Secret papers, found and read. Suddenly he was anonymous.
~*~
The night had begun so charmingly, Vincent had awoken Owen with his lips, drawing him to wakefulness, to life, with his love. He'd been more primal than usual, it had been exhilirating. Owen felt like he had been consumed and returned whole, unable to stop smiling. Vincent had recognised the hunger in himself, ruefully arranged a meeting with a contact, had left him alone with the last blood bag.
As he'd warmed it and drunk it, Owen had mused on the fact that they'd need more but perhaps not immediately. Risk was moving venues, changing its name - they weren't sure why but they'd received a leaflet the night before, telling them it was so. They'd thought it interesting but heard nothing of the political unrest that had gripped the city in the past weeks, secluded in their own bubble. Owen was better at controlling the thirst now, almost a year on. He was not as voracious, they didn't need to immerse themselves in endless supplies for him to be able to practise his skills; blood bags and on-the-street donors were more the order of each night and often as a means to a new skill rather than a necessary boost to be
able to work and think.
They were going to try cutting back on the bag supplies again - it had been Owen's suggestion. He was being more independent, more of his own vampire, drinking without supervision, incidentally and casually. He could glamour mortals into not knowing what he was doing, if he had to, lull them into calmness and keep them from understanding what was happening. He was
very proud of this feat and he was keen to work at it until it was a reflex. He didn't need blood bags all the time, didn't need Risk (or Venture, as it was going to become) and Vincent could relax with his monthly donors, because he was no longer over-reaching in order to assist Owen.
Blissful life, on track. The devil is in the details.
He decided to put his time to use while he awaited his lover's return; to do mundane, necessary tasks before their night unfurled. There were clothes to be put away, returned from the dry cleaners and also washed. Some to be folded and stacked, some to be hung in the wardrobe. He moved with efficiency between the bed and robe, between the bed and the dresser, dancing from place to place because he had music playing. Buoyant and loud, to match his mood. He hummed along or sang when he knew the words, the music a lovely background to make the tasks easier.
Somehow, while he was putting a large group of loaded hangers onto the rail in the wardrobe, he got tangled. His hand twisted because he'd been too busy belting out the climactic line of a favourite song and in the extraction, his ring came off. He got his hand loose as the metal bounced and jangled onto the wooden floors, the hangers safely in place but his ring lost to the depths. Odd. It came to rest in the back corner, on its
side but at an angle. The boards weren't even there. Instead of peering in, he got down on his knees to get a closer look, thinking Vincent would want to be alerted to a floor board not sitting right. He sang to himself as he slid the ring back on, puzzling over that board.
Never a singer but life was a song. Discordant melody.
He poked at it and saw that it had more give than was necessary; he could slide it back and lift it up, in fact. A frown creased his forehead as he saw something beneath it that didn't look like foundations or dirt. It was metallic. He shuffled into the closet, ducking down beneath the hanging clothes and seeing clearly - even in limited light - that there was a safe beneath the floorboards. Peculiar. Another board came out and he carefully set it aside, like an archaeologist uncovering precious bones. There was something... secretive about this, and he was uncertain about disturbing it. Vincent had never said it was here and it wasn't a recent addition, he could tell that by the sheen of dust covering it and the dirtiness of the boards he'd removed. The grit of them was fine but coated his fingers.
There was a keypad to open it. He stared at that, head cocked and thinking. He wasn't supposed to be doing this, wasn't supposed to be snooping. It wasn't his business but... wouldn't Vincent think him clever, if he could reveal his skills? What if he could guess the combination? With a sly little grin, he hunkered down even further and set about pressing the alpha/numeric keypad to figure out how many buttons needed pressing. It made an angry little noise when he entered all ones and found there were six characters needed. Six characters. Numbers? Or letters? Hrmm. His mind wandered again and he considered what Vincent might have used that had six characters. Dates! 221111. No. 221189? No. Not his siring or birthdate, then. He couldn't remember Vincent's birth year, just the first of February as his birthday. How remiss of him. He tried a couple of endings after 0102 to no avail then his mother's and father's birthdates but they didn't work and he didn't know any more significant dates so he moved onto words. Names? Not too many fit so it didn't even take him very long, considering his limited choices. Not Owen. Not Karen or Tate. Not Vincent. Lorica. 567422. It made a happy beep and the lock released beneath the little noise of Owen's triumphant squeal.
Some doors can only be opened. Horror unbound.
Owen reached in excitedly, pulling the compact door up. The inside was stuffed with papers and he grabbed a handful before he sat back on his butt to rifle through them, his jeans-clad legs splayed before him. The first thing that caught his eye was his own name, typed. On lots of the papers. He gave a little laugh and frowned, rifling through without really reading at first, trying to understand why there was such a jumble of papers bearing his name on them. He put the pile down between his thighs, straightening it back to order because he was feeling peculiar about this now. Now, it didn't seem so clever or like Vincent would applaud his ingenuity;
now it was beginning to look like he'd found something he shouldn't have, because he'd never been told about it and he'd
broken in. But there was a lot about him! He needed to slow down.
The topmost sheet was his birth certificate. Very similar to the one he'd seen all his life when applying for passports or signing up for junior soccer as a young boy. Except this one had a Milwaukee letterhead and it didn't list his parents' names; his parents were Unknown on this certificate. A chill travelled down his spine and questions started crowding into his brain that he put a stop to, because he couldn't
concentrate. The music was grating on him too, so he got up and turned it off, surprised to find that his legs actually wobbled and that he was fearful as he came back to that pile. He retook his position, putting the birth certificate aside and looking at the next.
Backwards and back, the whole dismantled. Unstitched.
At first, he didn't understand it, but as each successive sheet of paper was carefully put aside, encircling him like enemy troops, the tapestry's threads were revealed and his life was restructured before his eyes. His hands began to shake but he kept looking, his body shutting down but for the shuffling, becoming as dead as it might be if he didn't force air into his lungs and speak or move. Tears began to roll down his cheeks but he blinked them away, reading notes of how he'd been dumped in a washing basket as a baby, how doctors had estimated his birthday based on weight and height, how he'd been adopted by Karen Harper.
Adopted.
There were details from the place he'd been adopted from with Karen's signature clearly
there, a little folder of bank statement summaries in his mother's name, a college account in his name... a photo of himself as a baby that he'd never seen before. Probably taken by the police that had taken him to the place he'd been adopted from, after finding him in the coin laundry. She wasn't his
mother. He'd never
had a father. And Vincent knew all of this, for he held all these papers, these secrets. He covered his face with his hands and wept, having heard stories of the shock of children finding out they were adopted, the complex emotions they experienced. He could relate.
After a couple of minutes he pulled himself together enough to keep looking. At the bottom of the pile he found a fresh hell, because there were more papers, similar in nature, but his name wasn't on these. They were about a girl named Gayle. She was born a generation before he was but her story seemed to bear some resemblance to his. Horror filled him as he reached the bottom of what he'd grabbed out of the safe and then he quickly scrambled back into the closet, on all fours, and dug
everything out, keeping it in order and sitting back in his circle of sanctuary to read.
Ring around the ages, all fall down. Leaves in the wind.
Gayle came before him but the story continued beyond
her. Owen put the picture of the redheaded baby girl - hand painted over a black and white photograph as had been the habit in the fifties - beside his picture. Another one soon joined it and
this was a face he recognised, along with a name. Leigh. Her paperwork was far less than all the rest but he remembered her for he'd met her in Europe. She'd asked Vincent that peculiar question, hadn't she? "Is this your latest one?" He hitched in a sob and threw most of her papers aside finding a bare collection of things - much of it bearing Vincent's signature - about a girl named Abigail. He looked at what was there but by now, it wasn't impacting him, because he could see a pattern here, he could see... something... that he didn't
want to see. Vincent had collected children through the last century, though the purpose wasn't clear.
Owen was the latest acquisition. Arrangement? His mind was too numb to decide. He dropped the last papers negligently and picked up all that was left. A board with an oil painting on it, small and old fashioned but beautifully rendered. Lorica? The blonde lowered it, holding it tenderly over his lap and looking at nothing in particular. He felt like he was in pieces, flying in the wind and he really didn't know where he was, who he was or why.
Vincent found him like that but he hadn't felt his sire approach, he only registered he was there once he was in front of him and then his pale blue eyes lifted slowly, blankly, seeing not someone he knew but a monster.
