Not all of the Resistance recruits were older. After all, Erik himself had not been. But most were, and Alexi had a point. Still, humans were even more fragile, and so the advice seemed even more relevant. The situation had not been fatal, but Erik hated seeing any lovely blood go to waste. He caught the “I told you so” look, and the fascinating relationship that Alexi and Joseph shared, but he could not even begin to understand it. 

A spark of pain came to Joseph's throat when Alexi brought up his time as a “mindless automaton” for he truly hated to think about that chunk of his life. He could only be relieved that such a state was not in the younger vampire's future. And another sense of relief came to his mind as well. Before this development, he had already begun, in the back of his mind, to consider betrayal, an attempt to “rescue” the cell leader. Knowing what he knew now, he would have betrayed his master, his surrogate son, for nothing. Nothing but a misunderstanding brought about by a lack of information, and a lack of trust. Master Alexi need never know what that part of him considered, and for that he was quite relieved. [i]But I didn't trust you, Master. Not completely.[/i]

He rolled his eyes as once more, Alexi seemed completely incapable of just fully explaining himself. But he decided that he would take some time tonight to do some research and piece together just what his master had done, if the infuriatingly eccentric human would not outright tell him himself. 

“Naturally, I will be here in the morning to perform the extraction, if you are up to it,” he replied as he began to sew the stitches. He remembered just how often he had had to patch up injuries like this for the boys when they had been younger, and the thought made him shudder. As much as he tried to take Master Tristan Vandros' anger and abuse onto himself, onto a body that could much more easily heal from the injuries, he had not always been successful. After all, he was only a slave. He had never understood how someone could cause such harm to his own progeny, on fragile children, when he, for himself, would much rather have been physically hurt than see them suffer. For all the evils the vampire had committed in his youth, he had never crossed the line into harming innocent children.

The former rebel leader looked up at the human in surprise, but his face softened quickly, already coming to expect such strangeness from this Alexi Vandros. But he supposed such a tiny show of trust might be a worthwhile price.

“My name is Erik Schumann, cell Leader and Commander, not that that means anything anymore,” he replied, a bit of pride slipping into his voice despite his own disclaimer. “While we are talking about trust, is there any chance of you letting me out of these stupid chains any time soon?”