"Oh my G—"
Silence.
Her eyes were wide, her mouth agape at the sight before her. His eyes were wide, too, wide and dark in the shadows, full of panic and fear and hunger.
He swallowed. Pressed his lips together. He tried to pull it in, tried to reel in that ache in his teeth, but there was blood on his face and on his hands and the smell of it tugged at his throat greedily. The rat he held in his fingers was still warm. He needed to finish, he needed-
He needed to look away from his mother, he realized, blinking and dropping his gaze. It wasn't her gaze he'd found himself looking at, staring at. It had started there. But the rational part of his mind was on break, and the hunger in his stagnant veins was on-call, and the rat had done next to nothing to extinguish the flames of thirst burning him from the inside out, and here she was, all adrenaline and pumping blood, that pulse point in her neck so close. He could get her, it would be easy. Flitting over to her faster than she'd be able to process. It would be easy.
He squeezed his eyes shut, the rat dropping to the ground with a slight thump. No, he thought desperately. He pushed the sound of her heartbeat away, tried to ignore the pull of her blood. If he hadn't been feeding, when she'd walked in, it would've been fine. He probably wouldn't have even noticed her tangy scent. But he was. Perched up on his chair with the rat, like a predator with its prey. And he did. Sweet and tangy and so full of life it was intoxicating. So much better than that tiny, oily rat he'd found.
He shook his head desperately, bringing shaking hands to wipe his face clean with his shirtsleeves, gritting his teeth. He heard his mother moving, shuffling further into the room, settling down to the edge of his bed, her blood roaring in his ears. He couldn't look at her, yet—not until he pulled back the fangs in his mouth and the little monster in his brain. Reel it in. Calm down.
He shuddered, a habitual breath coming through ragged and shaky. He swallowed hard, swallowing away the remnants of blood in his mouth, and took another breath. It's okay - this would be okay. He opened his eyes.
His mother had looked away from him, dead silent, staring at the wall across from her with that same, open-mouthed alarm. Silently, Simon placed one foot on the floor, then the other, careful to step around the dead rat at his feet. His stomach churned unpleasantly, and it had nothing to do with the rat and everything to do with the rat at the same time. He couldn't believe what had just happened.
Without saying a word to his mother, he reached for a clean shirt off of his laundry pile and changed, wiping his hands and tossing the blood-stained one to the floor, discarded and forgotten with the rat. He tightened his jaw, again, forcing his fangs away despite the way they ached with longing. He took another breath, crossing slowly to where his mother sat, stock-still.
"Mom?"
She didn't respond. She didn't move. She didn't even send a glance up at him. It was as if he hadn't said a word. Swallowing, steeling his resolve, he tried again, reaching a hand to her shoulder lightly. "Mom."
Her gaze darted up to his, flinching away from him, from his touch. He let his hand drop uselessly to his side. She was scared of him. He didn't blame her. He took a small step back, shaking his head desperately. "Mom, please, just let me explain—"
"Stop." The word was nothing more than an exhale, but it was enough to make Simon's chest turn to ice. His mother closed her eyes. "Just—stop."
Slowly, Simon nodded, and sank down to sit on the edge of the bed with her, but not touching her. He laced his fingers together tightly, his pale hands visible in the dark room. There was blood under his fingernails. He wanted it gone.
She stayed silent. Simon was going to lose his mind. She smelled like the fear in her eyes. He could still taste the rat's blood in his mouth, on his lips. He closed his eyes, dropping his head to his hands, elbows rested on his bent knees. He was ravenous.
It seemed like an hour passed in silence, when in reality it was probably just a few minutes. When his mother spoke, her voice quivered with an edge of hysteria in it. "You're a vampire."
Not what Simon was expecting to hear, he looked up again, frowning at her. "I—" he broke off, his eyebrows drawing together. He swallowed. She didn't look up, gaze locked on her own fingers. "I told you that."
She swallowed hard, her brow furrowing so hard that her eyes were nearly squeezed shut. "I thought you were sick. I didn't—" She broke off.
Simon's stomach tightened. "You didn't believe me," he concluded, brain replaying the scene over in his mind. He shook his head. "But you—you said you believed me." But she hadn't. She just thought he was sick. That he was crazy.
Now, she really did close her eyes, fingers tightening around her knees as if she needed to hold on to something, needed to stabilize herself. "I believe you now."
Simon flinched. He felt nauseous. It was—it was disgusting, it was revolting, what she saw. "I'm sorry." The words were weak, offered up like a question. "Not exactly a great way to make a good impression, is it?"
Her lips tightened, and she shook her head. Again, she fell silent, as if she didn't have the mental capacity to put her thoughts into actual words. Simon sympathized—what was supposed to happen now? How was he supposed to fix this?
He wanted to comfort her, but he knew he shouldn't. She was still so scared—he could smell it. It was sweet. He felt sick. He shook his head, taking a chance and touched her elbow lightly, swallowing. Her eyes flew open at the touch, and her body stiffened with a sharp inhalation of breath, but she didn't pull away from him which he took as a good sign. He shook his head, repeating himself. "Mom, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have—" He broke off, voice failing. He continued, softer. "You shouldn't have had to see that. I should've… I should've been more careful."
She let out a shallow exhale. "You—y-you were… eating it. The rat."
Simon's stomach turned over. He really felt like he was going to be sick. "I wasn't—" He broke off. "I wasn't eating it," he corrected, voice lower, "I was feeding off it. I—I had to, Mom, Becky flushed the cow's blood and I—" He cut himself off, shuddering and removing his hand from his mother's arm. He shook his head resolutely, hoping his voice didn't come off as pathetic sounding as it felt. "I would never hurt you, okay? Or Becky. I wouldn't. That's why I was gone so long in the first place, I—I had to get a handle on it before I could come home."
His mother blanched, all the color draining out of her face, her heart racing in Simon's ears. "And do you?" she questioned, dragging her gaze to Simon's for the first time, eyes wide and quivering. "Have a handle on it?" Her eyes fell, though, lingering somewhere lower on his face, and he knew she was searching for blood on his lips, for fangs and danger and any sign of him being a threat.
He wet his lips. "When people don't flush my dinner down the toilet, yeah, mostly."
"Mostly?" That hysteric edge was back in her voice.
He hated himself, for causing it. For scaring her. He knew what she was picturing in her head, then—the rat and the blood and the fangs and the darkness. He swallowed. "That wasn't—it wasn't what it looked like," he stammered.
Her eyebrows drew together. "So you weren't… perched on a chair… drinking the blood of a rodent you found in your bedroom?"
"…Okay, maybe it's exactly what it looked like. But I can explain…" he trailed off. He didn't want to lie to her, but—he wasn't sure how much longer he could handle her looking at him like that. He swallowed. "I would never hurt you," he repeated, shaking his head. "Mom, I wouldn't hurt anyone. I won't."
She pressed her lips together tightly, into a thin line as she looked away from him again. She shook her head minutely. "I think I need some air," she said tightly, and rose shakily from the bed. Her eyes wandered to the abandoned, bloodstained shirt on the floor. It hid the rat well enough, but they both seemed hyperaware that it was still there, the lump under the red-stained cloth as large as an elephant in Simon's darkened room. She took a shuddering breath, turning away from it, away from him. "Clean it up, okay, Monkey?"
Simon's gaze flicked quickly back to his mother at the name. She still wouldn't face him. The air turned salty—she was crying.
"Yeah," he complied, his voice soft, utterly lost at what to do next. "I will."
Still facing the doorway instead of him, she took a ragged breath—he could tell she was trying to hold it all back. She didn't say anything, then, just gave a small nod and began retreating through the door.
Simon swallowed. "Do you want me to leave?" He called after her, his voice breaking, his chest aching at the thought. She turned, then, to look at him, and there was something unreadable in her eyes. He felt his eyebrows draw together, but he couldn't hold his mother's wavering, red-ringed gaze. "I—I'd offer to go now, if you want, but I have to wait until sunset, obviously, because of, you know, the sun and all, and I kind of like not being fried to a crisp, but, but I can…" His voice failed. "I can go. If you want me to. I—I understand."
She took a shuddering breath, trapped in the doorway, not in his room but also not in the hallway. She shook her head a little. "No, Monkey," she breathed, her voice no louder than a quivering whisper. "I don't want you to leave."
Simon swallowed again, the ghost of the rat's blood still lingering on his tongue. He nodded, and his mother turned away again, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her. He ignored her still racing heart, the sweet and salty smell of her fear and her tears in the air. He ignored the way he could hear her give into the sobs that made his chest ache as she leaned back against his closed door. He tried to ignore the hollow feeling left in his stomach that had appeared when she'd left, pulling the door closed and leaving him, once again, in the darkness. Always darkness.
But she hadn't screamed. She hadn't called him a monster. Hadn't thrown him out.
Simon took an unnecessary breath. Baby steps.
He set to cleaning.