MICHAEL
"David," Michael mutters, heading home. "Goddammit, David."
The Frogs were kind to him, but the Frog brothers have informed Michael that in no uncertain terms do they believe his story. They're peering out at him from the doorway of the store, sharing their signature suspicious looks. It would be comical except that it's Michael they are suspicious of.
He brings the partially-scorched vampire comic books that won't sell home to Sam.
Sam has somehow gotten it into his mind that Michael's secret boyfriend set the fire, and while he promised not to tell, it eats at Michael. Is it that obvious?
"I just dropped my lighter," Michael groans around his spaghetti. "C'mon mom, not you too."
"He didn't do it on purpose," Sam defends Michael eagerly, and that's even worse because Sam is only doing it because he thinks it's romantic that Michael is covering for his boyfriend, and he 'wants to help.'
His mom shakes his head at him. "Michael, I'm worried about you," she informs him earnestly. "Did you break up with Star? You can talk to me, you know."
"Mom," Michael mutters. "I wouldn't set a store on fire just because I broke up with Star."
Sam nods knowingly. "But he did break up with Star."
"Sam."
"Oh, honey."
"It's nothing, Mom."
Lucy clasps her hands and looks over the table at him sternly, but he's over it by now. Eighteen and fucking so out of her realm out of reality. Eighteen and in love with an angry vampire arsonist who only wants him for– what, his hands and his mouth? "You look tired, Michael. Did you sleep alright? Do you want me to talk to her?"
"No, God, Mom. Do not talk to Star." He almost smiles. He is… mostly over it. But it's nice to have someone so worried about him.
Sam follows him after dinner. "So what really happened, Mikey?" Sam follows him into his room, and Michael doesn't have enough energy to stop him.
"You already asked." Michael closes the door behind Sam, who doesn't seem to care– he's staring behind Michael.
Michael turns… "Sam," he says, "please don't scream."
He forgot to change the sheets and the pillowcase. After wrapping himself up, going to find David in the pebbled cove, kissing and the fire… he had just collapsed and slept like a rock.
And then went straight to the Frogs' to tell them his version of the story, which took a very long time because of the brothers' extensive cross-examination. He might have even misremembered his story a couple of times because the boys exchanged dark looks several times.
The white sheets are stained with blood that has browned with sunlight and time, and it's all over the pillowcase in a thick puddle shape, smeared over the sheets like he's been involved with some sort of ritual sacrifice.
"Does this…" Sam makes a squeaky noise. "Have anything to do with that fire?"
"No, definitely not." Michael throws the blankets over the pillow. "Don't tell Mom, alright?"
Sam's eyes widen, and he grabs the Swiss Army knife on the top of Michael's bedside drawers. "Did someone stab you in the ne– wait, you're lying."
"I'm definitely not lying." Michael crosses his heart. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
Sam makes his face. "That's doesn't even mean anything. Is your boyfriend…" his face gets a little horrified. "You know, one of those people?" He runs the knife over his arm in demonstration.
Michael chokes on air. "No, Sam. He's not a sadist. If anything, he's a masochist. Get out of my room, God."
"What's a ma–"
"Fuck, shit," Michael shouts, his face flushing, "out! I didn't say anything!"
"Language!" Lucy calls from somewhere downstairs.
Eyes wide, Sam lowers his voice. "Will you introduce me to your bloody fire-setting boyfriend? He sounds like such a badass. How did your stupid self land him?" He winks to show he's joking.
Michael swallows. He didn't land him. Fuck, he really didn't.
Sam frowns a little when Michael doesn't laugh. "I'm joking, Mike. He's the lucky one, you know that, right?"
"You wouldn't like him," Michael says. Not that he and David are boyfriends.
"I promise to like him."
Michael gives up. "Well, he doesn't like me." He grimaces at Sam and pushes him out the door. It's bittersweet, the way Sam's mouth falls open, as if he honestly hadn't even considered that. It's sweet. "Out."
Sam stops in the doorway, wavering there. "Sorry, Mike."
"Eh." Michael turns away and starts stripping off the sheets. "It wasn't going to happen."
God, it wasn't. David doesn't want a boyfriend, he wants a worshipper.
Well, he has one, but Michael has no intentions of letting David know. Michael has no intentions of speaking to David at all.
It's just, Star takes one look at him and informs him she's done with his problems, and what else is he supposed to do with his night?
David isn't there, so he checks along the rocky shoreline under the cliffs a long way in both directions– because he's bored, that's all.
Someone screams, and he looks up– for a moment he thinks one of the beach bonfires has caught onto someone else, but that's not it. Michael's stomach sinks and turns.
He can't look away: David flies off with her, a black shape and a white dress against the sky; the night is too black to catch the deep red color of blood, but Michael's mind fills it in for him. It's fast– faster than David drank Michael's blood, and David only drank some of Michael's blood– and then David drops the body right into the sea.
Michael stumbles a little farther back under the cliff, back in the cove where he and David… back into the cove from before, until he can't see the beach anymore. But he can see David, blotting out a sliver of stars, his arms pale and bare. Michael's jacket is still on the rocks.
David lands with a little bit of a stumble, as if he's heavier than he was ready for, maybe due to the new blood.
He looks up.
His grey-blue eyes, pale like thick arctic ice, blood on his chin, on his lips. Michael still wants to lick it off. His lips part, and he stands there against the sky for a moment before walking in, right past Michael, and sits on Michael's jacket. He wipes his chin, but he misses some of the blood. Michael still wants to cup David's face and wipe it away with his thumb.
He just stands there, looking down at David. "David."
David flinches. "What is it?"
"The shop's okay."
"I know." David is utterly, utterly still.
"But my family's convinced I have a romantic secret because I'm lying to cover for you, and they can tell."
"Thanks," David says softly.
"And I'm sorry for bringing you to the Frog's shop. I wasn't thinking." About anything but you, and how much I was hurting. "And thank you, I guess, for not killing them. I know you want to."
David looks up at him. Michael falls in love again; he looks like a lost boy, young. He fucking isn't. "Is that it?"
Michael tells himself not to humiliate himself any further, but of course his mouth doesn't listen. "I miss you."
David shivers, and his face opens. It is so tender. He is looking at Michael as if Michael is everything that matters. It breaks Michael's heart.
And somehow, I still love you. Michael realizes he's staring. "That's all."
He's about to move, he's about to leave– he really is– but David looks down, and David says a lot of things he doesn't want to say with his head down.
So he stays.
Not because David is still beautiful, or because Sam believes Michael's good enough and he thinks maybe David could think that too, one day. No, that's not why.
"Do you remember when you asked me how old I was?"
Michael remembers. "Yeah. You didn't answer."
David swallows. "No, I didn't. I'm not that old, actually. Eternally eighteen, but literally…" he pauses, counting on his fingers. Michael almost wants to laugh. Almost. He's adorable. "Fifty-five."
"So about forty as a vampire." Michael thinks for a moment. "And you actually were alive when Einstein was alive."
"Hush," David mutters, "I'm younger."
Michael can't help but laugh, then, just the whisper of a laugh, but a laugh still, and David looks up at him quickly, smiling. God, he looks so shy and proud. He changes so much.
"Do you remember," David murmurs, not looking away, "When you asked me why I was afraid of you?"
"Yeah." Michael gives up telling himself he's going to walk away from David. He sits. "You didn't answer that either."
David opens his mouth, but then he shakes his head. "Do you want to guess?"
"No. I want you to tell me."
David's eyebrows pull together, but the corners of his mouth twitch. "Yeah. That's a good idea, isn't it?" And then he leans in and kisses Michael.
If he tasted like blood before, he does now tenfold, and somehow he still tastes sweet. His mouth is cold, and his eyelashes brush Michael's cheeks, and the kiss is so strange. It is as if David can't help himself and at the same time is not sure about it at all, gentle and decisive both.
Michael kisses him back for a blissful moment, and then, in a breath, he places a hand on David's chest. "Stop," he whispers, against David's soft lips, "Stop."
David stops, his cold hands still on Michael's neck, and then he pulls back into himself. His arms loop around his knees. He is shaking. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm– sorry. For trying to turn you against your will. Max wanted me to, and I just… I'm sorry for going after you."
Michael resists the urge to touch his tingling lips. "Is this your way of saying you regret meeting me?"
"No," David laughs, humorlessly self-deprecating. "It's– really not. And I'm sorry for making you think that I… could regret– Michael, I don't regret meeting you."
Michael's heart skips in his chest. He aches, he's aching. He's always aching. "That's good."
Michael feels as if nothing will matter as this moment does, but he doesn't know why he feels that way– perhaps it's the way David looking at him that makes his heart race in his chest. David's eyes are wide, and ice blue, fixed on Michael.
"And I'm sorry. Michael." David's body is still again, like carved marble under the moonlight. Even his spiky hair and black T-shirt don't make him any less lovely. "Because I'm shit at saying…"
David looks young and scared. So scared, and Michael takes David's hands, unwinding David out of his little ball. He holds David's hand, acutely aware of the way David doesn't pull away this time.
"I love you," David says.
I love you.
Michael's heart stops altogether. "David?" he whispers, without even thinking, but David is already talking.
It's as if that four-letter word has been clogging up David's throat and now, suddenly, he is talking, tripping over his words like water racing over itself on its haste over the edge.
"I love you," David says again, his body sagging into Michael's. Their foreheads press together, and David's hands hold Michael's face, fingers shaky. "My whole life, Michael, I've never– sometimes I never told them, or sometimes I didn't mean it, but I never– not since before I was a vampire, but I mean it now. All these fucking years, Michael."
Michael laughs, more air than sound, barely aware of himself. He puzzles through this spill of words and feels as if he has been set on fire. "David," he murmurs.
He likes the name in his mouth. He likes the way David smiles when he says it, a smile Michael has never seen before. Bright, and bashful, and happy. He likes David.
"It's not funny," David whispers, but he's smiling too, he's smiling so wide. "I thought it was going to destroy me, Michael. Do you understand?" He swallows, serious. "It terrified me to hell."
Michael cups David's face and wipes that stupid, adorable streak of blood off his chin with his thumb and pretends not to notice that David's eyes are watery.
David doesn't do him the same courtesy. "You look like you're going to fucking cry."
Michael laughs and slaps David's shoulder gently. He's weak, boneless with the warmth in his chest; it's a star, a fucking supernova, and he doesn't think he could stand if he wanted to. He doesn't, though. David's here, the shape of him pressed against Michael's body, and even David's sharp, bony elbow in his side can't make him want to move.
"Shut up." He wipes his eyes. "I– what happened the other night?"
"I didn't. I couldn't say it." David's cheeks are pink. God, David's cheeks are pink, and he looks so sweet.
The moonlight is white, and the pebbles around them are the dark, shining gray of wet rock; it can't possibly be the lighting. "You're blushing," Michael declares, feeling young and not minding, not really.
David's flush gets deeper, but his smile fades a little. "I just fed, so I have… more blood."
"Oh." Michael's heart hurts. He feels guilty again, and he remembers David's expression when he asked David whether he would kill someone, every night. "Well, it makes us even."
David looks pleased, his smile returning. "Oh, I wouldn't say that." His eyes flick down to Michael's chest, and he runs a hand down it.
Michael's breath catches, his heart pounding, David grinning down at him, flicking open Michael's jacket. Oh, God. David will be the death of him, David and that filthy smile.
"I can hear your heartbeat you know," David says conversationally, his hand tracing paths of fire. "So…"
Michael makes a noise and catches David's hand. "Come on, tell me about it. How long have you been secretly in love with me?" He tries for teasing; he fails.
He's sure he's bright red to match David, and with a shaky voice besides, but he's still getting used to the idea. The words feel strange and foreign on his tongue. In love with me. David, in love with him. To think that the night of the fire, David was in love with him and he had no idea. In retrospect, David had seemed genuine that night, if completely cold on previous nights.
David kicks his feet out and grins. "Fishing for compliments? When you fall in love, try to pinpoint exactly when you go over the edge. Harder than it sounds." He doesn't exactly nail causal either, his voice hesitating over the words fall in love and ruining his teasing effect.
They are both trying to have a normal conversation and accidentally setting them both alight. The words give Michael's heart wings; they flutter in his chest until his heart goes flying.
"I'm just wondering," Michael insists, although of course, it's more than that. To know what he got wrong, to know what was right there in his blind spots– perhaps a reassurance. It is hard to think of David loving him even now, even knowing that he does, when the only things that support it are three days and a half.
Perhaps David can tell; he's always watching Michael, and sometimes Michael gets the feeling David has begun to learn him like a language, the kind of thought that makes him immediately stop thinking. There's sweetly romantic and there's downright foolish.
Whatever his reason, David's expression settles into something more serious and thoughtful. "I don't… tell me something about you first." He looks faintly embarrassed, his eyes once more in his pale hands, clasped in his lap.
Michael wonders again about the hotel, and whether David will ever go back to get his gloves and other things, or if they will forever be left, a cavernous time-capsule.
"I think about you a lot," he offers. David stares at him until he flushes. "Obviously, but. I… when you would meet me by the tree, it was my favorite part of the day. When you came to my window, it was ridiculous."
David tips his head, his eyebrows rising. "Why?"
Michael shakes his head. "You're going to kill me."
"Come on, Michael," David coaxes. "What was ridiculous? Don't tell me my drunk flirting worked."
Michael's cheeks burn. David's so close, his smiling lips and his thin hands. He has thin, small hands, almost spindly, and they run through Michael's hair.
"It did," he tries to say with dignity, but David is already laughing. "Fuck you, David. It was terrible because I thought, you know. I thought you hated me. I wanted you to mean it so bad." His voice catches.
David's laughter softens, though he's still smiling. "I may not have been friendly," he admits, "But I wasn't that hostile, was I?" He frowns, then. "Was I?"
"David." Michael can't even. "You were cold as ice. Always at least five feet away. Never let me say your name."
David's cheeks flush again. Michael could live off of the tangible satisfaction of making David flush. David taps his temple. "Why do you think that is, Michael? Use your brain."
...Oh.
"You…" Michael realizes. It's an inexplicable relief. "It was me."
"Bingo," David murmurs, and they both laugh. Michael is so glad he told David what happened in their bedroom, or they never would have kissed in the first place.
Michael wonders if David can hear it pattering against his chest now that David is leaning back and Michael is a good foot away from him. He wants to bridge the distance; his body calls for David's lean lines and cool skin.
David licks his bottom lip almost absently, as if wondering if there might be blood, and want spills in Michael like newspaper catching. He can't possibly imagine a better thing to do with their mouths than kissing except for this: figuring out, once and for all, how much of their history he has completely misread.
He kisses the corner of David's mouth, and then kisses David for real. David pulls him close, pressing their bodies together, his cool skin against Michael's flush and his cold mouth opening eagerly. His eyelashes and stubble brush against Michael's skin. He still tastes sugary sweet and bloody at once. It feels like a first kiss all over again– the first time he's absolutely sure what it means.
"You just let me believe all you wanted was sex."
"I don't know why you jumped to conclusions."
Michael raises his eyebrows. "Because you let me believe them."
"I said what changed was that you wanted me back. That's as clear as it gets, Michael."
Michael snorts, and then they're laughing. "It's really, really not. You know exactly what it sounded like."
David just leans into him, pressing Michael against the hard, irregular rocks. Michael finds he doesn't mind so much. "Who could blame me? You've got the looks of a Greek god."
Warmth in Michael's heart trickles down to pool in his lower stomach. He hadn't considered that part yet; David… thinking of him like that. David laughs at his interest.
"And you look seventeen," Michael tells him. "It's your face."
David turns his head on Michael's chest and raises his eyebrows. "What about my face? It's only a one year difference."
The cool night feels warm, so warm. He pushes off his jacket, and David makes a noise of protest, but quickly sits up when he realizes the disturbance means Michael's jacket is coming off. He lays it behind himself to cushion his back.
"You don't look sweet, but your face does."
David gives him a skeptical look.
"You look like a virgin," Michael says bluntly.
David grins and kisses Michael, open-mouthed and filthy. "Looks can be deceiving. You look like you could be a fucking One Percenter but you're very tame."
"Very tame?"
There is more kissing after that, and a little bit of rolling. David concedes that Michael is not always tame, and with a little sideways glance, his eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks, he admits he likes it that way.
"I'm glad you came," David says, smiling a cat's smile, stretching. The sun will come up soon, and Michael may have slept well into the afternoon before visiting the Frogs', but he yawns. His sleep schedule, by now, is completely fucked. "I would have bet my life savings I'd scared you off for good."
"Do you have life savings?"
David tips his head, rolling his neck– presumably stretching, but likely for Michael's benefit. "In the hotel."
It's a conversational dead end; David never speaks of the other Lost Boys, a look that breaks Michael's heart flashing over his face every time they're mentioned.
Michael moves gently away from it. "I missed you. My brother wanted to meet my secret boyfriend, which I told him I didn't have. Mom was sure I broke it off with Star and set the fire because I got pissed, and I think Star got tired of my vampire questions. She wouldn't even let me in."
David seems to fold in, his knees coming up and his arms drawing to his chest. "Right, your girlfriend."
And Michael remembers David saying something similar at the gate, when Michael sent him off. Hi, Star, your boyfriend sent me. This time, he does say it: "She's not my girlfriend."
David's shoulders are still stiff, his eyes following the water in and out and in and out. There is quiet for a moment. "You know, I never told you much about the boys."
"Yeah?" Michael sits up. He wants to know everything, absolutely everything about David. Guilt floods him, pulling him under, but he tries to let it settle, tries to swallow it. The Lost Boys were a big part of David, and he's speaking of them now. "I didn't think you wanted to talk about them."
David spoke carefully, almost flatly. His fingers tapped on his knee as he watched the sea move. "Marko loved Paul. He really did. And they were the worst." He smiles sadly. "Truly terrible. The hotel is surrounded by rock, Michael. It echoes. But sometimes they wanted to have…" He turns to Michael and pronounces the words in a way that sends a warm shiver down Michael's spine. "More fun."
Whatever Michael was expecting– their killing habits? Their party habits? Who rode the fastest and who didn't like racing at all?– but it wasn't their sex lives.
David's eyes flick down, over Michael. "So Paul invited me." He grins, and blinks, letting his yellow eyes come out. Blinks again, and they're gone. The expression on his face is so purely wanting. He shifts moods like a chameleon.
Michael, warmth building unbearably in his stomach, catches David's chin in one hand and kisses him, turning them both in one movement so that David slides onto his lap, tangling them. David makes a soft hiss as his knee hits a rock, but he doesn't stop kissing Michael for more than a breath. He kisses back like he's trying to drink Michael in without ever piercing his skin.
"David," he groans, his breath coming short. David's body is moving, and it isn't helping. "Whatever you're trying to say, just say it."
David's eyes are blue again, fire and ice at once. He kisses Michael's neck, and Michael is unsure whether it's because he wants to or because he doesn't want Michael to see his face.
"Don't bite," Michael jokes.
"No promises." He can feel David grin against his skin; he can feel David's cool breath and cold mouth. "I'm saying I don't mind being second choice. But with this–" His hand, down, down. "Don't you dare keep me off the ticket."
Michael's blood freezes, his gut black. Michael pushes David back, ignoring David's sound of protest. He makes sure to look David in the eye. "David," he says clearly, "You are not my second choice."
David looks back at him. His eyes are too warm and too soft to be ice. "Well."
Michael traces the shape of David's lips with his thumb. He cannot keep his hands off, and he doesn't want to try. "I think we're Paul and Marko."
David raises his eyebrows. "And Star is our David?"
Snickering, Michael says, "We don't need a David." But apprehension flutters in him, growing cold. David is a people person. He had Dwayne, Paul, and Marko for a long time, he thinks. If he's right. And he had Star, too, for however long. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he has no one but Michael. How can Michael possibly fill that void on his own? How can Michael possibly be enough?
Perhaps he isn't. David loved his Lost Boys. That's what Star said. Plural. He loved them all– and maybe not the way he loves Michael now, or maybe he did– but whatever the case, he had more, before.
Perhaps he wants more now.
David's laugh is bright. "Everyone needs a David. David is always needed."
Michael breathes deeply, in, out. "I love you too." It's such an easy thing to say, now that David has gone first. "If you couldn't tell."
He is saying it because it is true. He means it. Of course he means it. But perhaps he is also saying it for David. To spread himself out and root himself in David, to try to fill as much of the hole in David's heart as he can. Is it enough?
But of he is mostly saying it because he means it.
Isn't he?
This is silence.
David pushes himself up off of Michael, and the rocks dig into Michael's back. He studies Michael. Watching. Always watching.
"You're not kidding," he says finally.
"No," Michael says. He likes the words, so he says them again. "I love you. And I don't want to share you. I mean it. I don't want a David."
David raises his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
Something turns in Michael's stomach, upsetting the unease that has settled there and sending it up again. "What, do you want a David?"
"No, I meant whether you were sure you loved me." David still isn't hitting casual. "I was joking. You sound very sure."
But Michael says it again, just in case. "I am very sure."
"Good. If you were joking, I think I'd kill you." David smiles sharply, but his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright. The sound of the waves can't drown out his wonder.
"Shouldn't I be the one afraid of you?" Michael draws David down to his mouth. The waves can't drown out the wonder in his voice, either. They are a wonder, the two of them together.
Just them, just the two of them.
David grins, his fangs out, his eyes yellow, just for a flash. "Yes. So what about our David, then?"
"Star–" Michael says awkwardly. He doesn't want Star. "We were just lonely. We said we'd call it off if one of us found someone."
"Hmmm."
He has to ask. It is eating him inside out. "Look, do you want a David or not? Because I found you, and I don't want anybody else."
David looks up at him through tired eyes. The sun is coming up, but they'll be safe under the cliff. His cat's smile is back. "I don't want anyone else either."
Michael swallows. "Right."
He believes David.
Doesn't he?
