MICHAEL

David.

The name is the first thing that rings through Michael's sleep-thick mind. Then it is Sam, and Is Sam safe.

Michael, the winds whisper, rattling his window and whirling, whirling, whirling. When he stumbles out of bed, the cold air wakes him up and sweeps his muddy thoughts up until his mind is clear.

David isn't coming around with his boys, whispering Michael's name, the sound of their engines on the wind. Sam is not standing beside him, watching lights flash through the blinds.

So the next thing he thinks is again?

He doesn't even know how they did it the first time– were they even there? Did they create an illusion the way they messed with the food, or did they use their flight? His bets are on an illusion.

At this hour– so close before sunrise– it has to be a trick.

Michael, the winds whisper, Michael.

It's David's voice. It's always David's voice.

The way he says Michael's name. Mi-chael. Stretching the i mockingly– it may be wishful thinking, but sometimes Michael almost feels it's fond.

He hopes the illusion will lift with the rising sun, and he waits.

But it doesn't.

Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael–

Michael opens the curtain.

David is hovering at his window.

David. Is actually, physically hovering at his window, and he is grinning. It's not the grin Michael was after, but it makes his heart flutter nonetheless. David has bags under his eyes, and he isn't looking too good, although Michael can't put a finger on why, but David's grin looks soft and not even the slightest bit mocking or malicious.

His pale fingers press against the glass, and his mouth moves. Michael. Somehow, the name flits and flutters about the room, even though they're separated by a thick sheet of glass. His spiky hair in the moonlight, the longer part in the back dipping below the collar of Michael's jacket. Michael wants him, wants him, wants him.

And he is still angry.

He will not forget that.

But he opens the window.

"David." The air swirls through the room and carries with it the scent of David: blood and dirt and faint smoke, and the clean new furniture smell of Star's apartment. The air tonight seems to have a spirit of its own. "What do you want?"

David's feet set so gently on the window sill, they don't make a sound. "Invite me in."

Michael stares. David leans against the side of the window as if leaning against a doorway, his expression soft instead of the stone-set mask Michael is usually faced with. He looks tired. He looks so tired.

But Michael is angry. He'll remember it: he's angry. "What you said about Sam–"

David's expression drops like a stone, and cold washes over Michael that has nothing to do with the wind. "I only said it to upset you." He frowns, as if it pains him to say it.

"Well congratulations, you upset me."

Why isn't this commotion waking others up? Likely because David has done something so that they're the only ones who can hear this conversation. The idea rankles Michael. David should just leave it alone. All of it. Michael and Sam, and their lives free of disruption and confusion and secrets.

"Come on," David sighs at him, leaning even more against the window sill and smiling. "'M tired, let me in."

"No." But he says it too slow, and David pounces on his hesitancy.

"You invited me before," he croons. "Oh yes. Stay at our place, you said, stay with me."

What's going on? Michael almost asks, and David answers in his head, What's going on, Marko? Who wants to know? Michael wants to know. He reaches out and touches David's chin without thinking, tipping it up. His skin is soft, and his long stubble is softer. He thinks of kissing down David's jawline, and he has to swallow a swell in his chest. David lifts his head, almost obediently.

"Are you drunk?"

David grins and shakes his head. "Nope." Maybe he's been smoking something green. David tilts his head, still grinning, young and earnest. "Let me in, Michael?"

Michael studies David more carefully this time, trying not to get distracted by David's skin in the moonlight and his achingly open smile. David, he realizes, is clinging to the windowpane, looking unbalanced. He looks tired, maybe even sick. If David was pale before, he's a little paler still, pasty almost.

"Sun's coming up," David sing-songs softly. "Tired. I'm tired, Michael."

Michael swallows, and David wobbles a little bit. The sun will be coming up, horrifyingly soon, and David doesn't look like he's going to move. "You're invited," he finally relents, his voice rough. "Get in. So much as step out of this room–"

David cocks his head and smiles a puzzled smile. It's achingly, stupidly cute, and it makes Michael's stomach flip-flop. "I don't want to be anywhere else," he murmurs.

Michael closes the window shutters. Is he taking advantage, listening to David now? Something is up with David, his guard down, gone, like a puff of smoke, and he feels as if he's betraying David's trust by letting him say these things, and listening.

"Well you can stay here at least until sundown," Michael promises.

David is standing in Michael's room, and Michael's whole being aches. The way he looks around Michael's room, standing right in the middle of the room. Tired and slumped. Curious, still.

He wants David. He cares for David.

So much.

So much.

God, he's beautiful.

David smiles at him, tugging at the collar of Michael's jacket. Is it officially David's now? Perhaps. He's still watching Michael, watching Michael, watching Michael.

"Are you going to ask me if I killed anyone?" he asks. It is tinged with bitterness, and that dark feeling that– yes, it must be– is hurt. His voice is light, but it is so full of feeling, Michael goes weak in the knees.

It is a bucket of cold water.

David is tired, he looks pasty, he is off balance and weak and he's acting so strange…

"God," Michael mutters, catching David as David sways on his feet. "Is that why you're like this?"

He's surprisingly light, thin and… maybe malnourished. He doesn't mind Michael pulling him up into his arms in a bridal carry, and that's a sign something is wrong if there ever was one.

He feels so right in Michael's arms. Michael's heart skips painfully, skips, skips. The shape of him, the weight of him, the look David is giving him now– he tries not to notice it– even the hard edge of David's lighter in the back pocket of David's jeans digging into Michael's hip. He knows he'll remember the feel of David in his arms like this for a long time.

David looks put out, his blue eyes fluttering shut and opening again to look up at Michael, his head resting on Michael's chest. "You didn't ask me."

He remembers wanting to hold David and care for him. Fuck, be careful what you fucking wish for. This. Hurts. What will David be like when he's back to himself? How will Michael survive it?

Fuck.

"Let's get you to bed," he murmurs. "You're tired, right? You can sleep in my bed."

David looks pleased and amused. "Your bed," he repeats brightly. Michael aches. "Sleep with me, Michael." He clutches at Michael's shirt as Michael starts to move off of him, holding him there. His eyes are so vivid, gray-blue like the stormy skies in acrylic paintings.

He still says Michael's name like that.

And the look in his eyes makes it obvious what kind of sleeping he's talking about.

Heat floods through Michael's veins like wildfire. It leaves him breathless, leaves him burned and in ashes, nothing left unscorched. "David." His voice hiccups.

God, David. David's hand moves over him. When he reaches for David's hand, Michael realizes he's shaking. The sheer want that this brings out in him, the sharpness of the ache leaves him lost.

Gently, he pulls David's hand away and kisses it. "Maybe when you feel better," he says, knowing when David feels better he'll want nothing like this.

He tries not to think about it right now; he needs David to get better and be happy for real. God, he wants David to be happy and okay. That's all he wants.

Is this love?

Is this what it's like to love somebody?

David, fuck.

"Why are you sad, Michael?"

Michael pulls off David's boots and tosses the blanket over David.

But it hurts. Fuck, he wants this. Fuck, his chest aches, and David's face is so open and caring.

Michael kisses David.

On the forehead.

"I wish you really wanted this." He hopes David won't remember.

David's expression changes, softening from drowsy contentment to a tenderness that might rip Michael apart.

"I'm so afraid of you," David whispers.

Lucy says she can't imagine her sweet Michael frightening anyone, but that's not worth much; she's his mother.

Sam only wrinkles his nose. "You wish," he snickers. "You're not even a vampire anymore. Now that was scary. Why'd you ask?"

Michael downs the rest of his water and refills the cup. He's so thirsty– how thirsty is David? How long has he gone without blood? "Star's afraid of me," he lies.

Sam looks at him as if he's being stupid. "So ask Star."

He asked David, but David was already asleep. He can't imagine David– graceful, deadly David with knife-sharp wit and life-learned wisdom– being afraid of Michael. Michael, awkward Michael who feels like a newborn colt on wobbling legs when he's around David.

Sam's eyes widen, and he grins. "Is Star the one you're in love with?"

In– In–? "I'm not in love with anyone." Is he?

Sam gives him a superior look. "Yes you are. I can tell." He grins. "I'm your brother."

Michael flips him off and steals some of the Nutella. "You don't know anything, Sam. You've never been in love."

"No," Sam agrees proudly. "I don't need to! You come home late at night looking just like all the guys on TV, and you're always keeping it a secret from Mom. And where's your jacket? Didja give it to your girlfriend? I bet you did."

"Oh for God's sake, television isn't real," Michael mutters. But he did give his jacket to David. And he did look forward to seeing him every night. And he certainly had some dreams. "And I met him a month ago."

Sam drops the Nutella and his jaw drops. "Him? Mike, you have a boyfriend?"

Michael stares. He opens his mouth. He closes it. Shit. "No."

"But you're in love with a guy? Mikey are you gay?" Sam is smiling so widely, Michael is beginning to question the Rob Lowe poster on Sam's closet door. It's on his closet door.

Is he… gay? No. He wanted Star once. And he wants David now. He wants David so badly, so badly. He can't not be gay. He must like men. "I don't know." He says to Sam. "I think men are…" he feels heat rise to his cheeks. David. "You know…" He looks at Sam.

Sam looks back, wide eyed and utterly non judgemental. He loves his brother so much sometimes. "Okay!" he agrees, with contagious enthusiasm. "That's great Mike!"

"Thanks Sam." God, he really loves his brother.

"Can I meet him?"

Meet him. Michael wishes. He really does. If not Lucy– which would be far too embarrassing– he'd like to have both Sam and David in the same room. But that would never work out. "No, Sam."

"Awww Mikey," Sam pouts. No. Michael takes it back. Brothers are annoying. "If I got a boyfriend, I'd introduce you, I promise."

So he is. Huh.

"Good." Michael ruffles Sam's hair, and Sam swats him away. "Then I can beat his ass."

Sam just grins widely. "You too, Mike. But only if he breaks your heart. Otherwise, he's good with me."

No he isn't, Michael thinks. No, he really isn't.

Could David break his heart? Michael isn't so sure. David hasn't given him anything that he could take away: no promises, no touches, no kisses, nothing to lose, to miss. Except for David himself. Who he may be in love with.

David could break his heart, he thinks. Yeah, he probably could.

He shakes it off. He has more important things to think about than whether he's fucking in love with someone.

Is he?

Is he in love with David?

"Sam, in your comic books, how long can a vampire survive without blood?"

Sam shrugs. "It depends on how much blood they drank the last time they drank blood. You wanna read one? I can get you one of those comics; they're up in my room."

David's asleep up there, and he looks young, seventeen, when he's asleep. Why has he gone without blood? "Well how much blood do they need?" He doesn't ask for a comic book. They're so… monstrously rendered in those comic books.

Sam considers this. "I think about a kill every other day is enough. Three days is pushing it."

Michael blinks. David always seemed to kill every three days or so, but he thought it was only because David liked being excessive. That's what David acted like. Pushing it?

Maybe the comic book is wrong.

Or maybe Michael just hasn't been paying attention.

There's a clatter upstairs.

Sam looks up. "What was that? Is mom home?" He's got his finger in a jar of Nutella, and he pulls it out hastily, screwing on the top. "I thought she was out!"

"Probably Nanook," Michael mumbles, relieved when Sam hums and returns to his Nutella.

Michael hurries up the stairs.

"Mom got you a new jacket, it's by the door," Sam calls after him. "So if your man doesn't give yours back, it's there."

"Okay," Michael calls down.

"So you did give it to your boyfriend!"

"Shut up Sam!"

David is sitting up in Michael's bed, wrapped in the blanket. It's fucking adorable. Michael is going to break. He looks less tired, but his skin is still pasty-pale, even more so than this morning.

He nearly brought David lunch– although he's sure David would scoff at a Nutella sandwich– but then he realized David sleeps all day and doesn't eat at noon. He remembered how tired David looked and decided to let him sleep– and now, mid-afternoon– David has finally woken up.

Eight hours ago slams into Michael like a bowling ball. Sleep with me. I don't want to be anywhere else. David's hair has softened out of it's spikes, mussed and falling over his forehead. Michael wants to run his fingers through David's hair– is it as soft as David's beard?

When he gets closer, David looks much less sweet; his hairline is beaded with sweat and he is shivering in the blankets, which are pulled taut around him, his hands fisted in them. He's biting his lip hard.

Michael's heart twists tight enough to break in his chest.

"David?" Michael whispers, and David's eyes flick up at him.

His eyes are yellow.

"When was the last time you drank someone's blood?"

David's eyelashes flutter and he shuts his yellow eyes, his pale brows pulling together. He looks like he's trying to count and can't figure it out. "Hmm," he answers weakly.

Could it have been Michael that made him stop? No, David never cared what Michael thought.

Right?

Are you going to ask me if I killed anyone? You didn't ask me.

Could it have been?

"It doesn't matter," Michael shushes David, pushing his hair back. "This is blood deprivation isn't it? That's what's wrong with you."

David's shoulders shrug beneath the blanket, and he grins, though his eyes stay closed. "There's a lot of things wrong with me."

His fangs aren't out yet, and his face hasn't transformed, but Michael has the sinking sense that it won't be long– far sooner, in fact, than sundown will come.

"No there aren't." Michael doesn't think David's listening. The windows don't let sunlight in at midday– the sun's just about directly above them– but it's still pretty warm, and David's still shivering.

Michael moves to sit beside David, to help him wrap the blankets tighter at least, but David's eyes fly open.

"You smell like blood." His voice is raspier, thicker than usual. "You should go."

"And leave you with Sam?" Michael can't help but say.

David's yellow eyes flash. "I didn't mean it when I said that, Michael. I wouldn't have done it."

In spite of the situation, Michael's irrationally glad he's pulled David's attention to focus again, even for a moment. "You meant to hurt me when you said it, that's why I'm pissed. Christ, David, I know you wouldn't have. You're not a monster."

David swallows fast, twice, and his eyes fall shut again. "Cool," he says faintly.

"David," Michael murmurs, because David looks like he's losing consciousness or control, he can't tell, and saying David's name always gets a reaction out of him.

"David." Sure enough, David's body twitches. He's listening. "You need blood."

"Bingo!" David sings under his breath. "Good job, Emerson. Michael Emerson. Michael."

Michael doesn't think he can stand much more of this, let alone David surviving it. "Alright, well you'll have to drink from me."

David straightens and his eyes fly open– they're blue. Blue-grey, and pale in the bedroom light. Blue, blue, blue, human, human, human. Lovely. Impossibly lovely.

"No." David's struggling to unwrap himself from the blanket, but he's weak and clumsy right now. "No, I won't."

Michael helps him free his arms, but doesn't let him get up, his heart racing and his head spinning. Does David care about him that much? Or is there another reason? Perhaps he just can't swallow the idea of putting his mouth on Michael.

"Do you think you can make it until sundown, then?"

David smiles. "Nope!" He pops the P cheerfully. "Not without transforming against my will!"

"So, what, you'll drink from Sam instead? Or Lucy, or Grandpa?"

David shakes his head. When he blinks, his eyes are yellow again. "No, Michael. I'll lose my control if I don't have blood soon, not my life. Just tie me up here, and then you can set me loose at sundown. I'll survive that." And then he has the nerve– or absence of mind– to wink at Michael.

The blankets are warm. The bed is warm. The room is warm– everything is suddenly very warm. It's summer time, after all, Michael thinks quickly. He shakes his head at David. "Won't that hurt you?"

David only grins– is fangs have come out– and leans towards Michael. "What, are you concerned, Mister Emerson? Do you worry about me?" His smile drops as fast as it came, and his eyes fall to Michael's neck, as if David's dragging them away, and they keep returning. "Tell me, Michael, do you worry about me?"

In his chest, his heart stutters and stumbles and falls, and Michael thinks he's just on the edge of falling apart, he has no idea what to do, but he doesn't do anything but take David's hands. There's red on them, but he's barely looking. They're so cold. They're like ice, like the hands of someone who has spent all day in the snow with no gloves on.

"I do." He feels awkward and wrong, as if he's speaking to a child– or to no one at all. David isn't really all here, or he wouldn't be flirting with Michael, and yet for some reason, he feels compelled to answer truthfully. Perhaps because David isn't all here. "And I'm not doing it if it will hurt you."

Pulling his hands away, David frowns and his eyes drop from Michael entirely. "That's not true," he declares, with absolute and heartbreaking certainty. David…

David pulls up the hem of his shirt. Michael looks away. He's sure David is gorgeous. He's sure David in his right mind has no desire for Michael to see him shirtless. His pulse pounds through him anyway.

"Look," David says now, and Michael can't say no. David is tracing faint white circles, the only thing left from Michael shoving him onto those antlers. He wants to be sick even thinking about it, but that's certainly not what David needs, and he wants even more to be what David needs. "You've hurt me."

"I'm sorry about that," Michael says, and surprisingly, he means it. If they fought now– the same fight, but now after Michael has… started to care for David the way that he does, he might have let David win.

Except David said he'd only wanted Michael to join him. Fuck, he'd said he was trying to make Michael immortal, and didn't want to kill him.

He can't help noticing David is lean and muscular, lithe. A trail of blond hair…

"Are you sure you don't want me?"

Michael jolts and looks up at David, who's watching him with half-closed yellow eyes and a smirk. "Wha– I never said I didn't–"

David brightens.

Michael drops his head down on the bed and muffles a groan. What has this come to? All he did was talk to David by the tree.

Every night.

For almost a month straight.

And fall in love.

And possibly more importantly, is this his fault?

"You need to drink my blood." He forces himself to focus on the problem at hand, even though his body is showing interest. He holds out his arm. "Here."

David shakes his head and closes his eyes. "No. Tie me down. I'll survive."

"Will I be turned if you drink my blood?"

"No."

"Will it hurt if you drink my blood?"

"Like a knife."

Michael swallows. "Are you hurting right now?"

David's expression twists in response, his body twitching. His nails are crusted with blood and his palms have nail-crescents pierced into them. "No," says David. He's lying, and it seems to be getting worse.

Michael remembers the piercing pain of bloodlust, and imagines it in David, rolling through in waves, and the way it felt as if his stomach would eat itself with serrated teeth.

"God," Michael mutters. "Fuck, drink my fucking blood."

"I don't," David says through gritted teeth, "want to hurt you."

Something flutters and falls in Michael's chest, falling, falling. The words take Michael's breath away. Michael reaches over and opens the drawer by his bed, shuffling through the mess urgently. He can't deal with this: David in pain, and saying things that would make Michael fall apart of David meant them.

He finds the Swiss Army knife he got a while ago and flips it open.

A line.

He can't see it, and he doesn't know where his vein is, and he's too impatient to look in a mirror, but he feels it. Warmth trickles down his neck, and when he touches his fingers to it, they come away stained red.

A line.

David's yellow eyes fly open, his fangs out and then–

"Fuck you," David grits out, and his features change.

A line.

It hurts. It hurts.

And then David's hands, cold as ice, grasp the back of Michael's neck and pull him in. He smells like smoke and blood, and the strong line of his body presses into Michael's and–

It hurts it hurts it hurts

It

Hurts.

David was right, Michael thinks, dizzy through the pain, like a knife.

David is not careful or gentle or artful about it. He bites like an animal fighting for food. Michael can feel David's cold mouth and teeth like serrated knives digging into his neck, can feel the claws that have burst out of David's fingertips digging into the back of his neck and his bicep where David is grabbing him, and he can feel warm blood spilling down his neck and rushing dizzily through his veins like sheep following each other over a cliff to their deaths.

Through the pain, Michael finds the clarity of mind to move his arms, cup the back of David's neck and wrap his arm around David's waist, and hold David there.

Seconds go by, or minutes, or hours. Time slides into itself, just like the time he would spend with David by the tree. Blink, and five minutes. One moment stretching into an eternity.

Michael thinks dimly that he might faint, and then he realizes he's already pressed back against the pillow, his arms locked around David so that David has followed him down.

He feels weak and boneless and lightheaded, but the only thing that hurts is the knife-sharp pain in his neck. He would stay like this, endure this, he thinks sluggishly, if it alleviated David's pain. He'd heal.

David's hold on Michael's neck and arm slacken, and the rhythmic jolts of pain from David's swallowing slow, and slow, and slow, until David has collapsed over Michael, his chest pressed against Michael's.

A healthier color is returning to David's skin.

Michael takes a deep breath, his chest feeling compressed under David's weight and swallows. He'll have to bandage up his neck.

He runs his fingers through David's long, soft hair and–

David scrambles up, practically throwing himself off the bed and against the opposite wall, as far from Michael as it's possible to be in this room.

"Fuck," he croaks. His voice is rough and thick, throaty. "Fuck, Michael." He looks so much better already– less pasty, no longer giddy with pain or weak and clumsy. He seems to have returned to himself, complete with his blue eyes and human features…

And his ever present desire to have nothing to do with Michael.

Michael manages to sit up, and his neck screams in protest– he never realized how many movements affected his neck before. With extreme pain, he's able to pull off his black T-shirt and ball it up, pressing it against his neck.

It hurts like hell to speak, but he manages to ask, "Are you feeling better?"

"Am I feeling better," David echoes. "Am I feeling better? Fuck, Michael." He's still pressed against the wall opposite of Michael. Michael aches. He doesn't wish tired, pain dizzy David could come back, of course not. But he wishes…

Well, it's stupid.

He just wishes David would care about him the way blood-deprived David cared about him. Where did that even come from? Lucy used to joke about how Michael would have no filter when he got sick– something about the body spending too much energy on fighting the sickness to spare much for thought or censorship, but he's never heard of anyone just… just suddenly caring about someone for no reason other than they're weak and tired.

More than caring for.

Sleep with me, Michael.

He'll never get those words out of his head.

Michael aches.

"Come here." Michael waves at David in a come hither movement. Blood is smeared against David's pale skin, and some of his stubble is reddened with it. "You have blood on your face."

"You have blood all over you," David hisses. He sounds almost panicked. He sounds almost as if he cares.

His eyes are blue and human, and he is watching Michael, watching Michael, watching.

Michael looks down at his own bare chest– David is right; there's a thin river of blood running right down his chest, and there are smears of blood over much of his skin besides.

"Can you smell the blood?" Michael can smell the blood, but David is on the other side of the room. David is still on the other side of the room. David still looks like he wants to run from Michael and never come back.

David closes his blue eyes. "Of course I can." He doesn't have his fangs out anymore. "I'm a vampire, Michael. I'm a vampire."

Michael's heart thrums. And I still want you. "I'll clean it up, if it's making you hungry."

David is as fast and graceful as a whip, and in Michael's mind, he is getting slammed up against a tree, but David stops just short of touching Michael, his eyes flashing, always catching in the light, always mocking or furious or both.

"I'm not," he says in a low, terrible voice, "going to drink any more of your blood."

He is trembling again, and Michael wants to hold him again, and he knows that David would hate nothing more than that, now that he's back to himself again, so he doesn't.

He reaches out and cups David's chin, wiping away the blood there with his thumb. David lets him, but when the blood is gone, he pulls away.

"Okay," Michael says. He doesn't say because you can't bear me? He doesn't say because you hate it when I touch you and you hate it when I say your name and you hate me? He says, "Why?"

David makes a sound and drops onto the edge of Michael's bed. He can't go anywhere else with the sun still up– or he'd surely be flying away, out the window, miles away from Michael. Michael doesn't even know why David came here in the first place. Regardless, he feels acutely as if he is trapping David. Caging him.

The sun is going down.

Michael wants the sun to finish setting just as much as he doesn't. David will leave when the sun goes down, but is that any worse than David staying against his will? Michael thinks it might be better.

David doesn't answer him. Instead, he says, "I need more blood."

Michael says–

"Not yours," David says. "Not you." David still hasn't said why.

"When the sun goes down, you can hunt."

David laughs. "Are you telling me to kill someone?"

Michael's pulse rushes, and his neck throbs. His heart is cold, so cold. It is black and shaking inside of him.

But he says, "If you need to."

David laughs again. "I always need to." He sounds bitter.

When the sun goes down, David is out the window without a backwards glance.