DAVID
Michael has to go home before Lucy sends out a search party, but he promises to come back.
"Don't bother," David tells him, "I'll be asleep." He wraps himself in Michael's old leather jacket before he drifts off. It doesn't smell like Michael does anymore, but that's okay. David himself smells a little bit like Michael.
"When will I ever sleep?" Michael mutters to himself, but when Michael comes back at four in the afternoon, that question is answered.
In the day, of course.
"Not very sustainable," Michael murmurs, pushing his face into David's neck tiredly. "Not going to work in the long run."
Something in David's chest flutters. Michael's thinking about this as something that will last. Something that he wants to last.
David wants it to last, too.
So much.
So much.
They will, won't they? David doesn't have anybody else, though Star has opened her door to him. He may have to take her up on it; his back aches after so many days sleeping on the rocks.
"We'll figure something out," David assures him. "Don't college students study all day and party all night? If they can work three hours of sleep, so can we."
"I don't know." Michael yawns. "I haven't gone to college."
David yawns too– four in the afternoon is far too early for him to wake up. For Michael, he may make sacrifices, but it doesn't stifle the drowsiness that sweeps through him. The sunlight doesn't reach them, but the outside is bright.
"Neither have I." David runs his fingers through Michael's hair. It's so soft and thick, and Michael tilts his head like a dog asking to be scratched. "Take me with you when you go."
"Yeah," Michael agrees mindlessly. And then he sits up and looks at David. His tiredness is gone, and with it goes David's. Why is Michael looking at him like that? "Are you joking, or…?"
"I… I'd like to be where you are." David wasn't thinking too hard when he said it. It doesn't mean he didn't mean it, but it's a lot more complicated than take me and okay. And it's true; he wants to be where Michael is. But he doesn't want to leave, either.
So much more complicated. Not only about the technicalities, but because it's– Well. Him and Michael– they haven't promised anything to each other, not really. Have they? They've only established that they…
Hell, fuck, they love each other.
But still, no promises.
It was just a reckless thing to say.
David has begun to learn Michael, in and out, a language. But He doesn't miss the way Michael still studies him as if he's a mystery. And he doesn't really know how to open the window to his heart and let Michael see inside.
He tries. He does. He'll try right now. "You know, this boardwalk reminds me so much of the boys."
Michael's face softens whenever David mentions the Lost Boys, and he looks sad. He may not enjoy Michael's sadness, but there's a drop of satisfaction anyway, at knowing Michael mourns their losses on some level.
David looks to the sea.
Michael offered to help him find somewhere else, and although sneaking him into the Emerson household and living in secret doesn't sound appealing, and neither does taking Laddie's spare room in Star's apartment, the sea is getting to be a boring sight. He can't own a place of his own as a vampire.
"It's painful to… hunt."
Michael's breath sharpens next to him. It's the silence when Michael's about to burst out with something. His last outburst was the spark that set them both on fire. David just waits for it.
"Why did you end up blood-deprived anyway?" Michael's voice is concerned. And a little bit guilty. "You should know– I haven't made it clear, but I… the way I felt about your hunting. I've never thought about any kind of killing being alright unless it's the bad guys. But I understand that you have to kill to feed."
David makes a noise. "We were the bad guys, then."
"I didn't want to be a vampire. We called the only people we knew who could help." Michael sounds urgent. "I didn't want them to kill all of you. You know that? But I'm sorry."
"You should be." David rests his chin on his knees and swallows down his memories of the Lost Boys.
Perhaps the boys would never forgive him for falling in love with Michael Emerson.
But perhaps Paul and Marko would. They were always more playful and forgiving. And Dwayne was a good judge of character; he'd give David and Michael hell, and when hell was over, he'd welcome Michael so seamlessly you wouldn't be able to tell Michael had ever not been there.
Perhaps.
Eventually, David concedes lowly, "I understand you, Michael. And I don't enjoy killing anymore." He pulls Michael closer. "That night wasn't your fault, for the most part."
Michael huffs against David's neck and presses his warm lips there. "I thought maybe you'd quit for me. Like I guilt-tripped you."
"You can't guilt-trip me." David laughs softly and feels Michael smile. "I'm not that gullible."
Michael grasps David's hands and sits up. He likes to look David in the eye when he says important things, Michael does. David likes to look away; it's easier. But Michael is brave with the little things, and if David isn't exactly brave he can be daring. Michael loves him, and last night, David confessed his love first, looking Michael right in the eyes. He likes to think it felt more magical that way.
Michael seems to like David's hands; he kisses them almost absently, toying with his fingers. David thinks he might one day build a tolerance, but right now, the gentle path of Michael's thumb over his knuckles is still a trail of fire. "Do you want to tell me what happened that night?"
Right now, Michael is so utterly human. He has never done and felt the bloody things that David has. He can see the shining wet rocks under his boots when he drops his head and the shape of Michael in the corner of his eye. He closes his eyes.
"I hate losing control," he begins. "I hurt people, I kill people…"
Michael takes a quiet breath beside him, and David can hear it even over the lapping of the low-tide waves. Vampire senses are a blessing and a curse.
Michael seems to sense that this is a difficult thing for David, and yet something he wants to talk about, because he simply waits. Michael is such an impatient person, David thinks, but he is waiting now, for David to be ready.
David laughs ruefully, but it comes out almost breathless. "I hadn't lost control in a very long time," he confesses. He can hear the soft scrape of rocks against each other and feels Michael settle himself in front of David instead of beside him, but he doesn't open his eyes. "And now I've suddenly lost it twice in a month. Funny how that is."
Michael is still holding his hand. He asks, "Why?"
David opens his eyes, keeping them low, locked on where their hands are linked. "Why haven't I lost control in a long time? Or why I lost it twice this month?" Both questions are heavy stones of apprehension sitting in his stomach.
"Both," Michael replies easily, but something must show on David's face, because he amends, "Either. Neither, if you want."
"The first one's easy." Sort of true. Half true. It's an easy answer, but hard to say. "It's… frightening. When you lose control, you can't think. You can't want anything but blood. It's the only thing in your mind, in your heart…" He glances up at Michael, and away.
Michael is watching him with his dark blue eyes, like the deep blue of the sea, concerned and attentive. His eyelashes are a thing beyond human.
"When you cut yourself, I thought– I thought I'd come so close to losing control and killing you. I came to my senses before then, just barely. It was a close thing, Michael. Closer than it looked to you, I'm sure."
"And you loved me then, too."
"God, get over yourself. Go to hell."
Michael just grins sheepishly, his mouth twitching. David kisses it. Michael is so warm, and his new leather jacket is beginning to smell more like him. David will have to orchestrate a trade when it does.
"The second part?" Michael asks.
"That one's harder." David considers. So many different things, so many different feelings that play into why he hadn't been feeding– or is there at all? Maybe it is really very simple.
So he tells Michael about the Lost Boys.
He doesn't tell it so that Michael will believe he is a monster, and he doesn't tell it as if he killed the way he knows Michael wishes he would have– only when he was truly in need of blood; he tells it as it happened.
He tells Michael about the people they would pick out, and how they'd make it fun and loud and wild. He tells Michael about the fights they would pick and the enemies they would make, and how they'd kill them later that night. He tells Michael about how, now and then, they'd choose a gathering of people, a group, and descend on them all like teenage grim reapers, "Only dressed better," he says. Michael listens to all of this. He tells Michael about how they'd place bets and race to the victims and laugh about it until it was over.
"You have to understand that we had to kill." David looks at Michael hard. This is the most important thing he will say. "We were not bad people. I don't believe we were bad people. But when good people– or just, normal people. We were normal people. When normal people have to kill, they feel terrible about it. Michael we– we did.
"But think. You… you're going off to college. And you have to study. You hate studying, right?"
"Of course."
"Right, you're not a monster." David winks, bringing out his fangs just for a second because it always makes Michael smile. "Good for you."
"Thank you."
David works out the allegory. "You hate studying, Michael. Studying is the worst. You have to study to pass, but you hate it. But you don't have a choice. You have to do it. Of course, you're going to find ways to make it fun. You're going to bring friends, and food, and music, and whatever fucking else. You can't control whether you do it, and you'd rather not be miserable."
Michael smiles, then. They're talking about David killing people and having fun, and Michael is smiling. David thinks he may die. "Misery is less desirable."
"So we… we made it fun. We hated ourselves afterward. Felt terrible. Paul and Marko's echoes weren't always sex– although plenty of them were." David grins again, and he's glad to melt the concern off of Michael's face. His chest goes warm, though, at the way Michael squeezes his hands. "But making it fun helped us get through the night. It kept us alive, and… after decades of it, you get used to it. It was fun. In the moment, it was fun. I'm sorry."
Michael's taking this in stride. "Thank you for this," is all he says. He's still watching David, listening.
David tips his head up to nuzzle Michael's neck and is rewarded with warm arms wrapping around him. He should probably be annoyed that Michael treats him so gently, because he isn't weak, not in the least, but it's gratifying to lean into someone and be held.
The Lost Boys didn't really do that with him; he was their leader and a leader is strong. Of course, they all supported each other, but he never had something quite like this. Like Michael, smelling like sunshine and cologne and a new leather jacket, enveloping him completely. Holding him, and pressing a kiss to his forehead, and waiting, patiently, for David to find his words. No one has cared for him, in the material sense of the words, for a long time.
He feels eighteen again.
"You can go to the hotel, by the way." He doesn't say what it means to him. That he's letting Michael into a wound that is still raw. That he is trusting Michael not to rub any salt into it. That he is trusting Michael to see part of him that is broken before he is even ready to fix it.
That the magical thing between them is something he's never let himself give or have with anyone else, and he wants to keep them both just like this. He wants to give all his promises.
He doesn't say any of that, but he lets the words sit there for a moment, leaning into Michael and feeling Michael's chest rise and fall with breath.
Michael's arms tighten; Michael knows exactly what he means.
"I'll get your life savings."
Michael doesn't say it either, but then, he doesn't have to. David can feel him understand.
And so David lets go of trying to hide his broken.
David talks about the Lost Boys being gone.
About how in the past month, he hasn't wanted to kill at all; his kill-drive, as you might call it, falling from excitement to dread. There's no one to make it fun, and now the bright colors they painted over it have washed away. It is black again. It is killing again. It is horrible, and it hurts, and it is lonely and wrong and empty again.
Michael's fingers trace shapes on David's back, his hand under David's jacket but over his shirt. Choose one, David wants to say. Do you take me or do you not?
"You hated me for it."
Micahel's hand stills. "I didn't."
"Please, don't even try." David scowls. "You probably went home and threw up in the toilet."
"He didn't."
David and Michael both turn, so fast that Michael falls backward, and David, in Michael's arms, falls back against Michael's chest.
Michael's chest is satisfyingly firm with muscle, but soft enough, and David feels a slight twinge of pity for Michael, who hits the rocks with a muttered, "Ow."
It's the skinny, curly-haired kid. The brother.
A sort of fear trickles down the back of David's spine.
This is why the future is such a shaky thing to talk about, to reach out and touch. It is only a painting, yet.
No, not even.
Simply an outline, sketched awkwardly in David and Michael's hands. David and Michael haven't even learned how to mesh their styles yet, and Sam and Michael's styles have interwoven for years– and Sam certainly doesn't want David in the picture; they won't both fit in the frame.
And Michael certainly fits his style into Sam's better. They're both eager and familiar and human.
"Sam," Michael groans. "What are you doing here?"
"Mom wanted me to come find you," Sam explains. He looks sheepish, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. He has the worst sense of fashion, as if he's picked up different pieces of clothing right through cheesy television. "I didn't know you were talking to your man."
He isn't glaring at David, yet.
Maybe he doesn't recognize David? Yet.
He isn't screaming or telling David to get away from his brother, yet.
And Michael isn't getting up and leaving.
Yet.
His arms are still around David, hugging him loosely from behind, though he's shifted so that David isn't where he fell– which was, gracelessly, right into Michael's lap.
He's pulling them back, now, awkwardly. David doesn't want to see what Michael looks like. Embarrassed? Ashamed? So he doesn't look.
"Uh," Michael's hands clap together in Michael's lap. His shoulder is still brushing David's. "You know why Mom wants me?"
Sam Emerson just shrugs. "I dunno. Think she's worried about you, Mike." He shrugs a bit like his brother, but he's skinnier and not nearly as handsome.
Michael's hair is darker, his jawline stronger. He's so handsome, and he's so strong, and he's dusting himself off and standing.
And David is watching it happen.
"Why is she worried about me?" Michael stretches and yawns, just to the side of David's frame of vision.
David gets a thin glimpse of Michael's hip before Michael's arms drop back down, just a sliver of skin that makes him feel hot all over. David feels more awake as the day nears its end, and he wants to do certain things right now.
It's not even the nighttime yet, David tells himself, and he should be sleeping. This is Michael's time– daytime– and since Michael spent most of last night with David, David has stolen Michael away from his normal life, at least for a day. Shouldn't that be enough? Isn't Michael allowed to leave him?
But it still feels as if he's second choice.
He looks up to find Michael's brother staring at him, a little bit horrified. "Your secret boyfriend looks like he wants to eat you alive," he informs Michael with a sort of morbid eagerness. "Watch your butt, Mikey."
"Shut up, Sam. Please shut up." Micheal sounds both embarrassed and fond, and David can see the flush down the back of Michael's neck.
He can feel that he isn't much better. He should be much too old for the word boyfriend to do things to him, but he should've expected Michael would break that rule. Of course, he would. David's stomach flips warmly, and he's irrationally pleased that Michael doesn't rush to clarify that they aren't boyfriends… even though they aren't.
Are they?
Michael turns to look at him, a smile on his face that says both sorry about that and were you really? and the warmth in David increases twofold.
"Where's Mom?" Michael asks, turning back to Sam and going to him. Walking over. He passes the point where the cliff above them casts its shadow and squints into the sunlight.
And then he walks into it.
"Help me find her."
David pulls Michael's jacket tighter, drawing his knees to his chest– Michael is so warm, and he feels cold now. He's going to try to sleep, he decides. He's not going to keep thinking about Michael's warm skin and peeking hipbone, and the way he's flushed bright red every time David looks at him after they kiss.
Hell. Kissing Michael is still so new, but David is learning it. David is learning it and studying it just like he is the rest of Michael, trying to commit him all to memory.
Not because he's not sure how long Michael will be there.
No, that's not why.
Sam's walking into the shade, sauntering, almost. He has the worst sort of sweepy coat on, too thin to be warm and too gray to be a statement. Black or bright is the way to go.
"I'm going to give him the brother talk," he tells Michael. David glares at Sam and unfolds himself, trying to look as unfriendly as possible. "Mom doesn't need me."
Michael blinks back, nonplussed. "What? Come with me, Sam."
Sam shakes his head. David bares his teeth at Sam– just his human teeth, that is– and Sam lights up. "I'm staying here. Will you show me your fangs?"
So Sam Emerson has recognized him after all. David just wants to sleep. Michael is leaving and he wants to sleep, so he drops his fangs down and hisses at Sam, letting his eyes and features change with them. His talons scratch against the rocks loudly as he pushes off of them and stands over Sam.
Sam's eyes are wide, but he doesn't back away. "You're a full one, aren't you?"
David almost groans out loud. Sam looks more intrigued than anything, as if he's now certain he can take on any creature of the night and isn't frightened, not even with David before him, fully changed.
"You were a vampire, and now you're dating a vampire." He's grinning at Michael, who's watching them with a flat expression, though his mouth is beginning to turn up. "Goddammit, Michael."
Michael smiles. Oh no.
"Michael, take your brother," David demands, but it's too little, too late. "I'm not suffering through the company of this murderer."
"Hey, look who's talking!" Sam crosses his arms. "You and I are going to have a chat about your boyfriend, you shit-sucker."
If he's trying to be intimidating, it's not working.
Michael picks his way back over the rocks to David, back in the shade, and cups David's face, drawing him into a gentle kiss. It isn't anything past PG, and it's as sweet as can be, but David feels weak in the knees from it all the same.
Michael's kissing David right in front of Sam– he might as well be saying I still choose you. He hopes that's what Michael's saying, he hopes so. He presses back and closes his eyes, savoring the tender way Michael holds his face in his warm hands.
And then Michael's off to leave Sam with David–
Alone.
And certainly, that last thing David wants to do is spend time with Sam Emerson of the horrible fashion taste and Dwayne's death, but he's almost glad of it. Michael isn't afraid of David at all, because for all the things he can do and has done, somehow Michael trusts him all the same.
Michael. David watches him until he's out of sight, over the bluffs.
"If you hurt my brother, I'm staking you."
David looks down at Sam Emerson, who is staring him down with comical intensity, and drops himself down unceremoniously on his ledge of rock. "I'd like that." He grins up at Sam, letting his eyes go yellow and his teeth come back out again, glaring. "It would give me an excuse to kill you."
Sam looks taken aback for a moment, and then he sits down too, criss-cross, elbows on his knees.
"Sorry about the Native guy," he says, the way people do when they have no idea what they're talking about. There are people who pretend to be sympathetic, and there are people who are perfectly frank about not understanding your loss, David learned, when his father died way back when. Sam's the second type.
David doesn't acknowledge the apology, but he says, "Dwayne."
David wonders if all the Emersons are apologizers. The Lost Boys always had caps on their apologies. Only this much remorse was ever expressed, and now, suddenly, David's gotten apologies from two people he openly attacked.
"You won't kill me, will you?" Sam sounds so confident about it. "Michael would hate you if you did. I get protection, right?"
David ignores this and lies back. He can sleep through this– he used to sleep through Marko and Paul yelling and playing with fire and jumping all over the place all the time. David closes his eyes against the sun and tries to sleep, pulling his talons in and letting his human features come back.
Sam sighs somewhere slightly above him and to the left. He's probably still staring.
"You know…"
"Will you shut your mouth, little Emerson?"
"You're wearing Michael's jacket, man." A rock skitters. Sam must be skipping them on the stones. "I knew he gave it to his boyfriend. And I promised him I'd like you."
David wants to turn away from Sam and sleep facing the inside of the cliff, but he's tried that already. "I hope to break your promise, then." Something hits his knee. "Fuck you," David growls, pushing himself up on his arm and snatching a stone off the ground.
He hurls it at Sam and hits Sam's shoulder.
"Ow," Sam yells, clapping a hand over his shoulder. "I didn't hit you that hard, you fucker!"
David doesn't call his talons this time; they just come out, screeching against the rock as he pushes up, leaning close to Sam. This time, Sam backs away. "How hard did you hit Dwayne?"
"I'm sorry, man!" Sam scrambles backward. "Jesus Christ!"
David's fangs have come out too; they prick the inside of his lip, and he tastes blood for a moment, but the wound heals itself in the blink of an eye. "You should be sorrier," David growls.
"Sorrier!" Sam agrees, crossing his fingers in front of him, "Way sorrier, dude!" He reaches the sunlight and stands in it, panting, his eyes wide. David won't hurt him and Michael knows that, but for all his bravado, Sam doesn't seem to.
Sam looks terrified. "Come on, Vampire," he wheedles. "I don't want to make Michael choose. Do you?"
David takes a breath, and another.
Sam looks terrified.
Dwayne would never forgive him if he made friends with this kid. Neither would the other boys. But they're not here to meet Sam. They're not here to grow and change and learn… and if David could reach back in time and show them, remind them how valuable human life is, how valuable humans are, they might become people who could someday forgive him of this.
Couldn't they?
He doesn't want to make Michael choose either. He's not sure who would win, but in the dark, in the very back of his mind, he's almost certain it won't be him.
"Why not?" He makes sure to look down at Sam, but Sam doesn't seem bothered by it. He grins nervously, as if pleased David is talking at all.
"Dude." Sam gives him a look. Are you dumb? "He's really into you."
Is he? What a stupid question. Michael confessed his love. Just thinking about it brings blood up to David's face, though less. He hasn't fed in almost twenty-four hours, and though he won't get hungry for another twenty-four, he won't blush. But he's blushing now.
Fucking Michael.
David grins, fangs out. "It isn't his fault," he croons. "Vampires have–" He snaps his fingers. "–tricks."
Sam frowns, and he backs up more, as if to be absolutely sure he's in the sunlight. He is. "You're not." He looks disturbed. "You wouldn't. You like him, don't you? And that wouldn't be real."
Oddly enough, the surprise on his face is what makes David drop his hand. What is it with Emersons and believing people are better than they are? David wouldn't enthrall Michael, he would never. But it's still overly optimistic to believe he would never ever.
He wouldn't, though.
He's thinking himself in circles.
"I'm not, and I wouldn't," he admits. "And… I do."
"Good." Sam nods to himself. "That's good."
David swallows. He's just standing there now, him and Michael Emerson's brother, who's trying not to hate him for Michael. David could do that too, if he wanted to.
He imagines Dwayne flipping him off and jumping on his bike for a furious ride, the way he would when he got upset. Maybe lighting something on fire. David picked that up from Dwayne; before, he wouldn't go near a fire. Fires burned vampires so quickly. But Dwayne wasn't afraid, and David had to be at least as brave as Dwayne if he wanted to be king under Max. He did want to be king. So he learned to set fires and smoke cigarettes, and Dwayne had burned to death, pinned by an arrow through his heart.
"How much?"
David realizes he's running his fingers behind his ear, where he usually keeps a cigarette, and he drops his hand. "How much what."
"How much do you like him?" Sam is as incessant as Star; they should hang out. Better Star than David. "Like enough to not kill him, right?"
David doesn't even know where to start on that one. No fucking shit he likes Michael enough not to kill him. "Five," he says.
"Five?"
David raises his eyebrows and doesn't say anything.
"Five what? Five out of five? Five out of ten? Five out of a hundred? Five percent chance you'll kill him? Five percent chance you won't kill him?" Sam runs his breath short before he stops. "Number five vampire?"
Sam really could go toe to toe with Star.
"I'm not going to hurt your brother," David swears. "I wouldn't." It's like deja vu but with light hair and scrawnier.
Sam seems to consider this, and make a decision. "David, right?" He seems to take David's silence as agreement. "I heard your whole villain sympathy speech."
David kicks a rock so that it hits Sam's ankle. He feels suddenly off-balance, the presence he likes to cast suddenly threatened, driven into hiding, as if it was only a shirt he wore and Sam has stolen it. "About killing? That speech?"
At least Sam has the grace to look embarrassed. "Yeah, well. I wasn't expecting him to be talking to his secret boyfriend, you know." He sounds earnest, as if this is the sort of thing David would relate to. "It didn't sound like something I was supposed to interrupt."
"Or hear at all."
"Yeah, I guess."
"I should kill you right now," David mutters. "No witnesses."
Sam Emerson laughs. "I'm saying you're not a monster, that's all. I think I understand you guys now!"
What David wouldn't give for the simplistic mind like that. "Not even close, Sam. Are you done with the interview?"
"One more question." Sam grins. "Do you want to be friends?" He seems proud of the line– more than that, he really seems to mean it.
No. David doesn't, not really.
But he thinks about Michael, and making Michael choose. Or even making Michael keep them separate, always careful to make sure they never overlap.
And he thinks about Sam, who, for all his friendliness, is still clearly wary that David will steal his brother away, either by Turning him or killing him, and who is evidently trying to trust where Michael puts his heart.
He thinks of Dwayne, and how aside from Star, Dwayne was the one who took care of Laddie the most. He always seemed good with children, to like them, even though he'd probably sock David for thinking it.
He closes his eyes and apologizes to his boys for Sam and Michael Emerson.
But he chooses to believe that they would have come to forgive David for loving Michael, and Michael himself, and even Sam, if they were still alive. If they had time.
He puts his hands in the pockets of Michael's jacket and he nods.
Sam steps into the shade.
