Going, going, going.....!

[skeggsismad]

HE was in the backseat of a stranger’s car once again. The moment he’d buckled his seat belt he whipped out his cellphone from his pocket. Georg had said that he could call Walter on the way to the hotel and that’s exactly what he intended to do. He didn’t have much to hide from Georg and Tom considering the circumstances. But if they were to go to the police…

Ransom knew he definitely needed to call Walter.

He pressed the phone to his ear. The phone rang one. It rang twice. It rang a third time. A fourth time.

Walter wasn’t going to answer. The more rings that came the deeper into despair he fell, until finally the phone stopping ringing and someone breathed into the other side.

“Whatever you’ve got to say, it better be good. It’s the middle of the night.”

He’d felt nervous about calling this late but he had no choice. Hopefully after circumstances were explained, Walter would understand that.

“I um…I’m sorry, but something has happened and…I really need your help. I don’t know what to do.”

He didn’t want to call his brother and worry him so Walter was his only life line to rely on at the moment.

“Alright, alright. I’m going to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Tell me your issues and by the end of it if I’m interested you’ve got me on the phone for as long as you need me.”

Now Ransom was nervous about the concept not being enough to hold Walter’s interest. Walter didn’t mean it like that, but Ransom interpreted it a bit more literally.

“I…I was at a club and…well these people, Tom and Georg, they took me home and I had to…I had to invite them in because it was polite and-”

“So you hung out with a couple of guys in your apartment? So what? That’s not the end of world, Eric. People bring people home that they meet from clubs all the time. You’re too nervous, Eric, uptight. My advice: take some gin and tonic and call me back tomorrow. Have fun with your friends because I sure as hell am not having fun here with Mrs. Frigid in the bed next to me.”

Walter chuckled into the phone receiver. Ransom was already lost with the direction of the conversation.

“No, it’s not- that’s not what happened, they came into my apartment and I was going to make them, uh, tea and then-”

Walter, it seemed, just couldn’t wait his turn.

“You kissed, did a little bit more? Had a little bit of an experiment? Good for you, Eric. Look, there’s nothing wrong with being a homosexual. I’d tell you what I’d be grateful if I had been born a homosexual because I’d probably be getting a lot more sex than I am now. Good for you Eric, good for you.”

“No…it….there was a dead body on the couch, okay? And I don’t know…I don’t know how it got there. They saw the bodies. And…so…”

“Oh, Christ, Eric. I thought we were done with this, but I guess that’s what I get for being an atheist, right? You’re an atheist too, aren’t you? Screwed twice! But- but – but, on to this ‘dead body’ problem. Where are these guys, Tom and Georgie, that’s their names? Where are they, right now? Did you let them leave? Please tell me you didn’t let them leave.”

“No….I’m in their car. They…they’re taking me to a hotel.”

“So you’re still with them? Good. Fantastic! Great. I take it you didn’t call the police?”

“No.”

“Thank God. Alright, hand me the phone to one of them. I don’t care which one, whichever isn’t driving. Hand the phone to them.”

Ransom felt hesitant, but Walter was serious and he didn’t want to argue. Pressing the phone to his chest to block out his voice, he looked to the passenger in the front seat of the car.

“Um…Walter….Walter wants to talk to you.”

He waited for a response. 

[Annalas]

Tom looked back at the man behind them in surprise as his lover drove, unable to imagine why someone he didn't even know would want to talk to him. He glanced up at Georg, seeing the small frown twitch in the corner of his lips.

"Me?" he echoed, a bit skeptical. Georg reached back behind the seats, hand extended.

"Give it here," the vampire grunted, still driving the city streets. "I'll talk to him."

Georg was still driving, sure enough, and Tom took a moment to allow his eyes to roam over the leather jacket-clad vampire next to him. He would never call himself the submissive one in their relationship, but it was true that he preferred that Georg be in charge and make all of the decisions.  It was nice, not having to decide things…he knew why his brother found it so attractive. And Tom was so much happier not knowing the dirty details of everything, too.

[skeggsismad]

Once the phone was in George’s hand, Walter began talking.

“Hello?” He asked to confirm if someone was on the other line. He was unaware that with George’s supernatural hearing that he had probably heard the entire exchange he had over the phone with Ransom.

“Now are you Georgie or Tom?”

The answer didn’t really matter, but it was best to start off slowly with these types of things. Ransom wriggled his thumbs in the back of the car, looking out of the window and occasionally back to George, wondering what would come from this.

[Annalas]

Georg put the phone up to his ear, listening as he drove down the streets. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going, other than away from here and still within vampire territory. He might have only found out that night about the Oligarchy, but he had known enough to find out where the vampire territories where…the inner city block being one of them, his home located on yet another territory.

“Yeah?” he grunted into the phone, making a slight face at the nickname. “It’s Georg.”

He knew that his name sounded strange, unfamiliar in its pronunciation of ‘Gay-orgh’. His parents had named him after his grandfather, though, a German immigrant. ‘Georgie’ did not and would not ever exist, and he wasn’t sure if the man on the other end  was being playful or had honestly gotten the name wrong.

“What do you want?”

[skeggsismad]

Walter wasn’t exactly pleased by the ‘what do you want’ attitude of the man on the other line, but he could understand the attitude and that was the most important thing of all. It probably would put some people in an irritable mood to be swept into a situation with a dead body. He didn’t yet know the motivation of the two men for bringing Ransom with them, but that inadvertently entwined them further in the problem.

“Right, Georg. Got it . Let me ask you something, Georg- would you say you live a comfortable, fairly conflict-free life? Would you say, generally speaking, you don’t have invasive police officers asking you questions, maybe, accusing you of being involved in something that clearly you have nothing to do with? Don’t you think that your quality of life would improve if you could prevent something like that from happening?”

He didn’t sound threatening; Walter’s tone was casual, almost in the same vein as a sports caster might talk. He was kicking the breeze with someone he knew…even though, he didn’t know Georg at all.

[Annalas]

"I'm not going to the police," he answered the unasked question simply. "I'm dropping whatshisface off at a hotel, paying for one night, and you can pick him up whenever."

Georg continued to drive in the direction of the hotel, knowing that it came perilously close to the end of the territory. It was strange…he was immortal, yet he feared death. The death of others, even, creeped him out to no extent. Vampire though he may be, he was beyond freaked out by the corpse in the apartment, and only Tom's continued presence was keeping him from going into a fallout panic.

[skeggsismad]

Although he’d accomplished his original goal- to prevent the men from going to the police- Georg’s response had opened a whole new door of complications.

“No, no, no. That’s just not going to work. It might work for other people but believe me- it’s not going to work for Eric. Now listen- you can’t leave him alone right now. Go get a hotel for all of you, bring him home, I don’t care what you do, but you can’t leave him alone. You understand that, champ?”

Eric worried too much. People who were courteous enough to deliver him home weren’t going to rape and pillage him and with the sort of generosity they’d displayed earlier, Walter was supposing the suggestion might be taken up without much convincing. He didn’t want to know what thoughts would go through the kid’s head if he was left alone right now, and frankly, if Eric was preoccupied in the presence of other people it was unlikely he was going to be bothered in the next ten hours with frantic phone calls.

Anything to save a good night’s sleep.

As much as he said it bothered him, he still would have stayed the night up with the kid. It was just a matter of whether it was really necessary or not.

[Annalas]

"I really don't see why not," the vampire answered blithely, not at all happy about the idea of doing anything but dropping the kid at a hotel for the night. "Or why that's any of my business, really. I'm not affected by this in the slightest."

Well, aside from being mentally scarred about having a dead guy on the couch. Tom was looking at him curiously, no doubt wondering what the conversation was even about. The way Georg saw it, he was already going out on a limb for some poor kid that was stranded at a bar, and then he walked in on a corpse, and now he just wanted to curl up in bed with Tom and forget he had ever had the great idea to go out in the first place.

[skeggsismad]

Ransom could hear that things weren’t going so well. He clenched his teeth. What would happen to him if in the end Walter couldn’t convince these men not to go to the police? He’d probably be arrested. Who would believe that he’d just stepped into his apartment to a dead body? With his sort of history, everyone would assume he’d killed them. His stomach turned as the continued driving, farther and farther away from his home. Had agreeing to come with them been such a good idea? What if they were worse than whoever had left that body on his couch?

“You don’t think you’re affected? That’s a nice line of thought- really, it is- but you’re going to have to try harder than that.”
Walter let out a brief chuckle. He still sounded causal, no matter how pressing or serious this conversation got ever moment it went on.
 “Honestly, Georg, how does this situation look? If people found out you’d walked into an apartment, discovered a body, and instead of calling the police looked the other way, what do you think is going to be their conclusions? I understand the appeal of idealistic thinking, Georg, I do. But this is far from idealistic and your ass in planted in this whether you want it to be or not.”

He barely took a breath in between his statements in his best attempt to not let Georg get a word in edge wise.

“So, my advice to you is, if you don’t want your life to become a sticky mess, don’t leave Eric alone. It’s one night of your life and  then you’re done with it. Alright?”

He spoke with confidence, still convinced that he could convince Georg to do what he wanted him to do. He had little other option, after all. Ransom would be in a bad place if this option didn’t pull through.

[Annalas]

Georg didn't take well to being threatened, and he never had. He really didn't want to stick around, and in his defense, this 'Walter' couldn't prove anything against him, one way or another. Even if his record were able to be pulled up, it would belong to Georg Mitchell, deserter…someone who was doubtless fairly old by now.

"I'm really not sure what you're implying," he drawled slightly, glancing over at Tom. "But you really don't know enough about me to make those threats, now do you?"

Tom frowned, curled up in the front seat as he was. He didn't like Georg end of the conversation at all. Threats? The guy was threatening him? He looked back at Eric, sighing softly. He really hadn't intended for this to happen, but now that it had…they couldn't leave the poor kid alone. He turned back to talk to Eric.

"Hey," he said to get the kid's attention. "Everything's gonna be okay, alright? You shouldn't worry so much…things like this happen in this part of town, no big deal."

[skeggsismad]

He swallowed hard, nodding his head slightly to Tom’s comment. It didn’t help calm him down. Only a couple people he knew could, and only one person had ever calmed him down completely. Most therapists would call that person his ‘safe place’. And that’s exactly what Ryker was to Ransom; his safe place, the person he confided to, the person who knew all of his secrets. Still, Ryker didn’t know how to help him. He hadn’t called Ryker because….despite how close they were, some things he did still keep secret. He didn’t want to burden his sibling who was halfway across the country with troubling information he could do nothing about.

Meanwhile on the phone, Walter hadn’t expected this would be this challenging. He kicked his feet off his study table and spun the chair around a bit. Every minute he was on the phone was one more day that his wife was going to withhold sex. They were already on rocky terms. Why make it worse?

“Ahh, well, then take your chances. Just remember there’s more than one person that knows you were in that apartment.”

Click.

A hang up.
Walter didn’t think the man was a killer, nor that Ransom was in any real danger being in their presence. The danger lied in if he was left alone, what he might do, what new lows it might bring him to. But the line was a gentle reminder just in case these men were the type that would feel the need to dispose of evidence when they were trapped into a corner. It would scare the faint of heart, though he knew if the two strangers were determined…there was nothing that could be done now.