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The club lights stretched out into a seeming eternity. LaVonte didn't hear the music clearly anymore, just felt the beat throbbing through his entire body, creatures writhing alongside him to the rhythm. People going up and down onto their knees, offering themselves to him, a bloodbath one could only dream of. He had been kissed and tugged and begged and offered blood cocaine countless times, perfect lambs lining themselves up for slaughter.
LaVonte pushed through them and into HJ’s space.
HJ looked beautiful in the shifting lights. His pristine suit had drops of blood on it. Strands of his hair, usually slicked back perfectly, stuck to his high forehead. His eyes were dilated, his fangs sharp and white against his blood-red lips. LaVonte felt a whole different kind of hunger, remembering how it was to have those fangs sink into him and wishing he could ask to be changed again. HJ would give him everything that he could ask for – all the pleasures and highs that darkness could offer them and more. But some wishes had to remain unfulfilled for their own good, for their partnership, even as HJ pulled him closer and it almost felt like his unbeating heart would start up again.
“We rule the world, baby,” his sire said before the mass of people engulfed them again and it was almost enough- almost enough for him to let it all go and feel satisfied for once.
A year before that, HJ Wingstreet knew that he was not in love. He lacked the living organs for it, he lacked the personality for it and certainly he lacked the selflessness that it was supposed to bring out.
All of his impulses were selfish, a hunter taking until there was nothing else to take, a leech, a parasite. It was no different this time, except that it was completely different — in that he felt the impulse to also give.
LaVonte Worthy's eyes were always hungry. The smiles were calculated, the apparent leisure of his body forced into rigidity. Nothing ever gave him away except for the eyes, if one knew how to look for it.
"Your place is beautiful," the man said. He had been making clear attempts at flirting ever since he got invited over — attempts that would have worked if it was any other person. LaVonte was far too unique to waste away in one night. And besides, HJ could tell his heart wasn't in it. There was something else he desired and insanely, HJ wanted to follow his whims.
It was a beautiful office, attached to a beautiful bedroom that he never used. The leather chair he had been sitting in creaked as he stood up and paced around the room, as if looking at the huge window behind the desk and mahogany bookcases lining the room for the first time. On the desk — two glasses of whiskey, one untouched, and lines of cocaine waiting to be taken.
"Is it?" HJ asked, circling LaVonte's chair. "Do you want it?"
The other man's head snapped to him. "Of course I do." His eyes fluttered down to HJ's lips and he smirked. Good acting. "I want everything you have."
He pulled away and extended his hand towards the desk. LaVonte took another line wordlessly. "Would you kill for it?"
LaVonte started laughing. "Kill for it?" HJ sat on the desk - he wasn't sure why until LaVonte's hands wrapped themselves around his thighs, eyes big, as if begging, mouth set in one straight line. "Yes, if that's what it takes."
He could feel his mouth spread into a smirk. "Would you die for it?"
"Many tried that already, didn't they?"
Of course they had. Young and stupid, bodies full of drugs that made them feel like gods, giving themselves up as food in hopes of achieving something. Of course LaVonte knew about it, of course he saw through all of it.
"LaVonte," HJ said, "if I didn't want to go through with it, I'm sure you'd make me regret it."
"I don't know what you mean," the other man said, a smile betraying him before he closed the distance between them, hot lips clashing against undead ones, his hands wandering higher.
He didn't beg like other prey, didn't touch him like he enjoyed it particularly. Everything was a contract to LaVonte; even desire, even death.
HJ pulled away and ran his fingers over his neck. LaVonte simply nodded, stretching his neck out. He did it like he was expecting it, like he didn't doubt that's how the night would go.
HJ's hunger surged, insatiable. The other man was so close to him — the expensive perfume overwhelmed his senses, the smell of cigarettes and brandy beneath it crept up on him. LaVonte pressed closer until HJ thought he'd lose control completely, tear at his neck and embrace him then and there. Still, he made sure to puncture the skin in a place that wouldn't do too much damage, licking the wound before sucking on it, dragging out the bitterness that made him lightheaded in a way no one else had. He had to control himself, breaking his relentless feeding as if he had to come up for air, overwhelmed at the taste of him until he finally forced himself to pull away.
LaVonte didn't flinch, didn't panic, didn't realize that he was a prey trapped in a cage.
Because he wasn't. No matter what HJ did, he was sure LaVonte would get his way. It made him curious, dangerously so. But the other's façade slipped as he looked at him with disappointment.
"Not all at once," HJ said, trying to keep his fangs in check. He knew that he was satiated, but his body wanted LaVonte's blood beyond mere hunger, tried to force him to taste it again, to kill the body in front of him and make it his own. It would have to wait. "Close the deal you have today. Find me when you're done."
The man kissed him again. HJ bit into his lower lip as if hypnotized, licking the blood away. He wouldn't be able to taste it for much longer if LaVonte became a vampire, he realized. And anyway, there would be no use for the other one to get that close to him once he got his way. The dark blanket of night was slowly turning gray behind them, lighting up LaVonte's face and shit, HJ was in trouble.
But LaVonte understood, and they shook on it before he left in a hurry, all pretenses of awe and childish flirtation falling away with the threat of dawn on the horizon.
While laying in his coffin, HJ planned. He was more than sure that LaVonte would close the deal, that he would impress him. He was also sure that he would have to turn him the next day, and make him a partner in the company before LaVonte overtook him. The Golden Gate bridge seemed a good enough place for that, if LaVonte could hunt him down. He drifted off to sleep thinking of the name Worthy & Wingstreet, and what an eternety meant when enclosed in a contract.
LaVonte was looking at the basil plant.
It was a weak little thing. Its leaves stretched out as if searching for the sun. LaVonte had made sure that all the blinds were drawn securely earlier that night.
“I find it pretty,” HJ said from behind him. The man liked making a spectacle of himself, but he could sneak up on people just as easily. It used to make LaVonte jump. Now he just shifted towards his partner - business partner.
“It won't survive here for long.”
“Not many things do.”
Taunt silence stretched between them. The last thing LaVonte would expect to feel when moving to Purpee was, well- scared. He wished HJ would punch him or scream at him or fucking do something already. He wished there were other people there, people they could seduce and feed on and not look at each other in the eyes.
HJ, instead, put a hand on his shoulder and came closer as LaVonte tried to cover up the shivers.
“Look at me,” HJ said, and of course he complied. The other vampire’s eyes were blood-shot, green, focused, terrifying. “It’s still me. Places change and the blood in my veins changes but we will never change. Kings of the world, right?”
LaVonte laughed. It was true, it’s what made him horrified. HJ could change but their partnership remained the same; those eyes piercing through him, knowing him better than he knew himself. They shared the same hunger but for different reasons. HJ wanted to be adored, to excude power because it translated to excuding status. Money and influence had been a game for him, commandeering a room from the shadows as he watched his associates live and die thinking that they had any say in it at all.
LaVonte wanted pure power. He had learned to be a careful man - smoothing out the animalistic impulses of his partner, offering a counterweight in the endless game of cat and mouse that he agreed to play along in. That remained, even in Purpee, even after all those years. It just seemed more raw now, made him more exposed. And if ordinary people could look through his feelings, by that point, how much had he slipped already? How far along had he gone by playing along with HJ, pretending to be something that they could never be?
“So this isn’t about me, not really. Talk to me,” HJ said, and LaVonte could never really refuse him.
“You’re the same, but you seem… happier, now, calmer. You can rule this town – you will – but I can’t. I… it’s never going to be San Francisco, and it's never going to be the new Rome, no matter how much I want to improve it."
HJ hummed. LaVonte wished he would punch him again, tell him to get his head out of his ass and do the work that needed to be done. They both should have been restless, anxiety firing off in unpredictable and violent ways. Instead it was just LaVonte and the empty, humming space between them.
“I know,” HJ finally said. “You deserve the world. You deserve everything you want. But we’re stuck here, and you must know that ruling it would mean nothing without you.”
It stung more than a blow ever could. It was something. It was nothing. LaVonte’s heart, long dead, shook and shivered and ached. The blood in him would always be part HJ’s and now it flowed as it liked, warming his cheeks. HJ’s hand was still on his shoulder, and he took it in his own. “I guess there's no point lingering on it,” he said. “We’re stuck here.”
“And we’ll crawl our way out, if you want. Even if it means going against the entire Camarilla.”
It made him laugh. The hand went up to LaVonte’s cheek, his own still covering it, afraid that somehow HJ would pull away the moment he let go. They had been closer to each other before. High and invincible, they wouldn’t let boundaries stop them. LaVonte could have dealt with feral hunger glossing over his partner’s eyes but the look he had was unfamiliar - far more dangerous. Far softer. Just like the fingers on his cheek. He remembered having found it surprising the first time HJ touched him – the first time LaVonte shared his blood – how soft his hands were.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” was all he could get out.
“What happened at the co-op? I know it wasn’t… were you offended?”
LaVonte deflated. “I wasn’t offended.” No new words came out. His entire body was folding into itself, pushing him further into HJ’s space until his head finally hit the other man’s shoulder. HJ didn’t move. This, too, wasn’t new. It shouldn’t have been surprising. Even so, a new boundary presented itself to them, a horizon that he knew they couldn’t make it back from.
“Talk to me,” HJ said. LaVonte did not listen - his lips opened to graze his neck, sharp fangs going over the weak spots without breaking the skin. HJ let himself stay exposed, pale neck offering itself to him. It wasn’t kisses that LaVonte was placing, and he would never bite down – he didn’t know exactly what he was doing, overwhelmed by the proximity and annoyed at the lack of it.
“Did you mean it?” LaVonte got out, his voice stuck somewhere between a growl and a whine. He knew that it was threatening, asked with his fangs above HJ’s jugular, but the other man just relaxed into his hold.
“I’d go against anyone as long as you were by my side, LaVonte.”
“No, no.” It was LaVonte’s turn to take HJ’s face into his hands as he righted himself and looked him in the eyes. “What you said at the co-op. You played along so easily. You…”
“LaVonte, whatever you want this to be, you have me. Whether it’s business partners or partners or roommates that shop at the co-op together… I thought we were past this. San Francisco to Purpee-fucking-Oregon – you’ve got me. I just thought that you... wouldn't want me to say it so plainly."
What was another boundary to them? San Francisco rushed on miles away, and Rome stood still as most unreachable goals do. Outside, a wolf howled into the night and the hushed shiftings of the forest blended into the background chorus of creatures having no choice but to coexist together in a small corner of Oregon.
LaVonte Worthy and HJ Wingstreet fell into a kiss, the first honest one they shared. Around them, the night settled into silence as Purpee gave them time.