sorry about the blood in your mouth (I wish it was mine) - FDTD - Seth/Richie (1/3)

[scorpiod1]

Title: sorry about the blood in your mouth (I wish it was mine)
Fandom: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Ship: Seth/Richie
Rating: NC-17, for graphic violence and sex.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Word Count: 23K.
Spoilers: Up to Pandemonium, but mainly AU from Place of Dead Roads. Things unfold differently, let’s just say.
Summary: Richie is a vampire now but that doesn’t mean things have to change, right? (or so Seth tells himself)
Warnings: Violence, gore, bloodplay, references to child abuse, references to underage incest.
Notes: Title and cut tag taken from Richard Siken’s little beast. I started writing this way back after I saw the second episode and finished around the time Pandemonium aired, while I edited and beta'd for the rest of the season. Therefore, this doesn't entirely line up factually with canon, which is probably a big deal only to me, and more of an alternative take on events. Lots and lots of thanks goes to opheliahyde, who is more than just the beta for this fic but my partner, I could not have finished this without her input, her enabling and her hand-holding through sleepless nights, and did everything to make sure this was in tiptop shape. All errors in the fic are mine. Also on Ao3.



Things don’t even feel that different.

They still drive like they’re running away from something, leaving everything behind (whether it’s an ancient temple masking as a bar, or a small, burning house in the distance, they leave it behind; it’s what they’ve always done). Now it’s on Mexican roads, the winding and twisting mountain roads, or the wide and expansive highways, hot desert heat that doesn’t let up and cooler nights. Now it’s at night almost exclusively, because Richie burns during the day, doesn’t matter how much he covers up (so much for sunshine and blue agave, huh?).

They’re still running from the law, but the exodus into Mexico is some relief. Seth doesn’t feel the weight of inevitable capture on his back anymore. It’s a different kind of weight now. Less running from cops and more running away, running from whatever might still whispering to Richie, leaving that piece of shit bar and everything associated with it in the dust.

Richie is the same-same glasses he refuses to part with and same white button up shirts and cheap suits and stupid khaki pants, same stillness and affection for cartoons. Still a creepy fucker.

Only now he’s a creepy fucker sleeps during the day and drinks blood, using his teeth and hands instead of his knives.

This is what you fought for, Seth reminds himself. This is why he clawed and fought and dragged his way down that godforsaken place until he hit bottom, for him. So what if his brother is a little different, has sharper teeth. They've always had sharp teeth and claws, the two of them. It’s just literal for Richie now.

He tells himself nothing else matters, as long as he has Richie beside him, that’s enough.

(he didn't think it'd be this way)

*

Richie’s blood was on his hands, covering it, until he couldn’t see the color of his skin anymore, just red, red blood and he’s never been so horrified of the sight of blood before.

Seth presses on the wound-put pressure on it, that helps, the basic first aid he picked up from a life of crime and holding Richie together-but it’s less of a cut and more of a gaping hole in his throat, and he can’t do anything but watch Richie twitch, gasp, and convulse on the floor.

Richie died with wide eyes, on the dirty, beer and blood soaked floor of a piece of shit bar and Seth knows he deserves it; if karmic justice is real, they both deserve to die here and go straight to hell but his brother’s blood is on his hands. All he can think is the promises he made to him, his ex-wife saying it’s always going to be you and Richie like it’s a curse, and telling Richie this will all be a memory soon, in their rearview mirror and Seth forgets the world around him, the danger surrounding him still, and chokes out a you can’t fucking leave me with his hands pressed against his brother’s throat, when he really means to say I love you.

Richie woke up then, snake eyes and cobra teeth and scales; he told Seth he loved him too, right before tearing into that poor bastard Sex Machine standing next to him.

*

Richie asks him to pull over when they pass a hitchhiker.

“Are you serious?” Seth says, but Richie reaches over and grabs the wheel, tugs just hard enough so Seth has to stop, no choice but to come to a screeching halt by the side of the road.

Richie gets up before Seth can say anything, and Seth knows what’s going to happen then. He can read it from the planes of Richie’s back, the way he straightens up and walks slowly, purposeful and deliberate, advancing like an animal. He doesn’t want to watch, he doesn’t want to watch, but he stares anyway, he needs to.

(Back in the bar, Richie killed vampires, helped their little group live to die another day, but the thing everyone got stuck on-the thing Kate and Scott and Jacob got stuck on-was the person he killed. No one was going to miss the man he drained, but knowing there’s a wolf among you makes people uneasy, Seth’s always known. Seth told them Richie could have killed the guy easily before, the both of them could have, the method is just different but Richie whispered, I was hungry, Seth, in his ear and Seth doesn’t think he’s ever seen Richie so crazed in his life-he used to live for getting Richie disheveled and dirty and wild-eyed but this was different)

He sees the moment the hitchhiker-a man, Seth can see, younger than them-catches on to something not quite right about the way Richie moves, or the flash of green-yellow in his eyes; he gives an alarmed shout in Spanish and starts to run.

Then Richie is on him, jumping on his back, and it’s almost funny-grown man, big guy like Richie, piggy-backing someone so much smaller. The screams aren’t funny. Neither is the noise Richie makes, like a cross between a hiss and a snarl, loud and inhuman, or the way his mouth clamps around the back of his neck, latches on, tears the flesh and buries his face in the wound. The hitchhiker ends on on the ground and Seth can hear the ugly, tearing sounds and the wet squishy ones.

Of course, it’s gotta be messy. It’s gotta be torn apart, eviscerated corpses and ripped up bodies. Otherwise, they come back. Like Richie did.

They wouldn’t want that, right?

“Richie, hey, buddy,” Seth says when Richie goes still, approaching carefully, the way you do a wild animal. Seth’s heart is pounding (maybe Richie can hear it; Richie hears a lot of things now). Richie’s back is to him, but he’s crouched over, staring down at his handiwork. The closer Seth gets, the more it smells like blood, sharp and iron-copper in the air, mixing in with the dry and dusty scent of the desert and cactus and something else. Like death, sickly on his tongue. “Richie?” he asks again.

Seth’s fingers are wrapped around the grip of his gun, before he realized he had it out, like second nature (he’s not going to use it, this is just Richie, but it feels comforting to hold it, something to steady himself with). He puts his free hand on Richie’s shoulder, fingers lightly squeezing.

“You okay?” Seth asks. Stupid question.

Richie glances at him, raising his head from the kill. Richie’s fangs are wicked and serpentine-long pointed, venomous things that cut clear through muscle. He puts them away, but it’s a process-it takes Richie scrunching up his forehead and flexing his jaw, like he’s trying to remember how to do it, figure out how the muscles in his face work again.

“I was hungry,” Richie says again, blood running down his chin. He wipes it with his sleeve, but it just gets on his suit jacket, Richie frowning at the new stain. There’s a smear of blood on his glasses too-Richie kept them, attached to those stupid things, even if Richie has perfect vision now-but at least they’re easier to clean. It doesn’t matter how much he wipes, it’s all over his face-spots and streaks of it over his nose and cheeks. “But I’m okay now.”

“Alright,” Seth says, nodding. That’s just the way things are now. “Just let me know next time, okay?” Seth didn’t know he was that hungry. He doesn’t particularly want to think about it.

Richie rolls his eyes but nods.

“Okay, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Seth helps Richie drag the body away from the car, deeper into the desert, where they can’t see the road as well except for the lights of passing cars in the distance, far enough away so it feels like they’re on the other side of the world. Seth gets blood all over his hands, but he always does. He should let Richie do this-he’s stronger now and it’s his mess, but it doesn’t feel right making Richie hide the bodies himself. It’s not as if it’s the first time they’ve disposed of a body together.

They dig a grave by the side of the road. Or rather, Richie does, with his bare hands-the ground is solid, with hard clumps of dirt and dried up land, hard and harsh terrain, but it doesn’t bother Richie. He digs it up like it’s pudding, easy for his hands to slide in and move the dirt around.

“There’s a shovel in the trunk,” Seth says, watching Richie. “If you need a hand.”

“If you want,” Richie says. “You don’t need to, it’s a bit of a walk back to the car.”

That’s true. He supposes it’s quicker this way. Seth’s pretty sure he couldn’t move the dry, cracked dirt with a shovel easily anyway.

Seth just stands by the side, playing lookout and feeling like dead weight.

It’s all desert and mountain ranges, basins and plateaus in this part of Mexico. Beautiful, really, under the stars, bright out tonight. Seth was never one to appreciate nature, but for a sweet moment, he feels all alone in the world, just him and Richie, the way it should be.

And the body. There’s the bodies. There’s always been bodies, unavoidable casualties, but there’s gonna be a trail of them, given Richie’s hunger. He’s not going to be able to help it.

It’s the hunger, I can’t help it, that’s what Richie said and the two of them have always been hungry for one thing or another-be it food, security, money, pride or love-but this is different, Seth’s never been that kind of hungry, all consuming, like it was going to swallow Richie whole.

“You gotta brush your fucking teeth, there’s blood on ‘em,” Seth says when they’re done. Richie throws his head back and laughs when he says it, warm and fond, like he used to when they were kids, before Seth got thrown in prison. There was never much cause to laugh when they were kids either-they took what they could get.

Seth tries not to think about it-the bodies and the blood-because Richie smiles when they walk back to the car, unworried, leans into Seth’s space to put an arm around him while he drives. There’s something loose and casual in Richie’s posture, and Seth thinks this must be good, then, the culebra thing. Richie calm and relaxed, and the two of them together.

Isn’t this what you wanted? What you promised?

Seth gets blood on the steering wheel when he drives, bloody handprints where he shouldn’t, and he thinks they’re going to have to ditch this car.

“You need to be more careful,” Seth says, “about the people you kill.” Richie just turns his head out the window and doesn’t say anything the rest of the way.

*

They’re used to killing.

Richie’s first kill was their father, when he was fourteen.

Richie pulled him out of a burning house. Seth thirteen years old and all sharp edges and bony angles with dark hair and even darker eyes, just barely hitting puberty. Richie was slightly older, skinny with wiry glasses and hair that flopped in his face and got in his eyes.

He didn’t look like a killer, but that was his first.

Seth felt Richie’s arms around him before he felt the smoke blanketing his lungs and then it didn’t matter anymore because his lungs felt clogged, but they were outside, fresh air pumping through. The fire lapped at their old house, wood cracking and snapping, black and grey smoke circling the air high above them, ashes falling down like benediction, like soot on your forehead on ash wednesday. Seth thought the black cloud would swallow up the house before the fire.

Is dad still in there? Seth asked. Richie was very, very still, watching the flames burn, his arms wrapped tightly around Seth. He didn’t look away from the growing inferno.

Richie set the fire, Seth knew, without having to ask. Richie never told him, but he knows-the way he knows Richie’s favorite order at Big Kahuna Burger, the way he knows his single minded intensity and when he needs quiet and when Seth needs to step back, or give him a good smack on the side of the head. Seth knows these things about his brother, as well as he knows how to breathe.

All anyone would have to do to know is take a look at Seth’s black eye and the litany of bruises, scar tissue and hospital visits on their records. All it takes Seth is a look at Richie’s eyes, hollowed out and empty, when he nods and tells him I think we’ll be okay now.

(this was something he could never say to Vanessa, because patricide might just be too much on their list of sins for her)

Seth’s first kill was when he was fifteen, and it felt like marking an anniversary, taking a crowbar to some piece of shit lowlife who’d put a gun at his brother’s forehead and broke his glasses. He took a crowbar to his wrist so the gun clanged on the floor-the man older and stronger and not expecting some skinny punk kid to come at him-then took the crowbar to his head. He didn’t stop until Seth was splattered with his blood-blood on his clothes, blood on the ground, blood on his face-and the man’s head resembled more a pile of red caved in mush than a head.

It was exhilarating at first, adrenaline and blood pumping through his veins and filling his head, practically screaming in his ears. Seth thought he knew what seeing red was, that his drunk father had taught the meaning of the phrase-but seeing red is the shaking, terrifying uncertainty he’d lose his brother that turned to destructive violence in his hands.

He shook after, and nearly puked, but manage to keep down, swallowing it down. Richie didn’t puke, didn’t he? He just got the job done.

Richie stared at him, wide-eyed and shocked, droplets of blood splatter on his face, but he thanked him and clung to him, wrapped his hand around Seth’s bloody wrist and dragged him away. Later, when they got back in the car, Richie told him to control himself, next time. Outbursts of violence can break a job. You get into less trouble if you don’t leave a trail of bodies. Kansas is a death penalty state, remember?

(That’s kind of funny now, in retrospect, his brother telling him that. Funny in a oh god I’m going to throw up, kind of way of. So not funny at all)

*

Seth is hotwiring a car outside the Titty Twister while the place goes down in flames-it’s not like anyone needs it anymore-when Richie puts his hand on his shoulder, nudging, tugging him. “Seth,” he says.

“You could help me with this, Richard, it’s your ass,” Seth says, but he looks up and Carlos is leaning on the hood, looking at them both with a grin on his face. It’s second nature at this point to just point the gun at him.

“You goddamn lying piece of shit,” Seth snarls out and Carlos just laughs at him. Seth just about pulls the trigger there-in the head, while laughing, point blank range. He’s pretty sure it’ll kill him, vampire or culebra or no. A headshot will ugly you up at least, but Richie grabs him by the wrist and pulls his gun hand down, shaking his head, and that’s the second time he wants to punch his brother right there, glances at him just so Richie can read the what the fuck, bro? expression on his face.

“No se preocupen, lagartijas. I just came to bid you farewell. I hope I never see either of your faces again.”

“Oh, is that it? You just want to say goodbye?”

Carlos smiles, a small, wry curve of his lips, head tilted low. It’s the winning look of someone who got what they wanted, cat with cream and canary. Seth wishes Richie would let go of his hand, his fingers curling on the grip.

Carlos glances at Richie, standing behind Seth.

“You’re staying with him, then?” he asks Richie, his face softening just a bit, more curious now. Seth hates it, the look on both their faces. He can’t read them, can’t read Richie, and Seth feels like he’s missed a vital part of the conversation, something he can’t understand, no matter how hard he tries.

Richie nods, quick and curt. The grip on his hand tightens, almost too much. His hand is warm but lacks the usual perspiration, palm dry rather than sweaty. “I’m not leaving him,” Richie says.

That’s something, at least, Seth thinks, but he still can’t pull his hand free; it doesn’t really ease the tense knot and pounding of his heart, Richie holding on like a vice and clinging too tight.

“Good,” Carlos says, slinking off the hood. “Because you would get annoying quick and I’d lose patience.”

Carlos takes a step closer to Seth then and before he can react, Carlos is right there, in his space. He leans in close enough so he could rip out his throat if he wanted to, sliding a hand up his lapels to grab on tight. Seth waits for Richie to say something, do something, put a gun to Carlos’ head, let his fucking hand go, but he doesn’t, he just stays slack beside him (that scares Seth more than anything).

“Be careful, Seth,” Carlos says, inching closer. Seth waits for Richie to come to his rescue. It doesn’t happen. “Your brother has teeth and hunger now, and you’re a tasty snack. You should watch your back. You never know when you’ll wake up to fangs in your throat.”

He leaves then, walking off before the sun rises. Seth turns around to yell at Richie, to smack him at least, vampire or no, but Santanico is standing next to Richie. Her face is soft and relaxed, not like at the bar, when it was all performance art or snarls, and she is stroking a hand softly across his face. It looks gentle, it looks intimate, like they’re having a conversation he can’t hear. Seth can’t tell what Richie is thinking, his face blank as she touches him; he is still grabbing on to him, rendering his gun hand useless.

Seth just wants to shoot her until he’s out of bullets, then reload.

“He’s jealous,” Richie says when she’s finally gone, starting to load up in the car. “That’s why he doesn’t want me around, but I don’t really-”

“What did she say to you?” Seth asks.

“Say to me?”

“Don’t lie to me, brother,” Seth snaps, “Not now, I know she did some freaky mind mojo or some shit with you.”

Mind mojo or some shit. She’s in my head, Seth, Richie told him, she showed me things, and it makes Seth’s skin crawl, wishing he could just kill her, the idea of someone crawling around in his brother’s head and soul and poking at stuff Seth can never see making him sick in the pit of his stomach.

Seth can’t stop thinking about how Santanico killed him, but now he’s here, standing before Seth, same as ever. Still here.

Richie pauses before he answers, which makes Seth instantly suspicious. “She just wanted to say thank you.”

Seth stares at Richie, long and hard. He should be driving, but-

“Oh, is that it?” His voice is sharp and ugly. “Is that all? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here? Among your kind?”

“Seth. This is stupid, it’s over, Seth, she doesn’t need-”

“Do you want to go with her?”

He lowers his voice for his last question, but it’s not gentle. More like a ready condemnation, accusatory. His brother looks like his brother right now, and they’re both covered in blood from the fight. Seth can almost forget what happened to Richie, act like everything is the same, except for when he looks at Santanico touching him and remembers (she made him a vampire, culebra, whatever, and the process was violent and ugly, not something Seth ever wants a part of, but there’s something there he can’t touch, can’t understand-something he wants leave his fingerprints all over).

This was easier in the bar; the stakes were lower, he thinks, than they are now. All he had to do was shoot, and protect his brother, and that’s always been easy.

Richie shakes his head. “No. don’t be ridiculous, brother,” he says, dismissing it, as always. How many times has Seth heard, don’t be ridiculous, when Seth asked a question Richie deemed too stupid to answer.

Okay then, Seth decides, fine. “Let’s get ramblin’, then,” he says, that old stupid phrase, but it feels too rehearsed, going through the motions.

They drive away from the bar, leaving it on fire and behind in the distance, until all Seth can see in the review view mirror is a speck of orange flame in the distance, Richie’s gaze heavy on him.

*

Once they leave the Titty Twister, Seth doesn’t stop the car for anything. Drives hard and fast, burning rubber, breaking the speed limit, like he can somehow drive this car and outrun vampires with it. That’s stupid, he knows, but his hands grip tight on the steering wheel and he’s too tired to keep his mind from whispering you can’t take him over and over, like Santanico will come back and snatch her prize away.

Richie sits in the driver’s seat next to him, like a gift from god, his dead brother returned to him only a little bit dead. He’s unearthly quiet, staring out at the dark roads, only their headlights lighting the way. Sometimes he moves, staring at his hand, the one that was recently duct taped up. The hole is gone now.

(Seth wonders what he’s thinking about; he thinks he should know, him of all people-no one else knows Richie better than him, no one else would dare to get close enough-but that’s not true anymore, she’s been in his head, saw things Seth can’t know about, and he doesn’t think he can even ask)

“You need to find a hotel soon,” Richie says out of the blue, first word he’s spoken since they left. His hands fiddle with the radio. All the stations are in Spanish, but sometimes English songs come on them, though he doesn’t recognize those songs either.

“Excuse me?”

Richie looks at him. Seth doesn’t turn away from the road, but his eyes burn a hole in him.

“The sun is going to rise soon,” he says calmly. “I need a dark place. Like a hotel. Black out curtains.” He pauses, mulling it over. “I suppose the bathroom will work if there’s no window.”

Seth swerves and pulls over on the side of the road, too abrupt, the car moving too fast to adjust well to the sudden stop. They both jump in their seats a bit, the motion pushing them forward.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Seth,” Richie says, saying his name slowly, like Seth is some child. “I’m a vampire, remember? A culebra. I’m going to burn in the sunlight.”

“Okay, okay, just, Jesus, Richie,” he says, can’t put into words how he’s feeling. He thinks Richie is adjusting a little too quickly to vampires, or maybe Seth is too slow to keep up.

“Seth,” Riche says, softer now, and reaches over to cup his hands, holding them in his, the movement slow and deliberate. Seth is shaking. He hadn’t notice.

“Seth, I’m alright,” he reassures him. He grabs his shoulder now, and Seth leans in instinctively, even if Richie’s hands are cooler than usual. “I’m alright. I’m right here. My head is clear now.”

There’s something off about that, the way he says it. Seth thinks he’s trying to be comforting, but he’s not sure he understands the meaning of the word anymore. There’s a light in Richie’s eyes that wasn’t there before, gleaming brightly like the edge of a knife.

After the night they’ve had, they have redefine a few things, like what alright means.

“I don’t want you going to her,” Seth says quickly. “I don’t give a fuck that you’re a vampire now, I don’t want you joining your new vampire master, okay.” He doesn’t think he meant to say that, exactly, but he’s exhausted and it just slipped out, a snarl in his voice he wasn’t quite feeling.

Richie laughs. There’s something bitter in it Seth doesn’t like, a curl in his lips. “I thought we were done after we got out of the bar. Isn’t that what you said?”

I also said ‘don’t fucking me leave me’ when you died, you fucker. Not when he just got him back, five years in prison and Seth’s not going to let go.

“Christ, Richie, I was pissed off, that’s all,” Seth sighs.That’s not entirely true, it was more than just pissed off, a choking sense of betrayal and fear, but everything’s different now. “You know how I get. And that was before you sprouted fangs and shit.”

Richie doesn’t answer. He fixes Seth a heavy stare, empty and blank, until Seth feels all shivery inside. He’s suddenly very aware of his heartbeat.

“Does that mean you’re not leaving?” he asks.

Seth’s hands tighten on the wheel. His knuckles are scraped bloody and bruised black. His body aches. “It’s you and me, remember? We’re the Gecko brothers.” Seth’s said that, how many times before, he doesn’t know. He lost count. “We made it. We’re home free, buddy.”

Seth thinks about that later, when he watches Richie sleep in the shower stall of some third-rate motel, tucked away from the morning light. Seth puts a blanket over him-he’s not sure if he needs it, if vampires get cold-and then for a long time, simply watches the prone form in his bathtub, more like a dead body than his brother; we made it.

*

Seth likes thunderstorms. They hit K.C. a lot, or often enough so that Seth waited for the next one eagerly. He liked watching the bright cracks in the sky and the roar that came after, the spectacle and sound, like gods dueling in the skies. It’s stupid, really, but at seven it felt magical and exciting and there wasn’t much magic in his life.

He liked best how rain would pour all around their house, loud enough so it sounded like they were being blanketed in rain, surrounding and covering them all over, with Seth safely inside to keep him from drowning (not many kids felt safe in a thunderstorm, but he did).

Richie would sneak into his bed and not say anything, lying very still next to him-Richie is always still, learned to be still from their father until it became a natural part of Richie, stillness interrupted by intense interest or twitching. When Richie got a little older, he told Seth how thunderstorms worked, friction and negative charge and energy generation, and Seth told him shut up, Richie, you’re ruining it.

Richie got mad at him for cutting him off, but he stayed under the covers with him, hand reaching out to him and wrapping around his small wrist.

It felt safe like that, hearing the world them engulfed in rain and thunder, Richie’s hand around his in the dark. Safe and sound.

*

They get a hotel in Monterrey, ask for one without a view.

The hotel receptionist looks at them oddly, and Seth isn’t sure why-could it be that they’re white and don’t fit in entirely, that his Spanish is mangled or was it asking for a single for two men.

He’s my brother, Seth tells her, like that clears anything up, but in English of course, and Richie has to roll his eyes and reply hermano, while pointing at him.

(“Where the fuck did you learn Spanish?” Seth asks and Richie doesn’t answer, except for, I don’t think you want to hear it.)

The lack of view is nice, because the window is facing a brick wall of another building and that’s just what Seth wants, for no sunlight to stream in the middle of the day.

Richie sleeps on the bed that day, falling asleep in the middle of watching television, and Seth can’t be bothered to stay awake during the day, not right now, curls in right next to Richie on the bed like when they were kids, bodies slotting and fitting each other. Seth can’t remember a time where he didn’t do this; he thinks their mom might have put Richie in the crib next to him. They crawled into each other’s beds as children, because they felt safer that way, and they just never quite stopped that habit. Richie always made room for him.

It’s not the same, Seth realizes-some things are missing, like the sound of Richie’s heartbeat, his body heat, the rise and fall of his chest, utterly still; it’s like sleeping with a corpse, and it takes Seth a while to fall asleep, to get that sick thought out of his mind.

*

Seth hates watching Richie feed.

It’s his own fault. He doesn’t have to watch. He doesn’t have to follow him when Seth knows where’s he going, but he can’t seem to make himself stay still, not when Richie’s out there and he’s inside, twiddling his thumbs while Richie kills someone (he can’t stand to let him out of his sight for long; he never could but the urge is worse now, after the bar, after Santanico).

Sometimes he loses the Richie trail-Richie’s faster than him now, and Seth can’t keep as well track of him, Seth doesn’t always know where he is. Seth can turn around and Richie can just be gone, like he was never there, then reappear next to him a few moments later. It’s like losing a compass and he’s just going in circles.

But it’s always stupidly fucking easy to know exactly what he’s doing. They’re at a bar playing darts, they’re at a street side corner walking down a block, they’re at a city square, looking at the market, and Richie puts an arm around him, gets close enough so Richie just has to whisper and only Seth will hear it.

“I’ll be back, alright? Don’t leave,” he says. His eyes have this intense sheen to them, a glossed over stare as he watches people walk around, bright but detached, even as Seth can see him zeroing in on a person. It took Seth a bit to notice, because Richie always looked at people in a detached way, that was nothing new, but there’s a naked hunger now that doesn’t even bother trying to hide from him.

There’s a fucked up kind of comfort in that, that Seth can still read him, like the thousand times he’s done before (sometimes he looks at Seth like that too).

Seth knows he shouldn’t follow him, but can’t help it, he needs to know. He’s never been good with Richie hiding stuff from him, keeping secrets locked away.

Seth hates to watch Richie feed, but he thinks he knows all the movements now, the motions and attacks-sometimes he shoves them against the wall and rips out their throat with his teeth, until there’s a gaping hole where someone’s neck used to be, Richie seizing his mouth over it. Sometimes he shakes like a terrier with a bone, except blood gets everywhere, all over then. Or he hops on some asshole’s back, wraps his arms around him and squeezes and squeezes while he drains the life from him. He makes noises, loud sucking noises or something lower, like a groan.

There’s nothing pretty about Richie feeds, like a wild animal, greedy and ravenous. Sometimes, it almost like watching a nature documentary.

Richie notices him, though. Always. Seth can’t hide anymore, even if Richie can.

Richie stares at him when Seth catches him in the act (or is it Richie that catches him? Seth the interloper, after all). He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like that can fix anything, like his teeth aren’t almost too big for his mouth and his eyes aren’t glowing in the darkness. Richie watches Seth with hunched shoulders, like he’s waiting for him to do something, expectant, but nothing happens. Nothing ever happens-there’s nothing Seth can say and Richie just walks back with him, shoulder to shoulder, slipping into place, trying to make the pieces fit.

Sometimes, they’re not anywhere and Richie just leaves their motel room, with an “I’m going out,” and he comes back an hour or so later, smelling like blood.

This is routine. This is the shit you put up with when your brother is a vampire.

Seth usually can’t sleep, lies awake in bed waiting for him to return, even if his eyes are shut. Richie always knows he’s awake, but he doesn’t say anything. He crawls into bed sometimes with Seth, instead of heading to the darkened shower, the creeping daylight be damned; he wraps his arms around Seth or curls in next to him, like how Richie used to as a kid, stealing in his bed when Seth was almost too groggy from sleep to notice, like he didn’t want to let on that he was there, treading softly. He’s less like a corpse now, more alive and warm, right after killing and eating a person. Without a shower, the scent of Richie’s fresh kill clings strongly to him, a sharp and strong metallic smell and something mustier and ripe that gets stuck in the back of Seth’s throat, but he learns to fall asleep like that.

(That’s just what Richie is going to smell like now).

*

When they were kids, Richie would stitch him up, bandage him and put gauze over his wounds and cuts and bruises, do what he can. He always did it in silence, angry with himself that it even happened, fuming even as he was still and methodical, and touched Seth so carefully, like he was afraid to hurt him more if he pressed too hard.

When they were kids, Richie cut himself, trying to teach himself how to throw a knife without anyone else’s help. Seth was already too old for it then, already a teenager and knew that shit didn’t work, but he still leaned down and kissed the bleeding finger, Richie’s blood staining his lips. Richie frowned at him and Seth said, isn’t that what mom used to do? but it’s not as if Seth remembered her.

The point is, the two of them have had each other’s blood on their hands for a long time now,

*

Richie’s hand burns in the sunlight.

He pulls back the thick curtains, so just enough light streams into the room, and very deliberately places his hand in the rays of light, watching it smoke until it flames.

Seth panicked the first time he did it, but Richie pulls his hand away before Seth can reach him, faster than him. He takes a motel towel and covers his hand with it, Seth’s hand steadying his shoulder while Richie said, I’m alright, I’m alright. His hand is burned, blistering and ugly, but it doesn’t take long to heal, skin turning pink and whole. Then he does it again.

“You’re a fucking weirdo,” Seth concludes.

“I’m just trying to figure things out, Seth,” Richie says, hissing as the light hits his other hand now. “I want to know my limits. Carlos could go out in daylight, why not me?”

“Why don’t we try to figure out where we’re heading off to next instead,” Seth snaps, his stomach queasy at sight of Richie’s other hand cooking in the sun. “I’d like to stop going from motel to motel some day.” Seth walks out then, where Richie can’t follow, not right now.

It’s an asshole move, he knows, but sometimes he just wants to be an asshole. It’s hot the moment he steps outside, sweat pooling down the back of his neck, his temples, his spine. The air is arid in his lungs, uncomfortable, his throat turning dry and lips chapping, but he doesn’t mind. The heat in K.C. was like this sometimes, even if the air feels different here, thicker somehow.

They’re in some small strip of a roadside town, one you could outrun in a few minutes with a decent engine and leave behind without much effort. It’s not the beach retirement he envisioned, to say the least but he always liked an easy out at his back.

Seth wanders around a bit, no real direction like always, just letting his feet lead the way, half hoping he gets lost, but the town isn’t big enough for that. It’s easy to wind around back to the motel and end up where he started, the sky bright orange and red as the sun sets. He wishes he smoked, just to have something do with his hands, but that’s always been Richie’s vice.

There’s a body on the ground of their room when Seth comes back.

A body is the nice version, the cleaned-up for the kids, PG-rated version-the reality churns in his gut, staring at her ripped-open corpse (he thought he’d have a stronger stomach by now). There’s blood everywhere, staining the carpet. She looks like she might have been pretty, if she were alive, if she weren’t ripped apart.

“Seth!” Richie says. There’s blood on his shirt and he’s smiling at Seth, blood-stained teeth. “I figured it out.”

Seth shoves him against the wall before he says anything else. He can’t say anything at first, not even yell. He doesn’t know what he could say, but he wants to feel his hands curl in Richie’s collar and shove him against the wall and get in his face, wants to feel like he’s not just some prop, some tag along in Richie’s journey into becoming a serial killer.

(some part of his mind remembers Monica, some hostage he wouldn’t remember otherwise if Richie hadn’t killed her, if that hadn’t been the start of the trail of mutilated corpses Richie wouldn’t stop leaving; this is me, Richie told him then, and Seth should have fucking listened)

“Richie, you can’t do this, you can’t shit where we sleep, for fuck’s sake-”

“Seth,” Richie says, reaching out to him, grabbing Seth’s wrists, even if he doesn’t pull him away. His face softens as he speaks-still blood splattered and horrible, but younger, the odd baby face that used to fool people once. He blinks rapidly, trying to focus. “Seth, it’s alright, look.”

Richie slips away from him easily (he’s strong, stronger than Seth; they’re supposed to be equals). He reaches back behind the curtain, pulls it back just far enough so Richie is standing in a beam of sunlight.

No smoke, no flames.

“I can go in daylight,” Richie says, proud of himself, “as long as I’ve fed some.”

“Some?” Seth asks, staring at the corpse. “Who was she, Richie?” He hopes for tourist, or at least a motel guest. An employee would be harder to cover up.

“Room service,” Richie says, chuckling a little before he catches himself, eyes flickering shut. “I got you a cheeseburger.”

“I’m not hungry.” A corpse leaves a stench and it’s all over the room. The blood is going to be impossible to get out. The smell is never going to leave hotel room. “You couldn’t have killed her on the bed? Then you could at least leave DNA evidence over something portable to wrap her in.”

Richie has the decency to look properly at ashamed at that, or what Seth thinks should be shame, corner of his eyes crinkling, glancing at his feet. “I didn’t think about it.”

“You didn’t think about it?”

“I got caught up,” Richie says. His voice is soft. He’s not looking at Seth. The words just hang there in the air, and Seth doesn’t need to ask Richie to clarify, but he can’t resist pushing against the bruises.

“Caught up in what?”

When Richie doesn’t answer, Seth presses closer, closer than he thinks he should, crowding Richie against the open window, covering them both in fading sunlight.

“Caught up in what, Richie?”

“Hunger, Seth,” he says, meeting his eyes. A strand of hair falls into his face. “I was hungry. And then I noticed the sun didn’t burn me.”

Seth’s hands tighten on Richie’s shoulders; hadn’t even realized he was grabbing on to him. Richie holds his gaze, an expectant look on his face, but Seth doesn’t know what they’re both waiting for. He can’t think of anything to say, can’t even figure out what language he’s speaking.

He steps back, takes a breathe. Tries not to look at the ground.

“Just clean up your fucking mess,” Seth says, turning away.

They leave quickly after that, Richie’s new-found day walking ability letting them check out at a reasonable time. The drag the corpse with him in blankets and hide her in the trunk when no one’s looking, speed off to a few towns over, and Seth has never been more thankful for fake IDs. No one stops them.

She’s just food for him, Seth reminds himself. That’s all this is now. He never liked leaving a trail of bodies-Kansas was a death penalty state, after all-but they were necessary sometimes. What’s more necessary than Richie needing to eat? It wouldn’t be the first time either of them did some fucked up shit just so they can have a meal that day. Seth’s killed people for less.

(if she’s food, what does that make you?)

Unbidden, Carlos pops up in his head, like a night terror he can’t get rid of.

“Where are we going?” Seth asks, trying to shake it off.

Richie shrugs. “You’re hands are on the wheel, brother. Take us wherever you like.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Seth says. There is no El Rey. They’ve never had a home but each other. Seth wants to do a job, steal some shit, knock off some store. They got enough money to last them for a while, bonds converted to dollars converted to pesos-it’d be unnecessary, but he itches, aches to get back into some familiar rhythm, to do something he knows he’s good at.

“Somewhere with a beach,” Seth says. “You can go with me now, it’ll be fun.”

They sleep in the car that night, off the side of the road. Seth figures if someone bothers them, Richie can eat them. And if Richie’s sunlight thing wears off by the time the dawn comes, he can just stick Richie in the trunk. See how he likes it.

They get a king bed in Durango, and the hotel is a shady stand by the side of the road, no room service to speak of, and two star enough so no one looks twice at Richie as long as Seth pays in cash.

Richie spends most of the day staring at himself in the mirror-pressing his hand against it, watching his reflection for hours while his eyes go from blue-green to yellow and slitted, teeth from blunt to sharp snake fangs.

Sometimes, Richie’s face changes entirely-ripples, like water, the flesh moving behind the skin. It changes into something scaley and warped and ridged, like the monsters Seth shot in the bar without thinking, like Santanico before she attacked, and Seth always looks away.

Jacob Fuller told him that’s not your brother anymore back at the bar, and Seth told him to fuck off, because nothing was going to convince him to shoot his brother, he wasn’t going to watch him die again. There is a difference between the other raging culebras he killed, and Richie. There is a difference, he knows it, but it’s harder to see when Richie looks just like them.

“Why do you even still have these?” Seth asks, fiddling with Richie’s glasses on the bathroom sink. “It’s not like you need them anymore.”

Richie snatches them back, quicker than a rattlesnake. “Consistency, brother,” he says and secretly, Seth is a little relieved for it.

“What are you doing?” Seth asks. The sun has set already, but Richie’s still in the bathroom.

“Figuring it out,” Richie says, speaking almost too low to be heard. “I don’t think I need to sleep.”

“You sleep all the time,” Seth says.

“I sleep because it’s day time and I feel like it,” Richie says curtly. He stares at Seth through the mirror, meeting his eyes over his reflection. “But I don’t think I need it like you do. It’s like breathing. It’s an old habit, that’s all.”

Like you do. Because they’re different now, on a biological, chemical level. Richie has different needs now.

Richie folds his fangs out again, watching the way the teeth expand and elongate, until they’re almost too large for his mouth. Seth takes a step closer, feet just pulled towards Richie, until he can reach out and touch him, until he does, grabbing him lightly by the shoulder.

“Hey, can I?” Seth says. Richie’s fingers twitch when he does, but he turns around.

“Can you what?” Richie says but Seth just does it before he loses his nerve, reaches out and places his fingers on Richie’s teeth.

Richie’s fangs feel like-well, like teeth, same consistency but sharper and a little slicker. He can’t figure out how they fit in his mouth. He lets his finger edge along the pinpoint of a fang, and feels a crazy, desperate urge to prick his finger on it, to push where he knows he shouldn’t, wondering how much pressure it’d take to draw blood, thinking about the venom that’s in them.

It’s just Richie’s teeth, that’s all. How many times has Richie’s teeth touched his skin?

“How does it feel?” Seth asks, as he slowly tugs his hands away. Richie’s fangs fold back in and it’s funny now, actually, the way they move. If he looks long enough, Richie actually looks ridiculous.

Richie’s expression is blank for minute, before he cocks his head to the side, thinking.

“Good,” Richie says slowly, running this tongue over his teeth, dragging it carefully, like he’s not used to the blunt teeth sensation on his tongue. “Overwhelming at first. Too much sensory information. But I feel good. I’m getting used to it.” There’s a pause as Richie blinks slowly, fixes his stare on Seth. It makes Seth feel like Richie can see inside him, his bones and flesh and muscle, or maybe it goes further back, in his head, but Richie’s always lived down in his heart. “Everything is sharper. Like someone dialed up the noise and brightened the colors. I can hear everything, you know? Like your heartbeat, Seth.”

Richie makes a strange clicking noise, his mouth curving into a small smile. Seth can’t help the shiver down his spine.

“I can smell you, too,” Richie goes on. There’s something distant in the way he talks, or just distant from Seth, maybe-he’s thinking of other things, far off in the distance. His tongue darts out and wets his lips, a small quick motion, like a snake. “And other people. Their blood. It’s like I’m in tune with everything.”

“You sound like you’re high,” Seth says. Or the newest member of a cult.

“I’m not high,” Richie insists. “I’m awake.”

“Yeah, okay,” Seth says, nodding, wishing he hadn’t asked in the first place, wishing he could just drop it (turns out, he doesn’t want to hear about it).

“I could show you,” Richie tells him. He reaches up and doesn’t quite grab Seth by the throat, but his fingers linger and slide down his pulse point, his collarbone, getting Seth’s sweat on his fingers. One finger twitches against his jugular. “We can do this together.”

It takes a moment for Seth to get it. It takes an embarrassingly long moment for Seth to get it. And even then, he just meets Richie’s eyes, goddamn snake eyes, full of hunger and something else that makes Seth’s skin crawl. Seth’s mouth goes dry and he can’t think of anything to say.

“I know how to do it,” Richie goes on and his voice changes, becomes lighter, words running together. Excited. “How to-change you, I suppose, if that’s the word for it-it’s pretty simple, really, it’s just a question of venom. It’ll hurt, but then it won’t.”

We can do this together, Seth thinks. Just the two of them, the way it’s always been.

“No thanks,” Seth says slowly. “I like the sound of my pulse.”

He doesn’t want to explain why not. He doesn’t even want to think about it, because it makes his insides twist and churn. He tries to imagine his face like Richie’s, scales and fangs, and can’t picture it, his mind won’t go there. He just knows the idea terrifies him on some primal level, doesn’t want to be the one leaving a trail of bodies, with some terrifying inhuman hunger twisting him from the inside until he doesn’t recognize himself, it’s bad enough what it did to Richie.

Richie’s hand tightens around his throat-not painful, but enough so he could choke if Richie wanted him to, fingers pressing on pulse points. Seth watches Richie’s inhuman eyes, the way the color slowly slides back to the familiar blue-green he’d seen his whole life, and Richie’s fingers lazily rub the sweat-slick skin of his neck.

“I like your pulse too, brother,” Richie says, in a soft, shuddering voice, and Seth breathes out, exhales. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath.

“I’m sorry,” Seth says, looking at his brother-his brother, who looks the same and talks the same, right up to when he decides he doesn’t, that he isn’t.

“For what?” Richie asks.

For the mess I got us in, Seth thinks, for stupidly buying something I knew was too good to be true; letting this happen to you. Seth can’t shake this feeling, that sensation of being ungrounded and lost, adrift, climbing out of his skin. From the moment he set foot in the Titty Twister, he’s felt it, palpable, thick dread churning in his guts, and it still hasn’t gone away.

I’m sorry I let this happen to you.

It’s not fair, to break out of prison and have less than a day with his brother before he becomes something else, when the option to pick up where they left off is gone for good now.

Seth know better than to complain about what’s fair or not, but it rankles anyway.

“For not listening to you,” Seth says. “Back in Abilene.”

Richie smiles-beams at him, really, all wide and face wrinkles. “I’m over it,” he says, pressing in close to Seth. “Trust me. We left that behind. It’s not important anymore.”

*

Seth doesn’t sleep well for awhile.

He hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a long time; could never sleep well in prison, one eye always open, always paranoid. You learn, you get used to it, you adapt, like Seth always has but prison was another story. There were times where he and Richie slept on the ground, on hard floors and couches too small for the two of them, in the backseat of cars but somehow the beds in prison was always the hardest.

The hotel room beds are softer than prison beds, even if some of them smelled a little funky sometimes, but still he tosses and turns, puts the pillow over his head, lets his hand rest on a knife under his pillow, nothing works (Richie is either here or not, out hunting-hunting, like that’s something they do now, part of the routine-or reading some language handbook, awake when Seth is ready to pass out, and Seth isn’t sure which one is worse). He never feels that well rested, but that’s just something he’s gotten used to already.

Lots of things, Seth is getting used to now.

Once (just once; he hopes it was just once) Seth wakes up and finds Richie staring at him from across the room, as if the weight of his gaze had woken him up. There was no sun leaking in from the cracks in the drawn shades, but the sky outside didn’t look like night either. Seth thinks it might have been that time of day, before the sun comes up but it’s not night anymore, sky lightening. He wonders if Richie can stay out there during that or if that burns too.

Richie is sitting on the ground in front of the door.

“You okay, Richie?” Seth asks and Richie nods. Calm and cool, even if he looked small on the ground, sitting and curled up, knees pulled close. Staring at Seth, watching him through his glasses. The glasses felt like a barrier, but his stare still feels like something is gripping Seth, grabbing him and jerking him awake. Seth doesn’t know how long he’d been there.

“You weren’t sleeping well.” Richie says. Like that explains it. “Nightmares?”

Seth shakes his head. “I wasn’t having a nightmare. I don’t have nightmares.” Not even in prison he had nightmares, or when they still lived with their father. He had nights of fitful sleep, or no sleep, close to insomnia sometimes, but not nightmares. Seth rarely ever remembers his dreams.

“I used to have nightmares,” Richie says. His voice is distant, almost hollow but still, his piercing eyes trained on seth. “When you were in prison. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Richie,” Seth says, starting to tug the blanket off him, but Richie stands up suddenly. Seth never saw him move. Seth doesn’t see him, he’s just there, towering over him on the bed, even if he’s crouching just low enough to put his hands on the sheets around him, inching closer towards Seth. There’s blood on his mouth-faint, dried up, but a spot of it on his shirt collar and his bottom lip.

“I had nightmares, before, because of the knife?” Richie inches closer, his knees on the bed now, crawling closer to Seth. Seth feels absurdly like pulling up the blankets above him, has to remind himself it’s just Richie. It’s always you and Richie, right? “I couldn’t sleep well. I kept seeing her and sometimes it was good, sometimes she was just there, with me, and very beautiful. But sometimes I just saw monsters. Snakes writhing and blood, blood everyfuckingwhere, and she wouldn’t let me sleep.”

Seth nods. He remembers. She ripped his throat out and Seth shot her, over and over, but it didn’t do jack. Damage was done (if Seth had nightmares, it’d be about that; her pretty face, gone all scaled and gnarled, thinking that’s Richie’s face now).

Seth doesn’t like hearing about her.

“But it’s clearer now,” Richie says. he hovers over Seth, hands on either side of him, pressing him down into the bed. This close, Seth can smell the person he fed off on-a heavy scent of cigarette smoke and tequila and oil-and blood, of course, but Richie always smells like blood before a shower these days.

“What’s clearer, Richie?” he asks. His voice shakes a bit, but he doesn’t know why. He puts his hands on Richie’s shoulder, just to hold on to him, to make sure he still has him.

“Me,” Richie says, looking into his eyes. They’re a light blue-green, like they’ve always been. “You. My head, my head is clear, she’s not here anymore, it’s just you and me. I’m better, I’m better now, Seth, like this is what I was supposed to-”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Seth says, cupping his face, his cheekbones. His skin is warm and flushed; definitely just ate some poor sucker. Seth almost covers his mouth entirely, because he doesn’t want to hear this, not right now, about how grateful he is that Richie died in front of him; just because he came back, doesn’t make it better.

Richie shakes his head, slowly, face scrunching up, the way it does when he gets annoyed. “No, you don’t. Don’t tell me you do, because I know you don’t.” There’s a note of frustration, something heated even behind the words and his eyes, but his face softens. “But that’s alright too, Seth. You don’t have to, not right now. You don’t have to understand, you just have to know I’m not going anywhere, you have to know that-”

“I do, I do, buddy,” Seth says, nodding, rubbing his fingers against Richie’s cheekbones. He’s sweating, feverish pinned under Richie and the force of his intense babble, and Seth feels like his breath is caught up in his throat, choked, can’t hardly speak. It’s what he wanted to hear, right? But it feels different on this end. Through the looking glass, a scanner darkly. Everything filtered through a reptilian funhouse mirror.

“Good, because I need you to know that, I need-”

Richie leans down, foreheads touching, stolen warmth seeping into Seth. Richie kisses him, lightly pressing his lips against him and it’s easy, easy for Seth to open up his lips and press his tongue against his. He’s desperate for it, a hunger in his hands, in the way they clench on Richie’s shoulders (don’t let go, I won’t let you go). It’s almost like they never stopped doing this. He’s warm, like he used to be, and Seth thinks he could lay here and just keep kissing Richie, roll around in the nostalgia of it (it was kid’s stuff, when they did this but aren’t kids anymore; Seth’s not sure what they are anymore).

Richie tastes like blood, heavy and coagulated on his tongue, strong and lurid.

“Brush your teeth,” Seth says, shoving him lightly by the shoulders. Richie goes when Seth pushes, moves when he moves. “I’m not kissing you while your breath stinks like the last person you killed.”

Richie chuckles. “Like you don’t have morning breath.”

“Not all of us like the taste of blood,” Seth says, not kindly, and he thinks Richie is about to say something else, but he doesn’t want to hear it.

He drags himself out of bed and Richie lets him, doesn’t say anything while Seth puts his clothes on and goes out the door. “I’m going out,” he says, leaves Richie on the bed in his sheets.

Seth doesn’t actually know what to do with himself, just wanders around the block aimlessly, lets his feet take him down street names he can only half pronounce. It’s hot but early enough so it’s just a pleasant warmth and not high noon sun.

He sat still in prison for five long years, like a rat in a cage, and this is his freedom now. Richie is a vampire, but this is still what he wanted (you shouldn’t have to keep reminding yourself).

Seth buys a few churros from a food stand-he’s picked up enough Spanish to buy food, at least-and snags a case of beer from the convenience store down the block from their hotel, old fashioned twist top bottles. When he comes back to their room, Richie isn’t in where he left him. Finds him in their shower stall, curled up against the wall with a blanket. No windows here. Richie could always sleep in most conditions.

Seth’s going to leave him there, let him sleep through the day but he sits down next to him in the shower instead, until they’re bumping shoulders, Seth on top of the blanket.

“What are you doing?” Richie asks, dragging the words like he’s sleepy. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“I got beer,” Seth says, opening his up and taking a swig. He hands another one to him. “You want one? Can you even drink beer?”

“Of course I can drink beer,” Richie says, grumpy, snatching it from him. He opens up the top without a bottle opener and just chugs it down immediately, throat working and swallowing, not stopping for a breath. He drinks almost two thirds of it before he stops. “I didn’t even know you could order beer.”

“Of course I do,” Seth says, “It’s not hard. Dos cervezas, por favor. Most important thing to know, am I right?”

Richie laughs, his eyes glittering behind his glasses. He doesn’t look away from Seth, the kind of edgy stare that freaked most people out. Seth was used to it, got used to it, the way Richie would just stare at you sometimes, longer than anyone should, longer than what was appropriate. He always stared at Seth the most, and Seth never minded. It’s different now and sometimes his eyes flick yellow-green and slitted, but it’s still Richie.

“Aren’t you drinking a little early?” Richie says.

“Oh, you’re going to judge me, bloodsucker?”

Richie holds his hands up, peace offering. I surrender. They don’t talk anymore about their drinking habits, and Richie finishes his beer in silence.

He leans into Seth when he’s done, first nudging his face against Seth’s shoulder, and then burying it in his throat, like he’s trying to sleep sprawled and pressed against him in the shower stall.

Seth thinks, he could do it right now. Rip it out. No more Seth Gecko.

But Richie wouldn’t do that. Not to him. Seth has that, at least.

“It’s you and me, right?” Richie asks, murmuring softly into the crook of his neck.

“It’s always going to be you and me,” Seth says. He leans back without thinking, baring his throat, letting Richie snuggle in. He slings an arm around his back and yeah, Seth could fall asleep like this. “Been that way since we were born. That’s not changing.”

Richie makes a humming, content sound as he falls asleep.

*

Today, Richie kills the hotel night clerk.

The guy screamed a lot. The guy bled a lot, arterial spray hitting the ugly faded yellow plaster walls, the dusty tile floors, jugular torn out. It’s a goddamn mess, flesh torn and rendered and blood covering the walls.

Seth kept waiting for someone to come down from their rooms, his gun trained and ready-kill the witnesses, right? Doesn’t matter who they are, they couldn’t buy or talk their way out of this mess-but no one comes. Whether they heard nothing or are just calling the police, no one comes.

“Goddammit, Richie,” Seth says, “ease up on this shit, the last thing I want is goddamn federales on our asses.”

Richie lets the body drop and Seth grabs the cash in the lobby register and anything else worth stealing, because might as well, while they’re here. Even if they don’t want for money anymore.

“It’s alright,” Richie says, “this is a piece of shit roadside and we’re the only guests tonight, I checked. We’re good.”

We’re good, Seth thinks. He can no longer shove his brother against the wall and yell and snarl at him to stop. He has to be careful now, because Richie is his brother but so much stronger, with a twitching hunger behind his eyes.

Seth wipes the blood of Richie’s mouth and chin. “You gotta be more careful,” he says, “it’s all over your clothes, we can’t keep getting you new clothes,” and Richie leans into his hand instead, eyes sliding shut, like he’s savoring his touch as he savored the blood.

(There was a plan before all this, but Seth can’t remember it.)

Part 2 || Part 3