Chapter Text
The thing no one told you about staking a vampire through the heart was that you still had to actually be strong enough to get through the rib cage.
This concept only occurred to Sam as he and the Frogs were already running for their lives through that wretched hideout. They’d staked one vampire, but evidently, not hard enough. Sam knew the plan was dangerous. He knew the plan was stupid. But, he had to try something to save Michael.
Now, reality was closing in on him faster than the pursuing vampires. He’d never been much of an athlete, and his old sneakers slipped on the rocks. The Frogs were faster than he was. He saw them reach the brink of the cave — reach sunlight — and turn back to reach for him. As his fingertips crossed the threshold into the light, he felt a set of claws sink hard into his upper back, and he found himself yanked harshly backwards into the darkness.
Sam found himself face to face with the blond one — the lead singer — who held him aloft by the claws dug into his back, causing a type of pain Sam didn’t think possible. The blond’s eyes examined him carefully, then his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed like a dog that caught a scent.
“Shame,” the vampire lilted, dropping his face into an exaggerated frown. “Just when I was in the business of keeping Michael happy.” He slowly shook his head in mock disappointment, making a tutting noise with his tongue. “Well, too bad for Mikey.”
In a movement nearly too fast for Sam to comprehend, the vampire bared his teeth and hissed, rearing back with his other clawed hand before tearing into Sam’s neck and chest with brutal efficiency. Sam couldn’t even scream. Or, maybe he did, but the rushing in his ears made it impossible to hear.
…
Michael found the hideout in chaos. He saw Marko first, bleeding and steaming with a stake still stuck in his chest, but still alive and snarling, snapping his fangs at air. Paul and Dwayne held him down while trying to dribble what had to be blood from a bottle into his mouth. They shot a dark look at Michael as he ran past them.
Sam, you dumbass. Michael swore to himself as he sprinted. What the fuck have you done? Star had sounded the alarm to him — that his idiot of a kid brother was up to something. Something that wouldn’t end well for him. Michael had the vain hope that he’d make it in time.
He came across David in a narrow, rocky passageway that led to the outside. His back was to Michael, and his shoulders heaved with animalistic fervor as hunched over something in the dark passage. Michael watched as he stretched back up to his full height and languidly extended a clawed hand to his side. The slick, dripping fluid that coated the hand caught the light from the cave entrance, and — after turning his hand back and forth in the dim light, as though savoring his prize — David started licking the blood off his own fingers.
That was when the smell hit Michael. A smell that he’d gotten so used to over the past few days with his enhanced senses that it was almost hard to register. A smell that didn’t feel foreign, because it smelled like him. That was Sam’s blood.
David laughed, the dark sound echoing through the cave as he stepped away from what Michael could now see was a body — Sam’s body. The blond slowly turned to face Michael, blood coating his mouth, hands, and down his entire chest. He had a grin on his face that showed off his blood covered teeth.
“Michael,” the vampire drawled, opening his arms as if welcoming home. “Just a little too late to join in the fun. Of course, too bad for the kid, but you should have kept a better eye on what’s yours.”
David was obviously edging Michael towards a fight. He was taunting him, showing off the bloodshed like a trophy. Michael didn’t take the bait. He scrambled through the passageway and dropped down on his knees next to Sam, curling over him as though he could shield him from what had already happened.
Sam’s chest had been torn open. He had claw marks wherever Michael could see and blood still gushed from his wounds. David hadn’t even drained him, he’d just torn him apart like a wild animal. It was a surreal sight to Michael. It almost looked fake. Surely, it couldn’t actually be his brother lying there. It was another one of David’s mind games; an illusion to keep Michael in line.
Quickly, Michael’s enhanced senses became aware of noises that sent cold dread through his chest. A spluttering, weak, wet breath. A barely audible cry. The weakest heartbeat Michael had ever heard. Sam wasn’t dead yet. David expected Michael to watch him die.
Something primal took over Michael’s brain. Something that he couldn’t explain, that wasn’t conscious thought, or logical action, but was pure, unstoppable instinct. With a snarl, he sunk his still burgeoning fangs hard into the junction of Sam’s neck and the first splash of human blood washed over Michael’s tongue.
David just laughed louder. “Yes, Michael,” he crooned. “Be the monster. It’s what you’re made for. Give in to the bloodlust.”
Michael didn’t think it was bloodlust at all. Michael couldn’t think about much of anything. The blood was doing something to him, something that his conscious mind couldn’t explain. He felt stronger, and angrier, and not quite like Michael anymore. The instinct driving him only got stronger too.
He tore his mouth away from Sam’s neck, licking his fangs, which felt larger in his mouth. He looked widely around the cave, then spotted a knife on Sam’s belt, which he immediately reached for.
David actually looked alarmed. “Michael, what are you—” but he couldn’t even finish the sentence before Michael had grabbed the knife and sliced hard into his own wrist. He watched his blood drip down his arm for just a fraction of a second, then he shoved the bleeding wound against Sam’s mouth.
Michael felt light headed. He didn’t know if it was from seeing his brother mostly dead, or from drinking his blood, or from slicing his own wrist. He didn’t even know what he was doing. All he knew was that he had to keep his wrist against Sam’s mouth. It was the only way he felt that he could ever be okay again.
The last thing he saw before blacking out was David crouching down in front of him, using one finger to tilt Michael’s chin up towards his face. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Michael,” he mused, the same grin on his face as when Michael punched him. “You love your brother enough to curse him, but not enough to let him die… You have a talent for making things interesting. Oh so interesting…”
…
Michael woke up in his own bed in the dead of night, feeling a stillness in his body that he’d never experienced before. He breathed in on instinct, but there’d been no breath in his lunges. He felt like he was suffocating, even though his body wasn’t screaming for air, and as he grasped at his own chest and throat, he came to another horrifying concussion. He couldn’t hear his own heartbeat. He couldn’t feel his own heartbeat.
His fangs, which he previously couldn’t make show on command, felt large and prominent in his mouth. He ran his tongue over one and winced on reflex at the fang bit into his flesh, but he didn’t actually hurt. He moved his tongue away and it felt perfectly unscathed.
He laid back on his bed, staring at the dark ceiling, his chest heaving with useless breath. He’d become a full vampire, and like the night he’d drank David’s blood, the memory of how were… hazy, to say the least. His body had evolved, but his mind was straining to keep up.
While searching for memories, the image of Sam thrown torn apart and broken on the cave floor flashed before his eyes. “Sam!” he gasped, shooting upright in bed, looking wildly around their tiny room. Sam was hurt, Sam was bleeding, Sam was dying, Sam was—
Sitting up in his own bed, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, looking drowsy, confused, and… pale. “Mike?” he groaned, pushing the palm of his hand against his forehead. “God, I feel like shit. What happened?”
Michael didn’t know how to answer that, because there were a lot of things he didn’t know, but the one thing he was sure of was that Sam was supposed to be dead.
Sam suddenly gasped and grabbed at his chest, feeling the skin over his ribs and sternum like he was shocked to find it still there. “My chest, it’s— It’s not… I’m not… Why am I not dead?”
As Sam twisted and turned, checking his body for injuries, Michael caught sight of something odd on his neck in the dim light from Sam’s bedside lamp. Feeling moved by something that wasn’t conscious thought, Michael stood up, grabbed Sam’s hair, and wrenched his head to the side.
“Mike, what the fuck?” Sam complained, trying to peel Michael’s hands off him, but Michael was immovable.
Starting on Sam’s left jaw, a claw mark — five distinct lines— stretched down the side of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his t-shirt, looking like it spanned across his chest. It wasn’t a wound though. It looked like an old scar, white and slightly raised from the rest of his skin. If Sam was looking straight on, it was hard to see, but with his neck twisted to the side, it looked gnarly.
Michael’s grip loosened on Sam’s hair as he stared at the scar in shock and Sam finally shoved his hands away. “What’s the big idea, Mike?” he groused, flattening out his hair again. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
Michael had a horrible feeling starting in his chest. Sam should have been dead. But he wasn’t. His lethal wounds all healed, spare that scar on his neck. Something had spared him. Or someone. Michael remembered the sharp pain in his wrist. He remembered the desperation; the feeling that he would do anything to keep Sam alive.
Anything.
Michael shook himself from his own thoughts and looked sharply back at Sam. “Sam. Show me your teeth.”
Sam looked at Michael like he’d lost his ever-loving mind. “Mike, I don’t know what’s happening, but—”
“Show me your teeth,” Michael growled, and he found that he couldn’t wait any longer for Sam to respond. He grabbed Sam’s jaw and tried to pry open his mouth, like his brother was a dog who’d stolen something he shouldn’t have. Perhaps in panic, Sam clamped his mouth shut and started thrashing about to get away.
The struggle went on for a while — Sam kicking and elbowing while Michael tried to shove his fingers into Sam’s mouth because he just had to see — when the door to their bedroom suddenly opened, causing them to freeze in place.
Their mother stood in the doorway, wrapped up in her floral robe, her face twisted in both annoyance and utter confusion. “What on earth are you two doing?” she cried.
“Nothing,” Sam and Michael responded together, though Sam’s response was muffled by Michael’s thumbs trying to pry his lips apart. They untangled themselves after another beat of silence, sitting next to each other on Sam’s bed like young children about to be disciplined.
Lucy struggled for words, then sighed and pressed her thumb and pointer finger to the bridge of her nose. “I come home late from work, and you two are already asleep. Weird, I think, but at least you were spending time together. Now it’s two in the morning, and you’re fighting? What even happened?”
Michael did his best to look bashful. “It was stupid, mom. I stole one of his comics to mess with him. Didn’t realize how late it was. I’m sorry.”
Lucy looked to Sam for confirmation who shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. We never unpacked our alarm clocks. Didn’t mean to wake you. We were just messing around. Really.”
Lucy’s face didn’t exactly read like she believed them, but Michael knew that part of her was just happy that him and Sam were interacting, even if it was to cause a ruckus at two in the morning. For a second, she looked conflicted, but her features smoothed out into her usual pleasant smile. “Alright. Just keep it down, you two. And get some sleep!” She closed the door behind her, and Michael could hear her muttering to herself down the hall.
The moment she was gone, Sam rounded on Michael, the pleasant look he’d put on for their mother gone in an instant. “What the fuck was that about, Mike?” he asked in a furious whisper, bringing one hand up to rub at his jaw where Michael had grabbed him.
Michael couldn’t bring himself to look in his brother’s eyes. He couldn’t look at the scar running down his neck, or the way his eyes, while narrowed in anger, radiated fear. He was too ashamed… too scared. He stared down at his own hands instead.
“Michael,” Sam stressed. “Everything’s kind of fuzzy but… I was dying in that cave. That vampire ripped me open. I couldn’t have survived that. What happened?”
“I think… I think I did something bad,” Michael murmured, his voice barely loud enough to be heard. He remembered it clearer now. The way Sam’s blood tasted. David’s shock. The vampire’s haunting final words. You love your brother enough to curse him…
“What could you possibly—” Sam stopped himself suddenly, cocking his head to the side as he studied Michael. “Something’s… different about you.”
“Sammy, I—”
Sam started slowly, almost unconsciously, creeping away from Michael, shaking his head in disbelief. Eyes wide. “You’re not just a half vampire anymore, are you?”
All Michael could do was shake his head.
“You drank human blood.” Sam’s back hit his headboard and he curled his knees up to his chest. “You drank my blood.”
Michael winced as the memory hit him so hard he could almost taste it. His fangs ached in his mouth. “And, I think…” he took a deep breath, even though he didn’t need it. “... I fed you mine.”
Sam’s eyes turned distant and his fingers ghosted over his chest where Michael knew that scar extended. “You…”
“You were dying, Sammy. I couldn’t—”
“You turned me.” Sam’s eyes were wide and listless, staring at nothing.
“I couldn’t do anything else, you were—”
“You turned me!” Sam’s face turned angry. “You turned me into a goddam shit-sucking vampi—”
“I wasn’t going to let you DIE!” Michael just barely stopped himself from actually yelling. “You’re my little brother, Sammy. I’m supposed to protect you, and I failed. I couldn’t let you die. Not like that. Not because I…” He choked on his own words, the image of Sam bleeding out in the dirt so vivid in his mind that it felt like it was happening all over again. When he looked at Sam, all he could see was torn skin and red blood. He felt a drop of water on his hand and was startled to find that he was crying. He hadn’t cried in years, and here he was, shaking so hard he couldn’t speak, throat closed with a horrible sob.
Absurdly, his only thought was Who knew vampires could cry?
Suddenly, he felt thin arms wrap around his torso as Sam crashed face first against his chest. Michael wrapped his arms around his back in turn, squeezing him so tight he didn’t know if Sam could still breathe. He buried his face in the top of his brother’s hair, trying to muffle his sobs. Michael could still hear Sam’s heart beating, at least for now, and he focused on that noise like a lifeline.
“I couldn’t let you die,” Michael choked.
“I’m still here, Mike,” Sam assured, pressing his face hard against him. “You… you saved me.”
All Michael could do was shake his head. “I didn’t save you, Sammy. I’ve cursed you.”
Sam didn’t respond to that, just curled up in Michael’s lap like he hadn’t done since he was much younger. They stayed like that for Michael didn’t even know how long. He could feel Sam shaking, but he knew he couldn’t do anything to make it better. Michael felt rotten inside. Selfish. But with Sam curled up in his arms, still breathing, he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry.
Sam sat up eventually, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist. Michael watched him run his tongue over his teeth and he looked confused. “I don’t have fangs.”
“They come in and out,” Michael offered hesitantly. “It might take awhile.”
“I feel… wrong inside. Like I’m missing something.”
Even as a full vampire, Michael still felt that. His soul felt empty. All he could do was nod.
Sam ran a hand over his neck, fingers tracing over the raised line of his scar. “What’s this?”
“It looks like David’s claws.” Michael shivered as the image tried to fight its way into his mind again. “Pretty nasty scar.”
“Everything else healed. Why is this still here?”
Michael didn’t have an answer for that one. “Maybe it’ll go away soon. Until then, just keep your head down around Mom. It’s not that visible unless you look up.”
The mention of their mother hung between them like a noose. The secret would have to come out eventually. Michael had no idea what he could possibly tell her.
After a few moments of tense silence, Sam said, “We should really cover that window.” He nodded his head towards their bedroom’s singular window. “You’re a full vamp now. You’ll burn in the light.”
Sam had always been a quicker thinker than Michael. He hadn’t even thought of that, and the realization crashed through him like a bolt of lightning. No more sunlight for him.
They found packing tape and an old blanket under Sam’s bed and got to work covering the window. The straightforward task made the world feel… manageable, if only for a moment. When they finished, they stepped back to look at their handiwork.
“That should do it,” Sam said, eyes tracing over their tape lines to look for any gaps.
Michael took the moment to look at Sam. Really look at him. He was too pale, and his eyes looked sunken in. He was blinking too fast and, as Michael watched, he started to sway on his feet.
“I don’t… feel so… g…”
Michael thanked his enhanced reflexes for the fact that he managed to catch Sam before he hit the ground.