Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

Warnings: This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction will contain allusions to a pre-slash/slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.

Author's note #1: This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: Parrish_Lorne. The prompt goes as follows: "Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire"

Before the Blood Dries

Chapter Three

In a lot of ways it was exactly like Fight Club. - You didn't talk about it.

Only instead of an underground club of grown men beating the stuffing out of each other, it was a secret race. …A secret species. It was how they'd survived through the centuries that marked the birth of mankind and its slow arrival into the modern era. – Because despite all the grand standing and blatant egotism that existed in the vampiric community, the truth was that vampires were a species that had existed along side humanity since the very beginning.

No one was exactly sure when the species first came into being. If you asked, most would say that vampirism had evolved first. Purely out of pride and an over inflated sense of self importance of course. But more recently, a group of relatively unbiased researchers had infamously proposed that given their biological similarities it was quite likely that both species had simply evolved together. Rather then one existing before the other.

Naturally the findings hadn't gone over well in the vampiric community. Especially from the covens that were still spread across most of Eastern Europe. Groups, who if given half the chance would also claim that their blood was more pure. As if coming from some perceived sense of 'higher stock' then those who had either immigrated, or been born in the colonies during the colonization of North and South America.

- Hypocrisy and grandstanding, it would seem, were apparently failings inherent to both their species. ..Darwin would have been proud.

However, there was at least one undeniable reality that existed between that of the vampires and the human race that no one, not even the insufferable poufs from across the Atlantic could deny. And it all came down to numbers, to population comparisons and birthing percentages. Vampires had always been far less numerous then humans. It was a cold, hard fact. No one knew exactly why, whether it was biology or simply practicality. But vampires had never existed in any significant numbers. Not enough to be discovered at any rate.

And just to clear it all up, they sure as hell didn't sparkle.

Unsurprisingly most of the legends and myths that detailed the extent of vampire lore had gotten it completely wrong. …Mostly. - Crosses and holy water? Laughable. Garlic? Delicious. Stake to the heart? Nope…well not usually. Sunlight? Eventually. Beheading? Definitely. The brain was the key. Almost everything else a vampire could generally recover from. It all depended on how recently they'd fed, and how old they actually were.

- And oh yeah, all that living forever crap? Complete dribble. Nothing lived forever. Not even the pure bloods. …It was just how nature worked.

But perhaps the biggest indication that Bram Stoker had been grievously misinformed related to the fact that you couldn't just be turned.Being a race rather then a virus, you were either born a vampire or you weren't at all. It was pure genetics. Forget all the crap they'd churned out in Hollywood. There wasn't a lick of truth about it. – And in that way the whole shebang acted more like a curse then anything else. Because you couldn't turn a lover or a friend. Even if you wanted to. The bite only took, draining blood and sometimes even life itself if you weren't careful. It was a fine line, one that he'd learned the hard way, more then once..

But just like the inscrutable nature of life itself, sometimes genetics and the extent of known science meant absolutely dick. – And that was where he came in, because he was one of those anomalies. – A strange, but ultimately inconsequential blip in a dying genetic code.

- Because he'd been born human.

It had been 1891. The self proclaimed year of promise when he'd stuck out on his own from Lost Nation, Illinois, heart set on making it to Chicago proper. He'd been fresh faced and barely thirty years old, with five seasons worth of farm earnings jingling in his trouser pockets and most of his worldly possessions crammed into the pack on his back when he'd set out for the big city.

At the time, rumor had it at that Mr. John D. Rockefeller himself was planning on building a university out in the city. One that would have both the prestige and funds to make his dreams of studying medicine more then just idle hoping and star-dust. The clippings he'd painstakingly saved from the newspapers had advertised it in full. They were looking for talent first and money second. And while he certainly didn't have the later, he knew for sure that god had granted him with the former. At the time, it had seemed like a dream come true.

…Only he'd never made it there.

He'd been bitten by a feral less then a week after leaving home. He hadn't stood a chance against it. Confusion, panic, old world fear, hell, as far as he'd been concerned it had been the devil himself that had chased him away from his camp site. Hunting him like a flighty spring buck all the way into the farthest reaches of the brush. Taking him deep into the woods so that no one would be able hear his screams before it'd struck.

He hadn't even seen its face. All he'd seen of the bastard was a few panicked glimpses of rough edged stubble and a rumpled long coat. Eyes-teeth gleaming sharp and vicious in the dying light before the creature brought him down into the mouldering forest floor, tearing into the vulnerable curve of his naked throat before he could even so much as scream. - Slicing his shirt collar away as razor sharp teeth pierced through his flesh, sending his nerve endings ablaze as blood and saliva mixed together, body lurching and jerking into the creatures hold as the devil had taken its fill.

- And the pain. Oh god the pain.. It had been unlike anything he'd ever experienced. It had felt like poison. Like dying… Like the inner most fires of hell itself… - And it had only gotten worse from there…

He'd been drained to the point of death and left to bleed out. And he would have, if not for Gerald and Marie. – Out hunting themselves, they'd found him while he was still screaming. Lying face down and half drowned in a partially congealed puddle of his own blood and piss. Body already burning as the change coursed through him.

They hadn't expected him to live. Much less change. But they'd spirited him back to their lodgings regardless. Tending to him personally, purely out of their own kind heartedness as the fever burned within him. Determined that if he was to die by the hand of one of their own, then he should at least be awarded whatever decency and comfort they could provide as he passed.

Only he hadn't died. – At least not in the strictest sense.

Because it had been there, in the comfort and obscurity of their modest town house, surrounded by beings he could barely bring himself to understand, that his body had rippled. Sending him screaming and writhing as the wildness grew within him, clawing at Gerald, at Marie, his bindings, the bed, whatever he could reach as his body rebelled. - Changing right down to the microscopic level as his wounds suddenly healed. Skin knitting together like it had never been torn apart in the first place. All mere seconds before those sharp fangs had ripped through his gum line.

His new, unnaturally long canines had stood out stark and vicious in the low light, sending whatever was left of his rational, conscious mind fleeing into the blackness. – Until the sharpness had split right through his lower lip. And he'd hissed his fear, confusion, and defiance into the fire warmed air as Gerald held him down. Baring his own teeth as he'd soothed him with gravel-studded purrs and calming murmurs. Answering his threatening growls and pain filled snarls with a few well placed snaps of his teeth, as the family patriarch had forced him back down into the blankets. Gentle, but undeniably firm every time he struggled to break free.

He'd been completely helpless against it. The hunger. Yowling and hissing like a wild thing as his vision hazed over with red. Eyes going blood shot and silver rimmed as the blood lust swept over him with all the force of a surging ocean tide. He could think of nothing else but the hunger. The need. He'd been beyond all reason. Nothing else mattered save for the need to feed. - The instinctual urge for more, more, more…

In the end they'd done the only thing they could think of to do. They'd met his need. With Marie disappearing into the night and returning no more then a score of moments later, purse stuffed to the brim with flasks of still warm animal's blood. - Hurrying to his side before curling him into her chest, holding him to her as if he were no more then a child. Her hold protective but firm as she'd sprinkled the first tentative drops across his fever dry lips. Ignoring his bared teeth as she'd nudged the spout against against his aching gums. Patient and loving, like mother dealing with a fussy toddler.

And God help him but he'd fallen upon it. Ripping into the flask and drinking his fill as life had slammed back into his burning veins. Roaring his hunger into the arching wooden beams as he'd hurled himself into the closest corner, growling and whimpering in turn as he drank. Ravenous and half feral as one flask became two, then three as his saviors crouched down beside him. Lulling him with sharp hisses and soothing words, desperate to get through to him, on both levels as the flasks were quickly drained.

- And for better or worse, with the satiation of the hunger came a measure of sanity as well. With his mind, his thoughts all rushing back. Sending him lurching back into reality with what felt like the mother of all hangovers.

Because the reality of it was that he'd come back to himself half naked and surrounded by strangers. His fingers blood slick and shaking as he'd licked them clean. Gulping down the last trickling mouthfuls as the sudden realization that nothing would ever be the same hit him like an unexpected kiss from a pretty girl on May Day.

As one might imagine the resulting conversation that had taken place as Gerald and Marie had tried their best to explain had gone… - Well, lets just say it hadn't been one his proudest moments. – Not that his reaction had been entirely unjustified mind you. He hadn't asked for this. And all else considered he hadn't deserved it either. But that didn't change the fact that after that day he had to figure how to live with it.

But he had been blessed from the start, with Marie and Gerald having taken him in as one of their own, all but adopting him into their brood of over twenty-five children with barely a ripple of fuss. – It had been everyone else that had been the problem.

The elders really hadn't known what to do with him at first. He was a rarity, a freak even to them. And while past history and ancient lore had sporadically documented the phenomenon throughout the intervening centuries, only a small number of the ancient ones had ever lived through such an event. But as he'd adjusted, gradually coming to grips with the complexities of his new life, a grudging sort of acceptance had eventually formed.

He wasn't really one of them. To most of them he never would be. But at the same time he wasn't exactly human either.

Owen, Gerald and Marie's third youngest had probably hit it right on the nail a few years after he'd been turned. Remarking after a petty and somewhat childish display of disdain he'd suffered at the hands of a visiting, Prussian dignitary. That it probably came down to pure, unrifled jealousy in the end, with him having retained his ability to wander unharmed in the direct sunlight while the pure bloods were forced to remain in the shadows. Indeed in a way it seemed as though he'd lucked out, getting the best of both worlds as it were. Human and vampire.

Except for the blood lust... Nothing made up for that.

But save for that and the avoidance of sunlight, most vampires were relatively normal. They went to work, paid their taxes; they were farmers, lawyers, doctors, hell even teachers. They had human friends and held human jobs. - Most invested. You'd be surprised at how important investments and managing your money were with that of longevity, especially considering their facetious and somewhat elegant tastes. They were often wealthy yet not overwhelmingly so, never enough to cause undue attention, existing as mere shadows on everyone else's radars.

- The point was, you could live right next to one and generally notice little more about them other then the fact that they didn't do many summer beach trips.

Like Gerald and Marie, most of them lived on animal blood, the blood bank, and the occasional human indulgence. Not just because it was moralistic mind you, but because it was practical. It maintained the secret, barely. - Because the truth was that animal blood was like drinking sawdust next to the real thing. There was nothing in the world that could compare with the tart richness of a freshly tapped vein. Nothing sated the hunger the same way either.

But like humans, they had their fair share of bad nuts. - Like his unknown maker, there were those that killed and maimed for the sheer pleasure of it, draining the innocent and undeserving with nary a second thought, slaughtering them like humans did cattle simply to keep themselves happy and fed. – And without Marie and Gerald that was what he could have become, especially given the violent nature in which he'd been made. - The instinct to hunt, to drain…to feed was often too strong…

From the beginning he'd tried to separate himself from it. Like it wasn't him. Like what had happened had simply created two separate people, one vampire and one human. Marie and Gerald hadn't thought it was healthy of course, but they had understood it. It had been his way of coping. And besides, they were always there when he inevitably crashed and burned. Making sure he didn't do anything he'd later regret as they took him hunting. Giving him his head only when they'd reached the deepest reaches the wilderness. Letting him hunt and feed until the hunger had been appeased and he could regain a semblance of himself once again.

It had taken him nearly four decades to achieve that balance. To find it in himself to accept both what he'd lost, and what he had become. – But in the end, if he was being honest, he knew what helped him cope the most. It was the knowledge that despite instinct, despite the pull and the urge to feed, at the end of the day he had a choice. It was often a hard one to make, but it was a choice nonetheless.

Gerald and Marie were prime examples of this conscious decision. Their instincts… their hunger were far more potent then his own. Yet they lived a life of virtual non-violence, as did most of their brood. They abhorred harming the innocent and he had clung to that morality like a lifeline.

Fate had not destined him to be a monster, if he so chose it.

Every once and a while however, mistakes were made. It was a fact of life when good intentions and instinct consistently butted heads. But at the end of the day if the max-security prison in some small, out of the way town was suddenly bereft of its most notorious offenders, rarely anyone ever batted an eye over it. And when put against their past crimes, the guilt was remarkably fast fading.

-…He wondered if he could even hope to make Lorne understand. He wondered-..

"Don't you do this to me Parrish. …- Fucking stay with me!"

A/N: Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!

A/N#2: Wafflefu – Thank you for your lovely comment. I fear though that I have no idea what 'purple' means in this context. Hee.

"Death is just a change in lifestyles." -Stephen Levine