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dastardly-imbecile · 2 months ago

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Danse Macabre

In another life, he’s the best guitar player in the world, but in this one, the instrument is hidden under an inch-thick layer of dust. When he picks it up, hands pressing the out-of-tune strings down, he gets the weirdest feeling that it’s alive, that he’s holding it by the neck with his cold hands and he could break it just as something else broke him.

---

Sam is a vampire. You are a vampire hunter. Shenanigans ensue. OR egregiously long exploration of sam's 'predator prey' kink

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Wordcount: ~11.6k

TW for suicidal ideation!

What gets Sam most is the fact that it makes no sense. Seb was practically made for this—all dark and broody, long-sleeved hoodies and not a single second spent outside of his basement. Yoba, even Abby, purple hair, dark makeup. He’s sure she’d love it, actually.

But no, it’s him, and he has an appointment with the Wizard, so he rolls out of bed. Maybe it’s his imagination, because he’d never mentioned this would be a side effect, but ever since that night, it’s been harder to wake up in the mornings. Or maybe that’s just the lingering desire to hide from the world that comes with this wonderful situation.

Out from under his covers, into the unfathomable cavern of his room, which means any area larger than the space his blankets make when wrapped around him. He goes through the motions of getting ready, running a comb through his hair, pulling on some wrinkled clothes draped upon his desk chair.

The living room is empty. Mom’s probably out in the town square with the other moms, and Vincent’s at school. Dad… Dad, he’s not sure. They’ve barely exchanged a word since he came back this past spring. Probably because Dad’s different now, and Sam’s different too, and neither of them want to talk about the intricacies of their new conditions.

One last thing before he swings the door open and proceeds into the open air. Habit, at this point, muscle memory—he raises his left hand, checks the band of metal on his ring finger. A thin loop of gold, small red gem inset into the top. Still secure, still there, still safe. He told everyone that he got it from the traveling trader, and when Sebastian remarked, you’ve never really been a ring guy, he’d snapped, and you’ve never been a question guy, and nobody has brought it up since.

Maybe because he doesn’t see his friends too often anymore, either. Maybe one Friday night out of the month’s four, no more jam sessions, no more strolls around town. Just the thought of picking up his guitar, of heading back into ZuZu City, makes him want to vomit. Want to dig his fingers into his neck and press until the blood comes black and viscous.

The thoughts aren’t really suited for the day, bright and sunny, the end of winter giving way to spring. Thick wads of snow slowly dissolving into the earth, sun bright enough that he gives his ring a nervous twist, pushing it securely down upon his finger. Just to be sure. The stone path peters into the dirt road past Marnie’s ranch, and one of the cows noses its way out from between the fence slats, nuzzling at him. Before, he would’ve pet it, let his hand run over the velvet of its snout, wetness of its nose. Now, he makes a circuitous sort of route to avoid it. He’s hungry, doesn’t want to get too close to the warmth of its skin and the steady beat of what lies beneath.

Not the most ravenous he’s ever been, of course. He’ll never let himself get that hungry again.

From there, it’s a smooth shot to the Wizard’s tower. He doesn’t have to knock on the door before it swings open, revealing a dark, wood-padded foyer, and, behind that, a man standing at a large cauldron that gleams like basalt. His back is to Sam, but the instant the door clicks shut behind him, he steps into action, crossing over to a long line of cabinets set against the wall. Everything in her blends together seamlessly—not even the tight construction that Robin can do, but instead a smooth sort of facade that makes it seem like this tower was grown from the earth itself.

Which, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Finally, the Wizard turns around. His name is Rasmo-something, but Sam knows him just as the Wizard because he can’t really imagine him with a normal name, just as he can’t imagine actual carpenters constructing this tower from the ground up. If, by some miracle, this was made by human hands, then he’s sure there are at least a few bones embedded in the walls.

Not that he can really judge.

From within the cabinet, hidden behind a smoothly beveled hardwood door, he pulls out a bag of blood. About the size of Sam’s head, minus hair, all thick and red and sharp. He can smell it from where he still stands, just beyond the entryway. He has to fight the urge to run over—wait for it to be brought to him, deposited in his hands.

It’s still warm.

Only then, then does he allow himself to descend upon it, open his mouth, bite. Whatever material it’s made out of feels so much like skin that it’s uncanny. Not that he’s ever bitten skin like this, but he thinks that he knows what it would be like. One of those inherent bits of knowledge that come hardcoded with his affliction, just like humans know to fear the dark. His hands clench around the sac, pushing more and more into his mouth, down his throat, until the bag is crumpled around his clenched fists, nothing but a thin sheen of red left within, dregs of something dark and unappealing pooling at the bottom.

When he looks back up, the Wizard is offering him a napkin. He swipes it roughly across his mouth, and it comes back crimson.

“Thank you,” he says, once he’s done, tucking the bloodied scrap of paper into his pocket, extending his left hand for the man to examine. By now, it’s all routine, because he’s been doing this every Friday since that performance in ZuZu City, last Spring, and three months of buffer is enough to pound a schedule into even his head.

The Wizard waves a thin, angular hand over his. The air above the ring wavers, rippling like all reality is nothing but a thin curtain that hides a vast space within, and that dark realm is where the Wizard draws power from, disturbing the sheet of normalcy for a brief second.

See, he never would’ve thought of shit like that before, the type of thing that only Sebastian says, and even then, only when he’s high. He wonders if his condition comes with the gloom, or if it’s the other way around, chicken-egg-bite-blood.

“Sunwalking magic still holds strong,” the Wizard hums, and this is where he would usually withdraw his hand, bade for Sam to leave. This time, though, before he can even think to turn around, he speaks again. “Boy.”

Just as he never calls the Wizard Rasmodius, he never calls him Sam. It’s a nice balance.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve heard…” he hesitates, before, “be careful, these next few months.”

“What?”

“There are… whispers,” he makes a sort of slight, jerky motion with his hand in the air, as if he is pulling on invisible threads, and Sam swears that some near-translucent filament disturbs the air, reality-cloth tightened and released, “of a disturbance coming to the valley. Welwick has spoken to the spirits.”

Sam swallows quickly. It tastes like licking an outlet, his mom’s pink salt lamp, roadkill, long-dead in the sun. “Anything, uh, specific?”

“They would not deign to be anything but obscure,” he murmurs, mustache twitching up in what might be a smile or might be a grimace. “I can say no more. It may not even concern you, boy, but keep your eyes wide.”

“I will,” he replies. The Wizard turns back to stirring his cauldron, muttering an incomprehensible string of text that Sam’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to comprehend, and he takes that as the goodbye it is, turning and breaking into the open air. It’s supposedly cold outside—because it’s winter, duh—but he feels none of that on his cheeks, no chill that sticks itself to his skin. Probably because he’s technically dead, all those extraneous nerves as doornail-deceased as the rest of him. He rubs at his arms anyways, feigning chill. Both in case someone is watching, and because he likes that bit of normalcy, the ability to pretend he isn’t a monster.

—

He doesn’t know that you’ve come to town until you burst into the library on Monday morning, first Monday of spring, hair flecked with dots of pollen and eyes as sharp as cut glass. He, personally, doesn’t even see your entrance—he’s tucked into the back of the building, nose buried in a book titled The Modern Mythology. Never used to like to read, but he does now, another one of those oddities that Seb tilts his head at and Abigail opens her mouth to ask, why, before snapping it shut again. Technically, it’s more research and less consumption, but if he does find some small enjoyment in the small black letters that trail across the yellowed pages, then that’s his own business.

Beside him, propped up on the table, is a broom. Quit his job at JojaMart to come help Gunther with the library, and the man doesn’t particularly care if he spends most of his shift reading, as long as the shelves stay mostly dust-free. His first clue as to your arrival is Jas and Vincent quieting. The second is the thud of the door shutting, Gunther’s low voice, muffled by a few shelves of parchment and wood. Still, it’s nothing abnormal—probably Elliott, he has the wherewithal to muse—and then, then you’re clearing around the corner of the distant shelf, gaze locked onto his.

“Oh, hey?” you say. The corners of his lips pull into a smile. It’s manual, it’s all manual, like his muscles have forgotten how to show emotion, death cleansed all that earthly sort of concern from his being. That’s also part of the reason he doesn’t really hang out with his friends anymore. Abigail tells some sort of inside joke that has even Seb cracking a smile, and he just stands there, straight-faced, because his brain has forgotten that he’s supposed to laugh.

He went with Vincent to the beach last summer, watched him build castles and throw sandballs at Jas. It was bad, partially because of the constant worry that his ring was going to slip into the sand and he’d immediately crisp into a lump of char. Worse, though, was the fact that he had to smile manually, the fact that Vince knew all his grins were fake, because he told Jodi to cook Sam’s favorite pizza that night, and he had to pretend to like that too.

All of which is a long-winded way to say he sees you and he grins and he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes. Maybe you know that too, because you slow down, wariness rising across your features.

“I’m new,” you supply, “a, uh, farmer. Just moved in.”

“I’m Sam,” he replies blankly. You don’t look like a farmer—you’re dressed in dark, loose clothes, and there is a sword strapped to your hip, and besides the pollen in your air, there is not a sign of the organic anywhere about you. His nose twitches. Hey, one good thing about being dead—his pollen allergy is gone.

“Nice to meet you,” you add, after a silence which might be painful, but he doesn’t really possess the capacity to judge anymore. He expects you to leave, keep introducing yourself to people other than the weird guy in the back of the library, but instead, you venture closer, eyes shifting from his face to the stack of books. Most are along the same line as the one currently splayed out in front of him, laid flat like a vivisection—Yoba, where did that metaphor come from—Ten Tales of the Supernatural and Monster Compendium and, at the very top, Unholy: Ancient Rites of Blood.

“Interesting books,” you say, head tilting slightly, and it feels, briefly, the same way it does in the Wizard’s tower—when he twists his hand and reality tugs, when it feels like he has caught the attention of something strange—“you into this sort of stuff? Mythology?”

“Yeah,” he replies. Again, your eyes flit around, this time from the books back to him, then, down, to his left hand.

“Nice ring.”

“Mhm.” Whatever necrotized instinct remains in his hindbrain wants you to leave, to get away. There’s no reason to comment on his ring except for the fact that it doesn’t really match his worn denim jacket, all old-timey-fancy and all that.

He remembers the Wizard’s words. Be careful. New things.

You’re new. Hey, captain obvious. Maybe his brain still works.

“Can I-”

“I have to go,” he says, standing abruptly, sweeping the books into his arms and depositing them onto the nearest shelf. It’s not proper organization, but whatever, he’ll fix it later. Not like anyone reads these anyways. Elliott likes bodice-rippers with men who look suspiciously like him on the cover, Abigail consumes exclusively fantasy, Harvey digs his way through the most boring aviation catalogues he can imagine. And, if Jas or Vincent were reading Unholy: Ancient Rites of Blood, he’d have a few more things to be concerned about than them not being able to find the book in its correct place.

“What?” You ask, taking a step back. He doesn’t miss how your hand moves down your hip, towards your sword. Hard to tell, but it looks to be silver.

“Sorry. Uh, family things.” He flashes another quick, performative smile, and then darts out around the shelves. If he were human, his palms would be clammy, heartbeat quick, but since he’s not, the only measure of panic he has is the sound of his thoughts rushing through his brain. Which is somehow worse than anxiety’s physical manifestation—it gives it all a dreamlike quality, like it’s not real, nothing is real. Penny says something that must be a goodbye to him as he spirits his way out of the building, but it passes unregistered through his ears.

He’s not dumb—he’s airheaded, which is different, and he’s not even that anymore, not since that night in ZuZu City. In any case, it’s obvious. Silver sword, dark clothes, weird fixation on his books and ring—you’re the stereotype of bad news to come. Stay away, he decides, stay away.

Pity he got summarily kicked out of the library right as his book was getting interesting, but he’s probably not missing much. There’s not much about his kind in the books at all, actually. Plenty about merpeople, about witches and wizards and small, crop-growing pixies. About the skeletons and slimes and possessed suits of armor that dwell far beneath the surface, about small, apple-shaped creatures that are said to inhabit Stardew Valley.

Him, though. He must brace a moment to say it. The name burns on his tongue—which is strange, because he’s fine calling himself a dead thing, bloodsucker, monster, but something about the word itself makes his teeth ache and finality settle over his shoulders like an executioner’s axe.

Vampire.

Yeah, nobody talks about them. What he’s been able to find are mostly children’s stories, but there’s nothing scientific, no full-page illustrations of merpeople dissections, no books dedicated to their society and culture. At most, a single sentence in another monster’s codex—Vampires are said to be distantly related to Shadow Brutes—or a recipe in an old cookbook to sprinkle over the doorstep to dissuade such creatures of the night.

Most of the information is wrong, too. Invited or uninvited, he can enter homes. Running water is easy to cross as a line of chalk. Garlic goes down the same as any other food, which is to say, it sits as heavy as lead in his inactive digestive system and he must vomit it into the toilet because there’s no other way to get it out of him.

Really, the only similarities he shares with those old stories is that he wants for blood and that he’s dead and that he fears the sun with a burning—ha—passion, but that’s enough to make his life hell, isn’t it?

Oh, and he’s immortal. He asked the Wizard about the implications of that, the first time he visited him, and all he got was a look full of the most potent pity he’s ever seen, and if that doesn’t scare him out of the prospect of eternal life, then nothing will.

—

Despite all his best attempts to avoid you, he learns more, most of it unwillingly, at one of the rare Fridays that he joins Seb and Abby in the saloon. They give him that look of half-surprise-half-confusion that always comes, now, when he hoists himself off his high immortal throne and deigns to converse with the mortal.

Not that they know about the immortality thing, of course, or the blood thing, or the dark alleyway in ZuZu City thing. Nobody does, except for the Wizard. Because why would he want people to know that all he subsists on is blood, and that his skin is horribly cold, and that he can count their pulse from ten feet away?

Besides, he doesn’t know how to explain it, even if he wanted to. The words clot in his throat and scab thick enough to suffocate (if he still drew breath).

“You’ve met her, right?” Is the first thing Abby asks when he arrives, weaving past the many other patrons. It’s too bright in here, too alive, and though he’d just eaten that very morning—another sack of dubiously-acquired blood, still the faintest aftertaste plastered to the back of his teeth—this much pulse and heartbeat and human presence makes his throat ache.

“Who?”

“The farmer.”

“Oh,” he says, “oh, yeah. Saw her… uh, Monday.”

“She’s so cool,” Abby gushes, “have you seen her sword? She let me hold it.”

Silver is another one of those things that most of the stories get right. He tested it with Mom’s fancy old silverware, and it burnt the imprint of a fork into his palm after only a second of holding. He imagines that blade cutting through his stomach and must suppress a gag.

“Hey, Sam, c’mere,” Seb calls from the other side of the pool table. He moves absently. Abby offers him a bowl of chips, but he brushes it away. Doesn’t particularly feel like throwing up tonight.

Seb makes his first shot, turns to reply to Abby, “it’s real?”

“Mhm. Pure silver and everything, apparently.”

Sam tries to tune them out, but it doesn’t really work. Closes his eyes. Everything smells so human, salt and metal and he wants it so badly, wants it more than he’s wanted anything else in his undeath.

Temporary, he tells himself, temporary.

“-And she’s been killing monsters. Already on the, like fiftieth floor or something. You think she’ll teach me?”

He lines up, tries to concentrate on the game instead. Shoots. The cue ball flies straight, knocks his target straight into the hole.

“Lucky shot,” Seb says, smiling. He ignores him, shoots again, and this one goes in as well, and the next, until Seb’s smile fades and all that’s left is the 8-ball.

One final shot. It’s deliriously simple—he’s able to see how it will land, as clearly as if it were drawn out before him.

It pockets. Sam stands straight, blinking slightly. All the noise of the room has faded away again, gone into some nebulous background, and so, somehow, has the tantalization.

All that’s left is his two friends, both staring at him, and an empty pool table.

“...Damn. You been practicing?”

“No,” he says, looking down at his hands, “no.”

“Rematch?”

“No,” he repeats, near-stumbling over to the couch, less sitting and more falling upon it. He can practically feel the look that Abby and Seb shoot each other. It’s just as invisibly tangible as the Wizard’s magic. They want to know what’s wrong, what’s been wrong with him for nearly a year at this point. They want him to offer up all his problems on a silver platter, proffering offal to the vultures, and let them pick at it until all that’s left is a bit of liver, intestinal lining, pool of black blood.

…That’s uncharitable. Whatever. He’s uncharitable. Not his fault that they miss Sam-who-laughed and Sam-who-hung-out and Sam-who-was-atrocious-at-pool, and that he can’t be any of those Sams anymore, he’s Sam-who-should-be-six-feet-underground. Coffin lined with silver. Stake through the heart.

He doesn’t know if the stories got that right. Hasn’t quite teetered to the point of checking. Maybe someday, though, maybe someday.

“I’m gonna go,” he blurts abruptly, standing up. According to the clock on the wall, it’s hardly eight.

“Oh- oh, okay.” Abby gives him a concerned sort of look, another invitation to sit down and spill the fact that he’s thought about draining every single person in this room dry. “Hey, we should jam out again sometime. It’s been…” she glances at Seb again, “...like, a while. Let us know, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” he replies. Good thing vampirism doesn’t stop him from lying.

—

The night is no better than the saloon, but no worse either. He’s naturally, biologically inclined to the darkness now, so it feels almost like an embrace, but it also reminds him of that final night in ZuZu City, so it all balances out into a nice neutrality.

It was their first gig at some outdoor concert, opening for a bigger band that he’s forgotten the name of by now(or, not forgotten the name of, he has a perfect memory, but can’t bear to remember). Went, afterwards, to some bar. Drank too much. Stumbled out the back, into the thin sliver of liminality between two buildings, leaning against the wall, trying his best not to puke.

Had no warning besides the whisper of a footstep before there was a bony hand clenched around his mouth and blissful agony tearing through his neck. He tried to struggle, to no avail, so settled—eventually—on biting. Down upon the hand that held his mouth shut, deep enough that he broke its skin, tasted its blood. It was thick and black and bitter as sawdust. The Wizard told him, later, that that’s the only reason he survived—would’ve died if he’d not had that viscous substance rotting him from the inside and revitalizing him all over again.

That’s the sort of memory that always comes back when he’s in the darkness, so when he hears footsteps again, he whips around, hands already brought up in some approximation of self-defense. Grabs the handle of something that is, for a brief moment, cold and sharp, and rapidly descends into a burn.

He whips away just as quickly, leaping a step back, into the domain of a yellow streetlamp. His attacker follows just as swiftly. The pale glow overhead reflects off the blade of your sword, that which is currently stained black with his own ichor.

“Woah,” he exclaims, which is not at all the last words he’d had planned, but then again, hasn’t he technically had his chance for last words already (in this case, it would be mumbling to Seb, I’m going out, I think I might hurl) but maybe the absurdity works, because you pause in your steps. He tries to grab the opportunity. Not by what might be the smart thing—that being attacking the person currently trying to kill him—but, instead, saying, “are you trying to kill me?”

The corner of your lip actually twitches up into a smile. “You’re a vampire, are you not?”

“I think so?”

It’s a stupid answer. He’s stupid. He needs to think of some good last words, fast. “I don’t… why does that mean you’re killing me?”

You actually have the audacity to look puzzled while you’re holding a sword coated in his blood. “You’re a monster. How much blood have you drunk, huh?”

“Nobody’s,” he swears. You narrow your eyes.

“That’s impossible. Your kind needs it.”

“I get it from the Wizard,” he says, and it occurs to him a second later that you may not know who the Wizard is, but you only scoff, raising that blade again. It shines dangerously, the edge so sharp that he cannot even make it out.

“And where do you think he gets it from?”

He blinks once, tries to croak out a response, but it doesn’t come. He’s asked, of course, but all he’s gotten is a quiet, that’s unimportant, but really, where does it come from? Or, not where, but who? He visualizes, briefly, some other Sam, drained of blood, and this one didn’t get the opportunity to steal a nip of eau-de-vampire, this one died in that alleyway, and he’s drinking from him every Friday.

Why is he still here, if he barely goes out, barely does anything besides pore over old books and mope?

Maybe you’re right.

Slowly, he tilts his head up, baring his neck to the world. He wonders if there’s still a scar from his first death on the tanned skin, wonders if this will hurt as much as the first death.

You move, raising the sword, but right as you stand at the zenith of attack, you pause. Lower it, at first by increments, and then, in a single swoop. You do not lunge for his throat. There is no rapturous burn that floods through his veins.

“What?” He asks.

“You seem…” you hesitate, swallowing down what might be the teeter of a compliment, before eventually deciding on, “innocent. As much as one of your kind can be. I’ll look more into this… Wizard.”

He almost blurts out a no, just do it, but by the time it’s risen to his mouth like bubbles from the deepest ocean, you’ve whirled around, as gone to the night as if you were a vampire yourself.

—

It takes him three weeks to build up the courage to ask the Wizard what, exactly, he’s drinking. Well, first, he stands there, staring at the sac of blood.

“Drink,” he says dismissively. When a moment passes, and he still does not move, he takes a step closer.

“Will you not?”

Sam looks up at him, meeting those brightly violet eyes. When another moment of hesitation passes, he asks, “do you know what will happen if you do not?”

Yes, he does, mostly because he’s gone through it before, that first week after the bite that he huddled up in his room, unsure why the sun burned so brightly, why he heard the sound of heartbeats so clearly in his skull. He’d only known to come to the tower because of a letter delivered to his window by a snow-white dove, and at that point, he could practically see the pulsing outlines of blood, veins intertwining and criss-crossing, through the walls.

“What’s in here?” He asks, “where did you get this?”

“Not your concern,” the Wizard says. Expected answer. He hardens his mouth, leans back a bit from the bag.

“I won’t drink unless you tell me.”

“If you do not drink,” he says, clearly and slowly like Penny when she’s trying to teach Vincent math, “then I will kill you. This valley is under my protection, and the only reason I have not culled you is that you are young and docile. If you prove to be as problematic as most of your kind-”

“I get it!” Sam exclaims, voice veering embarrassingly into yelp territory, “I know I’m dangerous, a monster, I just want to know what I’m drinking.” He pauses for a long moment, recovering from the outburst, before adding, quieter, “if people were killed to feed me.”

The Wizard observes him for a long, heart-wrenching moment—he’s prepared for him to wave his hand and make reality wrap him up and crush him on the spot—before saying, eventually, “I brew it.”

“Brew it? How?” Out of every answer, he hasn’t been expecting this. At the very best, ‘it’s medical waste’, and at the very worst, ‘I bleed ten orphans dry every new moon’.

He snorts. “Human blood is laughably easy to reproduce.”

“Why wouldn’t you just say that?” He draws the bag to his mouth, finally allowing himself to quench that gnawing thirst, and it is as sweet as the first spring rain, as bitter as silver in his throat.

“The process is easy, but the ingredients… ah, eye of lizard and wart of toad, blood of serpent and wing of bat. Plus more than a touch of insect. I believed you would be repulsed.”

He is repulsed for a brief second, as the blood is still pouring down his throat, but then it hits him that this is still a lot better than bloodshed and murder and all that less-than-fancy stuff. When he’s finally drunk his fill, he voices as much, and the Wizard gives a gracious sort of nod.

“...So we’re monsters?” He asks, after taking his napkin and wiping all remnants of artificial blood from his face. He’s been thinking about this little fact more than usual, after you. These three weeks of him building up courage can be summarily deemed avoidance—staying inside even more than usual, turning down any and all of Seb and Abby’s requests to go out, trying to pull him from his self-imposed imprisonment. The Wizard’s little spiel has done nothing to change his mind, for the record.

“Quite the traditional sort.”

“I haven’t been able to find much. About me.”

“Many books of your kind were burned, back in… oh, back in my youth. Many hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh.” He looks down, then up again. Used to have many sorts of nervous tics, biting his lip or running a hand through his hair, but obviously, those have been swept away by the river Lethe as well.

“I have encountered many. Most are old, powerful, and hungry. You are the first… the first young of your kind. Interesting.”

“And people hunt them,” he says, “or- I mean, uh, me. Us. Hunt us.”

He gives him an arch once-over, and Sam can’t help but wonder if he knows about you at all. All cooped up in the tower as he is, maybe your arrival has slipped right under his bushy mustache…

“A few,” he replies, and it seems that he does not, in fact, know about the valley’s newest visitor, “most belong to a rather archaic branch of Marlon’s guild. Not much use for them these days, though.” He turns, which indicates he’s done with this little visit, but tosses one final phrase over his shoulder before he returns to poring over the book on its iridium pedestal, “most of your type are dead already.”

That’s not technically true, but only because all of his kind are dead already. He remembers the feeling of that thin hand over his mouth, so cold, as stiff as the grave, and looks down at his own, wishes there was a world in which there are none left, none left at all. You’d be happy then, wouldn’t you?

—

That night, when Vince has already been asleep for an hour, and Mom is cleaning up the dishes and Sam is trying to find a way to sneakily throw out the dinner he wrapped in a napkin, she asks him, “Could you go find your father, please?”

“Where is he?”

Her shoulders tense briefly, and release in increments with a long, shuddering sigh. “I’m not sure, Samson. That’s why I’m asking you to find him.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah.” He rises from the living room couch like a puppet from its box, dead bones creaking, dead skin stretching. There’s an almost uncanny level of control to his body—he knows exactly how each part of him will move in isolation. He bets he could wiggle his ears if he wanted to. In another life, he’s the best guitar player in the world, but in this one, the instrument is hidden under an inch-thick layer of dust. When he picks it up, hands pressing the out-of-tune strings down, he gets the weirdest feeling that it’s alive, that he’s holding it by the neck with his cold hands and he could break it just as something else broke him.

Yeah. So he’s crazy. Is that news?

It’s not actually all that much of a search to find Dad. He’s standing across the main road, on the banks of the river, hands in his pockets. The windows of the neighborhood houses cast a new hue to his shirt, yellows the back of his neck like jaundice.

“Hey,” Sam calls, while still a distance away, giving him enough time to process the word and turn. That’s the first thing that Mom told him and Vince, the days before Dad came back—don’t make any sudden noises, don’t startle him.

He didn’t really get it back then—it feels like he was so young, even though that was only a bit more than a year ago—but he gets it now, kinda. Darkness and an alleyway and something coming up behind him. It’s frightening in a way it wasn’t before.

“Give me a minute,” Dad says, turning back to the river. Sam proceeds down the bank, trying his best not to trip, until they’re level. It’s with a bit of a jolt that he realizes he’s almost as tall as him now.

“Do you come here a lot?” He asks, more to break the silence than anything. He doesn’t remember how to talk to him—he left for the army when he was fifteen. Came back for a week or two of leave at a time, those first two years, but then it was four years of silence and Mom sobbing in the bathroom at night. Plus, it’s not like vampirism has done much for his social skills.

“Sometimes. When I can’t sleep.” Dad half-turns just to look at him, and he wonders if he knows something’s wrong. Nobody else has been able to tell—not even Harvey at last year’s exam after the Wizard put something called a geas of life over him. Gave him a heartbeat and warm skin and everything, Pity it didn’t make his digestive system work again, though.

“Does that… happen a lot?”

“Some.” A moment of pause before he adds, “You should get back. Tell Jodi I’m coming.”

“What happened to you?” He asks, instead of taking the suggestion and leaving. It’s a mistake to ask, he knows immediately. That’s the second thing that Jodi told him and Vince—don’t ask Dad about the war—but he wants to know, truly. Their house is quiet. Part of that is him, is the monster living in his skin, and part of that is Dad too, the monster living in his.

That’s uncharitable. Bitter. PTSD can’t exactly be called a ‘monster’.

At least the first part of that is right. He so sorely wishes, as much as the desiccated nerves in his hindbrain can wish, that he was still the old Sam, that of friendship and easy laughter and sunshine as thick as honey. His hair has faded, gone from butter-yellow to a sallow sort of imitation, the shade of wilting daffodils, a liver engorged by lumps of metastasizing fat.

“You’re a man, now,” Dad says, and he nods. He takes a moment to process that fact—that Sam is, indeed, twenty-one, that he’s reached the holy age of being able to buy alcohol on his own instead of getting Abby to sneak it from Pierre’s ‘secret stash’. Maybe that confirmation is what spurs his next words, “a lot happened, on the front.”

He pauses, swallows. Fingers twitch like he’d like to be holding something right now, maybe a cigarette. Mom would never let that slide. Always complain when Sam comes home from Seb’s, smelling like smoke, makes him wash all his clothes immediately. Not that that happens a lot anymore. She must be happy about that.

“Did things I still regret. Saw a lot of… of good men die.”

It’s a surprisingly blunt answer. Though, maybe Dad thinks that he’s old enough to handle it now, handle the nebulous thought of death, the notion that consciousness snuffs out and escapes to somewhere long-past the bounds of the horizon.

Except for Sam’s. His is a struggling animal in a trap, is a bear without the wherewithal to chew its own paw off. Or, or maybe some sort of soul did escape, but something else moved in, blended itself so well that it cannot distinguish even its own skin from the meat of its new home.

“I…” Sam’s voice comes out in a hollow, quiet croak, but it draws his attention nevertheless, both eyes focusing in with an almost frightening intensity, “I did… something happened to me, too. Something bad.”

It’s the most he’s ever confessed to someone, barring the Wizard, and he doesn’t really count. Something about the night, about the river, about the conversation with his father who he feels he has not actually talked to for six years and counting, drags it out of him.

Feels good in the same way ripping off a bandaid feels good, pulling out a tooth. Better, when Dad doesn’t press, doesn’t fly into a frantic interrogation the way he knows Mom would, his friends would.

“You’re too young to suffer that,” is all he says.

“You too.”

When Sam chances a glance over at him again, he’s actually smiling—faint, only the slight upturn of a lip—but it’s there.

“Isn’t that the truth?” He nods once, before turning abruptly, facing the upwards stretch of the bank and the neat row of houses beyond that, “I’m heading back.”

“Give me a minute,” Sam says. He departs without another word, just the sound of footsteps on first gravel, then cobble, then faded out entirely.

Perhaps it’s the talk that has his instincts on edge, because he knows you’re there before you speak. By the faintest ghost of your breath against the wind, by the errant rustle of the bush you were no doubt hiding in.

“Nice conversation,” you say, wry. He doesn’t turn around—lets you come up to stand next to him. Still in your dark, loose, old-timey sort of garb, the type that screams monster hunter. And, if that screams it, then your sword must be wailing it to the heavens, all ornate silver that cuts a long line through the air at your hip.

“Eavesdropping?”

“You can learn interesting things from the bushes,” you reply, “you’d be surprised. I saw Marnie and Lewis going at it once.”

“Going at-? Like…”

“Mhm.”

His nose pulls upwards into a grimace. “Eugh.”

A moment of silence passes after that lovely little bit of info. His eyes are pulled, as if by magnetism, to your sword, no matter how much he tries to force them away. Might as well ask the burning question, the elephant in the room.

“Are you here to kill me?”

You snort. “In front of the houses? Witnesses. I’d corner you somewhere else.”

“Great,” he says lamely, resisting the urge to bring a hand up, feel at his neck, cup his own chin like a lover, like a hunter; bare his neck like a meal, like a submission. “It’s not real blood, you know.”

“Hm?”

“What I drink. The Wizard brews it on his own.”

“I heard,” you say, “it’s the only reason you’re still here.”

You offer up no auxiliary information on how, exactly, you quote-on-quote ‘heard’, and he doesn’t ask because he’s sure you would not tell him in any case.

“So you’re truly innocent. A virgin.” When his eyebrows raise, you snap, “and not like that. It’s a professional term. One who has not yet drawn blood.”

“Right,” he murmurs. Around you, he feels strangely suspended, tongue wooden, always uncertain of what to say next, and not only because of the looming threat of death. There’s a certain hypnotizing quality to you, the way that you stand, so straight and certain. The way you inspire a spark of emotion that he cannot identify—but that which is still remarkable, because he has not felt emotion at all for such a long time.

“I should kill you anyways,” you say, in an idle, listless way that clues him into the fact that you aren’t truly going to do it. Unless you’re especially cruel, luring him into a sense of false security, or especially erratic, emotions on a switchback that even you cannot anticipate, but he doesn’t think either of those are the case. The latter, because you’re all too full of stone-hard surety, and the former because he cannot imagine you as cruel, no matter how hard he tries, not in the same way he can ascribe that label to himself.

“Even though I’m… uh, virginal.”

The moonlight gleams off your eyes as you cut him a glare. “You’re young. Vampires get hungrier as they age. Colder. Darker. Forget how to even pretend to be human. Right now, it’s like…” you hesitate, “it’s like your psyche is doing muscle spasms. Before the rigor mortis and rot sets in.”

When he doesn’t respond, trying to conceptualize that unpleasant mental image, you continue.

“Give it ten years, you won’t be thinking that Wizard’s fake blood tastes so good anymore. Give it twenty, you’ll be looking at your little brother and-”

“Stop,” he snaps, whirling around to face you fully. He tries to raise a finger, but his hands are too stiff, locked into fists. Your sword is halfway out of its sheath before he can blink, but you stop yourself with a deliberate, controlled motion.

“Hit too close to home?”

“Don’t,” he replies, instead of admitting you’re right. Those first two weeks after ZuZu city, in which he huddled under his covers and tried to conceptualize why he could not touch the sunlight, before the Wizard sent him an invitation upon the back of a dove, all he can remember is hunger. He has never felt so ravenous in the year since, starved to the point that there was no Mom anymore, no Dad, Vincent, but instead shapes of scent and blood and a single thin tether of control.

“Surely, then,” you say, slowly sliding that sword back into its sheath, “as something with a decaying sense of reason, you agree.”

“If I ever get to that point,” he snarls, “you’ll be the first to know.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a threat?”

He did not realize it could be taken as one. “No,” he replies, “no, it’s an offer.”

With that, he snaps around, stalks up the bank back to the road. For a moment, his back tenses, and he truly wonders if he will feel the gnaw of a blade at the core of his spine, but nothing comes, and by the time he thinks to look back at the river—standing on the porch, hand upon the doorknob—the bank is empty of people and monsters alike.

—

Spring bleeds into summer with all the grace of a dying animal, giving way in slow, peeling strips. Ripens and sickens and darkens in all the predictable ways. Mere warmth becomes fervent heat; pale, new-green trees deepen into shades of bursting emerald; and the lively wind settles into languid, stagnant hibernation, preparing for its resurrection come fall. He sees you occasionally—when Mom sends him to the store, when he walks to the Wizard’s, the occasional days that Vince bullies him to the beach—but he only truly meets you again on the second Friday of the season.

It’s more than a bit of a shock when he trudges into the Saloon and sees you there, at his usual spot at the head of the pool table. Abby’s tilting her head, telling some joke that makes you put a hand up to your mouth to laugh, and he debates on turning and fleeing, but then Seb spots him, beckons him over with the curve of a pale hand.

When you turn, eyes alighting upon him, his chest thrums with an unfamiliar thing that he would’ve once called a heartbeat. Inspired by fear, or surprise, or some secret, worse third thing.

“Long time no see,” Abby quips, scooting over on the couch and patting the spot beside her, “hey, who d’you think’ll win?”

He settles gingerly on the indicated spot.

“Sebastian.”

You shoot him another shielded gaze. You’re absent of your sword tonight, he notices, absent of anything except for a new set of dark clothes. It occurs to him that he has never seen you carry anything that pertains to farming whatsoever, despite your whole thing as ‘the new farmer’. He’d wager that, if he were to mosey on over to your patch of land, he’d find nothing but barren fields and maybe a scarecrow voodoo doll with his face and straw-yellow hair.

“Don’t jinx me,” Seb murmurs, shutting one eye to line up his next shot. When the ball courses off-target, ricocheting off one of the walls and coming to a useless, limping sort of stop in the center of the green, he shoots him a glare. Sam gives him a half-smile back, and it’s only when it’s fading that he realizes he did not have to force it.

Things have been lighter, somehow, since that night with Dad (and you, though he doubts that part factors into his household dynamics). Mom’s no longer on that tight wire. Dad went with Vincent on a walk around town a week ago, came back with a smile on his face, put a hand to his cheeks as if to make sure that the joy was real. Watching that felt a bit like Sam was looking in a mirror.

You win the game. Abby looks at you, and then at him, and he knows what she’s going to say before she says it.

“You’re the expert now, aren’t you, Sam? I think a match is in order.”

“No,” he denies immediately, tries to turn it back on her, “how about you?”

She swipes the distraction away without a second thought. “You know I hate this game. C’mon, what’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?” You echo, which is the real surprise—he would have thought you’d be the most eager to get him far away from this table—but no, you are watching him, hip jutted out in a challenge.

“Just one game,” Abby pleads, and he realizes suddenly that this is her attempt to get you two closer. There is that hint of a silent plea in her eyes, that she wants you to get along—that she doesn’t want him to feel replaced. It’s such an absurd read that he doubts it for a moment, but it all clarifies into something that makes sense. He’d thought—or hoped, maybe—that her and Seb would give up on him eventually, would take his absence as a sign of removal.

But no, no, of course they wouldn’t. They’re better than that. He is too.

“Fine,” he acquiesces, a false smile to go with it, “one round.” He pushes himself up from the couch, allows Seb to take his place, steps up to his spot on the table. In the meeting of your gazes, there is another silent message, more easily read than Abby’s. His is something like, why are you here, and yours along the lines of I’m going to destroy you at this game.

At least that’s his guess.

“Toss a coin,” you call at Abby, “I call tails.”

It glints as it flips. “Tails,” she confirms, and you smile.

You break in a quick, sharp motion, ball shooting across the table to scatter the triangle. He watches you as you line up to shoot—the lines of your body, how smoothly you move. He can easily imagine you fighting, cleaving your way through every monster in the Mines.

The ball pockets easily, straight-shot. Your smile widens a bit as you sidestep around the table.

The next one, though, misses solidly. He makes sure to keep his face carefully neutral when he lines up his shot. Just as he jabs the stick forwards, he briefly wonders if he should sandbag, use this perfect control of his body and angular mind to miss instead, get this whole game over with, but then his eyes meet yours, and any notion of that melts away.

You know he can win, and you know that if he loses, it’s his own choice, and he does not think you’d like that at all.

So, he lets his shot aim true and strong, and every one after that, until the 8-ball is slipping smoothly into the pocket and you’re watching him with what seems to be a mixture of anger and maybe—maybe—a touch of impressment. Or maybe he’s imagining that part.

You sweep around the edge of the table, close enough that he gets this uncertain, animal sort of fear that you’re going to skewer him like a fly in front of everyone, despite the lack of sword—dagger hidden in the boot, or something. But your hands reach for no hidden weapon—instead, coming up to cocoon your mouth, hiding the word you whisper to him.

“Cheater.”

With that, you whisk back around, nodding once at Seb and Abby, a polite, “and I think that’s my sign to leave for the night.”

He’s still standing there, more than a bit puzzled, paralyzed, something… something else. Abby tilts her head, something quizzical in her eyes.

“...What was that?”

“Nothing,” he says dazedly, “I think… I think I should go too.”

Her and Seb share a glance that he really doesn’t like. Silver lining that there is no blood left in his body besides that black, bitter substance which can not really be called blood. It’d be rushing to his cheeks. It’d be rushing down.

As he makes a swift exodus out of the Saloon, he must wrestle with the fact that, threats of death aside—or, perhaps, even included—he is the most attracted to someone as he’s ever been.

—

Summer passes, enters fall, in much the same way—that being he no longer spends Friday nights cooped up in his room but instead makes the trudge towards the Saloon, group of three that has now inexplicably become four. It’s not like he can’t remember why he stayed away—sometimes, all the noise in the room is still too overwhelming, scent of blood in the air, and there are times when he must pull his mouth up into smiles he does not feel—but it’s enough goodness that it keeps him coming.

Sometime near the end of summer, when the last of its lifeblood is being sucked into autumn’s hungry mouth, he happens to leave his house while you are passing, and the short walk to the Saloon is spent in awkward, lock-step silence.

The next week, though, the same happens, and this time is not entirely a coincidence—he stood at the windows and watched until he saw you cresting around the bend, leaves tangled in your hair—and the week after that, too. It’s not until midway through fall, one day in which Vincent hides his shoes and he’s late after digging them out from under Mom’s bed, that he steps out of his and finds you leaning against his fence. Waiting. Comes slowly to the realization that perhaps you have noticed that walking together hasn’t been entirely accidental on his part. It’s strangely nice, even if you share little conversation, nothing except his occasional half-baked opener about the weather (which you promptly brush away). Vampires are bad at conversation, it seems, sucks to suck, pun not intended.

They start to meet back up for Solarion Chronicles, all huddled in Seb’s basement. New campaign, both because of you, and because it’s been so long that he cannot remember his old character anymore, which is a fact that gets awkwardly brushed under the rug. No question of resuming the band has come up yet, no questioning of what really happened to him, which he’s glad for and frustrated about in equal measure. He wants to tell someone. He wants to keep it locked in his chest forever.

Despite this tense partnership, it is not until the first dewey days of winter that he truly talks to you again. Not the best of circumstances, not when you’re sprawled in the snow at the entrance to the mines, clutching a hand to your torso.

It’s the smell of blood that draws him to you, late at night, when he’s standing by the river. First a curling sort of tendril, then a full-bodied scent that grabs him by the chin and does not let go. Vivid even from his own house, moreso as he follows it up the mountain in a half-way sort of stupor that he does not realize he’s in until he sees the body, dark against the white.

He knows, from the first moment he sees you. So close, scent so strong that it’s like cotton in his nose - knows that the Wizard’s brew holds no candle to the real thing. That he could bend, kneel, place his hands on your shoulders and turn you over-

And your eyes snap open. His stomach burns, but he’s so drunk on the smell that he does not even realize it until you dig your blade in deeper, deep enough that the pain of the sword crackling through the fat of his hip cuts through even this carmine delirium.

You don’t seem to have the capability to speak, but your eyes narrow, and when he shifts back from the burn of the silver, you hoist it in front of you like a shield.

He bites down on his own lip. Hard. What is he doing?

Monster, bloodthirsty. His teeth slot through his bottom lip as easily as a knife through butter. The wound closes almost immediately. It’s only the gash across his waist that lingers.

“Are- you’re hurt,” he manages, still trying to keep his head clear, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

You tense in a way that is decidedly disbelieving. Such a strange contrast, to go from nights in Seb’s basement, afternoons strolling through town together, to this—dark midnight, lit only by the full moon ahead, twisted into something that cracks whatever veneer he’s managed to erect in these two seasons.

He almost runs, like he always considers—fleeing is always on the back of his mind, maybe cowardice comes with this malady as well—but he cannot be a creature in this moment, he’s a man, just a man. No bite on his neck, no blood dizzying his mind, not when you’re bleeding out in the snow before him.

“I’m going to pick you up,” he says, moving carefully, slowly. When you do not stab him, he loops one arm under your chest, the other under your legs, scoops you up with one fell motion. The jostle makes a bit more blood weep from the gash on your chest. He turns his head up. Don’t look. Don’t think.

Something cold and corrosive comes to rest against his neck, close enough that he cannot even look down again without fear that it will dig into him. He makes no move to get out of it. You’re probably right for that. The fog of mind that prompted him to look at you as not you, but instead some inanimate sack of blood, is still perilously present at the back of his mind.

Still, as he carefully navigates down the mountain, he must think that it’s such a strange sensation, to be predator and prey both at once.

He likes it in a way that’s not entirely appropriate for this situation.

You do not remove the blade until he’s stepping into town center, banging on Harvey’s door. When it falls from his neck, it is with a quick, exhausted motion, like it was a struggle to hold it up for so long.

Harvey takes you with all the requisite panic and clucking. He sticks around for a moment, watching as you’re set up in a long white bed, gives his story about ‘happening’ upon you in a snowbank.

That night, after he’s ushered out of the clinic, he lays in his bed and runs a hand first over the cut in his hip and then the thinner, hairlike one that runs over his throat. Two lines, perfectly parallel, the tines of Yoba’s fork that line the conduit between Heaven and Hell.

—

A note arrives in the mailbox not the next morning but the one after that. It’s simple, on unornamented paper, and reads only Come to my farm.

He crumples it slightly in his fist. The winter day outside is just as brisk as usual, a cold wind that buffets at his face, tries to tear the hat from his head. He makes the trek anyways, past Marnie’s shuttered farm—all the animals are nice and cozy inside—and up, towards the large slot of land that you’ve designated as farm.

Which, just like his prediction from so long ago, is utterly empty. Which is perhaps understandable, given that it’s winter, but there’s not even a single coop erected, not one wilted plant embedded in the ground. He makes his way to your door, knocks with a singular, decisive motion. A beat passes before it swings open, and there you stand, looking little worse-for-wear, just a large bandage wrapped around your chest.

“Are you alright?” Is the first thing he asks. You tilt your head like you’re surprised he asked.

“Peachy.”

“No, really.”

You step back from the door, beckoning him in.

“I’ve been through worse. Thanks for…” you make a dismissive sort of hand gesture that's supposed to encapsulate picking me up and not draining me dry, and he nods.

“I mean, uh. Yeah. Of course.” This close to you for a first, real time, in a space that’s entirely yours, he’s not sure what to do, how to conduct himself. He feels like he is ten again, his first crush—Penny, who’s another one of those friendships that dropped in this past year and he has not yet found the time to pick up—and so out of place that it feels like trying to fit a square peg in a hole that is not there in the first place, has never been.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, “you were right.”

“About?”

“My… blood. I almost couldn’t help it.”

You give him a thin-lipped smile. “But you did. I didn’t expect you to.”

“I had a little help,” he says sheepishly, hand traveling to the cut across his stomach which has not yet healed. Your own hand travels to the hilt of your sword—not in a threatening manner, but instead, a motion that is more along the lines of commiseration.

A moment of awkward silence before, eventually, you jump into motion, crossing through the small, warm room to a kitchen, reaching for a kettle. “Tea? Got some fresh leaves from Caroline.”

“Sure,” he replies, and the day sinks as easily as a sugarcube in hot water, as teeth into skin and all that comes with such vampiric metaphors.

It shifts, after that, some seismic quake in what can tentatively be called a friendship. It’s not every day that he meets you at your farm, but most, you’re somewhere together, Cindersap forest or the Spa or the beach. Even when he’s working, idly dusting the library, you lounge in a plush couch and grimace over the pictures in Unholy: Ancient Rites of Blood.

He sees a second you under that first, fearsome layer—one that is not so angry at his nature but instead, uniquely, nakedly curious. One afternoon, the final day of winter, in which the snow retreats to its high lodgings in the mountain, he sits in your living room and allows you to investigate every part of him.

“Teeth,” you say, and he opens mouth, allows the canines to flash, serrated on one side and needle-sharp on the other. You run a careful finger down one of them. Such a small gesture, such a degree of trust that it almost blows him back. When you circle the tip of your index finger over the pinpoint of his left tooth, and his eyes alight on your sword on the ground—still in arm’s reach—he must wonder who’s really doing the trusting.

He allows you to pry his ring off his finger and spin it about in your hands; you press two fingers to the pulse point of his neck, an ear to his chest, try to listen to the beat of his heart. If it still pumped, he’s sure it would be at a jackrabbit pace, with your presence so close. The subtle scent that all humans have, that of blood and life, is mixed with something that’s unique to you—the cool air of the Mines and the burn of silver in his nostrils.

“You’re cold,” is your final verdict, as you draw back achingly far. He nods.

“That, uh, comes with the whole dead thing.”

“I’ve always…” you start, before switching the phrase on its head, “I’ve never been able to study one of you before. They’re usually trying to kill me.”

“I guess I’m different,” he quips, leaning a touch closer despite himself, seeking your heat like a snake seeks the sun. Your hands are so pleasant against his skin, like smooth river stones, warmed by temperate waters.

“Oh, you don’t even know,” you reply, looking at him like he is indeed a wonder of the world.

Spring trudges back into the valley. It’s been two years since that night. He is with you on one of the backalley paths of the mountain, near a waterfall that hums soft songs into the air, when he realizes the anniversary.

“It was tonight,” he says abruptly, interrupting your tracing of the constellations and explaining in great detail how each one correlates to an arm of the Adventurer’s guild.

“The bite?” You ask, because of course you know him well enough, by now, to not have to ask, what?

“It was in the dark,” he says, “ZuZu City. Took me by surprise.”

You half-turn to regard him, head flopping over on the bed of pine needles. “Unwilling. So you didn’t choose this?”

“You know I didn’t,” he retorts, snappy despite himself. There’s a bit of insulted shock in the mix too, shock that you would dare to think he had. You must pick up on that, because your next words are a half-justification.

“Most do. There’re benefits to the lifestyle. Strength, speed, reflexes. Immortality.”

“Maybe,” he says, recalling an older conversation, “I’m different because I didn’t.”

You let out an acknowledging sort of hum.

“The one who killed my… killed them,” you add, after a second, “chose. I know she did.”

“Is that why..?”

“Mhm.” You run an idle hand down your body, and it lands upon your sword, which he’s come to recognize is less a threat and more an item of comfort. “I didn’t think any vampires could be… you know. Like you.” You turn more fully, shoulders shifting this time, and he moves to match. “I hope you never change. I hope time doesn’t twist you.”

“Me too,” he whispers, and your faces are so close now, close enough that he could lean forwards. Roll forwards, more like, but same same. He almost does, but then stutters back, caught in hesitation so strong that it crystallizes like amber. There is no name for what you have been, this past season-and-half, joined at the hip, split at the head. No bouquet, only the markers of mere friendship, but more, or at least he wants more. The desire comes from the same place his hunger does: that insatiable well at the base of his spine, not entirely filled even with a gallon of blood, with a season of your attention.

It’s not entirely changed from his old self, if he thinks about it. That Sam who wanted large stages and blaring crowds and liked food a lot too, actually.

You smile. He can’t see why.

“I never thought…” you start again, and he expects you to flip the phrase on its head again, never to always, except, instead of that, you simply lean forwards, lips crushing into his. He’s caught so off-guard for a moment that he forgets to reciprocate, but by the time you’re beginning to draw away, he chases after your warmth, body bending to follow your pull.

His teeth catch on your lip for a brief second, sharp enough that it almost pulls a cut open. You freeze for a long moment, and he almost spills an apology into your mouth, but then, you deliberately push up, the soft inner lining of your lip up against the tip of his fang.

Another stillness. This is, he knows, the equivalent of a dog rolling onto its stomach, less about the submission and more about the trust. His hand reaches around your waist, correspondingly, so close to your sword that he could pull it out of the sheath itself if he didn’t mind a burnt-up hand. You notice as well, from the way you shift, allow his fingers to slide over the leather sheath.

It is a compromise, it is a cycle, it is predator and prey, monster and human, and he cannot tell which is which.

Soon, even that is forgotten, in the mess of hands and heat. You’re pressed so close to him that he can almost think that your warmth is his own. Only when your hands run down to cup the front of his pants does it pause. You pull away with a question in your eyes, and he must duck his chin to his chest, explain the whole, “uh, lack of blood situation.”

You actually laugh at that.

“I can…” he struggles to get the words out, a mixture of embarrassment and a desire so strong that it hurts to express, “my mouth.”

For a moment, he thinks this may be a threshold of trust that you’re not yet willing to cross—but then, then, you nod fractionally. Pull back, hands falling to undo the button of your pants, pulling them down and throwing them to the side.

Sam lowers himself with a slow, measured movement. Lingers for a moment directly above, and when you make a questioning, impatient sort of sound, he must admit, “I haven’t, uh… actually done this before.”

“So you are a virgin,” you exclaim, “in both ways.”

Before he can snap anything back, you place a gentle hand on the back of his head and say, quietly, “I think you’ll pick it up.”

He takes the final plunge down, and does. Starts slowly and unsurely, at first, in the folds, but he soon finds that when he focuses on the bud at the top of the slit, your legs tighten, hand clenching atop his head. At first, he is careful to keep his teeth far away, but the first time his fang brushes incidentally against you, you actually let out a quiet moan.

So more. Carefully, as not to draw blood, but each delicate scrape gives you a new wave of pleasure. It is something unique for him as well, to linger so rapturously close to drawing blood, but not to do it—to pull himself back from the edge, to know that he is something more than base instincts and hunger, to know that you like him, all him, and not only who he used to be, not only the monster in his skin.

When you come, it is with a shuddering of your body and the clenching of your hips around his head, a surge of fresh wetness that he might call better than blood. Would call, because blood does not come with your collapse against him, hands coming around to meet around his back, drawing him into an embrace of trembling shoulders.

—

“Is this us, then?” You ask, as spring comes to a close, shoulder-to-shoulder at the Flower Dance. Never his favorite holiday, and not yours either, he’d wager, but it’s a good enough place to talk about this, as the season falls to tatters in the form of delicate pink petals around them.

“What do you mean?” He asks, puzzled. There have been far more nightly rendezvous and far more nights of tongue and teeth and far more suggestive looks from Abby when you sit a touch too close to be friendly at the Saloon.

“Us,” you repeat, “are we..?”

He blinks. Is there any possible world in which you are not ‘..?’?

“Yes?”

“I was going to leave,” you say, “kill you, move onto the next one. You caught me.” You give him a light shove, which he bows along with.

“...Are you still planning on leaving?”

“No,” you reply, “but what about after? We’re so… immortal, mortal, all that.”

“Are you scared I’ll change?” He asks. There is no offense in the question, just idle curiosity. He can’t really be offended when he, himself, is scared of the very same thing.

“Maybe,” you admit. Out in the field, Jas starts yelling at Vincent because he muddied her dress, and Dad rushes out to handle it. It’s good to see his shoulders looser nowadays, the easy way in which he maneuvers around the situation.

“I meant what I said,” he replies, “that first night. If I ever get hungry like that, then you have full permission to handle it.”

You smile, give him a look that’s so full of love, or at least something that approaches love, that he thinks he might be able to subsist on glances like that alone. Even better when you lean forwards, press a kiss to his temple.

“I’ll stay for a bit.”

He smiles. It’s not forced. “Think you’ll have enough time to join a band?”

You raise your eyebrows. “I can’t play a thing.”

“I’ll teach you,” he assures, watching Lewis raise his arms to signal a gathering for the dance. Rises easily, offers a hand to help you up as well, “Abby and Seb are on board already. For me?”

“For you,” you confirm, as easily as the monster fades into the darkness, as the sun rises over the sea-lined horizon.

#sdv sam #stardew sam #sam x reader #sam x farmer #sdv sam x reader #fanfiction #stardew fanfic #another episode of ‘how far can I stretch an AU until it can't rightfully have any place in canon anymore’

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