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Being alive for a few hundred years really made feelings begin to feel boring. That was the whole fun thing about fucking around with witchcraft, it gave him new things to experience. Whatever Alex Manes did to make Michael feel the way he did, however, was better than any witchcraft he’d ever messed with.
“How have you never had chocolate covered strawberries?”
“I don’t usually go out of my way to eat human food.”
“Mmm.”
Alex came towards him with a smile, a bowl of melted chocolate, and a carton of strawberries. These past few months of stealing alone time with one of the Slayers little lackeys had been some of the best months of his long life. Alex was impossible to be hardened or cryptic around. He was all sweet smiles and soft touches and dizzying kisses. He’d lived for centuries and never had he met someone who made him feel like Alex Manes.
Alex hopped up onto the counter that Michael was leaning against. Michael was stuck in a trance as he dipped the strawberry in the chocolate, holding it up to let it drip and watching it hardened before their eyes. He held his hand under it as he moved it towards Michael, guiding him to take a bite. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off him.
He wore all black, obscenely tight jeans stretched across his thighs and bits of metal stuck through his face in various places. He was a masterpiece. Michael felt unworthy. And, when he pulled the strawberry away, he leaned down and dragged his tongue over Michael’s lips, licking away the excess chocolate. He would never get over the overwhelming trust Alex had in him to be so, so close to his teeth.
“Heaven help me.”
Alex turned first and Michael had to drag his eyes off the man before looking at Isobel. She was healing nicely and had traded in her dramatic robes for something a little more modern–dramatic gowns. Her long hair was braided over her shoulder and the red dress she wore today clung to her. Michael loved seeing her like this. She was as elegant as the woman he remembered.
She also happened to be the only one who knew of the two of them. It was impossible to hide anything from her.
“Will you two ever not be engaging on my table?” she asked almost wistfully, a little pout on her lips. Alex chuckled.
“You know we don’t have many options, Isobel,” he teased. Michael was unable to put into words how fantastic it felt to see how comfortable Alex was around Isobel. Michael had to beg Isobel not to kill him for a while, but now he could even leave them alone. Not for long, but he could.
“The idea that you won’t tell your friends of your lover is sad,” she replied, striding past them to the freezer. She pulled out a neatly packaged bag of blood and went to heat it up. Their one agreement to stay apart of the group was no murdering people. It was an easy sacrifice to make for Michael as long as he had Alex.
“They would kill Michael if we told them, and then they’d kill me for hiding it for six months,” Alex said and Michael gravitated towards the sweet skin of his neck. He pressed a kiss there.
“How are you even hiding it at all? You are attached around here, it’s almost pathetic,” Isobel teased. Michael tuned her out easily, using his nose to trace Alex’s jaw. God, it was heavenly. He was heavenly.
He needed Isobel to leave them alone.
“We know how to keep your hands to ourselves.”
“Do you?”
Michael gripped Alex’s hips, pulling him closer and nipping at his neck. Alex weaved his fingers mindlessly into his hair and cradled his head in his arm. He was so lovely.
“My point is made,” Isobel sighed, taking her blood and disappearing deeper into the house. Michael moved up to kiss Alex’s lips. He was hungry and it wasn’t anything blood or strawberries could feed.
“Wait, the chocolate got hard,” Alex said.
“Yeah, that’s not the only thing.”
Alex giggled lightly and nudged him away, hopping off the counter and bringing the plate back towards the microwave.
-
“Can I stay here tonight?”
“You know I won’t say no to that,” Michael whispered. He captured Alex’s lips in another kiss for the night, each one feeling like the first one and making him feel like his body was being restarted. Alex’s fingers weaved into his hair and slid his tongue into his mouth as Michael settled himself between his thighs.
Moments like these were everything. Isobel couldn’t bust in, neither could anyone else. It was just them and the dark. The line of sheer desire blurred into something else entirely. He felt like they were one being, like he hadn’t been whole until Alex appeared and filled the gap. Michael had decided this was love and, instead of being fearful of it, he allowed it to encompass him. It was just too easy. Alex was sweet and loving in a way that many people weren’t. He didn’t expect or want Michael to be anything more than here.
How perfect was that?
“Mm, I’ll text Liz,” Alex whispered, grabbing his jaw gently to pull away. Michael put his face in his neck, breathing him in and kissing over his skin. Again, like every time, Michael was swaddled in a blanket of trust.
“Text Liz what?” Michael asked, his finger tracing over Alex’s carotid artery and collar bone and peck.
“To pick me up from here in the morning,” Alex said casually, “She usually takes me to school and you picked me up tonight.”
Michael blinked a few times before putting some space between them. If anyone picked him up in the morning, they would begin putting things together that didn’t need to be put together.
“Alex, I can take you home,” Michael said. Alex sighed, combing his fingers through Michael’s hair.
“I keep thinking about what Isobel said earlier and I think she’s right. They’re gonna find out, might as well let it happen casually. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, so maybe we can just slowly integrate it,” Alex suggested. Michael very quickly woke from his Alex-haze and sat up, losing the warm feeling of his thighs around his waist.
“What? No,” Michael said.
“They’re gonna find out eventually, don’t you want to be able to control the situation when they do?” Alex said softly. Michael jaw clenched as he stared at the boy he loved. It was frustrating. He wanted so badly to flaunt Alex as his, but he was also not trying to die. When that Slayer found out, she would kill him. Max would kill him.
He just wanted Alex. No murdering. No constant reminder that Alex wold age and Michael couldn’t. He just wanted bliss.
“Why are they gonna find out eventually?” Michael asked. Alex got all serious and sat up, taking Michael’s hand in his. He looked at him earnestly and took a breath of confidence.
“I want you to turn me,” he said. Michael snatched his hand away, horror taking over his face.
“What? No. No, absolutely not. No. No!” Michael insisted, standing up and putting as much distance between himself and Alex as possible. Alex looked like he’d been burned. “Why would you ever say that?”
“I love you,” Alex said strongly, “I want to be with you. I don’t want to wait until I look older than you. You look like a sixteen-year-old‒I don’t want to look like a creep for being with you. I want to change now.”
Michael shook his head, gulping softly.
“You’re young, Alex,” Michael sighed, “If I did that, you’d grow to regret it and you’ll hate me and… and I can’t live with that. I can’t live knowing I took away your life.”
“You wouldn’t be taking it away, you’d be giving me a whole new life!” Alex insisted. Michael felt like he was being strangled.
“Listen, Alex. When you change, you also… change. You won’t be Alex. You’ll be soulless, you’ll be… cruel,” Michael tried. Alex gave a sweet, overwhelming smile.
“You’re not.”
Michael closed his eyes tight, rubbing his fists against them.
“I am,” Michael clarified, “I have done horrible things.”
“The fact that you know they’re horrible and no longer do them prove that you’re not bad,” Alex explained. Michael let out a horrified laugh, putting his hands on the top of his head.
“There is no way to expect what you might turn into afterward and I refuse to take that chance,” Michael said. Alex stood up and made his way over to him, beautiful and young and alive.
“I want to be with you for the rest of my life,” he said genuinely. Michael wanted to say me too.
Instead, he said, “You’re young. You have no idea what you want.”
“Okay, then, you’re old,” Alex said, rubbing his palms over Michael’s bare chest, “Tell me, my love, have you ever felt this way before? Have you ever be so addicted to someone, so lost in them and lost without them? Have you ever ached so badly? Have you ever loved someone like they’re apart of you?”
Michael involuntarily gravitated towards him, his forehead resting on his. Alex’s hands cupped his face, his thumb pushing past Michael’s lips and pressing onto his dulled fangs. It was like a trigger, forcing him to show his true face. He felt it happen, felt his face transform into the one he never showed unless he had to. It was ugly in his opinion and he never liked to be ugly.
Still, Alex held him close. He traced over all the ugly lines and he pressed his thumb harder onto the now very sharp fangs. When his skin broke, Michael was far too aware. His mind swam, but he was able to pull away before he got a taste. He didn’t want to know what Alex’s blood tasted like. He wanted him as he was. He wanted him alive.
“Michael,” Alex said, though he let him turn his face away. He didn’t want to be tempted. “Answer me. Have you ever loved someone the way you love me?
Michael took a deep, heavy breath.
“No.”
Alex didn’t seem shocked or too pleased by this answer, which just told Michael that he didn’t even have a doubt in his mind that that’s what was happening. He seemed to know that, even in the short amount of time they’d known each other, that it was different. It was intoxicating. It was forever.
Michael gulped and squeezed his eyes shut. There was no talking his way out of this.
“I’ll think about it. You have to give me time to think about it,” Michael said through his still screwed up face. Alex nodded, grabbing his chin and kissing his cheek gently. His nose nuzzled under his jaw and he wrapped Michael in a hug.
“Take your time.”
-
Michael woke to kisses being pressed to the back of his ear and his jaw, something he wasn’t used to but something that he wanted to get used to.
“I am a vampire, Alexander, mornings are not made for me,” he grumbled, but he reveled in the way the human’s teeth sunk into his throat. They fit there, just like the way his nose pressed hard into his jaw.
“Liz is here,” Alex said, “I didn’t tell her anything, just that I was here. Gonna keep it to myself. Think about our talk, yeah?”
Michael sighed, but nodded without opening his eyes. Alex pressed a few more kisses to his lips and his jaw and his cheeks. He kissed and kissed until Michael was smiling like mad, then stole a couple more.
“I love you,” Alex said against his skin, “I want a long, long life with you. Soul or not.”
Michael found it impossible to go back to sleep after that. He laid in bed for a long while, mulling over the idea of what Alex seemed to want. He couldn’t imagine a life without Alex. He didn’t want to live without him.
But Michael wasn’t stupid. The chance of something crucial to what made Alex Alex changing was high. Everyone changed. Sometimes they went completely off the rails and basked in something sinister inside themselves like Max. Sometimes they became in tune to the point of sadism like Isobel. And, sometimes, they just become reckless and have no consequences so they turn into a murderer out of boredom like Michael. He’d never met someone who hadn’t changed, whether it be because of the loss of a soul or the loss of mortality.
Alex was sweet and loving in a way that vampires just inherently weren’t. There wasn’t a doubt in Michael’s mind that Alex would become someone else and that just wasn’t alright. He loved Alex the way he was. He liked the cuddliness of him and he liked the way he was human. Alex had never wanted anything but to be human his entire life‒and then Michael had changed that.
“Izzy, can I talk with you?” Michael asked as he walked in to see her fiddling with something. Upon closer inspection, it was one of the keys from Alex’s keyring. He didn’t ask how she got it.
“What’s wrong?” she wondered, slowly sitting up to speak with him. He sighed, flopping down and quickly laying his head in her lap. She wove her fingers into his hair like she often did. It was easy when it was just her. For so long it had just been the two of them.
Things weren’t complicated when he was with someone he would kill for.
“Alex asked me to turn him last night,” Michael admitted.
“Did you?”
“He went to school today, didn’t he?”
Isobel went silent for whatever reason for a moment, combing through his hair in a soothing way. He didn’t know what she was thinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“He’s a very kind man,” she said, “You were too.”
“That doesn’t mean anything though. I was kind and naive, and then I was dead and a murderer. I don’t want him to be dead. I want him how he is and he seems so set on dying. You should’ve seen his face, it was like he’d been thinking about it for months,” Michael complained. Isobel hummed.
“Perhaps he has.”
“When I touch him, it’s all warmth. He’s warm and cozy and human. I don’t want that to go away,” Michael said. She went quiet again for a moment, thinking.
“Alex alive is a limited thing,” Isobel told him. He huffed a breath.
That was the most achingly true fact in the world. He wanted Alex forever, but he also wanted him living. Michael had outlived many of his previous lovers, but he couldn’t say that he’d outlived someone he loved as much as Alex. He was quite certain it would hurt much more, but he could do it if it meant Alex had no regrets.
“I just don’t want to curse him.”
“Is it a curse?”
“Yes! I can’t go outside during the day, I drink blood, I can never get a legitimate job or have legitimate friends. There are so many things about this that make it a curse and I don’t want him to regret it,” Michael explained. Isobel poked his cheek and grasped his chin.
“What does Alex want?”
“He thinks he wants to be changed, but I don’t think he’s thought about it long enough.”
“How badly does he want it?”
“He seemed to want it badly.”
“Then what’s stopping him for going somewhere else to get what you won’t give him and risking dying painful and alone?”
Michael stared up at her and the horrifying truth she gave him. His stomach churned. He didn’t know if Alex would do that, but he was scared to find out. He was scared of a lot of things.
He hadn’t been scared for someone other than Isobel in decades and it was a horrific feeling.
“I just don’t want to take away his life,” Michael said.
“It’s his choice to make.”
And it was.
-
“I missed you.”
“You were gone for seven hours.”
“Seven hours too many.”
Alex crawled into bed beside Michael, settling into his side and peppering him with kisses. Michael closed his eyes and fell a little more in love with him.
“Did you think about our talk at all?” Alex asked, throwing his leg over Michael’s hip. Michael took a deep breath and held it. He remembered the first time he realized he didn’t actually have to breathe anymore. He remembered when it went from being a necessity to something he just did because he was used to the motions.
Alex poked his stomach whenever he held the breath for over a minute straight.
“I’ve thought about it,” Michael said. He felt like he was about to jump off a cliff. He was so, so scared everything was going to change. But he was more scared that Alex would do something stupid.
Alex propped himself up on his elbow, peering down at him with an eager smile like he already knew what the answer would be. And perhaps he did. Alex wasn’t exactly used to getting what he wanted in most aspects of his life, but he was used to it when it came to Michael.
“And?”
“And,” Michael said, reaching up and touching his warm cheek. His chest ached at the idea that one day it would no longer be warm. “And I want to wait until you graduate high school. If you still want to, then I will. If you change your mind, then I want. Think of it as a compromise.”
“Why so long away?” Alex asked, eyebrows furrowed. It wasn’t really that long. Alex would be graduating in just four short months.
“I want to make sure you’re extremely sure. And I want you to finish high school. You won’t be able to go out during the day time after that‒I want you to soak it up while you can. Enjoy it. Enjoy your friends and hope they don’t kill us after,” Michael told him. He resigned to losing this battle. At least he would have Alex.
Alex smiled. “Alright. That sounds like it’s okay.”
“Good to hear.”
Alex moved down to kiss him and Michael hoped to whoever was listening that this wasn’t a mistake.