You're my person.

The thirteen letters and two marks of punctuation (because Josh counted the period, because who didn't count the period?) were haunting him. Thirteen—it even felt like a bad omen, a horrible mistake ready to come crashing down on his head like a swarm of shadowy bats. He'd only said "you're my—", which was only seven letters in total, but even that didn't seem to be lucky, in spite of the good connotations of the number. Or, maybe it was lucky, since Josh's tongue-tied ineptitude had stopped him from finishing that doomed sentence.

Josh had been about to tell Aidan that he was "his person."

"Fuck," Josh said, getting up out of bed and scrubbing his hands through his hair. He had different modes of freaking out, and this one was the tourettes-like swearing coupled with restlessness kind. He wasn't hyperventilating or sweating, but he couldn't stop reliving his idiocy right when he thought he could maybe, maybe let it go at last.

What made it bad, what made it so, so much worse, was how familiar those words were to him. Hadn't he used them on Nora just months ago—used them to propose to Nora, in fact? Josh felt sick just thinking about it. He was officially the worst fiance in the world, and the most confused, screwed-up guy in the universe.

Nothing helped. He'd tried to pour himself into the research on Aidan's condition, but that just reminded him of Aidan. He tried to sort some laundry for a load, but every time he lifted one of Nora's shirts or blouses he was hit with her scent. She still smelled so good, heavenly, but the scent was starting to close in on him, feeling accusing and thick. It was starting to make him feel sick.

Actually, he'd been starting to feel sick before that, even. Josh shook his head, mopped his clammy brow with the back of his hand, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

The fridge was missing the two chilled bottles of schnapps Sally had bought earlier in the day, and Josh spotted one sitting out on the kitchen table. He put it back in the fridge and reached for one of his lined-up troops of protein shakes, popping the tab and chugging it in one go. He gagged a little on the powdery, almost-chocolate-but-not-quite taste and dumped the can before popping another open. He took his time on that one, moving sluggishly over to the living room and sitting down hard on the couch.

Josh was almost disappointed that his body was finally starting to punish him for the constant, steady blood loss. If nothing else he'd hoped the re-establishment of his unfortunate condition would give him a higher tolerance for such things. Aidan had once called it a "useless condition," and though that had been in jest, it seemed true now more than ever.

Perhaps putting eight vials of blood in tonight hadn't been wise. Josh couldn't help it, though—seeing how that one mark had actually gotten smaller had lit the fire under his ass. He'd told himself he was doing everything he could for Aidan, but actually, now that he knew what his blood could do, that wasn't true. He could do more. He could always do more.

There was a creaking sound and Josh froze before he realized what it was. Aidan's door was opening, and since Sally and Nora were out, it could only mean that Aidan was actually emerging from his lair from the first time in—Josh didn't even know when. He sat up a little straighter, trying to look casual and not sick, and by the time Aidan glanced around the living room from the top of the stairs and spotted him, Josh felt he was doing a fairly decent impression of "not sick, not traumatized and not freaking out."

"Hey," Aidan said, his voice a little raspy. Josh gave him an entirely too-manly half-nod and busied himself with drinking more of his nasty (now lukewarm) shake. Aidan frowned around the living room once more. "Girls out?"

"Yup," Josh said, resorting to monosyllabic answers.

Apparently trying to act unsuspicious was the most suspicious thing Josh could do. Aidan frowned at him and studied him, and Josh gave him a sidelong frown but was helpless to hide from Aidan's shrewd gaze. The vampire walked over to him, sat on the coffee table across from him, and plucked the protein shake out of his hand.

"Really?" he asked Josh, swishing the contents around a little and quirking his nostril up. Apparently this stuff was noxious to all species. "Trying to bulk up for the Warrior Dash?"

"Hah," Josh said, the word tense and strained. "Funny."

"Uh-huh," Aidan said, drawing out the phrase slowly. "You look unwell. Care to share?"

"Not… really," Josh said, unable to think of any excuse that wasn't done to death or painfully transparent. He could only hope Aidan would chalk it up to their emotional moment of brotherly love earlier and let it go.

"Headache?" Aidan asked, and Josh jumped on that excuse. Plus, it was true.

"Yeah, sorta."

"Probably tired too, huh."

"You bet," Josh added, smirking. "Though I'm not one to complain here… being… plague-less… and all."

Aidan ignored his last comment, continuing to make seemingly inane small talk. "I remember that sort of tired. Makes you a little dizzy and crampy, yeah? And stupid as it sounds, makes it harder to go to sleep at night."

"Counterintuitive, yeah," Josh agreed, a second before he realized what Aidan had been doing. "Aidan—" he started, but it was too late.

"So, Josh… headaches, cramps, dizziness, fatigue, insomnia… you're almost as pale as me and I bet climbing the stairs winds you? When were you going to tell me you're displaying just about all the signs of anemia?"

Josh did not appreciate being lulled into a false sense of security, and appreciated being trapped in a conversational spike pit even less. "I'm not anemic, Aidan, I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life."

"Doesn't matter. Steadily losing blood will get to even the most health-conscious athletes."

Josh could scarcely believe they were really having this conversation right now. "Seriously, Aidan?" he asked, weariness leaking into his voice. "Whatever health problems of mine that you've cooked up in your head are the least of our collective concerns."

"I beg to differ," Aidan said, his voice terse, and Josh stood, just to have something to do.

"This is getting stupid. This is beyond stupid, we arrived at that station five stops ago. We're now officially in delusional land."

"Delusional? How is it delusional for me to want you to stop self-destructing?"

"Self—Aidan, are you even listening to what you're saying? I knew you could be melodramatic, but what the hell are you even talking about right now?"

Aidan glared at him, opening his mouth to retaliate, but then he tossed his hands up in the air and also stood, stalking around the table to stand closer to the disused fireplace. "No, Josh. You know what? Just no."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no. I'm not taking another drop from you. It's ridiculous. I thought at the very least you would be honest with me about your body—hell, you know everything that's going on with mine—and if you can't maintain enough common sense and distance here to keep yourself from passing out from blood loss, how am I supposed to trust you?"

"You're—you're so full of shit, Aidan. Do we have to have this fight every single time I feed you? We know how this goes, already! You say I'm being stupid, or I'm in denial, or it's not healthy for me. I remind you like I've reminded you over and over again that this is the only thing keeping me happy, keeping me from losing my goddamn mind over you. You get that look on your face like I'm telling you that I care about you for the first time—that look, right fucking there—like it's some kind of surprise, then you say 'okay' or some shit and we're good for a few days until we do this again!"

There was a protracted, heavy silence between them as Josh finished up his long-winded rant. Aidan's expression was completely beyond him to understand—the vampire looked perfectly torn between anger and some sort of deeply touched, borderline uncomfortable expression. Josh cleared his throat and tried to smooth over the bumpy terrain.

"So, I'm still feeding you."

"Josh—" Aidan began, cutting himself off and shaking his head. "No. You know this isn't going to have a happy ending. I'm done."

Josh stared at him like he was speaking Swahili. "You're shitting me. I literally just—did you not hear a word I just said?" he asked, desperation and bone-deep exasperation coloring his last word.

When Aidan said nothing, still giving him that same, unchanged look, Josh stalked to the fridge and threw the door open, almost knocking all the condiments in the door rack to the ground. They slid forward and slammed into the shallow plastic shelf-guard, knocking hard against one another. "If you're going to be such a stubborn douche about it, here." He jabbed his finger into the fridge and pointed at the beer case. "At least don't let that go to waste. Even you can't think of some excuse to not take blood that's already there for you."

"You—what are you talking about, Josh?"

"This!" Josh shouted, yanking the case of beer out and slamming it down on the table. The little glass vials in their plastic stands clinked harshly against one another and Aidan's eyes widened. Of course he would know that sound anywhere. "It's a stock! So now you know where it is, and you can do whatever you want with it."

"You—" Aidan's lips pressed into a hard line and he gave Josh a look that could kill. Josh stared straight back at him, not impressed. "You've been bleeding yourself more? Even after we agreed on four tubes per feeding? How much is even—" Aidan strode forward to the table and Josh side-stepped to let him look for himself, feeling almost vindictively satisfied. Aidan's mouth dropped open when he saw the dozens of glass tubes lined neatly up inside. "Josh!"

"Guess I'm tougher than you think, huh," Josh said, the last word coming out as a scoff. "Tough enough to only feel a little out of sorts after managing this. You never give me enough credit, here. I'm not you, Aidan—I'm not centuries old and you could snap me in half all but one day out of each month. But I'm not a child. I'm not weak. I'm a grown-ass man and I make my own goddamn decisions, and that," he said, jabbing his finger at the case, "is one of them."

Aidan seemed at a complete loss for words. Josh couldn't tell if he was still furious, starting to feel guilty or stupid, or if he was swimming somewhere between those two zones. Whatever he was going to say was cut off as the door opened, Nora and Sally poking their heads into the foyer. Aidan and Josh spun to face them and both women froze where they were, looking wary.

"Everything…?" Sally began after a fractured pause.

Aidan said "no" at the same time Josh said "yes." The two men exchanged a fierce look and Josh moved to stick the case of "beer" back in the fridge.

"Nora," he called over his shoulder, his voice curt. "I've been putting more blood aside for Aidan, it's in the fridge. You can yell at me later. I'll be upstairs."

Josh had to turn back around to get to the stairwell, and saw Nora's mouth drop open at his admission as he did so. He determinedly didn't look anyone in the face as he took the stairs three at a time, feeling the damned thumping of his blood in his veins and a buzzing feeling in his head—he hated the idea with every fiber of his being, but Aidan was right. Climbing the stairs made him feel out of breath.

Nora looked absolutely terrified for her fiance, and Aidan wanted to break the table in half, punch Josh in the face, and jump off a cliff at the same time. Sally had a "why are mommy and daddy fighting and can I make a joke to make it better?" face on and Aidan found himself silently cursing his roommate as he explained the situation in a little more detail to the women.

"So he…" Nora said, leaning over the biggest shelf in the fridge and doing a quick count of the vials, "you said he seemed anemic?"

"Yes," Aidan said, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm sorry, Nora. He seemed fine until just now. He hid it well, I guess."

"Not your fault," Nora said quietly, closing the door and rubbing her hands across her arms. Aidan could smell the sweet scent of butterscotch and a spicier scent from Nora, but whatever pleasant buzz the women had achieved was gone in the stark reality of what they'd come home to. "I'm gonna talk to him," Nora said softly, going over to head up the stairs. Aidan knew she wouldn't yell at him. She was beyond yelling, now. That was only her first line of defense, her temper usually rising up to protect her vulnerable parts when the real emotion was fear or hurt. He watched her go, twisting with guilt for a million reasons, then turned to Sally.

"Sorry."

"Hey," Sally said, putting her hands up. The edges of her jacket were bunched up around her hands and only her fingertips showed. She seemed so young like that. "No worries. I'm just concerned about you guys."

"We're fine," Aidan intoned flatly, and Sally gave him a wan smile.

"Clearly not." She nodded her head to the basement doorway. "Can we…?"

Aidan paused, trying to think of an adequate excuse to dodge this talk, but deflated when he could think of nothing. "Yeah, sure," he finally said, opening the door and letting her proceed him down the stairs.

When they were situated and the door firmly shut behind them, Sally turned to face him, crossing her arms but not looking angry. "So… lovers spat?" she started.

Aidan rolled his eyes hard. "Don't call it that."

"Okay," Sally said, and Aidan hated the way she sounded, like she was trying very, very hard not to offend him.

"It'll be fine," Aidan assured her.

"Fine as in… Josh storming off upstairs and you refusing to feed from him anymore…?" Sally asked, shrugging first one shoulder, then the other.

Aidan opened his mouth to reply, but couldn't think of anything to say. "Honestly. Josh and I are just—we'll be fine. I'm more worried about how Nora's handling him up there." Something occurred to him and he winced. "I'm sorry. We sort of wrecked your night."

"Oh… not really," Sally said, picking at a thread in her sweater. "I mean to say… it wasn't all that… great to begin with."

Now it was Aidan's turn to be worried. "Care to elaborate?"

"Nora's sort of… having thoughts… about her relationship with Josh." An iceberg seemed to form in Aidan's stomach at her words, but he knew better than to bombard her with questions as that would cause her to falter for words. He remained silent, though it was one of the hardest things he'd done in recent memory. "I mean, she still loves him, not like that," Sally hurried to elaborate, putting her hands up. "And she knows he loves her. Just…" Sally paused and ran a hand through her hair, a little hard. Aidan watched, worried that he'd see her pulling the hair away from the weaker parts of her scalp, but she seemed to be in pretty good shape today.

She paused for such a long time Aidan wasn't able to stop himself from prompting her. "Just…?"

"Just… she's sort of, I guess, threatened by this thing you and Josh have?" she worded it like a question, then squeezed her eyes shut like she already hated her phraseology. "Not threatened. It's not that—that aggressive a thing. More like… resigned? Sad, worried? That maybe she's not… uh."

Aidan's face, sometime during her fumbling explanation, had shifted into severe, concerned dread. Sally studied him and he tried to smooth the look out. "She… thinks that somehow our… friendship… will interfere with them?"

"Uh… not directly? Dammit, I didn't even really understand it when she was explaining it to me," Sally said, giving up and flopping her arms down at her sides.

"Why don't you just try to remember what she said verbatim," Aidan suggested. "Don't try to edit or censor anything because you don't want to upset me."

Sally gave him a worried look out of the corner of her eye, but nodded. "Okay. Well, what stuck out during our talk was that Nora said… she said she doesn't think Josh is… 'hers.'"

Sally had put air quotes up around the word, but it felt like the word was the last nail in Aidan's coffin. He wondered if he actually went even more pale than normal, and he must have had some sort of physical change come over him, because Sally's eyes widened at that.

"Uh… you seem like you know what that means, which is… more than I can boast. Is this some kind of supernatural club card thing I failed to get in the mail?"

Aidan couldn't bring himself to laugh or even quirk a smile. "It's… I guess. It's more the territory of vampires and werewolves. I'm surprised Nora would even use that term, since she's… new, relatively. Maybe one of the purebreds used it around her…" Aidan shook his head and rubbed his face, letting out a sigh as he dug his fingers into his forehead. "Our kind is really… possessive? I guess? And wolves, they mate for life in almost all situations. Vampires can have more than one partner, but when they stake a claim to someone, it's… pretty serious. It tells all other vampires to back off or face the consequences. If Nora… if she really thinks there's some sort of disconnect here, between her and Josh, that they aren't completely bonded, and it has something to do with me…"

"But…" Sally said, slowly, "I mean, that's not the case, right? I mean, you don't think that, do you?"

Aidan's silence said it all.

"You—oh." Sally's eyes widened and Aidan closed his, letting out a sigh. "Oh, wow. Okay."

"Just… don't—"

"Get involved? Nooo worries," Sally said, and Aidan could imagine her making some sort of swishing gesture, maybe to zip her lip or slash her throat. "Wouldn't dream of it. Staying away from this situation for sure."

"Thanks," Aidan intoned flatly, and a moment later he felt her slight weight on the bed beside him. She bumped his shoulder with hers and he managed to give her a miserable side-glance.

"Hey," she said, putting her arms out for a hug. Aidan was surprised she'd still want one after this particularly messed up revelation. Aidan wasn't about to refuse a show of comfort, though, and scooted closer so Sally could throw her arms around his shoulders and rest her head on his arm. "It's okay."

Aidan chuckled. "You really think so, or are you just saying that?"

Sally gave him a wan, helpless smile. "I'm sort of just saying it, but at the same time, I do believe it, deep down. This is going to get… really weird and really confusing. And messy. But when push comes to shove, you know what? We're going to be fine. We're a family."

"Wish I had your faith in us," Aidan said with a soft chuckle. "Though I agree with the first part of your sentiment. This is going to get bad before it gets better."

"Mr. Optimistic," Sally joked, nudging him with her body again.

"I prefer Mr. Realistic."

"All pessimists do," Sally remarked sagely.