The Redemption of Peter Wentz

The weeks went by with no sign of Beckett. Pete was getting restless, but he couldn’t let Brendon know a thing. The sun was still up, judging by the angle, around noon. Brendon was half-asleep in Pete’s lap. He had regained some strength over the last few days, and hasn’t had a single lapse since. He was still weak though, and he couldn’t get around on his own. But that’s what Pete was there for, right?

Brendon shifted and licked his lips. He hadn’t fed in three days, far past due. The camera in Pete’s hands flashed images of the past, the bright side of it anyway, back when Brendon would spew smoothies in the daylight hours every time he laughed and those times, the very rare ones, where Pete took time off of hunting to try and cook with him before destroying the kitchen. The one they’ve stopped at now was of Brendon, volunteering at a homeless shelter, playing with a couple of children in finger paint. Pete had to laugh at this, at least give a chuckle to lighten Brendon’s spirits, and it worked because Brendon was coughing as he tried to laugh along with him.

Pete wishes things weren’t as fucked up as they are now, but can’t shake the feeling that Brendon was meant for this. It was evident by how well he was handling the circumstances.

A week after the test, Brendon had persuaded Pete to take him out. He put on his most serene face and it didn’t take long for the whining to start that Pete relented. He had decided, regrettably with hindsight, that the park was a suitable place to start. Brendon was distracted, more so than usual but it wasn’t that he was trying to hide it, he was trying to become accustomed to his new heightened senses.

He and Pete were in a sparsely populated area of Lincoln Park, seated beneath a spruce tree and trying to seem as inconspicuous as possible. It was just difficult with all of the sounds and pulses. It was what Brendon tired to focus on that kept him so grounded. Thinking and concentrating on Pete’s pulse was what kept him so grounded. This was Brendon’s mantra. Each time Pete’s heart pounded another time, it reminded him that he wasn’t killing and that he still wanted to hear it. As long as it was beating, Brendon was not a monster.

“How bad is it?” Pete asked, tracing the veins in Brendon’s wrist with his eyes. Brendon ears perked at each little sound, heard or unheard.

“It’s not how bad it is, really. There’s just…so much. It’s great in some ways—“

“Except for the part about drinking blood.” Pete cut in with a disgusted tone.

“Of course, Pete, if you have to focus on that one thing, it’s that everything is sharper and even more potent. All of it is so hard to ignore.” Brendon pawed at the grass.

“Yeah? How?”

Brendon smirked, showing a bit of teeth and looking at Pete with knowing eyes. “There’s a hot dog stand 200 yards away with stale water in it. The dog across lawn is peeing on a tree —“

“Oh, bullshit, Brendon. Stop fucking around.”

“Your heart skips a beat every 6 cycles and your blood pumps slower through your carotid than your other arteries.” Brendon returned his attention to the park, suddenly shifting to a plane flying overhead and watching it cross the skyline.

Pete was silent for a moment and let out a breath he didn’t know he held. “Okay…well, shit, Brendon, did you have to put it like that? You could’ve stopped at the dog. I feel a little violated knowing that you can time my heartbeat whenever you please.”

“Pete, you don’t know how distracting it is. You know I want it, but I won’t lay a hand on you, right?”

“Yeah, I know. So it’s me that keeps you from going insane?”

Brendon grins, throwing back his head and laughing heartedly. “To put it matter-of-factly, yes, but I’m not insane yet.”

Brendon freezes abruptly, and Pete continues the conversation in mute from Brendon’s end. The sound that reaches his ears broke past all of the others, drowning them out and Pete’s words like white noise to a radio. Pete was shaking him now but all Brendon did was shove him off, and hard, making Pete slide back a couple feet.

He stood slowly, eyes still searching. Pete scrambles to stand and sprints to catch up with Brendon who has already started across the vast lawn.
“Brendon, stop!” he called, trying to block his path to no avail as Brendon continues to shake him off. Pete doesn’t want to take him down in public like this, at least with so many witnesses, and he had a little reserve for his closest friend. He just hopes it’s still his friend he’s trying to get through to.
“Brendon, you don’t know what you’re doing!”

“God, shut up, Peter!” Brendon shot back. He shoved him off again and continued toward the edge of the park, where a group gathered, and Pete had that familiar itch crawling through his skin. It was merely an impulse to reach for the stake in his jacket. Brendon picked up pace in his stride, enough that, with the wind picking up, he nearly lunged at the gathering.

He hissed, and it sounded so alien to Pete’s ears that he shuddered at the sound. Brendon bared his teeth, and the group revealed themselves as Goths, pretty weak when it came to facing Hunters being that in any situation including feeding, they don’t bother to put up a fight if they think it isn’t worth it. But Brendon was no longer a Hunter. It was evident in the way they grinned that they knew. It was as if they could smell that Brendon was a virgin to feeding on his own—no, they did smell it. There was no fanfare with how they parted for him to reveal the child they’d been cornering, and they left the way they came, back into the shadows like a breeze on the lake.

This was what Pete didn’t want to happen; to have Brendon feeding from an innocent in one of the most populated areas in Chicago and have him mindlessly going on a rampage. And the kid made his fears that much worse. The girl was no more than five or six in an over-sized RUN-DMC shirt that went to her calves and coffee locks falling over her shoulders on self-handled berets,. Brendon stood stoically and silent, towering over this poor girl.

He wasn’t gorging on her.
??? went Pete’s brain.

The wind whipped up again, brushing his hair around his face as he stood stock still, shirt flapping against his stomach. Brendon couldn’t feel the chill like the child did. She was helpless, looking up at him with a hint of vague curiosity and terror, sniffling tears. Brendon scuffed his shoe into the pavement of the sidewalk and flexed his fingers, taking a calming breath before kneeling to get eye-to-eye with her.

Pete was ready to pounce at any moment yet he didn’t want to mess with what could be Brendon’s last reserves of control.

When Brendon reached that first trembling hand to cup her face, she flinched with fear and the abnormality of his skin. All of the flaws of being human were even more evident when looking between the two. The man was absolute perfection compared to the innocence of the child, so much so that it was indeed unnatural.
“Hey, shh, don’t cry, love.” he said wistfully, thumbing away lingering tears and trying to put on a smirk that wouldn’t otherwise frighten her more. “They won’t come back. I’m Brendon. What is your name?”

She sniffled a few times and twiddled her thumbs. Pete had no idea Brendon was fairly great with children.
“M-M-Moira.”

Brendon’s grin grew warmly. “Moira, why are you here all by yourself?” He leaned forward, even closer and breaking any kind of rules regarding personal space. The murmurs were impossible to pick up from Pete’s distance as he tried to eavesdrop but only picked up the subtle nods of their heads and the reassuring smile Brendon was projecting, and doing a fucking amazing job in Pete’s opinion. He could sell snake oil with it any time he damn well pleased.

Brendon stood and took her hand in his, and with one last comforting grin, he stared pointedly forward.
“Let’s go find her then. I’m sure she’s around here somewhere looking for you too.” As he passed Pete’s dumbfounded face, Brendon shot a knowing glare in his direction, shaking his head half condescendingly and half amused.

“Still think I’m becoming the monster?”

On Pete’s list of Brendon’s Most Shocking and Profound Acts, this wouldn’t even come close to what he would do three months later.