Pairing: Joey and Lance
Words: fetch; obliterate; blunder; darkroom


Other people have sun rooms.  Lance has a darkroom.

Of course, he isn't exactly people anymore, but seeing as how it
hasn't come up yet, he isn't going to make the classic villain
blunder of revealing himself.  Besides.  He likes his unlife.

Joey rings the bell twelve times before letting himself in. 
"Lance?  Lance?"  He wanders through the house calling, ending up
in the basement.

One of the benefits to putting his darkroom in the basement, beside
the lack of windows, is that the earth around him shelters him from
the constant bombardment of life forces he gets when he's above the
ground.  Sure, pop stars have people offering up their bodies to
them every day, but that doesn't make the neighbors fair game.

So he doesn't sense Joey until he's almost on top of him.

"Joey," Lance acknowledges from the depths of his chair.

Joey jumps, then walks around Lance's chair.  "Jesus, man.  What
the fuck are you doin' hidin' in the basement?"

"I like it here."

"It's all dark and stuff."

"You want some light?"  Lance snaps his fingers.  The lights come
on.

Joey blinks.  "Um.  Dude?  You're acting kinda strange."

"How's that, Joey?"  Lance gives him an inviting smile.

Joey shifts from foot to foot.  "You... Lance?  What's happening?"
he asks, unable to tear his eyes away.

"Nothing's happening that hasn't already happened, Joey.  Don't
worry about it."

Joey moves forward slowly, mesmerized.  "I wanna know.  What's
happening."  He feels like he might be making a huge blunder, but
he can't stop.  And he doesn't want to, because Lance is his best
and closest friend.

Lance stands up, still smiling.  "Why don't I fetch us something to
drink?  We can head upstairs if you'll be more comfortable there."

"Lance?"  Joey's hand shoots out to grab Lance's wrist.  It's cold.

Lance turns his hand easily in Joey's grasp making no attempt to
hide the casual strength that he could use to crush the bones in
Joey's hand if he chose.  But, instead of that, he threads his
fingers through Joey's.  "Upstairs.  You'll feel better in the
light."

Joey follows, rising from a crouch he didn't realize he'd fallen
into.

Lance checks the position of the sun automatically as he heads
upstairs.  Sunlight won't instantly obliterate him, but too much
and too direct won't be pleasant either.  It's not really
necessary.  He's renovated the house so there's only a few unsafe
spots and those only if the sun is right there and there are no
clouds.

Joey wonders what the hell is happening.  "What the hell is
happening?"

Lance leads Joey into the kitchen and gets Joey a beer.  He grabs
himself a Zima.  "I've died, Joey."

"You... you what?"

"I died.  And sit down before you fall over.  I gave you alcohol
for a reason, you know."

Joey sits and drains his beer.  "Why aren't you dead, then?"

"I am.  I'm undead."

"See?  That's not dead.  So how are you undead?"

Lance gives him a fond smile and shakes his head.  "Joey, Joey,
Joey.  You get the heebie-jeebies over my basement, but my
undeadness is nothing to you.  I'm a vampire, Joey."

Joey cocks his head.  "How did you get to be a vampire?"

"Usual way.  Usual if you add in the whole fame thing.  Psycho fan
who decided she didn't want her idol to ever die.  Only problem is,
now I *am* dead, and I can still die again -- I'm just not going to
age.  Or maybe *that* was the point."  He looks reflective.  "Hard
to say, since I killed her."

"Y-you killed her?"

"Yes.  If I'd been alive at the time, it'd nearly be a clear-cut
case of self-defense.  As it is... she killed me.  Without asking
me first if this was what I wanted.  Think of it as protecting
others against the same kind of 'kindness'.  I'm fairly sure the
police would have been of no use."

Joey sniffs.  "Well, I think you're selfish."

"*Selfish?*"  Of all the things Joey could possibly have chosen to
say, that isn't anything that would have occurred to Lance.  "How's
that?"

"You didn't share.  You didn't even tell me, and you know that I
want to know all about you.  But you just kept your little secret
so you'd have something I didn't know because you thought you knew
better than me what I could handle."

"I just told you though."

"Still not sharing."

Lance sighs.  "Try to forgive me for being a little untrusting.  I
still remember the whole fuss over me coming out, after all.  And
that was a lot less scary than my drinking blood."

"I didn't fuss," Joey reminds him quietly.  He hadn't, either. 
He'd kissed Lance under the mistletoe.

"But you didn't say anything when Chris managed to dye me blue.  Or
about Justin not speaking to me for a month or more and refusing to
be near me on stage."  Or the ass pinching and the toothy 'kisses'
that Chris had harassed him with less publicly.

"I did.  Just not to you."  Joey'd had permanently skinned knuckles
from fist fights with Chris.  Never hitting in the face, though,
because they both knew better.

"Oh.  If I'd known that, then maybe."

"You know now."

"And so do you."

"Yep.  Share."

"Um.  Share what?  I'm a vampire.  Evil creature of the night. 
We've both seen Buffy."

"Share evil, then."  Joey pauses a second before asking, "D'you eat
people?"

"It depends on what you mean."

"Do you feed on them?"

"Yes."

"Do you kill them?"

"Other than the one I already told you about, no."

"Can I see your game face?"

Lance rolls his eyes.  "That's just a TV thing.  My teeth feel a
little different from the inside.  Not in a sharp pointy way, but
more porous or something.  A dentist'd probably know, but I don't
think it's anything you can see."

"But you can feel it?  What else is different?"

"Sun's bad.  But it's mostly the direct stuff.  Overcast and cloudy
doesn't bother me, and I can look at the sunshine outside just fine
as long as I'm not in it.  None of that turning to dust stuff
though.  It's more like third degree burn stuff.  I haven't tried
staying in it any longer than that.  And I'm stronger now.  I don't
think it's really an increase in my strength so much as the being
dead part.  Like, you know, how mothers can throw Volkswagens off
their children?  Strength I already had, except I can use it
anytime.  Uh.  I can tell when people are around.  Less downstairs. 
And it makes me hungry.  Like smelling steaks roasting on a
barbecue."

"Are you hungry now?"

Lance nods.

"How often do you need to eat?"

Lance shrugs.  "Haven't found out yet.  I don't know what the
difference is between diet and gluttony, much less between either
of them and a well-balanced meal.  I haven't woken out of a sound
sleep to grab some passing newspaper boy for a snack yet, but I
haven't reached a point either where the feel of life makes me feel
sick with fullness."

Joey tilts his head.  "So.  You're not starving, and you've been
eating, what, half a person a day?  A quarter person every other
day?"

"How are you counting people?  I... I understand the need for
secrecy.  There's the vampire thing, but there's also the publicity
angle."  Lance's mouth twists.  "I'm trying to be discreet, but I'm
still getting a reputation for someone with a kink for bloodplay on
the local club scene.  I'll have to do something about that fairly
soon.  Maybe head somewhere else for a while."

Joey sighs.  "D'you think one person could feed you?"

"Don't even think about it, Joey."

"Why not?"

He hadn't thought about this as a reason for not telling Joey,
because it hadn't occurred to him that anyone's response to the
news could be positive.  But this would have been one of the
reasons.  "I don't know that one person could do it, no.  There
should probably be the same amount of time in between as people do
for blood donations.  And then there's the other part."

"What's that?"

"Isn't it enough that it isn't possible?"

"No.  I want to know why."

"Isn't the fact that you can't lose that much blood and survive
enough?"

"Lance, I once donated blood every day for a week, and I was fine."

Lance sighs.  "There's something sexual about it, okay?  Not for
the person on your end, but for me.  I get off on it.  And it makes
it easier in a way.  To find people.  Because there's people who
get off on getting cut.  They find the pain erotic, and I get the
blood.  Everyone's happy."  His mouth twists.  "Except for Johnny
and our publicists if the news ever gets out.  I've become quite
the slut."

"Nah, I'm still the slut.  Nevermind that I haven't fucked anyone
since Kelly and I broke up this last time.  But that's mostly
because I'm all hot and bothered by you."  Joey smiles a little,
waiting for Lance to kill him.

Lance's face goes blank.  "That's not funny or fair."

"It's not a joke, and I can't make life fair for you."

"It's not fair for you to throw this at me when I've just told you
you're like the best cut of New York steak ever sizzling on the
grill.  I *want* to.  So much.  But I can't do that to you."

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Joey.  Not my dinner."

"So, you couldn't share this with me and still see me as a person?"

"I don't want to find out I can't."

Joey slides from his chair and hugs Lance close.  "I think you can. 
Besides, I don't let anybody see me as meat.  Except a million
teenies, but they don't count."

Lance doesn't pull away, but his mouth quirks.  "Now I'm seeing
*them* as meat.  It's a different perspective."  He pauses.  In a
quieter voice, he says, "And there's the pain.  Being cut.  It's
not your thing."

Joey shrugs.  "I've done it before.  It's not really bad, it's just
that the person I was with -- there was no connection."  He frowns. 
"Why can't you just bite people?"

"You ever try biting into someone with your teeth?  It doesn't
leave two nice neat puncture parks, and it gets you a lot more
flesh than blood.  Plus a nice set of easily identifiable through
dental records evidence on the victim.  And you could hurt them. 
Accidentally.  No."

"Huh.  That's not very evolutionarily handy, is it?"

"I don't think vampires are supposed to survive.  Undead
bloodsuckers evil, remember?"

"That's stupid."  Joey sighs.  "So.  Eat me?"

"Joey..."  Lance is about a half an inch from being able to nuzzle
Joey's neck.  An action with a lot more meaning now.

Joey kisses Lance.

Lance slides off the chair and into Joey's arms.  He nips at the
corner of Joey's mouth, just enough to break the skin and laps.

Joey moans quietly and, when Lance pulls back briefly, runs his own
teeth over the place, opening it further.

Lance wants to warn him again, but when Joey bites his own lips,
Lance loses the capability.  He's strode right up to the barbecue,
plucked the steak off, and by God or whoever, he was going to eat
it.

He pulls Joey up by his arms, never letting go of his mouth, and
walks him backward, grabbing a knife from the drawer.  "Bed," he
says hoarsely.  "Unless you want it here on the floor."

Joey goes to the bed.

Lance follows him hungrily.  Most of the people who he picks up
have their own gear.  In this day and age, no one trusts anyone,
and everyone who's into bloodplay has their own supply of sterile
surgical scalpels.  Or whatever they prefer.  Lance has some too. 
But not for Joey.

Joey stands next to the bed.  "Can we strip?"

"You mean you want to do it yourself?" Lance asks, advancing on
him.  He sets the knife down by the bed.  He's already unbuttoning
his cuffs.

"Well.  I dunno.  I just wanted to be naked.  If that's okay.  I
mean... it's sexy for you, right?"

"Yes."  Lance has his sleeves undone and unbuttoning his shirt.

"Mind if it's sexy for me, too?" Joey asks, stripping quickly.

"No."  Lance is naked to the waist.  He watches Joey with hot eyes.

Joey smiles nervously and sits on the bed.  "Okay."

Lance pushes him backward and kneels over him.  "You want yours
first?" he asks in a low purr, hands running over Joey's chest. 
"It'll hurt less then, and it won't seem so strange."

Joey reaches up, pulling Lance down to hold him for a minute.  "I
love you, Lance."

Lance shudders and for a moment, there's a different person behind
his eyes.  "Please don't, Joey.  It's hard enough doing this to
you, and it's worse when you.  If you.  Make it about something
else."

"It is about something else."

Lance collapses on top of him.  "I love you," he whispers.

Joey smiles, kissing Lance softly.  "Then let me help you, baby. 
Let me make you feel good."

"I want to eat you, Joey.  I want to take everything you have, not
just what you'll give me.  I want it all."

"We always want everything from people.  It's normal."

"This is different.  I could hurt you."  He lifts his head.  "I
want to.  And I think you'd let me."

"I might.  But not more than once."

Lance nods.  "Okay."

Joey smiles.  "See?  Not too bad."

"Keep telling yourself that, Joey," Lance says.  "Keep telling me
that too.  Until I believe it."  And reaches for the knife.