Amaranthine: Descent | WinTeam | Boyslove

Perfect Timing

Win eased the door of his bedroom open to reveal feet jutting over the edge of his bed. Team lay prone and sideways on the mattress, plain that he had fallen over once close enough. Compulsion wasn't perfect. Add too many details and it didn't land, fizzling out. Too few and it missed the mark; the human mind interpreting what it could. Win was just happy Team wasn't on the floor.

He was snoring, his face squished to the side while his mouth hung open. Win gently turned him over and removed the uncomfortable jeans he still wore. Once the blankets were covering him, and not trapped underneath, Win smoothed his unruly hair. Team murmured, subconsciously inching closer to where Win sat beside him on the bed.

"I'm so sorry." An apology reflecting Win's guilt, but unheard by its recipient.

Win appraised his room and how it suddenly felt like a prison. Team would resist, even if he knew the truth. Maybe not at first, but the push would come. Then Win would have to do what he didn't want to, compel him and take away his choice. He prayed to whatever god hadn't cursed him that Team would be reasonable. Not get stir-crazy and reckless.

His laptop remain on his desk, his own coursework piling up, as he left Team's side. Instead, he crossed the hall into the bedroom he typically avoided. Sert's room was a cluttered jumble of chaos. Win's own room wasn't the picture of perfection, but Sert's made his look like an interior design ad by comparison. Somehow the man had suffused his own grumpiness and miserly mannerisms into it. Blankets balled up on his mattress from where he had tossed them aside upon waking. Crumpled papers littered the floor, and stacks of books. Win knew he had read each and every one of them, too.

No wonder Dao never comes over.

Sert's desk wasn't better. Piles of dusty papers, photos, notes written on scraps, and books with dogeared pages making them fatter than they should be. The silver corner of Sert's laptop peeked out from underneath the mess. Win's brow knit in concentration as he thumbed through Sert's work. Bits and pieces were intelligible, but Win couldn't read Sert's own made up short-hand, nor his scraggly handwriting most of the time. Fed up, Win cleared the junk surrounding the laptop and powered it on.

The cursor blinked, waiting for a password. At least Sert knew that much, Win thought. Though he was disappointed in him a moment later when typing a series of 1s granted him access. Old vampires and new technology. Win shook his head.

He found what he was after in a few clicks. Surveillance footage Sert, but actually Ari, had received. Each video showed the same horrid scene. Win watched people jerk as if pushed by an unseen hand. The sight hit harder than hearing about it. He closed the lid, feeling sicker than when he entered the room.

This was why Team was here. The psychological scar Team bore from his brush with A-wut was a step toward having his mind rolled. Getting his own switch thrown and being used as an instrument of death. Or... A-wut would simply kill him to make Win suffer. If A-wut was destined to be ash either way, why care?

Thoughts of Team hurt or turned into a drone set Win on edge. His usual distractions did nothing. He kept imagining Team being in one of those videos, or being taken and killed. Would A-wut dry him out first? Make sure he stayed dead for good? Or would he turn Team with his own filthy blood, eclipsing Win's? Would Team wake up in the racks as he did, cold and terrified, while his veins burned?

Win's aura flared as the damn demon in his subconscious twitched awake. The feel of the thing slithering in the back of his mind had become familiar as he learned to control it. Win cursed as he mentally pressed it back into its cage and sought out another blood pack. Maybe it would calm his nerves and he could at least lie next to Team until he woke.