Work Text:
Rashid is attending to the reading room when he finds it.
They’ve left a number of papers out. Not so unusual. The men from which he receives employ are often moving from one activity to another. From one room to another, when need requires. Rashid can hear them, faintly, through the wall, all the way to their bedroom.
They’re yelling at each other, as they often are. Reason for it quickly becomes clear: the papers scattered around in artful disarray are from their archives of the Paris Era.
It’s a careful dance, to know without knowing. His employers, are of course, vampires. They make no secret of it, not exactly, though not in so many words—and Mr. du Lac’s husband cornered him in the first week of his employ to impress upon him how assisting in the acquisition of fresh blood for Mr. du Lac would be one of his new duties.
Rashid hadn’t offered any response, had kept his despair within the careful bounds of his own mind, when the vampire who introduced himself as Mr. du Lac’s husband asked, Would there be a problem with that, Rashid? Rashid watches as his mouth doesn’t move.
It’s a careful dance, to know without knowing. “Rashid” is a brit, who arrived to arrived to Dubai with a work visa sponsored by his new employer and a passport in his new name, and carefully hasn’t thought of anything before it. “Rashid” has little more to his name than the passport, and no other friends in the world.
When Rashid was first hired, he handed that passport to Mr. du Lac. Mr. du Lac smiled as he took it in hand, and Rashid had only noticed afterwards the sharpness of his teeth. “I’ll just need to process it, as part of your onboarding process.”
Rashid hasn’t seen the passport since.
The yelling in the next room has transformed into the sound of impact, as it often does. If Rashid strains his ears, he can probably hear it—the faint cries, the sobs, the pitiful moans. But Rashid knows better by now, and choses not to listen—instead carefully returns to tidying the papers, organizing them into stacks. He’ll need to retrieve the ladder to return them to their proper place, but he spies a few stray files under the desk, sighs as he crouches down to retrieve them.
The drawers of the desk are all thrown open. Rashid can hardly be faulted to look inside as he closes them—he was chosen for this job, after all, for his attention to detail.
The electronic safe is built right into the bottom left-hand drawer. Because of course it is.
Rashid wonders what the combination is. Maybe the anniversary of Claudia’s death. Maybe Louis’ original birthday (of which there was some debate on the actual date, within the org.) Maybe the date of his union with Lestat. Maybe something else entirely.
Rashid pauses with his hand over the drawer. Maybe Rashid’s passport is in there.
Rashid.
Mr. de Pointe du Lac’s voice is unmistakable, even within Rashid’s mind.
We need your assistance in here, Rashid.
What is Rashid supposed to do? He closes the drawer to the safe. He goes.
The first thing he notices, when he walks to the threshold of his employer’s bedroom, is the blood. Even through the bars, it’s plain as day, a halo of red soaked into bed surrounding Mr. du Lac’s husband. It’s so quiet, and he is so still—if Rashid didn’t know better, he would think him dead. Or, well…
“Oh, good, there you finally are.” Mr. du Lac sits on the corner of the bed, beckons a hand. “Come here.”
The scent of blood is everywhere. His nose is tingling, body alight with the danger of a predator. Rashid feels if he steps into the snare, into the cage, he’ll never get out alive. “Sir, I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to—”
”Come, Rashid.”
Rashid steps into the cage.
“There you are,” Mr. du Lac’s voice is smooth again. And Rashid thinks about the locked safe, how Mr. du Lac smiled when Rashid handed over his passport.
Mr. du Lac beckons him closer with a hand. Feeling like a dog with a leash, Rashid goes. “What do you need, sir?” His voice is perfectly even—he’s been trained too well to let it shake.
“Hold him down for me.”
Rashid cannot hold down his employer. Rashid cannot hold down a vampire—the strength required is beyond any human capabilities, unless, perhaps, the vampire was at its weakest.
Mr. du Lac’s tone brokers no argument. Rashid goes to the bed.
“You sit, just there,” he beckons to the headboard, and moves to the end. Rashid watches, helplessly, as he grabs his husband by the foot, drags him down the bed to make room. Rashid sits against the headboard, and tentatively grabs at the prone vampire’s wrists.
Mr. du Lac’s husband trembles under his hand. Eyes fluttering, breathing shallowly and rapidly. No visible marks on his flesh, but Rashid guesses there wouldn’t be. His clothes, like the sheets, are soaked filthily with blood.
“Oh, good point,” Mr. du Lac says, then he grabs his husband’s shirt from the bottom, and rips it open—like it’s, it’s tissue paper. Rashid nearly loses hold of the captured wrists.
Mr. du Lac grins at Rashid over his husband’s body. “You want to pin him down with your legs. He tends to… struggle.”
Rashid is not sure he’ll be able to do this.
You will, Mr. du Lac’s voice is like iron in his head, but somehow not unkind when he says, because you must. Mr. du Lac’s husband flutters his eyes open to look up at Rashid.
“Don’t think any more of it. Just do it.” Mr. du Lac isn’t looking at Rashid anymore. So Rashid can only feel the eyes of his husband, as Rashid moves his knees to hold him down.