Sink My Teeth Into This Nightmare

"So this is where you grew up?" Andy asked, pausing at the steps of a white victorian style house.
"Yep," Ashley responded. "Well, the whole neighborhood, but yes."
"Neighborhood? Ashley, we're in the middle of the woods," Andy pointed out.
"No. The woods are in the middle of the neighborhood. Vampires build entire communities within the boundaries of wooded areas. Plenty of nearby hunting, plenty of privacy from each other, plenty of isolation from humans and even other vampire high lines. Welcome to Deviant territory."
Andy gulped. "Well, shall we?"
Ashley looped his arm in his boyfriend's and they proceeded together up the stairs.
"Ashley, is that you?" A woman's voice called from somewhere in the house.
The bassist let out and audible sigh. "Yes, Mama," he called back with an eye roll.
"Oh, and you brought lunch. How sweet of you," she said, rounding the corner and hanging a dish rag over her shoulder.
"Yeah, not exactly." Ashley responded. He reached over and clamped a hand on the singer's wrist, pushing him just the slightest bit backwards.
"Don't be silly, Ashley. Sure, he's skinny, but there's plenty blood to go around." Ashley's mom leaned forward, deeply inhaling the human's scent. "Wait, a minute. Why does he smell like you?"
"Mama...Andy's not food."
"You're being stupid, again, Ashley."
"No, you're not listening, Mama. Pins and needles. I bit him and we both felt pins and needles."
Ashley now had his mother's attention. "That's not possible, Ashley," she insisted with a confused smile. "Humans can't be true mates to Vampires. It just doesn't happen."
"No, it happens quite frequently. You pureblood, high line stuck-ups just refuse to acknowledge the bondings."
"You're just as much pureblood as we are, Ashley," a deep voice responded. Andy glanced up to see a tall man with dark hair leaning over the edge of the stairs.
"Yes, but unlike you, Papa, I don't drain humans," Ashley bit back.
"You clearly intended to do so. You say you bit him?"
"It was nothing like that," Andy interrupted. "It was my fault, really. When he told me he was a vampire I wanted to see his fangs. I should have known better, as much as I've read about vampires but the idea of fangs was so...exciting."
"Andy-" Ashley said, warningly. He placed a protective hand on the human's shoulder.
"I didn't realize the trigger for the fangs to come out would send him into blood frenzy," Andy continued as if his boyfriend hadn't said a word. "He turned...animalistic. And, hell, I loved it. He bit my shoulder, here." He pulled the edge of his shirt off his shoulder to reveal the now scarred over fang marks. "And I swear I just lit up. This was followed by probably the best blow job I've had in my life, then Ashley gulping down at least a gallon of cougar blood that Sandra brought over."
"Best blow job in your life, hmm?" Ashley whispered.
"You're hot when you're desperate," Andy whispered back, biting at the corner of his mouth to try and hold back a smile.
"You've...what?" Ashley's father demanded.
"Look, I've been with Andy for just over two years. Your bigotry isn't going to change the fact that I love him and that we're true mates. If you're going to have a problem with it, I'll take my mate and go stay with Aunt Leslie."
"That's really not necessary," Ashley's mom insisted. "Honestly I'm sure we can make some, er, arrangements."
"Absolutely not," his dad argued. "Margie, you know how I feel about keeping livestock in the house."
Ashley rolled his eyes. "That's it. Babe, come on. I'm not putting you in danger."
"Ashley Abrocket Purdy, get your ass back in this house right now," his mother ordered.
"No. I'm not going to stand by and let my mate take this abuse. I'm going somewhere I know I won't wake up with him slaughtered next to me." The bassist reached over, grabbed Andy's wrist, and pulled him to the car.
"The hell was that all about?" Andy demanded.
"What are Deviants?"
"Protectors?"
"Exactly. I'm taking you somewhere safe."
Andy just sighed and rolled his eyes, slamming the car door shut as he got in.
"So, your aunt Leslie? You think she'll be any better?"
"Definitely," Ashley responded. "She's mated to a human."
"Oh," was Andy's only response.
It was only a short drive through the woods on a dirt road to get to Ashely's aunts' house. Just like his parents, the women lived in a three story, white victorian house.
"So is there just one floor plan for this whole 'neighborhood' or what?" Andy asked as they pulled into the driveway.
The bassist laughed. "Not exactly. There are a number of different types of houses around here, but the victorian are some of the original vampire houses built in the area. Typically, how it goes is when a couple mates, they're given the choice of the vacant houses, or the chance to build their own home within the territory."
"Why are the houses vacant," Andy asked.
Ashley laughed. "Could be a number of reasons. In the older houses, it's most often that the original couple died. Vampires don't live forever. Just a really fucking long time. We do eventually get old and die. Others have gone out in several vampire civil wars. I'm sure you've read about at least a few of those. Then, of course, there's those who have immigrated to other countries, either for work or just because."
"Would we get a house?" The human nibbled on his fingernails, trying to avoid eye contact. Andy most definitely didn't want to move. Not now, anyways.
"Well, it would be offered. I'd leave it up to you, though. I'm not going to make you move to a place where half the surrounding population wants to have you for lunch. Eventually, though, it will be necessary."
Andy just raised his eyebrow at his mate. "Necessary?"
"When we have kids. There are certain processes that take place that we'll need a vampire house for."
The singer blinked at his boyfriend. "Ashley, you know I don't want kids."
"Well, sorry to break it to you but that's not really up to either of us."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Ashley rolled his eyes. "Look, let's just go inside. We don't have the time for this conversation right now. And besides, we've been sitting in the driveway for far too long."
"Fine," Andy responded, starting to get out of his boyfriend's red mustang. "But don't think you're getting out of this conversation."
"Of course not, love," Ashley responded with a wink.
The two collected their luggage and headed for the door, which was already held open by a tall blonde woman with thighs Wonder Woman would be jealous of.
"Hey, Aunt Leslie," Ashley said, softly. He kissed his aunt on the cheek as he entered.
"Hey, kiddo. And who's this? Your boyfriend, I'm assuming?"
"How'd you know?" Andy demanded.
"Well, for starters, Ashley never brings humans around. Not all of us are quite so, er, understanding of others' ability to bond with anyone who's not a vampire. Second, you smell like him."
"Right," the singer sighed.
Ashley laughed and took one of his boyfriend's bags. "Andy's not quite used to how open vampires are about some things."
"Leslie, who's there?" another voice called. A shorter woman with bronze skin and curly black hair rounded the corner. "Oh. Ashley. Hello there."
"Hey, Aunt Janet. This is my boyfriend, Andy. Well, boyfriend for now."
"Oh so that's why you brought him along," Leslie said to Ashley while her mate extended a hand and offered a "hello."
"Yeah. We're going to be mated. Figured now is as good a time as any. To be honest, I should have done it two years ago."
"Oh, wow. You've been together for two years and just now you decide to form an official bond?" Janet asked. She tilted her head to the side, making her curls bounce off her shoulders.
"Well how long were you two together before you found out what she was?" Andy's voice had a note of bitterness.
"Oh, I knew before we started seeing each other. It's sort of how we ended up together, really."
Andy turned towards his boyfriend and raised an eyebrow.
"When did you find out?" Leslie asked.
"Last night," Andy responded. He grabbed his bags and started up the stairs.
"Andy," Ashley protested. "One moment." He grabbed the rest of the luggage and followed his boyfriend up the stairs. "Baby, can we please talk about this?"
The singer didn't answer.
"The guest bedroom's the second door to the left. Blue bedspread," Janet called up the stairs after them.
Andy slammed the door open and threw his bags onto the bed. "I just don't understand why you couldn't have told me from the start," he shouted.
"Because I had just gotten you and it still didn't seem...complete. I felt like I could still lose you at any second. You were straight when we met. Hell, so was I. And I didn't know if we would wake up one morning and you would decide that being gay wasn't your thing and leave me. I wasn't going to throw some new information at you that would risk that." The bassist had started crying a few sentences in.
"Ashley, after you...we...you know...well I wasn't about to leave you."
"Oh, please, Andy. Sex is sex to you."
"But sex with you, especially that first time, was so, so much more. And every time we've had sex since then hasn't just been sex. In fact, it's never just going to be sex with you, Ashely. And that's why I'm never going to leave."
"Well do you want it to just be sex? That can be arranged."
"No, Ashely. It can't. Because it's you. And you're stupid to have thought that ANYTHING could take me away from you. Which is why I still can't fucking wrap my head around why you wouldn't tell me that you're a vampire. I don't even know where you got the idea that that would scare me off?"
"Andy. You saw what happened last night after I bit you."
"Yeah, and I want you to bite me again tonight because I swear you may have been great in bed before but, Ashley, there's so much more passion in you that I didn't see until last night. It's like you've been holding back a whole part of you that I'm just now getting the chance to know and it's not fair. I've been sleeping next to you for two years and I just now get to know who you are?"
"Baby, you don't understand. It was all I could do not to hurt you right then. I needed blood and yours was right there and I could...I could have killed you."
"I don't think so." The singer shook his head. "You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to."
"You're overestimating my self control. The vampire in me..." Ashley sat down on the edge of the bed, shaking his head. "Vampires are wild animals. We're like wolves. We're not tame creatures. And a lot of times, especially where a mate is concerned, we're impossible to control. And if I thought last night was bad, that first time we had sex when I practically jumped you on the bus, it was all I could do to keep myself under control and not bite you. I knew then that if I bit you it would be impossible to stop myself. The only things holding me back last night were the fact that I'm used to your smell and the fact that I knew Sandra was right downstairs with blood."
Andy crossed the room and climbed straddle his boyfriend's lap. He lifted the vampire's face to meet his eyes with two fingers under his chin. "You may not agree, but I don't believe you could do any harm to me."
"It's not that simple," Ashley protested, eyes glancing down.
"Hey, hey. Yes it is. You're a Deviant, right? So no matter what, I know you'll never let anything happen to me. It's in your DNA to protect me."
"But, Andy..." Ashley's eyes cast down again and his hands fidgeted in his lap. "Sometimes that includes protecting you from myself."
Andy shook his head. "No."
"Andy-"
"No," Andy said softly, again. "I trust you, Ashley. I will always trust you."
"I don't trust myself."
"But I trust you. You're not going to hurt me," Andy whispered, his lips lightly brushing the bassists.
"Andy-"
"You won't. I promise." The singer pressed his lips to Ashley's, kissing him slowly so as to savor the moment. The kiss deepened, tongues sliding hot and wet and sweet against each other. Ashley's hands instinctively lifted up to wrap around his boyfriend's hips, while the singer tangled one hand in Ashley's hair and rested the other arm straight out off of his shoulder.
The kiss deepened even more, the two grasping, pulling each other closer, tighter. Light moans escaped from both mens' throats, and Ashley heard his boyfriend's heart rate increase. Without the vampire noticing, his fangs clicked out.
Andy felt the light, still unfamiliar scrape of his boyfriend's fangs on his tongue. Letting out a low groan, he threw all his weight into Ashley's arms, pushing them both backwards onto the bed. Limbs tangled and the kiss deepened even more to the point Andy wondered why he ever needed to breathe anyway.
The singer finally pulled away, lightly biting at Ashley's lower lip. "See? Everything's okay," he whispered, resting their foreheads together.
"Yeah," Ashley responded, slightly breathless with a nervous smile on his face.
"Now," Andy started, sitting up. "Your aunts are downstairs waiting for us to come be decent company."
Ashley laughed a bit. "Yeah, let's go." It was with the pronunciation of the "L" that the bassist realized his fangs were extended. His eyes widened in a state of panic.
"You okay?" Andy demanded when he felt Ashley release his hand.
"I didn't bite you, did I?" Ashley asked with a hoarse, horrified voice.
Andy turned, hand on his hip, and flashed his signature smirk. "Don't you think you would have tasted blood?"
"I-"
"No. You didn't bite me." The singer closed the gap between himself and his boyfriend. Rubbing Ashley's arms reassuringly, he leaned in and pressed a light, chaste kiss to his lips. "It's okay. I told you. You see? You kissed me, and your fangs came out and you didn't even notice. You're not going to hurt me."
"Yeah," Ashley said. "Yeah, you're right. Come on. Let's go downstairs." The vampire wrapped his arm around Andy's hips and led him down the stairs.
"You two all sorted out?" Leslie asked as the couple came into view.
"Uhm, yeah," Ashley responded.
"Alright, well come sit down. Can we get you anything?" The blonde had stood, untangling herself from the large recliner where she had been cuddling her mate.
Andy flopped onto the couch, pulling his boyfriend down on top of him and making them both burst into laughter.
"Bring him some blood, please," Andy managed to get out between giggles.
Leslie raised her eyebrow, but said nothing as she disappeared into the kitchen. "Anything for you, Andy?" She called over her shoulder.
"You know what, I'll handle it. Do you like tea?" Janet interrupted.
"Uhm, sure?"
"Any preference?"
"Surprise me," Andy responded.
The boys got themselves comfortable on the couch, Andy crawling into his boyfriend's lap.
"God, I love you," Ashley said, a stupid grin on his face as he cuddled the younger man close.
"I love you too, Ashes," Andy responded. He leaned upwards a bit to peck Ashley on the cheek.
"Alright, you two. Ash, here's your blood. You're favorite is black bear, right?"
The bassist's eyes lit up. "You remembered!"
"Of course I remembered. Oh, and remind me sometime this weekend...Janet and I went on a trip up to the North Pole and brought back some polar bear and leopard seal I think you might wanna try."
Ashley smiled and nodded. "I'll be sure to remember." Turning his attention to the man laying across him, Ashley lightly smacked his boyfriend's hip. "Move, I really don't want to spill blood on you."
Andy giggled a bit and sat up just in time for Ashley's other aunt to pass him a steaming mug of tea. "It smells delightful," Andy said, inhaling the rich herbal steam.
"Peach rhubarb and then there's a bunch of other stuff in there that's not important. I dabble in herbal remedies, so everything in there is fresh out of my garden out back." A permanent smile was plastered across the raven haired woman's face and her curls bounced with every enthusiastic wave of her hands.
"The way you two take care of me it really is a shame you can't form," Ashley commented, taking a slow sip from the Hello Kitty mug his aunts always kept around just for him.
"Form?" Andy whispered under his breath as he racked his brain for the term. He couldn't place it.
"Uhm, it's how Vampires reproduce," Leslie said, softly.
Andy's eyebrow raised, pointedly, as he looked to Ashley.
The older man sighed and sat up a bit more, leaning in so he could better address his boyfriend. "You see, Vampires don't reproduce like humans do," Ashley started. "It's sort of this, well, somewhat complicated process. What I was talking about in the car earlier. A Vampire couple doesn't get much of an option. You see, there are two bonds holding together a Vampire couple, ideally. There's the official blood bond, which is both legally and mortally binding. Then there's the love bond, which is formed by the members of the bond over time. What happens is, when the love bond is stronger than the blood bond, the couple is blessed with a child, which takes a total of a year to completely form. That's why we'll have to, eventually, move into a Vampire house. There's a special layout. In the master bedroom, the two closets are always built together with a space between the two hidden by a trap door, called a forming chamber. That's where the child remains until it is completely formed."
Andy slowly sipped his tea, trying to process the information, and take notes to do more research when he got back and had a chance to harass Jinxx for access to his library.
"Janet and I can't form. She was in the Marines, and had to go overseas for the Korean war. She missed our anniversary three times, twice in a row. Vampires have to renew their bond annually, and we were unable to. Our blood bond is a little...worse for wear. Because of it, we can't form, no matter how much we love each other."
Andy was quiet for a long moment, sipping his tea from the Harley Davison mug. He slowly turned his head to face Ashley again. "So we don't get a choice in the matter," Andy said, pursing his lips.
Ashley finished the last bit of blood in his mug and set it on the table. "No. We don't. No one does. That's just the reality of Vampire mating. The reasons why I kept putting this off just keep going up."
The singer turned his attention back to his mug of tea. He didn't really have much of a comment. Just a lot of anxiety over everything that was happening so fast. He took long, slow sips in an attempt to calm himself.
"So, uhm...tell us how you two met," Janet said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Ashley smiled a bit. "You wanna start, love? You know more of the back story than me."
"Well, Sandra was our drummer at the time. It was just me, her, and these two other guys I went to high school with. They broke off and moved on to do their own stuff, so now we're stuck with a singer, a drummer, and no guitarists. Sandra and I are on the phone like mad men trying to find someone who can play and play well. Finally, Sandra just comes to me and is like 'You know, my cousin is a bassist.' and I just look at her like 'bitch you coulda told me like three weeks ago.' So she calls Ashley up and arranges for us to meet up at my uncle's bar."
"So I get there, right?" Ashley cut in. "And I'm just chilling in the bar up on the stage with my plain black bass which was the only one I had at the time and Sandra's sitting at the bar with a bottle of Jack bitching about Andy 'being late, as usual.' I'm just trying not to be too nervous about this since I'd been out of the music scene several months after LA Guns fell apart. Then Andy walks in and suddenly I'm totally fucked. I tried to play it off as nerves. You know, this could be a make-it or break-it thing. In reality I was spiraling. His smell hit me in just this wave and my heart-rate rocketed and I was having a hard time keeping my fangs in. In fact, I didn't keep them in. I ended up having to purse my lips through the whole performance - which is uncharacteristic of me - just to keep from revealing them."
"Right, so he got the part. I was completely blown away by his bass playing. I was determined to build a band around his playing style if I had to. And Sandra all but drags him away. I'm sitting there like what the fuck is going on."
"Sandra was freaking out because she knew what was going on. Of course, I'm denying it. I was straight. I didn't even know him. I wasn't going to even begin considering him as a mate."
Leslie and Janet were glancing back and forth between the two. "I can't believe you're not mated yet. Your chemistry is through the roof," Janet commented.
"Yeah, it's kind of a product of living on a bus together for four years," Ashley said.
"What about you two?" Andy inquired.
"That's, uhm...rather complicated," Janet started, turning to her partner for help.
"A lot of pure bloods, at least the ones who don't have their noses in the air, will habitually make friends with humans. It's sort of a symbiotic relationship, especially with Deviants. The human gets constant protection and the vampire gets a consensual blood source. We'd been friends for quite a while when I finally approached her and revealed, you know, that I'm a vampire. We talked for several hours before I even asked if I could bite her."
"I was just kinda like 'I guess,' I mean, I didn't have much of an opinion. So I let her. And then, well...you both know what happened."
Andy's eyes were lit up like stars. The singer always turned into a child when it came to story telling. Ashley always thought it amusing.
"I think my little mate likes your story," Ashley commented with a smile.
"I dunno, it's just kinda cute and different. Our story is love at first sight for you and I just kinda got sucked down the rabbit hole of your charm until you finally jumped me."
Ashley chuckled a bit. "Yeah, sure babe." He was starting to feel sick, head spinning and stomach sloshing.
Leslie tilted her head to the side. "Ash? When was the last time you purged?"
Ashley rubbed his eyes, doubled over to try and keep himself steady. "Uhm, Andy and I fucked around in the car when we got to my parents'."
"And since then you've had to defend your mate from your parents and had an argument with him. Go. Upstairs." Leslie waved her hand toward the staircase, shooing the couple away.

Notes

No worries, all will be explained soon.