Thanks so much to RaiineDays, Anatin123, RainGoddes2040, TarotChild Conan, Black Eyed Kids, Ayla Brown, Aslan is love, and Chibiboku for reviewing the last chapter! Also thanks to those who've put this story on alert! It always makes my day!

And now, on with the show...

XXXXXXXXXX

Sally sat at the edge of Josh's bed, using every ounce of concentration to move the dampened cloth from a bowl of cool water to the overheated Werewolf's forehead.

"Josh, this –" Sally started, only to be cut off by a pained moan. Sally lowered her voice to a whisper. "Josh, this isn't going to go away. You're getting worse. You need help!"

"Can't." Josh rasped, his neck muscles extended at an awkward angle. "Meningitis needs…lumbar puncture. Fluid…sent to a lab. Don't know…what they'd find. Can't."

"If it's meningitis –"

"It is."

"Then you could die!" Sally cried loudly, getting another agonized moan from Josh.

"Wolf…heals fast…" Josh panted, sweat soaking the sheets under him. His eyes were glazed and feverish when he cracked them open to look at her.

"You can't be sure the wolf will beat this on its own." Sally whispered.

"Has to." Josh ground out.

"At least let me get Aidan." Sally pleaded.

Josh barked out an odd wheeze that Sally assumed was meant to be a bitter laugh. "You'd have to…find him first. And he'd…have to care."

Sally clenched her jaw, all too aware of Aidan's recent abandonment. He hadn't been around in weeks, only ever coming home for a change of clothes. Even at work, Josh said he was distracted and hardly ever talked to him anymore. Where he slept, what he was doing, neither of them knew. Sally assumed it was something, well…Vampire, but that was no excuse! They were a family!

"I'll find him." Sally promised, silently swearing to herself that she'd rip him a new one when she did.

"He's probably…digging through garbage somewhere." Josh rambled, his eyes glassy and distant. "I…put up…posters, but I'm worried. It's not…like Charlie to be…gone so long. What if he's hurt, Mom?"

Sally's face fell as Josh started to hallucinate. Rewetting the cloth and laying it across Josh's forehead, she concentrated on Aidan and misted out of the room.

XXXXXXXXXX

Popping up in the hospital, Sally found herself in a private patient room with two beds. The one closest to her was occupied by an unconscious young woman, but the other had the curtain drawn around it. Walking through it, Sally stopped in her tracks. Aidan was kneeling beside the bed, ravenously sucking at the patient's wrist, blood dribbling down his chin and his eyes closed in ecstasy. Sally felt her atoms vibrate with righteous anger. This is what they'd been abandoned for? So Aidan could break his own self-imposed rules, ignoring them while he was out indulging himself?

"Aidan, what the hell?" Sally yelled.

Abruptly jerking his head up, Aidan flung the limp wrist of the patient away from him and quickly wiped his mouth on his forearm. "Sally! What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing, feasting on some comatose patient?" Sally demanded.

Aidan returned her angry tone with one of his own. "None of your fucking business!"

"Is this why you haven't been home? Is this what you're doing now? Hanging out with your Vampire buddies and drinking yourself retarded?" Sally shouted.

"So what if I fell of the wagon?" Aidan sneered. "I'm a Vampire, Sally. This is what I do!"

"Chowing down on a cheesecake when you're on a diet is falling off the wagon, Aidan! Gorging yourself on blood and ignoring your family is a bit beyond that, you crack-head! You've chopped the wagon into kindling and set it on fire!"

"I wouldn't cast stones here, Miss I-can-quit-possessing-people-anytime-I-want." Aidan shot back.

"I can!"

"Well, so can I. I just don't want to. Familiar, isn't it?" Aidan smirked.

"Screw you, Aidan! This isn't just about the blood." Sally raged. "You don't talk to me, you ignore Josh, you're never home –"

"So what?" Aidan asked through an incredulous laugh. "We're all independent adults here, Sally! You certainly come and go as you please! Why can't I?"

"Because it's hurting him!" Sally screamed, stomping her foot.

"Josh is a big boy and he's got his own life. I'm sure he's fine." Aidan said, waving the notion away and moving toward the door.

"Aidan, he's dying!" Sally called after him desperately.

Aidan froze.

"What." Aidan's voice was flat and tense, his back still to her.

"He's been sick for two days. You'd know that if you'd been home. He's says it's meningitis."

Aidan spun around, horror on his face at Josh's self-diagnosis. "Is he sure? Tell me exactly what his symptoms are."

"Stiff neck, fever, headache, sensitivity to light and sound. And…"

"What?"

"When I left, he…he thought I was his mom. He started rambling about his lost dog." Sally responded, shaking her head. "He was totally out of it, Aidan. He says the wolf will heal him, but…"

Aidan whipped out his cell phone and started dialing.

"Who are you calling?"

"An ambulance." Aidan said through clenched teeth. "He needs a hospital, now."

"No!" Sally cried, rushing at Aidan and slapping the phone away with a concentrated burst of energy. "Josh said they might find something in his spinal tap. You know, something wolf-y."

Aidan stood rigidly, his nostrils flaring with barely controlled panic. Finally, he gave a curt nod. "Fine. You go home, stay with Josh. I'll be there in an hour."

"Aidan –"

"Go, Sally." Aidan snapped, softening slightly when he saw her worried face. "I'll take care of everything. Don't worry."

XXXXXXXXXX

Aidan rushed through the hospital doors and toward the parking lot, his backpack slung over his shoulder. Inside were all the materials he'd need to save Josh's life: a banana bag and analgesics in case it was viral meningitis and broad-spectrum antibiotics and corticosteroids in case it was bacterial. There was also an IV line, a tourniquet, a blood pressure cuff, and a stethoscope – he'd raided a supply closet for those. As for the drugs, he'd stolen those outright, charming the security guard into giving him the tapes of the theft.

Slinging the backpack into the front seat and starting the car, Aidan pulled out of the parking lot with his tires smoking and screeching in protest. As he drove the familiar route, he couldn't help berating himself. How could he not have known? Had he really been so distant? With his recent return to the Vampire fold, lured there by the ever-tempting Suren, he'd fallen into his old habits: drinking himself into psychotic episodes and hallucinatory stupors almost nightly, sleeping at the Halloway Hotel with Suren, spending his time plotting her reign. Had it really gotten so bad, that he'd neglected his friends? And not just any friend, but Josh?

It had been three years since that fateful night in the alley, but Josh had become the single most important person in his life. At times, it seemed like he was the only real person in his life. All the Vampires were just sick parodies of people, leading thoughtless, selfish, empty lives and yet parading around as if it was some superior, glorious existence. Even Suren, for all her damage and vulnerability, was just as manipulative and superficial as the rest. And day by day, he was pulling further away from Josh and getting sucked into that perverse reality.

He'd been down that road before, had walked it for hundreds of years. God, what was he doing? Going back to that shallow excuse for a life, when he'd already had something worthwhile and meaningful? He had people, Josh and Sally, who made him feel good and whole, and he was giving that up to be a pawn in Suren's never-ending chess match with Mother? To be a leader in a community that sickened and enraged him?

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Aidan muttered, his hands in a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. Turning sharply on to his street, Aidan gunned the gas toward his house, slamming on the brakes and shoving the gearshift into park once his was in front of it. Rushing out of the car with the backpack, he ran up the steps and burst through the door.

"Sally?" Aidan yelled.

"We're in Josh's room!" she yelled back. Jumping the stairs three and four at a time, he flew down the hall and skidded to a halt at the door to Josh's room, struck immobile by the sight of him. Josh was drenched in sweat, his skin taking on a faint yellow color. He held his neck stiffly as he lay on his side, his eyes glassy and seeing things that weren't there. His breathing sounded thunderous in Aidan's ears. Every groan and whimper stabbed at Aidan as surely as if they were knives cutting into his skin.

"Jesus." Aidan breathed.

Sally turned to him with ghostly tears in her eyes. "He's getting worse. Aidan, you have to help him! Please!"

Aidan set to work with inhuman speed, throwing a picture off of the wall above Josh's bed and hooking the IV bag onto the nail. Efficiently and precisely, he set the peripheral IV line into Josh's vein and began the drip of antibiotics. He took his blood pressure, which was dangerously low and listened to his heartbeat, which was abnormally rapid. His temperature was 103.2 degrees.

"Well?" Sally paused in her pacing.

Aidan shook his head, placing the stethoscope around his neck. "It's bad, Sally. It's progressed pretty far, but the antibiotics should help if it's bacterial and they won't do any harm if it's viral. We should have a better idea of which it is in a couple of hours, depending on how he responds to the drugs. On the plus side, being a Werewolf has made his immune system damn-near unbeatable. If we're lucky, the drugs will give him the boost he needs to knock this out on his own."

"Well, what do we do now?"

Aidan sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees. "I'll monitor him. It's all I can do, until his condition changes."

"Aidan…" Sally started quietly, sitting beside him. "What if he –"

"Don't." Aidan interjected thickly, digging the heel of his palm into his eye socket. "Don't even say it."

Sally just nodded and got off the bed to continue her pacing. She lasted all of ten minutes before announcing, "I've got to get out of here. I can't just sit here, knowing I can't do anything for him!"

"It's okay, Sally. Go."

"You won't leave?"

Aidan winced at the accusation. "I swear."

"Your promises don't mean much these days." Sally snorted derisively, leveling him with an icy glare. "If your precious Vampire princess calls you away, if you leave his side for even a second and he dies, I will haunt you for the rest of your days, Aidan."

"You wouldn't have to." Aidan murmured, his eyes on Josh. His death would haunt me to the grave went unspoken, but Sally heard it nonetheless. "Go, Sally. I'll stay with him."

She misted away without another word. Looking down on Josh's sickly form, Aidan wiped the sweat from the Werewolf's forehead with a damp cloth.

"I'm so sorry, Josh." Aidan sighed. "If I had been here, I would have recognized the signs, gotten you help sooner."

He stretched out onto the bed beside Josh, linking his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know what's happening to me. When we first moved in here, started living together, I was so sure of who I was. No, not who I was…who I wanted to be. And I have never been closer to being that guy than when I'm with you. You make things…clearer, easier. Even with all of the shit you've dealt with since being Turned, you still know who you are and somehow that's all you need to keep the monster locked away. You keep others safe and you care about human life, even knowing how easily you could end one. You've never once been tempted by the raw power of that feeling. It's amazing to me, you know? I know that since that night in the alley, you've kind of looked up to me, maybe even had a dash of hero worship, but…Josh, that's just laughable. You are so much better than me, you feel things so deeply and God, you're the most empathetic person I've ever met. I've been dead for so long, but all your naïve optimism and your unshakable belief in what's right and having the guts to actually follow through on it…you're like CPR for the soul, man, always bringing me back from the darkness. So, you can't leave, okay? You can't leave me here to fight the dark alone. Hell, you've become the reason I even try, so if you die, so do I."

"I…" came the faint rasp from next to him. Aidan turned his head, seeing Josh's glossed-over eyes staring at him. "I…don wanna…go on the Ferris wheel. Let's go…to the food court."

Aidan gave a snort, which came out sounding like a choked sob. Seeing Josh like this, the strong one in all the ways that counted, was excruciating. Scooting over on the bed and curling an arm under Josh's shoulders, Aidan hugged the Werewolf to him. "Sure, Josh. We can go to the food court."

Josh burrowed into Aidan's body, relishing the refreshing chill of it. His face nuzzled into Aidan's neck, resting his forehead against it and sighing into Aidan's skin. Aidan swallowed tightly.

And when Josh kissed his collarbone, he gasped. Josh began to nip at the jutting bone, mouthing it with open-mouthed kisses, licking his flesh, scraping his teeth over it. Then he whined, "My snow-cone…ran out of flavor…there's no grape."

"The syrup tends to settle at the bottom." Aidan muttered absentmindedly, lost in the sensation. He didn't realize his asinine contribution to the conversation would have Josh licking and sucking at his skin with more determination, trying to find the non-existent grape flavor.

When Sally misted back into the room, that's how she found them. Josh was scraping his teeth against Aidan's collarbone and sucking at it, while Aidan was squeezing his eyes shut and fisting the sheet in his hand.

"Ahem." Sally voiced primly, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Sally!" Aidan yelped, as Josh went to town on his collarbone. "He…he thinks he's enjoying a snow-cone."

"I'd say the snow-cone is enjoying it more." Sally shot back, eyebrow raised.

"I can't just shove him away. Who knows how his fragile psyche would twist that!" Aidan argued, suppressing a groan as Josh did something particularly inventive with his tongue.

"If you think I'm going to fall for that, you're more delusional than he is." Sally snorted. Walking to the bed, she crooned in Josh's ear. "Time for school, Josh. You have a test today."

Josh rolled away from Aidan, abandoning his county fair delusion. "But…I haven't studied…m'gonna fail!"

Sally straightened and shot Aidan a smug look. "Yeah, 'cause it would have been really hard to distract him."

"It didn't occur to me." Aidan said through gritted teeth. While Josh continued to ramble to himself, Sally sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Are you ever going to tell him?" she asked.

"Tell him what?"

"That we're out of toothpaste." Sally deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "That you're in love with him, idiot!"

"I'm not in love with Josh!" Aidan denied vehemently. "It's just…really epic bromance."

"Uh-huh." Sally intoned sarcastically. "Come on, Aidan, it's not like you haven't gone for guys before."

Aidan sputtered. "When have I ever brought a guy home?"

"Never." Sally said flippantly. "But you are 257 years old. I'm sure there aren't many sexual boundaries you haven't crossed."

"Okay, so…maybe there was a phase before I hit triple digits." Aidan admitted. Sally raised an eyebrow. "And a few dozen isolated incidents."

"Ha! So, I'm right!" Sally crowed.

"About me having been with other men before? Yes. About me being in love with Josh? No."

"So how do Vampires fall in love, anyway?" Sally asked, seeming genuinely curious and abandoning her 'Aidan hearts Josh' theory.

"Same as anyone else, I guess." Aidan shrugged. "But after living for so long, the physical things matter less and compatibility of spirit starts to matter more. It's just a body; when you see them more as food than people, things like gender, race, body type…it all becomes kind of irrelevant."

Sally repositioned herself on the bed, lying on her stomach with her chin resting on her hand. "So, what type of spirit do you look for? No pun or…eww, flirting intended."

"Someone who's not a Vampire, for one." Aidan stated firmly. As soon as the words escaped him, he knew that his toxic, co-dependent relationship with Suren was as good as dead. It filled him with an odd sort of freedom, consciously determining that she wasn't what he wanted. "Someone who's apart from that world, who actually cares about people and life, seeing it as the gift it is and who doesn't want to waste a single moment of it. They'd have to make me laugh, 'cause God knows I don't have much reason to. And I want someone I can protect, you know? Someone who needs me and who I can keep safe. Someone like that would remind me why I started the whole Vegan experiment in the first place. But at the end of the day, I guess the most important thing would be…someone I can talk to. Someone I can talk to about my life, all aspects of it, without being afraid that they'll run away screaming. Someone who believes I'm not a monster and whose faith in that makes me want to be better. Yeah…all that."

Sally stared at him, a triumphant glint in her eye. "It astounds me how you can deny being in love with Josh, considering you just described him to a tee."

"I did n–" Aidan stopped abruptly and Sally watched his expressions shift. His brow furrowed. His lips pursed. But then, slowly, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Finally, Sally thought. "Holy shit."

"Told ya." Sally smirked.

"Well…fuck." Aidan choked out, unusually tongue-tied. "No…I don't, I'm not…I didn't mean…fuck!"

"Men." Sally muttered, shaking her head.

"Sally?" a small, confused voice interrupted the silence.

"Josh!" Sally cried. He groaned at the volume as she went to his side. "I'm here. We're both here. You're okay, Josh. Everything's going to be fine."

"How do you feel?" Aidan asked. He checked the IV drip, though his mind was swimming as the force of his epiphany and the force of his denial battled in his brain.

"Aidan? You're here." Josh wheezed, sounding surprised. "Am…am I dreaming?"

"No, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." Aidan vowed, grasping Josh's hand. God, it felt right. His denial started to crack.

"Hurts…" Josh groaned.

"I know it does. But I'm here now." Aidan said, dabbing Josh's forehead with the damp cloth. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"Missed…missed you." Josh slurred, before his eyes went glassy again and he fell back into a fitful, delirious state.

"Yeah…me too. I –" Aidan cut himself off and looked at Sally, his eyes betraying how lost he felt. Her lips quirked upwards and the words he'd almost said echoed in the silence between them.

I love you.

"Sally…" Her name came softly from his lips, at once a confession and a distraught plea. For all his worldly wisdom and life experience, for all the times he'd been in love before, he never thought such a simple realization could be so devastating to his equilibrium.

He was in love with his best friend. And he was coming unglued from the shock of it. It had probably been stirring in his subconscious ever since that first kiss and the pressure had been building steadily for three years. Three years of painful trials, somehow made easier because they were together. Three years of unshakeable camaraderie that was more than mere friendship, it was home. Three years of movie nights and private jokes and innocent touches and conversations, both deep and pointless. Three years of looking into those wide, trusting eyes and seeing the best version of himself reflected. All of it had been churning restlessly inside of him, waiting to be really, truly seen. And it had just exploded into his conscious mind with all the force of a volcanic eruption. His friendship with Josh, his self-definition, his entire world were all suddenly and irrevocably changed because of it. It was beyond overwhelming. It was fall-to-your-knees, struggle-to-breathe shattering.

"How…" Aidan trailed off, shaking his head. "How could I have missed this? Why didn't I see it before?"

"Maybe you weren't ready before." Sally shrugged, moving to sit beside him. She shot him an appraising, sidelong look. "Are you now?"

"Yeah." The word was out of his mouth before his brain had processed a conscious answer. The suddenness of the response surprised him, but not so much as the undeniable truth of it. He was wrong. Though it felt like it, his world wasn't shattering…it was finally coming together. Nodding firmly to himself and looking Sally square in the eye, he repeated himself. "Yeah. I'm ready."

"Say it." Her tone was soft, yet commanding.

"I'm in love with him. I'm in love with Josh." Aidan spoke, his voice breathless, terrified, amazed, excited, flabbergasted, contented.

Sally nodded once, strongly. "Damn straight, you are. Now, all that's left is to get you your man!"

The determined glint in her eye scared him more than he cared to admit. "Ohhh, no. No, no, no. No matchmaking, no dropping hints, no involvement from you whatsoever!"

"I find it adorable that you think you have a say in this."

"I hate you."

"You love me." Sally declared, waiving his statement away dismissively.

"I love…snow-cone…" Josh murmured deliriously, his fever-clouded eyes looking in their direction but seeing straight through them.

"Of course you do, sweetie." Sally soothed, before grinning wickedly at Aidan. "Sally'll see about getting you a mouthful."

"Mmm, yum." Josh moaned quietly. "Flavor…s'good."

"I hate you so much right now."

"Don't be that way, Aidan." Sally smirked. "We'll get you a mouthful, too."

If anyone had asked Aidan why he groaned just then, he would have said it was because Sally was being an annoying pest. It absolutely was not because he was fantasizing about Josh's moan and Sally's promise in the same scenario.

XXXXXXXXXX

YAY, AIDAN GETS IT! I couldn't help myself from writing delirious!Josh, it was too fun! So, I'm dying to know what you guys thought…did I capture Sally well? How did Aidan's epiphany sit with y'all? The next chapter is going to have some steaminess to it and a bigger element of the supernatural…I hope you guys like it!

Also, for the 'One Time Aidan Kissed Josh' chapter, part of me wants to continue in Aidan's perspective since the story has been a growing process from him thus far, but part of me wants to write Josh's side. Thoughts? Preferences?

Please read and review, I really value your guys' input!