chapter 1

So Good to See You

Ordinarily I’d have the decency to hold my tongue

Then eventually I’d wind up opening a vein

Rather pointedly you asked me if I planned to turn and run

That’s a certainty when I’m this close to the drain

But it’s so good to see you

(Song lyrics by Shawn Colvin)

For the thousandth time George reminds himself to count his blessings. He sits down with a plate of toast, buttering it liberally, nodding gratefully to Annie as she pours him a cup of herbal tea to accompany his breakfast.

Mitchell is back with them again. There had been such an emptiness here without him. It had been like a family reunion when they'd gone to meet him at the airport.

But George wonders again what really happened to Mitchell in New Zealand, and if his friend really is better off here at all. They know something serious happened, but they haven't been able to get him to talk about it. They only know from his screams that echo through the house at night that his sleep is being deeply disturbed by dreams they can only imagine, and that weren't occuring before he left. Now Mitchell occupies the chair opposite him as though all one hundred seventeen years of his life have caught up to him. His eyes are hollow and unfocused and seem to be directed at George’s right elbow, his thick lashes blinking slowly. His spoon scrapes around the curve of his cereal bowl aimlessly, joining the sounds of George’s knife against the toast, and the coffee Annie is pouring into a cup by Mitchell’s wrist. Annie gives George a worried look, the same one they have been exchanging ever since Mitchell returned from New Zealand.

They have seen Mitchell’s full range of emotions, of course. They both remember fondly the times when they’d seen Mitchell happy, laughing with his full heart, his eyes drawn to merry slits with crinkles at their edges. They have seen him down as well, saddened and racked with guilt and self- loathing. They have seen the demon in him too, the dark side of Mitchell, so angry and enraged that they’d even been a little afraid of him.

But they have never seen him like this. Whatever Mitchell had felt in the past, he had always been passionate about it. But the heart seems to have gone out of him. Something has defeated the vampire. One would have thought he had become a ghost himself.

He’s been like this for weeks.

“So! What are you up to today, mate?” George breaks through the silence with an effort.

“hmm?” Mitchell surfaces.

“Yeah, isn’t it your day off?”

“umm, yeah, it is.” Mitchell frowns into his coffee as though looking for a possible plan to fill his day in the swirling black liquid, then seeming to realize the real purpose of the drink, brings it to his lips for a sip. He looks back at the two, who are regarding him with that look he knows very well. Annie is shuffling from foot to foot, her hands gripping the coffee pot a bit too tightly, her eyebrows raised with anticipation.

Too much anticipation.

If he tells them the truth, that he does not really have any plans for the day, they will pounce on him with a dozen ideas, each more cringingly unpalatable than the last.  Bingo at the community center, arts and crafts at the church, Tai Chi lessons.

He loves them for it, he really does. But he cannot bear another evening of Karoake with them at the bowling alley. Watching George and Annie perform “Don’t Go Breaking my Heart” together had been enough to cure him of ever enjoying karoake again, especially as the audience could only see and hear George’s part of the duet and not Annie since she was a ghost. And George’s voice…well…

“Well, actually,” He struggles to come up with a lie, quickly, “I was thinking I might—“

Abruptly there is a knock at the door. Annie jumps as though someone has stuck her with a pin and practically leaps for the front door.

Mitchell eyes her suspiciously, then feels George tapping his arm,

“yes? What were you thinking?”

George has the same look on his face that he had the night he and Annie had planned that dreadful surprise party for him two years before. Mitchell frowns at him, then turns back to the door.

Annie is enthusiastically welcoming someone into the front hall, someone in a long camel skin coat and leather gloves, someone in tailored pants and shoes who is smiling at her and brushing flakes of snow out of his mop of golden hair…

“Son of a fuckin’ bitch…”

Anders turns and smiles brightly at Mitchell. “Can’t argue with you there, mate.”

He doesn’t move at first, just sits staring with his mouth partly open. He slowly rises from his chair and moves through a strangely elongated sequence of seconds towards Anders whose arms open to receive him in an embrace that knocks the breath out of both of them. The blond smells of autumn leaves, soft leather and something deeper and yeastier like baked bread; his arms are rock hard against Mitchell’s back which brings a tightness to the brunet’s throat.

It’s been a long two months.

Mitchell has not been eating well or sleeping well, and depriving himself of blood has never been so difficult. But depriving himself of Anders has been the worst. He had left Anders’ apartment (their apartment) on that terrible morning without saying goodbye, without getting to see for himself that the blond was all right, that he had indeed been healed of those terrible injuries he himself had given him. Ty had assured him that Anders had been completely healed, that he would have no scars and he wasn’t in any pain. But even Ty had asked that he leave, that Anders was just barely conscious and still in shock, and seeing Mitchell that morning would be too much for him.

So he’d agreed to leave right then, to let Mike drive him straight to the airport. Partly he was riding his rage against Herrick, but under the fragile surface of that anger floated his last image of Anders, unconscious, his face swollen and bleeding and barely alive. The horror of it still screams at him, that it had finally happened, that Mitchell had finally done violent harm to someone he loved. Yes, he’d been drugged and manipulated into doing it, but it didn’t dull the guilt of it for him. Images of his attack on Anders now joined all the other memories of his victims that had haunted him all his life, taking up residence in his nightmares and pushing themselves constantly into his waking thoughts.

So he remained in Bristol, far from New Zealand so he wouldn’t be tempted to see Anders again, so he’d never put Anders in danger again.

But now Anders is here in his arms, whole and well and smiling at him. He holds him at arm’s length, barely believing it, lightly touching his face which is smooth and shows no marks of his attack at all.

“What are you doing here?!”

“I had some business in Norway so I thought I’d drop by and give you another chance to show me around Bristol, since you did such a shit job of it last time.”

He hears George clear his throat and looks over into the kitchen where Annie is practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, grinning so broadly her face might break, her hands dragging George’s sleeve down his arm.

“Well it looks like you guys need a room—I mean, some room!” George stammers as both Annie and the two men turn to stare at him, “...you know, to catch up and talk, and do whatever you …need to do.” the werewolf blushes brilliantly.

Annie begins dragging George up the stairs, “So good to finally meet you!” she says to Anders, who smiles and nods back at her, “come on George weren’t you going to show me that, uh, that new book you got?”

“What? Oh, yeah, Angels and Demons.“

Their voices drift up the stairs.

Mitchell turns back to Anders, regarding him with a raised eyebrow. “They’ve been in contact with you haven’t they?

Anders’ blue eyes twinkle at him. “That’s a fine thing to say to the man who’s rescuing you from another night of karaoke.”

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