Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Percy

Southwick, England, 1915

The church bells were ringing as Gideon walked through the village, heading for Percy's cottage. The evening air was warm and still, sweet with the smell of freshly cut grass, and Gideon trailed his hand along an overgrown hedge as he passed it.

Life was simple in this little village, and that was how he liked it.

The locals certainly thought he was a bit odd – he was of marriageable age and yet showed no interest in anyone, and he had no interest in attending church either – but for the most part the humans and the vampire peacefully coexisted with each other.

Gideon's willingness to help his neighbours out whenever they needed it probably helped matters.

He knocked on Percy's front door. Like all the others in the village, it was painted dark red – the cottages, farms, and terraced houses were all owned by the Southwick Estate, and one of the conditions in the tenancy agreements was that everyone's door had to be painted that colour.

Gideon really didn't know why.

Percy opened the door, and Gideon's stomach gave a little swoop.

How did Percy always look that good? A couple of years older than Gideon had been when he died, Percy Bates had a bright, open face with smooth skin that always failed to produce anything more than the faintest hint of stubble, and perfectly groomed dark hair.

They'd been seeing each other for a few weeks, and Gideon really liked this man, enough to end the more than ten years of celibacy since things had ended with Frank. He didn't know if this was going anywhere, but he was trying to focus on enjoying the present rather than thinking too much about the future.

He followed Percy into the house, expecting the other man to kiss him as soon as the front door closed, like he always did, but instead Percy took his hand and pulled him through to the kitchen.

There was something different about him tonight, some barely restrained sense of excitement.

"What's going on?" Gideon asked, as Percy guided him into a chair at the table. Percy took the one opposite him, holding his hands on the tabletop.

"I've made a big decision and I need to talk to you about it," Percy said.

A dozen possibilities ran through Gideon's head, all of them to do with their relationship. They had sex whenever they could, alternating between Gideon's cottage and Percy's, and they both spent the night together sometimes, but Percy hadn't yet expressed any desire to take things further than that. That didn't mean he hadn't been thinking about it, though.

Then Percy spoke again, and everything changed.

"I've enlisted," he said.

Two those words cast the kitchen into a silence so thick and heavy that Gideon was sure he could physically feel the weight of it.

"What?" he said, though he knew he hadn't misheard.

Percy's face shone like a star, and suddenly he looked very young, just a boy really.

Gideon noticed something else – a tattered poster lying at the other end of the table. It was a poster that he'd become very familiar with lately – Lord Kitchener's moustachioed face staring out, his finger pointing, telling Britain's youth how much their country needed them.

His heart sank like a stone.

"It's time to do my patriotic duty, and give those German bastards a taste of good English steel," Percy said.