“No thanks,” Brian said delicately as he peeled yet another presumptive hand from his body.

The guarded man was getting tired of fending off offers of sex and really severe hickeys. Apparently he’d done a fairly decent job at blending in because the vampires in the club all wanted to suck his blood. He’d even had a few humans approach him, trying to draw him into their threesomes or foursomes. Flattering as it all was, Brian knew that he couldn’t lose sight of his original goal. So he turned down the bodies and the drugs, Irena’s drink already having mildly intoxicated his senses.

The blue haze continued the farther down the long, cavernous room he went. And the farther he went, the more brazen everybody seemed to be in their activities. With the barely-perceptible slope to the floor, Brian thought that it was a little bit like descending through the levels of Dante’s Inferno. Or perhaps Paradiso, depending on what you liked.

At this point in the room, the humans nearly all had glazed-over eyes and the vampires all had blood on their lips. At this point in the room, Brian began to feel unsafe. He’d almost given up looking for his vampire, when three figures centered into his vision. There they were: in the shadows against the wall. Brian froze as he saw that Evan was beside Justin, a half-coherent man shared between them. From his distance, Brian could tell that they had fed from the man, but that still didn’t explain why they both seemed to be ignoring their meal now.

Brian inhaled in shock at the sight of Evan pulling down the man’s pants. The back of Justin’s head shook in some gesture, and from then on the two of them seemed to begin arguing about something. With the noise level in the room, Brian couldn’t make out a single word of what was said, but their faces told the story well-enough. Evan wanted to continue in their activities, but something had Justin looking disgusted and drawing away. Had he seen that wrong or had that creeper actually kissed Justin on the mouth?! Brian gulped as he watched the blonde vampire swivel on his heel, departing hastily from the club.

“Wait,” he spoke in surprise as Justin stalked by through the throngs, and missed seeing him. “Shit.” A moment later Evan could be seen retracing the path that Justin had torn through the crowd, and Brian struggled to follow suit. He didn’t know where Justin had been storming off to, but an angry Evan at his back wouldn’t lead to anything good. So Brian followed.

---

Justin hurried down the sidewalk, oblivious to his surroundings as he fumed inside his head. How could Evan have acted like that?! How could he have been so callous? The blonde felt disgust roil in the pit of his stomach. Disgust at Evan, at the other vampires in there, even at the humans who were stupid enough to enter. But most of all, he felt disgust at himself. Because he’d liked it.

He’d walked into that club and thrilled at the ample opportunity for him to take whatever he wanted. The humans throwing themselves all over him, the choice to feed or fuck or both right there in the open without fear of reprisal, had excited him and he’d gone willingly into the haze. For once, he hadn’t felt like one of the out-group. Far from it, he’d been very in. All the violent thoughts that he entertained by nature had, for a brief time, been released. And he’d liked it.

Justin looked up, realizing that he’d walked quite a ways in his haste, not exactly having paid attention to just where he was going. He’d come to a stop between an old parking lot and a deli that’d closed for the night. He breathed in the cold night air, watching it steam on the exhale. There was a group of about four or five men standing around near the entrance to the lot, eyeing him up threateningly.

Justin swallowed, wishing he’d worn a coat. He probably stood out like a sore thumb, standing there in his sleeveless club shirt with nary a goose pimple. He looked again to see how the men were stirring as they watched him. Shit. Justin knew he should turn around. He probably hadn’t even walked that far from Thrall…

“Justin!” Justin turned the other way, nearly wincing as he saw Evan hurrying down the sidewalk. “Wait a second!” The wiry vampire reached his friend, grabbed his face, and laid a firm kiss square on his lips. Justin was shocked, until the other man pulled back and beseeched in purely platonic fashion, “I wasn’t trying to force you into anything you didn’t want. I just thought we should try something different. Now do you see why L.A. is such a bad idea?”

“I see why Pittsburgh is a bad idea…” Justin tried to pay attention to what Evan was saying. But even though he’d figured the kiss that had just occurred to be one of friendly greeting—like Brian always planted on Michael, the stirring men to the side obviously had not. They stepped even closer and Justin got Evan’s attention to redirect to the threat heading their way.

“What do we have here?” Evan asked, voice anxious. Justin would have said he sounded worried, and given that one of the men had led the pack to step away from their spot and come closer, he also wouldn’t have argued that worried was a bad thing to be. “Hey, what do you want?” Evan preempted, ignoring his friend’s warning glare,

“Come on Evan, let’s just go. These guys look like trouble.”

“What do you two fags think you’re doing out here?” the leader growled.

“Um, what does it look like? Kissing. What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen two vampires making out before?” To demonstrate his point, he grabbed Justin to him again, smashing their lips together in an uncoordinated kiss. Justin could have smacked him.

“Vampire?”

“They’re fucking vampires?”

“Fags! They’re probably from that sleazy place down the block.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Justin hissed lowly to his friend, shoving away from the kiss. The men were coming closer, confrontation in their eyes. It had every muscle in Justin’s body tense, and that was compounded by the fact that when the blonde look to his side, the same wild look of confrontation was burning in Evan’s eyes, too. The man was ready for a fight. “Evan,” he repeated, “Let’s just go. They can’t outrun us.”

“Why the fuck should we run?” the dark haired man asked incredulously. “You assholes better get lost if you know what’s good for you,” Evan told them. “And we’ll fucking kiss, and fuck, and do whatever the hell else we want to right here. And if you don’t like it you can suck my dick.”

“Evan, stop this!”

“You won’t be fucking, and I won’t be sucking, anything. Because I’m going to pull your goddamned dick off and feed it to you, you disgusting bloodsucker!” The men were close enough now for a fight to break out...

“Ooh, sounds kinky. I can’t WAIT!”

…and with Evan’s continued attitude, it soon did.

Justin inhaled sharply as two of the men rushed forward and grabbed at Evan’s arms. A third looked ready to punch his lights out, but the wiry vampire had tossed the first two like they were ragdolls, sending them careening into the third. Then the remaining two of the five came at Justin.

Years of Krav classes had one man on his knees in tears, the other breathlessly clutching his windpipe. And Justin still felt scared shitless as the rush of adrenaline shook him. Far from dissuading the other men, the blonde vampire’s prowess spurred them on. The leader pulled out a switchblade. “Motherfucker. I am so done with seeing you freaks in my neighborhood.”

“Justin!”

Justin turned again, this time to see an even less welcome face approaching. “Brian?” he breathed, feeling his heart sink. Oh shit. What blood he had consumed that night drained clear out of his face. “Brian, leave. Now!” Suddenly, the fear he’d felt at the prospect of being physically accosted skyrocketed exponentially. Justin jerked his eyes back to the weapon that had been produced, and the man who was brandishing it. He silently thanked whatever god there was that the human hadn’t pulled a gun. “Put it away,” he said loudly to the man. “We haven’t done anything to you. We’re leaving, you hear me?! Leaving!” Justin took a step away, but three men left standing were not to be so easily deflected.

“I SAID: I’m done with you freaks.”

“Kill him Ronnie! Stick him!”

Justin lunged to the side as the man surged forward with the knife. Electric blue eyes had a split second to meet Evan’s, their outrageous gaze speaking volumes. “Look what you’ve done,” they said. Evan simply stood there like he’d proved yet another point, though this time a less-appealing one.

Brian wasn’t listening to directions either, it seemed. One minute Justin was fighting off the rapid knife attack, and the next he felt the older man at his side, trying to intercede on his behalf. Justin didn’t even think before he shoved Brian as hard as he physically could. The brunette landed on his ass nearly six yards away. And when it became clear that the man intended to get up again, Justin screamed at Evan to hold him down. “NOW!” Justin yelled again as a sickeningly close swipe of the blade grazed his arm. “Hold him down if you know what’s good for you!”

Brian’s protests could be heard as he cursed the vampire out. But Justin didn’t even look their way. His eyes had locked with the leader of this attack. His two remaining friends seemed to be hovering behind, waiting to see just exactly what would happen. “One of you is going to die if you don’t stop,” Justin gasped as he dodged yet another swipe. His arm was already aching where it’d been sliced, and Justin didn’t have to look down to see that it was deep.

But the man didn’t give up. He kept attacking, his friends kept watching, Brian kept screaming and Evan kept holding him down. The world had gone mad and Justin was at the end of it all. When the man came forward to slash again, Justin swiftly broke his arm.

---

Someone had called the police. Justin wasn’t sure if it’d been Brian, but with three immobilized humans and another two scared too shitless to move, that didn’t leave many other options. Whoever it’d been, it didn’t matter. It was inevitable anyways. Street fights tended to attract attention that way.

The police had shown up, and it had become quite apparent quite quickly, that they didn’t want to hear Justin’s story. It hadn’t helped that the slice on his arm had knitted seamlessly together while his attackers still lay groaning on the pavement. And so the five thugs who’d accosted them were towed away in ambulances,  Justin in a squad car.

By the time all the action was drawing to a close at the station, dawn was fast approaching. Justin stood by the station’s release desk, signing the last of the paperwork that would have him bailed out. “Jesus,” he complained as he handed the last one over. “We have to hurry if I don’t want to spend the entire day here.”

“We?” Brian was standing at his back, holding the little baggie of what few personal effects the blonde vampire had had confiscated from him. “Aren’t you going back to the studio?” His eyes blazed at the younger man. “I’m sure Evan’s tucked away in his coffin, just waiting for you.”

“I can’t go back there.” Justin didn’t try to meet Brian’s eyes as he said it. “I don’t want to see him right now.”

“I think I can understand why. Now: where exactly are ‘we’ going?”

“Look Brian, I wasn’t asking to go home with you. It just slipped out.” Justin scuffed his shoe along the floor’s tiles. It had slipped out, but in truth: where the hell else did he have to go? He finally allowed himself to look Brian square in the face. “I’ll be fine. Why don’t you just go? You’ve done enough already.”

He’d done more than enough. Brian had called Melanie, and he’d called Carl. Each of those two individuals were probably about equally responsible for why the young blonde was currently about to walk out of the station while it was still dark outside, rather than sit in some holding cell for a day. But more importantly, Brian stuck up for Justin in the face of all the questioning the detectives had rained down on them. As another vampire, Evan was a loose cannon, but Brian had been the only human witness to speak on Justin’s behalf, and he truly had. If the blonde was ever indicted on the charges pending, he knew that he could count on the older man to go to bat for him.

That knowledge meant more to Justin than he could ever explain. On the car ride back to the loft, he said quietly, “Thank you. For what you did.”

Brian kept his eyes locked on the road. “I just told them the truth. You didn’t start the fight.”

“You didn’t see who started it,” Justin whispered.

“I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t have. Besides,” Brian countered, “those men were thugs. I’m sure they’ll make that clear to anybody who interviews them, even if it has to be Mel at your trial.”

Justin gulped at the word ‘trial,’ hardly having gotten that far in his thoughts yet.

“We’re here.” Brian’s voice was subdued as he quickly removed himself from the vehicle. Justin sighed at the distance between them, and unlatched his seatbelt to follow suit.

As Brian flicked the lights on and Justin closed the loft’s door, the younger man fretted aloud, “You don’t really think I’ll have to go to trial, do you?”

Brian shrugged, already having gone to the kitchen to pour himself a drink. The time on a nearby clock showed it to be nearly four thirty AM. “You want anything?” he asked flatly.

“Double vodka, neat.” Brian raised his eyes from the kitchen, earning a shrug off the younger man, “I had to toss my favors when the cops showed up. And I could use a drink.” Brooding, the blonde went to sit on the couch. “Not that it matters. Everything’s so screwed up anyways.” Brian arrived with their drinks and sat, watching quietly and pointedly as Justin took hasty sips of his drink. After long moments, Justin caved under the stare. “What? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

A shrug. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you’re thinking!”

Brian looked annoyed, his posture keeping him distanced from the young man even though they sat so close together on the couch. “I’m thinking a lot of things,” he said finally. The old fashioned was lifted to his lips and lowered. “I’m thinking about what it was like to watch that man try and kill you, while I lay there…” he trailed off, lost in the thoughts he’d revealed. “You were very lucky tonight,” he finally whispered at the vampire to his side. His eyes lifted to meet muted blue ones. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I don’t feel lucky.”

“You could have done any one of a dozen horrible things to someone in that nightclub, but you didn’t. You could have done worse to those humans on the street, but you didn’t. You could have been caught with all those drug on you when the cops arrived, but you weren’t.” Brian paused, finishing with stricken vocal cords, “You could have died.”

“Oh please,” Justin scowled. He was far more durable than that now. “Listen—”

“No you listen!” The darker man’s voice had whittled down to a hiss of aggravation. “I’m sick of watching you almost die.” Brian shuddered as he took another swig of his drink. Bashing, bombing, drowning, stabbing. He’d had enough of thinking that his world was about to end. “Please don’t make me have to do it ever again.” Continuing before the blonde could get a word in edgewise, he added, “You were walking a fine line with Evan and his way of doing things. Tonight you fell off. What’s it going to take for you to see that what he’s leading you into is no good?”

“Maybe nothing.” Justin drank more from his glass, relishing the burn. “Maybe I already knew that. I just didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that there was a world where we could do those things freely. But it was a lie; those people in there weren’t giving anything freely.”

“They were junkies,” Brian supplied, remembering what Aiden had once told him:

“Drinking from the vein can be addictive.”

“For the vampire?”

“…For the human.”

“I didn’t get it until I saw,” Justin was admitting. “I don’t want to infect people like that. I just don’t know where else I’m going to find people who are willing to let me, you know,” he frowned, “eat. I can’t spend the rest of my life drinking that bottled stuff like Aiden. It’s no way to live.” Justin sighed forlornly, not knowing a solution and not expecting Brian to offer one.

“What about one person?” Brian hedged quietly.

“One person what?”

“To feed off of.” Brian tried to contain a smirk at the irony of his next words: “Dietary monogamy.”

“Just one?”

Brian shrugged. “It’d be safer than cruising around in places like Thrall every night.” It was some advice coming from him, the king of promiscuity, but he let the younger man soak in the idea.

Justin imagined it; feeding off of the same human for most of his meals. It sounded like an okay idea, but… further consideration had him abandoning the notion. “Oh come on Brian: who would even do that? They’d just be some junkie I took advantage of. I can’t do that to some stranger. It wouldn’t be right.” Justin winced through another gulp of the strong liquor he’d asked for, the silence of the room descending heavily upon them again.

Brian nodded wordlessly at the blonde’s statement, staring anywhere but at Justin as he considered the insane offer he was about to make. His heart was hammering before he’d even opened his mouth to speak the words, “What about me?”

“What about you?”

Brian glanced over. Justin was sullenly contemplating his drink. He didn’t seem to understand what the older man had said yet. “What about me... being your one person?”

There was a long moment where Justin finally tensed in realization, and then another moment before he dragged his eyes over to meet hazel ones. “You’re not serious.”

“Crazy as it is…” Brian trailed off.

“Brian… You don’t mean that. You always said you’d never do that. You detest the thought.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You can’t.”

Brian scoffed in annoyance. “Stop telling me what I mean and what I think.”

From his position on the couch, Justin looked utterly conflicted. His brow crumpled as he sat there considering the outrageous offer his lover had just made. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I couldn’t. You don’t know what you’re offering.”

“I think I know exactly what I’m offering,” Brian quipped. “I was in that club too, Sunshine. I saw them.”

“You’d be addicted!”

A private smirk curved the older man’s mouth, and he muttered quietly, “Would that be so different from now?” He was already addicted to Justin at this point, Brian thought sadly. It’d just taken him losing Justin’s love to realize it. “I don’t want you putting yourself at risk, trying to get what you need or what you think you need. So I’m offering this. Take it from me.”

Justin looked as if he never would have expected such an offer from the darker man. But he also hadn’t made any move to flee. Blue eyes considered him long and hard, a war of some sort playing out beneath their surface. “I think I shouldn’t have asked for a double,” he mumbled, warily eyeing the near-empty glass in his hand. “Because I’m actually considering this. Brian I’m really scared.”

“About drinking my blood?”

“No.” The blonde shook his head. “About what happened tonight. About going to jail.”

“You’re not going to go to jail. That little shit hasn’t gotten you that deep in it yet.”

Justin winced at the mention of Evan. “He seemed right about so much. Like he knew everything. He used to talk a lot like you, actually. He’d say: ‘There’s only two kinds of humans. The ones that hate you to your face, and the ones that hate you behind your back.’” The blonde vampire smirked humorlessly. "Well he certainly proved his point tonight."

“Did he really say that?”

“…Only after I’d quoted you.”

Brian smiled at the thought of the kid thinking of him even when they’d been apart. Reaching to take Justin’s glass, he set it carefully on the coffee table so that he could hold his hand instead. “Justin look at me. Now listen. Are you listening? Saying that about straight people? It’s wrong. It’s not true. And it’s not true about humans either. I can be your case in point: I don’t hate you. I love you.”

“Brian…”

“I know you don’t feel the same,” Brian rushed determinedly. “I’m not asking you to say that you do. But I don’t want to see you get hurt or in trouble anymore. So from now on, keep a six pack in your fridge for emergencies. And if you want real blood,” he inhaled deeply, steeling himself for his next words, “then have mine.”

Justin looked utterly wrecked at what Brian was offering him. “Why are you doing this?” he nearly whispered. “You’re the most selfish man I know. We’re not even together. Why are you doing this now?”

Brian kept his lips sealed tight. “Because I want to,” he lied. There wasn’t any way he could ever imagine actually wanting Justin to bite him, but the kid didn’t need to know that. Maybe he was doing this to try and keep his Sonnyboy safe, but maybe it was also his last ditch effort not to lose him. It may have been the truth, but he didn’t speak that truth aloud. In his head, the words that Lindsay had spoken to him in the loft echoed unbidden: ‘I also know that everybody comes to a point where they have to make concessions for the ones they love.’ Brian gulped, thinking that this would have to be his concession for Justin. His one, grand gesture. “Well?” he breathed finally, seeing that Justin was on the verge of agreeing. He moved closer to the blonde, allowing himself to touch his face familiarly.

“I shouldn’t…”

“Stay,” Brian coerced softly. “Stay with me tonight, and do this.” He stood, drawing the smaller man up with him. His hands found their place at Justin’s sides and he pressed their foreheads together. “You have to find a way to fit into the human world. The path he’s leading you down won’t work.”

“I’m going to L.A. in two days,” Justin protested. “He won’t be there. And neither will you.”

But Brian was shaking his head even as they stood so intimately close. “Don’t go,” he stated as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “Don’t use Keller as a way out of all your problems.”

Justin was about to protest again, to say that he couldn’t stay when what he had with Evan wasn’t working, and what had with Brian wasn’t working. And L.A. was his chance of a lifetime. He wanted to tell Brian all of these things, but the words stalled in his throat at the way Brian was holding him, and the way his eyes and his voice implored him. But most of all the offer of Brian’s blood, and presumptively his body, had the young man betraying his promise to himself. Because he knew it would feel so good to have both.

When the darker man moved to kiss him, Justin didn’t pull away. He kissed back.

And once they began, Justin knew he wouldn’t stop. His heart sunk as Brian kissed him passionately, hands sliding over his body. The events of the past twenty four hours had left Justin scared and unsure and desperate for anything solid. And now here it was, being delivered so effortlessly into his arms. He lost control of his better judgment, and followed Brian up to the bedroom.