Chapter Text
Michael placed his hands on the back of the wooden lifeguard chair and looked up. David was silhouetted against the black night sky, but the glow from the bonfire behind them was enough to highlight the smirk on his face. His eyes even appeared to reflect the light, like two little gold orbs hanging in the darkness.
“How you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” Michael confessed. “Confused. I don’t get any of this.”
“That’s normal. How could you?” David laughed. “Just go with the flow. Your body knows what it…wants.”
David turned his head and glanced at Michael out of the side of his eye. He hung on that last word for far too long. Michael’s mouth suddenly went dry and he swallowed. Images of Sam’s face flashed into his mind. How scared he looked, how Michael didn’t even register him as his brother in the moment, but as food. Michael despised himself for it. He knew what it was like to feel fear when someone walked into a room. He never wanted Sam to look at him like that again.
Maybe this would be better. This had to be better. If he could just understand it, then he could control it, and then he could keep Sam safe. He would never have to feel at risk of losing himself ever again.
David seemed to pick up on this, like he did with everything. “It will all be behind you after tonight, Michael,” he said quietly, almost imperceptibly, but for some reason Michael could hear it fine, even over the cacophony of the drunk surfers nearby. “Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Michael nodded. And then he smiled. David reached out for his jaw, but only let his fingers ghost over it before seeming to melt into the darkness like he was just a dream. Michael gripped the lifeguard chair and shivered.
He didn’t like what David did to him. How he made him feel. Specifically, he didn’t like that he liked it.
Michael sat at the dinner table, alone. Sam was up in his room with his food, Mom was in the kitchen sweeping up a smashed dinner plate off the floor and, God willing, Dad had already wrapped his truck around a tree in the 5 minutes since he had left in a rage. Michael pushed the food around on his plate mindlessly, heart racing, feeling like he might puke. Why hadn’t he stopped it, again? It wasn’t like things were ever different. It wasn’t like things were ever going to change. So why couldn’t he just act?
He got up and poked his head into the kitchen. “Mom…you okay?”
Lucy looked up from the ground, her hands full of shattered dinnerware and food. Her eyes were wet but the tears weren’t falling. The minute she saw Michael, she straightened up and then turned her back to him and faced the sink.
“I’m fine, kiddo,” she said, failing to hide the quiver in her voice.
“Do you need help?” Michael asked, already kneeling down to stupidly sweep mashed potatoes and corn into his hands.
“No, honey, it’s fine,” Lucy turned to him then and swatted the debris out of his hands. Her eyes met his and became stern. Michael knew what it meant. She didn’t want him to see her like this, she didn’t want him taking part in any of it. She wanted it to just magically disappear and not have Michael touch anything tangible, lest it feel more real. “Why don’t you go check on Sam?”
“He’s fine,” Michael mumbled. That word that had haunted the family for years lingered in the air. Fine, everything was fine. Everyone was fine! Just another shattered plate, just another hole in the wall, but apart from that, everything was fine.
“Well, then…” Lucy paused, struggling. “Why don’t you two hang out for a while? Get your mind off of it.”
“And do what?” Michael raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucy put her hands up helplessly. “He’s your brother, can’t you find something to talk about with him?”
Michael let out a sarcastic laugh and turned away. “Yeah, Sam’s a real gifted conversationalist. I’d love to know what Spider-Man’s been up to these days.”
“Would it kill you to just be nice to him?” Lucy sighed and followed him out of the kitchen.
“It might,” Michael grunted as he grabbed his jacket off of the coat rack near the front door and threw it on.
“And where are you going?”
“For a ride, Mom.”
“I really don’t want you going out tonight,” Lucy made a motion to take Michael’s arm, but he pulled away. “Not when you’re all wound up like this.”
“Where else am I supposed to go?” He asked, and then didn’t wait for an answer he knew wasn’t coming.
This way, Michael, David’s voice seemed to carry on the air. Or was it all in his head? Michael couldn’t tell, but something was leading him through the dark. He lingered on the edges of the bonfire’s light, but he saw David and the others already bathing in its glow.
And then, everything happened so fast. Michael shuddered as he could hear it before he could see it. In a flash, the boys were on the surfers. He could hear the crunch of bones and the squelch of blood, even the sound of a sharp fang entering a soft neck. In the light of the fire, everything seemed so red.
And then, the smell. At first, all Michael could smell was the sea foam and the burning cinders, but something slithered through the night and took hold of him. It was sharp, and tangy, almost pungent, and it made his mouth water. God, he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for days and this was the first time that something actually smelled good.
He felt himself taking a step forward on the soft sand, and then another. He felt weightless, nearly entranced. He stared at the carnage happening around him and Michael didn’t have time to consider that it didn’t bother him. He should care, shouldn’t he? This was weird—no—this was insane, wasn’t it?
But everything felt fine.
He could see the heat rising from the bodies of the surfers as hot blood hit the cool night air. It looked nice. Michael was cold a lot of the time now.
He scanned the scene and saw the others: Marko, Paul, Dwayne, all of them in the midst of the slaughter, covered in blood, eyes ablaze, crying out into the night in revelry. He didn’t recognize them. He wondered if he was recognizable anymore. He wondered if Sam would—
That face flashed in his mind again. Sam’s big brown eyes, sparkling with a sheen of tears as Michael came at him with the bat in a feverish delusion, Mom always used to say they had the exact same eyes and Michael sort of hated that because he felt like the sparkle in his died a long time ago, and—
The excitement that had been building in the pit of his stomach turned to horror, and then disgust. What was he doing? He wasn’t like them, he wasn’t like this, he was like his brother, he was like his mom…
But half of him was occupied by his dad, too.
David was dragging someone over to him, a man, crying and begging and kicking and screaming, but powerless. David made it look so easy.
“You’ll never grow old Michael, and you’ll never die, but you must feed,” David snarled as he tossed the man at Michael’s feet. He knelt down to help him, to tell him that it was okay, that he wasn’t like them, that he was going to get him out of here.
But as soon as his hand touched the man’s bare arm, and he felt the thrum of a strong and desperate pulse, Michael couldn’t find a single word.
“Thanks—”, Michael hissed as he felt David push the earring through the stinging hole in his earlobe. Now he was actually a little worried that he was going to lose that ear, was it supposed to hurt that much?
“It suits you,” David said, all charisma and smiles, as he gave Michael a brotherly slap on the front of his shoulder.
“Thanks?” Michael rubbed at the point of contact.
“You’re new in town, aren’t you?” David’s eyes scanned him up and down. “Or just…passing through?”
“I just moved here,” Michael explained as he fiddled with the earring. The low hum of pain felt kind of good against his frayed nerves. “From Phoenix. With my mom and brother.”
“Where’s Dad?” David asked, and Michael noticed he had perked up a little bit. The silky façade of his smile, the veneer of his voice dropped for just a moment. He was genuinely interested.
Michael let a sound out of his throat and shook his head, then looked down at the smear of blood between his fingers. “Far away from here. That’s all I care about.”
“Mm!” David glanced past Michael, to his friends skulking around behind him. “So, are you a runner or a fighter?”
“What?” Michael turned his head towards David. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
David leaned against one of the wooden pillars of the pier and crossed his arms over his chest, an infuriating grin on his face. Like a cat playing with a mouse. Michael didn’t like the feeling that David knew more about him than he knew about David.
“Just a question.”
“I’ve never run from anything in my life,” Michael snapped.
“Then why aren’t you still in Phoenix?”
Michael felt something in his heart catch fire. He took an aggressive step forward, but an arm cut in between him and David.
“Here, man,” one of the other boys (Dwayne, was it?) slid up to him, holding out a lit joint. “You gotta chill out a little, stop being so aggro.” The others behind him snickered, and he didn’t know why.
“...I’m all good.”
The boys laughed louder, and Michael felt David get uncomfortably close to him again. When did he get behind him?
“It’s fine, Michael,” he cooed, and then it turned mocking. “It’s not like your dad’s gonna catch you.”
Dwayne waved the joint in his face and raised his eyebrows. Michael suddenly felt smaller than the rest of them. This was a new place, these were guys his age, they were friends with the girl he had a crush on…
Michael took a hit off the joint. He didn’t really know how to do it and ended up coughing and gagging as the smoke stayed in his lungs too long, and all of the boys continued with their Greek chorus of jeers and laughter, except David. He moved around Michael like a shark, eyes never leaving him, boring into him actually, as if he could see the stuff he was made of.
“It gets easier,” was all he said through his pleasant smile. “The first time is always the hardest.”
Michael couldn’t tell the difference between his own heartbeat and the one belonging to the man in his grasp. His eyes wandered over his face: terrified, helpless, and Michael was confused why. The surfer was significantly larger than him, stronger, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to wrest himself from Michael’s grip.
“You can do it, Michael,” David’s voice swirled around and settled on him like the smoke in the air. He felt cold fingertips caress the little hairs at the nape of his neck and he tilted his head back, towards the moon, and took in a breath. How was he doing that? It was always just one touch, one caress, sometimes one look and Michael felt like his insides were melting.
Suddenly, something knocked him out of his stupor. Another hit of that deep, rich smell like a punch to the gut. Michael whipped his head back down and saw that the man’s arm was now bleeding, and David was licking a smear of blood off of his clawed thumb.
“You’re not that little boy anymore,” David said matter-of-factly, like he was picking something out of his teeth.
“What?” Michael croaked out, voice small and weak.
“That scared little boy,” David’s head swiveled towards him, eyes fiery. He knelt down next to Michael and he was horrified that he could smell blood on David’s breath. “That would cower, and hide, and stand there and take it. That had no voice, no say in anything. That had no power to do anything. Oh, you’ve got power now, Michael,” his eyes flicked towards Michael’s death grip on the man, who was still squirming fruitlessly. “And you’re not going to run from it, are you?”
Michael didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. The scent of blood was enveloping him and driving him insane. The scene had gone quieter, the rest of the surfers were dead, the other boys had had their fill and were leering at him like wolves.
He looked back down at the blood on the man’s arm. He felt him try to pull away harder, and for some reason that made Michael’s will crack even more. The thrill of the chase, David had said. His other hand gripped his arm and he pulled him in closer. He did want it. He didn’t want to feel weak or scared ever again, he never wanted to feel like running away ever again. He wanted to run towards something. He wanted to be here, with people who were looking at him, who truly saw him, who understood, who accepted him, forever.
Michael felt his gums ache and, horrifyingly, felt the tips of two fangs touch his bottom lip. His vision went red and his muscles felt tensed up. Ready to strike. One moment, that’s all it would take, one moment and it would all be over.
Michael, the chorus around him chanted. David, Dwayne, Paul, Marko, all of them, like mockingbirds.
Michael, Michael, Michael.
“Michael?” Sam looked up from the crate of comics perched on his bare mattress.
“Heyyyy,” Michael stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and awkwardly leaned against the door frame to Sam’s room.
“Are we leaving already?” Sam asked.
“No, uh…” Michael paused and ran a hand through the back of his hair. “Mom’s on a phone call with the utility company, but she sent me up here to check on you.”
“...I’m just packing.”
“No, I mean, like,” he sighed and gestured vaguely with his hands. Why had he agreed to do this? “How are you feeling?”
Sam shrugged. “I’ve been worse, I guess.”
Michael wanted to scream. Why did this kid make it so hard all the time?
“I mean…how do you feel about…Dad?”
Sam gave him a Sam Emerson Original: the “are you fucking serious?” face. “I know you of all people don’t want to talk about Dad.”
“Maybe I do,” Michael mumbled under his breath and sat down next to Sam on the bed. Sam put the crate of comics between them, which didn’t go unnoticed. “We just…never really talk about it. And now it won’t happen again, so maybe we’ll never get to talk about it.”
“Hm,” Sam looked away. Michael looked away. They both stared at opposite walls of the room for a long time in silence.
“It was kinda cool that you beat him up,” Sam said after a few moments.
“Sam, I didn’t beat him up,” Michael replied flatly. Wait, did he? That would be kinda cool, actually.
Sam glanced at his brother with a half smile, but it faded quickly. He looked down at the hands in his lap, clasped together tightly. Michael looked down too and saw little red nail marks on Sam’s hands, dark and deep enough to have been there for a few hours.
Up here, by himself, wringing his hands in fear while all the screaming and hitting happened downstairs.
“I just don’t know why he does this kind of stuff.”
Michael sighed and leaned back on the bed. “I don’t know either, man. We’ll never know. What matters is that it’s not gonna happen again.”
“...yeah,” Sam’s voice became quiet and he didn’t look up. Michael glanced at him and chewed the inside of his lip in thought. Dad’s rage had always passed over Sam as if it didn’t exist at all. They were living in two different realities, and Michael could tell that Sam was disturbed after finally peeking into his. It didn’t match the image of the father in his head.
“Maybe Santa Carla will be cool,” Michael offered. “I bet there’s other nerds there.”
“I’m not a nerd,” Sam shot back and playfully poked his finger into Michael’s side, right into the—
“Ow, Sammy, not there,” Michael said a little too quickly as he recoiled in pain. Sam’s face fell in realization.
“I’m sorry—”
“You’re alright,” Michael held up a hand to placate him, and then flung the other around his brother’s neck to trap him in a headlock with a cackle. “Worry about yourself! I’m the real monster under your bed!”
“Let go!” Sam wriggled in the hold and drove his fist into Michael’s arm. “It’s not fair that I’m not allowed to fight back because you’re…convalescing!”
“‘Convalescing?’ What, am I dying of typhoid?” Michael gave him a noogie before finally releasing him with a laugh. Sam hurriedly fixed his hair and then grabbed his crate of comics and stood up.
“I’m on snack duty for the trip, and now you’re only getting crumbs,” he spat, and then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
But Michael saw the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he went.
“I can’t do this,” Michael gasped, and let go of the man’s arm.
David watched him, unblinking and unflinching as the surfer scrambled to his feet and stumbled in the sand. No one moved at all until he was several yards away, and then David flicked his wrist and the others descended on the man with such speed that any hope of escape was pitiful.
“It’s not that easy,” David drawled. “You already made your choice. You don’t get to go back now.”
“Well, I am,” Michael got to his feet unsteadily, and swatted the sand from his jeans. He turned his head and spit on the ground, trying to rid his mouth of even the aroma of blood. He was shaking, still full of adrenaline and fear and excitement. His little dose of courage had done nothing to make the hunger go away, not really. “I changed my mind. I don’t want any part in this, of any of this.”
“Oh it’s way too late for that, Michael,” David hissed and grabbed him by the jaw quicker than he could react. He pulled him in close, their faces almost touching. Michael felt frozen. “You are a part of this. And that little…” David’s free hand went to Michael’s chest and flicked. “Bleeding heart of yours won’t protect the people around you.”
Michael twisted away from David’s grasp, not without pain. He took a step back and stared David down, the red at the edges of his vision still pulsing. Fangs still in his mouth. His stomach churned.
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you think is gonna happen when you go home?” David asked as he cocked his head to the side. The other boys were dragging the man back towards them. Michael felt dread well up from deep inside of himself. “When you see your precious little brother again? Do you think you’ll be able to hold back forever? I mean…” his smile turned mean, if not downright sadistic. “You’ve already tried twice. Third time’s a charm, huh?”
The dread turned to rage. Michael wanted to reach out and throttle him, to tear his ribcage open and yank out his still-beating heart and bite into it like an apple, and—
“There’s the Michael I know,” David laughed low, and Michael didn’t realize his mouth had been opened, teeth bared. David grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him back to the ground, just as the boys were bringing the surfer back. Most of the fight had left him, and he was left quivering and weak. Afraid. Easier.
Michael felt those familiar cold fingers brush through his hair, and he clutched handfuls of sand in frustration. There was still time, there was still a way, there had to be, there had to be a way where he could have it all, where he could make everything right again…
“I protect my brothers,” David said as his fingers left Michael’s hair. “What about you?”
Sam looked up from his 2am cereal as the front door opened up with a creak. Michael was home earlier than usual these days, and Sam noticed that he looked like garbage. His hair was tangled, his clothes were covered in sand, and there was a splatter of blood across the collar of his shirt.
“Mike,” Sam said as he slid off of the dining chair. Michael immediately put an arm out and didn’t let Sam get any closer. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Michael replied. His voice was hoarse. He turned and stalked towards the stairs.
“Hey! Hey,” Sam instinctively lowered his voice. Mom was asleep, and he didn’t feel like trying to explain this to her again. “Are you bleeding?”
“No.”
“Well, what happened then? We’re sort of past the point of secrets now.”
Michael turned to look at him, and Sam saw something preternatural in his eyes. Michael ran his tongue over his teeth and was quiet for a moment before putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. A mirthless smile flashed across his face, but he couldn’t even hold that.
“I’m fine, Sam,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”