Work Text:
The trouble with being a vampire, David had discovered, was that sleep didn't always come when it was supposed to.
Most days, the moment the sun crested the horizon, his body became heavy enough that he could barely manage the effort of finding somewhere comfortable to lie down. There were afternoons when he fell asleep halfway through a conversation, mornings when Paul had to be physically dragged away from whatever had caught his attention because he insisted he wasn't tired, and nights when neither of them remembered actually getting into bed before dawn.
Then there were days like this one, when the sun had been up for hours and neither of them had managed more than a few minutes of sleep.
David had given up trying sometime around noon. He'd retrieved a book from the bedside table, settled against the headboard, and resigned himself to an afternoon of listening to the house creak around them while Paul conducted what was apparently a comprehensive investigation into every possible sleeping position known to mankind.
Paul had tried lying on his back, his stomach, and both sides. He'd stolen David's pillow, complained that it was too flat, and thrown it back. He'd announced that he was hungry, decided he wasn't hungry enough to get up, and spent twenty minutes describing what he would eat if somebody happened to bring him something. At one point, he'd attempted to count the cracks in the ceiling, only to lose his place because he kept interrupting himself to tell David about particularly interesting ones.
Now he was lying diagonally across the mattress with one leg hanging off the edge, his dark hair across the pillow and his fingers drumming against his stomach.
"Think Max would be pissed if we painted the ceiling?" Paul asked.
David didn't look up from his book. "Considering he gets pissed when you leave a glass on the table without a coaster, I'm going to say yes."
"What if we painted something nice, though? Like stars. We could do the whole night sky up there, and then we wouldn't have to stare at that ugly fucking crack every time we went to bed." Paul pointed toward the ceiling, apparently forgetting that David wasn't looking. "Or we could paint Max. Put his face right in the middle so he can watch over us while we sleep."
That got David's attention. He lowered his book and stared at Paul, who managed to maintain an expression of perfect innocence for approximately three seconds before dissolving into laughter. David shook his head and returned to his reading, informing him that if he was going to be that fucking stupid, he could at least have the decency to do it quietly.
"You're just jealous you didn't think of it first," Paul told him, rolling onto his stomach and propping his chin on his folded arms. "Besides, it's not like either of us is getting any sleep. We might as well do something."
"You could try shutting up for five minutes. See if that helps."
"I tried that."
"When?"
"While you were downstairs yesterday."
David glanced at him over the top of his book. "That doesn't count if I'm not here to enjoy it."
Paul grinned, entirely unoffended, and flopped onto his back again. For a few blessed minutes, the room settled into something resembling quiet, interrupted only by the occasional restless movement of Paul's foot against the sheets. David managed to finish a page before Paul sighed so dramatically that he was reasonably certain the sound could have been heard downstairs.
"You could sing me to sleep."
David looked over.
Paul had one arm thrown across his eyes, but he was smiling beneath it, clearly pleased with himself for having come up with what he considered an excellent solution. "What? You've got a pretty voice. Might as well put it to work."
David snorted. "You think I'm going to sing you a fucking lullaby?"
"Wouldn't complain if you did. Might even sleep for once, and then you'd finally get some peace and quiet. Sounds like everybody wins."
"Except me, apparently, because I'd have to listen to myself sing you to sleep."
"Aw, don't be like that. I'd appreciate it." Paul moved his arm just far enough to peer at him. "I'd even clap afterward, if you wanted."
David laughed and shook his head, returning to his book while Paul made a show of being terribly wounded by the rejection. It lasted all of thirty seconds before he became distracted by the possibility of painting constellations on the ceiling again, and by the time he'd decided that the Big Dipper should go directly above David's side of the bed, the request had apparently been forgotten.
David, however, found himself thinking about it.
Not because he was frightened of singing in front of Paul. He'd stopped allowing Max to dictate what he did with his voice a long time ago, and if the man wanted another demonstration of the extraordinary abilities he'd so thoughtfully inflicted upon his son, he could go fuck himself. David sang when he felt like it, sometimes quietly to himself and sometimes loud enough that Max could hear him through the walls, although the latter generally had more to do with irritating Max than any particular desire to perform.
He simply hadn't considered singing for Paul before.
There had been moments when he'd caught himself humming while they were together, or singing a few lines of something old when he thought Paul wasn't paying attention, but it had never occurred to him to make an afternoon of it. Music was something David had carried with him through most of his life, long before the blood and the scales and the strange second voice that sometimes waited beneath his own. He'd never needed an audience to enjoy it, and until Paul had made the suggestion, he hadn't particularly wanted one.
Now, though, he found himself wondering what Paul would think of the songs he remembered.
He glanced down at the boy sprawled beside him. Paul was examining the underside of his fingernails with the sort of concentration usually reserved for solving complicated mathematical problems, occasionally picking at something that apparently offended him. His foot was still moving against the mattress, and David realized that the rhythm was remarkably consistent for someone who claimed to be too exhausted to function.
He watched for another moment before closing his book.
There was a song he'd been thinking about lately, something he'd heard years ago in a place he could no longer remember clearly. He'd been human then, or at least he thought he had. The years had a habit of folding together when he wasn't paying attention, leaving him with fragments of places and people whose names had long since disappeared. He remembered a woman singing it, remembered the sound of laughter and glasses clinking together, and remembered thinking that the melody was beautiful enough to be worth keeping.
He couldn't remember all the words anymore, but that had never stopped him before.
David began to hum.
Paul's foot stopped moving.
It wasn't a dramatic change, and David might not have noticed if he hadn't already been watching him. Paul simply went still for a moment, listening, before his fingers began tapping against his stomach in time with the melody. David smiled to himself and continued, letting the tune wander through the parts he remembered until he found the beginning again.
By the time he started singing the words, Paul had turned onto his side to face him.
David didn't look at him. He was too busy trying to remember whether the third verse came before or after the one about the sailor, and by the time he'd decided it probably didn't matter, Paul's fingers had established a steady rhythm against the mattress. It wasn't quite the rhythm David remembered, but it worked well enough that he found himself adjusting the melody to fit it.
He finished the verse, then repeated the first because he'd forgotten what came next.
Paul didn't seem to mind.
In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself considerably more than David had anticipated. His fingers moved across the sheets, alternating between the soft thump of his palm against the mattress and the sharper sound of his nails tapping against the wooden bedframe. David glanced down when the rhythm changed and found Paul grinning at him, apparently delighted that he'd noticed.
David deliberately slowed the next line.
Paul's fingers stumbled, recovered, and then stopped altogether as he gave David an accusing look.
"You did that on purpose."
"Did what?" David asked, managing to look innocent for approximately half a second before his smile gave him away.
"Oh, fuck you. I was doing good."
"You were doing something."
Paul laughed and reached over to smack David's thigh, which earned him an offended noise and a retaliatory shove. They spent the next minute wrestling over a pillow before David reclaimed his position against the headboard and Paul settled beside him again, looking entirely too pleased with himself for someone who had accomplished absolutely nothing.
"Do another one," Paul suggested, apparently deciding that the interruption had been long enough. "Something faster this time. I wanna see if I can keep up."
David considered him. "You couldn't keep up with the last one."
"Because you cheated! You changed the fucking rhythm halfway through."
"It's my song. I can do whatever I want with it."
"Yeah, well, I can do whatever I want with the drums, so I guess we're even."
David looked pointedly at the mattress. "What drums?"
Paul slapped the bedframe hard enough to make the entire thing shudder. "These drums, asshole."
The noise was considerably louder than either of them expected, and they both went still, listening for any indication that Max had heard them. Nothing happened downstairs, although David could have sworn he heard a faint, irritated movement from somewhere beyond the bedroom door.
Paul leaned closer and whispered, "Think he's gonna come up here?"
"If you keep doing that, probably."
"Then you'd better start singing again so he knows we're busy."
David laughed, pushing him away by the forehead before settling back against the pillows. He considered the songs he knew, searching for something that might give Paul a little more to work with, and eventually settled on an old drinking song with a rhythm that was considerably quicker than the one he'd started with.
Paul caught on almost immediately.
He wasn't particularly polished, and he had an unfortunate tendency to get excited and speed up whenever David reached the chorus, but there was something infectious about his enthusiasm. David found himself laughing halfway through the second verse when Paul attempted a particularly complicated series of taps against the bedframe and accidentally smacked himself in the stomach.
"Jesus Christ, Paul, are you trying to kill yourself?"
"That was supposed to sound different," Paul informed him, rubbing his stomach while David laughed hard enough that he had to put a hand over his mouth. "I had a whole thing planned out, and you distracted me."
"I distracted you? I was singing!"
"Exactly. You're very distracting when you do that."
David shook his head, still smiling, and started the verse again. This time Paul managed to make it through without injuring himself, although the resulting rhythm bore only a passing resemblance to what David had been expecting. It didn't matter. He adjusted his singing to match, and Paul followed him through the chorus with an expression of such fierce concentration that David nearly lost his place laughing at him again.
They kept going.
At some point, David abandoned the songs he remembered in favor of making up something new, improvising nonsense verses about Max's obsession with coasters and Paul's apparent inability to find a comfortable sleeping position. Paul contributed by shouting suggestions whenever David paused to think of a rhyme, most of which were so filthy that David couldn't possibly have repeated them without laughing.
By the time they got around to composing a particularly unflattering verse about Max's hair, Paul was drumming with both hands against the bedframe, and David was singing loudly enough that he was reasonably certain Max could hear every word.
He didn't care.
Max had spent years trying to turn David's voice into something useful, something that could be measured and examined and brought out whenever he wanted to impress himself with the results of his experiment. David had already made it abundantly clear what he thought of that arrangement. He didn't need another argument about it, and he certainly didn't need Max's permission to enjoy singing in his own bedroom.
What he hadn't expected was how much fun it would be to have somebody enjoying it with him.
Paul wasn't listening for the strange undertone beneath David's voice, or trying to determine whether the siren blood had improved his range. He was listening for the rhythm, waiting for the moment when David changed it so he could follow, and occasionally getting so caught up in the music that he forgot to listen at all.
David liked that.
He liked the way Paul grinned whenever they managed to finish a song together, and the way he immediately wanted to try again whenever they didn't. He liked that Paul was willing to make a complete fool of himself if it meant discovering a new sound, and that he didn't seem remotely embarrassed by the fact that his entire percussion arrangement consisted of a mattress and a piece of furniture Max would undoubtedly be furious to discover they'd been hitting.
Most of all, David liked that it was something they were doing together.
He'd never thought of singing as lonely before, but now that Paul was there, adding his own ridiculous contribution to the music, David found himself wondering how he'd managed to enjoy it quite so much without him.
They eventually stopped because Paul's hands hurt.
David considered pointing out that he'd spent the better part of an hour beating on a wooden bedframe, but decided the explanation was probably unnecessary. Paul was already examining his palms with the wounded dignity of someone who had suffered terribly in pursuit of his art, and David suspected that any attempt to explain the cause of his discomfort would only encourage him.
"Think I need some actual drums," Paul announced, flexing his fingers before letting his hands fall into his lap. "Something that doesn't feel like I'm punching a fucking wall every time I hit it."
David leaned back against the headboard and regarded him with amusement. "You planning on making this a regular thing?"
"Why not? You're good at singing, I'm good at hitting shit. Seems like a pretty solid arrangement to me." Paul glanced toward the bedframe, apparently considering whether he could get one more decent sound out of it before his hands gave up entirely. "I could probably find something downstairs. Doesn't even have to be a real drum. Bet I could make something work."
"You're not taking apart the furniture."
"I wasn't gonna."
"Paul."
"Okay, I was thinking about it, but I wasn't gonna do it without asking." He grinned when David gave him a disbelieving look. "Probably."
David shook his head and reached over to take one of Paul's hands, turning it palm-up to examine the faint redness across his skin. There was nothing particularly concerning about it, and what little irritation remained would be gone long before sunset, but Paul seemed perfectly content to let David inspect him anyway. He leaned closer, resting his chin against David's shoulder while David traced a thumb across his knuckles.
"You know," Paul murmured, "I really did mean it when I said you've got a pretty voice."
David glanced at him. "I know."
"Good. Just making sure." Paul tilted his head to kiss the side of David's neck before settling more comfortably against him. "Didn't know you knew so many songs, though. Some of that shit sounded ancient."
"Some of it is ancient."
"Yeah? How ancient?"
David considered the question, then shrugged. "Older than you."
"Everything's older than me, according to you."
"Not everything."
"Name one thing."
David looked down at him, smiled, and kissed him before he could come up with another ridiculous question. Paul made an appreciative noise and caught the front of his shirt, pulling him closer until David was practically lying on top of him. They stayed like that for a while, kissing lazily and exchanging the occasional halfhearted insult, until Paul finally began to show signs of the exhaustion he'd been complaining about all afternoon.
David noticed the change when Paul's hand stopped moving against his back.
He drew away just far enough to look at him, finding his eyes half-closed and his expression pleasantly dazed. Paul smiled when he noticed David watching him, but made no effort to sit up.
"Thought you wanted me to sing you to sleep," David murmured.
Paul's smile widened a little. "Yeah, well, turns out I like listening to you more."
David laughed softly and brushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead. "That doesn't make any fucking sense."
"Sure it does. If I fall asleep, I can't hear you anymore." Paul shifted closer, tucking his face against David's shoulder with a contented sigh. "Besides, I was having fun. We should do that again sometime."
David settled an arm around him, still smiling. "Yeah. We should."
Paul made a pleased noise and closed his eyes, apparently satisfied that he'd secured an agreement. Within minutes, his breathing had begun to slow, and David found himself listening to the quiet rhythm of it while the afternoon settled around them.
He'd enjoyed singing for years. He'd sung to himself, sung to irritate Max, sung because there were melodies he couldn't bear to forget and others he couldn't seem to get out of his head. He'd never needed anybody else to make the music worthwhile.
But he was beginning to think that having Paul there made it better.
David kissed the top of his head and closed his own eyes, already considering which songs he might teach him next.
The milk container appeared three days later.
David found Paul sitting on the floor of their bedroom with an overturned wooden crate between his knees and an empty metal milk container balanced on top of it. There were two spoons lying beside him, along with a length of string, a folded towel, and what appeared to be a stolen table leg. He'd arranged the entire collection with the serious concentration of a man preparing for an important scientific experiment, although David suspected the actual objective was considerably less sophisticated.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the assortment of household objects before asking whether he wanted to know what Paul was doing.
Paul looked up, beaming. "Found my drums."
David examined the collection again. "That's garbage."
"That's potential, sweetheart. Big difference." Paul picked up one of the spoons and tapped it against the side of the milk container, producing a sharp metallic clang that made David wince. Paul, apparently delighted by the sound, struck it again before moving to the wooden crate and demonstrating that it made a considerably deeper noise when hit with the flat of his palm. "See? Different sounds. I figured if I put them together, I could get something halfway decent."
"You're going to give Max a fucking aneurysm."
"Only if he hears us." Paul grinned and shifted the container a few inches to the left, testing another arrangement. "Besides, I waited until he went out. We've got hours before he gets back, and I figured we might as well use them."
David looked at him for a long moment.
There was something almost painfully endearing about the whole arrangement. Paul had clearly spent a considerable amount of time collecting his makeshift instruments, and judging by the state of the floor, he'd already tried several combinations before settling on this one. He'd even folded the towel beneath the crate to keep it from sliding across the boards, although David suspected that had less to do with protecting the floor and more to do with making sure the whole thing didn't collapse the moment he started playing.
"You've really been thinking about this, huh?"
Paul shrugged, suddenly looking a little self-conscious. "I had fun the other day. Figured maybe we could do it again, except this time I wouldn't have to beat the shit out of the bed every time I wanted to make some noise." He glanced at the improvised drums, then back at David. "Unless you don't feel like it. I can put this stuff away."
David crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
Paul's expression brightened immediately.
"Got a song?" he asked, already reaching for his spoons.
David considered him for a moment, then smiled. "Think you can keep up?"
"Sweetheart, I've been practicing."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"Guess you'll have to find out."
David laughed and shook his head, searching his memory for something with a rhythm Paul might enjoy. He settled on a song he'd heard years ago, one with a quick, driving melody and a chorus that practically begged for somebody to keep time beneath it.
Paul began tapping against the crate as soon as David started humming, testing the rhythm before adding the brighter metallic sound of the milk container. It was a little uneven at first, and David had to repeat the opening phrase twice before they found something that worked, but once they did, the music came together with surprising ease.
David started singing.
Paul grinned and struck the container hard enough to make it rattle against the crate, then immediately adjusted when David gave him an amused look. He was still figuring out what worked and what didn't, occasionally getting ahead of himself and losing the rhythm entirely, but he recovered quickly, laughing whenever David deliberately changed the tempo to make things more difficult.
By the second verse, they were both smiling.
By the third, Paul had abandoned the spoons in favor of using his hands, and David had begun improvising little changes to the melody just to see whether he could follow them.
They stopped twice to argue about the rhythm, once because Paul knocked the milk container off the crate, and once because David laughed so hard at the resulting noise that he couldn't remember what he'd been singing.
Each time, they started over.
Neither of them knew that there would eventually be real drums, or a guitar, or a bass. They didn't know that Dwayne and Marko would find their way into the music, that the four of them would one day stand beneath stage lights while an audience screamed for another song. All they knew was that they'd found something they liked doing together.
Paul struck the container with considerably more enthusiasm than skill, and David laughed halfway through the first verse. They started over again, and this time, when Paul managed to follow him all the way through the chorus without missing a beat, David grinned at him with such obvious delight that Paul immediately demanded they do it again.
David didn't need convincing.
He'd already spent years making certain that his voice belonged to him.
It was nice, he thought, to discover something new he could do with it.