Chapter Four

Nico pushed a shopping cart down a narrow isle in the middle of the twenty-four hour Wally World megastore. His first stop had been clothing: socks, shoes, jeans, and a t-shirt that fit with the toothy logo of the latest vampire movie across the chest. Sebastian also got and upgrade. From sweatpants to black jeans and a dark gray button down shirt with the top few buttons loose. He’d been scowling at the dress shoe selection when Nico suggested he look at boots instead, something that might be useful for running around in the Shade. He picked a black pair of work boots that made him half an inch taller, not that he needed the help.

The second stop was home goods. Nico scanned the shelves for the fancy toothpaste and said, “It’s weird that you don’t have anything at the apartment.”

Sebastian added his selection of towels—black—to the cart and said, “It’s not my apartment. It belongs to the Belladonna Court.” He wrinkled his nose. “We shouldn’t stay there very long.”

“I know it’s the Court’s apartment, but you’d think it would have some basics like a hotel room. Towels. Coffee. Drugs.” He selected a toothpaste and threw it into the cart. “A dish or two.”

“I don’t need painkillers, I don’t drink coffee, and I don’t eat anything on a dish.”

Nico sighed.

“The Court provides for any other needs.”

“Like what?”

“Blood slaves for food. Clothing for specific assignments.”

Nico pushed the cart on to the next isle. “Your Court is feeling a little cult-ish Sebastian. No money. No personal items. How are you supposed to do anything yourself?” Nico meant only to tease him a little. Who settled for such a minimal lifestyle?

But Sebastian flinched at the word cult and a rising tide of complicated emotion in the bond marked that subject completely off limits. Sebastian shied away from him.

Nico reached out and grabbed his hand before he could leave. He had no idea what he was doing, but damned if he’d let Sebastian lay down and be run over by Nico’s own stupidity.

The bond between them churned. Confusion and old resentment folded into wariness and fear. Nico just waited there with his hand in Sebastian’s until his vampire turned back and met his eyes.

Nico smiled softly. “How did we end up like this? The two of us with nothing to our names?”

“You stole me from my Court,” Sebastian said flatly.

Nico’s attempt at levity crashed to his feet. He realized abruptly that, unlike Dimitri, Sebastian wasn’t looking for saving. Nico really had stolen him.

Nico turned fully to face him, leaving the cart. “Did you like it there? Do you want to go back?” Could he even give Sebastian back? He didn’t know how to the bond between them worked, really. Only that it formed when Sebastian bit him.

Had he done exactly what Dimitri warned him about? Imposed his will on Sebastian as a compulsion he had to obey?

“Oh, fuck, no,” Sebastian said, tugging Nico closer by the hand so they stood hip to hip and Sebastian could drape his arm over Nico’s shoulders. “My old Sire generated power through nightmares. We don’t have to sleep, you know. But my Sire could drop any of us into a nightmare whenever he wanted. He liked to spring it on us unexpectedly. Put you into something that looked exactly like the Court, but slowly twist it around until you realized you were in a dream, but couldn’t figure out when it had started.”

Sebastian’s gaze was fixed outward, back into memory. “He made us all questions what was real. I had entire friendships, decades of conversations, that I’m not sure ever actually happened.”

Nico stared at him, his heart in his feet, trying to imagine an entire lifetime of relationships that might not be real. “That’s super fucked up,” he whispered.

Sebastian hummed his agreement. Then he looked down with a toothy smile. “I’ll stick to fucking you instead.”

Nico grinned.

They walked the cart into kitchen and dining. “Do you have any pots and pans?”

“No.”

“Any dishes or silverware?”

“No.”

“I’m going to stop asking. It’s probably luck that you have sheets on the bed.” Nico began grabbing items as they walked. “Okay, basics for living: a pot, a saute pan, a wooden spoon, this box of dishes and that box of silverware, a set of four glasses, two mugs, soap for the bathroom, dish soap, a sponge—oh my god I can’t believe you’ve been dealing without any of this stuff.”

“I drink blood, not wine. It comes in its own to-go box.”

“Minimalism isn’t a virtue, Sebastian. Just because you said that, I’m getting a box of wine. You can drink wine, right? It’s not going to kill you or something?”

“I can drink it, it’s just not useful to me.”

“Well we can decant my blood into a glass or something.”

Sebastian gave him an interesting look at that. Nico filed the idea away for later exploration.

He found it odd that Sebastian had so few interests or opinions, but he supposed there was the cult suggestion he’d flinched at. Was Sebastian’s Belladonna Court a cult for real?

Nico wasn’t going to bring it up. The bright LED-lit isles of Wally World wasn’t the place for a theraputic heart-to-heart.

The cart was piled high with things, enough stuff for a bachelor to fill his single bedroom apartment. He considered the amount of it as he cast his attention over the final task: groceries.

Sebastian crossed his arms. “How exactly do you intend to pay for all of this?”

“I don’t. We’re stealing it, remember?”

“And that works… how?”

Nico frowned at him in thought. “You can take stuff into the Shade, right?”

“Yes?”

“And you can jump back to your apartment?”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “…yes?”

Nico threw up his hands. “Are you honestly telling me you’ve never used the Shade to completely empty a big box store that preys on your local community and drives off smaller mom-and-pop shops?” He gestured vaguely at the megastore around them.

“…The Court always—“

“Provides, yes, I’m starting to see the picture.” Nico put his hands on his hips. “Well, your new Sire demands that you use your dark powers for good.” He pointed to the cart. “Take that to the apartment, then come back and meet me in the groceries. We have a pantry to fill.”

Sebastian’s face blanked in the wake of Nico’s order. He put a hand on the cart and with a sudden tangle of smoky darkness, he and the cart were both gone.

The bond between them stretched. Nico sensed that Sebastian stood right here, still the store isle, but on the other side of the mortal plane. In the Shade.

Curiosity and resentment bubbled up in the bond. Sebastian didn’t like being ordered around, but Nico had seen the way his expression fell to nothing. His immediate obedience.

There was a lot going on under his vampire’s hard red gaze and Nico hoped they’d have time to unpack it. He got the feeling Sebastian had more to offer than minimalism.

Nico had fetched a second cart and was half way through grocery shopping for some staples—hot pockets, frozen chicken, a bag of apples, and, of course, cheese—when Sebastian popped into existence beside him. He was breathing hard, his cheeks were flushed, and leaned on the cart to catch his breath.

Nico paused with a soup can half way to the cart. “Are you alright?” He put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Is that kind of thing difficult?”

Sebastian waved him off. “Not as such. It’s like lifting a heavy weight. I’m not really used to it. I just need to catch my breath.”

“Well, I’m not quite done here so you can relax.” Nico put the soup can in the cart and turned back to the shelves. “Do you prefer potato chips or tortilla?”

Sebastian blew his breath out and straightened. “I don’t eat chips—“

“Yes, I know,” Nico waved his hand over Sebastian’s objection. “Pretend for me. If you don’t like them, we’ll get the other next time.”

Nico had a feeling Sebastian hadn’t consumed anything but blood since he was turned. Did he even remember if he had a preference in his human life before that?”

“Potato,” Sebastian finally said. “Please.”

Nico picked two flavors and added them to the cart.

There were only a few additions left to find and when Nico had piled the cart full of everything he could think of, he sent Sebastian back through the Shade with the groceries.

“Oh, cookies,” he muttered. Nico jogged down two isles, found his favorite brand of peanut butter sandwich cookies, and held the box between both hands as he closed his eyes.

He didn’t have to stretch to feel Sebastian on the other side. He hadn’t moved very far. He pictured Sebastian with the cart and he reached out the same way he had done with Demitri, trying to bring himself to Sebastian’s location.

He fell backward.

The dual experience of Sebastian being close and yet far, suddenly overlapped.

Bright LED lights winked out into darkness. Nico opened his eyes to complete blackness and barked a laugh. “Ha! I did it!” He grinned in Sebastian’s direction, feeling him through the bond. “I did it once before, following Dimitri here, but I can’t seem to do places. Only people.”

“It took me months to get the hang of it,” Sebastian admitted. “You’ve grasped the idea very quickly.”

Sebastian led the way back to the apartment in Atlanta. Nico followed close behind with his box of cookies. It didn’t feel like a heavy thing to carry between dimensions, but it wasn’t a whole cart full of groceries, was it?

He fell backward through the Shade into the apartment, grinning.

His grin froze on his face when he arrived.

On his first trip back, Sebastian had left the full cart beside the kitchen table. On his second trip, he arrived in the living room and Nico had followed right beside him.

So they both had a clear view of the trail of destruction in the apartment. The cart had been tipped over, its contents scattered in every direction. The silverware had been dumped, the drinking glasses shattered, the box of plates opened and thrown like frizbees against the empty cabinets, the sink, and the walls. Cabinet doors had been yanked off their hinges, the dining table was tipped on its side, a leg broken into splinters, and trail of destruction stretched down the hall into the bedroom.

“What the fuck…?” Nico whispered.

“We’ve been found,” Sebastian said softly.

“By who?”

“My Court, probably.”

“They noticed you gone after less than a day?” Nico crept around the couch and nudged his sneakers through the mess.

Sebastian’s bond flexed with anxiety. “My Sire, Roman, would have noticed the moment you took my bond. He would have felt it snap and known I was gone immediately.”

Nico frowned. “So sticking around a Belladonna Court safe house was a bad idea.”

Sebastian made a noise Nico took to be frustration.

“I’m not blaming you, Sebastian. It was a good thing to get us out of the Shade and I didn’t have any better ideas.” He sighed. “Who would they have sent after us?”

Sebastian finally stepped away from the grocery cart to join Nico beside the couch. “One of the six-fangs, most likely. Important, but not a priority.”

“No one you want to fight, then. But they’ll be hampered by sunlight.”

“So will we. Unless we run through the Shade.”

Nico finally spotted what he’d been searching for and picked his way through the rubble. “Not without my Advil,” he said.