Give Me Envy, Give Me Malice, Give Me Your Attention

Anna walked into the small house and shut the door carefully behind her, shaking off her black scarf and coat. The cold nighttime wind outside was only just beginning to die down. She slipped off her boots at the door before walking in to the lounge room, where Bella, Lara and Ryan sat. Andy was in the kitchen, attempting to cook something for him and Lara. Cooking had become a hobby of his over the last couple of years.

“Hey hun,” Lara greeted, looking up from the bridal magazine she was flipping idly through. “How was it?”

Anna shrugged as Ryan crossed the room to kiss her cheek; the usual ‘welcome home’ gesture. Over the past few weeks, since arriving upon their mortal friends’ doorstep, a new routine had been established. They all eased into casualty around each other, becoming almost the way they used to bewith the obvious little exception that three of the company had acquired fangs and more. Ryan no longer accompanied Anna every single time she met up with Fall Out Boy, although he always wanted to. She insisted that she was capable of looking after herself, and since it had almost been a month and there had been no clear threats to her safety, he reluctantly agreed.

“Same as usual,” Anna replied, but exhaustion seeped into her words. “Nothing new, had some needles stuck into me, feel kind of drained. I don’t think I’ll be able to be up late tonight.”

No one could tell if the slight apologetic tone in her last sentence was directed at Lara and Bella (for they’d planned to finally decide on a wedding dress tonight) or at Ryan for other reasons entirely. No one bothered to ask.

“That’s okay,” Ryan assured her. “You can go sleep after…”

“Dinner!” Andy called out from the kitchen.

The four in the lounge room dropped what they were doing and made their way into the small dining room separating the lounge room from the kitchen. It was only just big enough to fit a dining room table for eight, but none of them minded the close proximity. It felt so right, so normal; more normal than anything had been in a long time. It wasn’t the same as at the Dandy mansion, obviously, because the huge dining hall there was merely for show. It was more of a common room than anything else, because all the vampires went out to hunt anyway. It wasn’t the same as at Fall Out Boy’s warehouse, either. The dining table there, although similar to the one they currently sat at, was set in the corner of the same large room that the couches and coffee table resided in, and was often cluttered with random experimental objects. It never had this homey feel to it.

There was one similarity between this place and Fall Out Boy’s place, though; they were both safe from Dandy attention. Neither was in the center of the city, which was where Dandies often went to hunt, but the five of them all made sure to stay inside as much as they could. Instead, both locations, although very much separate, were on the outskirts of suburbia, just close enough to keep an eye on everything. And the best safety method? No vampires could look through the walls. When the house had been built, Andy learned, the superstitious builders had mixed the mortar for the bricks with holy water. Somehow, it prevented vampire’s supernatural vision from working on those buildings. After some research, Andy had tracked down what other buildings the long-gone builders had used this technique for. He’d told Patrick of his findings, and not long after Fall Out Boy had moved into their warehouse, with the same security. Lara had never even known that her fiancé had been in contact with anyone a part of the supernatural world until he’d revealed all this to Bella, Anna and Ryan when they had brought up their inability to see through walls.

“Looks great, love,” Lara smiled, kissing Andy quickly before taking her seat next to him.

The other three, instead of taking seats behind plates of vegetable lasagna, sat behind elegant glasses of what had become both formally and informally known as ‘Pete’s mixture’. Andy now had the strange recipe known by heart and made it every day. He tried to spice them up a bit, sometimes adding cinnamon or nutmeg, but Bella, Anna and Ryan couldn’t taste anything different.

They ate/drank quietly, occasionally having a short conversation about the wedding. It was only a couple of months away now, and now that she had her best friends back Lara was much happier about the concept. She was much happier about everything now.

Anna drank her drink slowly, trying to keep up with everyone else’s pace, even though all she really wanted to do was chug it and go to bed. After a reasonable amount of time spent smiling and nodding at the others’ occasional comments, she excused herself and made her way through the small house to get to the spare room. She swiftly undressed, not bothering with pajamas, and slid into the crisp sheets of the double bed. Regardless of how tired she was, she couldn’t manage to fall asleep. When Ryan entered the room twenty minutes later, she was still awake and completely sick of it. He didn’t speak, thinking that she was sleeping, but when he slipped into bed and her underwear-clad body shuffled towards him, he held her close and began to sing softly.

With the soothing notes drifting to her ears, she was asleep before she could even think about it.

***

William Beckett’s nose and top lip curled upwards in angry distaste as he turned sharply away from his study window, resisting the urge to punch a hole right through the glass. Why couldn’t he find her? He’d scanned the whole city, but the woman who should have shone brighter than everyone else hadn’t even glimmered to give him a clue to her whereabouts.

Everything had changed so much.

He remembered when he’d first laid eyes on Bella, the beautiful girl of his dreams. Before she was a vampire. Before Anna was a vampire. Before Ryan had betrayed him for Anna. Before the Dandies loyalty was shaken. Back when things were simple.

He sighed heavily to himself as he collapsed into his brown leather armchair.

He wished he could force the information out of someone, but he was quite sure that Bella had left no end untied. She was a perfectionist, and if she didn’t want to be found then it was highly unlikely that she would be. He’d considered Brendon, but to be honest he really didn’t have the strength for threats right now and there was no need to make the Dandies question themselves any more than they already did.

But where was Bella?

And where were Anna and Ryan?

The Butcher? Or Andrew, as he seemed to prefer now? He’d managed to disappear a while ago, and although William had expected his return, it never came.

And what about Fall Out Boy? They’d all been off the map for years, as far as he was concerned, but he knew that they were still nearby. He just never wanted to acknowledge that truthfully, he didn’t know how they were hiding from him.

This was preposterous!

He was the William Beckett; leader of the Dandy vampire clan. He shouldn’t be questioning himself over anything. He should know everything, he should always be one step ahead.

But in all honesty, his inner vampire had a tendency to abandon him when he needed that mental strength. Now was one of those times.

Right now, William Beckett was just another person, weak and wrecked from rejection from the one he loved.