DAVID

Michael was at David's grave the first night David crawled up.

It wasn't fate, but it felt like it.

David emerged, hungry, desperately hungry, like a butterfly from a cocoon. Feeling fragile, and wet-winged, not yet ready to fly, but achingly, yawningly hungry in the low clench of his stomach, in the fangs already pushing against his lips uncalled for.

The first time he lost control was so long ago he can barely remember it.

Killed, killed, killed. One, two, three.

Who the hell had buried him with a stake over his grave, he'd like to know. Right by the Emerson's– fools, they all were. Couldn't they see the antlers hadn't gone through his heart? Fools.

Foolish, bright Lucy. Foolish, horrible, hapless Sam who had drawn in the Frog brothers to kill his boys.

The fucking Frog brothers. Those stupid kids, who David has thought about many times. Snapping their necks, drinking them dry, drinking them alive, staking them through the heart just like they did to his own boys. They weren't even good, those bastards, but they were prepared.

David stares down at the bleeding corpse and feels like screaming.

Sam and those boys who didn't know a thing, killing vampires because David's kind had to kill.

Foolish Michael, who didn't realize what David was until it was too late. Foolish Michael, who trusted David, who believed David was good, who wanted to be David's friend, who wanted trusted believed–

The man whimpers on the cold pavement and David lets his fangs come out again– it's the Emersons' fault for burying him alive, now he's hungry, hungry, hungry.

He snaps the neck. Third kill.

If the boys were here, they might share. Or they might laugh and kill someone new for themselves. It would depend on what mood Dwayne was in, and whether Paul and Marko were full enough to go have fun by themselves.

Anger burns coldly in between his ribs. If the boys were here, they'd hold him as he shakes now on the ground, having lost control. He never loses control. Sometimes Dwayne would go a few days without in order to lose control; he reveled in it. But David never lost control, and his boys never let him.

If he could just get himself under control– but there's no getting him back under control when he's this hungry.

Hungry and empty and hollow.

In the growl of his stomach.

In the call of his chest, in his heart.

Michael, standing by his grave, the dirt clawed up. David, just back from three consecutive kills, still wrangling his control, trying to settle himself and the new blood rushing in his veins.

When he sees Michael, it's like the world stops. When he sees Michael, it's like a new life shudders in him, one that has nothing to do with the lives he just took, it shudders in him and it calls as pitifully as a wounded animal in a trap. Michael, the trap. When he sees Michael, he is all of a sudden tired of being alone for even a moment.

He sees Michael, and it feels like fate, and he finds it in him to gather up the animal inside of him and shove it deep, deep down through sheer force of will, when he sees Michael.

"Michael," he says. He sounds like worship. When it comes to Michael, he has always sounded like worship. "Michael." It's the only thing worth saying.

And that is how it happens, the first time. Michael's name, and then they are talking. He is talking to Michael, and he never has before. Not like this. Not with Michael talking back instead of demanding to know what is going on or where is Star, where is Star.

David had hated Michael because Star met Michael and no longer wanted to kill him, turning all of David's plans on their heads. And then he had met Michael and he had hated Star, he had hated her, even though she didn't deserve it.

Paul and Marko were about fun– Marko coyly so and Paul shameless; Dwayne was about getting things done when everyone else wasted time. And Star was about herself. She clutched at who she was and kept it close. Star had caught Michael's eye and David wished more than anything he hadn't lost sight of who he was decades ago.

Where is Star, where is Star? What is happening, where is Star? What's going on, David?

And now Michael is talking to David. He is saying David had a life, he is saying he didn't have a choice and he had to kill David, he is saying so many things.

David is… angry. David is angry. He has hunted for the first time without the Lost Boys in a very long time and he has lost control and he has come back to find wild broken in his chest, and Michael expects him to be sane. He hasn't felt such roaring, rushing– human– emotion in so long, not like this. Everything felt never-ending and easy, years upon years.

Michael is against the tree, and David is against Michael, and Michael is so warm, and suddenly their hands are touching. Michael's skin is so warm, rough from work and solid, and his hand curls around David's as gently as a lover's touch. And suddenly, David is not angry anymore.

Suddenly, he is afraid.

He should've killed Michael himself, the moment Michael stumbled into his life, yanked unceremoniously by David's schemes, and a spark lit inside David, lit and burned. Vampires are flammable. He will burn to the ground under this feeling in his chest.

He is afraid, he is so afraid.

David's life has gone on and on, around like a carousel, and Michael has thrown a wrench in the gears.

David, Michael is saying.

He is saying David's name.

He races himself that night, trying to chase the same rushing feeling he got when talking to Michael. Trying to bring it back without involving Michael at all. Trying to break free.

But no matter how fast he pushes his bike or how much sand he can throw on his turns, no matter how high he can fly over bumps or how small he can make the angle between his bike and the ground when he turns, it's not the same.

It's not the same without the boys betting against him, challenging him, beating him or losing to him, racing across the beach together.

It's not the same as the wild inside of him when Michael looks him in the eyes, dark blue like sea glass at night, the kind that Marko might put on an earring, if it was sharp enough.

His bike cannot beat a sea of loneliness.

David will keep his distance.

David will keep his distance.

And Michael is not looking for David anyway; his grave is only on Michael's way home, that is all.

But after a lonely, sleeping day in the shadow of an overhanging cliff, David wakes and goes to the place where he was buried. The stake is still there. David, it reads. He does not know if it is Michael's handwriting; he does not know Michael's handwriting. He does not want to. He wants to stay away.

But he is here.

The tree branches are hard, the rough bark scraping against David's hands as he settles himself and looks out at the Emerson house. Is Michael already home? Did he miss Michael?

But no, Michael is saying his name.

Michael apologizes, and David almost falls apart.

He thinks of Marco and Dwayne and Paul, and their midnight revelry and their hunts. Laughter and sex, if they all got very drunk– on liquor or blood, it didn't matter– now they are gone. For one flashing moment, David hates Michael. In the next, he doesn't.

Michael apologizes about the Lost Boys. He does not apologize for trying to kill David. Perhaps he does not regret it.

Michael apologizes and David thinks of all the things he's done wrong and all the things he's done to Michael and all the reasons why it is not Michael's fault and Michael apologizes.

David does not.

"Killing anyone tonight?"

He wants to. Killing is lonely and terrible without anyone with him, and the Frog brothers are so overconfident, they have forgotten to be careful. He avoids their store carefully, because if he ever got near, he would burn it to the ground.

Michael's jacket around his shoulders. The outside is black and tough but the inside is soft, and David thinks it must suit him, although he can't see himself in a mirror.

It smells like Michael, young and soapy, aftershave and cologne and sunshine muffled in leather. When Michael is gone, David presses his face into it and breathes.

The jacket is warm. A little big, but warm.

David doesn't feel hungry– or maybe he doesn't feel like killing. It's not a big deal if killing isn't desirable to him anymore. It is only a mood. Isn't it? It is only a mood. Paul is not here to whoop and crow, Marko is not here to grin and lift his chin and point, and Dwayne is not here to get them going, climbing onto the bike with a dark smile.

No one is here to set the mood or start the mood or get the mood going, and last time David killed all on his own, his victims were the only victims, their screams the only screams, and the rush in his veins was only blood, not adrenaline or joy or delight.

He doesn't need to feed every night anyway, although he hasn't thought about it in terms of need in a long, long time. He doesn't need to feed tonight.

And he does not want to.

Instead of the warmth of blood, he pulls the sleeves of Michael's jacket over his hands.

It is warm.

Chinese.

David does not know when he fell, only that suddenly he is falling farther, and he is already so far down. So deep.

Chinese.

What keeps Michael coming back? The grave is on Michael's way home. What keeps David coming back?

Michael shrugs. He looks better without the jacket. He would look better with nothing on at all.

What keeps David coming back indeed.

Parents and hippies.

Hell, David is fucked. David i g. It is a dream, it is a dream. It is not the nightmare David felt like he was living at the very beginnning and it is not the timeless Vegas feel of aimless thrill and gamble he felt after. It is the feeling of a dream, and Michael in the moonlight, and it is Michael's pinked cheeks and sideways glance, and it is Michael talking to David and the second-grader rush of adrenaline David gets in starting the conversation this time.

It is How long have you been around?

And it is young enough for you.

But he does not say for you.

"Killing anyone tonight?"

Michael looks so horrified. I'm never going to get used to it.

David feels sick.

David pulls Michael's jacket closer, but when Michael leaves, he feels cold all over again.

He is killing tonight. He has not found a girl to flirt with, a guy to piss off. He has not gotten a speeding ticket or made a cop angry. He has not been on the boardwalk because he just hasn't felt like it, and now he doesn't have any enemies to kill.

The Frog brothers, but Michael would never speak to him again if he killed the Frog brothers.

But he is cold, and he must feed.

Despite his promise not to, Michael comes back.

David is so relieved he could cry. He is so relieved, it scares him. Michael is nothing to be afraid of; Michael is kind and good, and he keeps coming back to help David. He cannot hurt David. Not physically.

But he can hurt David more than David has ever hurt before.

Inside. In his cold, undead heart with someone else's blood flowing through it.

Michael can hurt that.

And David is afraid.

It isn't his fear, though, that makes it happen.

Their next conversation is their longest, and their worst.

It is the only time David tries to offer conversation to Michael after all the conversations Michael has given him, but he has already ruined that by the time he offers it.

David has killed someone and he is so tired of killing alone, so tired of having no one with him as he does the deed, filling his veins with the blood they need, so tired so tired so angry. So angry because the boys are gone, and he wants to cry. This is anger? This is anger. This is grief? Maybe. He is furiously heartbroken, and someone told him once that sometimes big things take a long time to sink in.

The boys are gone.

Dwayne is gone, and Paul is gone, and Marko is gone. If they could see David without them, they would laugh, and kill him.

Always coming back to Michael. Always coming back to Michael.

They would never forgive him.

The Lost Boys are gone and they are not coming back, and David returns to the tree above his grave, hoping he does not have any tears on his face.

And Michael comes back with a hickey.

No, it isn't his fear that makes it happen.

It is the last part of his rational mind. The part that has all but deserted David in Michael's presence. The shape of Michael in a T-shirt, the fullness of Michael's lips, the solid line of his jawline in the moonlight; these are the things that crash through David like a tidal wave, sweeping away his rational thought.

But the last of this reason shouts.

Michael cannot stand David wanting Michael, even if he does not know that David does. Michael cannot stand him being a creature of the night. Michael cannot stand him staining his perfect daytime life with secrets. Michael cannot stand him killing people.

Michael cannot stand him.

And David must kill people. He cannot change that he is a creature of the night, or that he is not a woman like Star.

And they boys would hate him if they saw him now.

So it is not David's fear that causes him to lash out at the weakest spot he can find in Michael. It is not David's fear that drives Michael away.

It is pure logic.

It cannot work.

David will not try to force it.

And when he no longer has to deal with Michael, no longer needs to see him; the hiccup in David's life is gone. The wrench is removed from the gears. He is not afraid of Michael anymore, because he will not see Michael anymore.

Michael cannot hurt him.

David is not afraid.

It.

Is.

Not.

David's.

Fear.