Red Moon Over New York part4
The line rang twice before the phone was answered with a simple, "Yes?"
"Sebastian, I need money," was the first thing he said.
Well, hello to you too, Kurt, yes I’m doing fine thank you for asking. No, don't worry, you weren't bothering me at all. It’s not like I have other things to do besides answering your every call," Sebastian answered in a sarcastic tone, but the laugh at the end gave away that he was just riling Kurt up and wasn't really bothered at all. "Back to your question, though. With an ass like yours you could make an easy $200 a night. If you don't say anything and just use your mouth to suck dick, it could be even more. Plus, we don't tax money you make that way."
"Oh, shut up, you ass! You know what I mean. This rent isn't paying itself, although I guess, with the night-vision thing I save a shit ton of money on electricity, and not needing to maintain a healthy body temperature saves on the heating, but still. This job is driving me crazy. I write fucking horoscopes!" Kurt let out a sigh. "I appreciate you helping me out and getting me this job, I really do. But I graduated from NYADA, I want to be on stage and perform, not write cryptic bullshit that somehow ties to fashion one way or another. All the shows I looked into are R rated, and I’m simply not cut out for that. Isn't there anything you could do?" Kurt was desperate now, and only a little bit embarrassed about the whining tone his voice had taken towards the end of his rant.
"Sweetheart, I told you graduating from that fancy prancing school wasn't gonna get you anywhere in our society. A doctor, teacher, nurse or anything useful, really, but we have absolutely no ties to the dramatic arts. Come on now, we’ve had this conversation plenty of times. The only thing I know about that’s open is a spot at one of the blood banks across town. Nothing big, you wouldn't even work with the humans. All you would do would be labeling the bags and packing them into the Styrofoam shipping boxes for the delivery guys to pick up. That would pay about double what you make right now and if you’re good at splitting your time up and you get lucky with the shifts, you might even be able to keep both jobs. It’s not like you have a social life anyways."
The last part, the Mentor nearly snarled. Sebastian was very bothered by the fact that Kurt had refused to get out and meet some of his own kind, and would rather sit alone at home and just stare at his computer. The only times he saw Kurt leave his home and talk to others was when he had dropped everything and moved, when he had had to go out and look at houses and he had to go shopping several times to get stuff for his place. Now that everything was set up, graduation had passed and school was no longer a problem, Kurt barely made it to the front door to get his food delivery. Luckily, his neighbors didn't seem to care about the weirdo that had bought the old and rundown house on the street, and didn't pay much attention to whether he got mail or actually put his trash out.
It wasn't like Kurt wanted to be secluded from the world around him, but the thought of hurting another human scared him. The only way, in his opinion, was to go out on stage and focus on the role, hoping that the concentration needed would be enough to distract him from the smell of pumping blood in veins so close to bite and the dull boom, boom, boom he could hear from the hear beats he had encountered.
"So there’s nothing that I could do from home, is that what you are saying?" Kurt questioned. "Why are you so hell bent on getting me out of my house? Why does the fact that I like my own company best bother you so much?"
"Because if left alone and without any form of contact, vampires go crazy, that's why, you stubborn idiot.!" Sebastian yelled through the phone. "Because we need to talk to others and learn, because if we all just don’t care for one another, all hell is going to break loose. The peace we live in between the three groups of us and the humans will break apart. Because I am worried about you! Maybe because I don't understand why you have to be such a self-centered, self-loving, selfish, arrogant dick now that you changed! You used to crave friendship and acknowledgment like others did air, and now you’re a well dressed but lonely weirdo that doesn't leave his house unless the blood he lives off of gets dropped off at the curb instead of right at the doorstep! And then you call to complain about that! What the fuck happened to you?"
Sebastian hung up without another word and Kurt was left staring dumbly at his phone. "Who the hell does he think he is?" he grumbled to himself, and placed it onto the table right next to his computer.
About 20 minutes later, his phone chimed with the signal for a text message and when he looked down at the screen he saw that it was from his Mentor.
You start tomorrow at 130pm so I suggest you rest tonight. Your shift ends when the sun goes down.
A second message came in, explaining to him that there would be a shuttle bus with sun-proofed windows, and a human driver who wouldn’t ask questions, coming to pick him and the others up.
*
Kurt was dead set on ignoring his Mentor’s demands and just letting the bus drive past his house instead of going in to work at the blood bank. He spent the first 4 hours of the night writing his shitty horoscopes and, when his computer clock showed that it was well past eleven at night, he got up and went to the kitchen to get himself a cup of blood to ease the nerves which were on edge ever since his conversation with Sebastian.
He opened the fridge and a smile spread across his face. The last delivery had two bags of his favorite blood in it, and he had been saving them for a rainy day, so to speak. He took out one of the bags labeled AB684 and turned to his cupboard to grab his favorite cup. Ever since that first night, he had stuck with drinking blood from his favorite mug and something of a fond feeling spread through him, remembering the first time he tasted this particular donor. He had had many different ones since then, but he always came back to this one. Thankfully, with just a little bit of extra money for the drivers and sweet-talking Sebastian into helping him, he was able to make sure that only he would get that blood. It was the most selfish thing he had done for himself, besides letting go of everything and everybody from his human life. He was fine with the funny looks and the teasing comments he got from Sebastian and his delivery man. It tasted like home and warmth to him, and that was something that he hadn't felt in a while due to his self-inflicted lifestyle choices.
He was so focused on the slowly spinning cup in his microwave that he didn’t notice the rustling outside his door. It was the whispering scrape of paper against his hardwood floors that made him aware something going on. In a flash, he was by his front door and looking at the floor in shock. There it was, a vivid memory of his growing up. The same light blue envelope with his name neatly printed in the same generic font as always. It had been almost two years since he had gotten the last one, and he had almost forgotten the thrill that went through him every time one appeared. The mysterious person sending him these knew about him and what his life might become back then. Now, Kurt was wondering if they knew it had happened. 'Of course they know. They found you,' he thought, and fear crawled down his spine. He opened the door and extended his fangs, just in case he had to defend himself, but there was nobody there. A cloud of static electricity was still lingering outside of his door, but no sound besides the normal neighborhood noises could be heard. With shaking hands, he closed the door and picked up the letter still lying by his feet.
"While I can't condemn you for the choices you have made, I have to urge you to get out and meet the world you are living in. I do understand why you decided to go this route but it is a dangerous one. There are many thing out there that can and will kill you if given the chance, starting with the humans who know about us. They are few in number but they are armed to their teeth with weapons and knowledge about vampires unlike us, forgotten by the rest of humanity for centuries. Then there’s predators, angry at the choice the Mentor opened up. Angry at the fact that some of us choose to live as humans, and disgusted by the peace we established. There are plenty of predators out there, hunting humans for sport, and a small group has turned against the rules. They seek the lonely and the newborns. Disguised as friends they will slowly convince others to join the cause, collecting members all over the world and training for a war that is bound to happen. The Mentor is their main goal right now, getting rid of him will take away the choice to come back and live a normal life. It was him, one of our strongest predators that ever walked this earth, that decided there has to be more to life then killing. He found his way into the dream world and he faced both creatures in a fight nobody dares to speak of anymore. Your friend is older than you think. When the time comes, ask him. Let him tell you the story. For right now, get out into the world and connect with it. Build friendships and establish a circle of trustworthy beings. Whether you choose them to be human or vampire is your decision but don't life a live as an eremite. It is not in yours or our nature to be alone.
Don't be alarmed by my finding you. I always know where you are and I mean you no harm. I assure you, somewhere down the road we will meet and then you will understand.
With shaking hands, Kurt put the letter back into its envelope and walked to his office. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the little red box he had stuffed there right after moving in and opened the lid. Inside he had kept all of the letters he ever received, sorted by date from first on the bottom to last on top and he gently placed his newest addition on top of the old ones. Carefully, he placed the top back on the box and put it all back in its place, closing the drawer.
He went back into the living room, grabbing his now cold cup from the microwave on his way past the kitchen, and sat down on his couch staring at his computer in front of him. Shaking his head to himself, he opened his browser and logged on to his new Facebook page that he hadn't touched since creating it a few months back. Everything on his page was set to private, and he even used an alias, Lestrade Cullen. Sebastian's laughter was still ringing in his ears from the day he had forgotten to log out when the Mentor showed up. Once he had seen it, Kurt didn't hear the end of it for several weeks.
Automatically, his hand went to the search bar and typed in the same two words that he always did when he went on. "Blaine Anderson." Just because he broke off everything with him and even forbade his father to speak of Blaine, he couldn't stop himself from checking up on his ex-boyfriend. He was scared of the moment he would see that Blaine had found someone, but also sad, noticing that again, nothing had changed. Blaine's profile hadn't been updated in a few months and he was starting to get worried. The last pictures posted were from graduation, showing Blaine giving the speech at the ceremony in his valedictorian outfit. He’d been proud of Blaine when he saw it a few weeks previously, and it still warmed his insides now, seeing him so happy. No new comments had been posted since he last checked on him, or at least, none open to the public. Kurt hoped that Blaine had just finally changed his security settings and now wasn't sharing everything openly anymore. He didn’t think about it too much, just opened his favorite picture and blew it up to full screen. Grabbing his cup, he sat back into his couch cushions.
*
Setting foot into the blood bank was overwhelming for Kurt. The artificial lighting hurt his eyes, and all the noise made by bustling workers getting ready to go home or the computers and printer made his head spin. The smell was a strong mix of human blood and hospital grade disinfectants. This overload on his senses made his knees wobble, and he had to hold onto the wall to his left to stabilize himself. He was already regretting his choice this morning to actually come out and give it a chance, but the letter he had received was scaring him a little and he was hoping to eventually run into the person sending them while out and about.
He only saw the waiting area from the outside, having to walk past the windows on the bottom floor in order to get to lab where he was told he would be working.
The work itself wasn't hard, just boring. The bags came in filled with the warm and delicious liquid, marked with a bar code.
All Kurt had to do was scan the code with his little handgun scanner and then print out the small information sticker to give the blood a
name and number, and ensure it was traceable back to that exact blood bank. Once the sticker was printed, Kurt stuck it to the matching bag and then placed it into one of the green Styrofoam boxes that littered the lab. Ten bags for each box, close the box and send it to the fridge. Others were responsible for putting orders together and sorting everything out for the delivery trucks to
come and pick them up when they started their rounds.
It was amazing, but Sebastian never called nor showed his face at Kurt's to gloat about the fact that he had gotten
Kurt to go out of his house to go work. As a matter of fact, it was going to be weeks until Kurt heard from him again.
*
It was the Friday of the fourth week of Kurt's working in the back of the lab, when everything in Kurt's existence changed.
As usual, Kurt got to work with his co-workers and had to go past the glass wall separating the waiting area for the donors from the hallway they used to get to their workplaces. Kurt had often tried to get a look at the faces of the people waiting to unknowingly feed him and his kind, just so he could try and figure out the faces of his favorite flavors, but it was frowned upon to disturb them while they waited, or to make contact with them. The aim was to make sure that nobody felt the need to try to drink straight from the vein. It was one thing to taste someone from a impersonal bag, and quite another to actually smell them in real life, warm blood
still pumping through their bodies.
"