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The first time Max mentioned Paul's blood, David nearly missed it.
They were all in the main room, spread across the furniture in the careless way they always were when Max had summoned them for something that turned out not to be important. Paul had taken over most of the sofa despite being only one person, one boot hanging over the arm while Marko kept kicking his ankle every time Paul's heel drifted too close to his thigh. Dwayne had claimed the floor with his back against the sofa, long legs stretched toward the table, and David was standing because he had learned a long time ago that sitting down when Max wanted to talk made it too easy for Max to turn a conversation into something that felt like an appointment.
Max had a book open beside him and a glass in his hand, and for the last ten minutes he had been talking about bloodlines, age, regeneration, and the differences he had observed between the four of them as though anyone else in the room had asked.
David had stopped listening somewhere around Max's observation that Paul healed marginally faster from burns than Marko did. Paul had immediately declared himself better at vampirism, which Marko had taken as a personal insult, and Dwayne had pointed out that Paul was also the only one of them stupid enough to get burned often enough for Max to have collected meaningful data. That had started another argument, one David was perfectly content to let drown Max out until Max lifted his voice slightly and said, "Which does make me wonder whether those differences would extend to compatibility with other blood."
David's attention snapped back so fast it hurt.
Paul was still grinning at Marko, oblivious to the change in David's expression. "I'm telling you, I'm just naturally better at this shit. Superior vampire. You should all be taking notes."
"You ate a moth last week," Marko reminded him, looking deeply unimpressed.
"It flew into my mouth! What was I supposed to do, spit it out?" Paul demanded, which only made Dwayne laugh harder.
"You chased it halfway across the cave, Paul. I watched you do it."
"Because it was flying around my fucking head!"
David barely heard the rest of their argument. His attention had fixed on Max, who was watching the three of them with an expression David recognized far too well.
"What other blood?"
Max glanced at him, apparently surprised to find that David had been listening after all. "Hm?"
"You said compatibility with other blood. What other blood are you talking about?"
For a moment Max merely watched him, and David knew that look. He had known it before there had been scales beneath his clothes, before his teeth had changed, before the ocean had begun calling to something inside him that should never have existed. Max's curiosity had always looked deceptively gentle from the outside. His eyes sharpened, his attention narrowed, and everything else in the room became secondary to whatever question had caught hold of him.
David had once mistaken that attention for affection.
"There are possibilities," Max said, settling back into his chair. "Siren blood was hardly the only unusual specimen I've encountered over the years. And while the results of your transformation were certainly remarkable, I've never been entirely satisfied with the limitations of having only one subject to observe."
Paul's grin faded.
Marko looked between Max and David, while Dwayne tipped his head back against the cushion behind him so he could see both of them.
David felt his tongue press against teeth that hadn't always been shaped like this. "And you're thinking that having three more vampires around would give you a convenient opportunity to expand your research."
"That's quite a leap, David. I'm discussing a theoretical question about the nature of vampiric physiology, not proposing an experiment. Although I would think you'd be interested in learning whether the adaptations you developed were unique to you or whether another vampire might experience something similar under comparable circumstances."
David could feel the faint prickling beneath the scales hidden by his shirt. "I'm not interested. And neither are they."
"Well, perhaps you should let them answer that for themselves," Max suggested, his gaze drifting toward Paul.
David stepped sideways before he could stop himself, putting his body directly between them.
Paul sat up straighter. "Hang on. What exactly are we supposed to be interested in?"
"Nothing," David told him, keeping his eyes on Max. "Because nothing's going to happen."
Max sighed as though David were being deliberately difficult. "You are making this unnecessarily confrontational. All I was suggesting was that the differences between your individual regenerative abilities might indicate different levels of compatibility with foreign supernatural blood. David's transformation demonstrated that such integration is possible, but it left us with several unanswered questions. There are variables we couldn't account for with a single subject. Age at introduction, time since turning, individual regenerative capacity, things of that nature."
"Subject?" Marko repeated, his voice considerably quieter than it had been during the argument about moths.
Max barely seemed to notice. "If another vampire responded differently, it would tell us a great deal about which elements of David's transformation were particular to David and which were the predictable result of combining the two species."
David wished Marko hadn't repeated the word. He wished Max would stop talking. Most of all, he wished he hadn't brought the boys here tonight.
"You're not putting anything in them," he said.
Max's attention returned fully to him. "David, I haven't suggested putting anything in anyone. You're reacting to a hypothetical discussion as though I've already prepared a procedure. I would appreciate it if you stopped assigning intentions to me that I haven't expressed."
"Then stop looking at my brothers like they're three fucking opportunities to find out what happens next."
The room went still around them. David could feel all three of his brothers watching now, and that was almost worse than Max. He didn't want them watching this. He didn't want Paul pulling his wrist closer to his body or Marko sitting forward or Dwayne's shoulders going rigid beneath the sofa.
They knew what David was. They knew Max was responsible for it. There had never been any way to hide that much, not when the changes were written into David's body and Max had never regarded his own involvement as something shameful enough to conceal. They knew about the siren blood, and they knew David had been a vampire before Max introduced it.
They did not know how.
David intended to keep it that way.
"You're not experimenting on them," David repeated, quieter this time. "I don't care what questions you have or how interesting you think the answers might be. Whatever happened to me isn't happening to Paul, Dwayne, or Marko."
Max set his glass down. "You keep using the word experiment as though it describes something inherently malicious. What happened to you was unprecedented. There was no established procedure, no body of research to consult, and no way to know what the outcome would be without observation. I understand that the experience was unpleasant, but the results were extraordinary. Surely, after all this time, you can acknowledge that much."
David stared at him.
Unpleasant.
He could still remember the sound his own scales had made when they struck the floor.
"You're really going to stand there and tell me I should be grateful?"
"I didn't say grateful. I said acknowledge. There's a difference, David, and I would appreciate it if you listened to what I'm actually telling you instead of deciding what you think I mean."
"Oh, I'm listening. Believe me, Max, I'm listening to every word." David could hear the second resonance beginning to stir beneath his voice, and he forced it down before it could become anything more than a faint vibration in his throat. "You're telling me you learned something interesting when you put that shit in me, and now you're wondering whether you'd learn something different if you did it to somebody else. That's what this is. You can dress it up however you want, but I'm not stupid."
Behind him, somebody moved. David heard the leather of the sofa creak and knew without turning that Paul had gotten to his feet.
Max rubbed two fingers against his temple. "And what exactly do you believe I'm proposing? Dragging one of them into the room and forcing foreign blood into his veins? You seem determined to imagine the worst possible interpretation of everything I say."
David said nothing.
The silence stretched long enough that Max's hand dropped from his temple.
Something in his expression shifted. Not guilt, never guilt, but recognition. He finally understood that David wasn't arguing with the hypothetical question Max thought he had posed. David was standing in another room entirely, staring at a syringe full of blood that smelled like salt and something ancient while his own hand refused to obey him.
"David," Max said, his voice softening, "you know perfectly well that your circumstances were different. I had already determined that your body was the most suitable candidate, and I was reasonably confident that your regenerative abilities would protect you from any lasting harm. It would be irresponsible to proceed with another vampire without first considering whether those same conditions applied."
Paul was close behind David now. He could hear it without turning, could feel the warmth of him at his back.
"Wait a minute," Paul said. "What do you mean, forcing?"
David closed his eyes.
He had wanted to get through this without that. He had wanted to make Max promise and then get the boys out, let Paul bitch about being volunteered for mad science he had never agreed to, let Marko threaten to put something equally weird in Max's drink, let Dwayne make some comment that broke the tension until this became another thing they survived by making it stupid.
David could have handled that. He knew how to handle that.
Paul's voice was different when he spoke again. "David, I thought you knew he was going to do it. I mean, I knew you didn't exactly like what happened afterward, but I thought-" He stopped, and David hated the uncertainty in his voice more than he would have hated anger. "You agreed to it, right?"
David stared at Max.
There were answers that could have ended the conversation. He could have said it had been complicated. He could have said it was a long time ago. He could have told Paul that none of it mattered anymore because it had worked and David was standing here and the scales didn't even hurt now unless someone managed to catch one wrong. He could have given them something vague enough that they would know not to ask.
Instead he heard himself say, "I said no."
Nobody moved.
David could hear every tiny sound in the room with vicious clarity: the clock on the wall, the settling wood, Max's heartbeat, Paul's breath behind his shoulder. Somewhere outside, too far away to be useful, the Pacific dragged itself against the shore. David swallowed. His throat didn't hurt. It hadn't hurt like that in years, but memory had never needed the cooperation of flesh.
"I told him I didn't want it," David said. "I told him no, and he decided that wasn't an answer he was willing to accept. That's all you need to know about it."
Paul's hand touched the back of David's jacket and stopped there, not grabbing him, barely even touching. "Jesus Christ, David. Why didn't you tell us?"
"Because it was over before any of you were even around, and telling you wouldn't have changed what happened." David turned just enough to look at him, hoping Paul would understand what he was asking without making him say it. "I'm telling you now because apparently Max needs reminding that he doesn't get to make that decision for anybody else. I'm not having a conversation about the rest of it."
Paul looked sick. Marko looked murderous. Dwayne had gone frighteningly blank in the way he sometimes did immediately before violence, and all three of them were looking at David as though something fundamental had just shifted beneath their feet.
David could practically see the questions forming. How? What did he do? How bad was it? Why didn't you tell us?
He wasn't answering them.
He would give them this much because apparently he already had. He would let them know he hadn't chosen it. He would let them hate Max for that if they needed to, although God knew they had enough reasons already. He was not going to give Paul the sound of scales striking the floor one by one. He wasn't going to put the image of his hands slick with his own blood into Marko's head. Dwayne would never have to know that David had clawed his throat open, healed, and done it again because something inside him had been changing and he had been desperate enough to believe he might be able to tear it back out.
Most of all, none of them were ever going to hear about ‘Dad, please.’
That belonged to David.
Max stood, looking considerably less pleased with the direction the conversation had taken. "I think we're losing sight of the actual circumstances here. You're presenting this as though I acted without any consideration for David's safety, when in fact I spent considerable time examining the potential risks before proceeding. His regenerative capabilities were more than sufficient to ensure his survival, and the eventual integration of the siren traits exceeded even my most optimistic expectations."
David turned back toward him. "I said no."
"I heard you, David. I remember the conversation perfectly well. But I also remember that you were frightened by the uncertainty, and I made a decision based on what I understood about your physiology at the time. You can disagree with that decision, but it doesn't change the fact that you survived and ultimately benefited from the results."
The answer landed harder than denial would have.
"You heard me," David repeated, his voice frighteningly quiet. "You knew I didn't want you to do it, and you went ahead because you decided what you wanted to know mattered more than what happened to me."
Max's jaw tightened. "That is a very uncharitable interpretation of something that gave you abilities no other vampire possesses."
Paul stepped around David before David could stop him. "Are you seriously telling us that you forced him into it and we're supposed to be impressed because he came out of it with some extra fucking abilities? You don't get to do that to somebody just because you think the results are going to be worth it."
"He did more than survive, Paul. Look at him. The integration was extraordinary, and the changes have been entirely stable for years. His voice alone represents an advancement in supernatural influence that would otherwise have been impossible to achieve."
David's scales flashed beneath his shirt.
He couldn't see them, but he knew. He knew from the sudden shimmer reflected faintly against the pale fabric, from Marko's eyes dropping toward his ribs and then immediately coming back up. Max saw it too. Of course he did.
"Stop talking about me like I'm not fucking standing here," David said. "I'm not a result. I'm not proof that your fucking theory worked. I'm the person who had to live through it."
Max looked at him with an expression David almost wished were anger. Instead, there was that familiar, maddening certainty, as though he couldn't understand why David insisted on being offended by something so obviously remarkable.
"David, you are the evidence that it was successful."
Something inside David went cold.
Dwayne moved then, coming around the other side of him until all four of them were standing together. "Successful doesn't mean it was okay, Max. And it definitely doesn't mean you get to try it again on one of us."
Max's expression changed by a fraction. Dwayne didn't raise his voice often when he was truly angry. He didn't need to.
Marko came to stand beside Paul, his hands clenched at his sides. "I don't give a shit how interesting you think David's transformation was. None of us signed up to be your next project, and I don't particularly appreciate finding out you're sitting around wondering what you'd like to inject into us."
"I haven't asked any of you to participate in anything," Max replied, spreading his hands. "I was discussing a possibility, and David decided to turn it into an accusation before I'd even finished explaining myself. If you don't wish to participate in any future research, that is certainly something we can discuss."
David almost laughed.
Something we can discuss.
He knew what that meant. It meant Max would talk until everyone else was exhausted. It meant he would explain the benefits, minimize the risks, and wait until refusing began to feel unreasonable. And if that didn't work, there was always the sire bond.
David stepped closer to him.
"You already made me your experiment. You don't get three more."
Max's gaze flicked past him toward Paul, Dwayne and Marko.
David moved with it, putting himself squarely between Max and the boys again. "I don't care if you've got another hundred questions you want answered. You can spend the next century writing theories about what might happen, but you're not putting anything in them. You're not taking anything out of them. You're not changing their bodies because you're curious, and you're not deciding that it's fine to hurt them because they'll probably heal afterward."
"David, I have no intention of harming your brothers. Whatever else you think of me, surely you understand that I care about their well-being."
"You don't get to decide what counts as harm."
That stopped him.
David hadn't planned the sentence. It came out before he could examine it, and for one horrible instant the room disappeared beneath the memory of his own hands buried against his throat, Max telling him there was nothing to remove while David tried to tear out something that had already become part of him.
He pushed the memory down so hard his teeth hurt.
Max watched him for a moment before answering. "Then tell me exactly what it is you're asking for, because I cannot reasonably promise never to intervene if one of them requires medical attention. There may come a time when an unusual treatment is the only way to save one of their lives, and you would want me to stand by and let them die simply because you're afraid of something that happened to you decades ago?"
David hated that Max could make even this sound reasonable. He hated that he had to consider the words carefully, because somewhere beneath the manipulation there was a distinction worth making.
"I'm not talking about saving their lives. I'm talking about you changing what they are because you want to find out what happens. No experiments, no foreign blood, no substances you haven't already used safely on vampires, no cutting pieces off them to see how they grow back. They chose to become vampires, and that's what they stay unless they decide otherwise."
Max regarded him thoughtfully. "You understand that there are limits to what I can promise. Their safety remains my responsibility, and there may be circumstances in which a necessary intervention would involve risks."
"Then if one of them is dying, you do what you have to do to save him. But you don't get to call something necessary because you're curious, and you don't get to create a problem just so you can find out whether you know how to fix it."
Silence filled the room again, but this one felt different. David could feel the boys behind him now, not as people he needed to hide from but as a solid presence at his back. Paul was close enough that their arms brushed. Dwayne stood near his other shoulder. Marko had moved somewhere behind Paul, restless energy radiating from him like heat.
Max looked at all four of them.
"You're asking me to abandon potentially important discoveries."
"I'm telling you to find another fucking hobby."
Marko snorted despite himself. It was small and ugly and badly timed, exactly the sort of sound David needed, and for half a second Paul's shoulder shook against his.
Max did not look amused.
David didn't care.
"I want your word, Max. Not that you'll think about it, not that you'll consider their feelings, and not that you'll try to avoid anything unpleasant. I want you to promise me you won't do to them what you did to me."
Max's expression remained cold. "You don't dictate terms to me, David. I understand that you're upset, but I won't be threatened in my own home because you've decided to revisit an old grievance."
"Then we're done here," David replied. "You can have your research, or you can have us around. I'm not bringing them back here so you can look them over and wonder which one would make the best fucking test subject."
Paul went still beside him.
Max did too.
David hadn't known he was going to say it until it was already there, but once it was, he meant it. Maybe Max could order him back. Maybe Max could force David to remain in the house until the sun burned itself out. Maybe there were a thousand commands buried in the blood that David hadn't discovered yet.
But Max couldn't make Paul trust him.
He couldn't make Marko stop hating him.
He couldn't make Dwayne love him.
And he couldn't make David willingly deliver another son to be cut apart.
Max seemed to understand that too.
His gaze moved first to Paul, then Dwayne, then Marko, lingering on each of them before returning to David. "Very well. If this is what it takes to put the matter to rest, then you have my word that I won't pursue further experimentation on any of you."
David didn't move. "I want you to say their names."
Max's expression hardened. "I just gave you my word. I would think that should be sufficient."
"You gave me a nice general promise that you can reinterpret whenever it suits you. I'm asking you to be specific, because I've had enough experience with your promises to know how that works." David gestured toward his brothers without taking his eyes off Max. "Paul, Dwayne and Marko. All three of them. I want you to say exactly what you're promising."
For the first time, something like genuine anger flashed across Max's face. "You are being extraordinarily difficult about something I have already agreed to."
"Then it shouldn't be hard to say it again."
Max stared at him.
David stared back.
Finally Max drew a slow breath. "Paul, Dwayne and Marko will not be used for experimentation. I will not introduce foreign blood or other substances into their bodies for the purpose of observing the results, nor will I alter their physiology out of scientific curiosity. They will remain as they are unless some intervention becomes necessary to preserve their lives."
David considered it.
Max watched him considering it, which was exactly why David didn't let himself rush.
"And you don't get to decide something is necessary just because you want to know what happens."
"I believe we've established that distinction quite thoroughly," Max replied, the irritation unmistakable in his voice. "I have no intention of repeating the circumstances of your transformation with any of your brothers. Is that clear enough for you?"
There.
David felt something inside him unclench.
It wasn't trust. He wasn't stupid enough for that. A promise from Max was only as good as the exact words used to construct it, and David knew better than anyone how much damage could live between words. But Paul was named. Dwayne was named. Marko was named. Max had said it in front of all four of them, and for now that would have to be enough.
"Yeah," David said. "That's clear enough."
Max's expression remained cold. "Then I trust we can finally consider this conversation finished."
David looked back at his brothers.
Paul was staring at him in a way David didn't like at all. The anger was still there, but underneath it was something softer and more dangerous, the beginning of grief for something that had happened before Paul had even been there to stop it. Marko looked much the same, though he was hiding it behind fury more successfully. Dwayne's eyes stayed on David's face, quiet and searching.
David knew what came next if he let it.
Questions.
He wasn't going to.
"Come on," David said, catching Paul's sleeve and tugging him toward the door. "We're leaving."
Paul came willingly, but Marko lingered just long enough to glare at Max before Dwayne shoved him between the shoulder blades. They made it almost to the doorway before Max spoke again.
"David, before you go, I do want you to understand something. I never intended for you to suffer. The initial integration was considerably more violent than I anticipated, and had I understood how severely your regeneration would resist the changes before accepting them, I would have approached the procedure differently."
The room seemed to contract around him.
Paul's sleeve went taut in David's hand.
David could have kept walking. He should have. Instead he turned his head just enough to look at Max over his shoulder.
"Don't do that," he said, and he hated how tired he sounded. "Don't stand there and talk about how you would've done it differently, like that makes any fucking difference. You didn't have to do it at all. That's the part you keep refusing to understand."
Max looked at him for a long moment. For once, he didn't immediately offer another explanation, and David wasn't about to wait around for him to find one.
He turned away, pulling Paul along with him.
They made it outside before anyone spoke. The night air hit David's face first, cool and damp, carrying the smell of salt from an ocean his body wanted and his vampirism rejected. He breathed it in anyway. Paul was still beside him, Marko and Dwayne following close enough that David could hear every footstep without trying.
Paul lasted approximately twelve seconds.
"Okay, so I know you said you don't want to talk about it, and I'm not trying to make you tell us everything, but holy shit, David. I had no idea he actually forced you into that. I thought you agreed to it and then it turned out to be a lot worse than anybody expected."
David kept walking. "I know that's what you thought."
Paul glanced at him. "And you just let us keep thinking it?"
"What was I supposed to do, Paul? Sit everybody down and give you a detailed account of the worst fucking night of my life?" David immediately regretted how sharply the words came out, especially when Paul recoiled slightly. He dragged a hand down his face before continuing. "Look, I'm not angry at you. You didn't know because I didn't tell you, and I didn't tell you because I didn't want to talk about it. I still don't."
Paul was quiet for a moment. "Okay. I get that. I just wish we'd known enough to understand what he did to you."
David didn't know how to explain that understanding was precisely what he was trying to spare them.
They crossed the yard in silence, and David waited for the questions anyway. He waited for Marko to demand to know what Max meant by violent, for Paul to ask how bad it had been, for Dwayne to quietly ask why David had never told them. He had answers prepared for none of those things. There was no version of the truth he could give them that wouldn't put pictures in their heads, and David had spent too many years carrying those pictures himself to hand them over now.
Dwayne was the one who finally spoke.
"You don't have to tell us anything else, you know. I mean it. Whatever he was talking about back there, whatever happened that night, that's yours to talk about or not. We're not going to make you explain it just because we didn't know."
David's steps faltered.
Dwayne kept walking until he was beside him. He didn't look at David when he said it, which somehow made it easier.
Marko was quiet for a few seconds before muttering, "Besides, I don't wanna hear Max's version of anything. He'd probably describe getting stabbed as an interesting opportunity to observe how fast you bleed."
Paul let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, if he ever comes at me with a syringe, I'm biting him. I don't care what the fuck he says it's supposed to do."
Marko gave him a sidelong look. "You're a vampire, Paul. You bite everybody. That's not exactly a threat."
"Yeah, but this time it'll be meaningful. There's a difference between biting somebody because you're hungry and biting somebody because they've pissed you off on a personal level."
"Are you seriously telling me you've got different categories of biting?"
"Obviously. There's feeding, there's fighting, there's recreational biting, and then there's the kind of biting you do when somebody's being a real asshole. Entirely different emotional experiences."
Dwayne groaned. "Please don't start ranking the emotional significance of everyone Paul's bitten. I don't think I can listen to that conversation tonight."
"I have a system," Paul informed him, sounding deeply offended that anybody would suggest otherwise.
"Of course you fucking do," Marko said. "You've got a system for everything except remembering where you put your shit."
David felt the laugh before it escaped him, and for one second he almost swallowed it. The sound still carried that extra texture sometimes, that faint impossible resonance beneath what had once been an ordinary human voice. Tonight it slipped out warm and harmless, and nobody stopped talking when they heard it. Paul only grinned and immediately started explaining a ranking system he was clearly inventing as he went, while Marko argued that being bitten during a fight couldn't possibly count the same as being bitten recreationally and Dwayne threatened to leave all of them on the side of the road.
David let them fill the night with noise.
He didn't tell them about the syringe. He didn't tell them about his wrist bleeding beneath his own fingernails while his arm stretched itself toward Max against his will, or about scales torn from his skin only to grow back beneath his fingers. He didn't tell them that there had been a point when he had genuinely believed he could reach inside his own throat and pull the change out if he could only tear deeply enough. He didn't tell them that Max had held his wrists while his body healed, or that David had eventually stopped screaming because screaming itself had begun to sound unfamiliar.
Those memories were David's. They were ugly and useless and already carried by one person, and there was no reason to make three more people carry them too.
Ahead of him, Paul threw an arm around Marko's neck and nearly dragged them both to the ground when Marko retaliated. Dwayne swore as they crashed into him, and David stepped neatly out of the way, laughing again while all three shouted at him for refusing to help.
Max had gotten one experiment.
David watched his brothers wrestle in the dirt, completely unchanged and completely themselves, and knew with absolute certainty that he would tear the world apart before Max ever got three more