smackenzie

"You're panicking."

Sam looked up, a little startled, because he'd actually been thinking. Doing the mature thing and not freaking out and saying no right away. Trying to work out what it meant and what he was supposed to do now and had his feelings changed, and how? Wondering how he was going to tell people that not only was he seeing a guy, but he was seeing a dead guy.

(That last question at least was easy to answer. He wasn't going to tell anyone he was seeing a dead guy. They wouldn't believe him, or they'd tease him unmercifully about falling for a pretentious psuedo-goth, or - worst case scenario - they'd want proof. And he just did not want people trying to trap Aurelian with crosses or holy water or garlic or whatever would actually hurt him.)

"I'm not panicking," he said. "I'm thinking. This is really weird, you know? I thought coming out was gonna be hard enough, now I gotta think about coming out as... as... god, I don't know. Whatever you call someone who sleeps with dead people. One dead person. Once."

"Why do you have to tell anyone?"

"Because otherwise it's like lying. And they're gonna want to know why no one ever sees you at the Labor Day barbecue."

"You expect to... still be seeing me around Labor Day?" Aurelian asked hopefully.

"I don't know. I still can't get my head around this - " Sam waved vaguely at the space between them, at the bed " - forget all the other crap. Look, it's weird, ok? Vampires? In Eden? You're not surprised I'm having kind of a hard time with it, are you?"

"No. I should have told you sooner."

"Yeah, you should've." Sam shrugged. "Too late now. You gotta go home. I can't... sit here and see you and figure this out. I like you, ok? Still. And... I liked last night. Really liked last night. And everything. But come on, you tell me you're the living dead and expect me to just go 'Ok, fine, when can we go out again?' I'm sorry, dude, I can't do it."

"What are you telling me?"

"I think that you have to go home, and I have to go to work, and, I dunno, that maybe I have to think about this, and you, and... shit. I sound like a girl." It was kind of embarrassing, although Aurelian didn't seem to care. At least, his expression hadn't changed. Sam wondered if the poker face was a vampire thing. "What's next, you know? I don't wanna just fuck and run, but it's a whole different thing now. You can't, like, snap your fingers and it's all fine."

"You need space."

"Yeah, I guess. Look, I have your number, you have mine, you know how to find me - " Sam couldn't help but grin at that " - but yeah, I need to think about it. I'll give you a hint, though - usually I say no to stuff right away, it's like a reflex, but then I think about it, or I get forced into it, and I end up liking it. Just so you know."

"I understand. I wish I'd told you sooner."

"Then I'd just have wigged sooner. I might be over it by now, though. Who knows." He stood up, cracked his back. "I gotta pee and have my coffee and shower and whatever, and I'm really late and Bruce is gonna have a fit - I'm surprised no one called yet to remind me I have to go in - and don't take it personally, it's just... it's weird. And I don't wanna kick you out, but... I think I should. Not that I don't trust you."

"Sam. It's ok. I'll go. I was going to wait until you were in the bathroom to put my clothes on, so as not to distract you."

"Thanks." Although there was still a part of Sam that wanted to watch, that wanted to see that body in all its naked glory all at once. Last night he hadn't really seen anything - pieces, parts - but now he wanted to see. Curiosity, partly, and plain stubborn lust. He didn't think he could say that, though, not after basically telling Aurelian to get the hell out.

"Well?"

"Oh, right." Yeah, he had to move. The part of his brain that was seriously trying to process the sudden knowledge that Aurelian was a vampire was slowly being hijacked by the part of his brain that didn't care what Aurelian was, as long as it got to have sex with him again.

Sam mentally slapped himself. Thinking with his little head again, dammit. Spencer was going to have a field day with this. He could hear her now - "So not only do you have to tell your mom you like boys, but you have to come out as a necrophiliac! Damn, Sammy, I don't envy you that conversation. I wanna hear it, though."

As if he was going to tell her anything now. Well, maybe that he'd had sex with a guy. He could tell her that part. He'd just have to selectively edit all the other parts.

And right now, he really had to pee. Really. He didn't know what to say to Aurelian any more, since he figured he'd said all the important stuff (basically, "Leave me alone so I can wrap my head around this bloodsucker thing"), so he just said "Gotta pee, so you can get dressed now" on his way out of his room to the bathroom, where he took a leak and stared at himself in the mirror and wondered just what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

"What are you gonna do now, Sammy boy?" he asked his reflection. "Got a guy who says he's Dracula sitting on your bed. He found your dad's record. He... yeah, he did that too. And you know what? You loved it. Fuck." His reflection, unsurprisingly, didn't say a word. They never did.

But he had one.

"Hey, Aurelian!" he yelled out the bathroom door. "Come in here a sec!"

"What?" Aurelian called back. "Why?"

"Why? Just do it! I wanna see something."

In less that a minute Aurelian stuck his head in the bathroom door, looking confused and asked "Is something wrong?"

"Just get in here, ok?" Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him into the little bathroom and turned him so they were both facing the mirror over the sink. Sam had a reflection. Aurelian didn't. "Damn."

"What?"

"I think I was hoping you were really kidding about the vampire bit."

"I wasn't."

"I can tell. Well, shit. Ok, sorry, go back to whatever you were doing."

"I was done. I have to leave before the sun comes out. Would it disturb you if I came to the Bluebird to hear you play tonight?"

"I think so. If you come, sit in the back. Like, way in the back. 'Cause if I look up, and you're there, I don't wanna freak and lose my place, and I think I might. Just to be safe, you know?" Aurelian nodded and backed out of the bathroom. Sam made a face at his reflection and said "Well, shit" again before following.

He called work, said he'd overslept and then something came up, he knew he was really late but he was coming in, and no he couldn't stay later, he had a gig every Wednesday night, they knew that. (He got Marley on the phone and Marley decided to give him a hard time. Sam was half tempted to tell Marley to go fuck himself, he had other more important things to worry about besides whether or not he'd be on time to work and whether or not there were enough people to cover the late shift.) He started to put water in the coffee pot, changed his mind, and went into his room to get dressed. He didn't have time for a shower.

Aurelian was just finishing up making the bed. Sam boggled at him.

"I had to do something," Aurelian said. "I still want to see you again. I know you need some time to process what I told you - I understand that - and I will give you that time, but I hope you don't think too long. I told you because I thought you would be able to handle it."

"Eventually I probably will," Sam told him. He opened a dresser drawer, threw a pair of boxers and some socks onto his bed, shut the drawer, opened another one, pulled out another long-sleeve t-shirt - this one gray - and threw that on the bed. "I just have to deal by myself, ok? No timetable, no... you sitting there being... good-looking. Know what I mean?" He caught a glimpse of Aurelian's face as he went to the closet to find some pants, and damn if the guy wasn't smiling. A little smile, really more a twitch of the lips, but still. Smiling.

And what did Sam have to think about, exactly? Ramifications of dating a vampire? Benefits of loving the undead? (Aside from the breathless blow jobs, which were admittedly a pretty big bonus.) When would they ever see each other? They could only go out at night, or during really cloudy or rainy days, and if they were walking around and the sky suddenly and freakishly cleared up, Sam would be dating a pile of dust.

And there was the matter of the fangs, and hello, bloodsucker nibbling on assorted body parts? What if he got hungry while he was giving Sam one of those breathless blow jobs? Ouch. Not to mention the general ick factor of having to drink blood, no matter where he got it from, and dammit, he was overthinking it. He knew he was overthinking it. He thought he was overthinking it because he was trying to avoid the real issue, which was what was he going to do now? Throw himself ino dating a guy like he would have thrown himself into dating a girl? Because if Aurelian had had breasts and slightly different parts, this wouldn't be an issue. They'd be making plans for more dates, meeting each other's friends and maybe hanging out with them - things you did when you were just getting seriously involved with someone.

Well, shit, he thought again, he thought he'd worked through this and had dealt with it and was ok with it. Obviously not.

He found some respectable jeans in his closet and took them back to the bed where all his other clothes were, and where Aurelian was still standing, watching him.

"You gonna watch me get dressed?" Sam asked, hoping the answer was no. Really honestly hoping the answer was no. He had to go to work and part of him still wanted Aurelian to throw him down on the bed and have his wicked way again. He'd mentioned something about doing it on hands and knees last night, how that was more comfortable, and if Sam was seriously going to consider dating and sleeping with a guy, he figured he'd have to know more what was involved, and now that his mind was going that way he felt himself getting hard inside his pajamas and fuck it, he HAD to stop doing that.

"I should go," Aurelian said. "Now, while I can, before I get trapped in your apartment."

And damn if that guided-by-his-small-head part of Sam's brain didn't immediately think Hey, that wouldn't be so bad.

"That would be a good idea."

Aurelian nodded slightly, and left the bedroom. Sam was surprised and annoyed to find he was disappointed, but he didn't have time to worry about it. He got dressed as fast as he could, found his watch, dug his wallet out of the pants he'd worn last night (and which were still lying on the chair with all his other possibly dirty clothes), found his boots, jammed his feet inside, and clomped out to the front room, where Aurelian was sitting on the couch, holding the cover to The Voice of Venus and apparently studying the words on the back.

"I wish there were a photo of the group," he said to Sam, not looking up. "I would have liked to have seen your father's face."

"Yeah, me too." Don't stop to think, Sam, don't stop to talk to him, just go brush your teeth and wash your face and comb your hair and go to work. Tonight you'll play for Joaquin and Leo and however many bored people wander into the club, and afterwards you can think about this some more. But right now, you have to go to work.

So he did all that - washed his face, brushed his teeth, dragged a comb through his hair - then went back out to find Aurelian putting on his coat.

"Call me when you come to a decision," Aurelian said. "Unless you want to talk later tonight."

"I don't know. Yeah, ok, tonight. After the gig. I'll meet you... uh... there's a diner on Hawks, it's right near the fourth stop after I get on the bus to come home, it's called the Blue Plate. I'll meet you there at eleven-thirty. It's an all-night diner. And we'll talk. Ok?"

"Ok. Have a good day."

"You too."

How weird, and how formal, and Sam wanted to kiss Aurelian goodbye. He thought maybe Aurelian wanted to kiss him too. They were certainly standing close enough by now, right in front of the door, Aurelian wearing his coat and Sam with one arm in one sleeve of his. He shrugged into the other sleeve, looked down to make sure he got all the buttons, and started when Aurelian lifted his chin.

"You were - you are - amazing to me, Samuel Mackenzie," he said softly. "I cannot explain it in words. I wish I had told you about myself sooner, so we could be past it right now and simply kissing each other goodbye."

"Me too," Sam said. "But there's still... other stuff. I'm sorry, ok? I wanna say yeah, sure, be my boyfriend, whatever, I don't care about the undead thing.... I dunno. It's too much. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." Aurelian leaned down and brushed a kiss across Sam's lips, and then he turned, opened the door, and was gone.

Sam wanted to run down the hall after him yelling "Wait! Wait! I made up my mind! Get back here, dammit!"

How quickly he'd figured it out, that he really did want Aurelian, bloodsucking and all.

Well, maybe not the bloodsucking. They'd have to have a talk about that.

Tonight, at the Blue Plate. They'd talk about it. They'd work through the whens and whats and no fucking ways of dating a dead boy. They would. They had to.

It was like a newsflash interrupting the basketball game on TV. You can't say goodbye. You don't want to.

He wasn't going to. He'd deal with the fangs and the no reflection and the sun allergy. He would. He would because suddenly he really didn't like the alternative.

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