*flops*

Hey everyone! I know, I know, look at that "last updated" date...it's shameful. I had a very difficult time writing this. Actually, I wrote about three different chapters for chapter 29, and ended up getting rid of each of them. Three scrapped chapters and many edits later, this was finally produced. *flops again*

To anyone who's stuck around this long - you all rock. ;) I wish I could give you more than virtual cookies (or brownies, or cake - whatever floats your boat) because I don't know if I'd still have the motivation to write this if I didn't have anyone supporting me.

Reviews (anon or not anon) are love (and loved), as always. I don't ever check my story stats, so reviews are more effective than hits. *hint hint* ;)

Anyways, forgive me for the horrible wait. I hope this extra-long chapter makes up for my absence maybe kind of a little bit?

"Okay, so Meatballs, right? This porn star dies but she finds out she screwed too many guys or something, so she can't get into the afterlife unless she helps this real awkward guy get laid—oh, hey, Max—and it's all about her trying to do one last good deed. You feel?" Paul pitched the movie like a businessman pitched a sales idea, complete with animated gestures and long strides back and forth across the living room. Marko watched in mild amusement from the comfortable corner he'd selected on their couch.

Paul was itching like nothing else to go out to see a movie—one movie in particular—and didn't even glance twice when Max came home and stopped at the conjunction between the foyer and the living room to observe silently. Marko tried to not pay him any mind, either, but it wasn't an easy feat.

"This is Meatballs…III?"

"Uh-huh. It has Patrick Dempsey in it. Max, you should come too!"

Marko begrudgingly looked to Max when Paul did, but only briefly enough to notice that Max was smiling that too-nice-to-be-genuine smile of his. "No, I have other obligations to take care of tonight. Another time, Paul." Thank God. "If you two are planning to go, however, I'd like to speak with Marko before you leave, if that's all right with you."

Charming as always… Marko didn't roll his eyes, but his expression was the equivalent of it. As if Paul has any say in what I do or whether you can talk to me. "Fine," he said, briskly standing up. "As long as it's brief."

Max nodded. "Paul, if you would…"

"Yeah, sure." The tall vampire shrugged and left the room—then left the house, to give them the same level of privacy any humans would want if they were about to have a conversation.

Marko stayed standing, looking at Max expectantly. Waiting.

"Join me in my office, please."

Sam was on cloud nine after his and David's little activity. He'd been so out of it that David had carried him to the bed, where Sam then lay immobile for a while. He came in and out of his daze, smiling to himself whenever he thought of what they'd just done. "It feels so good I could die," he said, followed by a light laugh. "Why does it still feel like this?" He felt abnormally happy, like little happiness cells had been planted in his body and were endlessly multiplying. "David?"

He rolled onto his side and was met with the sight of David sitting on the end of the bed, his back to Sam. It looked like he was doing something with his hands, but in Sam's current state, he couldn't be too sure of anything.

David looked over his shoulder and gave Sam a small smirk. "How do you feel?"

"Goood." Sam chuckled at nothing in particular. "Can we do it again?"

David laughed and stood up, shaking his head. "I'm full. You'll have to ask someone else."

Sam grumbled his complaint and rolled onto his side to watch David walk around the bed. "Where are you going?" he asked curiously.

"Nowhere," came David's response. He was putting gloves on his hands as he walked. "Nowhere without you, I mean. Unless you just want to stay here."

"Where?" But he was already getting up and hunting for his shirt. He thought he might feel dizzy but…he actually felt really good. Not like he could do anything especially amazing, but he felt buzzed. Ah, there it was. The shirt was discarded on the floor from…before.

David hummed and, when Sam turned around to face him, asked, "Do you like Chinese food?"

"Yeah, I guess. I mean…no. I've never had it before. But—"

A mischievous smile lit up David's face. "I love Chinese food," he dragged out.

"I thought you were full!" Sam yelled in disbelief as he buttoned his shirt up.

"I always have room for human food, though."

Sam snorted but smiled. Finally…something he could relate to.

The forest was beautiful at night. Wind blew in-between pine needles and moonlight poked its way through gaps in the trees. It smelled cool and clean, and the frozen ground was quiet under their footsteps.

Dwayne paused in just the right spot, so that moonlight shined off his tanned skin, dark hair and white teeth in the most mesmerizing way. Michael stopped short so that he could take it all in.

"I like coming here in the winter," Dwayne said, doing a 360-degree turn and looking up at the treetops. The feathers in his earrings gleamed silver. "It's gorgeous, and there are hardly ever any humans."

Michael inhaled deeply when the wind blew just right again. He poked his fingertips against the sharp ends of pine needles. "So you don't, uh…hunt here?" When he looked at Dwayne again, the Native American was grinning.

"Of course I do. It's perfect for that. Very…discreet."

"But the ground's pretty hard. Isn't it a pain to bury bodies?" Michael asked with only mild derision.

"We don't kill people, remember?" Dwayne slowly approached a dying tree that was missing most of its needles.

"Oh yeah, that's right… You're good vampires." Michael fought the urge to roll his eyes.

Dwayne laughed at that. "No… We don't kill people because it would be impossible to keep our cover otherwise. It's getting harder and harder to get away with murder. Humans are too efficient at catching criminals these days. I'm sure it was much more fun to be a vampire a long, long time ago."

"Killing is fun?" Michael scoffed.

Dwayne reached up for a thick branch on the dead tree and pulled. He effortlessly scaled the tree, seemingly gliding up it with a brilliant smile on his face. Michael didn't realize he was staring until Dwayne looked down at him from the top and inquired, "Aren't you going to join me?"

"Um…" He examined the branches. Some were thick, but most looked…unreliable. How had Dwayne not broken them with his weight? "Okay." Why not?

He certainly wasn't the graceful climber that Dwayne was. He almost fell twice, and halfway to the top he heard a branch protesting underneath his body. It didn't break, but only because he pulled himself up onto the next branch quickly enough that bark dug into his palms uncomfortably. The pain was only fleeting, though; he paused so that he could watch the scratches heal right before his eyes.

Dwayne waited patiently, looking further out into the forest and then up at the sky, until Michael joined him. Michael sighed. "So what are we doing up here, exactly?"

Dwayne lowered his gaze to Michael's. "You haven't learned to fly yet."

Uh... "You know, to be honest, I'm okay with that."

Dwayne grinned. "Afraid of heights? Don't worry—flight runs in Max's bloodline. We're all naturals."

Michael wasn't afraid of heights. Being up here wasn't a problem to him. What he might have a problem with, however, was jumping from said heights and free-falling through the air. "How'd you all learn?" he asked anyways. He was curious.

Dwayne looked thoughtful. "Well, David and Star woke up floating in the air within a few days after being turned. That was their introduction. It took me a few weeks, but I was able to eventually fly at will. I wanted to get onto the roof so my body instinctively did that for me. Paul had difficulty concentrating on it, so David pushed him out of a window. His flight kicked in almost immediately."

"He pushed him out of a window?" Michael chuckled, able to picture it clearly. He shook his head, and when he locked eyes with Dwayne again, the raven-haired vampire was looking at him intently. "What?"

There was movement too fast for Michael's new vampire mind to process in time, and he was falling backwards. His breath caught in his throat and his arms flailed. He couldn't do anything other than instinctively reach for something to grab onto, completely overwhelmed with the feeling of falling. Dwayne's figure became smaller and smaller until Michael's back hit the cold ground with a thud. Air vacated his lungs and left him breathless for a moment. At last, he sucked in a breath again.

"Motherfucker!"

Dwayne was looming over him a second later, offering him a hand. "I apologize… I don't know why that didn't work."

Michael glowered at him but accepted his help. "My back," he complained as he stood up. Dwayne rubbed his shoulders comfortingly, still gripping his hand.

"I swear, Michael—that was supposed to work."

"Yeah, well…" Michael rolled his shoulders. "Maybe I'm not a flyer."

Dwayne frowned and released his hand. "Maybe not."

"Hey, do you hear that?" His ears suddenly picked up on faint voices being carried through the air. His body stiffened, attentive.

Dwayne let the flight failure go and grinned slyly. "Should we say hello?"

"This chicken is weird." Sam held his fork up so he could examine the half-eaten piece of orange chicken. "But I like it." He smiled widely to himself and put the rest of it in his mouth.

"Yeah? What did I tell you?" David smirked as he tore a straw wrapper into tiny little pieces.

"'How could a billion Chinese people be wrong?'" Sam quoted. It's what David had said on the way to this restaurant.

David glanced out the window positioned along their booth and smiled to himself.

Sam quickly swallowed so he could ask "What?" and then promptly shoved more food into his mouth.

"Nothing. Just Paul."

"Oh my gahhd! David! Sam!" Paul exclaimed a moment later as he came up behind Sam, who smiled around his fork. "Oh my God, it's been so long. How's the fam?"

"Good, good," David answered, playing along.

"Do you still have Dwayne? He's so cute."

"Yes, we still have him."

Sam almost choked around his food suppressing his laughter. Paul slid into the seat next to him, and Sam then noticed that Paul brought Marko with him.

"We were just going to the theatre," Paul said. "And I saw you through the window and I had to come in. We're going to see the third Meatballs movie. You should come with us."

David raised an eyebrow. "To Meatballs?"

"Yeah!" Paul pressed. "It'll be fun. We'll have to sneak Sam in, but." He shrugged.

"Oooh." Sam's eyes lit up. "It's rated R?" He'd never been to one of those movies… He could only see so much when he was watching cable TV.

David scoffed at Paul's comment. "Like we don't have experience with that."

Almost an hour later, they were all camped out in the back of the theatre. They would have arrived much earlier, but Marko preferred to walk (as opposed to hitching a ride on Paul's back so they could all fly to the movie theatre). Sam didn't mind at all, though. The walk was full of chatter (mostly Paul) and laughter (at Paul); not a single moment of silence or boredom befell them.

"Do you sneak into places a lot or something?" Sam asked once they were seated with their popcorn and sodas. "Because that was really smooth." He looked to his left, where David and Paul were sitting. Marko was on Sam's right.

"We're practically professionals, Sammy," Paul replied with a grin. "We're at the ninja level when it comes to evading laws."

"It's awkward if someone's criminal record spans across many decades and their mug shot looks the same," David added. "We have to be good at getting away with things."

"You could always say you use a really good moisturizer, though," Paul pointed out. David rolled his eyes. "Hey, Marko had to use that once. Don't judge."

Sam looked to Marko for confirmation. "Really?"

Marko hadn't been participating in any of their conversations so far, so Sam's question seemed to pull him further into their little group. "I lived in the same place for too long. Some people began to notice."

Sam turned so that he was half-facing Marko, suddenly very intrigued by the concept of having to live as an immortal around millions of people who never stop aging. The lights dimmed, signaling that the trailers were going to start playing, so he lowered his voice. "So you're like, over seven hundred years old, right? Do you just…move a lot so people don't notice that you don't age?"

Marko looked thoughtful. "It isn't about uprooting, it's about not leaving an easy trail. I refrain from making human friends, and if I live in one area for a while, I'll take a trip somewhere else for many decades before I return. That way, anyone who knew me is dead or well-aged and won't recognize who I am."

"Wow." Sam blinked. "That sounds…" Lonely. "Does that actually work? What if there's a picture of you that someone can look back on?"

A small smile played at Marko's lips. "So far that hasn't been an issue."

"Oh man. You're so old." Sam just couldn't wrap his head around so many years. He wasn't even paying attention to the movie screen—he was suddenly enthralled with Marko and all the stories he must have. It was almost like meeting a different creature. Surely there were so many differences between Sam's perception of the world and Marko's, and he had so many questions. What he'd just said finally hit him, though, and he blushed in embarrassment. "I mean—sorry. I didn't mean it like that. It's just…"

"I get it, Sam. Seven hundred and fifty-eight is a lot compared to fifteen. You're practically a baby." Marko actually smiled at him. "But I'm not that old, so watch yourself."

Sam blinked, and then slowly grinned. "I wanna know so many things." His curiosity was sky high. Next to Marko, Sam felt like a very young, very ignorant little human and he was prepared to be educated.

Marko looked forward at the movie again. It was a good thing this particular showing was nearly empty; otherwise, he and Sam would likely be getting shushed by now. "Well, your timing's great, actually. Max wants me to 'homeschool' you. He just dropped the idea on me before we came here."

Sam's eyes widened in intrigue. "Seriously?" he squeaked. "Would you do that?"

Marko looked genuinely surprised for a brief moment. "Would you want that?"

"Hell yeah!" He paused and lowered his voice, in case Paul and David were actually trying to watch the movie. His back was turned to them, so he wasn't sure. "I mean, I do have to do some kind of school stuff. Isn't it a law or something? And I've kind of always been homeschooled so it'll feel normal, you know?" A part of him had been hoping that he'd get to go to school like a normal kid, but that was also the part of him that had been homeschooled by his father and hated every moment of it. This wouldn't be like that. He just knew it.

Marko didn't say anything in response to that, so Sam offered him some popcorn with a smile. Marko shook his head in a polite decline, and Sam was tempted to shove the popcorn in his lap anyway, but he didn't want to push his luck. He liked when Marko was nice to him, so he just smiled at the vampire warmly and munched away at his food.

Blood tasted like its own sweet heaven—so good that it was horrible, really. Horrible because it shouldn't smell and taste like that, and Michael had his morals. But he'd been denying himself from it for a week, since the day he was turned, and he'd gotten his first fix of human blood with Dwayne during the night of Max's party. He'd thought the place was just a club, but it turned out to be more than that…

His body filled with arousal just remembering it. Not a kill like Max wanted—just blood. Dwayne had covered for him afterwards, just like he was covering for them again right now. Michael shuddered, willing his body and mind to not react like this to something that should repulse him. He wiped his mouth again for the nth time out of paranoia that he had blood on his face somewhere, or maybe in his teeth.

He looked over at the two humans—a middle-aged couple who had decided to go for a walk. At this time of night, Michael didn't know why… That kind of thing was dangerous, with people like him around. The couple was fine, though—just in a daze and staring into Dwayne's eyes as he smooth-talked away the memories of him and Michael's taste test.

It was amazing how well a vampire could cover its tracks. A pinprick of a vampire's own blood on a bite wound and it would close. A little bit of training on manipulation and the human wouldn't even remember anything.

It certainly explained how so many vampires could live in one area without some interesting newspaper headlines.

As they walked away from the dazed couple, likely to never run into them again, Michael chuckled despite himself and Dwayne watched him curiously. "What is it?"

Michael shook his head and his pace slowed. "It's just…a few days ago I told myself that I would never be like you, not really. Then there was that woman…" The woman who'd been another vampire's human, who'd practically begged him to bite her, who'd tasted delicious but whose blood Michael only drank half a mouthful of. He'd been terrified of drinking anything more. The fear of not being able to stop allowed him to stop. Dwayne had thought that was remarkable. "And then after that, I said 'never again,' and now this." Except this time there'd been intent; Michael agreed to approach these people while knowing very well what would happen. "And I don't feel…bad about it." There was still a large part of his brain that kept nagging that it was wrong to like the taste of blood in his mouth, but another part was growing in strength—a part that said, what's so wrong about it if the humans don't get hurt? "Is that how it starts? Today I'm just…feeding, or whatever…but tomorrow I'm killing?" He looked to Dwayne for the answer.

Dwayne stopped in his tracks and turned ninety degrees to face Michael, who paused as well. "No, Michael," he said, moving to firmly rest a hand on Michael's shoulder. Michael's blood sang underneath the touch. "Max wanted me to push you along, to get you to feed. He wanted you to have your first kill. Now you've fed, but I won't coerce you into killing. None of us will. Max may eventually be able to make you do it, but as far as I'm concerned, you're already one of us. I'll help you keep your hands clean, if that's what you want."

Dwayne spoke seriously, and Michael trusted his words. There was an unspoken for now that hung between them, though, and Michael knew that; he would have to be naïve to think that he could keep this up forever. But Dwayne wasn't promising that Michael would be able to avoid something that may be unavoidable; he was promising to help. And for that, Michael was grateful. "Thank you," he said, meeting Dwayne's steady brown eyes.

"Let's find our brothers," Dwayne suggested, removing his hand. "Maybe David has a few methods up his sleeve to get you flying."

Michael groaned.

"You've stopped shielding yourself from me," Max began, smiling, comfortably reclined in his chair. "This is a good sign. I feel more comfortable when I know what's going on in that complex mind of yours." He made a tapping gesture to his temple. "I enjoy reading your thoughts, Marko. I don't know why you'd cover them to begin with."

A moment of silence passed. A stone fireplace crackled and a grandfather clock ticked. The room was dimly lit; the subtle flames of the fire cast a glow across Marko's pale face. "I'm glad you listen to them." There was an edge to his voice. Always an edge. "After all, you hardly listen to me."

Max tilted his head to the side. "Come, now, Marko. I value your opinion. What's on your mind?"

"What's on yours?" he asked sharply. Max was the one who'd called him in here.

Max always did this—pretended that he, Santa Carla's Head Vampire, was Marko's old friend. They weren't friends. They'd never been friends, because Marko didn't trust him, for good reason.

"That's hardly fair." Max frowned, of course reading Marko's thoughts. Damn him. If Marko's headaches weren't getting so unbearable, he wouldn't have let Max into his mind at all. "If you must know, I consider you to be my friend, Marko. Well, since you asked…I called you in here to talk about Sam."

"If you want to talk about his mother and what I told him, I'm not interested in a discussion."

"Actually, I wanted to talk about Sam's education, and his well-being. I admit I was upset that you told him about Lucy, but I suppose he has the right to know so that he may grieve properly. What's done is done. I forgive your slight indiscretion."

Marko bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep any spiteful comments to himself. "What about Sam."

"Oh, I worry for his safety, naturally, with all the vampires living in the city… He's very young and thus naïve, I'm afraid. Even if he traveled alone into the city only during the day…well, you and I both know that humans are capable of as much cruelty as any of our kind."

Max was admitting that he didn't have as much control over the vampires in Santa Carla as he pretended, Marko thought. "You want me to watch out for him."

"Protect him from harm but teach him about the dangers. You're more capable of this than any of my boys are. It will also do him well to be educated, and you're the most qualified for that as well." Marko didn't respond immediately, so Max sighed and leaned forward slightly. "I understand you're apprehensive to follow orders from anyone other than your creator. It must feel so wrong, and you've suffered great tragedy. I'm not trying to control you, Marko. I want you on my side."

Marko carefully kept his thoughts as still as he could. It took great effort, because he had some words in response to that, but he managed. "If that's how it's going to be," he said finally, and Max was already visibly relaxing. "Fine."

What Max failed to see was the double meaning, the single thought that Marko didn't allow himself to openly think until long after he left Max's office.

If that's how it's going to be…all the lies and the roleplaying, pretending to be the reasonable Head Vampire that wanted to form an alliance with Marko, Ashland's new but currently-vacationing Head Vampire, for the sake of maintaining order for the common good. If that's how it was going to be…then Marko had no choice.

Max had to go.