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kathierif_ficTitle: Take Him By The Hand
Author: Kathie
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Danny/Don, Sid/Don implied
Rating: FRAO
Warnings: AU (Vampires)
Disclaimer: Not mine, never was, never will be, or there wouldn’t be a marriage and disappearing scars.
Spoilers: Sanguine Love
Word Count: 4310 words
Summary: Sid and Danny are vampires. Kinda tag for Sanguine Love.
Author's Notes: Ginny said she wanted Sid as a vampire. The title is a line from a Beatles song, picked for the pretty “Life goes on” line. Written in a few hours just for the fun of it.
“Some people,” Sid mumbled quietly as he moved around the room, lightning some of the candles that were scattered on tables and other even surfaces. “Giving vampires a bad name. Drinking another person’s unscreened blood. What are they, crazy?”
Danny looked up from where he was sitting. “Immortal?” he suggested. “If you were convinced that you couldn’t die or something, you wouldn’t screen everybody’s blood you’re drinking either.” He shrugged. “Why are you so agitated about them, anyways?”
Sid’s eyes narrowed slightly. “They give the rest of us a bad name,” he repeated.
Danny shrugged and leaned down, to pull off one of his shoes. He dropped it to the ground next to him. “Are you nervous?” he wanted to know.
Sid sighed. “Maybe,” he admitted and took off his glasses. He didn’t need them in the half-darkness of the apartment. Danny quietly followed suit and lifted his own glasses off his face, putting them on the smooth wood he was sitting on and reaching up to rub his dry and itchy eyes.
“Hey. Don’t do that,” Sid said, a hint of concern in his voice. “Your eyes won’t get better if you keep rubbing them, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Danny muttered and leaned down again, to pick at the knots in the shoelaces of his second shoe. “At least these wannabe vampires didn’t sleep in coffins?”
Sid grumbled something under his breath and left the room, leaving Danny alone. Seconds later, Danny realized why. He recognized the footsteps that had stopped in front of their door, and a happy smile appeared on his face.
He hadn’t thought that he would come.
This was a surprise, and a good one on top of that.
~*+*~
“You lied to Mac.”
Sid raised both eyebrows. “And a good evening to you, too,” he replied evenly and stepped back, to let the tall man enter.
“You told him that you aren’t a vampire, Sid,” Don continued as he stepped past Sid and into the dark apartment, a teasing smile on his lips and in his eyes.
“I’m not a sanguine vampire,” Sid pointed out, a hint of sharpness in his voice.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Don said while shrugging out of his leather jacket. It had been a present from Sid, an attempt to bring his young friend back from the edge he had been on ever since Jess had died, and, Sid thought, a small thrill of triumph racing along his nerves as he watched the younger man, Don looked gorgeous in it. Just as he’d thought as he’d picked it out.
“Yeah?” he now said and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Sanguine means blood,” Don said and tugged his scarf away from his throat. “And sanguine vampires drink blood.”
He trailed off expectantly, and Sid frowned. He knew where this line of thinking – and questioning – was going, and he didn’t like it. It brought back some of his irritation at the sanguine vampires’ recklessness with unscreened blood.
“Yes,” he still admitted.
“And so do you,” Don continued with a grin before bending down, to take off his boots. The sight of him bent over did a lot to distract Sid from his annoyance, and he suspected that it had been the only reason why Don had done it. He was sneaky that way, and he knew exactly what to do to wrap Sid around his little finger.
“We don’t need special ceremonies,” he replied, “And we don’t drink the unscreened blood of strangers.”
Don straightened with a small laugh.
“We don’t like it when people watch and photograph us when we eat,” Sid continued.
“Admit it, you get off on watching Danny do it,” Don grinned. “When he drinks my blood. Which you do too.”
“Okay, first of all? You’re not a stranger. You’re our chosen favorite.” Sid’s annoyance returned full-force. “And second, your health is constantly monitored by us. If you get as much as a cold, we know about it. You’re not a stranger.”
“You monitor my health?” Don asked. “What else do you know about me?”
Sid stared at him for a long moment. “You’re making fun of me,” he said after a few heartbeats of silence. “You’re mocking me.”
“No,” Don said with a laugh. “I’m not mocking you. I just like seeing you all worked up over these wannabe vampires.”
“You sneaky…” Sid stopped himself and shook his head. “You and Danny! What did I do to deserve a child like Danny and a chosen favorite like you?”
“I don’t know,” Don grinned, “but it probably was something really good.”
Sid sighed and shook his head again, but his lips twitched into an involuntary smile and he reached for the younger man with gentle hands.
Don stepped up to him and pressed his entire body against Sid’s while tilting his head to the side, to allow Sid to rub his nose against his exposed throat. Sid’s hands moved over Don’s back and shoulders in a gentle caress, the touch calming him down almost immediately.
“We only know about you what you want us to know and tell us,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to Don’s throat. “But we did promise to take care of you when we accepted you as our chosen favorite.”
“We?” Don repeated, a hint of amusement still in his voice, but to Sid’s utter relief, he didn’t try to pull away from his loose embrace. “It was just you, why are you talking about yourself as ‘we’?”
Sid pulled back from the tantalizing smell of Don’s skin. “When Danny became my child and accepted you as chosen favorite, he promised the same,” he reminded Don. “But enough of that. Can you stay the night?”
Don hesitated briefly before nodding, and Sid gave him a smile and pulled him into another hug. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said before grabbing his hand and guiding him into the living room of his apartment.
The carpet under Don’s socks was thick and warm, and Don only needed a brief moment to get used to the soft candlelight that filled the room. He knew that the vampires – the real vampires – preferred candlelight to the harsh electrical light, and that they wore glasses to help protecting their eyes from its glare. He didn’t know how exactly that worked, but when Sid had offered to explain it to him, he’d waved him off after just a few sentences. He was fine with accepting it as a fact without knowing the big word explanation behind it.
He had been at Sid’s place often enough to know the layout of the room, but he was not expecting the pair of shoes lying in the middle of the path, and he didn’t see them until he had tripped over them. He murmured a curse and glanced down, identifying them as Danny’s, and with a roll of his eyes, he kicked them under the couch before sitting down.
“Are you okay?” Sid asked and sat down on the smooth wood of the box that served as a coffee table. His knees touched Don’s gently, and he reached out to run his fingertips over Don’s hands.
Don nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just…a long day.”
“Want to talk about it?” Sid offered and ran his fingertips gently along the sleeve of Don’s shirt.
Don held his breath for a second. He’d fought with himself for a long time before he’d convinced himself to go to Sid’s place, and he still wasn’t sure if it had been the best decision, even if he knew that the vampires needed him. It had been too long since he’d been here, after all. This wasn’t just about him, it was about all of them. He couldn’t let them suffer just because he wasn’t feeling like facing Sid’s sharp eyes and his probing questions.
“Nothing bad,” he said softly. “Just a long day. Where’s Danny?”
Sid tilted his head to the side and listened carefully for a moment. “Kitchen,” he replied after a moment. “Having a drink. Are you hungry? I could make us something to eat before we start.”
Only an idiot would say no when Sid Hammerback offered to cook, and Don grinned slightly. “I could eat,” he admitted.
“Then let’s eat first,” Sid replied. “Do you want to take a shower?”
It was, Don thought quietly, something Sid asked him every single time, and if that wasn’t a ceremony, or at least a ritual, he didn’t know what was.
“Are you saying I smell?” asked back, mock-offended, but this time, Sid didn’t fall for it.
“Delicious,” he simply replied, without missing a beat. “Like sweat and blood and triumph, but sadly, it’s not your own smell.” He stood and ran his fingers along Don’s jaw. “I’ll send you Danny to keep you company in the shower.”
Don laughed and tried to relax into the comfortable cushions of the couch.
If the cops would ever be forced to search this place, he thought, Sid would have a serious problem explaining why he had not one, but two coffins stashed away in this apartment. One served currently as table and sat in front of him, the carvings on its sides elaborate and elegant. The nights Danny stayed over, the young vampire slept in it. The other coffin was pushed against the far wall of Sid’s bedroom, next to the huge and comfortable bed Sid owned but rarely used.
At least, Don added mentally, he rarely used it for sleeping. He didn’t know if Sid had ever spent more than just a few hours sleeping in his bed, and he didn’t know how many nights Danny was spending here instead of going home, but he doubted that Lindsay would be cool with having a coffin in her bedroom. The coffin in Sid’s living room was big enough for Danny and a guest of his choice, Don knew that from experience, even if it was an experience he wasn’t sure he was happy to have. It was a fact that the vampires claimed that sleeping in a coffin was more comfortable than sleeping in a bed, and that was fine with Don.
Sid had a TV, but it was in the kitchen, the only room of the apartment that didn’t look like it was part of an old horror movie. The electric lights in the kitchen were even used regularly. Sid took his food seriously and carefully prepared each meal he cooked there, even if that meant he had to live with bright lights.
If Don wanted to catch the Rangers game, he needed to get up now and join Sid.
Before he could come to a decision, Danny stepped into the room and grinned widely. “Sid said to drag you into the shower and clean you up,” he quipped. “Said you’re the main course today and he’s getting the oven ready for you. Oh, and peelin’ potatoes to go with you.”
“Ha ha, Messer,” Don replied, but he allowed Danny to pull him up and into his arms.
“You okay?” Danny asked, and when Don nodded, Danny wrapped his arm around him and pressed their lips together in a brief, dry kiss. He had to stand on tip-toes in order to do that, and Don had to bend down a little, but they both had grown used to that over the past few years. Kissing Danny was familiar and safe.
Together, they moved into the bathroom, Danny’s fingers under the hem of Don’s shirts and against the sensitive skin of his stomach, his lips warm and soft against Don’s. His hair was silky-fine between Don’s sweaty fingers, his body hard and well-muscled against Don’s, and it didn’t take them long to pull off each other’s clothes and step into the shower, where they fought briefly over the water temperature.
It was so normal, something they had done so often in the past, that the stress of the day fell off both of them and was washed away by the almost too hot water running over both of them, and Don realized after a while that he had missed this, the easy camaraderie he shared with both Sid and Danny.
Danny, in the meantime, had wrapped himself around Don and was nibbling gently on his collarbone.
“You’re not biting me, are you, Mess?” Don murmured, almost too relaxed to care, but Danny simply shook his head.
“Not yet,” he promised. “You want to wash your hair yourself or want me to do it?”
“I think I can handle it,” Don promised, and Danny laughed and licked across a nipple before handing over the bottle of shampoo.
“Be thorough,” he said with a teasing grin, but before Don could even think about a good answer, Danny had slipped to his knees and was mouthing along the length of Don’s cock, which was slowly filling with blood and hardening against Danny’s quick tongue.
Don moaned softly and tilted his head back, concentrating fully on the feeling of Danny’s mouth on him. Vampires, he knew, didn’t have the same sex drive human beings had. For them, blood was the most important thing they went after and always the first thing they worried about, even if they just had fed. It didn’t mean that they never had sex, as far as Don knew, but it was less frequent than what he was used to, even if they were in a committed relationship. Having Danny on his knees in front of him now was unusual enough to make him stop and try to enjoy the experience as much as possible.
Danny knew exactly what he had to do to bring Don right to the edge and hold him there for what felt at the same time like an eternity and only a heartbeat, and Don choked on a groan when Danny finally let him come, Danny’s hand wrapped around the base of his dick, the fingers of his other hand playing gently with the soft skin of his balls.
“Danny,” Don murmured and blinked his eyes open with some difficulty. Danny’s hair was plastered to his skull, and he was looking up at Don with a small frown, as if he wasn’t sure if he had done a good job. Don reached out with shaky fingers and brushed them through Danny’s hair, letting his touch say some of the things his mouth couldn’t and half hoping that Danny would understand them while the other half of him was sure that Danny couldn’t even begin to realize what Don was feeling right now.
This had been the first time someone had been with him, had touched him like this, since Jess. The thought wrapped itself unwanted around his brain and his heart and tightened its grip on him; clenching his ribs together and making it hard for him to breathe.
“Don?” Danny asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice when the other man didn’t continue to talk to him, and Don quickly forced himself to grin.
“I’m fine,” he said, the words slipping past his lips without him even having to think about it, and he grabbed Danny’s arm with his free hand, to haul him back to his feet. “Do you need me to do something for you?” He dipped his head, nodding toward Danny’s cock, but the vampire only chuckled and shook his head.
“I’m good,” he promised. “You know that we…” he stopped and shrugged. “You know.”
“Yeah,” Don murmured. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he was relieved about that; he didn’t know if he could return the favor while his thoughts were still lingering with Jess.
Quickly, he forced himself to stay away from every possible thought involving her. “I don’t know how you managed to knock up Linds, with your sex drive,” he said instead.
Danny grimaced. “I didn’t,” he said. “But she needed a father for Lucy.”
Don stared at him with wide eyes. “Lucy is not your daughter,” he stated after a long moment, trying to make sense of Danny’s words.
“She is,” Danny quickly said. “I’m just not her biological father. Let’s not talk about this. Lindsay thinks I don’t know, and I want it to stay like that.”
Don shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered. “You’re crazy, Messer.”
Danny didn’t bother denying it. Instead, he grabbed the bottle of shampoo from Don’s hand and squeezed some into his palm before reaching up and massaging it into Don’s short hair.
Don waited until the soap was rinsed from his body and he was completely cleaned up to Danny’s satisfaction before asking, “Why?”
“Why what?” Danny asked back and traced his fingertips around a flat nipple, not looking Don in the eye.
“Why did you marry Lindsay?”
Danny sighed and turned off the water. “She needed a father for Lucy,” he said quietly. “And she’s a friend. A really good friend. I couldn’t just let her hang out to dry.”
He reached for a towel and wrapped it around Don’s waist. “I would have done the same for you, you know,” he pointed out. “And more.”
Don’s breath caught in his chest. He knew exactly what Danny was talking about, knew exactly why Danny had come to the hospital that day; only he had been too late and Jess had already been gone, and there had been nothing he could have done to save her.
Again, he forced his thoughts away from Jess and grinned, even if it felt more like a grimace. “So…if I manage to get myself knocked up by God knows who, you’d marry me too?”
Danny laughed. “Good thing that’s impossible,” he teased back. “Polygamy is illegal in the state of New York.”
They got dressed in companionable silence, but before they left the room, Danny caught Don’s hand again and pulled him into a kiss, and this time Don had the feeling that Danny wanted to tell him something and it was him who didn’t quite understand.
~*+*~
Sid was almost done with cooking when they came back to the kitchen, and they set the table together while Don turned on the Rangers game, just in time to see the other team score, and they settled in to eat only moments later.
~*+*~
Sid waited until the dishes were cleaned away before folding his hands on the table and leaning forwards. “Are you ready for the main course?” he asked, a small smile on his face.
Don nodded. He was relaxed enough and allowed the two vampires to guide him into the living room and take off his clothes without putting up too much resistance. He even tried to help, but Sid grabbed his wrists and pressed them back to his sides with a gentle smile. “Let us,” he requested, and Don simply shrugged and nodded.
He let the two vampires guide him down on top of the closed coffins, which was now covered with a white cloth, their warm fingers running soothingly over his pale skin.
“Don?”
It was Sid’s voice, rough with need and anticipation, his lips brushing against the shell of Don’s ear. “Are you ready for this?”
Don took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m ready.”
“Just relax,” Sid murmured. “We’re so happy to have you with us again.”
Don nodded again and closed his eyes. He didn’t need or want to see both vampires transforming. The soft cracking noises as their jaws expanded to make room for the additional, sharp-edged vampire teeth were jarring enough, and he didn’t need the visuals to go with that noise. In the beginning, Sid had blindfolded him, but he’d long gained their trust and didn’t need that anymore.
He shifted slightly, and strong fingers reached for his hand and held it.
Danny, he thought, a faint smile appearing on his face, until sharp teeth closed against the shell of his ear and nipped. The pain made him flinch, but his ear was caught, and the small movement made the teeth slice through his skin. Blood welled up and started dripping, and then, there was a rough tongue, eagerly lapping at his ear and cleaning the sticky wetness of his blood away. It had been a while until he had learned to hold still during nights like this, just letting the vampires do what they needed to do, but he had. He knew how much the vampires needed his blood. They needed him, they relied on him, and he was honored to be their chosen favorite.
The next bite came to his collarbone, then the paper-thin skin of his right wrist was nipped, his calf, the inside of an elbow. Every bite hurt less and less, his body numbed by adrenaline and the loss of blood, until he was feeling as if he was floating in a thick cloud of cotton. He was vaguely aware of Sid murmuring soothingly at him in between mouthfuls of blood, he knew that Danny wouldn’t let go of his hand – his left hand, they wouldn’t bite his left hand, Sid had told him that, so many years ago, when he’d found Don and had rescued him from another vampire; when he had taken Don in as his chosen favorite; the first time he’d gently pushed a needle past Don’s skin and into a vein to find out if he was even able to be a chosen favorite, if he was healthy enough; Don didn’t remember exactly when Sid had told him but it didn’t matter as his thoughts became hazy and started to circle sluggishly, just before the darkness of unconsciousness started to surround them.
The last thing he felt was the pain of teeth against his scarred stomach, and the touch of an eager tongue, and then – nothing.
Just blessed darkness surrounding him, making him stop remembering, feeling, hurting.
He woke briefly when he was picked up, just long enough to realize that it was Sid, and that he was safe. He knew what it would look like if people saw them right now, if NYPD would force open the door and officers and detectives would enter the apartment: his body covered in bloody bite marks, the wounds just superficial, shallow, but covering his entire body, from his ear to his left foot. Every bite pulsed with gentle pain as the saliva of the vampires started to heal him. In the morning, there would be no sign of this night’s activities, he would feel tired, but fine, but right now, he was as weak as a newborn kitten and barely able to lift his head from Sid’s chest, or even open his eyes.
“You did good,” Sid whispered into his ear as he placed him in the middle of his bed, again, something he did every time they did this. A light and blessedly cool sheet was pulled over his body, up to his shoulders, and the fingers of his left hand were squeezed gently.
“Sleep now.”
Instinct made him squeeze the hand that held his own, even as he drifted off, to sleep.
~*+*~
Danny looked at Sid with bright eyes. He was flushed with fresh blood, his body filled with unprocessed energy.
“What do you think?” he asked, his voice pitched into a low whisper, even if he was sure that the man between them was sleeping and wouldn’t hear their conversation.
Sid sighed. “I think he’ll be fine,” he finally said. “We should have done this when the pain was fresh, to prove that we’re here for him. I don’t know, Danny.”
“You said he wasn’t ready then and needed time,” Danny reminded him, and Sid nodded.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he admitted. “But I have to say, it feels good to have fresh blood in me.” He straightened and stretched. “He will be fine,” he repeated firmly. “He’s Don. However, you need sleep now if you want to be able to function tomorrow.”
Danny nodded. “Next time, we’re not waiting seven full moon circles before this again, right?” he asked, and Sid nodded firmly.
He was already feeling much better, much stronger, than he had just hours ago, and he realized that not feeding for more than half a year, while not necessarily dangerous for them, hadn’t been ideal either, especially for Danny, who could have needed the fresh blood to heal his back injury.
“No, we’re not,” he said. Hindsight, he thought, resigned to the fact that he had made a few mistakes in handling the situation.
“Good,” Danny replied and yawned. He arched his spine and stood, not without bending over Don and pressing his forehead against Don’s shoulder briefly. Sid watched as his child, the vampire he had made when Danny had been caught in yet another shooting where he hadn’t worn his bulletproof vest, stumbled off, toward the other room, and his sharp hearing picked up on the rustle as Danny grabbed his iPod from the pocket of his jacket.
Only when he heard the top of the coffin fall closed behind Danny, who, Sid imagined, would wrap the soft blanket in the coffin around himself, put in the headphones and fall asleep like that, Sid moved again. He checked one last time that Don was comfortable and healing properly before climbing into his own coffin.
His body needed the rest to process the sweet blood he’d ingested this night, and tomorrow would be another long day at the crime lab that would need them all on top of their game.
Another day, he thought with a faint smile as he got comfortable. Life would go on, even for vampires, and things would go back to normal, or at least, as normal as it could get for vampires.
And with that thought, he fell asleep.
~end.
Author: Kathie
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing: Danny/Don, Sid/Don implied
Rating: FRAO
Warnings: AU (Vampires)
Disclaimer: Not mine, never was, never will be, or there wouldn’t be a marriage and disappearing scars.
Spoilers: Sanguine Love
Word Count: 4310 words
Summary: Sid and Danny are vampires. Kinda tag for Sanguine Love.
Author's Notes: Ginny said she wanted Sid as a vampire. The title is a line from a Beatles song, picked for the pretty “Life goes on” line. Written in a few hours just for the fun of it.
“Some people,” Sid mumbled quietly as he moved around the room, lightning some of the candles that were scattered on tables and other even surfaces. “Giving vampires a bad name. Drinking another person’s unscreened blood. What are they, crazy?”
Danny looked up from where he was sitting. “Immortal?” he suggested. “If you were convinced that you couldn’t die or something, you wouldn’t screen everybody’s blood you’re drinking either.” He shrugged. “Why are you so agitated about them, anyways?”
Sid’s eyes narrowed slightly. “They give the rest of us a bad name,” he repeated.
Danny shrugged and leaned down, to pull off one of his shoes. He dropped it to the ground next to him. “Are you nervous?” he wanted to know.
Sid sighed. “Maybe,” he admitted and took off his glasses. He didn’t need them in the half-darkness of the apartment. Danny quietly followed suit and lifted his own glasses off his face, putting them on the smooth wood he was sitting on and reaching up to rub his dry and itchy eyes.
“Hey. Don’t do that,” Sid said, a hint of concern in his voice. “Your eyes won’t get better if you keep rubbing them, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Danny muttered and leaned down again, to pick at the knots in the shoelaces of his second shoe. “At least these wannabe vampires didn’t sleep in coffins?”
Sid grumbled something under his breath and left the room, leaving Danny alone. Seconds later, Danny realized why. He recognized the footsteps that had stopped in front of their door, and a happy smile appeared on his face.
He hadn’t thought that he would come.
This was a surprise, and a good one on top of that.
~*+*~
“You lied to Mac.”
Sid raised both eyebrows. “And a good evening to you, too,” he replied evenly and stepped back, to let the tall man enter.
“You told him that you aren’t a vampire, Sid,” Don continued as he stepped past Sid and into the dark apartment, a teasing smile on his lips and in his eyes.
“I’m not a sanguine vampire,” Sid pointed out, a hint of sharpness in his voice.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Don said while shrugging out of his leather jacket. It had been a present from Sid, an attempt to bring his young friend back from the edge he had been on ever since Jess had died, and, Sid thought, a small thrill of triumph racing along his nerves as he watched the younger man, Don looked gorgeous in it. Just as he’d thought as he’d picked it out.
“Yeah?” he now said and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Sanguine means blood,” Don said and tugged his scarf away from his throat. “And sanguine vampires drink blood.”
He trailed off expectantly, and Sid frowned. He knew where this line of thinking – and questioning – was going, and he didn’t like it. It brought back some of his irritation at the sanguine vampires’ recklessness with unscreened blood.
“Yes,” he still admitted.
“And so do you,” Don continued with a grin before bending down, to take off his boots. The sight of him bent over did a lot to distract Sid from his annoyance, and he suspected that it had been the only reason why Don had done it. He was sneaky that way, and he knew exactly what to do to wrap Sid around his little finger.
“We don’t need special ceremonies,” he replied, “And we don’t drink the unscreened blood of strangers.”
Don straightened with a small laugh.
“We don’t like it when people watch and photograph us when we eat,” Sid continued.
“Admit it, you get off on watching Danny do it,” Don grinned. “When he drinks my blood. Which you do too.”
“Okay, first of all? You’re not a stranger. You’re our chosen favorite.” Sid’s annoyance returned full-force. “And second, your health is constantly monitored by us. If you get as much as a cold, we know about it. You’re not a stranger.”
“You monitor my health?” Don asked. “What else do you know about me?”
Sid stared at him for a long moment. “You’re making fun of me,” he said after a few heartbeats of silence. “You’re mocking me.”
“No,” Don said with a laugh. “I’m not mocking you. I just like seeing you all worked up over these wannabe vampires.”
“You sneaky…” Sid stopped himself and shook his head. “You and Danny! What did I do to deserve a child like Danny and a chosen favorite like you?”
“I don’t know,” Don grinned, “but it probably was something really good.”
Sid sighed and shook his head again, but his lips twitched into an involuntary smile and he reached for the younger man with gentle hands.
Don stepped up to him and pressed his entire body against Sid’s while tilting his head to the side, to allow Sid to rub his nose against his exposed throat. Sid’s hands moved over Don’s back and shoulders in a gentle caress, the touch calming him down almost immediately.
“We only know about you what you want us to know and tell us,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to Don’s throat. “But we did promise to take care of you when we accepted you as our chosen favorite.”
“We?” Don repeated, a hint of amusement still in his voice, but to Sid’s utter relief, he didn’t try to pull away from his loose embrace. “It was just you, why are you talking about yourself as ‘we’?”
Sid pulled back from the tantalizing smell of Don’s skin. “When Danny became my child and accepted you as chosen favorite, he promised the same,” he reminded Don. “But enough of that. Can you stay the night?”
Don hesitated briefly before nodding, and Sid gave him a smile and pulled him into another hug. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said before grabbing his hand and guiding him into the living room of his apartment.
The carpet under Don’s socks was thick and warm, and Don only needed a brief moment to get used to the soft candlelight that filled the room. He knew that the vampires – the real vampires – preferred candlelight to the harsh electrical light, and that they wore glasses to help protecting their eyes from its glare. He didn’t know how exactly that worked, but when Sid had offered to explain it to him, he’d waved him off after just a few sentences. He was fine with accepting it as a fact without knowing the big word explanation behind it.
He had been at Sid’s place often enough to know the layout of the room, but he was not expecting the pair of shoes lying in the middle of the path, and he didn’t see them until he had tripped over them. He murmured a curse and glanced down, identifying them as Danny’s, and with a roll of his eyes, he kicked them under the couch before sitting down.
“Are you okay?” Sid asked and sat down on the smooth wood of the box that served as a coffee table. His knees touched Don’s gently, and he reached out to run his fingertips over Don’s hands.
Don nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just…a long day.”
“Want to talk about it?” Sid offered and ran his fingertips gently along the sleeve of Don’s shirt.
Don held his breath for a second. He’d fought with himself for a long time before he’d convinced himself to go to Sid’s place, and he still wasn’t sure if it had been the best decision, even if he knew that the vampires needed him. It had been too long since he’d been here, after all. This wasn’t just about him, it was about all of them. He couldn’t let them suffer just because he wasn’t feeling like facing Sid’s sharp eyes and his probing questions.
“Nothing bad,” he said softly. “Just a long day. Where’s Danny?”
Sid tilted his head to the side and listened carefully for a moment. “Kitchen,” he replied after a moment. “Having a drink. Are you hungry? I could make us something to eat before we start.”
Only an idiot would say no when Sid Hammerback offered to cook, and Don grinned slightly. “I could eat,” he admitted.
“Then let’s eat first,” Sid replied. “Do you want to take a shower?”
It was, Don thought quietly, something Sid asked him every single time, and if that wasn’t a ceremony, or at least a ritual, he didn’t know what was.
“Are you saying I smell?” asked back, mock-offended, but this time, Sid didn’t fall for it.
“Delicious,” he simply replied, without missing a beat. “Like sweat and blood and triumph, but sadly, it’s not your own smell.” He stood and ran his fingers along Don’s jaw. “I’ll send you Danny to keep you company in the shower.”
Don laughed and tried to relax into the comfortable cushions of the couch.
If the cops would ever be forced to search this place, he thought, Sid would have a serious problem explaining why he had not one, but two coffins stashed away in this apartment. One served currently as table and sat in front of him, the carvings on its sides elaborate and elegant. The nights Danny stayed over, the young vampire slept in it. The other coffin was pushed against the far wall of Sid’s bedroom, next to the huge and comfortable bed Sid owned but rarely used.
At least, Don added mentally, he rarely used it for sleeping. He didn’t know if Sid had ever spent more than just a few hours sleeping in his bed, and he didn’t know how many nights Danny was spending here instead of going home, but he doubted that Lindsay would be cool with having a coffin in her bedroom. The coffin in Sid’s living room was big enough for Danny and a guest of his choice, Don knew that from experience, even if it was an experience he wasn’t sure he was happy to have. It was a fact that the vampires claimed that sleeping in a coffin was more comfortable than sleeping in a bed, and that was fine with Don.
Sid had a TV, but it was in the kitchen, the only room of the apartment that didn’t look like it was part of an old horror movie. The electric lights in the kitchen were even used regularly. Sid took his food seriously and carefully prepared each meal he cooked there, even if that meant he had to live with bright lights.
If Don wanted to catch the Rangers game, he needed to get up now and join Sid.
Before he could come to a decision, Danny stepped into the room and grinned widely. “Sid said to drag you into the shower and clean you up,” he quipped. “Said you’re the main course today and he’s getting the oven ready for you. Oh, and peelin’ potatoes to go with you.”
“Ha ha, Messer,” Don replied, but he allowed Danny to pull him up and into his arms.
“You okay?” Danny asked, and when Don nodded, Danny wrapped his arm around him and pressed their lips together in a brief, dry kiss. He had to stand on tip-toes in order to do that, and Don had to bend down a little, but they both had grown used to that over the past few years. Kissing Danny was familiar and safe.
Together, they moved into the bathroom, Danny’s fingers under the hem of Don’s shirts and against the sensitive skin of his stomach, his lips warm and soft against Don’s. His hair was silky-fine between Don’s sweaty fingers, his body hard and well-muscled against Don’s, and it didn’t take them long to pull off each other’s clothes and step into the shower, where they fought briefly over the water temperature.
It was so normal, something they had done so often in the past, that the stress of the day fell off both of them and was washed away by the almost too hot water running over both of them, and Don realized after a while that he had missed this, the easy camaraderie he shared with both Sid and Danny.
Danny, in the meantime, had wrapped himself around Don and was nibbling gently on his collarbone.
“You’re not biting me, are you, Mess?” Don murmured, almost too relaxed to care, but Danny simply shook his head.
“Not yet,” he promised. “You want to wash your hair yourself or want me to do it?”
“I think I can handle it,” Don promised, and Danny laughed and licked across a nipple before handing over the bottle of shampoo.
“Be thorough,” he said with a teasing grin, but before Don could even think about a good answer, Danny had slipped to his knees and was mouthing along the length of Don’s cock, which was slowly filling with blood and hardening against Danny’s quick tongue.
Don moaned softly and tilted his head back, concentrating fully on the feeling of Danny’s mouth on him. Vampires, he knew, didn’t have the same sex drive human beings had. For them, blood was the most important thing they went after and always the first thing they worried about, even if they just had fed. It didn’t mean that they never had sex, as far as Don knew, but it was less frequent than what he was used to, even if they were in a committed relationship. Having Danny on his knees in front of him now was unusual enough to make him stop and try to enjoy the experience as much as possible.
Danny knew exactly what he had to do to bring Don right to the edge and hold him there for what felt at the same time like an eternity and only a heartbeat, and Don choked on a groan when Danny finally let him come, Danny’s hand wrapped around the base of his dick, the fingers of his other hand playing gently with the soft skin of his balls.
“Danny,” Don murmured and blinked his eyes open with some difficulty. Danny’s hair was plastered to his skull, and he was looking up at Don with a small frown, as if he wasn’t sure if he had done a good job. Don reached out with shaky fingers and brushed them through Danny’s hair, letting his touch say some of the things his mouth couldn’t and half hoping that Danny would understand them while the other half of him was sure that Danny couldn’t even begin to realize what Don was feeling right now.
This had been the first time someone had been with him, had touched him like this, since Jess. The thought wrapped itself unwanted around his brain and his heart and tightened its grip on him; clenching his ribs together and making it hard for him to breathe.
“Don?” Danny asked, a hint of worry creeping into his voice when the other man didn’t continue to talk to him, and Don quickly forced himself to grin.
“I’m fine,” he said, the words slipping past his lips without him even having to think about it, and he grabbed Danny’s arm with his free hand, to haul him back to his feet. “Do you need me to do something for you?” He dipped his head, nodding toward Danny’s cock, but the vampire only chuckled and shook his head.
“I’m good,” he promised. “You know that we…” he stopped and shrugged. “You know.”
“Yeah,” Don murmured. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he was relieved about that; he didn’t know if he could return the favor while his thoughts were still lingering with Jess.
Quickly, he forced himself to stay away from every possible thought involving her. “I don’t know how you managed to knock up Linds, with your sex drive,” he said instead.
Danny grimaced. “I didn’t,” he said. “But she needed a father for Lucy.”
Don stared at him with wide eyes. “Lucy is not your daughter,” he stated after a long moment, trying to make sense of Danny’s words.
“She is,” Danny quickly said. “I’m just not her biological father. Let’s not talk about this. Lindsay thinks I don’t know, and I want it to stay like that.”
Don shook his head, sending droplets of water flying. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered. “You’re crazy, Messer.”
Danny didn’t bother denying it. Instead, he grabbed the bottle of shampoo from Don’s hand and squeezed some into his palm before reaching up and massaging it into Don’s short hair.
Don waited until the soap was rinsed from his body and he was completely cleaned up to Danny’s satisfaction before asking, “Why?”
“Why what?” Danny asked back and traced his fingertips around a flat nipple, not looking Don in the eye.
“Why did you marry Lindsay?”
Danny sighed and turned off the water. “She needed a father for Lucy,” he said quietly. “And she’s a friend. A really good friend. I couldn’t just let her hang out to dry.”
He reached for a towel and wrapped it around Don’s waist. “I would have done the same for you, you know,” he pointed out. “And more.”
Don’s breath caught in his chest. He knew exactly what Danny was talking about, knew exactly why Danny had come to the hospital that day; only he had been too late and Jess had already been gone, and there had been nothing he could have done to save her.
Again, he forced his thoughts away from Jess and grinned, even if it felt more like a grimace. “So…if I manage to get myself knocked up by God knows who, you’d marry me too?”
Danny laughed. “Good thing that’s impossible,” he teased back. “Polygamy is illegal in the state of New York.”
They got dressed in companionable silence, but before they left the room, Danny caught Don’s hand again and pulled him into a kiss, and this time Don had the feeling that Danny wanted to tell him something and it was him who didn’t quite understand.
~*+*~
Sid was almost done with cooking when they came back to the kitchen, and they set the table together while Don turned on the Rangers game, just in time to see the other team score, and they settled in to eat only moments later.
~*+*~
Sid waited until the dishes were cleaned away before folding his hands on the table and leaning forwards. “Are you ready for the main course?” he asked, a small smile on his face.
Don nodded. He was relaxed enough and allowed the two vampires to guide him into the living room and take off his clothes without putting up too much resistance. He even tried to help, but Sid grabbed his wrists and pressed them back to his sides with a gentle smile. “Let us,” he requested, and Don simply shrugged and nodded.
He let the two vampires guide him down on top of the closed coffins, which was now covered with a white cloth, their warm fingers running soothingly over his pale skin.
“Don?”
It was Sid’s voice, rough with need and anticipation, his lips brushing against the shell of Don’s ear. “Are you ready for this?”
Don took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m ready.”
“Just relax,” Sid murmured. “We’re so happy to have you with us again.”
Don nodded again and closed his eyes. He didn’t need or want to see both vampires transforming. The soft cracking noises as their jaws expanded to make room for the additional, sharp-edged vampire teeth were jarring enough, and he didn’t need the visuals to go with that noise. In the beginning, Sid had blindfolded him, but he’d long gained their trust and didn’t need that anymore.
He shifted slightly, and strong fingers reached for his hand and held it.
Danny, he thought, a faint smile appearing on his face, until sharp teeth closed against the shell of his ear and nipped. The pain made him flinch, but his ear was caught, and the small movement made the teeth slice through his skin. Blood welled up and started dripping, and then, there was a rough tongue, eagerly lapping at his ear and cleaning the sticky wetness of his blood away. It had been a while until he had learned to hold still during nights like this, just letting the vampires do what they needed to do, but he had. He knew how much the vampires needed his blood. They needed him, they relied on him, and he was honored to be their chosen favorite.
The next bite came to his collarbone, then the paper-thin skin of his right wrist was nipped, his calf, the inside of an elbow. Every bite hurt less and less, his body numbed by adrenaline and the loss of blood, until he was feeling as if he was floating in a thick cloud of cotton. He was vaguely aware of Sid murmuring soothingly at him in between mouthfuls of blood, he knew that Danny wouldn’t let go of his hand – his left hand, they wouldn’t bite his left hand, Sid had told him that, so many years ago, when he’d found Don and had rescued him from another vampire; when he had taken Don in as his chosen favorite; the first time he’d gently pushed a needle past Don’s skin and into a vein to find out if he was even able to be a chosen favorite, if he was healthy enough; Don didn’t remember exactly when Sid had told him but it didn’t matter as his thoughts became hazy and started to circle sluggishly, just before the darkness of unconsciousness started to surround them.
The last thing he felt was the pain of teeth against his scarred stomach, and the touch of an eager tongue, and then – nothing.
Just blessed darkness surrounding him, making him stop remembering, feeling, hurting.
He woke briefly when he was picked up, just long enough to realize that it was Sid, and that he was safe. He knew what it would look like if people saw them right now, if NYPD would force open the door and officers and detectives would enter the apartment: his body covered in bloody bite marks, the wounds just superficial, shallow, but covering his entire body, from his ear to his left foot. Every bite pulsed with gentle pain as the saliva of the vampires started to heal him. In the morning, there would be no sign of this night’s activities, he would feel tired, but fine, but right now, he was as weak as a newborn kitten and barely able to lift his head from Sid’s chest, or even open his eyes.
“You did good,” Sid whispered into his ear as he placed him in the middle of his bed, again, something he did every time they did this. A light and blessedly cool sheet was pulled over his body, up to his shoulders, and the fingers of his left hand were squeezed gently.
“Sleep now.”
Instinct made him squeeze the hand that held his own, even as he drifted off, to sleep.
~*+*~
Danny looked at Sid with bright eyes. He was flushed with fresh blood, his body filled with unprocessed energy.
“What do you think?” he asked, his voice pitched into a low whisper, even if he was sure that the man between them was sleeping and wouldn’t hear their conversation.
Sid sighed. “I think he’ll be fine,” he finally said. “We should have done this when the pain was fresh, to prove that we’re here for him. I don’t know, Danny.”
“You said he wasn’t ready then and needed time,” Danny reminded him, and Sid nodded.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he admitted. “But I have to say, it feels good to have fresh blood in me.” He straightened and stretched. “He will be fine,” he repeated firmly. “He’s Don. However, you need sleep now if you want to be able to function tomorrow.”
Danny nodded. “Next time, we’re not waiting seven full moon circles before this again, right?” he asked, and Sid nodded firmly.
He was already feeling much better, much stronger, than he had just hours ago, and he realized that not feeding for more than half a year, while not necessarily dangerous for them, hadn’t been ideal either, especially for Danny, who could have needed the fresh blood to heal his back injury.
“No, we’re not,” he said. Hindsight, he thought, resigned to the fact that he had made a few mistakes in handling the situation.
“Good,” Danny replied and yawned. He arched his spine and stood, not without bending over Don and pressing his forehead against Don’s shoulder briefly. Sid watched as his child, the vampire he had made when Danny had been caught in yet another shooting where he hadn’t worn his bulletproof vest, stumbled off, toward the other room, and his sharp hearing picked up on the rustle as Danny grabbed his iPod from the pocket of his jacket.
Only when he heard the top of the coffin fall closed behind Danny, who, Sid imagined, would wrap the soft blanket in the coffin around himself, put in the headphones and fall asleep like that, Sid moved again. He checked one last time that Don was comfortable and healing properly before climbing into his own coffin.
His body needed the rest to process the sweet blood he’d ingested this night, and tomorrow would be another long day at the crime lab that would need them all on top of their game.
Another day, he thought with a faint smile as he got comfortable. Life would go on, even for vampires, and things would go back to normal, or at least, as normal as it could get for vampires.
And with that thought, he fell asleep.
~end.