Chapter Text
David practically broke every traffic law when he smelled it, vampire blood, Paul’s blood. He was walking down the boardwalk smoking when it hit him. The other Lost Boys frantically tried to pull him back to the factory through the mental connection they all have. David stomped out his cigarette and ran to his bike.
When the iron doors bursted open as David strutted in, the boys turned their heads to look at the door, but they immediately relaxed, seeing David. Dwayne was kneeling in front of Paul, looking at a terrible gash on Paul’s leg. “Max visited,” Dwayne said eerily calm as he got out a suture kit. Even with powerful healing, injuries made by more powerful vampires tended to linger, almost like salt in the wound.
Once, years ago, Max dragged his long, sharp claws down Marko’s forearm after David was apparently spending too much time on writing songs, not focused enough on getting another victim, and it didn’t heal for an entire week and a half.
“What did he want?” Fury filled David’s voice, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles were white.
“He said you need to focus on getting Michael into the group instead of ‘gallivanting around town holding hands’.” Marko spoke up from the stairs, mostly covered in shadow. “Then, when he saw you weren’t here, he cut Paul.”
“That fucking dick,” David muttered under his breath despite knowing the others could still hear him. “You holding up okay, Paul?”
“Yeah, I’ll be OK.” Paul gave David a weak thumbs up, his smile trembling as Dwayne pulled the thread through his skin.
David inhaled sharply, mentally trying to reason with himself, before he pulled on his leather military jacket. “Fuck it, I’m going to go talk to him.” He grabbed his keys again, just about to head back out to his motorcycle, when Marko stepped out of the shadow.
“David, remember what happened last time you tried to do that?” Of course, David remembered that he couldn’t forget it, he could barely walk for days after, his left leg nearly snapped. “Just… don’t get yourself hurt because of us.”
David sighed, “It’s what older brothers do, Marko,” he said with a sense of finality as the door shut behind him once more.
The drive back down the boardwalk and to VideoMax was almost scarily quiet. No girls are screaming his name as he sings on stage, no stoners are laughing loudly at stupid shit, and no Surfer Nazis are to be seen. The wind picked up, making his hair and jacket flow behind him. It was almost peaceful, but David couldn’t stop thinking about Max.
He’s been under Max for almost seventy years now. Max found him while he was in army training. He was nineteen and getting ready to go to France and serve, fighting against German soldiers, but Max brought him into his office one day and sat him down.
“Private David Williams, yes?” Max barely looked up from the files on his desk.
David shifted in his seat. What would a Captain want with him? He hadn’t exactly been the most outstanding soldier in training, maybe a bit faster than most, but that was about it. “Yes, Captain.”
Max smiled at David. “Ah, Private Williams, you have been doing well in your training. You’re being sent out soon, I hear.”
“Yes to France, the 3rd Infantry Brigade.” He was so nervous about fighting, he wanted to help, but he couldn’t help but feel this looming sense of dread, like a monster standing just behind him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Max stood up from his chair, turning to his bookshelf. “You must be nervous, David… this world it’s a cold place, isn’t it? The whole world fighting against each other… all for what? After all, in a few centuries, this will all be obsolete, forgotten. Thousands of young men dying every day just because a few politicians can’t agree on something… yet I believe we should all have something to fight for, don’t you?”
David tilted his head. “Uh… yes, I think that’s why most men join. You need someone to cry for, someone to die for, everyone needs a reason to be.”
“You and I can agree on that, son,” Max said, picking up a chalice from his cabinet and grabbing an unlabeled bottle from a nearby shelf of liquor. He poured it into the cup and slid it to David. “Drink, David, my treat.” He simply gestured to the cup.
“Are you not drinking?” David picked up the chalice, looking at the crimson liquid inside with suspicion. “What is it?”
“I can’t drink, there’s a meeting later.” His eyes flashed a dark shade of red. David would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been looking directly at the man. “It’s a very rare, expensive, red wine. Trust me, David, it’s good. Just drink.” Just as David put the cup to his lips, Max tipped it up, practically dumping it into his mouth.
David almost choked on the red liquid. He was about to spit it out when Max’s hand covered his mouth, forcing him to swallow. “Delicious, right?” Once David drank it, Max patted his back with unnatural and unnecessary force. “Sleep well tonight, Williams. Tomorrow, you leave for France.”
“Wait, what?” David looked at him confused. “Why did you call me in? Just to have a drink?” David was so confused, this entire meeting seemed so unnecessary.
“Oh, don’t get angry, Private Williams. I just wanted to meet one of our new recruits.” A cold smile broke across Max’s face. “I think we’ll be working quite closely together. Now get some sleep, the train comes early tomorrow.” He ushered David out of the room, leaving him confused.
A couple of days later in his tent, David pulled out a small container of pills the medic gave him after he complained about unusual pain. David had barely remembered his conversation with Max, almost that entire afternoon seemed like a blur to him. All he knew was that his eyes were far too sensitive to light right now to fight, and he could barely sleep at night, his head pounding with a never-ending migraine, an unexplainable pain in his upper canines, and worst of all, when he tried to drink water or shower, it burned for some reason he couldn’t explain.
But he couldn’t exactly leave, so he pushed through, following the other soldiers into the shade of the trees, covering his team from the sun as the battle raged on ahead of them. Men were getting shot left and right; they were making progress, though. His team was stationed in a deep trench just north of the enemy base. They were taking down soldiers left and right until David had to crouch down and reload.
As David looked up from reloading his gun, he saw his mother burned and bloody. Dry pieces of blood chipped off and blew away in the wind. She was still for a long time, and all David could do was stare in horror. When he had left home, she hugged him and told him to come back safe. How was she here? It doesn’t make sense.
The body moved in a robotic way, jagged and twisted, as she crawled to him. “You can’t save anyone, David,” her words mixed with the voice of his father the night before he had left for training. “You’re a fairy, David. You let your mother rope you into baking bread and sewing. That’s a woman’s job!” The body crawled closer; his mother’s face melting into one he couldn’t recognize. “I’m ashamed of you. How could you think shipping yourself off into the army will fix the freak you are?” The thing got practically on top of him, something that felt like claws pricking through his shirt as it loomed over him. “Get out of my face—”
The thing shifted once more back into a fairly normal version of his mother, but she was shrouded in darkness. “David,” he could hear her sobs, “what have you become? You’ve lost yourself!” Her cries sounded distorted like a broken radio. “Now you’re forever haunted, you can never come back to me. You promised you would come back!” Her cries faded from words into an animal’s screams, the same sound he remembered when his father took him hunting and he shot a deer, that same desperate squeal as the air left their lungs for the last time.
The hallucination disappeared just as it got in his face. Now all that sat in front of him was a rock. His mom wasn’t here, he reminded himself. She’s at home, safe. But what was that that wasn’t normal? He doesn’t have visions, he’s normal. He was supposed to be normal. What is happening to him? He could smell the blood that littered the battlefield, and his stomach twisted in horrifying hunger. What is happening to him?
Then a grenade got thrown in the middle of the trench, everyone panicked, scrambling away, yelling to warn others. But David knew they couldn’t get away fast enough, not with enemy fire still flying overhead. If they run, they get shot in the neck. David jumped onto the grenade, one man down would be better than ten, right? As the explosive went off, he felt its fire burn through his abdomen, tearing his organs apart as the shrapnel tore through him. The agony tore through his body, but he never felt the relief of pain as he died because he didn’t die. He lay there, his body torn in half, held together by thin tendons and tissue, but not dead. Everything hurt beyond anything he ever felt before, stuck in the cold mud as the battle around him continued to go on, forbidden and blocked from the release of death.
He stayed there for hours, watching as other soldiers fought, died, and ran. He went in and out of consciousness until the sun came down, and all the soldiers went to their hideouts. He thought he would remain there, half-dead and alone, until he saw a familiar pair of boots walk to him. “David! My boy.”
David could only groan in pain in response. He could feel what felt like his body slowly stitching itself back together. The muscles struggled to pull together, and his skin crawled as it tried to meet its other half again. His organs lurched as they returned to where they belonged.
“Aw, poor David… this could all end much sooner…” Max clicked his tongue as he dragged David’s top half, his half-re-attached lower half dragging along. “… you just have to drink.” Max brought David to a half-dead German soldier he was crawling away from them, despite the fact all the other German soldiers had long since gone to camp. “Do you smell his blood, David? Isn’t it just… irresistible… you could end all of this if you just drink.” Max threw David down near the man. “Come on, you will be made anew.”
“Please don’t kill me!” The man spoke with a heavy accent. He tried to crawl away, but as David looked down, he saw the man’s leg was nearly snapped in half. “I have family!”
“What’s happening to me?” David tried to push away from the man despite Max’s hand keeping him there.
“A part of you has always been on the run,” Max whispered in his ear like the devil on his shoulder. “You’re afraid of the man you might become, a man like your father.” Max made David look at him, pulling his head up. “It was tearing you apart. But this hunger inside is inevitable, David. Everything can be fixed if you listen to me. Drink, David.”
David shook his head, though his stomach disagreed, begging him to listen. The pain of his injuries could only be soothed by the liquid that pooled around the German man, running like red rivers from his temple and leg. If it wasn’t so horrible, David would almost think it was temptingly beautiful-looking.
“David, you have to drink.” Max pushed David’s head towards the man’s neck. “Drink the blood, and this will all end. There are things you don’t understand, but soon you will, son. Drink, and you’ll be free from the pain, free from the world.” As he saw David’s hesitation, he pushed him closer to the man by the back of the neck. “It’s a game of survival. Stop fighting a war you can’t win. It’s time to give in.”
David didn’t know what possessed him, but he pounced on the man as fangs sprouted out from where his canines were and plunged deep into the man’s neck, drinking until the screams stopped, nearly tearing out the man’s jugular in desperation to get his pain to end and a newfound monstrous hunger.
As he finished drinking, sudden horrifying clarity came, and he rushed away from the body. “What did I do?” He stared at his shaking hands as more blood dripped onto them from his mouth. He turned to Max. “What am I?! What did you do to me!”
Max stepped back, his arms open and welcoming, a stark contrast to the blood, gore, and bodies that surrounded him. “My son! You’re just like me, David! You’re like a god amongst men. You’ll have a power like you’ve never known.”
“What did you do to me!” David stepped away from Max.
“You’re a vampire, David. I gave you power that most men can only dream of.” He stepped forward, two fingers tilting David’s head up. “Now don’t be ungrateful of the gift I gave you… you belong to me.”
By the time David had parked in front of the VideoMax, he had become even more furious as he remembered his first interactions with Max. He wanted payback, he wanted revenge. He knew he could only dream of a vampire spawn going against their master. It was hard enough, but killing them was a whole different level of difficulty.
As he pushed through the doors angrily, stepping in looking like he was plotting a murder, which he was, he saw Lucy staring at him with barely contained surprise and a bit of judgment. “David? I thought Max banned you and your friends from the store.”
As David saw Lucy, the mask of the charming rock star fell back into place. “Ah, Ms. Emerson! It’s lovely to see you.” David leaned against the register counter. “Do you know if your boss is here?”
Lucy looked him up and down with blatant suspicion. “What does someone like you want with Max?”
“I just want to have a little chat,” David tried to give Lucy his best puppy dog eyes. “Aw, come on, Ms. Emerson, your son trusts me. Why don’t you?”
Lucy sighs, almost exasperated. “David, you are a well-known hooligan and troublemaker.” She looked at him one last time before nodding to the back door where the office is. “He’s in his office. Just don’t destroy anything. I really don’t want to clean it.”
David gave her a dramatic formal bow. “Of course not, madam. I wouldn’t dare.” He walked to the office, his anger replacing his perfect mask once again as he turned away from her. He opened the door and slammed it behind him. “Max! We have to talk.”
Max didn’t even look up. “You know the deal, David. You didn’t listen, and there are consequences.” He flipped through a notebook on the desk.
“Consequences for me! Not for the boys. I thought we agreed you would leave them out of this!” David slammed his fist onto the desk, the wood cracking under the vampiric strength.
“Now don’t talk back to me, boy. You have no power here, David.” He suddenly stood, looking David face to face. “You are just a pet to me, a loyal dog to do what I need you to.”
“You don’t have any right to hurt my brothers! I don’t care what you do to me, hit me, torture me, hurt me! Just leave them out of it!” He got even closer to Max, daring Max to challenge him.
Max reached out, grabbing David’s neck in one swift motion. He floated them both up into the air and slammed David into the wall. The drywall dented and cracked. “You forget your place, David. You have no power against me. I am the master, and you are the dog. I can’t seem to get that through your head,” his claws popped out from his nail beds and dug into David’s neck. “I will ensure you don’t forget this time.”
David felt a hand go under his shirt and jacket and slide up to his shoulder before long, sharp claws dug into his shoulder muscles, lingering there for only a moment before they slid down his back, leaving raw tears in his flesh deep enough to make David freeze, unable to focus on anything except the pain that ran through him. Before the claws stopped just at the end of his lower back and retracted, Max whispered to him, “Remember this moment before you ever think about disobeying me again.” He dropped David back onto the ground. “Leave.” Max turned back to his desk, sitting down as he went back to his work.
David stood there for a moment, unsure if he could even move through the pain. He shakily walked out of the office. He felt his eyes prick with tears, but he refused to let any fall as he walked to the front door. He had completely forgot Lucy was there until he heard a gasp from behind him.
“David! What the hell happened to you!” She stared at him, forgetting whatever she was doing before, as the maternal side of her took over.
“I’m OK, Ms. Emerson, don’t worry,” he winced as he took another step forward. He shakily dug in his pocket for his keys.
“You are not fine! Your back is covered in blood, I can see it dripping onto your pants!” She walked around the counter, stopping just in front of him. “What happened? Is that why you wanted to talk to Max?”
Without thinking, David had flinched at the name. He tried to keep his composure, he knew Max was still right there. He could go after the boys if he said anything, or worse, Michael. “Ms. Emerson, please—”
Lucy saw the look in his eyes, the panicked glance towards the office door. She had seen that same look in the mirror before, in her sons, whenever her ex-husband would come home drunk and angry, hit her, or worse, her boys, and yell at them. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before in David or the other boys, but now everything was so obvious, it was like a slap to the face. She saw their interaction on the beach, saw the tension between David and Max, and saw the silent power Max held.
She had seen David and her eldest talk; she had seen them bond, and she knew Michael was worried about him but had never quite figured why. Why would Michael be worried about the confident boy she saw strut down the boardwalk like he owned it, like he was the king? Why would someone as strong and confident as David need someone to worry about them? She only realized the flaw in her logic now. Why would someone worry about somebody who seemed so perfect all the time, with that specific kind of confidence only a teenager can have? It’s because Micheal knew something no one else did, he noticed something no one else would look for.
Michael had seen himself in David. He had seen that same distant look whenever parents were brought up. He saw the occasional injuries David had hid beneath layers of makeup and leather. How had Lucy not seen it before? David was so much like her son, he hid what hurt because he was the strong older brother. Michael had tried to warn her about Max. He said he was bad news, but she thought he was being ridiculous. Sam even had his own worries about Max, even if they were mostly theories of Max being a vampire. She should have taken her boys seriously, they know what a bad man looks like, and so should she.
“He hurt you,” Lucy wasn’t asking him, she knew.
David had stared at her with sudden disbelief and confusion. How had she figured that out? David knew she wasn’t stupid based on his conversations with Michael alone, but how had she had one conversation with him and immediately come to that conclusion? He opened and closed his mouth, searching for something to say, but was only able to look like a fish trying to get water. His hands still shook, and he could feel more tears well up in his eyes as she looked at him with that specific brand of material, unwavering worry.
“David, please. I know Michael has told you things about his father. I know those eyes too well not to see it, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it before…” She hesitated, looking at David before cupping his cheek. “Come back to our house. I can bandage you up, and you can go back to your band.”
David felt a single tear escape his eye, which he quickly wiped away. “I- I can’t- umm…” For once in a very long time, David was at a loss for words. He had no idea how to respond to her. She clearly knew she was correct, but he couldn’t say that, even if he wanted to. Max’s hold was too tight.
“David, just nod if I’m right about Max. We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to, and we can leave together. We don’t have to be alone anymore, David. Neither you nor your friends.” She gently moved her hand from his cheek to his shoulder, squeezing lightly.
David just looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to do. If he lied, he would just be in the same position he was in now. If he told the truth, Max would know and be livid. David thought for a moment, questioning himself before nodding. “But I should get back to my brothers. They should they um—” David didn’t know what to say. His mind focused on the pain and Lucy’s kindness, the kind he hasn’t felt in almost a century.
Lucy smiled sympathetically. “I know how hard it is, David. I really do, but we can help you get away.” Lucy grabbed her own keys. “Let’s get you fixed up before you go back to your brothers.” Lucy brought him to her car, putting a towel on the back of the seat before letting him sit. She climbed into the driver’s seat, and they drove to the Emerson house in silence.
When they pulled into the driveway of the cabin-style house on the edge of the town, Lucy walked up the path into the house while David waited outside the threshold of the doorway, unsure of how exactly to bring it up. He can’t exactly enter a house without permission.
“What are you waiting for?” Lucy looked at him with worried confusion as she waited in the entryway.
The sudden question made David look up. He knew he probably looked like a mess; his eyeliner was definitely running down his face. “Ms. Emerson, I don’t know how much your sons have told you,” David paused for a moment, preparing himself for rejection or a stake in the chest. “But I’m a vampire.” He pulled up his upper lip, showing her his fangs.
Lucy paused for a moment in disbelief, deciding what to say before she laughed. “Sam and his friends were right about you.”
“What?” David blurted out, confused by her reaction. Usually, he would have to either kill the person because they were going to tell the entire town or have to fight because they would try to kill him, but a laugh? He didn’t know how to react.
“Sam and his friends, the Frog brothers, were going on a whole rant the other day, saying you and the Lost Boys were vampires,” Lucy laughed again. “I just… I thought they were just kids being kids, but now the look on Michael’s face when they kept trying to get him to admit his boyfriend was a vampire at dinner makes sense.”
David paused, shocked, before he let out a surprised, disbelieving laugh, and quickly composed himself, well, at least as much as he could compose himself with the whole state of his body and his very hard attempts not to cry, and asked, “May I come in?”
Lucy smiled dramatically, bowing. “I bid you welcome.” She laughed at David’s confused face. “Dracula, 1931.”
David laughed at her finally breaking through his earlier pain and anger as he shook his head cautiously, stepping through the threshold. “Really, a movie quote?”
Lucy shrugged lightly. “It’s become a fun game.” She looked at David again, seeing how his whole body shook. “Now sit down before your back gives out.”
David sat down on the couch Lucy directed him to, then took off his coat and shirt so Lucy could see the damage and hopefully help. He didn’t exactly know how much experience she had in treating wounds, let alone vampiric injuries. Lucy suppressed a gasp when she saw the deep lacerations in David’s back: five large, bleeding, deep scratches that go from his left shoulder to his right hip.
“God, David, this is… this is just monstrous… I don’t understand why someone would do this,” Lucy thought of the charming version of Max she had known before tonight, and as she looked at David’s injuries, she wouldn’t have ever guessed it was Max if she hadn’t seen the signs.
David tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound too graphic. “I made him mad… I was given orders, and I’ve been stalling, so he got mad and took it out on Paul. Then I got mad and yelled at him because I’m the older brother, and it’s my job to take care of them, and well, you can see what good that did.” David shifted slightly as Lucy’s fingertips touched the edge of a wound.
“Nothing you could do could warrant this kind of reaction. It’s cruel. No one deserves to be treated like this.” She looked at the cuts a bit longer before stepping back. “I’ll be right back, David. I just have to get the first aid kit and maybe find my dad’s old suture kit because I know you won’t go to a hospital.”
David huffed a laugh as she left the room because he knew she was right, he would never go to a hospital because of his vampire status, but also because he hates it there. Too many smells, and most of them entirely unpleasant. He tried thinking of anything other than Max or his back, and his mind immediately went to Sunday morning back when he was a teenager with his mom. They would bake bread together.
“David, you’re getting flour everywhere,” she laughed, her eyes shining with a sort of hope David had lost long ago. He couldn’t remember what color her eyes were anymore, that detail lost to time.
David laughed carefree and smiling, nothing was against him at the time. Maybe his father would occasionally give him a hard time and yell at him, but at least he had his mom. He smiled mischievously as he definitely not on purpose got flour on his mom’s sleeve.
She gasped dramatically, “David Williams, did you just put flour on the sleeve of my brand new dress?!” When David laughed at her, she picked up some flour and put it onto his shirt. They went back and forth until there was flour everywhere, and neither could breathe from how hard they were laughing. Eventually, they had gotten the bread in the oven, and while they waited, she taught him to sew.
She once said, “A man who can mend his own clothes is a man who can survive anything.” After he had almost given up after trying to learn a new stitch for hours, he wished he had gotten a photo of her before he left for France. He didn’t know why he hadn’t in the first place.
Lucy came back with a big white plastic box and sat down next to David. “I’m going to clean it, then stitch it. It’s going to hurt. Is there anything that can distract you? Maybe you could… You could tell me something about you before becoming a vampire, maybe?” She opened the kit and took out the disinfectant and sutures. He didn’t need the disinfectant, but the blood was making it hard to see the full extent of the damage.
David sniffed quietly as he wiped his face off again, trying to will the remaining tears to go away. “I haven’t really thought about that in a while,” he racked his brain for something he could willingly tell Lucy without getting too into detail. “When I was a kid, my mom and I were really close.”
“Really? What was she like?” She cleaned up the remaining blood from David’s back. Seeing how deep the lacerations were, she held back a sympathetic wince.
David began to calm down as he thought about her more. He suspected that was what Lucy really wanted. “She was… kind and patient. She always made sure to check in on me and hang out,” he thought of all the time they would spend together back then, just simply having fun before his dad came home, just him and her existing. “We used to make bread together every Sunday morning, then she would teach me how to sew while we waited for it to bake.”
“You sew?” Lucy looked up from the wounds at him curiously. “I wouldn’t take you to be a baking and sewing kind of guy.”
David laughed quietly. “You and everyone else. Nowadays the only time I sew is when one of the boys gets a hole or something in their clothes. I can embroider too. Sometimes I make patches for them. I’m not great, but it’s not completely horrible.” David tensed up as the needle first glided through his skin. “And I haven’t baked in decades, anyway.”
“You could bake here if you wanted,” Lucy said simply, a quiet invitation.
He paused. “Why would you do that?” David didn’t understand Lucy. Earlier today she seemed to barely tolerate him, and now he was on her couch, shirtless, as she stitched his wounds.
Lucy paused for a moment before continuing to stitch him up. “You remind me of Michael when he was younger… He would rebel against his dad too because he didn’t want him to get away with hurting us… I wish I could go back and take them away from him sooner. No one deserves to be abused, so if I can help you and your brothers away now, I will.”
“That’s really… brave of you, Mrs. Emerson.” David looked at his jacket for a moment. It was going to be a pain in the ass to clean, but as the gold chevrons shone in the living room light, it brought him back to when he met Max. “I wish I could’ve left him much sooner. I wish I never met him at all. I would’ve been dead in a trench, but it’s better than this.”
“You served?”
David nodded, but he didn’t want to go into too much detail. “France, the 3rd Infantry Brigade in 1918.”
“World War One?” Lucy asked politely as she tried to carefully stitch one of the bigger cuts.
David nodded. “That’s where I met Max. He was a Captain. He turned me before I was sent out, but that was a long time ago…”
Lucy and David talked until she finished his sutures, and Michael came home to find his boyfriend wearing his clothes and his mom talking over coffee. He smiled and sat down next to David, but he looked up at him with a happy but confused look, and David laughed. “I’ll tell you later.”
Days later, the Lost Boys were in the Emerson house. David and Paul were in the kitchen making dough while Michael helped, and Marko and Dwayne were in the living room talking to Sam as he asked them about a thousand questions about vampires. Lucy couldn’t help but smile. She could see Paul was limping, and David’s posture was still tight and strained, but they were both smiling, their fangs catching the light. Marko and Dwayne seemed happy to answer all Sam’s questions.
It was a start.