Louis was not prone to nerves, but he was beginning to have doubts about going to the party. And about why David wanted him there.

At the time, it seemed like David was implying something when he said that he wanted to sneak off with Louis—Louis had kissed him, after all, and since then, there had been moments where Louis thought that things between them went past the line of friendship—but he still wasn't certain. It might be that Louis was just looking too much into the situation. There was subtext, sure, but real life subtext was rarely as clear-cut as movie subtext.

And real life expectations were a lot more biased than movie expectations, too.

It was like trying to play a role without any clue what part he was playing. Maybe this was how David felt about auditions. The thought almost made him laugh. Maybe he should take his own advice and just act out his own interpretation with the hope that that was the role David wanted him to play.

There was one other option, though. Jennifer Yang was David's best friend. If nothing else, she cared deeply for David, so he doubted she'd say anything to hurt their relationship as long as she thought Louis was more of an asset than a detriment to David's wellbeing.

It was a risk, but a calculated one.

Despite her being the one to tell Louis to hire David, Louis got the distinct impression that she didn't really like him. She wasn't openly hostile, but Louis suspected that was for David's sake not his. Still, Louis was glad David had a friend who loved him with that kind of ferocity. She might not actually be David’s sister, but she seemed pretty close to it.

Louis didn’t end up in the depths of the wardrobe and special effects department except when necessary. He mostly came down here when they needed to film a scene in vampire makeup, but those weren’t nearly as frequent as one might have expected.

“Jennifer,” Louis greeted as he walked in.

The department operated on the line between structured chaos and a well oiled machine. There was a flurry of creativity that seemed to have exploded all over the workspace, but everyone seemed to dance around everyone else in a perfect flow.

Not that Louis expected anything less from Jennifer Yang. She was like the queen bee in a busy hive.

“What?” she asked shortly, not even bothering to look at him.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

"Is it work related?"

"No."

“I don’t know what you actors do all day, but I have work,” Jennifer said, testily. “You’ll have to wait for the weekend.”

“The weekend is too late,” he said.

“Then you’re shit out of luck.”

“It's about David,” he said, undeterred.

This seemed to finally get her attention and she turned to him. Whatever she saw in his expression, she seemed to deem it worthwhile because she muttered something to one of her worker bees before gesturing Louis into a tiny closet that must have acted like her office.

“What about David?” she asked, sitting down without offering him a seat. Louis took one anyway. The two of them were a little too similar to really get along, but he thought they had, at the very least, a respect for one another that would help them find common ground when it came to David.

“I want to ask a personal question,” Louis said, figuring that with someone like Jennifer it was probably best to just be straight forward about it.

“Then you should probably ask David,” she said, making to stand up again.

Louis stayed seated. “Look, he and I have been circling around the subject since we met, but I don’t think he’d hear the question let alone give me an answer and I don't want to push him. This is not my first choice, either.”

Jennifer's brows were sharply unimpressed. “You want to know if he’s interested in you,” she surmised.

Louis stiffened, lips tightening. He was trying to being direct, he reminded himself, but that seemed a little on the nose even to him.

“Not exactly,” Louis said slowly. He already suspected David was interested in some capacity. “I want to know what kind of people he usually dates.”

“And David won’t give you an answer?” Jennifer asked.

Louis shook his head. “He dodges the subject. I’m not sure if he thinks I’ll be offended if he tells me he’s not interested or something else, but he won’t give me a straight answer, and I want to know if I have a chance or if I should step back.”

“So you want to know if he’s interested in you,” she repeated.

Louis rolled his eyes. “Fine, yes.”

“Can’t answer that, next question,” she said.

Louis folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the chair, just watching her. Jennifer stared back.

“What kind of people does he usually date?” Louis tried again.

“No one,” Jennifer said.

Louis let out an exasperated sigh. “If you don’t want to help me, you can just say so.”

“I don’t really want to help you, but I’m not being unhelpful,” Jennifer said, resting her chin on a hand and tapping her cheek with a long red nail. “David doesn’t date. I’ve known him since he was three and the only girlfriend he’s ever had dumped him after a month and that was when he was twelve.”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “He said you were the first girl he ever asked out.”

Jennifer gave him a speculative look at that. “I was. I'm pretty sure I'm the only girl he's ever asked out, but, no, I’m not the one he dated. She asked him and it only lasted a month before she realized what she was getting herself into.”

Louis considered the version of David in his own mind—open and enthusiastic, always friendly—and then added to it this new piece of information. He'd only ever been with one girl and that was when he was a child.

That... changed things.

“Why only the one?” Louis asked.

Jennifer shrugged. “Because she asked him. He's a people pleaser. But he didn't enjoy it so hasn’t said yes since."

“So it was a bad experience?” he asked, worried at how bad it must have been if that itself had put David off dating entirely. Especially if it happened when he was twelve.

“I don’t think it was that,” Jennifer said, “I just don’t think it was what he wanted.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that I really can’t help you,” she said with a long exhale. “David is... David. I’m not even sure he knows what he wants.”

Louis wouldn’t be surprised. It was just about what David had told him when Louis had asked him over for dinner.

“So I’m just improvising here, either way,” Louis mused.

“Love is never easy,” Jennifer said, giving him a meaningful look even as her words bordered on sarcastic. “And David makes things about twice as hard as they have to be at the best of times. You had better be prepared for heartache if you decide to start anything with him. And don’t you fucking dare blame it on him afterwards, got it?”

Louis's heart picked up its pace and he leaned back in his chair, considering.

Jennifer wasn’t really warning him off David, just telling him that if he was going to be with David, he was getting David and everything that that entailed.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

Jennifer nodded and he took his leave, still pondering this new information.

At first, Louis's interest had just been about sex. And, if not just sex, then nothing more than a fling. Something fun and easy while he was here in Midtown. He hadn't meant for it to be anything more than that, and he wasn't exactly sure when that had changed.

It was a bad idea, he knew it was a bad idea. Louis wasn't good at relationships. He was moody and stubborn and generally difficult—not at all the kind of person someone like David needed, especially if he was still learning what he wanted. Especially if... Christ, was he a virgin? If he'd never dated, had he had sex?

David probably deserved a lot more than Louis could give him.

And, yet, here he was, still considering it. Still wanting it.

Louis wanted more from David, something additional to their friendship. He felt almost guilty for it.

Jennifer had felt the need to warn him not to hurt David if things didn't work out, but Louis already knew that. He'd never had any expectations of David. Louis didn't expect him to reciprocate his feelings or his interest, even in part. Louis just wanted more of David, regardless.

He knew, too, that it was a gamble to pursue someone who was still exploring, but, despite his better judgment, Louis wasn't deterred.

It wasn’t exactly what he had hoped to hear from Jennifer, but he could work with it. He had a better picture of David now and a better picture of what he needed.

Louis could be very accommodating when he wanted to be. And he wanted to be for David. He wanted David and he'd accept whatever David would give him.

*****

When he got home that night, Louis had a lot to think about, not only regarding David but the show, too. Louis had never considered Night Mist to be anything more than a layover. It was something to bide his time doing while he was here, a purgatory of sorts.

Kind of like David’s commercials, but not quite.

Louis's purgatory had a time limit, though, and a worse sort of hell awaited him on the other side.

Sometimes, when he was the worst version of himself, he wished that it would just end. He wished it would all stop so that he didn’t have to keep thinking about the inevitability. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he was struck with a fresh wave of both guilt and grief.

No, this suffering was the lesser by far.

What he really wished was that Rosemarie had never gotten sick in the first place. He wished that she had found a nice husband and had a ton of kids that would call him Uncle Lou and fill this too-empty house with warmth and laughter.

He wanted her to live.

He just wanted her to live.

And if she could just fucking live, so could Louis.

When this was all over and she was gone, Louis would return to his condo in Weldstone Harbor. He would return to acting on big budget films after his hiatus and he would find comfort in a job well done.

His life would be back on track again.

But, when this was all over, he’d be alone, too.

The worst part of moving to Midtown was that he'd started to remember what it was like to be around other people. People he liked and people he loved.

He wasn't isolated in Weldstone Harbor, he wasn't even alone, really, but this was different. Home was different. There was something stark and ordered about the home and life he'd built in Weldstone Harbor. It was exactly what he liked and exactly what he was comfortable with.

But it wasn't like the home that only existed with Rosemarie. There was love and comfort in every inch of Rosemarie's home that just came with being near her. It was a kind of home that Louis had never been able to build. Louis wasn't sure he even fit into it, really.

David did, though. David fit there, in that kind of warmth.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Louis had friends before David. He had friends he considered close friends and friends he could rely on. But he had not had friends like David before David.

He didn't want to lose that, either.

Part of him hoped that they could stay friends after Louis left—they had both come from Weldstone Harbor, after all—but Louis didn't think David planned on going back.

David had moved out of his apartment to take a shot in the dark opportunity in the middle of nowhere with no real idea what he was in for. If he was that easily displaced for a job in a town too small to be on most maps and a job as some kind of assistant, what were the odds that he would stay in Weldstone once he started getting better offers?

What were the odds he'd stay with Louis?

Because David would start getting better offers. Once people saw what he was capable of, he could go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted.

David could be with whoever he wanted.

The thought was a bitter one. If Louis didn't make his intentions clear soon, he may never have a chance with David—even a chance destined to fail.

But was it worth the risk? If things went wrong, he could lose not just a date, but the friendship they'd built, too.

And if David was interested, what then?

He didn't think David would be interested in casual. And, if he was honest, he didn't think that's what he was after with David, either.

But if not that, then what?

Was Louis really looking for a boyfriend? A partner? A husband?

Louis's face heated. Even the idea of that kind of longevity felt ridiculous—fanciful.

The smart thing would be to let this drop. Stop flirting and just be what they were. Wasn’t that enough? Yes. Of course it was. David was enough.

But, at the same time, it really, really wasn’t.

*****

David didn’t know how exactly he had gotten into the habit of flirting with Louis, but even Jennifer was beginning to pick up on it now and that was probably not a good sign when he only saw her after work and rarely when he was actually with Louis. It either meant that Jennifer was stalking him or that he was so obvious about his infatuation that the rest of the crew were beginning to gossip.

Today was the final day of filming and they were scheduled to film all of the scenes they needed to keep Marcus Lazarus around for another season. Where they left off, Marcus was supposed to have been killed by the succubus.

All of that would still happen, but they needed to hint that Marcus was already a werewolf when he was maimed by the succubus. A great season finale cliff hanger, too. David was ecstatic.

“Ready?” Nabila asked. David sat down and inhaled, trying to focus the headspace he got into with Marcus Lazarus. He opened his eyes and Don Christoph walked through the door.

“Lazarus,” Don demanded in that short way he had that was still somehow cloyingly saccharine. Marcus grimaced up at him, though his heart wasn’t in it. He leaned forward in his chair and gestured for Don to take a seat.

“I’m not here long,” Don said.

Something in his tone had Marcus standing up, too. He itched absently at the white bandage covering his left forearm. The bite from that fucking werewolf burned like mad.

“What’s wrong now?” Marcus demanded.

Don looked over at him, cool and calculating and superior. Marcus stepped forward and grabbed the vampire’s arm, his thumb rubbing over the smooth linen of his shirt.

"What is it?"

“I’m only here to warn you and your people to stay away from the old factory tonight,” he said, he still looked icy but something in his gaze was almost wary.

“Like hell I’m doing that,” Marcus insisted. “You’ve found her, then?”

Don nodded. “And you cannot join me there. Not after what happened last time.” Don looked pointedly at Marcus’ arm, though whether it was because it still gripped his shoulder loosely or because his sleeve had ridden up to reveal the white bandages, Marcus didn’t know. His hand dropped to his side anyway.

“Goodbye, Marcus,” Don said. Marcus grabbed at him again, but his hand was brushed off as easily as a ghost's.

Marcus stood in the station for only a moment, trying to decide what to do. There were lines that should and should not be crossed, really. There was his professional duty, to protect the citizens of this city, and then there was personal duty. Personal duty was to protect one’s self and friends.

When he signed up to be a cop, he decided to put the first before the second. And both were screaming at him to follow Don into the fray.

“Like, hell you’re leaving without me,” Marcus muttered under his breath, running for the door.

*****

“Aaaaannnnd, that’s a wrap!” Nabila said. “Thank you all for your hard work this season. We couldn’t have done it without you. Quite literally. It’s been a great shoot with a great cast and crew."

There were cheers and applause and scattered congratulations. David smiled around at everyone and clapped a couple people on the shoulder.

"We’ll be meeting at Blue’s at nine and you had all better be there, because the food’s on me!” Nabila broke through over the ruckus.

A couple whoops and laughter joined the cheers as everyone turned to each other to decompress, shaking hands and exchanging hugs. Amelia walked up to him and threw her arms around his neck, giving him a peck on the cheek.

David laughed, hugging her back, even as his eyes shifted towards Louis to see if he'd noticed. Louis's back was to him as he talked with the Best Boy.

"It's been great working with you this season," she said. "Don't be a stranger with your time off."

"I won't!" David said. "I have to stay in your good graces so you'll take care of me when filming starts again."

"I think you'll be pretty well taken care of, regardless," she said with a breezy laugh.

David flushed, realizing he'd been looking at Louis again, and scratched the back of his neck. David thanked Amelia for her hard work and went to congratulate some of the other crew. He really wanted to go bother Louis, but didn't want to look too much like a lost puppy following him around.

After a moment, though, Louis found him. A warm hand landed on his shoulder as Louis walked up behind him. It rested there for a moment before falling away.

David grinned. It was silly to be so pleased to have Louis's attention. It wasn't like he didn't have other friends in the cast and crew to talk with, but there was something especially satisfying about being Louis's best friend on set.

“You need a ride tonight?” Louis asked.

David started to shake his head out of habit before pausing. He usually just rode with Jennifer because, well, she was his best friend.

But he didn't have to drive down with her. He could drive down with Louis. She’d probably thank him for the lack of fingerprints on her shiny orange door handle or something. Maybe Nabila would need a ride and Jennifer would really thank him.

“Sure,” he said, after a moment too long. "If it's not out of your way."

Louis's smile was warm as he shook his head.

“I have to drop by the house to give Rosemarie her prescriptions, but I can pick you up around 8:30. We might be a little late. Is that all right?”

That sounded like it actually was out of the way for Louis, but Louis wasn't the type to offer unless he wanted to. And David was warming to the idea of driving with him to the party.

“I could go home with you," David suggested. "After we're done here, I mean," he added quickly at Louis's smirk, shooting him a glare. "I can hang out with Rosemarie and then we can head straight over there after you’ve fulfilled your brotherly duties.”

Louis smiled softened into something pleased, though David had no idea what he'd done to deserve it. “That would be perfect. Unless you wanted to change?”

David glanced down at himself and laughed. He was wearing jeans and a graphic tee with a squirrel on it. It wasn't exactly the look he would have picked, but it wasn't like it was a black tie affair.

"It's not a big deal," David said, shrugging. "The behind the scenes footage is full of my fashion choices already."

Louis snorted. "You could borrow something of mine, if you'd like."

They were about the same size, though Louis definitely had more fashion sense than David did. David’s usual attire was jeans and comfortable tee. Louis was all dark slacks and somber button fronts. He wondered if he'd look like he was trying too hard if he showed up in Louis's clothes.

“All right,” David said.

The drive back to Rosemarie’s house was quiet as they chatted a bit about their plans during the off season. Louis was staying in Midtown, of course, but David wouldn’t be. He was going to go back to Weldstone Harbor for at least a little while.

There were a couple commercials he'd be filming next month and he was going to try Louis's suggestions for improving his auditions. He had filmed a couple so far that weren’t as terrible as most of them.

But part of him worried it wasn't enough.

“You’ll do fine,” Louis said with absolute confidence when David had mentioned that he still hadn’t heard back from anyone. “You are fighting an uphill battle as a new actor. All you need is that one director to believe in you, then they’ll see. Besides, Night Mist airs in October and they’ll be clamoring over you after that.”

“I think they’ll actually be clamoring over you,” David said, snickering. "Everyone loves a vampire. Think of all the fanfiction for that scene in episode fifteen!"

Louis's mouth twitched into a frown and David sobered.

Sometimes he thought it was odd that Louis was an actor. He scorned everything involving social interactions, which might be overshadowed if he liked what he did, but sometimes he seemed to hate acting, too.

It made David sad. A part of him would always be a fan of Louis Greene the actor. He loved Louis's art and he had an insatiable desire for more of it. But the part of him that knew Louis the man just hoped that he could do what made him happy.

“Hopefully they’ll calm down when they realize that I’m not doing any big productions,” he muttered.

He sounded bitter about that, too. Like he would be dissatisfied no matter what. David knew he didn’t like Night Mist in the same way David liked Night Mist but now he wondered if Louis legitimately was unhappy here. Would he prefer to be somewhere else, doing bigger and better things? He was here for Rosemarie, after all.

David hadn't really considered what Louis would be doing... after.

So far, David had managed to keep the knowledge that Rosemarie wasn't getting better locked away somewhere deep in his brain. He didn't want to think about it. But he hadn't really thought about the fact that it meant Louis's time in Midtown was also limited.

Was it really any wonder that Louis wasn't happy? David swallowed a wave of guilt. He was selfish and a terrible friend, but he was glad Louis was here. His nightmare was one of the best things that ever happened to David. It was awful.

David had gotten to know Rosemarie a little better since he'd come over for the first time and he had found that she was a very easy woman to love. The world felt like it would be fundamentally changed by the absence of the simple light she gave off.

“What are you two going to do while I grab the prescriptions?” Louis asked when they arrived.

She'd given David her number the first night and they'd been chatting nonstop since then, so he'd texted her on the way over and they'd already formulated a plan.

David grinned, swinging his arm around Rosemarie’s shoulders. Rosemarie giggled.

“We’re going to design The Bookshelf!”

“Of course you are,” Louis said, giving them both his best exasperated look. Which wasn’t very good because of the underlying fondness of it. "A general reminder that I am not a carpenter and have nothing to do with this project."

"We wouldn't endanger your wardrobe," David said solemnly.

“All right, then, off you go,” Rosemarie shooed her brother away and took David’s proffered arm as they made their way back upstairs. She looked tired today, but seemed in high spirits.

“What walls are we covering?” David asked with a conspiratorial wink. There were so many walls to choose from. Big walls. He could just picture all of the books they could fit in here.

“All of them,” she said. David laughed, but he'd seen her novel collection, so he simply asked where to find a measuring tape and they got started.

*****

Their sketches and measurements completed, they sat down on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa that David made—his one best destiny was to be a barista, according to Jennifer. Rosemarie had grown quiet, though David had tried to do most of the measuring and climbing around himself.

“David,” she said, staring off into the distance with a slight frown, “you and Louis have gotten close over the last few months.”

“Yeah, that's true,” David said, trying not to think about exactly how close they had gotten.

“What—” she broke off, considering for a moment. “What are your intentions toward Louis?”

David almost sprayed hot cocoa out of his nose. As it was, he did inhale a little of it. That was not the question he'd expected, especially because Louis had warned him that his love life was not something she discussed with him—David got the impression that that bothered Louis, and he wondered if Rosemarie had a problem with Louis being gay.

“Sorry,” Rosemarie said, pounding him on the back. "I know it's an inappropriate question, but—"

David shook his head, coughing until he could get an actual breath.

“No, no,” he said when he could breathe again, “the question just startled me, that’s all.”

Rosemarie looked out the window.

“I just want to know what Louis is to you? Is he a work colleague, a friend? Or something else?”

David stared at her for a long moment, trying to come up with an answer for her. The problem was that David didn't fully understand his own intentions towards Louis.

His feelings towards Louis probably weren't entirely platonic, but he wasn't sure where they were collectively, either. Louis flirted and David—well, David wasn't sure if he flirted with Louis, but he didn't not flirt with him, and he definitely didn't want Louis to stop flirting with him.

But he didn't have a real answer, either. They floated in the space between friendship and romance. David couldn’t tell how serious he was about it, let alone how serious Louis was about it. And he didn't want to betray Louis's confidence by telling Rosemarie something he didn't want her to know.

“Louis is one of my closest friends,” David said. It wasn't enough, but it was true.

Rosemarie’s lips tightened just a little and David sighed.

“I don’t know what you hope to hear. Maybe saying we’re friends isn’t much—I have a lot of friends—but Louis is more than just a colleague or a friend from work. He's more like Jennifer—and I've known her since I was three."

“Louis is one of your best friends?” Rosemarie confirmed.

“Yeah, I guess you could put it like that,” David said.

Saying that he was like Jennifer wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth, either. He loved Jennifer like a sister.

He did not love Louis like a brother.

David wanted to have Louis and to keep him. He wanted to possess Louis in a way that he couldn't express without sounding completely insane. You couldn’t possess other people, after all. Louis was his own person, but that didn’t stop David from wanting him to be David's—and only David's.

But that wasn't something he could say to Louis's sister, even if he was sure about what it all meant.

“I’m not going to be here much longer," Rosemarie started, voice soft. David's eyes stung. "The doctors gave me a year at most and that was going on eleven months ago. I don't know how much Louis has told you, but we've reached the point of diminishing returns. I've stopped treatments."

Rosemarie looked at him with soft brown eyes, so much like her brother's, and gave him a sad smile. David wanted to say something, to protest or tell her that it wasn't fair, but he couldn't find his voice.

"It's not fair of me to spring this on you, but I think dying would be easier if I knew Louis would be taken care of after I'm gone. So I need that favor from you. I need you to look after him. Look after Louis."

David's voice was strained when he finally forced it past the constriction in his throat. “Well, maybe you should stop thinking that I’m here to take care of him! Just keep living and look after him yourself.” His vision was more than a little blurry.

Rosemarie chuckled, then reached out to squeeze his arm. “You’re a sweet boy. I’m not giving up, but I am dying. And when I do, I hope that you'll be there for him.”

“Why me?” David asked. He didn't begrudge the request and he'd do it—of course he'd do it, she didn't even need to ask—but he needed to know why she was asking him of all people.

“Because he loves you," she said, making David's heart jump to his throat, "and you care about him, too. You can pull him out of himself. Sometimes people think that he doesn’t feel anything.”

David scoffed and Rosemarie gave him a fond smile.

“He’s so reserved," she explained, "that I don’t think they expect the depth of his emotions. But I think you see him how I see him.”

“Like a non-robot person?” David asked.

Rosemarie chuckled but nodded. “Yes. He’s not a character, even though I sometimes think that he believes he is. He does need people, despite his best efforts.”

“He's mentioned friends in Weldstone Harbor,” David observed.

Rosemarie let out a slow breath. “Yes, I think he has a few. But I never met many of Lou's friends, even before I moved away. He's tough to get close to.”

David didn't really think that was true. He and Louis had gotten pretty close almost immediately. Maybe it was the forced proximity.

"I don't think he's ever had a really close friend."

“Really?” David asked, surprised.

Rosemarie shook her head. "It was probably the way he was raised," she said, a little self-deprecating. "Lou doesn't share himself with other people—that's how I can tell that you're different. Lou is himself when you're here. I don't want him to lose that part of himself when I'm gone."

Suddenly, David understood what it was she was asking. She wanted to make sure that Louis stayed Louis.

David didn’t tell her that he thought that Louis was self-sufficient enough, rational enough, to stay himself even when she was gone. He couldn’t imagine Louis being anyone but himself. Even when he played the character of Louis Greene, David didn't think Rosemarie's Lou would ever be lost.

“I’ll be there,” David said, reaching over to take one of her hands in his and giving it a squeeze.

“Thank you, David.” Her lips turned up in a smile. Her eyes stayed sad, though.