EVERYTHING ESCALATES extremely quickly.

Reid had given Rowan a flashlight when she asked and hadn't thought much about the act because she's cute and her pink lips had pouted just so, enticing his rational mind into a puddle of mushiness.

Now, she's gone a little nutty. Still cute, but there's a tiny problem: her chosen victim is Reid's vampire.

So Reid's admittedly somewhat concerned because he doesn't want Kiernan injured—well, by anyone but Reid—and right now, the vampire is close to hyperventilating.

Reid's no doctor, but he doesn't think that losing consciousness would be healthy for a man who's in this bad of a state.

Unfortunately, Kiernan needed to do human things, like shower and change out of the pink band shirt that Reid had enjoyed seeing him wear in shame immensely. But this is almost better. The vampire's in a pair of Reid's dark-grey joggers and one of Kenneth's engulfing sweatshirts. Reid likes that he has an inch on his maker in height.

Because Kiernan is practically cowering in the corner of the sofa's back and the cushioned arm, with his knees drawn up, and he looks small in all that fabric and not even close to the formidable vampire he was yesterday.

Reid entranced the vampire to remain out of the kitchen, where Lucas is drinking coffee to sober up, and thus, sharp implements for stabbing, like the bad dog Reid knows he is deep down. He knows Kiernan can't run away either, because Kenneth has reinstated his wards.

Other than that, there's no reason for Kiernan to remain moping on the couch creepily with the television turned off. He wasn't even sleeping when they pounced on him.

Rowan shines her flashlight in Kiernan's face, and the vampire winces, dark eyes dilating. "At a restaurant on the corner of Eighth Avenue! What was Gabriel Kimberk doing at midnight on the evening of November 7?"

Kiernan glares so hard, it's a wonder his eyes don't pop from his skull. He has to reply, his lips parting despite his obvious reluctance. Reid's commanded him to answer Rowan's every question with the truth.

Admittedly, he didn't think she had such specific questions.

The vampire is having a silent panic attack with Rowan being so close, her knee resting on the couch cushion and flashlight held high, acting like she's an adorable, interrogating police officer clad in cloud-covered pyjamas.

"A meeting," Kiernan says coldly.

Rowan snarls, "With the head of the Sinclair Coven? Gabriel's rival?" She thrusts the flashlight closer, and Kiernan flinches. "Why?"

Kiernan's biting his tongue. There's a pained expression on his face. Reid tilts his head, wondering how long his maker can resist the entrancement like this, but a mere second later, Kiernan gasps, "Drugs."

Reid's eyes widen. "How interesting!" He laughs as Kiernan shifts and tries to suffocate himself with a square throw pillow he'd been leaning against until now. "Hey. Stop that. You're not allowed to die."

Kiernan doesn't stop, and it becomes apparent after an entire minute that he's genuinely trying to kill himself. Reid is quick to relinquish the pillow from the vampire's shaking fingers.

Reid laughs again when Kiernan covers his ears, shifts down, and shoves his face against the sliver of space where the seat cushion and the arm of the couch connect.

"Is he alright?" Rowan asks in concern, like she didn't just spend the last half an hour interrogating the vampire with the harshness of a crooked police detective in some bad movie.

"I think we've broken him," Reid says with a scrunch of his nose, dropping the cushion onto the coffee table. He can feel through their bond that Kiernan is feeling nothing except a rapid heartbeat; he's dissociating.

That won't do at all.

Reid lays a hand on Kiernan's arm, and when the touch doesn't garner any reaction, he purrs coaxingly, "I'll let you talk to Axel over the phone if you're good and answer our questions."

The vampire doesn't lift his face, tossing back an elbow, and it connects with Reid's bicep. The pain spurs Reid into a rush of unfamiliar rage.

Kiernan's too weak to contend with Reid's fingers that instinctually grab a handful of damp, curly hair and tug harshly, forcing the vampire's face away from the refuge of the couch cushion.

There's an angry whisper in Reid's mind, telling him that Kiernan doesn't deserve compassion, not when he's refusing to break his loyalty to Gabriel.

He'll let himself die for that monster. He'll choose Gabriel, even after what he did.

"Bad dog," Reid whispers harshly, and the whispers rejoice. There's an unsettling boyishness in Kiernan's gaze that Reid hasn't seen before and doesn't enjoy all that much. "I'll have to hurt you if you don't listen."

There's a shot of clarity to uncloud his mind from the dark whispers growing louder and louder when he feels deep-settled fear through Kiernan's bleed of emotions.

Rowan's gone quiet. When Reid looks over his shoulder, she's taken to the other side of the couch, the flashlight on her lap turned off. She's breathing quickly, with green eyes, watching him warily and afraid.

Of course she's scared; he's acting like a lunatic.

Reid's fingers slowly slip from Kiernan's hair. With a palm, he flattens the wildness he's caused in Kiernan's damp curls. "I'm sorry." He means it. His stomach is flipping with nauseating guilt. "I'm so sorry. I don't..."

There's a softening of the tension in Kiernan's shoulders. "Control yourself," he mutters, refusing to meet Reid's eyes, staring off distantly.

Reid exhales shakily. "Answer one question?"

Kiernan nods reluctantly, finally meeting Reid's eyes when, through the bond, he must feel that Reid is no longer on the edge of wherever he'd been teetering precariously.

"At the Teller house. That night, you sent me to the hospital. Why did you meet with the head of the Bureau of Magic?"

Kiernan shifts to sit straighter. His left cheek is rubbed red from the cushion. "I'd ask how you know that..." His dark eyes stare off, towards the dimly lit, wallpapered foyer and the closed front door. He whispers, as if to keep Satan from overhearing the betrayal, "We have a common enemy."

Rowan says, excited, "Azrael. Right. He's causing issues everywhere in the Underworld. Killing humans and riling up the werewolves, but Madeline Glena was there in the flesh. The leader of the mages. You met with her. Why?"

"Madeline Glena came to kill everyone that was in that house and hide the evidence."

Reid has to catch his breath at that sudden, coldly articulated admission. "Why are you alive, then?"

"Wait," Rowan interjects. "She came herself. That means she's hiding this personally."

Kiernan rolls his eyes. "Yes, and Gabriel knew she would be coming."

"You made a deal with her?" Rowan asks, excited again.

"Yes," Kiernan says coldly. "We're to keep the specifics of the Teller murders and all others strictly private, and the Bureau will allow Gabriel to continue his hunt for his brother without incident."

Reid asks, "Why does Madeline Glena want this kept under wraps so badly?"

The Bureau has always loathed Gabriel's influence, and exposing these murders as a vampire's doing could shake those tyrannical foundations the vampires have been keeping adamantly. It doesn't make sense.

Kiernan sighs. "I don't know." Reid can feel that it's the truth.

Then, the vampire looks at Reid with a familiar expression: chin chipped, posture casual, and a confident smugness present behind his hooded eyes.

Kiernan drawls, "But none of this matters because we've already won."

Reid snorts. "Won, what?"

Kiernan's dark eyes slip to Rowan, and she pales significantly. "We have Azrael's weakness."

Reid's breath burns. "He's..." He tries to find words that won't make Rowan look paler, as if she's on the cusp of vomiting. Finally, Reid lowers his voice and asks Kiernan tightly, "He's in love with her?"

Azrael loving anything doesn't seem possible.

"No," Kiernan says, chuckling softly.

Reid's heart hastens. He looks at Kiernan, and there's no entrancement, just raw desperation when he asks in a hushed whisper, "What is it?"

"Why did he keep her alive?" Kiernan returns apathetically. "Haven't you wondered why Azrael put himself in that Pancake Express? He didn't know you or Rainer would be there until the last moment. That is why his cultists were beaten so quickly. It was obviously all schemed hastily."

Kiernan scoffs at Reid's continued confusion, as if he should have figured out whatever the vampire isn't saying outright. "He nearly succumbed to Rainer's magic because he did not plan that attack."

Rowan whispers so softly that Reid almost doesn't hear, "Stop."

"She survived for a month under his care," Kiernan says. "Why? He's not known to leave his victims intact."

"Tell me," Reid demands shakily.

Kiernan says coldly, "We have his child."

The ringing that overtakes Reid's ears is so overwhelming that he hears the gasp of a sob Rowan makes from a great distance. That can't be true. It's a stretch. A leap. Kiernan's fallen mad from his injuries.

Reid looks at Rowan's flushed face and teary green eyes, then slowly takes in her shaking fingers, clenching the fabric of her sleep shirt over her stomach.

Everything falls into place.

This morning, during the fight, Azrael hesitated when Rowan fell and almost had a knife in his throat for the slip-up, and would have if Kiernan was at full strength.

Azrael hesitated.

Reid's world is static.