It’s been a month, more than a month, and Ravi hasn’t returned. Every night is a sort of torment as Gabriel waits for those familiar footsteps to cross the threshold of his library. 

Gabriel finds himself antsy.

After the first week, he had searched Ravi out, dreaming of draining him of the delicious sanguine elixir flowing through his veins. 

He has never tasted anything like it before. He has come to realize that his own blood must certainly have tasted the same to his master, Tristan. It is how he knows that Ravi will survive the transformation, that he has evolved to live eternally with the help of Gabriel’s blood.

To his horror, he had discovered that Ravi had moved, and quickly at that. His apartment was entirely empty, but for a few cups, a book or two, and a couch that must have been too difficult to transport. 

Shocked at the news, Gabriel attempted to reassure himself that Ravi would come back. He had to. Just like Gabriel had returned to Tristan after that first taste, desperate for more. There was no way a mortal could resist. It was stronger than the best heroin known to man. 

And yet, Ravi still has not returned. 

Gabriel doesn’t give up hope though. He can’t stop thinking about Ravi, every second of every waking hour. He wonders if Ravi is doing the same. Using his research skills, he manages to discover where Ravi has moved to. 

A town 3,000 miles away. 

Gabriel is shocked, but he knows what he has to do. 

It’s strangely difficult to say goodbye to Weiss as he leaves the library for the final time. The man has been a constant in the last eight years of his life, a friend, and Gabriel really doesn’t have any of those. He knows this is for the best though. That his future lay with Ravi. 

He manages to book a red-eye flight across the country, getting off the plane just in time to find a dark abandoned old mill to camp in. 

Once night falls again, he is up and moving, and finding Ravi’s new apartment almost immediately. Peaking in the window, he sees the beautiful man getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth, changing into sweats and a dark-blue t’shirt, and finally climbing under the covers. 

Gabriel’s heart pounds as he watches Ravi. He yearns to trace his fingers over the man’s soft skin, to breathe in his scent again. 

Once he is certain that Ravi is asleep, he casually picks the lock to the front door and slips inside. Gabriel crosses to the bedroom in a few short steps, turns the knob to Ravi’s bedroom, then kicks off his shoes and climbs gracefully onto the bed, listening to Ravi’s gentle heartbeat under the covers, his soft breathing as he innocently dreams away.  

Gabriel straddles Ravi, who begins to stir. Gently, delicately, Gabriel brushes his fingers down that stunning face, that perfect jaw.

Ravi’s eyes fly open, and a look of utter terror comes over his face. He immediately tries to fight back, but Gabriel has him pinned down. 

“I’ve missed you,” Gabriel breathes. “Not a moment goes by where I don’t think about you. Why haven’t you come back?”

“No,” Ravi hisses, and Gabriel can sense him reaching for something. 

“Just a taste,” Gabriel says, catching Ravi’s chin in his hand and forcing it up to expose his neck, eliciting a strained gasp from Ravi, “Please, I need just a taste.”

Gabriel is leaning down, relishing in the way Ravi’s chest heaves against him. As soon as his canines brush over Ravi’s delicate neck, puncturing into the soft skin, inviting the release of ecstasy inducing blood on his tongue, Gabriel feels something sharp plunge into his own neck. A burning sensation tears through him, and he pulls back with a scream, releasing Ravi who scrambles to get out of the bed. But the venom is too quick, and Ravi collapses on the floor, paralyzed. 

Gabriel claws at his own neck, finding a sharpened twig, and throwing it aside. He stands for a moment, swaying back and forth as the pain sears through his body. He can feel something happening internally, something sickening, death, creeping through his body, sliding through his veins. His legs buckle under him, and he falls to the floor, gaze on Ravi’s immobile form as he’s paralyzed as well. 

Trapped in a strange world between awake and dead. Frozen in time. 

Hours pass with neither of them being able to move. Ravi will not be able to come out of the paralysis without drinking from Gabriel, and Gabriel is currently frozen. He can only watch as the world outside grows lighter, as the sun makes its way slowly into the bedroom. He feels the heat on his bare hands first, feels the skin bubble and burn. Inside, he is screaming in agony. 

The sunlight reaches his face, and in a moment, his vision is gone, the last thing he’s able to see is Ravi’s blank expression as he lay on the floor not one foot away. 

The pain is excruciating, the burning consuming him, and then it’s all done in an instant. 

Gabriel gasps, his hand on the doorknob to Ravi’s room. He stumbles back, consumed by the vision he has just lived. So real, so visceral. He’s only ever had visions twice before, but he knows exactly what they are. A harbinger of what’s to come if he isn’t careful. 

He takes a moment to think this through.