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Silence hung heavy in the air like a thick smog threatening to choke Andrew if he spoke or suffocate him if he didn’t. Blood thrummed forcefully in his veins. He hadn't thought that was possible anymore, but the slight twitch in Bee’s left eye confirmed she'd heard it too.
She started, “It’s a process—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the process,” Andrew interrupted. “I need them to stop.”
The growl that laced Andrew’s tone was unintentional but honest. He had learned long ago to be careful about who he shared his truths with, but he’d never shied away from honesty. In fact, he preferred it. That was how he had chosen his targets—in the past. He didn't want to be like them anymore. He wouldn't be like them.
“The cravings will remain until you feed,” Bee said softly. She leaned forward in her disproportionately large armchair that had almost swallowed her whole when she’d first sat down. “We can take it slow—”
“No,” Andrew said firmly.
Bee accepted his answer with a nod. “Then, would you be willing to tell me what happened?” she asked. “You seemed more open to the idea of learning how to feed safely last week. Blood bags will keep you alive, but they won't do as much to curb the cravings."
Andrew swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. His jaw clenched tightly—an old habit—as if refusing to allow him to tell his side of the story. It was an opportunity that hadn’t often been afforded to him before Bee. Before Neil.
“I—” Andrew’s voice came out strained and weak. He forcibly cleared his throat despite the aching pain both from hunger and unreleased emotion. It felt like his mouth was full of sand. Heat flared in his face and chest.
Bee kept her gaze steady and leaned forward slightly as if to coax the words out of him—a small oasis in his blazing desert. She always had been a source of comfort and safety for him.
Andrew's voice cracked around the admission.
"I hurt him."
———
Neil Josten was an unremarkable man. Instead of attending college like the typical 21-year-old, he worked a simple 9 to 5 job at his local library. On the weekends, he coached a casual high school lacrosse team for a few extra bucks. But based on his ability to drag the sport into any conversation and refuse to let the topic go like a starving dog fighting for a meal, he was a much bigger fan than he'd initially let on. Maybe Andrew would have avoided his own history playing the sport had he known how much of a headache it would cause him in the future.
Strangely, Neil didn't own a car. He jogged to and from work. And in the morning. And in the evening. Andrew had even seen him out running in the middle of the night—face pale as a ghost and forcing out ragged breaths harder than the light pace of his jog should require.
They'd first met at the library. Technology had been fizzling out around Andrew ever since he'd turned, so he'd been forced to go to the counter for assistance. As Andrew's lack of luck would have it, Neil Josten had been on desk duty that day.
"Let's see…" Neil started, eyes darting across the computer screen. "Are you thinking more Dracula or Twilight?"
The pixels on the screen flashed. Andrew took a step back, just in case.
"Hey, I don't judge," Neil assured, glancing up at Andrew over the rim of his reading glasses. He slipped them off his face and buried them up in his soft auburn curls like one would with sunglasses. "I'm just here to find what you want."
"I want nothing," Andrew answered automatically.
"Okay," Neil accepted. He hopped back on the too-tall chair and crossed his arms without taking his eyes off Andrew. The air of confidence around Neil contrasted with his casual demeanor as if he were waiting for Andrew to retract his statement and pour his heart out. Andrew would soon learn that Neil wasn't one to back down from a challenge or accept others' bullshit, and he didn't believe Andrew for a second.
Andrew waved away thoughts of Neil's strangely keen perception. There was no way he'd be interested in such an otherwise boring man, so he ignored the sharp blue eyes that followed him as he made his way back to the shelves. He ignored the way those eyes found him whenever he was in view of the front desk. He certainly ignored the smooth skin and healthy veins pumping blood just beneath the surface.
A book shoved in his face returned Andrew to the present. There stood Neil Josten with not one but five books stacked in those lean arms covered by a too-heavy fabric for summer in South Carolina. Andrew didn't let himself think twice about it as his eyes registered the pair of fangs dripping blood in front of him.
Andrew roughly grabbed the book. It was either that or smack it out of Neil's hand and across the room, but he successfully suppressed that instinct.
"What's this?" Andrew asked, not bothering to hide the disgust in his tone.
"You said vampires," Neil answered simply. He carefully set the pile of books onto the table Andrew was sitting at. "Here's vampires."
It didn't take Andrew long to get through the books Neil had dumped on him, but they didn't help. All he wanted was to know how to curb the cravings more quickly than Bee could teach him, but the stories were either cliché romances or gruesome horror stories. So far, Andrew's life had been more of the tragic horror genre, and none of Neil's offerings had been remotely accurate to true vampire life as he'd experienced across the last five years.
Andrew continued visiting the library for as much information on vampires as he could find to see if there was any useful information floating around that he hadn't yet gotten from Bee. It was almost embarrassing to ask Bee for help with his cravings since he'd already learned pretty much everything else from her, but he had never been one to feed safely before considering his victims hadn't been deserving of his mercy. Figuring this out himself would prove that he wasn't the monster everyone said he was. He was in control, not the cravings.
At first, Neil would just drop vampire books in Andrew's lap. Then, he started taking a seat opposite Andrew and reading in silence with him when the place was empty. That turned into vampire discussions which lead to meeting up for unrelated reasons outside of the library and its hours. Things had turned physical a few months later.
Almost a year into knowing each other, Neil had fully opened up to Andrew. He'd told him about the monsters from his past that were long dead but still haunted his nightmares and the bone-deep desire to escape that he feared he would never shake. That explained the midnight runs.
In return, Andrew spilled everything but Neil's blood. Anyone else would have called Andrew a liar, or at least have been skeptical, but Neil had accepted it easily, even before Andrew had elongated his fangs in front of him as proof. Not for the first time, Andrew questioned Neil's sanity. But despite being—or maybe because he was—one of the stranger humans Andrew had met, Neil took Andrew at his word and understood his boundaries. He respected them.
So, over the course of a few weeks, Andrew continued talking. About the man that had overpowered him in his group home. The things he'd done to Andrew before turning him. (Making Andrew a vampire had been his last mistake.) Bee finding him through her vampiric connections and buying him his own apartment since no sane landlord would allow a 17-year-old to live alone. She'd helped him begin to heal the human within and coached him on the changes that came with being a vampire.
At first, he'd fed on humans with reckless abandon, choosing the scum of society as a form of vigilante justice. But eventually, his sessions with Bee had shown him the similarities between his own monstrous ways and theirs, so he'd switched to feeding from blood bags provided by Bee's nurse friend.
Every now and then, he would get a strong craving for a fresh meal directly from the vein. At first, they weren't hard to ignore with an extra blood bag or two, but the longer he'd spent with Neil, the harder it had become. Maybe it was the healthy pulse that was visible from beneath Neil's sweat-slicked skin or how long Andrew's mouth had spent on Neil without once drawing blood that had strengthened the urge. Across the last few days, it was the only thing Andrew could think about.
Despite Neil's quick, initial acceptance of Andrew, he'd had questions of his own that Andrew had answered over the time they had spent together.
Yes: I drink blood. I can still consume human food. I age normally, but I have heighted strength, speed, and physical healing.
No: I no longer feed on unwilling participants, but blood bags do not sustain me for long. I will not take up lacrosse again.
Predictably, that last bit of information was the part Neil had taken the most issue with and brought up any chance he could.
It all came to a head on the roof of the club downtown that Andrew liked to visit. He liked the way he could disappear into the crowd. The way the heavy beat of the music drowned out the thrum of blood surrounding him. It had been easy to find people to feed on in a place like this. The sight of a pill descending into an unknowing recipient's cup was like the Bat-Signal for him.
Recently, however, he had instead been paying more attention to how the lights danced over Neil's skin. The way it changed the deep blue of his eyes to ethereal purples and reds. Neil's smile amidst the chaos. It almost felt… normal.
As the crowd began to thin in the early hours of the morning, Andrew brought Neil to the roof as they sometimes did. Usually, they would spend some time smoking before heading back to one of their places. Andrew didn't get high off the nicotine anymore, but since learning that the scent was a comfort to Neil, he'd picked up the habit again.
It was still dark outside—it would be for a few more hours. The roof was private but open at the same time. Most of Andrew's life, he'd felt stuck in a cage. On the roof, he was free. The first time he'd climbed up and looked down at the long way to the ground, he'd finally felt something other than the apathy he'd grown to accept. It was almost nerve-wracking that he no longer had to look down to feel that something. He just had to look at the man by his side.
It was here that he'd told Neil his truths. It was here that Neil had accepted every piece of him. There was only one secret left to reveal.
"I can't stop the cravings."
Neil looked down from the sparkling night sky and turned his head toward Andrew. That clear gaze made Andrew feel seen in a way that wasn't leering or pitiful. Just seen.
"For blood?" The man knew nothing of subtlety or tact. It was both a blessing and a curse.
Andrew met his eyes. "I look at you now, and all I can hear is the blood pumping through your veins. All I can think about is tearing into your neck and drinking my fill." Without meaning to, Andrew's fangs elongated at the thought, digging painfully into his bottom lip as he tried to force them to withdraw.
Neil appraised him thoughtfully for a moment. He took in Andrew as a whole, scanning his face before honing in on his fangs and returning to his eyes.
"So do it," Neil finally responded.
Andrew's mouth went dry. "I could kill you."
"But you won't," Neil said. Where he got his confidence from, Andrew would never know. The corners of Neil's lips twisted up into a smirk as his hooded eyes blinked slowly up at Andrew from beneath his thick lashes. "You like me too much."
Andrew pushed Neil's face away from where he had, at some point, leaned in much too close.
"Don't," Andrew growled breathlessly. His fangs refused to retract. Hunger tore at his stomach, clawing at him from within and sending a searing pain up his painfully dry throat.
Neil leaned forward again but stayed just out of Andrew's space.
"I want to see you lose control."
Andrew knew his eyes were blazing red from starvation, but he couldn't stop staring at Neil. He forced his gaze from the artery in the man's neck to the honesty in Neil's eyes.
"I want to see you," Neil emphasized. "Uninhibited. I want to know all of you."
"You don't know what you're asking."
Neil lay back against the hard concrete while his feet dangled off the edge of the roof. He offered his hand to Andrew and, when Andrew reluctantly took it, guided Andrew’s hand to his cheek. They had done much more to each other wearing much less, but this moment felt more intimate than all of that.
Neil turned his head slightly away from Andrew without breaking eye contact. “So show me.”
That was all it took for Andrew to lose control.
———
“In his defense, I consented,” Neil spoke up from the other side of the couch Andrew was sitting on. Andrew stared hard at Bee to avoid looking at the thick bandage on Neil’s neck.
“That’s true,” Bee said with a nod, “but are you sure you knew what you were consenting to?”
Neil glared daggers at Bee. “Do I look like an idiot?” Had Andrew known therapy would be so aversive to Neil, he might not have suggested the meeting. It was a miracle Neil had accepted.
Ever the professional, Bee took Neil’s hostility in stride. “Certainly not, Mr. Josten, but vampires are not generally known to the public as more than myths from scary stories. I just want us all to be on the same page as to what exactly occurred.”
"I said yes," Neil reiterated. "And he followed through with his end of the bargain seeing as I'm still alive."
"That is true," Bee responded, though her eyes were now trained on Andrew. "He did well."
"He's a menace," Andrew muttered under his breath, eyeing an amorphous coffee stain on the carpet.
"If we wish to value our partners as equal," Bee started, "it’s important to view their consent as such…" Her voice drifted off into a dull buzzing in the back of Andrew's mind as if it were being whipped away by the harsh winds of the tropical storm brewing in the carpet that caused the stain to look like a tree clinging to the earth that was barely strong enough to keep it tethered to life. Andrew tilted his head, and it morphed into a disfigured koi fish struggling to swim upstream, forced adrift amidst the polluted river of fabric fibers.
"Andrew?"
Blinking out of his mind's theater, Andrew slowly turned his gaze on Neil. His voice strained to sound normal.
"What."
Neil's voice softened from the rigid tone he'd maintained with Bee. "Why am I here?"
"Penance." Assurance.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Neil insisted.
The tension that had integrated into Andrew's muscles the night before and pulled taut with each passing minute loosened ever so slightly with each affirming word Neil and Bee spoke.
"I know what I signed up for."
Neil let a hand rest between them on the couch. An offering.
"I'm still here."
As the tension began to dissolve, Andrew gave in to the other craving that had been growing lately and let his fingers walk across the soft fabric to Neil. The warmth that Neil radiated was impossible to find elsewhere, but he allowed himself only the barest touch to start to sedate the growing ache. He refused to do more than that in front of an audience. Whatever they did or didn't have was theirs alone.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Shut up," Andrew demanded. The growl that typically underlined such commands was dull, barely audible.
"It seems all's well that ends well," Bee interrupted. She didn't bother dimming her pleased tone of voice as she turned to Neil. "Navigating a relationship of any kind with a vampire can be a strange, new experience. If you'd like—"
"No." A side-eyed glance from Andrew had Neil amending his tone. "We'll be fine."
Everything was always "fine" with him.
Bee nodded graciously as she stood, leading them through the waiting area and out the front doors of the building. She slipped Andrew a lollipop from the secretary's candy bowl as they left despite likely knowing that Andrew had already pocketed three on his way in.
"If ever you change your mind," she called from behind them, "you know where to find me."
Andrew waved over his shoulder with one hand as the other popped the vibrant red sucker into his mouth. As expected, Neil didn't respond.
The moment the office doors closed, Neil spoke. "I meant it."
"I know."
"We can take it slower next time," Neil suggested. "It's better than the blood bags, and I'm a willing participant."
"There is no 'next time,'" Andrew argued, though his tone wasn't as firm as he'd meant for it to be.
Neil's signature smirk snuck onto his face. "We'll see," he said in a sing-song tone with a teasing shrug. He snatched the lollipop from Andrew's lips and popped it between his own. "I can think of a few warm-up activities we could do beforehand that might change your mind."
Without waiting for an answer, Neil slid easily into the passenger seat of Andrew's shiny black muscle car. Andrew quickly followed suit and immediately started the A/C which chilled the heat growing in his face. Damn the summer sun.
Glancing over at Neil revealed that the man had already buckled in and was casually leaning against the side as if to get a better view of Andrew, elbow resting on the edge of the door like a permanent fixture that belonged there. Whether he did or not, Andrew hadn't decided. Although, they'd been "meeting up" for a year, which was a year longer than Andrew had spent with anyone else voluntarily, so maybe, deep down, he already had.
But that was an introspective deep dive for a different therapy session.