Chapter Text
Santa Carla feels a lot smaller without the vampires around. Like it's settled into itself, the gap between the place it is during the day and the neon black hole it becomes at night shrinking to something unnoticeable. Michael too feels himself start to settle in his skin. The side-effects of being a half-vampire disappear, leaving barely a bad hangover in their wake. Sam seems to be doing okay, with his new friends dragging him out at all hours of the day to figure out what monsters they're going to fight next. Creatures of the night beware, or something like that.
Sam's never really had many friends, and that goes double for girls. And yeah, this girl seems to be as much of a tomboy as you can get, but Michael saw her put herself in danger for Sam. Sees the way Sam lights up whenever she and her brother drag him out of the house. Truthfully, Michael doesn't know much about the she and her brother. In the aftermath of killing David and Max, they'd all pretty much passed out. Michael had slept through the next day, the massive adrenaline crash of being fully human again knocking him on his ass. By the time he woke up, Sam and his friends were already doing their own thing. And as terrified as part of Michael is at the thought of Sam leaving his direct line of sight ever again (he has nightmares about the Ironworks, David ripping Sam's throat out and laughing), he and Sam are content to do their own thing.
Still, it's pretty obvious Sam has a crush, and it might be mutual. And what kind of older brother would Michael be if he didn't give Sam a little grief over it?
"So, you've been spending a lot of time with the Frogs," he starts, flopping down next to Sam on the couch. Mom caved and bought a TV as some kind of apology for the whole moving them to a town infested with vampires thing. Sam has been dedicated to catching up on his MTV.
Sam flicks his eyes to him, then back to the Bon Jovi music video blaring across the screen. "Uh huh," he says, "They're my friends."
"Well, you've been spending a lot of time with that girl," Michael rephrases, a teasing bite to his voice. "There weren't any girls like that back in Arizona."
He expects Sam to flush and stutter, like he does when he gets flustered. Instead, his brow creases and he stares vacantly at Michael, looking baffled. "What girl?"
Michael blinks. "The girl Frog. What's her name? It's pretty obvious you've got a thing for her."
"Alan's not a girl," Sam says, like Michael is the stupidest person on the planet.
It's Michael's turn to be confused. "Uh, I'm pretty sure she is. I mean, her hair and everything." What kind of girl's name is Alan?
"That's 'cause their mom won't let him cut it," Sam explains. "Alan's a guy. They're the Frog brothers. He told me so, and I'm pretty sure he'd punch my lights out if I argued about it."
"So she-" Michael pauses "-he told you so and that's it?"
Sam shrugs. "He acts like a boy," he says. "He dresses like one too."
Michael can't argue with that logic. He also feels really stupid about his plan. "So you definitely don't have a crush on, uh, him." And if Sam does, it's probably just some kind of teenage hormonal confusion based on looks.
Sam looks mortified at the thought. "No way!" His hands twist in the hem of his shirt and his knee bounces. Tell-tale signs that this conversation has completely freaked him out.
Now Michael just feels like an ass. Sam has had enough accusations of the sort leveled at him, from their dad or from schoolyard bullies. He doesn't need it from Michael. "Course you don't," he laughs, wrapping an arm around Sam's shoulders.
Sam's posture stays rigid for a moment, like he's scared, but then he relaxes and stays tucked into Michael's side. Before Santa Carla, Michael would've let got. Now, he settles back against the couch and watches the rest of the set with Sam.
The Frog Brothers continue to dip in and out of Michael's peripheral view. They seem to have very little interest in him now that he's fully human, and that's fine. As long as Sam is having fun, Michael can the whole Alan situation and the fact that they both look like they've raided an army surplus store. Sam was right, Alan acts like any other teen boy. Michael finds it decently easy to adjust to the thought, and he decides it's just another one of the brothers' eccentricities.
Sometimes, he stalks the boardwalk like he expects to find David waiting for him. Fists clenched and maybe he's waiting for someone to take a swing, or for a hand to toy with his hair in a way that part of him had wanted to flinch away from and part of him had wanted lean into. So he'd let it happen. Still, not running, and he thinks about what he told Star the night they met. Sometimes the things that hurt are worth it.
He's doing that now. Walking around aimlessly. No monsters to fight or boogeymen in the closet. Nothing more than the mundane that he needs to look out for. The smell of sand and salt and rotting seaweed waft through the heavy summer air. He can taste the sun on his tongue, and he wonders how any of them could give this up. He thinks about the little itch in the back of his brain that told him to just give in. Fluorescent lighting is just as good as real sunshine when you aren't alive.
Michael pauses near the pier. Looking down, and for a brief second he thinks he's just remembering Star piercing his ear. David shoving the backing through, both their fingers stained with his blood. It's an unremarkable sight, in terms of the fact that every teenager in Santa Carla will eventually kiss someone under the pier if they haven't already. It's a rite of passage. Two scrawny bodies bent awkwardly to meet, young and obviously not really having any idea how to kiss someone. He blinks. It's an incongruent image. Sam kissing anyone is an image that doesn't fit. He's perpetually five years old running around with a blanket tied into a makeshift cape. But no one else in town dresses like that, bright colors and bold patterns. And there's only two people that dress like an army surplus store grew legs, and one of them is currently kissing Michael's little brother. And it's not Alan.
There's a split second where Michael's instinct is to march down there and yank Sam away from Edgar and demand what the hell is he doing bringing that shit around his brother? But it's not his voice. It's the persistent ever present specter of his father looming in the back of his mind. All he can think is, Dad is going to kill him. Genuine fear prickles down his spine, and he forgets that this isn't Arizona for a moment. Instinct and the reminder that if their dad saw this, there would be no amount of staying out of the way and being quiet that could save Sam.
He blinks, exhales. The space of a millisecond, and the desert air isn't burning his lungs and the smell of sand isn't dry and crackling in his nose. He's not in Arizona and Dad doesn't care enough to follow them. Sam is safe from that much. Even if there are plenty of people in California who would do the same thing to Sam for kissing a boy. And Michael's job is to protect him from people who might hurt him. You're soft echoes in the back of Michael's head. He clenches his fists. Sometimes, you sound just like him. Accusations at war in his chest. Sam and Edgar separate, and even from here Michael can tell they're both smiling. He turns away and keeps walking, head spinning.
He keeps walking until he hits the Ironworks. He doesn't even realize that's where he was going, body moving on autopilot like there's anything left for him there. He swallows, mouth impossibly dry. He stares up at the empty skeletal frame of the massive building. He hasn't been inside since the day Sam and the Frogs killed Marko. The night it all ended. He thinks about Star lips on his, cold at first and then warm and getting warmer lately. They've both been soaking up the sun. The feeling of David's hands skimming his body and tugging at his curls flashes through his mind, ice cold. He banishes it.
"Michael?"
Star's voice makes him jump, like he's conjured her from smoke with just a thought. He whips around, and she's really there. Of course she is. She's alive. The only person other than his dad that stalks his peripheral vision is David.
"Oh," he says, "Uh, hey." He runs a hand through his hair, banishing the sudden chill. He crosses his arms, and it feels more like raising his hands to cover his face as his dad swings than anything else.
"What're you doing here, Moonbeam?" Star asks, her eyes tender and knowing. For the first time, Michael wants to flinch away, and he thinks he understands her hesitance the night they met.
Don't look at me for too long, he wants to say, you might not like what you'll find.
"Nothing," he says, shrugging. "I just started walking."
Star nods. Walking up to stand next to him, looking up at the building that in another life might've been their eternal home. Her hand would be so easy to grab. But that would require uncrossing his arms, and Michael doesn't know if he can do that. It feels like their roles have been reversed, Star reaching out and Michael pulling back, and he hates it.
"Have you been inside yet?" he asks.
She nods. "I had a couple things I needed to get. I… lived there, with them."
Lived. Funny word for existing in the same space as something undead. "Oh," he says again, feeling dumb. He never thought about how much time Star must have spent with all of them. He thinks of Dad. He digs his nails into his biceps.
"Do you miss them?" he asks.
Star looks at him. He can see her tense like she might run. He'd half-thought that night was the last time he'd ever see her. That what happened was something they couldn't live with, at least not together. But she exhales and nods.
"Yes," she says. "I do. I mean, it wasn't all bad. David was…"
"I know," he says.
He misses him sometimes, or maybe just that one night where David taught him to play guitar. There's a music shop on the boardwalk, and part of him wants to go in and buy a guitar. There's a pick that David must have slipped in his pocket that night, and it's hidden in his dresser. He can't bring himself to get rid of it.
Star looks at him. Her hand comes up to touch his cheek. Gentle, and he leans into it. "What's wrong?"
"If you-" he swallows, mouth still so dry. "If someone you knew was-" You're soft. Cut your hair, you look like a queer. Tell your brother to take that poster down before I do it my damn self. "-Gay, what would you say?" His voice cracks on the last word.
Star blinks, caught off guard. "Michael," she says. "It's okay. I think everyone who met David was a little in love with him."
It's his turn to stare at her. He jerks back from her hand. "What?"
Her eyes are soft. "Moonbeam, I could see the way you looked at him. It was a lot like how you looked at me."
His mouth tastes like copper and he shakes his head. "I'm not gay," he says. "I- that's not what I was talking about. It's- I'm not. I saw Sam kissing someone under the pier. One of his friends."
Star's eyes widen. "Oh," she says. "Oh, Michael, I didn't mean to upset you."
He shakes his head. Ears ringing like someone's smacked him upside the head. The phantom of a fist slamming into his nose. "It's fine. You were being-" She was being Star. She was being kind. "It's fine." He tucks her observations about David away to think about sometime never.
She nods, and she tugs his arm lightly, guiding him over to sit down. The shadows of the Ironworks bending around them. Shielding them. Michael sits down heavily. Arms propped on his knees, and he leans into Star's side like he's drunk.
"So," she says. Fingers tracing lightly over the skin of his arms. "Sam?"
Michael has the brief protective instinct to deny it. But… it's kind of a moot point. He nods. "Yeah. I was just walking near the pier and I saw him kissing Edgar."
"That's-" Star pauses like she's trying to put a face to the name. "The taller one, with the curly hair?"
"Yeah," he says, feeling like he might break into hysterical laughter. She's taking this so well. Like it's normal, when it's anything but. And he knows the two of them have gotten a few hostile looks, but there's a difference. Star is a girl. They're both normal.
"And Sam seemed happy?" she asks. It feels a little like she's trying to lead him somewhere and he bristles.
"That's the only thing you care about?" he asks. "You don't care?"
"Michael," she says, giving him a look. "I kind of figured your brother was gay."
Sam has always been a little eccentric. Sensitive, maybe. Quiet and avoiding conflict. Efusive about his interests. But plenty of fourteen year olds were awkward. Every kid got knocked around a little bit at school. Just because assholes shoved you into a locker and called you gay didn't mean you actually were.
He shrugs. "He never told me," he says. Because maybe it was a dare. Maybe there's some context Michael is missing that makes this normal. Innocent.
"Maybe he's scared," and he must make a face because Star shakes her head. "Not of you, but just… scared of himself."
Michael sits with that, and he doesn't like it. It doesn't fit Sam, who has always been unapologetic even when it gets him bullied, to be scared of himself. And Michael thinks maybe Sam is scared of him a little.
You're soft.
"He's a kid," Michaels says. Unable to really articulate it beyond that. "Maybe he'll grow out of it."
"David was over a hundred years old and he still brought guys around," Star says.
Michael reflexively stiffens at that. "Sam isn't anything like him," he snaps. Then he deflates, burying his face in his hands. "Sorry," he says. Star doesn't deserve him taking his shit out on her.
She rubs his back, and he leans into the affection. "Would it be so bad if he didn't grow out of it?"
"He'd get hurt," Michael says. Not even wanting to entertain the idea of Sam being even more vulnerable than he already is. Dad is one person. If he were gay, the whole world would turn on him.
"Good thing he's got you," Star says. She looks at him. "He still does, right?"
"Of course," Michael says immediately. He swallows. "He's my little brother." He knows he's kind of been a shit brother. He knows that the only reason that changed was because he hit the precipice of death and saw Sam get closer to dying than any fourteen year old ever should. "I just don't want him to get hurt."
"I think between you and the Frogs, he's got good backup." Star's tone is light, but he can tell she means it.
"What about you?" he asks, before he can stop himself.
"What about me?"
He feels nervous. Fumbling and anxious and out of his depth. He's no good at this. For all his big talk the night they met, Michael is generally not great at explaining his emotions. "Would you have Sam's back?"
Star smiles at him. That smile that melts something in his chest, all warm brown eyes and fondness. Deep as the ocean just a short way away. "Yeah, I would. And I have yours too."
And then she kisses him. She tastes like french fries from the boardwalk and lipstick and something floral. Michael sinks into it like assurance. He feels more stable whenever Star is with him. She's got a gravity to her, gentle and grounding. For a moment, he can forget everything confusing that today has stirred up inside him.
Star pulls back, cupping his cheek. "Talk to Sam," she tells him.
He nods, dumbstruck as always by Star. Sinking into her smile and the hand on his cheek. He thinks he could get drunk on her. She laughs, a soft little sound, and uses her thumb to wipe a smudge of her purple lipstick off the corner of his mouth. Then she tucks herself into his side and they don't talk. They don't need to.
They stay there like that until the sun goes down.