would’ve…”  Sam grasps the front of Rashid’s t-shirt, heaving for breath as he pulls him close for a kiss.  “Been good at it, don’t try to claim otherwise.”  He strokes Rashid’s cheek with shaking fingers.  “Ah, sweetheart.  Doesn’t matter as long as I have you.”Rashid turns his head a fraction, kissing Sam’s palm.  “Do you feel better now?” he asks gently.  “What else do you need?”Sam stares at him, overwhelmed.  “Oh, about a solid week on your gorgeous cock to show you my undying appreciation.”Rashid looks dazed to hear that, but happy.  He rocks back on his knees and pulls Sam forward into his lap.  “Hold that thought.”“I’d start right away if you asked.”“We still have to talk to Daniel.”“You complimented my writing.”“I do that reasonably often, Sam.”Sam nuzzles Rashid’s neck.  “Please.”“We need to hunt later, too,” Rashid says.“Why must you always be so sensible.”“You haven’t eaten much for a few days.”“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”“You’re lightheaded and emotional, love.”“Side effect of being well fucked, isn’t it.”“I’m not arguing with you.  Let’s get up.”Once they’re presentable, Sam lets Rashid settle him on the sofa downstairs with a blanket in front of an impatient-looking Daniel on the laptop screen.  Sam returns Daniel’s judgmental gaze until Rashid comes back with a much larger mug of warm blood than usual for him.“I get it,” Daniel says to Rashid as he takes a sip from his own mug.  “You’ve got an artistic type, too.  Sensitive, thinks eating is optional?”Sam flips Daniel off as he drinks.  He has been neglecting his appetite this week in favor of his libido, but Daniel’s rude and lacks crucial context.“We got married about a week ago without telling Petronia and Arion,” Rashid explains with a touch of sarcasm, taking a cue from Sam’s thoughts.  “Without telling anyone, really, so…forgive us if we’re in something of a honeymoon mindset at the moment.”Daniel looks taken aback.  “You’ve been telling me how you’ve been companions for a decade.  You’ve had two or three honeymoons already.”“We’ve never been legally married before,” Sam says, shrugging.  He reaches for Rashid’s left hand, running his fingers over the well-worn, scratched up Cartier platinum band to which his own is an exact match except for the tiny diamond set in it.  “Felt far overdue.”“The others found out because my initials changed in the coven leadership group text.  Went a bit mad, in fact,” Rashid sighs, half smiling.“Couldn’t even let me have the satisfaction of your initials actually being RR, could you,” Daniel laments.  “You really traded Ranghar for Barclay.”Sam makes a face at Daniel over the rim of his mug.  “Hardly?  We both took both.  It’s just that mine’s in the terminal position.  Don’t be an arse.”“Huh.  No hyphenation?” Daniel asks.“No,” Sam replies.  “Looks fuckin’ daft.”“Well,” Daniel sighs, scribbling notes.  “Congrats.”“Thanks, I think,” Rashid says.  “What about you?”“What about me?” Daniel deflects.“You and Armand,” Sam presses.“Are we getting married, you mean?”Rashid side-eyes Sam.  “Evasive.”“No, divorced,” Sam retorts.  “Yes.”Daniel stares at the ceiling.  “Yeah.”Sam leans forward, keen.  “Really.”Rashid rubs Sam’s hip under the blanket.  “Not so high and mighty now.”“Oh, Armand will be plenty dictatorial about it,” Daniel quips.  “Just wait.”Sam thinks it’s sweet that they’re doing this, actually.  Better now than risk not having it done if and when their world falls apart.  He can’t help but notice Daniel looks strained at the thought of a lavish event, though.  Sam finds Rashid’s hand under the blanket and squeezes it.“Petronia wants to foist a party on us,” Sam says cautiously.  “They feel it’s any good maker’s duty to give their fledglings that on such a happy occasion.  Which is tiresome.”  He draws Rashid’s hand up to his belly, pressing it flat there.  “However, I’ve had a thought.”“What, that marrying my maker is awkward from a who-throws-the-party perspective?” Daniel asks wryly.  “I guess you could say that.”“You don’t want an elaborate ceremony,” Rashid says.  “Sam can tell.  Armand, on the other hand, does want a big to-do of some kind.”  He shrugs accommodatingly.  “We don’t want any kind of fuss, but Petronia won’t let up.  They won’t rest until they get to throw a party.”“You’ll have to clarify,” Daniel replies.  “I’m shit at this when I haven’t started my night by draining somebody caffeinated to the gills.”“Do it here,” Sam says bluntly.  “Keep the ceremony restricted to family and family-adjacent folks only.  Afterward…”  He spreads his hands.  “Joint festivities.  Huge blowout.  What good is a place this sprawling if you can’t invite absolutely everyone to whom Armand would want to show off?  I don’t fuckin’ care if we don’t know anybody.  Petronia doesn’t need to know that.  We’ll be upstairs for half the night anyhow.”Daniel shakes his head at them, faintly amazed.  “Incorrigible doesn’t begin to cover it for you two, huh.  No latent Catholic guilt here.”Sam ignores the taunt, finishing what’s in his mug so that he’ll feel steadier.  He’s contemplating sliding into Rashid’s lap and starting to kiss him while Daniel’s still trying to ask questions, but Armand enters the frame and sits down on the sofa next to Daniel just then. He looks fragile and ill-rested.  Armand props his elbows on his knees and sets his forehead against his gracefully fisted hands, attempting to collect himself.Daniel sets a hand between Armand’s shoulder blades.  “It’s done?  They’re really…”“They’re off,” Armand murmurs, and then glances up at Sam and Rashid.  “Hmmm.”Motion from across the room draws Sam’s eye.  He watches Petronia and Arion stride into the living room from the entryway, still dressed as if they’ve just come in from hunting in the cold.  He tries to read Arion’s mind and hits a brick wall, which…oh, that’s a terrible sign.Rashid sends a ripple of disquiet into Sam’s mind.  Something’s happened.Sam gets to his feet, letting the blanket slide to the floor.  “Where are the kids?”Petronia pauses mid-stride as they and Arion make their way toward the door to their quarters in the cellar.  “Hunting.  Well-behaved tonight.”Rashid rises, too, taking Sam’s hand.  “We still need to hunt, so we’ll go join them.  What part of the city have they decided to try this time?”Arion hangs back as Petronia leaves the room, his eyes fixed gravely on Sam’s. Please stay away from the British Museum, I beg of you.“Petronia!” Sam calls.  “Come back and speak to Daniel and Armand!  They have a proposition!  Wedding party, isn’t it grand?”  He grips Rashid’s hand with all his strength, pulling him from the room.  We need to go, he says in Rashid’s head.  Something’s up.  They’re hiding it.They barely have time to pull on their boots and coats.  Sam drags Rashid out of the house, sick with concern.  He winds his arms around Rashid and rises in the air, Rashid’s intake of breath against his ear a sobering point of focus.  Sam is much less steady than he’d realized.Stay away from the British Museum, Sam tells Rashid silently as he propels them swiftly toward its vicinity. That was Arion’s request. Fuck that.Rashid closes his eyes, and Sam feels him try to scan as far as his reach will allow.  The museum’s not the issue, Sam, that’s not—do you feel—Go hunt, Ricky says sternly from somewhere not that far away, but nonetheless still far below them.  We’re heading home now.  We’re fine.You’re an awful liar, Sam replies, directing his descent so quickly that Rashid hisses and tightens his hold.  Who’s with you right now?We’re here, Paige answers reluctantly.  We’re heading home.  You and Rashid should make a night of it.  Hunt the West End, or—Why hasn’t Jesse answered? Rashid interjects as Sam touches down so jarringly they stumble and hit the grass.  Where is Jesse?“Here,” Sam whispers, staggering to his feet, holding out his hand.  He helps Rashid find his footing and then holds him stock-still, staring shakily through the gaps in the greenery that separate them from the open, paved interior of Bloomsbury Square Garden.“This,” Rashid breathes, staring at the back of the park bench of which they have a partially obstructed view, his flickering absinthe eyes catching the street lamps’ glow and the glitter of frost on concrete and the reflection of the two seated figures.  “No.”Jesse is speaking evenly and intensely to the pale-haired, plaid-coated man beside them, gesturing as they seem to explain something in detail.  They have a rucksack slung over their shoulder, and as they rise and extend one gloved hand, so does the man.“You were never going to learn mastery of your many gifts under their tutelage, child, as well-meaning as they are,” Marius laughs innocuously enough, shaking Jesse’s offered hand.  “It gladdened me to hear from Lestat last night that you had come around.”“You have much to teach me,” Jesse replies earnestly, “and to show me, Grandfather.  I love my coven, but I’ve felt stifled here.  I’m ready.”“I’ve lacked a worthy heir for too long,” Marius says wistfully, releasing Jesse’s hand.  “You are the prodigy of a fledgling I’ve prayed for.”Sam longs to step forward as he’d done sixteen years ago, but Rashid’s arms close around him.  He wants to shout in fury, lest history repeat, but he knows as well as Rashid must know that this is not the same thing.  They’d been kept in the dark about this rendezvous because they never would’ve allowed what even Armand and Daniel have clearly, and with great sacrifice and distress, given their assent to let Jesse attempt.We aren’t going to get the information we need any other way, Rashid says tearfully in Sam’s mind.  You know that.  I know that.The girls saw Jesse off, Sam thinks helplessly, watching Marius wrap his arms around Jesse and their bag.  Ricky and Paige walked them here.“Marius and Jesse don’t know we’re here,” Rashid whispers, pulling Sam further into the greenery as Marius rises into the freezing night sky with Jesse, “because they can’t see me.  And I think maybe…”  He blinks at Sam in wonder.  “Whatever it is about me, it hid us both?”Sam blinks away tears, his mind racing.  So, Jesse has gone on an undercover mission to stay with their maker, to get the lay of whatever the fuck he’s got hidden in his home, as long as they can gain his trust to that extent.  Unlikely, but what the hell else is there left to try?“Darlin’, you’re the one who’s shaky now,” Sam says, kissing Rashid firmly on the lips.  “Let’s hunt the theater crowd and get back.”“Why the rush?” Rashid asks.  “I’m so mad at them for letting Jesse go that I could…”  His fangs extend.  “Better I take it out on prey.”“Same,” Sam admits.  “Why the rush?  Daniel put a pin in wanting to discuss your camouflage.  I’d bet anything it has to do with this.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam holds Rashid under the cover of softly rustling leaves in Bloomsbury Square Garden for what feels like eternity.  For as long as Rashid’s strange gift keeps them undetectable, Sam will keep Rashid calm and safe until he’s sure that there’s no chance of Marius circling back.However, if Sam is honest, Rashid is doing a better job of keeping him calm.  That’s how it had been for the entirety of their assignment in Dubai, practically, never mind that Sam had been the senior agent.  What else is new?  Nothing under the moon and stars.  He’s useless.Rashid is reading his mind, and isn’t being subtle about it.  He makes a sound of protest, fussing with Sam’s windblown hair.  “You’re not,” Rashid insists.  “You’ve been under high-stress conditions for far, far longer than I have without any respite.  You know that, right?”“The more time passes, the older we get, the more of a fuckin’ mess we become?” Sam asks morosely.  “That’s your theory?  Might hold water.”Rashid shrugs.  “It’s not one-size-fits-all, but for those of us given to excessive introspection…”  He pauses.  “We do tend to find each other.”Sam laughs.  “I wish we’d had a few more of those in Paris,” he says, face pressed into Rashid’s coat.  “Might’ve worked out better all around.”“Let’s go, Sam,” Rashid coaxes, his lips brushing against Sam’s temple.  “Jesse won’t have let him turn back.  It’s cold, and we’re both starving.”Sam nods, because Rashid is right.  He takes a step back so that he can offer Rashid his arm.  “Do you fancy a bite in the West End, darlin’?”Rashid cracks a smile as they stroll through the grass and onto the path.  “It was thoughtful of Paige to suggest that.  Really sweet, even.”“As if it might somehow cheer us up,” Sam sighs grimly, leading Rashid toward Southampton Place.  He’ll take them through Seven Dials.“Don’t blame her and Ricky,” Rashid says as they cross at the intersection and pass the Hoxton Holborn.  “There’s always the hotel bar,” he continues, casting his gaze askance.  “Easy pickings tonight, it looks like.  We could eat and get trollied while we’re at it?”Sam brings them to a halt in front of the main entrance, peering through the glass doors and into the bright lobby.  He wrinkles his nose at the crowd.  “Don’t know if I’m in the mood to see an entire hen party make eyes at you the second we walk in.  Or that swish bartender.”Rashid slides one arm tight around Sam’s waist and cups his jaw with his free hand, pulling him into a thoroughly dizzying kiss.  “They won’t,” he gasps when they finally break for breath, panting against each other’s lips.  “We’re newlyweds.  I intend to be clear about that.”Sam grins against Rashid’s mouth, his foul mood dissipating as a tastelessly-dressed executive exits the hotel and curses at them for being in the way.  “Chase down that one,” he suggests, tilting his head after the ill-mannered businessman, “drain him, ditch him, come back, and…”“Depends on how much you want to scandalize the ladies in there,” Rashid says, pecking Sam on the cheek.  “How many shots you want for dessert.”  He relinquishes his hold on Sam, grabs Sam’s hand instead, and starts after the executive who’d insulted them.“Somebody’s unhinged tonight,” Sam teases, dashing to keep up with him.“Yeah, everybody who signed off on Jesse’s idea,” Rashid mutters darkly.Sam pursues the executive as he turns a corner, urging Rashid to pick up his pace.  “Nobody coerced them.  That was a Reeves Special.”“I wouldn’t credit the scheme to Molloy influence, either,” Rashid admits reluctantly.  “Daniel probably shouted about it for a few hours when Armand told him what Jesse was proposing.  The girls, though—Ricky has Jesse’s back no matter what.  Paige, too, I think.”“The tragedy is that Armand knows his maker well enough to realize this could work, and therefore argued Jesse’s case even though it must’ve killed him to do it,” Sam says quietly, startled as they round the corner to find the executive waiting for them in the middle of the deserted sidewalk with an annoyed, but uneasy expression.  “Ah, there you are.  I wondered if you’d just vanish without so much as an apology.”“Did someone pay you to follow me?” asks the executive, trying his best to sound threatening.  “I won’t be intimidated.  You have no proof.”“Sounds like a dirty one,” Rashid remarks knowingly to Sam.  “And to think I’d only singled him out because he was inconsiderate to us.”Sam rifles through the executive’s thoughts, frowning.  “Too many white collar crimes to list…ooh, and your least favorite add-on.”“Unregistered sex offender?  Least favorite to hear about,” Rashid agrees, eyeing the executive, “but favorite to consume, without question.”Sam watches Rashid pin their prey to the brick wall, mesmerized by the accuracy with which he sinks his fangs in the executive’s neck in the same movement.  No matter how many times he sees Rashid strike like this, swift and efficient, he falls hopelessly in love all over again.Rashid turns his head questioningly after about a minute, covering the puncture wounds with his palm as he eases his mouth away.  He makes a startled, but pleased sound as Sam steps up to him, kisses the blood from his lips, and licks into his mouth with feverish hunger.“Get back to it,” Sam murmurs, turning to the half-drained wretch, picking at the bloodstained collar to spread it wider.  “I’ll take the other side.”Rashid peels his slick palm from the wound and resumes feeding, but he reaches over for Sam’s hand once Sam has settled in, twining their fingers.  I’ve had too much, Rashid says in Sam’s mind.  This won’t be enough for you.  We should go back to the hotel for more.Guess I could let you flirt enough to snag me a girl or two for nourishment, Sam relents, stroking the back of Rashid’s hand.  I’m no good at that.  I’m not even that good at charming boys these days, more’s the pity.  It’s a fuckin’ wonder I was even able to charm you.Are you calling my sensibilities old for a Millennial? Rashid teases.No, not at all, Sam replies.  I’m calling myself romantically inept.Rashid finishes and closes the man’s wounds, waiting for Sam to finish and do the same just as the death rattle hits.  He pulls Sam into his arms as the body slides to the pavement, kissing him deeply, fueling the rush of blood in Sam’s veins.  Sam’s belly simmers.“Stop it,” Rashid says fondly.  “I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”“Take me back to the bar, love,” Sam murmurs.  “Get me a few drinks.”“And?  You want something else.”“A room.  So we can—well.”“We can go home and do that.”“Not yet.  They’ll all want to talk.”“Yes.  I thought you wanted to talk.”Sam hangs on Rashid’s neck, pouting.Rashid kisses him again.  “The body?”“Eh.  If some crime syndicate’s after him…”“Then let’s at least put him in the Thames.”“True, drowning’s plausible.  He was drunk.”“I know, because you’re drunk already.  It’s cute.”“Fuck off.  Tipsy at best.  You think you’re sober?”“No!” Rashid scoffs, grinning as he bends to collect the body.  “Not at all.”Sam covers his mouth, giggling.  “Oh, bless your heart.  Look at that blush.”Once they’ve disposed of the ex-executive, they return to the Hoxton.  It only takes thirty minutes at the bar for Rashid to secure Sam a number of perfumed wrists to discreetly bite.  Between drinks, Rashid keeps his promise, lavishing so much attention on Sam—kisses against his neck and his nape, hands on his hips and his waist—that they’re both desperately aroused by the time they stumble into the elevator with a key.Sam sheds his coat on the floor, almost tripping in his hurry to unlace and kick out of his boots.  “Get over here,” he says, flopping down on the bed.  “Christ, I don’t know how I waited after watching you take that man down.  Sexiest fuckin’ thing with fangs, aren’t you.”Rashid shakes his head at Sam, smiling helplessly as he crawls onto the mattress, looming over him.  “I can’t keep up with you sometimes,” he teases, setting a hand on Sam’s chest, stroking gently over his ribs.  “You’re going to wear me out, mera dil.  So demanding.”Sam props himself up on his elbows, apologetic.  “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs, catching Rashid’s hand on the buttons of his shirt.  “We don’t need to—mmm.”  He whimpers as Rashid kisses him, settling in between his thighs.  “Truly, if I’ve been a nuisance—”“Shhh,” Rashid whispers, unbuttoning Sam’s shirt the rest of the way.  “I can’t get enough of you, either.  When have I ever objected to this?”Sam moans eagerly into Rashid’s next kiss, grinding against the pressure of Rashid’s thigh.  “Ah, ah.  Never, now that you mention it.  Ah, fuck.”“I just want to hold you,” Rashid whispers against Sam’s ear, breathing heatedly against it.  “I love the way you feel right now.  You’re so warm.”“I’ll feel even better if you undress me,” Sam gasps, squirming.  He wants to come breathless and trembling against Rashid’s skin.  He aches.Rashid kisses Sam’s cheek.  He lets Sam sink into the pillows while he finishes removing his own clothes, and then takes Sam’s off for him, too.  Sam tugs Rashid down beside him, and then presses him to lie on his back.  “I’ve made you do too much of the work,” he murmurs, snuggling up against Rashid’s side.  He rests his head on Rashid’s shoulder, sighing contentedly as Rashid curls an arm around him.  “You’re warm, too.  Could almost imagine you’re alive.” Sam runs his palm tenderly from Rashid’s breastbone down to his belly.  He feels Rashid draw a shuddering breath, feels the heat of Rashid’s cock nudge his wrist.  “Oh, darlin’.  Let me touch you,” Sam sighs, wrapping his fingers around him.“Do you…”  Rashid writhes against the duvet as Sam strokes him, clutching Sam desperately close.  “I hope you don’t regret that I’m…”Sam lifts his head, his heart clenching in his chest when he realizes what Rashid means.  “Don’t say that,” he whispers.  “Rashid, listen.  I love the way you were then.  I love the way you are now.  Turning hasn’t changed a fuckin’ thing.  I love you, all right?”Rashid kisses Sam fervently, trembling and gasping as Sam tightens his grasp.  He’s not often so overwhelmed by pleasure he’s at a loss for words, or at least he wasn’t so often like this before he was turned, and Sam loves every second of watching him fall apart.“There you are,” Sam soothes, working his thumb into the slickness gathered just beneath the head.  “So close, so close.  How about you just relax for me, gorgeous.  Let it all out.  I know it’s been a rough night.  Let me take care of you, sweetheart.”“Sam,” Rashid sobs, finally spilling over Sam’s hand and his chest.  “Sam.”Sam groans, grinding against Rashid’s hip at the sight.  “Oh, darlin’.  Fuck.”Rashid eases Sam’s hand off his cock and hitches Sam’s thigh across his belly, rutting up against it.  “Ah,” he gasps, shivering with aftershocks.“Yeah,” Sam mumbles deliriously, arching against him.  “Fuck, please.”Rashid laughs, holding him tight.  “You like that.  You always have.”“I can’t fuckin’ help it!” Sam moans, still shaking uncontrollably.  “Oh.”“It’s okay,” Rashid says softly, rubbing Sam’s back as he settles.  “So do I.”Sam winces, flexes his toes, and buries his face in Rashid’s neck.  “Mmm.”They doze for a while after that, not even bothering to move.  Sam would usually start to worry about the bloodstains or how many hours they have left before dawn, but for once he’s too well fed, too tipsy, and too besotted for his mind to latch onto anything except for his brave, clever, handsome, strong companion.  He’d never put much stock in the potentially primitive back-brain part of vampirism around pairing off, and hadn’t really wanted to think about those baser instincts aside from the obvious, overwhelming need for blood to survive.However, the past decade and change has been a wake-up call, because fucked if Sam isn’t just as bad about Rashid as any of the other vampires he’s known about their romantic partners. He can’t throw proverbial stones at Armand anymore, not for the way he’d behaved a century ago about Louis or for the way he behaves about Daniel, period. Sam knows that if anyone had threatened Rashid in Dubai, the situation would’ve gotten just as unspeakably ugly as when he and Armand had defended Polidori from that attack a few months ago.“I don’t think it’s much different from being human,” Rashid says sleepily.“No sense of boundaries,” Sam yawns, cuddling closer.  “You’re precious.”“You think loudly on purpose,” Rashid grouses.  “We’ve established that.”“So sue me,” Sam agrees, caressing Rashid’s hip.  “I’m a lazy-arse.”Rashid’s phone starts to ring somewhere on the floor amidst their discarded clothes.  Sam groans, clinging to Rashid as tightly as he can, but that doesn’t prevent Rashid from being his hyper-competent self and summoning the phone from wherever it is into his hand.“Who’s this?” Rashid answers groggily.“Where the hell are you?” Petronia asks.“Date night,” Sam says loudly.  “Fuck off.”“We’re at the Hoxton,” Rashid replies, contrite.“The hotel?” Petronia asks, distinctly relieved.“Didn’t make it to the West End,” Sam clarifies.“You lot have been gone for four hours,” Petronia says.  “Three more, and the sun’s up.  There’s some unfinished business here.”  They pause, and Sam hears Ricky and Paige say some less than flattering things to them and to Arion in the background.  “We owe you an explanation.”“That’s true,” Rashid agrees, lazily massaging Sam’s back with his free hand, “but so do Daniel and Armand.  I doubt they’re still on FaceTime.”“You’re correct,” Petronia replies dully, annoyed.Sam takes the phone out of Rashid’s hand, bringing the receiving end to his mouth.  “Tell you what, maker,” he says, running his fingers through Rashid’s messy hair.  “Just to be safe, we’ll call down to reception, book a second night here, and put out the Do Not Disturb sign so we can sleep through daylight.  We’ll be home by midnight tomorrow night, at which point you’d better have the parents back on a conference call.”Rashid nudges the phone a few inches to one side and kisses Sam.“Are we…done here?” Petronia asks in mild, hesitant exasperation.“Awww.  That’s what Raglan said, isn’t it?” Sam reminisces fondly.“Oh, huh,” Rashid muses, and then laughs.  “I think you’re right.”“Are you drunk?” Petronia asks.  “You know what, never mind.”Sam blinks at the phone when it’s clear they’ve hung up.  “Rude.”Rashid takes it from him and dials reception.  “Hello?  Yes, this is…”Sam tugs the spare blanket over them and holds Rashid even closer.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam wants to feel annoyed at Rashid for setting an alarm to wake them at dusk the next evening, but he just can’t. His foresight gives them a few hours to lounge in bed, fuck in the shower, and feed at the bar again before checking out. They walk the whole way home, because it only takes about forty-five minutes. Unexpectedly, they run into Kira and Finn as they’re about to turn from Marylebone Road onto York Gate.“Shouldn’t you be opening the club?” Sam asks, maintaining his hold on Rashid’s arm.“We’re on our way to do that now,” Finn says, nodding to Rashid first, and then to Sam.“Is everything all right?” Rashid asks hesitantly. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been there to—”“We had a few agitators in the early hours before closing the previous shift,” Kira says sharply.“Last night?” Sam asks, shooting Rashid an alarmed glance. “Is that what you came to report?”“It was technically morning by then,” Finn points out. “But yeah. We made Petronia aware.”“What do you mean by agitators?” Rashid asks, his brows knit. “About Daniel’s book again?”“Nah,” Kira sighs reluctantly, shoving her hands deep in her duffle coat pockets. “This place.”Sam tilts his head, perplexed, gesturing with his free hand. “This place as in…Regent’s Park?”“No, as in, you’re always at this fuckin’ mansion,” Finn clarifies. “Never at the club anymore.”Rashid sighs, staring toward their destination in the park. “Discontent with the gentrification.”“Yeah, boss,” Kira says emphatically. “That’s exactly it. Coddling the Molloy brats instead.”“Oh, so it does come back to Daniel,” Sam retorts, folding his arms. “Just be direct next time.”“Petronia and Arion still take their shift on the door nightly,” Rashid points out. “Not enough?”Finn glances at Kira, worrying his lip piercing with his fang. “We’d like it if you were around more,” he admits. “That trainee doesn’t listen to us.”“The Scottish one?” Sam asks. “Eilidh? Fine, I’ll come ’round later and straighten her out.”“No,” Rashid cuts in hastily, setting a hand on Sam’s arm, squeezing it. “I’ll take care of that.”“Don’t have the placation thing anymore my arse,” Sam mutters. “Right, Rashid’ll do it.”Kira frowns at Sam, her blood-orange eyes wary. “Is it the new one, still, that’s trouble?”Sam opens his mouth, and then snaps it shut. “Paige is the least of my worries right now.”Shaking a cigarette out of his half-empty pack, Finn exhales. “Must be the redhead, then.”“Jesse is out of town at the moment,” Rashid says curtly. “A family matter, so let it drop.”Whistling judgmentally, Kira grabs Finn’s tattooed hand. “See you later tonight, boss.”Finn glances over his shoulder at Sam as Kira drags him away, waving apologetically.“God fuckin’ damn it!” Sam hisses as soon as the bartenders are out of earshot. “As if we didn’t have enough problems on our hands for one week!”Rashid takes Sam’s arm and leads him on at a brisk, efficient pace. “Please don’t think about that now, love,” he says softly. “One thing at a time.”Sam is still fretful by the time they reach the house, but there’s no time to decompress when he and Rashid walk in the door. He’s ambushed instantly by the remaining fledglings, Ricky and Paige both hugging him at once, stiflingly tight. He pats their arms, but they don’t ease off.“Did Rashid put you up to this while we were on the approach?” Sam asks, resigned.“Aw, no,” Ricky croons, half genuine, half taking the piss. “I could hear your poor, stressed thoughts while you were fussing at Kira and Finn.”“I’ll gut them like fish next time I see them,” Paige says, her tone entirely too pleasant for the words coming out of her mouth. “Will that help?”“You will not,” Rashid says, hauling Paige off Sam by the back of her shirt. “I’m going to sort the bar staff out later. We defended you to them.”“I know,” Paige sighs, throwing her arms around Rashid, which startles him enough to make him let go of her shirt. “You’re the best, Uncle R.”“Sorry, but Uncle S is my favorite,” Ricky mock gushes, still hugging Sam half to death.“Fuckin’ brats,” Sam mutters, fond in spite of his irritation. He pats the top of Ricky’s head, manipulates her arms until they fall loose, and then gives her a gentle telekinetic shove back against the wall. “Need some help with that one, darlin’? I can extract her, too.”Paige sends Sam flying before he knows what hit him, pinning him next to Ricky with a bit more force than necessary. “Nope,” she says, stepping away from Rashid, leaving him unscathed. “Voluntary self-removal, thanks,” Paige continues, flexing her hands at her sides.Sam feels his limbs unseize and exhales, staring at her. “That’s asking for trouble.”Ricky shakes out her arms, giving Sam a disdainful look. “That’s all you’ve got?”Rashid steps between the fledglings and Sam, taking hold of Sam’s wrist. “We have another chat with your parents in five minutes,” he says, leading Sam past the fledglings and out of the foyer. “Be there, don’t be there, whichever. But we absolutely need a debrief on Jesse.”“Yeah,” Ricky agrees glumly, dashing to catch up in the living room. “You do. We shouldn’t have kept it from you. It’s just, you’ve been so…”Sam glares sidelong at Ricky, causing her to trail off. “Just so loved-up, so happy? Is that it?”“Yeah, and?” Paige says, zipping into the room, confrontational. “Was that the wrong call?”Rashid sits down on the sofa, opening his MacBook. “Well-intentioned, but wrong-headed.”“I’m sorry,” Petronia says, striding in from the kitchen with a pair of mugs in hand. “I mean it.” They stop by the sofa first, pressing one mug into Rashid’s hand, tilting his chin up. Once they’ve peered into his eyes and seem satisfied he’s not hung over or otherwise impaired, they pat his jaw, pick up the mug on the coffee table, and make their way to where Sam stands with one fledgling on either side of him. “You. Drink.”Sam takes the mug with mild resentment, but before he can lift it to his lips, Petronia grasps his chin and tilts it up just like they’d done with Rashid’s. He swallows, unblinking, while Petronia’s intimidating fire-opal eyes search his own. At length, they kiss his cheek.“No harm done, then,” Petronia says. “I often forget what willful fledglings I’ve made.”Sam makes a disgusted noise and takes a sip of blood. “Parenting material, you’re not.”“What do you reckon, kids?” Petronia asks Ricky and Paige. “Do you agree with him?”Ricky shrugs. “Don’t know. I put godparenting in the same bracket as grandparenting.”“Ooh, you’ll regret that one,” Sam mumbles into his mug. “But dig that grave deeper.”“Petronia has kept me out of trouble,” Paige admits with a touch of weary gratitude.“Sam,” Rashid says, beckoning. “They’re ringing through. Petronia, is Arion—”“At the club, putting out some fires,” Petronia says, taking Sam by the shoulder, steering him to the sofa. They wait until Sam has taken a seat beside Rashid, and then sit down next to Sam in turn. “I know you told the bar staff you’d go later, but Arion’s got this, understood?”Rashid nods slowly at Petronia, and then casts his eyes on Armand and Daniel, who are waiting patiently on the screen. “Good evening,” he sighs.“Have a good bender?” Daniel asks with a barely concealed smirk, elbowing Armand.Armand rolls his eyes and shoves back, but he’s smiling. “That’s uncharitable, beloved.”Sam runs his fingertip around the rim of his mug, and then licks it. “Sure. It was overdue.”“Have you had your first hangover as a vamp yet, Rashid?” Daniel asks. “What do you think?”“I think you’re stalling,” Rashid says with venom. “Whose idea was it, Jesse undertaking this?”Armand closes his eyes, visibly pained. “Jesse’s, but I agreed to it. The responsibility is mine.”Sam realizes he’s fuming. “You sent a fledgling off to fuck-knows-where with that fuckin’—”“We know what he is,” Daniel interjects angrily, “which is why Jesse’s not alone with him.”Sam blinks at Daniel in consternation. “Wait, so. Maybe you could’ve led with that part?”“Where did Marius take Jesse?” Rashid asks. “We assumed his residence, given the goal.”“There’ll be visits to his compound where it’s just the two of them,” Petronia says quietly, evenly, “but the agreement is that Jesse’s never to spend daylight hours there. Lestat will see to it that’s followed to the letter. Louis is also on hand. Gabrielle, too, if she or he—fuck knows what setting’s flipped on at the minute, I can’t keep up—is still lurking about to mess with the renovations. There are safeguards in place.”“Renovations?” Rashid echoes. “I thought Louis and Lestat were in France.”“Ah, they are,” Sam sighs, belatedly realizing what this means. “The castle.”“Lestat has Marius working on a job,” Armand clarifies. “So, I thought…” He fiddles with his rings until Daniel takes his hand. “Jesse staying there while Marius was in residence might be an acceptable compromise. The safest that we could manage for them, in any case.”“Does Lestat not even know where Marius currently lives?” Rashid asks pointedly.“No, he does not,” Armand says gravely. “None of us are privy to that information.”“Love, you know it hasn’t been that island in Greece for centuries,” Sam reminds Rashid. “And while the Order’s files on Marius are extensive…”“You don’t know where he’s got the fogeys stashed away, either, huh,” Daniel says. “I didn’t see anything to that effect in my copies of the files.”Sam takes another long swig of blood, which has gone cold by now, and then pauses to think. “Marius wouldn’t have let Jesse stay there, anyway, I’m thinking,” he says slowly. “Quick visits maybe a few times a week make sense, because the rest of the time, he’ll be, what…” Sam sets his empty mug on the coffee table, and then leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Painting, I can only assume? You don’t hire that arse to do anything else, and even then, no fuckin’ thanks. I’ll stick to those Chagall lithos I picked up when they were fresh.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, he’ll be helping Jesse hone their gifts, maybe teaching them some new ones, in the down-time. And the visits to wherever the hell he hides the old folks, he’ll probably fly ’em there by different routes so as to confound Jesse from figuring out wherever the fuck…”Daniel is grinning very, very wide on the laptop screen. “Jesse will figure it out.”Armand squeezes Daniel’s hand. “If anyone can do it,” he says softly, “Jesse can.”“All right,” Rashid says, suddenly sounding convinced. “At least this isn’t dire.”“If Jesse figures out where the old man’s taking them on these jaunts,” Sam says, “what then?” He taps his chin. “In an ideal world, we’re assuming Jesse also gets so far into his good graces that he takes them to the cellar to see the horror show. If they infiltrate that, what then?”“I’m so glad you asked,” Daniel says, and Armand reacts with palpable anticipation. “If Jesse can get us the exact location of Marius’s bunker, full specs on what he’s hiding down there, and under what kind of security? Then we can start talking about a heist in earnest.”Sam sits up straight and scoffs at him. “Excuse me, but did you really say a heist?”Petronia rubs their forehead, sucking in their breath. “Yep. This is where it gets—”“No, this makes sense,” Rashid says in a low voice, startling them all into silence. “This is why you wanted to talk about what I can do, isn’t it.”Daniel stops smiling. He nods once, averting his gaze. “The trouble is, I don’t like the thought of sending you in there alone even with some of the rest of us, whoever else is on the team, playing interference to make sure Marius doesn’t set eyes on you and therefore sense you.”Sam grits his teeth. He’s suddenly, incandescently angry at Daniel for looking at Rashid and seeing a tool, a weapon, just like the Talamasca sees in the ancients that they now know Marius has been harboring for millennia. But the former agent in him sees the logic of it, too.“If only we had more of us with your functional invisibility,” Armand clarifies with regret.“Functionally,” Rashid says before Sam can advise him against excessive bravery, “we do.”“What the fuck,” Ricky says, finally pulling Paige along to stand with her behind the sofa.Sam rubs his forehead, comforted by Rashid’s hand on his back. “Turns out he can project it.”“Holy fuck,” Paige gasps, throwing her arms around Rashid’s neck from behind. “No way!”Rashid pats Paige’s arms, sighing. “Just one suspected instance. We’ll need to test it further.”Daniel shakes his head at Rashid, grinning again. “Man, I blew it when I underestimated you.”Sam carefully commandeers Paige’s arms and telekinetically peels her off Rashid. “Sure did.”“Even if we get the information we need, even if we get in,” Rashid says, “what will we do? Steal the elders? They might kill us in self-defense.”Armand folds his arms around his middle, biting his lip. “Have a word with them. Somehow.”“Babe, how about let’s not think that far ahead,” Daniel says. “We need the info, and we need to test Rashid’s…are we calling this invisibility, folks?”Sam takes Rashid’s hand, folding it between his own. He studies the perfect, glassy, filed-down nails, the flawless bronze skin. Turns it over, traces the grooves in Rashid’s palm, which he’s had memorized for years. Head line, life line. Fate line, sun line. Heart line.“Swore I’d never leave him again,” Sam says with conviction. “So you’ll send me in with him, or you’ll send no one,” he continues, his eyes stinging.Armand makes a sound that Sam recognizes—that wrenching, swallowed sorrow that can shake a room, or even rock a building to its foundations.“I have let this happen,” he whispers. “Again and again, all of it. The cycle does not break.”Sam watches him rise and leave the frame, watches Daniel try to grab him and keep him there.Rashid sets his other hand over Sam’s. “It’s not the same,” he insists. “Not the past repeating.”“No,” Sam agrees, fiercely determined. “I won’t let it be. And I know that you won’t, either.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam slides his arms around Rashid, indifferent to the sudden flurry of worried conversation between Petronia, Daniel, and the fledglings.  Daniel wants to follow Armand wherever he’s gone to have a sulk, and Paige is also in favor of that course of action—whereas Petronia and Ricky hard-line insist that they need to let Armand walk it off.  It’s a relief when Rashid draws his legs onto the sofa and curls up with Sam.“Are you sure you’re onboard?” Sam whispers, pulling the plaid blanket off the back of the sofa and over their heads.  In lieu of a pillow fort, it’ll do.Rashid bumps his nose against Sam’s as they contract into as little space as two grown men can hope to occupy.  “As long as Jesse gets the intel.”Sam nods, disgruntled, and then nuzzles Rashid’s shoulder.  He rests his head there, unreasonably tired.  “Some nights, it feels like we never left.”Rashid snorts, a sound of agreement, and rubs Sam’s back.  “The Talamasca?  True.  Do you think Daniel realizes he’s running this facsimile of it?”“Ah, hell,” Sam grumbles, realizing Rashid is right.  “I’m not going to be the one to tell him.”“Want me to do that for you?” Paige asks, prodding the top of Sam’s head through the blanket.“Private conference!” Sam replies loudly, slapping her hand away.  “No fledglings allowed!”“Rashid’s a fledgling,” Ricky points out, poking Rashid, which prompts him to make a face.Rashid catches Ricky’s wrist, trapping it in the blanket, lightning-fast.  “No Americans, then.”“If you wanted to be fair, then you should’ve said ex-Talamasca agents only,” Petronia chides.  “That would’ve excluded Rick as an ex-trainee.”“We’re venting,” Sam complains as Rashid releases Ricky’s wrist, undoubtedly looking like a psychotic ghost to all parties outside the blanket as he wildly waves his arms.  “Now, would you just kindly fuck off?  We won’t be hashing out any further supernatural espionage today.”Rashid turns his head toward the coffee table, frowning at the MacBook screen still visible through the blanket.  “Is Daniel still there?”“No,” Petronia yawns, their footsteps retreating.  “He’s gone after Armand.  Have fun with your panic-attack sleepover or whatever this is.”Once Petronia has retreated, the room is silent.  Sam reaches over, snaps the laptop shut, and then kisses Rashid.  He knows that Ricky and Paige are still in the room, but that hasn’t stopped him and Rashid from snogging on the sectional before.  It’s the bane of the fledglings’ existence when they do this on movie nights without a blanket over their heads, although Sam feels there’s nothing untoward about it.“I can’t decide if that’s better or worse,” Paige says after half a minute, reading Sam’s mind.Rashid laughs into Sam’s mouth, the sound vibrating his rib cage where it’s pressed to Sam’s.“Was this, like, how you coped with the lack of privacy in Paris?” Ricky asks, morbidly curious.Sam sucks on Rashid’s lower lip, pricking it teasingly with one fang.  “I didn’t.  But some of those miserable bastards got creative enough, sure.”“You didn’t fuck anybody in the Paris coven,” Paige says dubiously, yanking the blanket off Sam’s and Rashid’s heads without warning.  “Sure.”Pulling back from Rashid’s lips, Sam turns his head and peers up at Paige where she leans with her elbows on the back of the sofa, shrugging.Ricky’s leaning next to Paige with her chin in her hands, thoughtful as she studies Rashid’s faintly flushed cheeks.  “Is Sam telling the truth?”“You’ve seen the Talamasca files from his assignment,” Rashid points out, fussing with his staticky hair.  “Entanglements would’ve been unwise.”“You guys really are fucking Boy Scouts,” Paige says, patting Sam on the head.  “I mean, gay undead ones, not disputing that.  But, wow.  Nerds.”Sam swats Paige’s hand away, making a simpering face at her.  “You’re the little sister I prayed to God every fuckin’ day I’d never be cursed with.”Paige starts laughing so hard she almost falls over.  She’s lucky that Ricky catches her, although Ricky’s laughing before long, too, and so is Rashid.  Well, that’s grand, although Sam has to admit that it beats being the butt of anything mean-spirited.  At least these tossers care.Rashid wipes the traces of mirthful blood tears from his eyes and kisses Sam.  “Let’s not think about it anymore,” he murmurs, hugging him close.“You’re just so cute when you’re flustered,” Ricky says to Sam, grasping Paige’s arm to keep it slung across her shoulders.  “Petronia says we shouldn’t tease you so much, but then they turn around and show us how much fun we’ll miss out on if we don’t.  So tempting.”Sam flips Ricky off, feeling cheerful about it.  “You do understand this is why movie nights go the way they go, right?  You terrorize us nonstop for being in each other’s pockets, we stick our fangs in each other’s throats in front of your proverbial salad.  Wash, rinse, repeat.”Paige raises her eyebrows at Ricky.  “Why don’t you and Jesse do that to retaliate?”“Because we’re not fucking exhibitionists?” Ricky replies, totally unfazed.  “Duh.”“I wouldn’t say we’re exhibitionists,” Rashid points out.  “But we do like bugging people who bug us.  Just ask Raglan about—oh, wait.  You can’t.”“I’m sorry Dad ate him before you guys could reach the scene of my murder,” Paige says, sounding genuinely regretful.  “You had more right.”“Nah,” Rashid sighs, maneuvering Sam around so he can rest his back against Rashid’s chest, facing both of the girls.  “He never tried to off us.”“Not to say we didn’t want to eat him,” Sam admits, tugging Rashid’s arms tight around his chest, settling in with a contented wiggle.  “I sure did.”“Being serious for a moment, though…”  Rashid clears his throat, resting his cheek against Sam’s tousled hair.  “How are you doing with this?”“The Jesse thing?” Ricky asks.  “About how you’d expect.  It’s a lot, but Jesse’s a lot.  Next time, we’ll let you try telling them no.”“Don’t think we’d get far,” Sam concedes.  “I’ve never known anyone as stubborn as Jess, and I’ve met a blockhead or two in theater.”“You think Jesse’s more stubborn than me?” Paige asks.  “More stubborn than Dad?”  She exchanges glances with Ricky.  “More than Armand?”Rashid laughs, a puff of breath against Sam’s temple.  “You want us to answer that?”Sam twists his lips.  “Your whole fuckin’ family’s got a knack for driving us spare.”Ricky rubs Paige’s head with her knuckles.  “Worst kid sis ever, right?  You said it.”“Hey!” Paige protests, hissing at Ricky as her fangs emerge.  “I’m older than you!”“You’d never know it,” Ricky deadpans, releasing Paige from her grasp.  “Sauna?”Sam blinks at the segue, tilting his head.  “As in, does anybody fancy a sweat now?”“Why not?” Ricky asks.  “Arion and Petronia will be at the club all night anyway.”“You must really be keen to watch me turn the shade of a beet,” Sam sighs, stretching in Rashid’s embrace.  “There’s a reason I haven’t partaken.”Rashid grasps Sam’s waist, massaging his hip bones through his overalls.  “I don’t know,” he says in Sam’s ear.  “Could be relaxing.”“None of that,” Paige says, pointing at Rashid’s hands as he works his fingers from Sam’s hips down to his thighs.  “Swimsuits are not optional.”Sam makes a disgusted face at her.  “Uh, no fuckin’ kidding?  Feeling’s mutual.”“You really are a prude,” Ricky says, sounding impressed.  “It’s why I can’t bring myself to feel genuinely offended when you guys are like this.”Rashid breaks into a slow grin against the side of Sam’s neck, his expression somewhere between teasing and trollish.  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew the extent of what he’s done behind closed doors.  And believe me, he’s…”  Rashid whistles.  “Done some things.”Sam smacks Rashid’s hands, and then grabs his forearms, shaking them in consternation.  “Oi, no, shut it,” he protests.  “Stop right there.”Paige squeezes her eyes shut and sticks her tongue out, fangs still exposed.  “Never mind.  Let’s call a truce on teasing for the rest of the night.”“I don’t think any of us got to be gross enough as teenagers,” Ricky sighs, starting out of the room, beckoning for Paige.  “See y’all out there.”Once they’re alone, Sam squirms in Rashid’s arms, snags one of the throw pillows, and hits him upside the head with it.  “Darlin’, you’re the worst.”Rashid turns the pillow on Sam, catching him in the face with it.  “If that’s the case, are you sure you’d like to spend time in the sauna with me?”“And let those brats have sole rights to ogling you all night, gorgeous?” Sam teases, pitching the pillow on the coffee table.  “Of course I’d like to.”Sam lets Rashid carry him upstairs, which earns them gagging noises as they pass Ricky and Paige, already in swimsuits, on the landing.  They hadn’t made use of the swimwear they’d taken to Dubai, so it’s fortuitous there are sauna and pool options here.Huh, that’s a thought, Ricky sends to Sam.  Do you guys wanna swim instead?“The brats want to know if we’d rather swim,” Sam relays to Rashid as they strip out of their clothing.  “I could also counter with the hot tub.”“Might be nice,” Rashid admits, stepping out of the closet naked with his tee and trunks in hand.  He backs Sam down on the bed, kissing him.“Tease,” Sam mewls, pulling Rashid by the hips until they’re flush, glad he hasn’t put anything on, either.  “Know what else might be nice?”“We’ll never make it out there,” Rashid replies fondly, kissing Sam’s neck.“Right, and they’ll know why,” Sam gasps, delighted, shivering under him.“If I make you come once, right now, will that hold you till later?”“But then I’ll have to make you come, too, won’t I.  Vicious cycle.”“Sam, I get why they tease you about Paris.  You’re high maintenance.”“I was miserable in Paris.  Didn’t have you to keep my coffin warm.”Rashid kisses Sam softly on the mouth, lingering.  “I’m here now.”Sam whimpers, kissing him back for all he’s worth.  “Love you so.”“We’ll go together or not at all,” Rashid whispers.  “You know that.”Sam nods, sighing in bliss as Rashid rocks him into the mattress.  “I do.”“Jesse will be fine,” Rashid continues, stroking Sam’s hair.  “Lestat’s there.”Sam laughs ruefully, his breath breaking on a groan.  “For what that’s worth.”Rashid sinks his fangs in Sam’s neck, gasping.  And you, mera dil?  The world.You’re worth everything, Sam thinks, holding on for dear undeath.  My Rashid.Two orgasms and half an hour of cuddling later, they’re late to the sauna, where they find Ricky and Paige stretched out on towels.  Sam taps Ricky’s ankle with his foot, and then Paige’s, amused that they’re both treating this like a beach outing in Miami.“Ow,” Ricky complains, scooting away from the contact.  “Trim your toenails, freak.”Paige tips her dark sunglasses down, grimacing up at him.  “Fuck it out of your systems?”Sam kicks her shin, and then follows Rashid over to where they can sit.  “Not even close.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam decides he doesn’t like the sauna much.  The close, stifling heat makes him feel like he can’t breathe even though he doesn’t need to breathe, and the pinkish sheen of sweat on his skin isn’t as satisfying as the one he can work up riding Rashid for an hour.The girls groan and throw things at him when he complains out loud about the latter—several empty blood bags and all four of their flip-flops.  Rashid deflects the first few objects and then lets the rest of them pelt him and Sam indiscriminately, sighing in defeat.“We don’t really need to detox, do we?” Sam continues to complain, telekinetically hurling the items back.  “Our systems do that on their own.”“I don’t know,” Rashid says, leaning back against the sanded wooden wall.  “Given how much we had to drink last night, this likely didn’t hurt.”Sam blows damp, wavy strands of hair out of his eyes, reaching up to pat Rashid’s jaw.  He’s fond of this vantage point, lying on his back with his head in Rashid’s lap.  “Always looking for a silver lining, you,” he sighs, grinning as Rashid traps and kisses his hand.“Sometimes he even finds it,” Ricky points out, sitting up on her towel.  “We can switch to the hot tub and the pool if you want.  It’s just cold as balls out there, as Arion would say, that’s all,” she continues, shoving her flip-flops back on her feet.  “Paige, how ’bout it?”Paige props herself up on her elbows, shrugging.  “I’m game for whatever.”  She yawns, rises, and collects the rest of the detritus they’ve scattered on the floor.  “Half the night’s left.  I’m still waiting for Dad to text with some kind of update on Armand.  What about Jess?”Ricky shakes her head.  “Not since last night.  They’re cutting back phone time just in case Marius equates that with being unserious.  Lestat says they’re settled in at the castle, though, and in good spirits.  Louis has been showing them around while Marius fucks with paint.”Sam sits up next to Rashid, frowning.  “I hadn’t thought about Marius’s feelings on Millennial and Gen Z tech use.  Does he even have a phone?”Paige nods.  “Saw him take it out of his pocket briefly two nights ago in Bloomsbury Square.  He uses it for something, but I’m not sure what.”“Daniel described the space he got an impression of in Marius’s mind that one time,” Ricky says distantly.  “TV screens and shit everywhere.”“He may control the elders’ environment from his phone like Armand controls so many household functions from his iPad,” Rashid says.Sam picks at his clammy t-shirt.  “Twenty-first century minds,” he remarks, stretching as he rises from the bench.  “What’ll you lot think of next?”The hot tub is an enjoyable environment for Sam, at least, with its massage jets, steady heat, and easy buoyancy as he clings to Rashid.  The girls splash and chatter to keep from dwelling on their concern for Jesse.  How slutty has Lestat’s wardrobe gotten?  What’s Gabrielle like to hang out with?  Is Louis driving the contractors batshit with his interior decorating specs?  Will Armand send Paola to do the IT work?When Paige’s phone lights up and vibrates, she grabs it off the edge of the tub and scrolls through messages.  “Dad says Armand’s okay.”“Just okay?” Ricky asks, leaning toward the phone.  “That could mean anything from the funk blowing over on its own to…I dunno, he had to fish him out of the lagoon and sit him down with Blade Runner or back-to-back Matrix movies.  Tell him Sam and Rashid are fine.”“Touching to see maître get so bent out of shape on our behalf,” Sam agrees, not bothering to budge from where he’s straddling Rashid’s lap with his head against Rashid’s shoulder and his arms loosely wound around Rashid’s waist beneath the water.  “But we’ve warmed to the notion that we’re destined to be the point men in the least achievable heist ever conceived.  At least there’ll be some time to acclimate, as well as the possibility that Jesse gets fuck-all out of that degenerate Roman relic, and we’re back at square one.  The panic attack’s on hold.”“Neither of us had a panic attack,” Rashid clarifies, dipping his index and middle fingers teasingly beneath the waistband of Sam’s swim trunks, rubbing circles against the small of Sam’s back.  “We’ve discussed it, and we’re open to it pending further testing of my gift.”Sam hears Paige make a scoffing sound as she types, and then snap a photograph.  “What the hell did you do?” he mumbles against Rashid’s skin.“Sent proof you’re not having a panic attack,” Ricky says, and Sam can hear the smirk in her voice.  “Can’t wait to see what he says about—hah.”“Let me guess,” Rashid says dryly.  “Withering commentary on how we’ll never make the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?”“Actually, no,” Paige says, disgruntled.  “He says we’d better, I quote, ‘treat Rashid’s hands down Sam’s pants as an evacuation order.’  Charming.”Rashid extracts his fingertips from where they’ve been resting against Sam’s vertebrae and lifts his hands above the water.  “No harm done.”“Tell Dad it’s fuckin’ nothing compared to the groping we’ve walked in on in New York,” Ricky scoffs, although she rises and climbs out of the tub.Paige stands, stretches, and follows her, glancing over her shoulder at Sam and Rashid.  “Duly evacuated,” she says, shrugging.  “Good night.”Sam waits until Ricky and Paige are not only out of sight, but until he can no longer hear them talking to each other, to kiss Rashid.  Sam groans and rolls his hips as Rashid slides his hands up his thighs and beneath the sodden fabric for easier access, kneading at his hip bones.  Getting naked is a clumsy, but quick endeavor after that.  Sam trembles as Rashid pins him against the side of the tub with his legs spread wide.“Relax,” Rashid whispers, licking water droplets away from Sam’s earlobe.  He presses a searing kiss against the pulse-point beneath it, hitching Sam’s knees over his elbows.  “I’ve never done anything in a place like this, so I don’t…”  He kisses Sam’s neck.  “Don’t have anything specific in mind,” Rashid adds, licking Sam’s collarbone before sinking his fangs just above it, stiffening when he scrapes bone.  “Sorry—”“Why?” Sam gasps.  His entire body spasms in blissful shock as Rashid realizes he’s done something fantastic, actually, and latches onto Sam’s wounds, laving over them worshipfully with his tongue.  “Oh, darlin’,” Sam whimpers, winding his arms around Rashid’s shoulders as Rashid’s fangs scrape his collarbone again on the next entry.  “Christ, what a way to admit you’ve been holding out on me,” he hisses, laughing breathlessly, because now Rashid is teasing his rim with two careful fingers, the sensation delicate and strange-seeming underwater.“Should’ve asked first,” Rashid murmurs, licking over Sam’s wounds again as they heal, and then works his fingers inside Sam.  “Like doing this here?”Sam sobs, twisting wildly against the pressure, trying to thrust down.  “So, so much,” he manages.  “I want you, love.  Want you so fuckin’—ah!”“Sam,” Rashid rasps, nuzzling Sam’s neck, panting harshly against his ear.  He’s three fingers deep now—fanning, stroking, twisting, taking Sam apart from the inside out.  “Want you, too, mera dil.  Let me feel it, let me feel you, let me feel how much you want—”“Rashid,” Sam cries softly, breathless, undone.  The core of his body’s strung so taut it hurts, impaled on Rashid’s clever fingers, cradled and spread and pinned.  And then everything that’s clenched in him releases so abruptly that he half expects to come unmoored, to drown.“There,” Rashid whispers, awed, pressing inside Sam just a few more times.  He withdraws his hand, and then holds Sam with both arms again, using his body and the lapping of the water to rock him gently through each spasm.  Rashid kisses Sam, moaning against his mouth.Sam feels Rashid tense against him and start to shake, feels the familiar twitch of his cock where it’s trapped snug between their bellies.  He’s not so far gone that he can’t murmur tender nonsense and hold Rashid close while he’s writhing, out of his mind with pleasure, too.“Well, there’s a mess,” Sam sighs affectionately, stroking Rashid’s sopping hair.  “Blood in the water.  Surefire way to see if we’ve got sharks.”“Check the pipes for an infestation of them,” Rashid laughs at length, reverently kissing the spot he’d bitten on Sam’s collarbone.  “As you do.”Sam pinches Rashid’s arse, thrashing in the water as he momentarily loses his grasp on Rashid and slips beneath the surface.  “Sure,” he coughs.“Main tenu pyar karda haan,” Rashid murmurs, letting the water buoy them both up, weightless for a long moment.  “Tu hi meri duniya hai.”“Shudder to think how dull your world must be if I’m it,” Sam quips, and then kisses Rashid deep and earnest.  “And you’re mine.  I love you.”“Still no Irish?” Rashid teases, running his thumb up Sam’s jaw.Sam rolls his eyes.  “I just…look, you know I don’t speak much.”Nodding, Rashid turns sober and apologetic.  “I know.  I’m sorry.”Sam shrugs.  “I can speak French to you till the cows come home.”“Were you completely miserable in Paris?” Rashid asks, melancholy.“Only in that I had no luck when it came to companionship,” Sam admits.  “Otherwise, it’s a beautiful city.  I loved the art, the culture, the language.  I loved my little flat in the Marais while I was mortal, spying on Petronia and Arion for the Order.  I even miss the food.”Rashid smiles at Sam as he speaks, his eyes eerily beautiful.  “I’ve never been there.”“Never been there,” Sam repeats, and then pauses, incredulous.  “Never been to Paris?”Rashid shrugs.  “My existence was all Talamasca business from the night I met you.”Sam wipes his nose with one damp hand, thoughtful.  “Hmmm.  We can’t have that.”“What’s this?” Rashid asks, tapping Sam’s head.  “I know the sound of those gears.”Sam lets his feet hit the bottom, pushing away from Rashid to stretch.  “I’m plotting.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sam drags Rashid back into the house so they can shower off the chlorine.  He spends some time on his knees with Rashid’s cock in his mouth while Rashid washes his hair with shaking fingers and tells him how beautiful he is in every language they share and even in a few that he can’t understand.  Sam’s jaw aches by the time Rashid finishes, but it’s worth holding Rashid while he recovers, washing his hair, too.Once they’re dressed, Rashid admits he’s worried enough about what’s going on at the club that he’d like to catch Petronia and Arion as soon as they come off shift.  Sam’s fine with snuggling on the sectional, although the girls are already there watching a raucous game show that Sam doesn’t recognize, so he tunes it out and idly tracks his eyes over the news articles Rashid’s scrolling through on his phone instead.“Is there anything where you guys aren’t completely in each other’s business?” Ricky asks, amazed, turning down the volume on the game show.Rashid glances over at her.  “If you and Jesse had made it to agent status, your training would have instilled habits conducive to such closeness.”“I think you underestimate how much that rubbed off anyway,” Paige says, nudging Ricky with her foot.  “Minus the cringe codependency, maybe.”“We’re not cringe, thanks,” Sam grouses.  “If that describes anyone, it’s your parents.”“You got me there,” Ricky concedes after a beat, staring unblinking at the television screen.  “I can’t imagine you guys coping well with this kind of separation, though.”  She chews her thumbnail for a second, which sets Sam’s teeth on edge, and then she pauses the show with a wave.  “You guys met one night, didn’t see each other for five years, and then…basically haven’t been apart except for Rashid’s work shifts in Dubai?”Rashid nods.  “I never liked leaving for work.  Sam always did his best to delay me.”“The shifts were bad enough,” Sam says, “even knowing right where he was.  Eavesdropping on what was happening over there, that was always what drove me spare.  Ever hear a glass coffee table shatter because a body’s been hurled on it?  And you don’t know whose body?”Paige twitches uncomfortably, staring at Sam.  “Wait, are you telling me that Louis…”Rashid turns his face aside, his brows knit.  “I would rather not speak of that incident.”“He hurt Mom,” Ricky sighs, rubbing her forehead.  “Let’s leave it at that, all right?”“Like he threw him into a wall right before he and Dad evacuated,” Paige murmurs.“Stop it now,” Sam says, shifting away from Rashid toward the center of the sectional.  He reaches for Paige’s arm.  “You’ll go mad if you don’t.”Paige glances up at him, her troubled eyes flickering.  “I know Armand’s not innocent.  What did he do to the coven when you let the rats loose?”Rashid snorts in wry amusement, laying a hand on Sam’s ankle since that’s all of him he can currently reach.  “Can’t escape Paris tonight, can you?”“Shut us down for a month,” Sam says.  “No going out meant no hunts, no hunts meant no sacrifices, no sacrifices meant no performances.”“No hunts and no performances meant none of you ate for a month,” Ricky guesses.  “He inflicted his disordered eating on all of you, huh.”“Oh, no, we ate,” Sam says, grimacing at each fledgling in turn.  “There were rats everywhere, remember?  Our punishment was cleaning them up.”Paige covers her mouth with both hands and starts to laugh hysterically.  “Oh, nooo,” she wheezes.  “Hah, wow.  Holy fuck.  That’s so petty.”“How about you try living on rats for a month and get back to me,” Sam says thinly, patting Paige’s arm.  “Let’s see if you’re still giggling then.”“Getting back to your original question, Ricky,” Rashid says, determined to get the conversation back on track, “there are very few aspects of life and undeath Sam and I haven’t shared down to the last detail.  My existence would be poorer in every respect without him.”Sam releases Paige and turns back to Rashid, his chest flooding with warmth.  They should’ve just gone…to bed, to coffin, he doesn’t care.  He wants to curl up with Rashid in the dark and forget about everything except how it feels to hold him.  Fuck John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask for framing that mythology so aptly in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. His list of humans whose dramatic works he’d never top was getting long.“Why are you thinking about ‘The Origin of Love’?” Paige asks Sam.  “Now that song’s gonna be stuck in my head for a week.”Ricky sighs in resignation, and Sam can tell that, for all her bitching about clingy couples and codependency, she knows why he’s thinking about that particular show.  “Good for you, I guess,” she says to Rashid, and then glances at Sam.  “I know you feel the same.”“How about pestering Petronia and Arion about how they’ve managed it for two millennia instead?” Sam parries, settling comfortably back against Rashid’s chest.  “Granted, they’ve had a few dry spells, but never more than a decade of separation.”  He tilts his head back, frowning wistfully at Rashid.  “Just don’t think I could do it,” he continues.  “Even when you annoy the hell out of me, there’s no place I’d rather be.”“So, I annoy you?” Rashid asks teasingly, raising his eyebrows.  “How?”“It’s the bloody-minded pragmatism,” Sam whispers loudly to the girls.“If I didn’t haul your head out of the clouds every now and again, where would we be?” Rashid asks, hugging Sam tightly around the middle.“Ashes, or worse,” Sam sighs, gratefully nuzzling Rashid’s neck.  “Don’t I know it, darlin’.  Doesn’t mean I’m immune to irritation, though.”“What kind of slumber party is this?” Petronia asks brusquely as they and Arion stride in through the front door, which indicates they must’ve been listening to the conversation on their approach.  “Everyone’s sober?  All truth, no dare?  Zero corpses scattered willy-nilly on the floor?”“There’s blood in the hot tub, though,” Paige volunteers.  “I mean, I assume there is.  We left the guys unsupervised in there for a while, so—”“No eating in the pool area,” Petronia scolds.  “We agreed.  I’ll forgive a body in the Thames, but if my neatest hunters are now my sloppiest—”“Our blood,” Sam clarifies, rubbing his forehead in embarrassment.  “I won’t elaborate.”“Fuck’s sake,” Arion sighs, sounding tired.  “At least some of us had a good night, eh?”Rashid shifts.  “Get up,” he whispers, squeezing Sam’s waist.   Once they’re both on their feet, Rashid catches Arion’s eye, and then Petronia’s.“Right, status meeting,” Petronia says brusquely.  “Why don’t you two come downstairs?”Sam clasps Rashid’s hand as they follow their maker and…step-maker, he’s never sure exactly what to consider Arion, to the cellar.  The kitchenette down there is cozy with its counter and bar stools, which is where the four of them end up perched with mugs of warm blood.Petronia looks Sam dead in the eye and says, “Kira and Finn want to buy you and Rashid out.”Rashid makes an indignant sound, setting his mug down.  “I’m in regular contact with them.”“Yeah, but I’m not,” Sam sighs, resting his forehead against his fist.  “Heart’s not in any of it.”“Something’s on your mind tonight,” Arion says kindly to Sam.  “Maybe you’d like to share?”Tilting his head at Sam, Rashid frowns.  “What is it, love?  Since we were outside, you’ve…”“We need to be spread out while Jesse’s away,” Sam says in an uneasy rush.  “It’s no good if something explodes and we’re all concentrated here.”Rashid’s expression softens, and he puts an arm around Sam’s shoulders.  “Oh, love.  I see.”Sam closes his eyes, smiling bitterly as his throat constricts.  “Funny, isn’t it, how you can take the agent out of the Talamasca, but you can’t…”  He draws a shuddering breath.  “Even Jesse couldn’t escape it, just look.  Off on a mission of their own making, for a good greater than all of us.  Puts any delusions of courage I ever had to shame.  That kid puts their money where their fangs are, which is more than I ever…”  Sam blinks, his vision swimming.  “We don’t know where Marius has the elders, but Armand’s right.  Daniel’s right.  Jesse’ll figure it out.”Petronia stares at him, startled.  “We need to spread out?  What are you proposing we do?”Rashid nods slowly.  “Lestat’s castle is somewhere in the Auvergne,” he says.  “He, Louis, Gabrielle, and Jesse are there.  I’m not counting Marius, because he’s our mark.  Daniel and Armand are in Venice, and so is Paola, if we’re counting her as a complicit party.  I think at this stage we have to.  All the rest of us are here, which…arguably, six of us here is overkill when at least two of that six could be in another outpost.”“We need to be spread out because we don’t know where Marius is taking Jesse on these jaunts, and if Jesse should send a distress signal at any point and tell us where they are…”  Sam taps the counter emphatically.  “At least some of us would have a fighting chance of reaching them faster from one point or another.  We ought to hedge our bets.”  He spreads his hand, imagining Europe.  “London, the Auvergne, Venice.  I can’t imagine Marius has stashed his dearest treasure in the Americas, call it a hunch.  He’s done the Mediterranean a bit to death, hasn’t he?”“I don’t care if Louis still owns the penthouse,” Rashid says.  “I’m not going back to Dubai.  I doubt he’d hide elders in the desert.”“No, darlin’, I’d never suggest it,” Sam reassures him, stretching his index finger, scratching at a point in the granite north of imaginary London.  “I can’t help but wonder…”  He shakes his head, curling his hand against the counter, his nails clacking.  “The only other unoccupied properties in Molloy hands at the minute are the apartment in New York, which is moot in this context.  The Naples flat is redundant, because that’s pretty close to Venice.  But there’s the townhouse in Paris, and that’s not so close to London or the Auvergne as to be useless.”“You think we should be stationed in Paris in case being close to some other point in Northern Europe is useful,” Rashid says.  “Or in case Jesse needs somewhere closer to run, still in France, reachable in a pinch.”  He grasps Sam’s hand, squeezing it.  Oh, you clever thing.Sam looks Rashid in the eye, steady and unblinking.  “Amsterdam,” he says harshly.  “The motherhouse there’ll be on alert about Gabrielle and Marius both on the move, you know they will.  The Auvergne’s outside London’s jurisdiction, and Paris hasn’t had an active field office since the theater burned.  And believe me when I say you do not want Amsterdam breathing down your neck for even a second.”“You’re suggesting somebody’s got to keep an eye on the sods you walked away from, and that somebody’s got to be you two?” Petronia scoffs.Sam glares at Petronia, leaning over the counter with fangs bared.  “What are we good for, maker, if we can’t undo the fuckin’ damage we’ve done?”Rashid wraps his arms around Sam, hauling him back, holding him fast.  “Shhh, Sam.”“You didn’t found the Order,” Arion points out, setting one hand on Petronia’s shoulder.“No, but I played along like a fool,” Sam says, in tears, grasping Rashid’s arms to steady himself, “and I’ll be damned if I let them ruin this for Jess.”“Tell Kira and Finn we accept,” Rashid says, stroking Sam’s chest, his palm pressed flat over Sam’s racing heart.  “You’ll let us go to Paris, then?”“Fuck,” Petronia hisses.  They smack the counter, gouging it with their nails.  “The kids won’t like it, though.  You’re telling them.”“Sure,” Sam agrees, folding both of his hands over Rashid’s.  “That’s on me.”