Prompt: Vampire/Werewolf AU (Taken from 30 Day Dark Fandom / OTP Writing Challenge)

Setting: Essentially Mako Mermaids canon, except instead of mermaids, it's Mako Vampires. Set in the first episode, with Zac's little drop in on the night of the full moon.

Rating: T

Pairings: Cam x Zac

Warnings: Lazy fanfiction is lazy because I'm sick *coughs pointedly*. I've spent my day off wrestling with this bad boy so I hope that despite my flu-wrapped mind it's to your liking.

Contains vaguely-rapey slash in the second half, a disappointing lack of fluff or romance (slash fluff shall be coming some day I swear) as well as a dash of language that may offend the more sensitive in the audience (The f word is used once I believe.) It's also longer than my others, stopping just shy of 4k.

Also, I will be the first to admit that Cam isn't exactly the focus of this ff, it's more balanced out across him, Zac and the girls. He'll forgive me someday, probably.

Recommended Listening: Time Forgotten - Brian Crain

Vampires in Australia

Cradled in the dark of the night sky, the full moon bathed the cavern with its silver light, gently illuminating the three girls gathered there. The cavern itself had a circular opening in the roof, allowing a shaft of light to shine down upon the floor. Worked from a dark stone imbedded with minerals, which shimmered lustrously in the moonlight, the moon cavern was undeniably beautiful, but it was also so much more. It just so happened to be the birthplace of the vampires.

The three girls gathered there were the youngest of their coven, still having not yet reached adulthood. With their powers still untrained and their thirst still wild, untamed, they weren't allowed to join the rest of their coven for the night of full moon hunting. Instead, they were to spend the night guarding the moon cavern, enjoying the moonlight as fledglings ought to.

The night of the full moon was one of great importance for vampires. The power of moonlight is often recognised in mythology, and with vampires it is no different. The full moon was the time when vampires were at their most powerful, their senses heightened, their natural abilities enhanced, and accompanying this, their thirst intensified. It was for those reasons that fledglings were forbidden from travelling to the mainland on that night. Their lack of control could only end in tragedy.

Still, that didn't mean that the three girls didn't enjoy their evenings of moon bathing. As was tradition, they'd all dressed for the occasion, wearing gowns of black and crimson, high-collared and bejewelled with obsidian and blood-red rubies. The night of the full moon was a magical and ceremonial one, even for the fledglings, and thus along with their finery their skin was inked up with the tribal markings of their coven, strong and stark against their pale skin.

"Shouldn't we be out scouting the island?" Lyla, the tallest of the girls asked, her sharp features suiting her scowl well.

"Relax will you? It's about to start," Nixie, the sole brunette of the group drawled back lazily, her body draped back against the rock walls. She had her eyes closed, her head tilted up so that her face was soaked in the moonlight, her arms splayed at her sides as if she were being crucified.

"I just think that we should be taking our duties seriously," Lyla said somewhat snidely, still lingering back in the shadows, fidgeting nervously.

"Will you two please stop fighting?" Sirena begged, glancing between the pair of them pleadingly. "It's the night of the full moon, we should be enjoying ourselves."

The other two mumbled their apologies, and Lyla finally consented to stepping forth, joining the other two in the moonlight. Wordlessly, having preformed the act a hundred times, the girls formed a circle and joined hands. Eyes closed, their faces raised to the moonlight, they all drew breath and gasped.

It was like being shocked with electricity, an icy current shivering through their bodies. The world around them suddenly felt more real, as if they had been half asleep the whole time. Lights flashed. Senses soared. Sparks flew.

And then, out of nowhere, the human boy fell.

They heard it before they saw it, the thump and subsequent, "Oof." noise penetrating through their buzzing high. It took them a moment to stir, wincing as they tried to ignore it and put it aside. Once Nixie had cracked one eye open, however, there was no going back. She dropped the hands of the others and the circle was broken, the intense magic dying with it. Following her lead, the other girls opened their eyes to see what had stopped her, dropping their hands to their sides.

He lay there on his back, awash with silver moonlight and the scent of warm, beating blood. His dark hair and skin were made luminous by the moon, and whilst there was no denying that he was handsome, he was still one thing above all. Human.

"Oh Hecate," Lyla whispered under her breath, staring wide-eyed at the human boy before them.

"Is that…"? Sirena began, trailing off for she could not say the words, not wanting to believe them possible.

"A human," Nixie finished for her, half-snarling the term as her nostrils flared, her body bending forward into an aggressive stance.

Before any of them could react further, however, the human boy opened his eyes. He saw none of them, staring solely at the moon, and as he did so his body started to convulse. The sight was disturbing to say the least, his body shaking violently, the only part of him not moving his eyes, which remained locked solely on the moon's full circle.

The vampire girls could do nothing but step back and watch on in horror, wondering if he was going to die or worse, change. It was the primary reason they were supposed to be protecting the cavern; it was there, in the light of the full moon that the curse could be borne unto a normal human; a human boy at that.

Amongst vampire society, the only thing more highly feared than a human unearthing their secret was the possibility of vampire men returning. Where female vampires were certainly primal and sensual creatures, vampire men were animals, more beast than man. Women possessed a far greater affinity for mastering their own thirst, but when vampire men had roamed the earth their hunger had been insatiable.

A great war had been fought between the two sexes, the vampire men believing that they should vanquish and enslave humanity as livestock, whilst women had foreseen danger in the act. They did not believe that humanity was a race that could be enslaved, too impassioned with the idea of freedom as a species. Thousands had died, and in the end the men were defeated, but the loss was strongly felt.

And now, after all that, the three girls were witnessing a human boy transforming into a vampire male right before their eyes. It was an impossible nightmare, and yet there it was, the boy's body contorting as the pain and power of the process shook through him.

As he trembled, his very appearance changed. The transfiguration was subtle, but to their trained eyes, obvious. His skin took on an ashy pallor as his heart stopped and the blood drained out of his face. His features hardened, his skin losing its human softness, growing smooth and strong like marble. They'd never seen the traits of a vampire reflected in a man before, all too young to have participated in the war with the vampire men. It was not a sight they'd been hoping to see.

Eventually the full moon passed over the opening of the cavern, its light fading, and the boy fell still, his eyes rolling back in his head and then closing. "Is he dead?" Sirena asked awkwardly after a prolonged moment of silence, all the girls staring at the unmoving boy.

Just to check, Nixie kicked him. He grunted restlessly, but didn't wake, rolling over onto his side away from the brunette's foot. "Nope," Nixie said with sarcastic cheeriness. "Which means we now have a vampire boy on our hands."

"I knew we should have checked the island first!" Lyla hissed at her, her signature scowl returning to her face as she glowered stormily at Nixie.

"How were we to know that a human boy would literally just drop in on a moon session?" Nixie snapped back, matching her in her fury.

"Guys," Sirena protested nervously, coming between them and trying to prevent them from tearing one another apart. "We can't fight about this, we need to fix it!"

"Okay," Lyla said in a voice that meant she was taking charge. "We can't let the coven find out about this. We have to dump him."

"We can't just leave a newborn male vampire hanging around on the streets, Lyla!" Nixie retorted, moving past Sirena to get back in Lyla's face.

"I'm sorry, do you have a better idea?"

"Any idea would be a better idea than that."

"None of this would have happened if you'd listened to me in the first place!"

"Guys!" Sirena shouted, drawing both their attention. She'd kept it together thus far, but their bickering had overwhelmed her demure nature, and now she was pissed, an emotion that was truly terrifying to behold in her. "We need to stick together on this."

Not used to their usually so calm and sweet friend yelling at them, both Lyla and Nixie stayed deathly silent, nodding hurriedly to try and appease her. "Okay," Sirena said commandingly, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "We can put him in one of the underwater caves that lead off from here. In which case he'll either drown, or be stuck, lost there until the rest of the Coven gets back. If he really has been cursed then they're the only ones who will know what to do with him."

"Wow Sirena," Nixie said, stunned. "A murder plot? I never would have suspected you capable of such devilry."

"It's always the quiet ones," Lyla seconded, and the pair exchanged mischievous grins before wincing, spotting Sirena's glare.

"Well since you were too busy fighting, I had to state the obvious option. He's a threat to all of us and our coven." She lost her fierceness halfway through and started tearing up, her voice cracking. "I really don't want to get kicked out of the coven, guys. We might lose our home over this."

"Oh Sirena," the other two girls said apologetically, putting their arms around her and hugging her. "We're sorry."

"So…" Nixie said after a moment of hugging and trying to keep it together. "We're putting him in the water?"

"We don't have any other choice," Lyla said, giving Sirena a quick squeeze before releasing her.

All in agreement, they approached the boy, eyeing him warily. He remained unconscious, still breathing lightly in and out, his eyes shut. He looked deceptively peaceful, his lashes casting shadows across his cheeks, quiet and seemingly harmless. "On three," Nixie instructed, bending down and picking him up under his armpits. Lyla seized his ankles whilst Sirena supported his weight in the middle. "One, two, three."

Together they hauled him up off of the floor and carried him over to the pool of water that lay to the side of the cavern, which led to a network of hundreds of underwater caves. They swung him back and forth, gathering momentum with each arc until, on Nixie's count, they dropped him down into the pool. He cut the water with a splash, soaking their heels in water as he plunged beneath the surface.

Moving in unison, the three girls reached out their hands in the direction of the pool and splayed their fingers. The boy floated for a moment, and then the water around him began to bubble ominously, and with it he sunk, lower and lower until even the shadow of his body had vanished.

"Well," Lyla said when it was done, nodding to herself, "I'm glad that's over with."

"When the others get back they are going to be so mad…" Sirena mumbled nervously, hugging herself as she stared at the pool they had just submerged the boy in.

"It'll be okay, Sirena," Nixie assured her, rubbing her arm comfortingly. "He'll probably drown anyway, in which case they need never know. The change probably didn't even have time to have its full effect anyway. I mean he only dropped in half way through, he barely had any time at all."

Nodding in hopeful, perhaps delusional agreement, the three girls cast their gaze at the murky waters one last time before turning their backs, walking away to go and prepare for the return of the rest of their coven.

The next morning, Zac awoke to find his face implanted in sand, water lapping gently at his feet. Grumbling, his body feeling stiff and his throat itching painfully, he forced himself to sit up and glanced around, disorientated. He found himself to be stranded on the shore of Mako, the mainland visible on the horizon, the ocean drawing in and out around his heels.

"Oh thank god you're finally awake," a familiar voice said from further inland, the speaker's panic obvious.

Running out from the trees, traversing across the sand came Cam, his blonde hair matted and tangled as if he'd spent the entire night messing around in the forest. His brow was creased and he looked more worried than Zac had ever seen him before. "Where the hell did you get to last night?" He demanded once he'd reached the shoreline, coming to stand before Zac. His hands were on his hips and his mouth was doing that funny twist it always did whenever he was frustrated. Zac had always said that it made him look like a crazy old cat lady, so he couldn't help it when he started snickering.

"It's not funny," Cam said sternly, towering over him in an attempt to look intimidating. "I thought you'd gotten lost and died or something. I spent the whole night looking for you." His expression and tone then softened somewhat, and he grimaced down at his best friend. "I've been seriously worried."

"D'aww, you do care," Zac teased, squinting up at him and grinning. The expression froze mid-formation, however, when he felt something entirely unexpected. A fiery, aching sensation tore through his throat and he thought he felt his lungs seize up. Suddenly everything started spinning, and he grasped at his chest, feeling as though he couldn't breathe.

"Zac?" Cam asked above him, his voice sounding detached and distant to Zac's ears. "Zac? Are you alright?" Zac could feel the blonde's arm wrapping around his shoulders as Cam dropped down into a squat, inspecting him anxiously. He couldn't focus on Cam though, the burning in his throat only intensifying as something else hit him. It was like no smell he'd never registered before, hot, wet and seductive. The scent of the ocean water was almost unpleasant to him, only drying his throat further, but this new smell, whatever it was, promised him salvation from his thirst.

Turning his head, following the direction of the scent, Zac found himself face to face with Cam. His best friend was raising an eyebrow at him, smirking uneasily, donning his usual uncertain humour as he always did whenever he was faced with something that scared or intimidated him. Zac barely even registered his face or expression, however, enticed solely by the smell.

As if he were a puppy, he nuzzled forward at Cam's neck. It was there that the scent seemed to dwell, beckoning him closer. Caught entirely off guard, Cam stared at his best friend as if he'd gone mad. "Okay Zac, you're really freaking me out now," he said nervously, half-backing away as Zac nudged his nose against the side of his neck. Zac moved with him, however. His previously lethargic movements vanished as his stance became that of a predator, moving onto his hands and knees, pursuing Cam and that intoxicating scent.

Everything felt different to Zac somehow, as if he were still caught up in a dream. The world around him affected him strangely. He could hear animal cries and calls far away that normally he shouldn't be able to hear, and the sand beneath his skin felt different, coarser, each grain of sand imprinting into his hands. None of it mattered, however, only Cam and that rich, pulsating scent, which he was ever so close to claiming.

Without much warning or thought, Zac tackled Cam to the ground, pinning him down against the sand. "Zac, what the fuck?" Cam demanded breathlessly, his voice a weak whisper as he winced. Zac had always been the athletic one, the strong one, but now that strength had gone off the charts. His grip was like an iron vice, and Cam's feeble protests did nothing against the hands that pinned his arms above his head.

For a brief moment, Zac's sanity returned and he realised what he was doing, his best friend since forever caged beneath him. Blinking down at the blonde, Zac opened and closed his mouth in shock momentarily, guilt and confusion washing over him. "Cam? I'm sorry, I don't know-" Before he could finish, however, the burning ache returned tenfold, cutting off all chance of speech. Cam became The Scent once more, and the animalistic quality returned to Zac, his pupils dilating to entirely eclipse his irises.

Keeping Cam trapped against the sand like that, his wrists bound together by Zac's hand, stretched above his head, Zac bent down. His eyes lingered on Cam's neck, and as if everything were in high definition he could see the pulse of his heartbeat ticking away there. He knew that biting there would quench the thirst, and that not only would it save him, it would be heaven.

"Zac, please, what are you-" Cam began to ask desperately, but his voice cut short when his breath hitched in his throat, Zac's lips on his neck.

Zac licked along the length of his neck once, feeling Cam shiver beneath him as he did so, and smiled. Tentatively, with a gentleness that prolonged the moment as if it were foreplay, Zac pressed a kiss to the spot where Cam's pulse was clearest, his lips cold against Cam's flushed skin. Then, without having to think about it, running on some new instinctual power, Zac bit down, piercing the flesh.

His teeth extended down into the artery, getting a good grip on the neck as he locked on. Headily, like a parched alcoholic he started to gulp back the hot, sticky liquid he found there, drinking it down thoughtlessly. It sung on his tongue and in his throat, his body humming in ecstasy in response to it. The thirst took a backseat as the pleasure took over, and in a meaning of the word that he'd never understood before, he came alive.

The boy beneath him, from whom he was drinking, seemed equally overwhelmed, squirming in frustration against his binds. Cam's breathing was coming rapidly in short, shallow gasps and his face was flushed, his head tilted back, his eyes closed. His body moved with each breath, forwards and backwards, brushing against Zac's ever so slightly. Whatever it was that he was feeling, it certainly didn't seem to be pain.

Somewhere in the back of Zac's mind, something was screaming at him for what he was doing. You're drinking blood, it yelled, bewildered by what was happening. You're drinking Cam's blood, and look what it's doing to him. Zac opened his eyes, glancing sideways at the face that was in very close proximity to him. It certainly wasn't an expression he'd expected to see on his supposedly straight best friend.

If you keep going, the voice added quietly, the rest of his thoughts falling quiet to allow it the spotlight, you're going to kill him.

Shaking, terror setting into him like a cold damp, Zac broke his grip on Cam's neck and drew back. He stared at his best friend's face for a moment longer, registering just how strongly he'd affected him (which was obvious in an entirely other area too) and felt disgusted with himself. What the hell had just happened?

Backing away from his best friend, who he had just violated against his will, Zac rocked back onto his behind and drew his knees up into his chest, hugging them. Cam remained where he was, collapsing back against the sand, releasing a stunned exhalation of air.

They said nothing for a good while. Sitting there, clutching himself up into a tight ball as if he were afraid letting go would unleash all hell upon the rest of the world, Zac sat simmering in his own self-hatred and confusion. He had no idea what had driven him to do such a thing. Faint memories returned to him of the moon, voices, a pain like no other, but it all felt like a long forgotten dream. What he knew to be real was the fact that he'd just pounced on his best friend and done god knows what to his neck.

"Zac," Cam said quietly after the silence had stopped being awkward and had simply become fact, the rolling sea providing the only sound. "Did you just suck my blood?"

Saying nothing, horrified by just the concept, Zac averted his eyes from his best friend and waited for the anger, for the disgust. "I'll take that as a yes," Cam drawled dryly, his smirk flawlessly embodied in his tone so that Zac didn't need to look to know he was wearing it.

"So what, are you a vampire now?" Cam asked, continuing still, and finally Zac glanced over to meet his gaze. He was still lying on his back, his head twisted to the side to watch Zac, his half-smirk on his lips. For a disconcerting moment, Zac was left feeling like a child, Cam's expression far too mature and understanding for a teenage boy who was supposed to be his best friend.

How the hell he wasn't freaking out Zac would never know, but Cam had a habit of randomly surprising him like this. He could be a dramatic little bitch about the tiny things, but when his best friend turned into a vampire, apparently he'd just smile and grin. Cam.

"This isn't something to joke about, Cam," Zac said seriously, his brow creasing as he looked back at his best friend. His best friend who had just been pinned beneath him, his lips upon his neck, gasping.

"But Zac, Vampires in Australia," Cam said with a wry grin, one that made Zac smile subconsciously back. "What could be a better joke than that?"

That morning, sneaking away from their coven, the girls went to check on the moon cavern. Nixie volunteered as their diver and slipped into the pool, complaining bitterly about the cold. Duck-diving down beneath the water's surface, she vanished, and was gone a good half an hour before resurfacing.

"Urm, guys," she said awkwardly, bobbing up from beneath the water. Avoiding the eyes of the others, she clambered out of the pool, the other two girls walking forward to hear the final verdict. With a sheepish grin, Nixie looked up at the two of them and scratched the back of her head. "I think we might have a problem. He's gone."

A/N: Word of explanation. Hecate (/Hekate), for those who don't know, was an ancient Greek goddess, whose Roman equivalent was Trivia. I used her as the vampires' main deity in this because in greek Mythology and more modern adaptions, she is associated/related to Empusa, Lamia and Mormo, all of whom have myths and traits that bear resemblance to vampires, so I took her to be regarded as the mother/companion of vampires in this make-shift AU. I'm not that strong on my mythology, so this may be way out, but if so, wikipedia you have betrayed me!

Thus, when Lyla said "Oh Hecate," it would have been their equivalent of saying "Oh god."