Author's notes: Sam would make a terrible vampire, in my opinion. But I bet you can't guess what I'm about to do to him XD. Oh, and a quick warning about the boys' hunting location. It's not an appropriate place for children. The song playing in the club is 'O Fortuna'. Anyway, crop circles will be coming up finally in the next chapter, as I planned...I just kinda forgot last time. I'm also going to post another chapter up, probably a little later tonight, depending on whether I stay late at work.


Sam was having a lot of trouble sleeping. He'd lay down in bed, toss and turn for a few minutes, turn the light back on, check the window to make sure no one was outside, then go back to bed. It went on like this for a whole hour before he realized he was being a little silly. Nanook would notice if anyone was out there. And Sam wasn't going to be able to watch his back for very long if he spent every night like this, paranoid some fish-breath bloodsucker was going to break into his room for a midnight snack. But...just to be safe...he went to his closet and dragged out a few of the many (many) 'gifts' grandpa had given him over the last few years, and lined them up along his desk he'd propped up near his bedroom window. He picked only the ugliest and the biggest of them. A banjo-strumming possum with a hateful grimace, a cow's head with sunglasses smoking a camel cigarette, an owl ready to take flight, a...badger. Badgers were scary, right? That was the best he could come up with.

Of course now he had an entirely different reason to be terrified of going to bed...

"Ah...man..." Sam sighed, lying down and then sitting up, and then lying down again. In the shadows of his bedroom, it looked like some of the animals were moving and shifting...oh god, what was worse? Taxidermied monsters, or angry shit-suckers? He knew he was being silly. He always got like this when he was half-asleep...Sam sighed and did his best to turn away so he could ignore the animals propped up by his window, scratching at his chest underneath his pajama shirt. The cut he'd gotten from that vampire's claws earlier was beginning to itch. He'd have to get up and put some hydrogen peroxide on it, just in case...

"Nanook, keep an eye on them..." Sam pointed to the window guardians. His dog straightened up sleepily on the bed and gave a silent huff-woof, smacking his lips and lowering his head again.

Padding out of his bedroom towards the bathroom, Sam jumped. There was a shuffling sound downstairs. His eyes widened, and he dashed to the bathroom to grab any kind of weapon he could find. Toothbrushes. Tooth floss...make-shift cross. That would have to do. Fashioning his minty first line of defense, he crept down the hallway and slowly began to climb down the steps, breath catching in his throat at every little sound. A creak. The scurrying of a mouse under the floorboards. Wind rustling at the screen door. A screaming kettle. Wait...a screaming kettle?

Sam pressed the cross to his chest and eased himself the last few steps down to the bottom floor. Did mom get up to make some tea? Did grandpa come home early? He ducked his head and walked across the darkened house, nearly tripping over a duvet in the living room, but catching himself before he could fall and crash into the floor.

Once he'd reached the edge of the doorway to the kitchen, Sam pressed himself up against the wall so he wouldn't be seen...and slowly peeked around the edge to find out who was inside. He slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from squealing. Fishy Mcdouchebag was there. Pouring himself a cup of tea...humming and clicking his teeth against his fangs. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck...

"Why don't you come on in? I got an extra cup," the vampire called out calmly. He had a very dry, dull voice when he wasn't angry. It was almost even more terrifying.

"Took me awhile to find this place tonight. Had to follow your scent in my car. Gotta tell you, that wasn't easy. Please, relax. Not gonna kill you. Just got a proposal to make."


It was Marko's turn to pick the hunting grounds tonight, and he had just the place. Since Star wasn't with them, this would be one of their few early chances to really break Michael in on just how awesome a real party could be when you got creative. And, in fact, he'd marked this place in his memory when they'd been pursuing the pair earlier that week, because he just knew it was going to come in handy.

Just on the outskirts of a seedy little town, not too terribly distant from the diner, the boys pulled up and parked their bikes along the back of the building just in case someone driving by later was asked to identify any suspicious vehicles they'd seen outside. It didn't hurt to be too cautious about that kinda thing, if you wanted to avoid needless hassle. Paul had gotten them into more than one scrape with some cops over the last two years when he decided to go all-out on a binge.

"Alriiiiiight, my kinda place!" Paul grinned, walking alongside the building with an arm slung around Marko's shoulder. "I ever tell you how much I love you?" He gave the smaller vampire a big wet smooch on the cheek, and Marko just laughed and shoved him away.

"What are we doing here?" Michael asked warily, staring up at the blinking neon sign above the entrance that read 'Came-Alot'. It was a medieval-themed strip club. Images of hairy men dancing on a round table flooded his mind, and he gagged. Dwayne just slapped his back and chuckled at him.

"Relax. Marko checked this place out already. Tuesdays are gay days."

"Not that it matters much, anymore. Get over yourself, Mikey. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. We just do what feels good," Paul informed him, kicking the door open and strutting inside. Marko bit the thumb of his glove and winked back at Michael, before following Paul.

Michael made as if to walk away before Dwanye gripped the back of his jacket and shoved him ahead. "Are we going to make this a thing, tonight?" Dwayne asked with a quirked eyebrow. "Because I can kick your ass again, if you really want me to."

"I'm not hungry," Michael protested, lying through his teeth. He was ravenous. But how could he eat when he was so worried about Star? What's more, how could he eat, when he'd promised himself he'd try his best not to let these new instincts control him? Even if...oh god, even if it was the most incredible thing he'd ever tasted. Even better than sex, if he was being honest with himself.

"So, who's cutting the phone lines?" Paul stretched his arms above his head and tucked his hands behind his neck, grinning cheerfully. A young woman in a plastic chainmail bikini sauntered up to them with a somewhat less than enthusiastic smile, and led the boys to a spot 'ringside'. Surprise, surprise...the stage really did look like a round table. And it didn't look like there were too many people there tonight.

"Already got it covered," Marko dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a very small pair of pliers, before trotting off to the bar.

Michael slumped down in a stool between Paul and Dwayne, eyes darting around the room nervously. He didn't know how long he was going to be able to hold out, after his scuffle at the diner with Dwayne, and the fact that another hour behind them had begun to stoke the gnawing feeling in his stomach even more. He didn't want to think about how incredible it felt to tear into a soft, warm throat, and drink his fill. But when it popped into his mind, it was all he could focus on.

"Hope we get in a few good shows before he loses it," Paul remarked in the other boys' minds, digging into his pockets and pulling out a few crumpled bills. He scowled. If David hadn't made him pay that tip earlier, he'd be able to afford a lapdance. Now all he'd probably get was a wink and a shimmy before the chick on the stage wondered off to the next hand flush with cash.

It really was no surprise that the place was so empty. The girls were hot. But...the theme was pretty limited. And the Excalibur soundtrack playing over the sound system didn't really do much to get a guy excited for a show. It brought to mind the idea that the girl on the stage wearing nothing but a cone-shaped had and wrapping herself with the veil that hung down from it was going to snap and go Exorcist on the guys watching at any minute.

Michael leaned against the stage and tried to make himself focus on the girl. If only his mom could see him now. What would she think? Would she be more disgusted that he was at the world's tackiest strip club, or would she be more disgusted that the only thing he could think of as the girl in front of him slowly peeled her veil away to give him a good peak at her botched boob job was where exactly would be the best place to bite her without getting a mouthful of silicone?

"Whoa. It's like they're cross-eyed..." Paul cackled, waving one of his last fives above his head. The dancer skipped over to him and pulled her veil back up, giving him a peek beneath the bottom portion so he could fold the money beneath it. How did she even keep it there? He squinted, and caught the very faint trace of a string along her torso that matched the shade of the veil. Paul was almost disappointed, snapping the string over the bill and leaning back.

Soon Marko was back with the boys, grinning madly. No one had seen him break the lock on the front door, nor had they even noticed him snap the handle off. That was what made places like this so awesome. If you weren't waving your cash or your trash, nobody paid any attention to you.

"Did you take the count?" Dwayne turned towards Marko, nodding his head back to indicate the others in the club.

"Yeah. We got about seven on the floor, counting the bartender and the waitress. Three in the back getting changed. That's ten in all. I figure Paulie takes care of the ones in the back, we handle them out here, easy." Marko shrugged.

Michael watched the two suspiciously. They had some fairly simple body language, but it looked as if they were communicating something between each other. Especially with the sneaky little smiles Paul kept giving him whenever he looked back at the other vampire for some kind of idea of exactly what was going on.

When Dwayne and Marko were finished picking out their meals, they turned back towards Michael, and it didn't take him long to realize all eyes were focused on him now. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?" He frowned.

"No reason." Marko shrugged. "How are you feeling, by the way? All good?"

"...I'm fine." Michael replied, pushing his stool back a little just so he could get some distance from the boys. They seemed to be leaning closer to him now.

"So, how did it feel watching Star go to town on that dude back at the bar? Huh? Bet you she'd have done a lot more with him if we let her, y'know what I mean?" Paul waggled his eyebrows.

"Shut up!" Michael snarled, clenching his fists and straightening up in his seat.

"Oh yeah. Bet she gets reeeeeal dirty when she's in the right mood. Hey, that's why she stuck with us so long before you showed up." Marko added.

"Shut your fucking mouths!" Michael closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He had an idea now about what they were trying to do. They were trying to make him lose his temper. Well, he wasn't going to. He was his own man, and he had enough self-control not to-

"David fucked you. You loved it." Dwayne. Short. Simple. To the point. And when Michael finally saw red, so did everyone else.