Southwick, England, 1915

The church bells were ringing as Gideon walked through the village, heading for Percy's cottage. The evening air was warm and still, sweet with the smell of freshly cut grass, and Gideon trailed his hand along an overgrown hedge as he passed it.

Life was simple in this little village, and that was how he liked it.

The locals certainly thought he was a bit odd – he was of marriageable age and yet showed no interest in anyone, and he had no interest in attending church either – but for the most part the humans and the vampire peacefully coexisted with each other.

Gideon's willingness to help his neighbours out whenever they needed it probably helped matters.

He knocked on Percy's front door. Like all the others in the village, it was painted dark red – the cottages, farms, and terraced houses were all owned by the Southwick Estate, and one of the conditions in the tenancy agreements was that everyone's door had to be painted that colour.

Gideon really didn't know why.

Percy opened the door, and Gideon's stomach gave a little swoop.

How did Percy always look that good? A couple of years older than Gideon had been when he died, Percy Bates had a bright, open face with smooth skin that always failed to produce anything more than the faintest hint of stubble, and perfectly groomed dark hair.

They'd been seeing each other for a few weeks, and Gideon really liked this man, enough to end the more than ten years of celibacy since things had ended with Frank. He didn't know if this was going anywhere, but he was trying to focus on enjoying the present rather than thinking too much about the future.

He followed Percy into the house, expecting the other man to kiss him as soon as the front door closed, like he always did, but instead Percy took his hand and pulled him through to the kitchen.

There was something different about him tonight, some barely restrained sense of excitement.

"What's going on?" Gideon asked, as Percy guided him into a chair at the table. Percy took the one opposite him, holding his hands on the tabletop.

"I've made a big decision and I need to talk to you about it," Percy said.

A dozen possibilities ran through Gideon's head, all of them to do with their relationship. They had sex whenever they could, alternating between Gideon's cottage and Percy's, and they both spent the night together sometimes, but Percy hadn't yet expressed any desire to take things further than that. That didn't mean he hadn't been thinking about it, though.

Then Percy spoke again, and everything changed.

"I've enlisted," he said.

Two those words cast the kitchen into a silence so thick and heavy that Gideon was sure he could physically feel the weight of it.

"What?" he said, though he knew he hadn't misheard.

Percy's face shone like a star, and suddenly he looked very young, just a boy really.

Gideon noticed something else – a tattered poster lying at the other end of the table. It was a poster that he'd become very familiar with lately – Lord Kitchener's moustachioed face staring out, his finger pointing, telling Britain's youth how much their country needed them.

His heart sank like a stone.

"It's time to do my patriotic duty, and give those German bastards a taste of good English steel," Percy said.

"Steel? Wars aren't fought with swords anymore. People who go to fight are being torn apart by bullets," Gideon said.

Percy shrugged, like there was no difference at all between a sword and a gun. "Most of my friends have already gone off to fight."

"Yes, and how often do you hear from them? Do you even know if they're alive?" Gideon snapped.

War was a shadow falling across Europe. When it first broke out, British boys and men had signed up in their thousands, keen to prove what they were made of. They were told that war would be glorious and exciting, that they should feel proud of enlisting, and ashamed if they didn't.

But already the war had gone on longer than people had anticipated, and the effect it had had on England was beyond imagination. So many countless casualties had already been reported, and rumours were floating that conscription would be introduced, forcibly turning men into cannon fodder. The need for munitions was so desperate that girls and women had joined the war service, enduring the dangers of the munitions factories, joining the Women's Land Army to take over the farm labouring work that Gideon was familiar with, some heading to the front line as nurses, others taking over the driving of buses, trams, and underground trains.

As far as Gideon was concerned, there was nothing glorious or exciting about what was going on.

Percy's expression shuttered and he pulled back, letting go of Gideon's hands. "I thought you'd be proud of me."

"When have I ever given you the impression that I would be proud of you marching off to die?" Gideon said.

Percy sighed. "I'm not going to die."

Frustration made Gideon clench his teeth. This was an attitude he'd seen in humans before, this bizarre sense of immortality, like they all honestly thought that something bad couldn't happen to them.

Meanwhile, the true immortals among them knew that death and danger could come out of nowhere and change the entire course of a person's life.

Calming himself, he tried to speak slowly and reasonably. "Percy, why do you think journalists aren't allowed to report from the Western Front? If the trenches are as exciting as we're being told they are, why not show everyone back home? Why not let future enlistees see what they'll be getting into?" He didn't give Percy a chance to answer. "Because they're lying. They don't want you to see what conditions are really like, because then you wouldn't want to go anymore. War isn't a game."

"How would you know? You've never fought," Percy said, a hint of a sneer in his voice.

"Maybe not, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

Percy drummed his fingers on the tabletop, a quick, irritated rhythm. "Even if the trenches are worse than we've been told, we still have a duty to our country. That's why you should be proud of me."

He had a point there, and Gideon didn't know how to counter it. He was still frustrated that Percy and everyone else like him were being lied to by people who weren't prepared to risk their own lives, but instead commanded soldiers from a safe distance. He was frustrated that people never seemed to stop killing each other. The advancements that had been made in warfare were horrifying – it was no wonder that so many men were dying.

But at the same time, Percy was prepared to risk his life to fight for the country that he loved. Maybe Gideon should be proud of him for that.

Except . . .

Was Percy really prepared to risk his life?

He'd just told Gideon that he wasn't going to die, and thanks to the deceptively bright and cheery propaganda being peddled to the unsuspecting masses, he really believed that. He thought that he would head off to war, reunite with his friends, kill some Germans in heroic fashion, and then return home, completely unchanged and unaffected.

But it didn't work like that.

Gideon had no doubt that Percy would come home a deeply changed man – if he came home at all.

"I'm just . . . I'm worried about you. I don't want to lose you," he said honestly.

Percy took his hands again. His eyes glittered with eagerness, and usually that look made Gideon want to go to bed with him as quickly as possible, but tonight it just made him vaguely uncomfortable.

"Then come with me," Percy said.

Gideon froze.

Ever since the war had started, he'd heard people talking about it, young men loudly laughing about what a jape it would be, and how every patriot should enlist, but Gideon had never wanted to.

Was it because he didn't believe the propaganda?

Or was it because he just didn't want to fight?

"No," he said.

A shadow fell across Percy's face and he took his hands away again, sitting back in his chair.

"Why?" he said.

"Because I don't want to," Gideon admitted.

"It's not about what you want or don't want. It's about stepping up to protect our country," Percy snapped.

There was truth in that, but . . . there was another reason that Gideon didn't dare go to fight, and he couldn't tell Percy about it.

Gideon was a vampire.

How could he keep that hidden from hundreds of other men when they were all crammed in the trenches together? How was he supposed to feed? How was he supposed to explain that he couldn't stay out in the sun for too long?

He'd convinced his various employers over the years that sunlight made him ill, and they had grudgingly accepted that, but he wouldn't get the same leeway from people whose war tactics were costing untold numbers of lives.

On the frontline, no one would care about his fictional illness.

There was a good chance that Gideon would burn up in the sun before he ever even saw battle.

He could try explaining this to Percy, who also thought that Gideon had some sort of sickness that made him react badly to sunlight, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't make a difference. Percy would think that Gideon just needed to get on with it. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

"I'm sorry, I can't," he said.

Percy snorted, the sound ripe with disgust. "So you're a coward."

Cowardice was quite possibly the worst thing a man could be accused of these days, but the insult slid off Gideon. If people thought he was a coward, he couldn't change that. Ultimately he would be around long after everyone involved in this war was nothing but dust, so their opinions shouldn't matter much, especially not when they were so misguided.

"I don't want you to go," he said quietly.

"Frankly, Gideon, what you want doesn't matter. I am going to fight. I am going to make England proud, and if you would rather stay here, a snivelling coward, then I can't stop you. But I will never be able to look at you the same way again."

Something had broken between them in these last few moments, badly enough that it couldn't be fixed. Their paths had abruptly taken different turns, and neither of them could change that, and Gideon smiled sadly at Percy.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But I can't."

He thought he saw the brief glitter of tears in Percy's eyes, then Percy stalked away from him, facing the curtained window so Gideon couldn't see his face.

Gideon wanted to go to him, to put his arms around the other man and kiss him, maybe for the last time, but Percy would probably hit him if he tried.

"You should go," Percy said, his shoulders a hard line of tension.

"If that's what you want," Gideon said, getting up from the table.

He felt like a horrible weight hung around his neck, like it was dragging him down and he didn't know how to be rid of it. He didn't blame Percy for reacting like this, and he didn't blame Percy for thinking this was little more than a game.

But like all things before it, this relationship had come to an end.

At the kitchen door he paused, and looked back at Percy. "Please, just . . . be careful."

It was such a useless thing to say, but he had to say it anyway.

Silence.

He turned to go, then:

"Gideon?" Percy had turned from the window, his face flat.

Gideon waited.

"When I return home, I won't want to see you," Percy said, his eyes as hard as flint.

"I understand," Gideon said.

But Percy never did return home.

Just two days after arriving on the Western Front, he was shot down, his body left in the mud and the barbed wire and the gore, with so many other boys who'd gone out there to promises of glory and had found nothing but horror instead.

England, 1919

The gravestones gleamed white under the moon, rows and rows of them cutting through the velvet shadows.

So many dead.

So many soldiers who had never come home.

So many bodies that were never found.

But there was only one grave that Gideon Hartwright was here to see.

Like all the others around him, Percy's gravestone was plain white, his name engraved in blocky letters, along with his date of his birth and the date of his death.

Gideon crouched in front of that stone, running his fingers over the letters of Percy's name.

This was the first time he'd been here, and even though it had been years since he'd seen his former lover, years since he'd learned that Percy had been killed in action, years in which he'd had time to move on, coming here still hurt like a shard of glass lodged in his chest.

"You didn't deserve this," he murmured.

Someone had placed fresh red roses on top of the grave, and Gideon touched the soft petals. They looked like blood in the darkness.

Who had left them?

Percy's mother?

His sister?

Gideon didn't know the family well, and he hadn't seen much of them since Percy died, but sometimes, when he was walking at night, he saw Mrs Bates sitting on a wooden bench not far from the church. Sometimes her face was completely blank, like she had vacated her body. Other times she was sobbing into a handkerchief.

Gideon had approached her just once, not long after news of Percy's death, intending to comfort her, but the look she had given him with black with rage.

"Coward," she'd hissed, venomous as any snake.

She could never know that Percy and Gideon had been lovers, but she knew they'd been friends, and she clearly thought that Gideon should have enlisted alongside her son. Years later, and she still ignored him if she ever saw him around the village.

Old Mrs Norris, who worked in the village post office, had started telling folks that the Bates family were thinking about selling the cottage and moving to London, getting far from Southwick so they wouldn't have to see Percy's ghost in all the places of the village that he'd once loved.

Gideon stroked the headstone again. "I wish I could have told you the truth," he said.

He lifted his head, looking around the darkened graveyard, but there was no one here, just him and the dead. So it wouldn't matter if he finally told Percy what he had never been able to in life.

"I'm a vampire, Percy. I'm not like you, I'm not human. I'm stronger than any man, and I can heal impossibly fast, and you'd think that would make me the perfect soldier, right?" He shook his head. "When I told you that I couldn't be out in the sun for too long, I meant it. Prolonged sunlight is deadly to vampires. If I stay out in it for too long, I will literally burn up. I will become ash. Maybe it was still cowardly of me not to fight, but the risk was too great." He sighed. "As it turns out, it was too great to you, too. I really wish you'd come home."

So many families in the village had lost loved ones.

Mrs Tanner, who lived a few doors down from the church had buried her husband and three sons, only two of which had actually been recovered from the grim hell of the trenches. The third had been lost to the mud and the rats.

Mr Peterson, who had suffered a debilitating injury fighting in the Anglo-Zulu war years ago had not been conscripted to fight again. But both his sons had, as well as his brother and his nephew. None had returned.

Even Mrs Norris from the post office had lost her daughter, blown to pieces in an explosion in one of the munitions factories.

When Gideon had first moved here, Southwick had been a beautiful slice of English life – the quaint village with all its red doors, the houses and farms heavily influenced by the architecture of the Middle Ages, the old church rising proudly in the middle of it, the rolling, patchwork countryside all around.

It was still beautiful, but it was so much quieter these days.

The sense of loss clung to the village like smog.

Gideon pressed his palm to the ground where Percy was buried, recalling the way his eyes had glittered when he was excited, the way his hair was always perfectly groomed unless he was in bed with Gideon, the sound of his laugh, the way his hands had felt gliding along Gideon's skin.

He remembered it all so clearly.

Had Percy really been dead for four years?

"This might be the only time I can come and see you," Gideon said.

Even though he was old enough that he could be out in the sun for long enough to visit the graveyard, he didn't want to run into any of Percy's family. Percy's father and sister hadn't said a single word to Gideon since Percy's death, but they'd been friendly enough with him before, which led him to suspect that they probably viewed him with the same contempt as Percy's mother did.

Gideon could take their anger and their hatred, but he didn't want to bring any of that to this place, where Percy slept. The last thing he wanted was for the grieving family to feel that he was intruding on their space.

"I'll probably move on soon," Gideon continued, his fingers stirring the tufts of grass that had grown over the grave. "Southwick doesn't feel like home anymore, and I know if you were here now, you'd tell me I was being a coward again, and maybe you're right. Maybe I am. But I've always known that I can't stay. I never can. That's what it means to be a vampire."

His roving fingers found a small dandelion, growing like a splash of sunshine in the grass, and he picked it. He carefully slid it into the bunch of roses lying against the gravestone.

"I'm sorry that this happened to you, Percy. I'm sorry that you didn't get a life. I'm sorry that –" He broke off, swallowing back a wave of emotion. "I'm just sorry."

He straightened up and rested his hand one more time on the gravestone, identifiable from the countless others only by the inscription.

"I will remember you," he said. "And I am proud of you." 

A/N: Fun fact about this story - Southwick is where I get my Christmas tree every year, and all the doors are still red :)

Next week, we're exploring one of my personal favourite stories - the first meeting of Edmond and Ludovic. See you all then :)