Chapter 18

Glass Warning: “You’re still reading? Hmm… sinners don’t scare me, I’ve seen Jude talking to himself a lot and that’s creepier. It’s kinda sexy, though… ‘you know who else talks to himself and looks sexy as hell?”

If this room was burning,
I wouldn’t even notice;
—Little White Lies

IN THEIR POINT OF VIEW,

Satan was severely unhappy with Leo as he set flames to the entire Withholding because his warden refused to provide fruits. “YOU HAD HIM! YOU HAD HIM AND YOU LET HIM SLIP AWAY—you put your hands on too much lube and he slipped away! MOTHERF*CKER GIVE ME MY GRAPES!“

Leo was alone in the library, sadly putting away the bottles which he has given Jude a taste of. His head is burning from the devil wreaking havoc in his head.

“He got in trouble with Pryce, and you almost got me in trouble with the drinking, too…” Leo replied as he arranged the bottles in place. “And if I give you fruit, will you please get rid of the fire, it’s giving me a headache!”

Satan extinguished the flames with his limbs, but he remains angry as he eats his grapes, “I didn’t tell you to get drunk, I told you to get him drunk—!”

“I don’t want to f*ck him when he’s drunk, it’s more fun when he’s sober,” Leo mutters to himself, unable to take his mind away from Jude like a high schooler with a crush. “And we have exams tomorrow, I never should’ve done that.”

“He did that while drunk, the only sober thing he wants to do with you is bro-fisting, and not the kind I did with Abe Lincoln before his Presidency!” The devil rants as he popped another grape into his mouth.

Leo proceeds to ignore him, but it’s hard to do when the devil is quite literally inside his mind. Anything he thinks of, Leo hears. Including his severely disturbed fantasies involving Jude, that he can’t push out of his mind unless the devil sleeps.

“This is why you’re friendzoned, Leo!” The devil yells out, “Girls don’t like nice men, they like bad boys who sell cocaine and trust me, you’re too Caucasian for that.”

“Please shut up.” Yet just the thought of him made Leo smile for once. “Besides, Jude isn’t a girl…” he’s more than a man. He’s a f*cking angel…

“I don’t remember what’s inside of Jude’s pants, but all of them have holes, and I’m gonna f*ck all eight of ’em!”

Leo had to remove himself from the library and head to the right wing where Redd is currently cleaning his bedroom, shirtless with his scars on full display. “Hey—Satan is currently screaming at my head now, can I have some sedatives? Something strong, like a gorilla tranquilizer.”

Redd was currently lifting weights with one arm, a cigarette between his lips. He looked at Leo deadpan speaking with a subtle accent, “Since when does Satan not yell at you, L?”

“He’s been yelling about doing unholy things to a particular guy I like and I am deeply disturbed, please give me the pills.”

Redd scans Leo judgmentally while putting his cigarette between his fingers, before ultimately smiling to make fun of the chef.

“Mmm. So now it’s a problem,” He clicked his tongue, making his way to his closet where he kept a cabinet of medicine. He’s a lot taller than the thing, he has to bend down to see what’s inside the middle shelf. “Must be love, huh. Or the alcohol, you smell like it.”

“I only had a couple.” Leo sighed, “Now Pryce is gonna yell at me, too.”

“You’re not s’pposed to be drinking, L.” He opened the cabinet and started digging through bottles. “I’ll give you somethin’ light, some Anti-schizo. It’ll hush him up for an hour or two.”

“I’m afraid that’s not enough…” I say as I watch him pull out pills from a cabinet. Usually, Redd keeps medicine inside the clinic but he does not want to go out there every hour of the day since the vampires are always asking him for medical supplies. Especially Glass—so he keeps them at arm’s reach.

“No need to waste holy water L, just take lots’o pills, OD for a couple of days…” Redd exhaled out his cigarette, winking at him knowingly. “We’ll take care of Jude.”

He gave Leo the entire pill bottle, but Leo got pissed at what he said so he just stared at Redd, deadpan. Suddenly, he doesn’t need them anymore. So he tells Redd, “I’m cured now, thanks for being such a good nurse.”

“Nurse ‘sound gay, man. Call me a medic…”

“As if you don’t sink your d*ck into the two psychopaths next door?” Leo scoffed.

“Hey—Glass ain’t a psychopath and I’ve always been straight, I never take it up the *ss.” Leo leaned against his doorway, staring at Redd for a while until he suspiciously catches the man’s eyes. “Yo man, I’m never gonna take you up my *ss.”

“No no, I’m just wondering… how does one know the difference between love and lust? How would I know that I love a person and don’t just want to f*ck them or drink their blood?” Leo genuinely asked, “I’ve been a vampire since I was a kid, but you’ve fallen in love as a human, right?”

“You’re asking how humans love?” Redd clarifies, since vampires only express love through their thirst for each other. “Y’know what, yeah… there is a difference. No human could survive Evie and Glass’ relationship, that’s for sure.”

“So… how do you know you’re in love with someone as a human?”

“You search for them,” Redd smiles, recalling the many times he’s been in love with a special girl in his teens. “You don’t crave, you don’t thirst for them, you won’t even think of their body. You just really want to see them, talk to them, sit on the same chairs as them, be in the same room. Whether you f*ck or not doesn’t matter, you’ll feel really happy just by seeing them or even thinking about them.”

Leo thought about it deeply. “Happy about… just being there?”

“That’s why love ‘don’t look at gender, brother. Anyone can sit in the same room and be happy they’re together.” Redd lit another cigarette for himself, “Same goes with family, friends; if you hate to be in the same room as your parents, you don’t love them at all.”

“Thank, Redd… you’re so human, it’s awesome. Too bad you stopped being straight after hooking up with beauty and the psycho next door,” Leo pats his shoulder before leaving the room, making Redd’s eyebrows dip in disapproval.

“Hey, I’m not—” but Leo is already gone.

Redd looked at the clock, noting that it’s an hour to class, but speaking of the couple next door, he’s hearing them yell again through the pure cement and brick walls again.

“WHY ARE YOU UPSET ABOUT JUDE WHEN YOU’VE BEEN THIRSTING AFTER HIM, TOO?!” Evie yelled out, before Redd hears Glass sob. “You want him—I’m giving him to you, what more do you f*cking want, Glass?!”

“I do want him, but not like this! You’re a madman, doing this to an innocent person! You don’t need to do this to him—”

Evie yells back, “He is a stubborn motherf*cker, and he needs to be trained the same way Redd was straightened out years ago!”

“I don’t want you to do the same thing you did to Redd!” Glass yelled at him, his two toned eyes angry at his own lover. Redd, now outside the bedroom, wasn’t able to exhale the smoke in his lungs until it eventually burned his insides. When he did let go of the breath, all he can take in was Glass’ voice.

“I want Jude to love me without me having to use my powers on him. He would’ve, but you ruined it,” cried Glass.

Hmm, Redd thought, He really likes Jude, huh.

“How the f*ck did I ruin it?!” Evie grabbed him by the arm, pulling Glass towards him. “Everything I’m doing, I’m doing it for you. EVERYTHING I DID, I DID FOR YOU! You question me as if my actions did not save you from s*cking white c*cks and beaten by white hands every night until you die at 20 years of age—”

“OW!” Glass hissed and cried at Evie squeezing his arm, “Eve stop, it hurts! AH—!”

“Aww… my poor Glass…” Evie didn’t soften his hold, but he did caress Glass’ face delicately with the other hand. “My love… you’re only being hysterical because you didn’t take your medicine. Why don’t you take it before I shove them and my three fingers down your throat—”

“LET ME GO! I don’t want them anymore… EVIE!”

The green eyed vampire dare not move a finger buried deep inside Glass’ arms, “Are you gonna take your pills, or do I have to gag your beautiful sorry mouth, my love?”

“I don’t want to! LET GO, LET GO!”

“Guys,” Redd knocks, interrupting the two of them. The two most beautiful vampires in the convent looked at Redd with an ugly look on their guilty faces. “Aren’t we supposed to be in class?”

“We’re not going to class until Glass stops crying! He won’t take the pills!”

“I’ll give it to him. You better talk to Leo, since I heard him and Jude are going on a date before school. Are you okay with that?” said Redd, walking inside the room.

Only then did Evie release Glass, and he fell on the floor sobbing. Evie bitterly walks toward the door and bumps onto Redd threateningly, “Keep an eye on Glass. Or I’ll coat you in your name.”

Redd couldn’t even talk back to him; he just watched Evie walk out of the door and leave Glass alone with him.

Redd slowly approached Glass with three bottles of anti-anxiety medicine and sedatives, as well as pouring him a glass of goat’s blood. Glass is such a beautiful vampire, even his cries sound fragile, like his name. “Hey, G… look, you’re an hour late on your medicine. Don’t worry, you can still take them.”

“I don’t want them!” Glass whines, grabbing a shoe and throwing it towards the dresser where it quite literally went through the wood. His angry eyes don’t look like they belonged to his face, and he repeatedly hit the bed in frustration. “I HATE EVIE! TELL EVIE—TELL HIM I NEVER WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN. He hurt me, I HATE HIM!”

“That’s not necessary, you love Evie.” Redd just sat with him on the floor with multiple pills in his hands. “Come on, I got morphine in my room. I’ll let you have it if you take these?”

Glass was still crying, “I don’t want those! I want Evie, where is he?! WHERE IS HE?! If he leaves me, I’ll kill him… I’ll kill everyone!”

This wasn’t a new scene for Redd, although the rejection is kind of new. He watched Glass spiral like this more times than he could count—the screaming, the violence, the threats that meant nothing and everything at the same time—this has happened before. So Redd set the glass of blood down carefully, as to not provoke anymore of Glass’ violent thoughts.

“Won’t… Jude be sad if you kill him?” When Redd said that name, Glass seemed to immediately stop crying. Either that, or he’s holding his breath again. He was breathing, yet silently. The mention of Jude made Glass look at Redd with tearful, glistening eyes that became the center of his ethereal beauty.

Redd scoffed, smiling while looking away before he gets lost in those eyes again. “Is that why Evie was pissed? You actually like Jude, and your boyfriend got jealous, yet again. Hmm…”

Somehow, despite the smile on his face, Redd’s eyes were anything but happy. He can’t look at Glass, or he’ll start crying, too. “It’s just funny. How I’ve been… yours, ever since I came here. But I just can’t seem to earn my place in your heart.”

“R-Redd…” Glass whimpers, reaching out for his hand but Redd only flipped his hand and placed the pills on them.

“I will always take care of you, Glass. I will always be yours… even though you will never be mine.” Redd can’t stand to be in this room anymore.

Glass is so close, yet so unattainable. He wants to say it: I love you. But he is not supposed to, he doesn’t have the place to do so. He can only tell Glass, “Drink them, okay? I don’t want to force you, but you can do this yourself, right?”

Glass nods, calmed down by Redd’s soothing voice. With a kiss on the forehead, Redd stood up to walk out of the room and leave Glass to drink his medicine.

What… why didn’t he f*ck me? Glass wonders, watching the big man leave. He looks down at the pills, knowing they will make him feel a lot better than what he’s feeling now. But merely a second later, he forgot he had the pills in his hands and stood up, letting them fall to the ground.

He hastily stumbled out of the room, barely put together with his overgrown braids making his rots look less neat, but it didn’t take away from his looks. “Evie?”

It felt like navigating through the hallways with alcohol drowning his liver, but he did not drink one drop. Instead, he snuck into Redd’s room where the man was absent. “Evie, you here?”

He didn’t see his lover, but Glass slightly smiled at the morphine injections on a tray meant for his use. He stole it, but didn’t quite know what to do with it so he just stumbled out of the room again.

Maybe Evie… is with Pryce? Glass, in a desperate search for him, went to Pryce’s bedroom where it was neat, obsessively clean, but empty. Seeing Evie nowhere inside made him punch the solid brick wall so hard, his knuckles bled. “F*CKER, he left me! Evie f*cking left me!”

The area where he punched it start to crack—not from his strength, but from his unstable mind bleeding through his Sheltering.

He decided to go tell the Monsignor that he was abandoned, stumbling up the stairs and pass the church where he runs his hands across the walls, cracking the brick where his finger brushes past. He limped to the Monsignor’s office, tears running down his cheeks.

He left me… he actually left! The hallway walls start to crack at each of his steps. I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill everyone! He can’t leave me! HE SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT ME!

Facing the doors, he threw it open, only to tilt his head upon seeing Jude lying back on the table, Pryce between his legs as he moaned and arched his back. Pryce looked at the door to see Glass with bloodshot eyes, indicating he was crying 3 seconds ago but suddenly stopped upon seeing them.

“Glass?” Hearing that name from Pryce, Jude sat up in shock, pants missing from his body. The beautifully messed up Glass is staring at him from the door.

“Hi, puppy,” he smiled, even though his eyes are in pain. A drunk Jude pushed Pryce away and tried his best to fix himself, because Salve is looking with an unreadable look in his eyes. “Uhh… where’s the Monsignor…?”

“Why, darling?” Pryce asked softly, before the convent rumbled quietly under Glass’ powers.

“Evie left me,” Glass’ neutral face suddenly breaks and he’s crying again. Vines can be seen crawling on the walls behind him, sprouting deadly thorns. Jude’s heart broke, seeing Glass leaning against the doorway and sank down, sobbing.

Pryce sighed, pulling Jude to the edge of the table, “Excuse me, my darling…”

“Wh-what’s going on?” Jude watched as Pryce made his way to Glass and pulled him up so he can have a seat. He looks horrible, and Jude’s heart is fighting with the alcohol for control over his brain. “Pryce, why is does he look like that?”

“Glass didn’t take his pills and he’s carrying morphine that Redd definitely didn’t give him. Can you stay with him while I go get his pills?” Pryce asked Jude, who looked at him in surprise.

“What—I uhh… wait—”

“You’re not drunk, are you?” Pryce gave him a challenging look because he knows d*mn well Jude is intoxicated.

“No… no, I’m not…” says Jude, hopping off the table and almost falling over because of vertigo. Pryce left him with a crying Glass, and Jude sighed. “Ahh, so this is the punishment…” I’m gonna get killed by a sober Glass…

But he’s just crying, Jude thinks as he approaches Glass on the chair. He looks the most like Salve when he’s like this. “Hey… what’s wrong?”

Glass stopped sobbing once he looked at Jude, but still looked distraught. His eyes are glossy, cheeks glistening with tears and eyes seeking sanity from a mind filled with chaos. He whimpers, “Evie is leaving…”

“No, no…. I don’t think he is… ” Jude reached out to wipe off the flood of tears staining Glass’ face, “He’s still here. No one’s leaving.”

“You’ll leave me, too…” he cried, his running tears making the paint peel off the walls. He sounded angry, causing small tremors that shook the ceiling lights. “You’ll f*ck someone else—f*cking Leo and Pryce and you don’t need me anymore!”

It made Jude’s heart skip a beat, in the most painful way. Devastated, Jude shakes his head silently, holding Glass’ face with both hands.

“Baby, I—! I will never leave you… I can’t ever leave you! Don’t even say that! I could never leave you even when I wanted to…” tears welled up in Jude’s eyes. I’m so sorry, my love…

But Glass looked at him like he will. Suddenly, the room went ablaze and his two toned eyes are colored with orange flames. “Promise?”

Jude couldn’t feel the warmth. He doesn’t care that the room is currently burning, all he knows is that he’s here with the love of his love. He nods while holding Glass’ face, “I will never leave you. Please don’t go…”

As the room went up in flames with no one but them in it, Pryce suddenly came in and stabbed Glass with a sedative injection, reversing the flames he caused. Glass’ eyes rolled to the back of his head before passing out in Jude’s arms.

“Wh-what did you do to him?!” Jude made sure Glass won’t hit his head anywhere, taking him into his arms. He angrily looked up at Pryce, “STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM HIM! Salve—Salve, baby? Don’t go, stay with me… please…”

He sobbed against Glass’ head, kissing the unconscious boy with tears streaming down his eyes. He held him as if he’ll slip away again; as if he’ll fall where he couldn’t reach. He can’t let him go again, and he refuses to.

“Jude… he’s not going away, we need to take him—” When Pryce took a step, Jude simply lost it.

“STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM HIM!” The convent rumbled and the wall behind him cracked in half, breaking the statue of the Lady herself. Pryce widened his eyes when her head broke off and rolled to the ground, where Jude sobbed against Glass’ body.

“Salve…” he cried against Glass’ head, “Don’t worry… I’m here, I caught you. I’m here, always…”

Jude… Just then, the three other vampires came running, and Leo saw Jude breaking down with Glass in his arms. Redd looked away, knowing this was his fault. Evie was the first to yell out, “Glass!”

“Eve, no!” Pryce blocked him with his arm, and only then did Leo notice the damage behind Jude. They can’t approach him, now that they noticed the huge crack on the wall, which didn’t disappear despite Glass being unconscious. Pryce sounded uneasy when telling them, “It’s not Glass. It’s Jude… he has the Sheltering, too.”

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