Side Fanblog/Fan sideblog

The Treaty of 1987 changed everything.

When the Elder Vampire Council emerged from centuries of shadow to sit across from the United Nations Human Coalition, nobody expected peace.

They expected war.

They expected extinction—one species or the other.

Instead, they got integration.

The Blood Accord: Vampires could live openly, claim citizenship, own property, even achieve celebrity status. In exchange, they fed only from willing donors registered with the Bureau of Sanguine Relations, never took a life, and submitted to the Council's justice without appeal.

That was thirty-six years ago.

Now, vampires starred in films. They ran corporations. They graced magazine covers with their ageless faces and predatory smiles.

And you—lowly entertainment journalist with a rent-controlled apartment and too much student debt—were about to interview the most famous of them all.

"Miss? He's ready for you."

The production assistant looked pale. Not vampire-pale—human pale, the kind that came from working too close to something dangerous for too long. You'd seen that look on staff at the network ever since they announced this exclusive.

Remmick.

Just Remmick. No last name. No origin story.

He'd appeared in the public eye fifteen years ago, already a full-grown predator with the face of a fallen angel and the voice of someone who'd seen empires rise and fall.

Actor. Musician. Occasional political commentator when the Blood Accord came under scrutiny.

The only vampire who made immortality look desirable.

You gathered your notes—questions about his new album, his thoughts on the recent amendments to feeding laws, whether he planned to attend the Council's summit in Geneva—and followed the assistant through the maze of corridors at the downtown studio.

They'd given him the penthouse suite. Floor-to-ceiling windows, sunset painting the room in shades of amber and blood. He stood with his back to you, silhouetted against the dying light, and for a moment you were struck by the theatricality of it. He knew how to pose. How to be looked at.

"Mr. Remmick?" you said, professional and steady. "I'm from Modern Culture magazine. Thank you for agreeing to the interview."

He turned.

And you understood, suddenly, why humans had feared them for millennia.

It lived in his eyes. Ancient. Patient. Looking at you like you were the first interesting thing he'd seen in centuries.

"Miss," he said, and your name in his mouth sounded like a spell. "Please. Sit."

You sat. He didn't.

He circled you instead, slow and predatory, and you forced yourself not to turn your head to track him.

Professional. This was professional.

He was just trying to intimidate you for the article—give the journalist a story about how dangerous he was before answering softball questions about his creative process.

"You're nervous," he observed. "Your heart is racing. Seventy-two beats per minute… no, seventy-eight."

"Most people find interviews stressful," you said, opening your recorder. "Do you mind if I—"

"Your perfume." He stopped behind you. You felt the absence of body heat, the cold that seemed to radiate from him like winter. "Jasmine. Sandalwood. And underneath…" He inhaled, audibly, deeply. "Ah."

The sound he made was indecent. A groan, almost. A reverence.

You froze.

"Mr. Remmick, I don't think—"

"How old are you, Miss" His voice had dropped, velvet over gravel.

"Twenty-seven. Sir, if we could begin the interview—"

"Twenty-seven." He moved into your peripheral vision, and his eyes had changed. The brown had bled into amber, pupils dilated wide and black. "Do you know how long it's been since I've smelled blood like yours?"

Your hand tightened on the recorder. "I'm not a registered donor. The Blood Accord—"

"I know the Accords." He was closer now, close enough that you could see the sharpness of his canines pressing against his lower lip. "I helped write them, in a language that no longer exists. But this isn't about hunger, Miss. This is about… appreciation."

He knelt.

Actually knelt before your chair, looking up at you with those ancient eyes, and you realized with a jolt of panic and something else—something warm and traitorous—that you were in far more danger than you'd realized.

"Your blood," he whispered, "sings."

"I don't—"

"Not metaphorically. Not poetically." He closed his eyes, inhaled again, and shuddered. "It has a melody. A rhythm. Like… jazz in a smoke-filled room. Like the first notes of a song you haven't heard in a hundred years but never forgot." His eyes opened, fixed on your throat. "What are you?"

"Human," you breathed. "Just human."

"No." He reached out, stopped just short of touching your wrist. "You're something. Something the Council never told us about. Something that shouldn't exist anymore."

Your pulse hammered. You could feel it in your neck, your wrists, everywhere. And from the way his gaze tracked the movement, he could hear it too—that stupid, traitorous heart giving you away.

"Please," you whispered. "I just came to ask about your album."

Remmick laughed. It was a beautiful sound, rich and genuine, and completely at odds with the hunger in his expression.

"Do you know what I am, Miss? Beyond the celebrity? Beyond the carefully constructed image?" He leaned closer, and you smelled grave dirt and old whiskey and something darker. "I'm a sinner. The original kind. The kind that predates your morality, your laws, your treaties."

"Then why follow them? The Blood Accord?"

"Because." He was close enough to kiss now. Close enough to bite. "It's been so long since anything surprised me. And you… you are surprising."

He stood abruptly, turned away, and when he faced you again the predator was hidden, buried under charm and practiced smiles.

"Ask your questions, Miss. I'll answer them. All of them."

You fumbled with your notes, hands shaking. "Your… your new album. Midnight Communion. Critics are calling it your most personal work…"

"It is." He settled into the chair across from you, crossing one leg over the other, every inch the sophisticated celebrity now. "I wrote it after meeting someone. A woman who reminded me that even monsters can… miss things."

"Miss things?"

"Humanity. The taste of it." His eyes flicked to your throat again, unavoidable. "The Blood Accord allows us to survive. But survival isn't living, is it?"

You asked the questions. He answered with poetry and evasion, with that famous charisma turned up to blinding intensity. But every few minutes, his gaze would drift back to your pulse point. Every time you moved, he tracked the motion like a wolf tracking prey.

"One last question," you said, forty minutes later. "The summit in Geneva. Rumors say the Elder Council is pushing to relax the feeding restrictions. Allow vampires to… hunt again. Within limits."

The smile vanished.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Sources."

"Your sources are well-informed." He stood, moved to the window. The sun had set; the city lights reflected in his eyes. "There are factions, Miss. Old vampires who remember when we were gods and you were cattle. They want the Accords broken. They want the music back."

"The music?"

"Blood used to sing, once. Every human had a song. But your species changed. Evolved. Grew… quiet." He touched the glass, leaving no fingerprints. "Most of you taste like static now. White noise. Nourishment without pleasure."

He turned, and the mask was completely gone. What looked at you was ancient and hungry and lonely.

"But you. You sound like her. Like the first woman I ever loved, before I was turned. Like church bells and thunder and every beautiful thing I forgot I knew."

Your breath caught. "Mr. Remmick—"

"Come to dinner with me." It wasn't a request. "Not an interview. Just… conversation. I need to understand what you are. Why you smell like music in a world of silence."

"I can't. The Accord—"

"Doesn't forbid socializing." He was in front of you again, moving too fast to track, and his hand was cool against your cheek. "It only forbids taking without consent. And I would never—" his thumb brushed your lower lip, "—take something that isn't offered freely."

Your heart raced.

You should leave. Should run.

Should call the Bureau and report a vampire showing predatory interest in an unregistered human.

Instead, you heard yourself say: "Where?"

The smile he gave you was devastating. Human and vampire and something else entirely.

"My place. Tomorrow. Sunset." He pressed something into your hand—a card, heavy black stock with an address embossed in gold. "And Miss? Wear the jasmine. But skip the perfume underneath. I want to hear you clearly."

He stepped back, the celebrity mask sliding back into place, charming and accessible and utterly false.

"Thank you for the interview. I look forward to reading the article."

You stumbled out of the suite, into the elevator, onto the street. The city air never smelled so sweet, so alive.

In your pocket, the card burned like a brand.

And somewhere in the penthouse above, you knew he was listening to your heartbeat retreat down the street, hearing your blood sing its farewell like the final notes of a song he wasn't ready to end.

The address led to a brownstone in a part of the city that predated the Blood Accord—old money, older secrets. You stood on the stoop for ten minutes, watching the sun bleed out behind the skyline, before the door opened of its own accord.

He hadn't even waited for you to knock.

"You're late," Remmick's voice drifted from somewhere inside. "I was beginning to think you'd developed sense."

You stepped across the threshold.

The interior was exactly what you'd expect from a vampire who'd had centuries to curate his existence: velvet and mahogany, books stacked floor-to-ceiling, the faint scent of beeswax and something darker.

No mirrors. Of course no mirrors.

"Traffic," you called out, proud of how steady you sounded.

He appeared from a doorway to your left—no footsteps, just presence. Dressed in black, casual and devastating, holding a glass of what looked like wine but probably wasn't.

"You came without the jasmine," he observed, nostrils flaring. "Good. I want you unadorned."

"Where's dinner?"

A smile ghosted his lips. "I don't eat, sweetheart. But I had something prepared for you. This way."

The dining room was lit by candles—real ones, not electric. A single place setting at the head of a table long enough to seat twenty. He pulled out your chair with old-world courtesy, and when you sat, he didn't take the opposite end. He sat adjacent. Close enough to touch. Close enough to bite.

"Wine?" He poured before you could answer, his fingers long and pale against the bottle.

"You first."

He laughed, genuinely delighted. "Suspicious. Smart." He took a sip, let it roll over his tongue. "Satisfied?"

You weren't. But you took the glass anyway.

The food was exquisite—truffle pasta, roasted vegetables, things you couldn't identify that tasted like wealth and patience. He watched you eat with the fascination of someone observing a rare species. His own glass remained mostly full, a prop in this theater of domesticity.

"Tell me about your family," he said, halfway through your meal.

"Standard questions first? No 'what's your favorite color'?"

"Your blood sings in B-flat minor when you're annoyed," he said, as casually as commenting on the weather. "I prefer you curious. Ask me something dangerous."

You set down your fork. The candlelight made him look almost human—shadows softening the sharp cheekbones, the predatory stillness.

"What am I?"

The room went quiet. Not the quiet of empty spaces, but the heavy, expectant silence of a held breath.

"You don't know?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"Would I be here if I did?"

He stood, suddenly too fast to follow, and moved to the window. Outside, the city hummed with electric life—humans and vampires coexisting under the Accord's fragile peace.

"There was a time," he said, not turning, "before the Treaty. Before the Council revealed themselves. When vampires hunted freely, and humans… adapted."

You waited.

"Some bloodlines developed defenses. Not immunity—nothing so crude. But resonance. Blood that sang so beautifully it could entrance the predator. Control them. Turn the hunt into… worship." He finally looked at you, and his eyes were black, pupils blown wide. "The Council called them Sirens. They hunted them to extinction three hundred years ago. Or so we believed."

Your wine glass froze halfway to your lips. "You're saying I'm a… Siren?"

"I'm saying your blood carries the frequency. The melody." He was in front of you again, kneeling—just like in the interview, that strange gesture of reverence. "Do you know what happens to a vampire who tastes Siren blood?"

You shook your head, mute.

"They become bound. Obsessed. Willing slaves to the source of that music." His hand found your knee, cool through your dress. "The Council killed them all because they feared the power. The vulnerability. One Siren in a nest of elders could topple the entire hierarchy."

"And you told me this because?"

"Because I'm already lost," he whispered. "Because I smelled you and heard something I haven't heard since I was human. Because—" he laughed, bitter and broken, "—I'm a fool who wants to be enthralled."

Your heart hammered.

His hand was on your knee, and his eyes were ancient and desperate, and some part of you—a part you didn't know existed—wanted to sing for him.

"You're in danger," he continued. "If the Council finds out what you are, they'll eliminate you. No trial. No Accord. Just… removal. You're a threat to everything they've built."

"Then why not turn me in? Gain their favor?"

"Because I don't serve them." His fangs had descended, sharp and white. "I never have. I signed their Treaty because I was tired of hiding, not because I believe in their order. And now…" he leaned closer, close enough that you could feel the absence of breath, "now I have something worth protecting."

"You're saying you'll hide me?"

"I'm saying I'll keep you."

The word was filthy, possessive, absolute.

"In whatever way you'll allow. Guard or prisoner. Lover or…" he shuddered, "donor. I don't care what the label is. I just need to hear the music."

Your hand moved before your mind caught up—fingers finding his jaw, the cool skin, the sharp line of bone. He went perfectly still, predator frozen by touch.

"Show me," you whispered.

"Show you what?"

"What it feels like. To be… worshipped."

He made a sound like a wounded animal. Then his mouth was on your throat—not biting, just breathing, just feeling the pulse against his lips.

"You don't know what you're offering," he groaned.

"Then educate me."

His control shattered.

He lifted you from the chair with supernatural ease, carrying you through darkened hallways to a bedroom that smelled of him—old books and grave dirt and desire. He laid you on sheets that felt like liquid silk, and when he followed you down, his weight was nothing and everything.

"I won't bite," he promised, voice ragged. "Not without permission. Not ever without permission. But I need—"

"Yes."

"—to hear you. All of you."

He started at your throat, lips and tongue tracing patterns that made you arch. His hands found the hem of your dress, pushing it up with agonizing slowness. Every inch of skin he exposed, he worshipped—pressing his ear to your inner thigh, listening to the blood sing through your veins.

"Here," he breathed, kissing the spot where your pulse beat strongest. "And here." Another kiss, higher. "The music is loudest here."

You were unraveling. His mouth was cool and skilled, and he moved with the confidence of centuries, finding places that made you gasp and moan and sing—that was the word he used, and you understood it now, the sounds you made were notes, frequencies, a melody that matched the rhythm of your heart.

"Please," you whimpered, not sure what you were asking for.

He understood anyway.

His fangs grazed your thigh—just a touch, a promise—and you felt the sharpness like electricity. Then he was moving up your body, shedding clothes with inhuman speed, and you saw him fully for the first time: pale and perfect and predatory, beautiful as a blade.

"Tell me to stop," he demanded, settling between your legs. "Tell me to stop and I will. I'll let you walk away, forget your address, never think of you again. But if you say yes—" his eyes blazed, "—if you say yes, you're mine. The Council be damned. The Accord be damned. Everything be damned."

You looked up at him—this monster, this celebrity, this lonely creature who heard music in your blood—and you made your choice.

"Yes," you said.

He entered you with a single thrust, and the sound he made was inhuman, a growl of possession and relief and desperate hunger.

He set a rhythm that matched your heartbeat, that was your heartbeat, and everywhere he touched, you felt the music he described—a harmony of pulse and pleasure that built and built until—

"Now," he snarled. "Sing for me now."

You came apart, crying out, and the sound was exactly what he'd described: jazz in a smoke-filled room, church bells, thunder. He followed, burying his face in your neck, not biting, just breathing, just feeling you sing beneath him.

After, you lay tangled in sheets that smelled of sex and old magic. He traced patterns on your hip with idle fingers, listening to your heart slow from its frantic pace.

"They'll come for you," he said quietly. "Eventually. Someone will notice."

"Then we'll run."

"We?"

You turned to face him. In the dark, his eyes glowed faintly, cat-like. "You said you'd keep me. Did you mean it?"

"For as long as you'll have me. Which, given what I am, could be centuries."

"Show me," you whispered. "Show me everything."

He smiled—that real smile, devastating and human. "Tomorrow. Tonight, just… let me listen."

He pressed his ear to your chest, closing his eyes, and you carded your fingers through his hair as your heart beat its song into the dark.

Outside, the city continued its fragile peace.

Inside, a vampire and a siren lay tangled together—two monsters, two outlaws, two notes in a harmony the world wasn't ready to hear.

But they would hear it. Eventually.

The music was just beginning.

END OF PART ONE

A/N: So, another AU celebrity Remmick fantasy fanfic. You could say I have a thing for this kind of story—I mean, come on. 😭 I've been working on this in secret for weeks now. I haven't posted a Remmick fic since last month, I think; it's mostly been requests that I've been working through. So I really hope you like this one and that it makes up for the wait.