(ETA: now edited and up on AO3)
Look. Eddie knows he can be a little uptight about these things, but. There are rules. If you become a vampire, you don’t need to go full gothic Count Von Dickhead or whatever, but you absolutely cannot just wander around in a puffy vest and light-wash jeans.
“Why not?” says Steve. He’s leaning back in an armchair, sipping on a bloodbag like it’s a goddamn juicebox. “What, are the vampire police going to arrest me?”
He pauses. “Wait. There aren’t vampire police, are there?”
“No,” says Eddie. “Probably not. I don’t know. But there are standards which you are refusing to uphold, Steven.”
“Thought you were all about hating conformity, Edward,” Steve says. He’s got an obnoxiously cocky little smirk, the smug undead fucker.
Eddie grimaces. “Don’t call me that, asswipe. Don’t you feel, like—the call of the night? The siren song of life coursing through fragile human veins? A hunger for destruction that those paltry plastic bags of blood can never truly slake?”
“The bloodbags aren’t so bad,” says Steve, around the straw. “Better than protein shakes.”
“I actually hate you,” Eddie tells him. “Vampirism is wasted on you.”
Steve noisily slurps the last of the blood out of the bottom of the bag. “Come on, you can’t really picture me in some Dracula getup, can you?”
The problem, of course, is that Eddie really, really can. When Robin had read him in on the whole situation, obviously he’d been horrified and concerned—but also, a whole wing of his brain had immediately been cordoned off to work overtime imagining Steve in elaborate Dark Prince regalia, maybe leaning elegantly out of a castle window on the moors, gazing into the foggy dusk. Velvet might’ve been involved.
“...guess not,” says Eddie. It doesn’t sound incredibly convincing to his own ears, but Steve just shrugs and gets up to throw the bloodbag away.
“There you go, man,” he says, clapping Eddie on the shoulder as he passes. “It’s the 80s. Vampires can be whatever we wanna be.”
———
It gets way too easy to forget about Steve’s condition, until Eddie ends up having to haul him out of a bar in Indy before they get banned for life.
“Simmer down, buddy,” Eddie says, pulling him into the shadow of the van. “Let’s get those fangs packed away before any of the nice villagers wander by with torches and pitchforks.”
“I’m good,” pants Steve. “It’s all good. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
Eddie lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “Sure, that’s why your eyes are glowing red and you’re, like, fully vamped out. Which, by the way, looks extremely dumb with the whole clean-cut vibe you decided to rock tonight.”
“Fuck you, I look great,” says Steve, pushing a hand through his hair. He’s not wrong, it’s just not relevant to how he also looks extremely dumb like this, wearing a pristine henley with fangs hanging out in the parking lot for anyone to see.
“So what the hell happened in there, man? I was finally starting to get somewhere with Todd, and…” Eddie trails off in dawning realization.
“Holy shit, am I—I’m like your territory, aren’t I? Your stupid vampire brain got all screwy and decided to loop me in with Robin and the kids as part of your freaky human coven.”
“Uh,” says Steve. He looks unhappy in a shifty kind of way. “Something like that, maybe.”
“Wait, so, are Nancy and Jonathan—are you okay with them because they’re both already in the vamp pack? Is Vickie gonna have to be inaugurated before she and Robin can bone down?” Eddie perks up. “Shit, is there a ceremony? We could totally do a ceremony.” He bets he can get the kids to liberate some velour curtains from the drama club. With a few candles, they could get some serious atmosphere going.
“No, shut up, nobody’s doing a damn ceremony,” Steve groans. “Vickie’s fine.”
“Okay,” says Eddie. “So…you gonna tell me what all that was about, then? Do I have to start running guys past you first so your vamp instincts don’t wig out? Or…hm, maybe Argyle’d be down to mess around sometime.”
Steve lets out an actual snarl with weird animal echoes, then claps a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry,” he says, muffled. The shadows around them seem darker somehow.
“So I’m just not allowed to get laid ever again,” says Eddie slowly. “For vampire reasons.”
“Do whatever you want, man.” Steve’s still got his hand pressed tight over his mouth.
“And it’s…just me?” Eddie peers at the tightness around Steve’s eyes; the way he’s scowling stubbornly at his feet. “Huh. Kind of…possessive, Harrington.”
“It’s—weird,” says Steve miserably, dropping his hand at last. “I know it’s fucking weird.”
“Maybe.” Eddie shrugs, biting down on the grin he can feel tugging at his mouth. “Lucky for you, I’m into that shit.”
“What?” Steve frowns. “You’re…”
“Always wanted a vampire boyfriend,” says Eddie. “Like, are you kidding? I would’ve sold my fucking soul at 15 for something like that.”
“I’m starting to feel a little objectified here,” says Steve, but he’s smiling, and he reaches out to snag Eddie’s belt loop and tug him stumbling closer. “Just in it for the fangs, huh?”
“Well, you’re kind of a shitty vampire, actually.” Eddie drapes his arms over Steve’s shoulders. “So I guess I must just be in it for you.”
Steve hesitates, searching Eddie’s face. Stray red lights are still sparking like embers in Steve’s irises. “Okay, but—you’re in it? Right?”
“Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried, Bunnicula. I’ll send the vampire police after you, just watch me,” says Eddie, and kisses him.
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Danny couldn't tell you what he expected, but it most definitely wasn't this.
Time and Space were weird in the Infinite Realms, both bending to the will of their masters and no one all at once. They didn't follow a line or a path. Time and Space did as they wanted. Fitting, considering who their masters are.
The first time Danny was ten years old, his Grandfather killed him. He remembers that, in an effort to save him, his mother submerged his body in the Lazarus Pits he and his brother had been warned about ever going near.
As it was explained to him, the Infinite Realms has a base level of sentience at the very least. She allows herself to peak into the worlds She cradles to keep an eye on them. She found Danny when his mother had lowered him into the water and She claimed him as Her own. She bent Time to Her will, making Danny a toddler again, before bending Space to drop him in the world that would most allow him to grow. She promised that She would come back for him when the time was right.
The first time Danny was fourteen, after the second time he had been ten, he died. The parents he had learned to accept as his own tried to open an unnatural gateway into the Infinite Realms. He was the one to turn it on. The electricity of the mortal world killed him, but the energy from the Infinite Realms revived him.
He remembers the whispers barely heard under his own screams. Whispers and imprints of "I'm sorry" and "I do not mean to hurt you" and "You will only grow stronger" and "Welcome back, my champion".
Danny can count on one hand the number of times he's felt safe between the first time he was six and the first time his was fourteen. He can tell you the names of exactly two places he has never felt the need to hide from.
The day Danny turned fifteen for the first time, he told his parents what happened to him. He knew, instinctually, that they would not understand, that they are researchers before they are parents. But he held onto the hope that had been trained out of him when he was first four years old. He had hoped that they would go against all odds and accept and help him.
He shut down the portal the very next day. He destroyed it and all of his parents' lives work. He would not stand by and let them hurt his people when he could not be there to interfere. He escaped back into the embrace of the Infinite Realms through Vlad's portal, giving him the Order to destroy it. The only way for the citizens of the Realms to enter the mortal worlds was to use natural portals, as unstable and unpredictable as they are. He would not risk them again.
He finds himself wandering listlessly, letting the Realms take him where She wants him to go. Sometimes She takes him to places that are completely empty, places where he can mourn what he lost without anyone finding him. Sometimes She takes him to his mentors and friends. Sometimes She takes him where he needs to be.
Danny finds the boy just as the natural portal closes behind him, the sickly green and black oozing like a festering wound.
The boy looks similar to Danny. His hair is spiked, his clothing dulled shades of a hero's costume under a black cloak, a mask covering his eyes, his body being more filled out to match his age. But Danny, on every level of understanding that he is and ever will be capable of, knows that this is his brother.
"Damian?" he whispers. The Realms push him forward. "Damian!"
Danny cradles the body of his brother, slowly sinking to the ground the Realms produce for him to land on. He carefully peels the mask from his face and lays it beside the katana on the ground.
As expected of anyone who finds their way into the Infinite Realms without proper protections, Damian has no pulse. He is not breathing. He is cold. The wound under his sternum is not bleeding.
Danny brushed his thumbs under Damian's eyes, his hands on his cheeks. "What did they do to you, ahki?"
Despite having no mortal ability to do so, Damian's eyes opened. He started ahead, blinking when his green eyes met Danny's. "Danyal?"
Tears fell from his eyes as he nodded. "Hi, Damian. You're here early."
Tears fell from Damian's eyes as well. He knew where he was. There was only one explanation. He couldn't feel himself breathing, nor could he hear his heart beat or his blood flow. There was no pain from where his mother had run him through.
"She killed me!" Damian cried into his brother's shoulder.
Danny held him tighter. "I'm so sorry," No one should ever have to go like that.
"Father couldn't save me."
"It's okay."
"Dick and Tim and Jason and Cass-!"
"Shh, ahki. You will see them again. I'll make sure of it."
The brothers held each other as they cried. The Realms wrapped Herself around the boys, comforting them as she could. Her champion and his brother, both children She had claimed and would protect.
Part 1 Storyboard
@anarinette
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