Your Love Is a Razor Blade Kiss

“Alright, pack up; let’s go!” Josh, our tour manager began herding us to the bus. It was an odd day. Instead of being inside like most everyone else after they play, we sat around outside.

I may have been to blame for setting the strange behavior in motion. I was on edge after Jess left and wasted an almost full pack of cigarettes. Ghost had decided to keep me company and pried a little more than he normally would. I really was acting weird, then.

At that point, Chris joined the party. And like moths to flame, the others followed shortly after until it was just the six of us. Vinny was keeping more to himself, though. By the time we had settled in for the drive, most of the other bands had already hauled out. When we pulled out of the parking lot, one idle bus in particular got my attention. Pierce was still hanging around?

Something told me this was wrong, somehow. Intuition or instinct, maybe paranoia seeing as I did not trust Mike or Jaime as far as Devin could throw them. Vic was a completely different story. I did not even want to be near the guy. His entire presence was revolting to me. There was something off with him, hell, his whole band. I never questioned unbridled hatred. It usually found a way to be just. My hunches were not commonly wrong.

Tony, their fertile, did not worry me. Fertiles did not normally worry me no matter the crowd they were in. Except one more recently…

I sighed, tearing my gaze away from the window. I was going to drive myself crazy speculating all the things that could be wrong and how it all went back to Mike.

Fucking Mike…

That cocky son of bitch. He was lucky that fertile did not punch him in the face.

No. No, that was not how it worked.

Damn it…

Fertiles did not fight. Except that one. That wild one. The feral one. The one that was different. The one whose scent still hung on me somehow. That one fertile whose pheromones still lingered all over my bed to the point where I could not even sit back there without thinking about it.

It. Good job. Not even going to address it?

No. Fuck no.

Ignorance is bliss.

You’re doing that thing again.

Yeah, I know…

Deep thinking, slowly turning me into a psychopath every other minute of my existence.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Ghost asked for the fifth time.

I ran my fingers through my hair, “I’m fine.”

Devin opened his mouth to speak, but I already knew. “Do not say ‘you don’t look okay.’ I get it. I look like shit. I feel like shit. Okay? But I’m a big boy, Dev, I’ll be fine.”

I could not allow myself to lose my temper on him. He was like our mother. He just wanted what was best for us. But just like a fertile, he was overly sensitive to the emotions of those around him. He had to know I was reaching my breaking point.

After a moment that surrendered nothing, Ghost smiled that “I know everything” little smile. He leaned closer and looked me straight in the eye.

“You need to get laid.”

I could not even hide the disbelief as if crossed my face. If there was anything I had expected him to say in that situation, it was not that.

“Devin!” Then, I felt like the parent scolding a child.

Another time, a different place, I would have laughed and joked about it, too.

“Badly,” he frowned slightly, seeing through my change in demeanor and got up without another word.

I exhaled, sinking into the seat. I may have been just a little sexually frustrated, but that was not the main reason behind my change. I knew that better than anyone. I had to admit, though, my hormones were a mess. I knew exactly who to blame for that, though.

“That fertile really messed you up, huh?” Balz’s voice caught my attention from the door leading to the bunks.

“You were there…” I grumbled carelessly.

“He smelled nice,” Balz shrugged and took a seat beside me.

“Is that why you were there?”

“Curious is charged, but if I knew he meant so much to you…”

“He doesn’t,” I was adamant about that.

“You’re the one sulking,” he added innocently.

“I knew him a day,”

“When does that mean anything to us?” He had a point.

“You know the biology for it better than I do, Dr. Love.” He nudged me in good spirits, trying to chip away at the protective wall of denial I had drawn up around myself.

“It’s called school, were you awake for it?” I teased, knowing he was not exactly the best student.

He let out an overly confident, mockingly man’s man laugh, “school? I don’t need school! My last name is Balz!”

I chuckled more at the goofy sound he just made with his false deep voice that was not very deep rather than his words. He could make some humorous noises that never quite lived up to what he expected them to be.

“That sounded weird…” He muttered, rubbing his chin with a small smirk.

“Was that your mating call?” I laughed, poking fun at the strangely Count Chocula-esque noise he had made.

He laughed, “my mating call brings all the fertiles to the yard! And I’m like, “it’s better than yours.” Damn right, “it’s better than yours!’” He proceeded to try and recreate that sound to the tune, much to my amusement.

“What the fuck is that? Is a fucking owl dying?” Ryan shouted out from his bed.

It only had me laughing harder.

“Goddamn it…” Balz smiled, taking it lightly.

“That was, uh, interesting, Balz,” our tour manager commented from the driver’s seat. “Glad I got to lose that bet and drive first instead, so I can share this moment with you.”

The bet was not anything particularly interesting, but Balz had wanted to make it much more entertaining than switching driving places. Josh was not about to give up money or his dignity for something stupid and only accepted the conditions when the driving order was suggested.

It made my childish side happy to know he was suffering.

“I’m happy to share it with you, too, man! Make dying owl sounds with me!” Balz provoked a deeply uninterested groan from Josh that may have also meant something along the lines of “I hate my life.”

“Don’t!” I begged.

“Please, don’t…” Josh grumbled bemusedly.

Balz just laughed. It was small moments like this that made the prospect of tour less lonely. That someone gave a damn enough to want to cheer me up at his own expense. It was usually Chris making sure no one was slitting their wrists or about to jump out the window or something, but that sense of belonging was sort of lost on the road. Unless you were about to fall apart, your problems were not even a blip on the radar because the band came first.

Damn, if Balz was concerned, then I was really acting weird. It could have been purely because he had walked in on… What I refused to elaborate on and address as anything and took pity on me. Although, Balz was a particularly protective vampire, who would even defend other doms. He was kind of like our guard dog. He loved so much, but hated anyone remotely threatening until they proved themselves worthy of his trust.

“Did you see that?” He suddenly straightened and shot around, eyes set on the city.

“See what?” No.

“Uh, two people running…” He added, “one looked like Mike…”

It was as if a frost fell over the interior of the bus. I dared to branch out from the shielding walls around my mind to dreadfully touch the toxic, acidic yellow aura. I was hit with a mental shock wave as I tapped his web. He did not want me to know he was there.

I shot back with a jolt. Balz turned around at the motion, asked if I was okay. I nodded and fell back on my favorite phrase.

“I’m fine.”

I was not fine. My instincts boiled, rose like the hairs on an aggressed beast. Then, something was wrong again. I had been that close to forgetting about my paranoia, and then fucking Mike goes and proves it reasonable.

What the hell was he doing?

Who was he chasing? Or running from? What the hell was happening? Why?

“Shit!” Josh yelped and the bus lurched, nearly throwing both Josh and I to the floor. A thud was heard from the bunks with a sonorous exclamation from Chris, more than likely. Various items flew off their perches from around the vehicle, creating a mess around us.

“What the fuc-! Oh, shit…” I had never seen Josh’s rage melt away so quickly. There was broken glass all over the windshield, but the windshield itself was not cracked.

I pushed Balz off me when Josh got up and ran outside. A strange, sinking, cold feeling settled into my chest as I walked up to the dashboard. Peering over the nose of the bus just about floored me, the air vanishing from my lungs. My body remained rigid as Josh checked the dark mass. An unfamiliar shutter gently rocked my bones, starting in my ribs and spreading down my spine.

No, I knew. How could I not? I could not see his face, but I knew. I was paralyzed. It was as if something internally had simply shut off. My mind was quiet for once, but the sound of my own heart beating was louder in my ears than my thoughts ever were.

“Fuck…” I had not noticed Balz, or Ryan, or Vinny, or anyone else. I just followed Balz outside, Chris in tow.

“This kid’s alive,” were the first words out of Josh’s mouth.

He sounded awestruck as if he could not believe it. Vampires killed each other all the time. Finding one of us dead was not a big deal but, as my gaze drifted upwards and I took in the sight of the shattered window three-stories above us, the circumstances of this particular attempt were more than a little bizarre. That and the fact that the fertile was still breathing.

That my fertile was still breathing…

I walked up to his still form, smelling the spilled blood before seeing it. My first thought had never been “he looks fragile” before, not for him, but laying there in a pool of his own blood left it imprinted in my mind.

“He won’t be for long if we don’t do something,” Chris surmised from the other side of the fertile.

“Ricky?” Ghost’s worried voice broke my trance momentarily.

I mumbled something unintelligible along the lines of “I’m fine” and bent down beside the little fertile, glass crunching beneath my feet. My hands did not know what to grab, but they reached out anyway, independent of my brain. Of course, there were a lot of mixed signals ricocheting in my skull. I was afraid to hurt him, but I wanted to get him off the glass.

Carefully, I pulled him up, leaning him against my chest and slipped my arms underneath him. I felt the sticky wetness of his blood as I lifted him off the street. Devin appeared next to me with a cloth and placed it under his head.

“I guess, we’re taking him?” Josh asked rhetorically when I went to return to the bus without a word.

Vinny, who had been standing in front of the only sensible way in, gave me an indiscernible look and backed up. He grabbed a few rags and waited near the beds before I even got there.

“Uh, you can put him in mine, if you want… I can just, like, sleep out there or on the floor or something,” he offered in a way that would have been surprising to me had I been in any different state of mind.

Upon slow comprehension of his words, I only managed to shake my hair in response. No, I was not trusting my fertile with anyone else. I laid Jess down gingerly on my bed, letting Vinny stack some of the rags under his head. There was more than enough blood to worry.

To say I was “worried” was an underestimate. There was this rising pressure within me that had my ears ringing. Something was about to break and I did not think I could stop it. I was numb to it in the meantime, but the uncertainty of my movements, the sickness in my sternum pushed me to smash that haze. I did not like this emotional purgatory. I could not think straight, but my body was reacting to the stress without me.

“He’s gonna need blood,” Devin had joined us and was already playing medic.

“We need to clean him up – Ricky… Help him or move,” I blinked in understanding, catching up to his words. (I think) I was going to shuffle out of the way, but my legs would not respond to what my brain was attempting to tell them. Instead, I remained anchored in place, unable to move away from him.

I heard Ghost sigh and felt him nudge me slightly, then a little harder until I complied to what he wanted me to do. He pushed me to sit on the bed, and I did not react much since somewhere in my inner chaos I wanted to be closer to Jess.

It was like I just needed to be there. I was not leaving his side. Who would protect him?

A glance at the blood on my hands had me acting involuntarily. With what little united sense I had left, I cut away at the fog around his mind. He needed to wake up. And when he started to stir, I brushed my finger over his lips so he would part them. As he did, I slipped that finger under one of his fangs and forced open his mouth, so I could hook the base of my wrist with his teeth. Despite the turmoil, I understood that he needed some of my life to save his.

As my blood began to flow and just his eyes drifted open, I remembered Mike.