MICHAEL
"Star."
She is warm and kind and forgiving. She listens to Michael, and she cares about Michael. Her mouth latches onto his neck, and there are no fangs.
David doesn't care about Michael.
And Michael keeps going back anyway. Why? He doesn't know. He really doesn't know.
Star draws him close. She's so very different from David. David never wants to touch Michael– shies away from Michael's touch like it's poison and hates Michael saying his name. He looks like he wants to run from Michael and never come back.
"What is it, Michael?" Star's hands map him. "You look upset."
"I'm not upset," Michael says instantly.
"Worried." She's off of him, now, turning on the light to illuminate her mussed bed and neatly organized room, a set of drawers, a closet, the doorway to the second bedroom where Laddie sleeps. It looks so normal here, nothing like the mess that Michael feels like he's living in.
"Not worried," Michael assures her. "Definitely not worried."
Star is studying him. Not the way David does, curious and amused and a touch malicious, but gently and full of care, almost like a mother. "Have you met someone?"
"No," Michael denies vehemently.
David's lips, covered in blood, and Michael's stomach, jolting low and wanting, cry out in protest.
"Definitely not," he adds, to make it absolutely clear.
Star sighs. "You're thinking about the boys." It isn't a question.
At least she doesn't know which one, or what he was thinking about them. "Did they keep a lot of things down in that hotel?"
Star sits up. "Michael, they lived there." She tilts her head a little, as if looking past him, her voice strong but still sad. Wistful, almost, a runaway from a place she can't help but miss even after choosing to leave. "They covered that place in stuff– oh, all sorts of stuff," she says when Michael raises his eyebrows. "I guess you didn't notice when you came down."
She doesn't mention what they did there, or how frantic and distracted and afraid he was. How he couldn't have noticed anything at that moment.
David scowls in Michael's mind, his pale skin, the cold air, his blond hair in the moonlight. My fucking clothes are in the hotel. David hasn't gone back, then. To the hotel.
It must be too painful, with all his memories of the Lost Boys, but it's strange to imagine David truly caring for anyone. Perhaps, Michael thinks bitterly, it's only because David has never cared for him. He feels irrationally jealous– he has no place wishing he could be someone who is dead.
"Do vampires have to kill when they feed?" he asks. It's a question torn out of him from the very eye of the storm in his heart, something he hadn't ever meant to make it out of his mouth. Thrown out into the world through the force of the winds.
Star opens her mouth. Closes it. "No," she says carefully. She looks like she's on the edge of solving a puzzle, a puzzle Michael doesn't want her to solve. "Not necessarily."
"So David just loved killing."
Star starts. "He didn't love killing." She seems shocked Michael could even think of it. "He enjoyed– but he never loved killing."
"Never when?" Michael finds himself saying. "You barely knew him either, Star."
She looks hurt. "I miss him too, you know. In my own way."
"Nevermind," Michael cuts her off quickly. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
David and his Lost Boys, dead, bloodless bodies in their wake.
David and his Lost Boys.
David.
"Would David mind if I went down and took some of his things to him?" He hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Star pulls away from him quickly, as if suspecting he already has and he has taken the aura of death that haunts the hotel with him. "To David's grave, you mean?"
"Yes, that's what I mean." God. Oh, God. "I just thought if David was alive he might mind me going through his things."
Star stares at him for a long, long moment. "But he's not alive," she says. Carefully, as if testing the words. Dipping her toes into the water to feel the temperature, as if she doesn't already know it's cold, cold, cold. "David isn't alive."
"No, of course not," Michael says. "David is dead. David isn't alive. I ki– David is dead." He can't get the word out. Killed. I nearly killed him.
The bedclothes rustle, but Star isn't looking at Michael, so Michael doesn't look at Star. Star doesn't even put her clothes on to look out the window; they're high up, anyway, and from here you can see the shoreline and the beach and the bonfires. You can see the trail that leads to the sunken hotel.
"I know you feel guilty."
He opens his mouth to deny it–
"I can feel it, Michael." She shakes her head, her curls tangled down her back, swaying. Michael wishes he could still be enchanted by them, instead of– instead of by him. "What else could you have done? They would have slaughtered your family, killed them all."
Michael feels like he can't breathe all over again. "Was David always so terrible?"
She turns, a shadow on her face, moonlight outlining her from where it pours from the window. "David isn't around to mind if you go down there," Star tells him, "And that's good. Because if he were alive without his boys, he would become even more terrible in his grief. No one would make it out alive." She sounds sorry for it.
Michael swallows. No one would make it out alive. But David hasn't killed anyone who was involved. Not Sam, or Lucy, or Grandpa. Not even the Frog brothers, who orchestrated the whole thing, though he made a terrible joke about drinking them once.
David hasn't touched them. Why hasn't he?
"Are you sure?" Michael presses. "He wouldn't pick kills for revenge."
Star shakes her head. She shakes her head around Michael so much lately, as if he's getting everything wrong. Maybe he is. He feels as if everyone is celebrating a passed test and he's still staring at his work, and the answer isn't even one of the options. David is supposed to be dead.
"When David loved someone, he really loved them." Star's smile is bittersweet. "He loved his Lost Boys."
Oh boy, they're talking about love. He and Star, they're talking about David and love. David's love. Oh, fuck.
"Anyway." Star's bittersweet smile has dropped. "He's killed cops who gave him parking tickets before. You'd be dead, Michael."
She says his name so differently than the way David does. David's mouth drifts over the sounds as if to send them out completely untouched; Star says it as if clipping the edges, catching on the C.
You'd be dead, Michael.
She sees something on his face.
"Michael." His name again. "There's something you're not telling me."
Oh no. "Nothing. Definitely nothing." Michael is suddenly made out of jelly. "I'm not keeping anything from you, Star. I love you. Why would I keep anything from you?"
He immediately realizes he shouldn't have said it. I love you. It's a clear sign of panic; her red mouth parts open.
"Why are you asking about David?" She doesn't move from the window. She looks like she couldn't move if she tried.
That makes two of them.
"No reason."
"And where did your jacket go? Vampires don't really feel the cold, Michael. Did you give it to him?" Star looks at Michael, her face slowly getting paler by the moment. He can see the reality trickling into her, like the sand in an hourglass slowly draining.
They don't? Then why did David take it?
He asks neither. He says, "To who?"
Star closes her eyes. "David is alive, isn't he? He's around to mind if you go to the hotel–"
"I have to go, Star."
Her eyes open. "Will he talk to me? I can't believe– will he see me?"
Cold pools in Michael's stomach. It feels like dread. The selfish, animal dread of having something taken from you that you didn't even need, but that was all yours. He doesn't want to share David.
"I have to go, Star."
"Is that why you leave early now?" Star's voice is high when she's agitated, different from the resonant tones that drew Michael in when they first met.
"I have to be home."
Michael can't get Star's words out of his head on the way home. He doesn't really know what David gets up to, now that he thinks of it, and though David is as sharp as a knife, he isn't a ruthless menace the way Star seems to expect him to become.
He wonders what keeps David tied to his humanity.
Maybe it is only that he stays away from the hotel, and so never triggers the grief, never opens the floodgates– or maybe it is something else.
Even if David misses things he can't bring himself to fetch, Michael doesn't go down to see if there's something he can bring back; he's not sure whether David would take it without a word and never speak of it again (meaning he's grateful) or tear into Michael within an inch of his life.
Instead: "Do you sleep somewhere safe?"
David's eyes flash and he flies down from the tree. Evidently, he'd been watching Michael come down the road, and his eyes stay fixed on Michael. They slip down to Michael's neck, and his face twists.
"Make up your mind, Michael." He's sharp tonight.
"Do you?"
"I thought you weren't coming back." He's wearing Michael's jacket, zipped up to the top of his throat. Blood on his lips. Still looking at Michael's neck. The branches of the tree above him cast stripes of shadow over his face.
"I'm asking if you have a place to stay." Michael had been looking forward to– or not looking forward to, but anticipating– this all day, and now that David's in such a terrible mood, he doesn't want to be here at all.
David looks at him flatly. "Do you think I'm going to stay in the hotel with them gone?"
Michael's heart gives a pang, despite his promise to himself. Strictly business. That's it. Just making sure David has what he needs. He can't imagine David alone– now that he thinks of it, David has always had company.
He's a people person, David.
Michael looks at the slope of David's shoulders– close and tight, no matter how he tries to stand evenly. He's a people person who has always had people until now.
He doesn't think David is without fault, but he still feels guilty that he's gotten off with everyone he cares about still alive– Lucy, Sam, Grandpa, Star, even the ridiculous Frog brothers. Even David is alive.
(Which doesn't mean he cares about David. Just a note: also, David is alive. He does… care for David though. Fuck, he does.)
Michael thinks of storming off– and then he thinks of David in the cold, spending the night who-knows-where. Alone, alone, alone.
"Where do you go?" Michael asks.
David tips his head up to the moon. "I don't have anywhere to go."
His heart throbs.
Oh God, he cares about David.
Oh God, oh God.
David and his smile, David and his clever eyes, David and his soft, mocking voice. He thought it was only lust.
It's not, it's not.
"Stay with me, then," he offers, unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth. "Stay at our place."
He doesn't realize until he says it how much he wants it to happen. Wants to see David in the mornings, and laugh with him in the night.
Good God.
It doesn't matter, anyway, because David's eyes drop from the moon to Michael. To his neck, and up again. Looks him dead in the eye. "The house they died in. The house you killed them in?"
Michael flinches. "You didn't give us much of a choice."
"Do you think we had a choice either? To kill?" His voice is still musing. "We have to feed, Michael. I've done nothing wrong."
Michael stares at him. "You're kidding," he says incredulously. "Nothing? You're joking."
David's eyes flash yellow. He walks closer. Slow. Though he's shorter than Michael, he feels as if he's looming, the shadow of the grim reaper, the dark shape of a dark and twisted tragedy.
"Invite me in, Michael." He speaks the words mockingly, dangerously– mocking what, Michael isn't sure. Michael's hope, Michael's naivete. "Invite me in, and I'll tear your brother's throat out for what he did."
Sam.
Michael's heart screams.
Blood rushes in his ears.
"I'll drink him empty, and you can find the body shrivelled up like a raisin on the bedroom floor." David's fangs are out. He licks his lips.
Blood on his lips. Blood.
Michael shoves David backwards. His own jacket on David's shoulders is cold in the night air.
"Don't you dare touch him." Michael punches David, hard. He hasn't been this furious in what feels like forever. "Don't you dare, do you hear me?"
Cold, cold. David will be cold and alone, and maybe he'll not have a place to sleep, and the sunlight will get him.
Good fucking riddance.
David doesn't respond. He's not even trying to fight back, not really. Just catching the blows as they come, softening them. His nose is bleeding. Michael isn't sure why it's such a shock to see David bleed. His blood looks like a darker red than the blood that runs in Michael's veins, but in the dark of the night, he can't be sure.
"Fuck." Michael swipes his bloody knuckles on his shirt. "What am I even doing here? Fuck."
He's over it.
He's just.
Over it.
David, who laughs at him and takes Michael utterly for granted, and threatens to kill his fucking brother.
He doesn't take his jacket back; he just walks off. The gate's around the corner.
It's cold down the road, even though it's a summer night, but the hot fury rushing through Michael makes him barely aware of the chill. It should be warmer, but there's a breeze, and it whispers in the trees, telling secrets Michael doesn't want to know. He's had enough of secrets and shadows and whispering, whispering, whispering…
Whispering, carried by the wind.
"Michael." A whisper, a sigh. Caressing his name. Lips and throat and tongue handling his name tenderly, like a holy thing.
There's only one person who says his name like that. Who is raspy and soft, and who flies. He doesn't hear any footsteps. He hates David, he hates him.
Why does David come there? The only thing could be Michael, but it can't be Michael; David doesn't care about Michael. He should just go.
Sam, he thinks, Sam. David's yellow eyes flash in his mind, his fangs out, blood down his throat, and he thinks of bright Sam. How did he get caught up in David?
Terrible in his grief, that's what Star said. And Michael had felt sorry for him, misguidedly so. David could take care of his own fucking self.
"Michael."
The way he says Michael's name.
"Michael."
God.
Michael listens, but he doesn't stop walking. Something– the wind and leaves– rustle behind him. He doesn't want to look at David.
"Michael," says David behind him. Soft, but no longer mocking. A request, and nothing more. "You're the only one I have left."
He's lonely. That's what it boils down to.
He should just make himself another half-vampire to wait on him, Michael thinks bitterly. He's glad Grandpa saw Sam home this afternoon.
Michael turns. Through gritted teeth, "What do you want from me?"
David stops short, still in the air, surprise flashing across his face, as if he didn't expect Michael to respond, or as if he can't believe Michael would be so short with him. Michael can never tell with David.
"I…" David's throat bobs. His hands are pale; he still doesn't have gloves. He watches Michael, watches Michael, watches Michael.
So Michael was right; he's lonely. That's it. He wants someone to talk to, and Michael will do.
Michael tries to squash the disappointment that sinks through him and tries not to look at David's pale eyelashes as David looks down.
"If you're in such desperate need of company," he says bitingly, "You can go to Star's."
David flies closer.
Somehow, he's not afraid. David won't kill him. He doesn't know how he knows this, but he knows it. David would've killed him earlier if he wanted him dead. No, David wants him alive, for one twisted reason or another. And he won't hurt Star. David cares about Star the way Michael cares for her himself. The unfair kind of love that's more holding on than holding, but care none-the-less.
Star wanted to talk to David, and Michael doesn't want to talk to David anymore, so it all works out perfectly. Absolutely. Perfectly.
David has followed him to the white wooden gate, where anyone at home could look through the window and see them. Michael's heart kicks.
David twitches at the name, almost a wince. "I don't know where she is." He says it simply, as someone might say checkmate.
"Seaside Cove, top apartment."
David loses his pleading undertone as quickly as he gained it; now he sounds bored and flat. "Hi Star, I'm still alive. Yes, me, David. Your boyfriend sent me here. Am I invited?"
I'm not her boyfriend. Michael doesn't say it; it sounds petty and immature in his mind. He tightens his hand around the wood of the gate. It's rough and old, the paint chipping so that when he clenches his fist, a splinter bites into his palm. "She already knows."
David stills. "You told her?" It's that note again, the terrible, dark one that almost sounds like hurt.
Michael feels compelled to defend himself in spite of it all. "I didn't," he swears, "She figured it out."
David blinks, but he still doesn't go. In the bright, yellow-lit window of the house, shadows flit about.
And yet, his heart still pounds as David stands there, watching him, watching him, watching.
He wants to get away and he doesn't, he wants to care for David and he never wants David anywhere near him again, David leans against the gate, looking small and fragile in Michael's coat, obviously on purpose, and Michael wants to punch him. There's still blood running from David's nose. Michael wants to make him bleed more.
Fucking Sam.
"Star isn't one of mine." David's voice could cut the night, sever the world, it's so sharp and cold. "She's yours."
Michael turns, then. David is standing, his shoulders pulled tight. He looks small, but maybe he's doing it on purpose. "Star doesn't belong to anybody, but it was your blood, wasn't it? And I'm not yours either."
Something happens, then, to David. It's as if he deflates.
"You have–" David points. His eyes kept flicking to Michael's neck tonight, and Michael thought maybe he was thinking of biting Michael, but he says, "A hickey." He laughs flatly. "Human bite." He sounds bitter.
Star. He'd forgotten about his tumble with Star in the rush of his time with David. Michael presses his neck– sure enough, it stings, and David must see it on his face because something else flashes through those gray-blue eyes. God, he's had enough of David's judgement.
"Go to Star's, or go to hell," he says. "Just don't come back."
David finally looks away from Michael, and Michael's thudding heart slows. "I don't want to sleep with her."
There. David has run out of things to say, and Michael has won, and David will go, and Michael will stop having a war in his chest.
"You don't even sleep at night." He can't look at David while he says the next part. "And you certainly don't want to sleep with me, so why are you here, then?"
David stares at him.
His gray-blue eyes, flat. His mouth, the smirk gone.
He is, Michael realizes suddenly, trembling.
"Do you want me to go?" he whispers.
No, Michael thinks. No, says Michael's heart.
David swallows, his throat moving. Michael remembers the first night he saw David by the tree. The trickle of blood down David's neck, and his cold laugh.
And he thinks of Sam, terrified, fighting Dwayne. Determined to save Michael. And David, turning Michael into someone who needed saving.
"Killing anyone tonight?"
David closes his eyes. He does not answer. It's answer enough.
"Go," says Michael.
David's mouth pulls down, but when he opens his eyes, his gaze is flat and unaffected. "Alright," he says at last.
David goes.
It occurs to Michael that David has watched him walk away from the tree by his grave every night, but Michael has never watched David go.
