Archive of Our Own

Michael is gross. 

He thought he knew what it was like to feel disgusting. Thought he understood feeling sticky with sweat, or reeking after a baseball game under the Arizona sun. Thought he’d felt nasty before, skin crawling with a flu or puking his guts out the first (and last) time he got really drunk. 

It’s nothing compared to how he feels now.

It’s been over a week since his last shower. Every time he tries to jam a quick hand under a faucet, he gets burned, and it takes hours to heal. His hair feels somehow oily and frizzy at the same time. Everything is itchy, his skin prickling all over. And he can definitely smell himself. 

Sam’s pointed commentary had reached a whole new level, like he’s been sneaking peeks at the dictionary for more creative ways to tell Michael he stinks. And even Mom seems to be eyeing him with extra concern, clearly trying to find the right words for why are you so filthy, honey? So it’s not, like, great to be home. Or around other people at all, it being more or less equally awful whether they’re regarding him with concern or disgust.

Not wanting to be home, and not wanting to be anywhere else, Michael had found himself trudging across the black sand beach towards the Coronado ironworks. The band doesn’t have a gig, and Star has slipped out for a night with Nova, so it’s relatively quiet. He’s spent most of the early evening slumped on the couch, only distantly paying attention to the game of keepaway the guys are playing with one of Marko’s old hats. 

It does help, actually. Being around them. He thinks a lot of it might have to do with how here, he can be the most miserably awful version of himself, and no one will think any less of him for it. So far, if they’ve even noticed, they haven’t felt the need to comment. And when it becomes clear that Michael wants to be left alone, they seem happy to ignore him. 

With one obvious, glaring exception: David keeps trying to touch him. 

“Stay away from me,” Michael finally snaps, hands outstretched, the third time that David tries to grab him by the arm and pull him in.

David, who had been halfway through some sort of joke about something that happened at last night’s gig, pauses, and then drops his arms with a sigh. He looks disappointed, like Michael is being very boring. 

“Michael, please,” He says, extending both hands palms-up, like a show of peace. “No one here is going to hurt you, we’re–”

“Not like that,” Michael groans, and scrubs his face with his hands. “I stink.”

David pauses, reassessing. And then slowly, he smiles. 

“You what?”

“I smell, man,” Michael pushes himself up off the couch and takes a sharp step away from him. “You could have told me this was part of… all of this! I haven’t been able to shower in forever. I feel gross, I smell gross– I’m supposed to just live like this? Forever?”

And kill people in order to do it, was the main point just a few days ago. But honestly, Michael might be able to justify a little homicide if it meant he could have the feeling of being properly clean again. 

Michael’s outburst has drawn the attention of the other guys, Marko’s hat sailing unattended off into the shadowy depths of the room, as they turn to grin at each other, and draw closer. 

“Why don’t you just—“ Marko starts to say, but David claps a heavy hand on his shoulder and cuts him off with a laugh. 

“Take a sand bath down under the pier with you and the boys? Michael isn’t the public nudity type.”

Marko laughs. David turns a knowing grin Michael’s way, as though saying of course you aren’t, are you? Something about the assumption bothers Michael, even though he knows that doesn’t make sense. He is definitely not into public nudity, of course. But he could be, David doesn’t know. 

“Wouldn’t think so.” Dwayne says with a grin. “Though we could be wrong.”

“Are we wrong?” Paul asks, hand on his chin like he’s giving the matter deep thought.

“Yeah, are we wrong, Michael?” Marko says, tilting his head towards David with a smile. David keeps his eyes on Michael, still grinning at him. 

Michael grits his teeth. He doesn’t want to argue with them like he actually is into the whole…public naked sand bathing thing. What the hell? How… how would that even work? He decides he doesn’t want to know. And certainly isn’t going to ask, when they’re already laughing at him.

“So that’s my only option?” He asks David, ignoring the rest of them. “Scrub down with sand or just… smell like shit forever?”

“No, no,” David says, waving a hand lazily in the air. “Don’t worry. It’s an easy solution. Come on, I’ve got something that will help.”

“Should we stick around?” Marko asks, as David lets him go. “Dwayne’s not smelling so great either, now you mention it.”

“Hey,” Dwayne protests, as Paul takes an exaggerated sniff his way and fake-gags. 

“You boys go on ahead,” David waves a languid hand. “I’ll just show Michael the lay of the land, and catch up with you after.”

Despite Michael’s earlier protests, David loops an arm around his neck. This time, Michael doesn’t push him off. He allows himself to be part led, part dragged towards one of the many hallways splitting off into the depths of the Ironworks. If he’s bothered by how Michael smells, with his own set of extra-powerful senses, it doesn’t show. 

“Don’t mind them,” David says, as they step into the darkness together. “It’s been a long time since they’ve had to worry about this, themselves. They forget how much they had to learn at the beginning.”

Michael blinks hard, distracted from what David is saying. He’s just realized that although there’s no light in this hallway, he can make out the contours of the empty doorframes and staircases they pass without a problem. It’s not quite like night vision in the movies. It’s more like… like a sketch done in wispy gray pencil has been laid over his vision, tracing out the outlines of corners he shouldn’t be able to see, and missing floorboards he shouldn’t know how to avoid. 

He sucks in a surprised breath, and David draws him in a little closer. Presses his hand against Michael’s chest absently, as though to feel the passage of air there, before letting it drop again. He doesn’t otherwise acknowledge it. 

So it’s a relief, when they finally stop in front of a door that David unceremoniously kicks open, and reaches along the interior wall to flip on a light. Three lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling sputter into life, the kind with those funny long wires inside that give off a warm, orangey kind of glow. Weird vampire night vision vanishes, and Michael hopes he can just push it to the back of his mind, along with all the other weird vampire developments.

The room reminds Michael of the old Chemistry Lab at his high school, kind of. The walls are lined with cabinets, the doors thick slabs of wood that now hang loosely from their hinges. Several of the cabinets are missing their doors entirely, exposing depths of uneven shelving. There’s a big industrial sink against the far wall, and drains set in the floor. There are two black-topped long tables in the center of the room that have the look of work stations, meant for heavy use. 

Set between the tables is a metal tub. It’s around two feet tall, maybe four feet long. Definitely not long enough for Michael to lie down in, but certainly big enough for him to sit inside. 

Which is possibly the point. He looks sharply at David, who has been leaning against the wall, watching him take it all in. 

“Here you are, Michael,” he says with a grin. “This five-star establishment comes with many accommodations, including a full bathroom.”

Michael huffs a laugh, taking another look around the room. Apart from the tub, everything has an air of being untouched, close to falling apart, or both. There are footsteps tracked in the dusty floor, so someone’s been in here not too long ago. But there’s still enough dust and dirt to show the footsteps.

“Five star, huh?” He says dryly. 

“Only the best for you,” David says. 

You spoil me, is what Michael thinks he’s going to say. But he locks his jaw down tight around the words. He’d thought that was what David wanted to do, before. Hoped it was, anyway, in a secret small part of his heart. But then all the blood and death came into things, so. Michael’s not totally sure about that anymore.

“How is this going to work?” Michael says instead, not looking away from David’s eyes. “I don’t see how this is getting around the whole water thing.”

“It gets around it,” David says, closing the door behind him and turning thoughtfully towards the cabinets. “By not bringing water into it at all. You’re going to take a bath in oil.” 

That surprises a laugh out of Michael. “Oh yeah? Gonna cover me with bread crumbs first? Serve me up with ketchup?”

“Don’t give me any ideas, Michael,” David grins at him. “No, the oil won’t be hot. But it’ll clean you up, get you feeling better. Smelling better, certainly.” 

“Huh,” Michael looks thoughtfully in the tub. He actually will be sitting in there, apparently. “This is what you do, too?”

“Sure,” David says easily. He slides out of the long black jacket, resting it on the top of one of the big black tables. Michael’s eyes snag on the shape of his arms, the definition in his biceps, before he can redirect them. 

David clearly notices, but doesn’t seem to mind. He comes closer, picking up Michael’s unresisting hand in one of his. He presses Michael’s palm over the curve of his shoulder, and slowly draws it down his own arm. 

“Feel that?” David says, voice low. His focus is intent on Michael’s face, lips quirked up in a slightly mocking smile that doesn’t reach his eyes at all.

“Feel–?” Michael says haltingly. 

“Soft, right?” David says quietly. “An oil bath is great for that, too.”

“Great,” Michael echoes. 

“Great,” David confirms. He steps back, letting Michael’s hand slide off his arm. “You want to give it a try?”

“Uh,” Michael flexes his fingers a little. The skin of David’s arm had felt soft. Slightly cool to the touch, as though he’d just stepped out of the ocean. Or come in from the rain. Neither an actual possibility, Michael knows now. Though either would be more believable than the truth. 

Still. His arm had been soft to the touch, and firm with the muscle underneath. Michael tries to will away the tingle that’s left behind in his fingertips. 

Shit, it’s hard to think clearly lately. Feeling like his own skin is all prickles and jabs on the inside. The desire to get clean isn’t just about bathing, he knows that. There’s a stain growing in him that he’s afraid won’t wash out. His hands are clean now, somewhat, but how long can they stay that way? The way he feels right now, the sense of wrongness and discomfort and fear that he’ll never get right again? Yeah, it’s bad enough on its own, but it’s about more than just smelling bad.

A bath won’t fix all that. But shit, maybe it’ll give him just a shred of enough peace that he can at least look at the rest of it without feeling like he’s drowning in helpless rot. 

“Yeah,” Michael says. “I’ll give it a try.”

“Great,” David says immediately. “You get comfortable, and I’ll see what I can dig up.”

He turns towards the cabinets with a satisfied smile, whistling a low tune. He opens and shuts doors with a brisk focus, muttering quietly to himself in annoyance when most of them turn out to be empty, or stuffed with contents that aren’t apparently useful to him. Michael can only see glimpses: some books and journals, a few industrial-looking metal canisters. David mostly seems to be gathering up a variety of bottles, some of them small enough to fold into a palm, one long narrow bottle that’s the length of his forearm which he tucks absently under his armpit.

Michael stands next to the tub… trough… thing, and doesn’t know what to do with his hands. 

“Lotta rooms in this building,” he offers. “Do you have stuff in all of them?”

David’s outstretched hand seems to spasm against one of the cabinet handles, before he smoothly redirects the motion and softly closes it. 

“Couldn’t even tell you,” he says casually. “Sometimes I get wandering, and find whole rooms I’ve forgotten about. Whole hallways, even. Of course, at least a quarter of them aren’t structurally sound, so, you have to watch out.”

Michael smiles weakly. “I’ll resist the urge to explore.”

“Explore all you want. It’s not like you can get hurt anymore,” David says it so casually, and turns to face Michael with a smile. “And if you get lost, I’ll find you.”

Michael’s still trying to will his brain back into motion to make some kind of response to that, when David looks him up and down, and frowns. 

“What?” Michael says. 

“You’ve still got all your clothes on,” David says frankly. 

Michael feels his whole face heat up. “Uh–”

David raises one of the bottles in his hand, swinging it back and forth like a little bell. “Oil bath, Michael. By all means, keep them on if you want, but you’ll never get the stains out.”

The mental image of David, fussily tidying his nails with a pristine white handkerchief, flashes in and out of Michael’s memory before he can register it. Leaving nothing but a swoop of sensation in his gut behind. 

“On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind seeing the last of this particular item,” David comes closer, tugging at the sleeve of Michael’s gray shirt. “Guess you’d just have to wander around the place shirtless.”

“Or I could just wear something of yours,” Michael says, smiling so that David can tell he’s joking (he’s sort of joking). 

David doesn’t take it as a joke. David sucks in a sharp breath like Michael’s hit him, and steps in closer. He presses a hand against Michael’s collarbone, drawing it slowly across Michael’s chest to his shoulder. 

When he meets Michael’s gaze again, there’s a barely-banked frenzy in his eyes. 

“I think I’d like that,” David says. 

Michael doesn’t look away. He keeps himself very still, very aware of the slight press of nails digging into his shoulder. 

“Think I would too,” Michael admits. 

“Well,” David grins widely, showing all his teeth, then seems to shake himself off a little. He claps Michael on the shoulder and draws back, dropping the bottles down next to the trough. Michael can barely hear his next words over the clatter. “I’ll pick you out something nice after this. But for now– strip, soldier.”

He turns around again, going back to the wall of drawers, crouching down to rummage around inside. Michael is left to decide what to do next without the pressure (or assistance) of David’s eyes on him. 

Almost with a sigh, he whips his shirt off and lets it fall onto the dusty floor. He toes out of his sneakers, wobbling as he bends down to strip off his socks. Not even looking at what his hands are doing, he unbuttons his jeans and unzips his fly. Hooking both hands in the waistband, he pushes down jeans and boxers in one forceful movement, and steps into the tub before he can think himself out of all of it. 

He immediately pulls his knees up towards his chest, and feels a little bit less vulnerable. Not that that makes much sense at all, he thinks. 

It feels like a long time, waiting for David to finish whatever he’s doing over there. Michael is acutely aware of the rise of his own chest, of the texture of the hair on his shins, of the tickle of dust in his nose. He watches David’s back, the minute shift of the muscles underneath his tank. His mouth is dry; swallowing does nothing to help. 

It feels like it takes forever for David to turn, though probably Michael hasn’t taken more than a few ragged breaths. When he sees Michael sitting in the tub, waiting, he grins toothily at him. 

“You’ll feel better soon,” David says, as though rewarding Michael for good behavior.

Michael snorts a laugh, and bows his head. 

“Just smelling better would be enough for me,” he addresses the top of his knees. 

“That too,” David kneels next to the trough, picks up a bottle seemingly at random and peers at it theatrically. “Though that might depend on how you feel about patchouli.”

Michael laughs. “That stuff? My mom used to keep some sticks of it in the house, to light up when dad was away on a fishing trip.”

Sam and Michael would groan, would pretend to choke, falling over like the smoke was toxic and beg Mom to open a window. But privately, as the smell slowly diffused over the course of the weekend, Michael would find himself sniffing the air, trying to catch the places where it would linger, truly gone, that meant Dad would be coming back. Despite his wishing, it was for the best that it did ultimately fade. If Dad could smell it in the air, and if the fish hadn’t been biting, he’d nearly tear the house apart trying to find Mom’s stash, to throw the rest away.

So yeah, maybe he’d never admit it, but Michael likes the smell of patchouli a lot. It reminds him of how peace felt, however temporary. Of knowing he’d be able to relax, even if only for as long as it took for the smoke to dissipate. 

David is watching him, and Michael feels like he can hear everything Michael isn’t saying. 

“She was a real hippie,” he says instead with a forced smile, trying to lead David away from the subject even as part of him hopes that it’s a bruise David will decide to press on.

“Between you and me, I was always more of a nag champa man myself,” David says instead. He approaches the trough casually, dropping his final finds (what looks like a stack of faded handkerchiefs) and beginning the process of unbuckling his cuffs, letting them fall to the floor behind him.

“Nag…what?” Michael says, eyes fixed on the motion of David’s fingers as he tugs once, twice, and a third time on the left-hand glove. The pale back of his hand seems shocking, somehow, as it slides into view. 

“Same kind of thing,” David says airily. “More floral, maybe. The 60’s were a very… fragrant time. I don’t think my sense of smell fully recovered until ‘73.”

He pauses, partway through freeing his right hand from its glove, as though waiting for Michael to comment. Michael doesn’t know what to say. There’s knowing that David has been alive for a lot longer than he looks, and then there’s actually imagining him out there, walking the world. 

He can’t quite make it work, in his own mind. Looking at David as he is now, in his leather pants and his blonde hair sculpted high, he tries to make him fit in the old pictures he’d seen of his smiling mom and her friends on a sunny 60s beach day. He squints, a little, trying to imagine David in the background of photos from history books, flattened into monochromatic black and white or – is he that old? – gritty sepia. David is so bright before him, in full technicolor, that he can’t even really imagine it.

Part of him wants to reject it as absolutely ridiculous. This is just a guy, just a few years older than Michael, if that. But– look past the hair and the boots and the stage gear, and Michael can almost see it. In the way David settles himself down into a chair sometimes, as though he’s carefully moving under a heavy weight. Or when he tucks an arm against his side, extending one hand out elegantly to explain a point. When he fixes his eyes on Michael, and lets that curling smirk drop away. Michael can believe it then. Even if part of him still doesn’t want to.

“Is that when you got all this stuff?” Michael asks. It’s not what he’d really like to be asking, not even close, but there’s something careful in how David is looking at him. It makes Michael want to be gentle with him, strange as that feels.

“Some of it,” David says. “Some of it’s older. One or two are from just the last couple of years. I pick up a bottle here and there, when I get the chance.”

He slowly takes off his necklaces, the handful of keys tinkling gently together. Showing considerably more care than he’d given the cuffs and gloves, he lays them out on the top of the nearest table. 

“Some of them were a gift,” he says quietly, eyes on the keys. Then he blinks, smiles, and turns his back on the necklaces, as though they’ve been completely forgotten. “It comes in handy.”

“I bet,” Michael says. “It’s gotta be hard to land that regular music gig if you smell like shit.”

“Well, when it comes to booking a rock band,” David says, making a see-sawing motion with one bare hand. “It doesn’t come up as often as you’d think.”

“And there are the sand baths,” Michael says, eyebrow raised as though to call David out. 

He’s pretty sure they had been screwing with him back there. Though it is a little hard to tell, since they seem to always be sharing some sort of stupid joke that flies over his head whenever he’s around.

David laughs, and kneels next to the tub. Level with Michael now, he cards an affectionate hand through his hair. David’s always touching him, and it’s maybe surprising how little it bothers Michael, even from the start. But it’s one thing to have David touching him when he’s wrapped up in a leather jacket, jeans, and a t-shirt. It’s another thing for him to do it when Michael is sitting there, crouched naked in some sort of industrial metal bowl. 

But David’s touch is gone almost before the shudder it causes can ripple down Michael’s spine. 

“Those too,” David says. He leans in, voice dropping as though confiding a secret. “Though if it didn’t give the boys an excuse to run naked under the moon, I don’t think they’d even bother.”

“So you don’t do it?” Michael asks. 

“Mmm?” David picks up a bottle and eyes it, tumbing the lid off and taking a sniff at the contents. The smell of patchouli is immediately thick in the air, and Michael breathes it in automatically. Something unknots in his stomach. “At this point, Michael, I’ve done a little bit of everything.”

Michael doesn’t miss the double meaning there. It would be hard to, with the way David levels a heavy-lidding look at him over the neck of the bottle. That part of long vampire lives, the history implied in it, is even harder for Michael to contemplate. Not because it doesn’t make sense. Looking at David, it makes far too much sense, and Michael is almost afraid of what dwelling on that would do to him. 

“You could just answer a question once in a while, you know,” Michael says. “I promise the shock won’t kill me.”

That surprises an authentic bark of laughter out of David. “Oh, Michael,” he says, sounding delighted. 

With a smooth gesture, he raises the bottle in his hands and presses its mouth to the top of Michael’s spine. The sudden gush of liquid there wrenches an embarrassing yelp of surprise out of him. 

“No, I don’t generally join them,” David says with a grin over the sound. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get the sand out from under my nails. Among other places.”

He transfers the bottle to his other hand, and presses a palm over the place where the bottle had been. Michael doesn’t make a noise, this time, though it’s a little close. He can feel the oil trickling down his spine, the tight skin across his back loosened by its journey. Or maybe it’s David’s hand that feels like it’s loosening something in Michael’s body. It’s just a gentle pressure, though Michael thinks the impact would probably be the same if David had gripped him tight and shaken him.

“I prefer this,” David says quietly. 

“I can see why,” Michael says, automatically matching his tone. 

“Good,” David says. 

He removes his hand, and picks up one of the rags he’d grabbed, this one a green that’s faded almost to gray. With a practiced motion of his wrist, he snaps the fabric in the air a few times, unleashing a small puff of dust before pressing the cloth against Michael’s back. Michael angles his face away to stare at his own ankles, partly to try and keep from sneezing, and also because he needs the illusion of space from how close David is. How his eyes reflect the yellow filaments of the bulbs above them. How the smell of the oil makes Michael want to go boneless, and just fall back. 

The cloth makes a slow progress across the top of Michael’s back and shoulders, creeping up along the sides of his neck. It’s not quite the sensation of a bath or a wipe down with a damp washcloth– the oil coating his skin stays there, a tingling awareness that lingers. 

Michael’s ribs expand as David pours more oil across his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how tight and uncomfortable he really had been in his own skin, until the thick liquid seemed to work him loose. He’s weirdly reminded of how they used to watch the Wizard of Oz together every Thanksgiving (before Dad decided that it wasn’t right for ‘boys their age’ anymore), and how the Tin Man was liberated joint by joint, squeaking his way back to miraculous life. He wonders if David would get the reference, if Michael let out a croaky oil can. He wonders if, with a feeling of disorientation so intense that he grips the side of the tub for a moment to stabilize himself, David saw the movie when it first came out. 

David breaks him out of these deep thoughts when he pokes pointedly at Michael’s arm. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the poking finger didn’t end with a nail sharp enough to draw blood.

“Ow,” Michael jerks upright. “What was that for?”

“Lift your arm,” David says, with a this is so obvious, why do I even have to explain it tone of voice. “So I can get your pits.”

“You could just give me the cloth, David,” Michael says, a little annoyed that he hadn’t even thought of it before this moment. “I can take care of it myself.”

“Oh, you think an armpit is somehow too private?” 

“A little, yeah!” Michael twists to glare at him, and is not surprised to find that David is not even attempting to hide a smile. David glances pointedly down the lines of Michael’s chest and stomach, and further to what the lip of the tub is probably not even remotely hiding. 

When he raises his eyes again, though, the smile has dropped off his face. There’s the slightest line between his eyebrows, like Michael is some mystery he can’t quite puzzle out. 

“Let me take care of you, Michael,” he says impatiently. 

The moment freezes around them, so much so that for a moment Michael wonders if David has actually stopped time. But he hasn’t moved, is still kneeling next to Michael with his wrists bare and vulnerable without their cuffs. He doesn’t look old, or whatever, right now. In the way he’s frowning at Michael, in the way his eyes seem to glimmer with something more than just annoyance, he seems pretty young. Like he doesn’t really know what they’re doing any better than Michael does, right now. 

It’s more comforting than it should be. 

“Fine,” Michael breathes, and then clears his throat. “Okay, fine.”

Time seems to start again. David blinks, and nods his head. Without another word, he grips Michael around the elbow and gently lifts his arm. Michael allows it, not resisting, only shuddering a little at the ticklish touch of cloth against his underarm. 

Let me take care of you. It’s bouncing around inside his head, seeming to speed up and get louder, until all he can think are those words, in David’s low growl. Take care of you. Take care of you. 

As David works his way down Michael’s arm, pausing for a moment to replenish the oil saturating the fabric, Michael does feel like something is being stripped off him. Dirt, sure. That feeling of being coated in something nasty he can’t rid himself of. But there’s more than that, too, that feeling of something being drawn up from a deep place and brought into the light. Something pulled out of Michael as David wrapped a hand around his elbow, gentle but still irresistible. And, it turns out, Michael doesn’t particularly want to resist.

Let me take care of you. 

God, he wants that. He wants it so bad, it’s almost hard to breathe around the desperate desire that’s jammed up his throat. 

Michael doesn’t protest again as David works the cloth over the rest of his arm, coating it from armpit to wrist. He’s mostly trying to think about nothing at all, especially when David works the oil into his palm, dropping the cloth altogether so he can lace their fingers together, working the oil slowly between every knuckle. With that done, he leaves the cloth and just presses the oil against Michael’s skin with the palm of his hand, making slow circles across Michael’s shoulderblades, dipping down his spine. 

Thinking about nothing isn’t working. Michael needs to think about something, and he needs to think about it fast, because as David drags his hand up the side of Michael’s neck, Michael realizes he’s getting hard. 

Michael bites his lip, and curls his hands into slow fists. Think about Grandpa’s taxidermy. Think about Mom’s weird boss. Think about sad Springsteen lyrics. Think about anything other than David’s hand slowly sweeping down his arm. 

“You know what, it’s been a long time for me, too,” David says in his ear, voice low. 

Michael jumps so bad, he worries for a second he might accidentally slam a shoulder into David’s head and knock him out. 

“What?”

David laughs. “A bath, Michael. Mind if I join you?”

Michael takes a steadying breath, which doesn’t do much to steady him at all. David is so close, mouth wide in a smile and pale brown eyes fixed on Michael’s. Until they jump– just for a moment– down to his lips. There’s a smear of oil across his cheekbone, mostly invisible until David angles his face down. Then the light from the old yellow bulb catches it, a glow flashing across his skin as he looks back up again.

“Unless you’re worried I won’t fit,” David says innocently. 

“You’ll fit,” Michael says automatically. And when David’s face breaks open into a filthy grin, he stammers out. “The tub– it isn’t that small, there’s– there’s definitely room.”

“Great,” David says, and sits back. He pulls his shirt off in one fluid movement, close enough to touch. Certainly close enough to see the dusting of fine dark hair in the middle of his chest and down his stomach, and the way his nipples have pebbled in the drafty air of the room. 

Michael quickly returns his attention to his knees, closing his eyes. 

It’s now, as David gets to his feet and begins to toe off his boots, that Michael realizes it was always an option to just ask David to leave the room before all this started. To take the bottles of oil, say hey man, thanks, and show David the door so Michael could take care of this himself. 

He thinks it was always an option, anyway. It didn’t even occur to him to ask, so. 

But despite what his little brother and half of his Phoenix teachers might think – Michael’s no idiot. He knew, on some level, that he was never going to ask David to leave. What’s more alarming is that David probably knew that, too.

“How long does it take to take off a pair of pants?” Michael mumbles to his knees. 

“Depends on the pants,” David says, a note of strain in his voice. “And how much oil is on your hands.”

Michael huffs out a laugh. “Sounds rough.”

David just grunts, and there’s an unmistakable squeak of leather. Michael tries not to laugh, and gives it another long beat before he speaks again. 

“Not getting any younger, here.”

“Well, you’re not getting any older, either,” David says, sounding annoyed. “Give me a second.”

He finally lets out a satisfied sigh that Michael assumes means he’s triumphed over the pants, so Michael has at least a little bit of a warning before David’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. He braces himself against Michael as he clambers into the tub behind him, and the strength in that grip makes Michael shiver, just a little. 

“Cold?” David asks from behind him. His hand is still on his shoulder, squeezing briefly at the muscle there. 

“I’m alright,” Michael says. 

And he reminds himself of that, that he is alright, as David lowers himself to sit behind him. The inch or two of oil collecting in the bottom of the tub sloshes a little, like David exerts some kind of tidal energy. He also exerts a knee against Michael’s back, his hand still on Michael’s shoulder. 

“Close fit in here,” David says, voice low in Michael’s ear. “Mind if I stretch out a little, Michael?”

Michael half turns, trying to catch David’s eye. He gets a glimpse of a toothy smile, a flash of earring, before he loses his nerve and turns back around. 

“If you can,” Michael forces a little laugh. “Go for it.”

The knee that had been digging into Michael’s back shifts, David’s foot pressing against Michael’s hip and then sliding forward. Michael lifts his thigh up automatically to get David a little more access, and a cool hand rests against his other side for balance. 

And then they’re both in there, in the tub. Michael resting between David’s spread thighs, David’s knees resting gently against Michael’s arms. There’s something shocking about the sight of David’s feet stretched out in front of him, the pale soles of his feet facing inward and the curl of his toes somehow captivating. His feet are long and narrow, the joints at his ankle and the ball of his foot standing out sharply in the shadowy bottom of the trough. Michael has never given a foot, any foot, much thought, but now he can’t seem to look away. 

David lets out a sigh of satisfaction from behind him, the arch of his right foot flexing slightly. Michael swallows hard.  

“This does feel good,” David says. 

“You want me to get out?” Michael asks feebly. And then wants to smack himself in the head because oh yeah, Michael, and if he says yes? You gonna stand up and get out of this tub, rock hard? 

“Michael,” David says disapprovingly. “Plenty of room for the two of us. And besides, I’m not done with you yet.”

Michael’s dick twitches, and he has to bite down a moan. “No?” It comes out a little strangled, fuck. 

“No,” David says easily. 

David’s hand brushes the side of Michael’s neck, palm full of oil tipping out and trickling down Michael’s chest. David’s hand vanishes again, coming back to the other side of Michael’s neck and repeating the motion. Michael tips his face down, tracking the oil as it glides across his pecs, feeling a little light-headed. 

“Well?” David says. “Rub it in.”

Michael presses his hands across his neck, slowly following the path of the oil down his chest. He hisses a little, when his palms drag across his nipples. 

David makes a low noise from behind him. Sharp fingernails scratch at the top of Michael’s neck, David working his fingers up through the fine soft hair at the back of Michael’s head. As Michael’s hands drift across his own stomach, David makes his way through Michael’s curls, making slow circles against his scalp. 

Michael tips his head back, giving David more access and letting out a groan. Well. He’s kidding himself if he thinks David can’t guess what’s going on with him, anyway. Even if he couldn’t see it, which is also pretty likely. Michael figures David could smell a bruise on him so, the amount of blood that’s gone to his dick has to be a dead giveaway right now. 

The thought makes Michael laugh, a chuckle caught in his throat. David’s hands tighten in his hair, tugging Michael’s head further back. 

“Something funny, Michael?” David purrs in his ear. 

Can you smell my boner? Michael thinks but can’t bring himself to say. Even the thought has his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, with maybe just a touch of hysteria at the edges. 

When it becomes clear that Michael can’t or won’t answer, David’s fingers tighten in Michael’s hair and jerk him back. Michael’s balance, already not very stable what with trying to sit motionless on a few inches of oil, gives out completely and he collapses against David. 

Michael’s laugh turns into a moan, as his back presses against David’s chest. He’s felt on fire for so much of this, feverish and only warming up with every touch of David’s hands, so being surrounded by that cool touch feels like heaven. Like sinking into the refreshing bath he can never take again. 

Davis wrenches his head to the side, pressing his lips against the shell of Michael’s ear. 

“Keeping secrets from me, Michael? And I thought we were getting so close.”

Michael has a hand on David’s knee, gripping it hard enough to bruise a normal person. Shit. When did he grab David’s knee?

“Well,” he manages. “I definitely feel pretty close to you right now.”

David laughs. Michael can feel it vibrate through his chest, and blow cooly against his neck. 

One hand still knotted in Michael’s hair, holding him in place, David’s other hand comes up to press more oil over Michael’s stomach. Michael arches up into the touch with a whine, closing his eyes against the sight of David’s fingers trailing slowly up his abs. Not low enough to brush against Michael’s dick, standing hard almost up against his stomach, and that careful distance makes Michael want to cry. 

David shifts a little behind him, and– okay, Michael has never actually felt someone else’s dick pressed into his lower back. But he is fairly confident that that’s what he’s feeling now.

“We could be closer,” David murmurs into his ear. 

He releases his hold on Michael’s hair enough for Michael to twist around to get a better look at him. David’s hand stays on his stomach, pressing briefly down over it when Michael meets his eyes, before relaxing and spreading his fingers wide. 

Michael takes him in. There’s still that oil smeared across his cheek, and now some coating the underside of his jaw, where he had it pressed against Michael’s neck. He seems to glimmer faintly in the low light. He hadn’t really let himself look at David’s bare chest before, and from this angle he can’t get too much of a view: just the strong lines of muscle standing out from his neck to his shoulders, the skin usually covered by necklaces and leather and a high jacket collar looking exceptionally naked. Not vulnerable, though. There’s strength in every line of David, except for the soft bottom curve of his lips. 

David lets him look. David is taking him in too, eyes hooded, face frozen in that half-smile he seems to fall back on when he’s trying to look unimpressed and untouchable. It’s an interesting strategy, for someone whose dick is pressing against Michael’s back. And it’s an interesting realization, that Michael recognizes that look well enough to name it.

There are reasons, Michael knows, that he should stop all this here. And not even the reasons that his dad would have liked to beat into him, or that half the guys in school seemed so terrified over. Reasons that have more to do with what Michael had seen on the beach, and what David seems to want him to do in order to really belong to him, forever. Michael isn’t sure, based on what he does next, what it might mean to David. If getting closer is all there is, or… or if…

Those reasons existed though, when David slid into the tub behind him. They existed when Michael stripped naked in front of him. And they existed when Michael came to the Coronado in the first place tonight, not knowing what he was looking for but knowing… knowing as soon as he was back here again that he had found it. So maybe getting ‘closer’ could be all there is. Or maybe getting ‘closer’ could be everything. 

Either way. Michael leans in and kisses David. 

He had expected a little strangeness, maybe. Like kissing a guy would take some sort of getting used to, an adjustment in his technique, or something. But it’s not like that at all. Though if there was going to be any feeling of weirdness, he suspects David wouldn’t allow it for a moment. Not judging by the way David’s hand is immediately wrapped around the back of his neck, gently but firmly holding him in place. Not based on how David’s kissing him back immediately, like he was ready for Michael, like he was waiting– and his lips are cool and soft, and he smells like patchouli and an undercurrent of warm metal. 

David’s hand flexes again on Michael’s stomach, nails digging in in a way that has Michael gasping against his mouth. 

“Michael–” David says brokenly, and slides their mouths together again, tugging Michael closer against his chest. 

Michael groans, reaching a hand up to tangle in David’s hair. He twists uncomfortably to try and reach more of David’s mouth, one knee knocking against the side of the tub and probably bearing down too hard on David’s thigh beneath it. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter at all, and he’d twist himself in half if he needed to, just to get more of David’s mouth. 

He accidentally tugs at David’s hair as he shifts in his arms, and should probably not be surprised when that makes David groan, and sink his blunt teeth into Michael’s bottom lip. 

“Fuck–” Michael jerks in his arms, as David runs his tongue soothingly across his lip. Michael could be grateful that David didn’t bite with fangs, but– but just the thought of that makes his dick throb. A disturbing automatic reaction that he completely forgets to be disturbed by.

David takes his hand off Michael’s stomach and grips his jaw with it, pressing his mouth open wider and licking into it. It’s sloppy, and brutal, and Michael barely notices when the alien pressure sparks to life inside his own gums, the sensation almost lost in all the rest of the newness crashing over him. 

It’s only David chuckling darkly against his mouth that makes Michael realize what’s happening.

“Oh, Michael,” David says, rubbing his lips against the corner of Michael’s mouth, pressing their cheeks briefly together. “Want to take a bite of me?”

Michael draws back, blinking hard like he’s waking up from a dream. He moves to bring a hand up to cover his mouth, or check to see if that sensation is just a precursor, or if he’s actually sprouted fangs. But David intercepts the motion, catching Michael’s hand in his. 

He’ll probably never get used to David. Just when he thinks he’s at least braced for his fundamental unpredictability, David will throw him a curveball that still sends him reeling. Like now, when David presses Michael’s knuckles against his lips, eyes fluttering closed. 

He darts a glance up at Michael, while Michael is still breathing hard and fixated on how well David’s lips encompass the first two knuckles of his hand. The same knuckles that had busted open David’s lip not so long ago, though the corresponding bruise had been swept away after the night of the bridge. David slides a quick thumb along Michael’s lip, pulling it back to expose his teeth before Michael can react. 

“Beautiful,” David says, like he really means it. 

Michael shakes him off, and isn’t sure if he should laugh or not. 

“Fuck you,” he huffs, running a tongue along his own front teeth. They feel normal. Fangs, if they had sprouted, are gone now. Maybe David was just screwing with him.

“If you want,” David glides a hand down Michael’s side, slick with oil. Michael shivers, arching up into the touch. “You want that, Michael?” 

“I–” Michael can’t look away from those big dark eyes, pale brown eaten up by bottomless black pupils as David grins hungrily at Michael. “I’m–”

It’s a good thing he didn’t know where he was going with that, since David doesn’t let him finish anyway. Tipping Michael’s chin back up to his, he kisses him hungrily. 

“Think it over,” he says. “And in the meantime…”

Michael’s following the gentle persuasion of David’s hands on his hips before he is even conscious of it. He had been aware of some sort of security in having his back to David. Of some final kind of… plausible deniability, or something? In pretending like David can’t see what he’s doing to him, doesn’t already know how Michael is affected. Which is crazy, he knows it’s crazy. Even if it wasn’t ridiculously clear how into this Michael is, David isn’t… he isn’t some asshole in the locker room. He’s not some insecure kid, who’d see Michael getting turned on as some sort of sin requiring immediate punishment. Shit, David would probably gleefully eat those kind of guys. 

Still, there’s an additional line he’s crossing before he even realizes he’s doing it, in letting David shift him, turn him, so that Michael is kneeling between David’s spread legs. Facing him, dick hard and leaking already, flushed from his cheeks all the way down his chest. There’s no deniability here, no masking the way he clearly wants. Michael tries to focus on David instead of the prickle of anxiety, letting his eyes travel down David’s well-defined chest and stomach. Comforting isn’t the word he’s use to describe David’s dick, standing erect in a thatch of dark hair, but– if Michael needed any evidence that he wasn’t the only one wanting right now, that would be it.

Just like with the first kiss, David doesn’t let him sit in the moment long enough for the strangeness to settle. He leans in, running his hands up Michael’s oil-slick chest greedily, mapping out the flush under his hands like it’s a fascinating work of art. 

David pulls him into another kiss, hungry and eager, and Michael goes to him with a sigh of relief. And something a little more urgent than that, as David shifts under him, sliding out against the bottom of the trough and bringing their dicks flush together. 

“David–” Michael chokes out, and David makes an animal noise in the back of his throat at the sound. He rocks his hips up against Michael with enough strength to almost lift him clear of the tub, licking his own name out of Michael’s mouth like he’s starving for it. 

Michael anchors himself with one hand on the edge of the tub, with no mind at all for how the thin metal bites into the meat of his palm, and wraps the other hand around David’s jaw. He feels ravenous, suddenly, David’s hands all over him as he bears down on David’s mouth. 

This oil bath thing was fucking dumb, actually, because as much as it feels like heaven how David’s hands glide down his back and thighs, there’s no friction whatsoever between their dicks. David’s hands cup his ass and that helps, fuck, that helps, but it’s still not enough. Michael tears free of David’s mouth, breathing hard and sucking bites into David’s neck, getting high on the sound of David’s throaty laugh as he digs his nails into the flesh of Michael’s ass. 

David keeps laughing, as one hand moves, and– and a fingertip presses against the furl of Michael’s asshole. 

Somewhat to his mortification, Michael locks up. It’s just, different– and– he’s maybe thought about it but– David doesn’t seem to mind, leaving his finger where it is but sliding his other hand up Michael’s back and over his shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. 

He draws a finger under Michael’s chin, pulling his lips back up to David’s. 

“Too much?” he says against Michael’s mouth, punctuating it with a soft kiss. 

“No,” Michael says stubbornly. 

“No?” David’s finger shifts over Michael’s asshole again, and Michael shudders. “Hmm.”

He kisses Michael again, and as he gets a little lost in the sensation, Michael doesn’t immediately notice that David’s finger has moved away. He is briefly disappointed, maybe, or just surprised that David would give up on anything so easily. 

Maybe he should have known better. David doesn’t give up. He just… picks his moment. And applies a different kind of pressure. 

Like the pressure he applies to Michael’s wrist, wrapping his long fingers around it and gently pulling Michael’s hand behind his back. 

Michael can’t think of a single reason to resist, can’t think too much of anything at all in fact, as David leans up and starts mouthing down Michael’s chest. He lets David ease him back so he’s sitting on his heels, guiding Michael’s hand so that his wrist rests right above the swell of his ass. 

The suggestion is pretty clear, and Michael’s mouth goes dry. 

David doesn’t push, though. His hold on Michael’s wrist is light, like Michael could shake him off in an instant if he really wanted to. He doesn’t think he does, but– before he can really decide how he feels about it all, David sucks Michael’s nipple into his mouth. 

“Fuck,” Michael pants, and lets his fingers drift lower. The world doesn’t seem to end when he brushes a careful touch over his asshole, so. He just lets himself… linger there.

There’s no real way that David should know when Michael hesitantly breaches himself, but they seem to shiver at the same time. David’s free hand slides slowly up and down Michael’s back, as though soothing him. He sucks again at Michael’s nipple, eyes drifting open to look up at him. His expression is so heated and hungry, Michael has to grit his teeth to keep another sound from escaping. 

David grins, and catches Michael’s nipple between his teeth. 

“You’ve got it, Michael,” he mumbles, or half-hums– or maybe Michael is just remembering the words, something similar in this moment to the eager approval in David’s eyes. It's hard to tell when Michael’s brain keeps feeling like lightning is coursing through it, and like the only things keeping him from flying apart are David’s teeth against his skin and his fingers locked around Michael’s wrist. 

Michael groans, and presses forward, his free hand locked around the back of David’s head, pressing him encouragingly against his chest, his neck, to pant open-mouthed against the side of Michael’s jaw as Michael’s fingers keep sliding– sliding– 

David’s mouth finally finds its way to Michael’s, his hand finding its way to Michael’s ass, gripping it hard as Michael tips towards him.

“More,” David growls against Michael’s lips, both hands on Michael’s ass now, and Michael isn’t sure exactly what he means. So he bites down on David’s bottom lip again, and eases a second finger alongside the first, gasping brokenly into David’s mouth. 

David is almost under him again, back against the side of the trough with Michael between his legs. Michael tries to get closer, partially because if he doesn’t find a way to get some contact on his dick he might actually die, and partially because he feels possessed by a less rational need to get as close as he can to crawling right inside David. 

Given the way David laughs against his mouth, low and delighted and dark, he doesn’t mind. Not that Michael figured he would, given, well. Everything about David since the moment he first stuck an earring in Michael’s ear. 

David finally, finally, wraps a hand around Michael’s dick. He hisses at the contact, and for a minute Michael deliriously wonders if he’s burned him or something – he feels so hot, boiling with want, that he almost wouldn’t be surprised. If the oil coating his skin and lining the bottom of this tub started to hiss and pop, he wouldn’t even question it. 

He’s not questioning anything, as the loose grip around his dick has him bucking up into David’s touch, mouth open in a soundless wail, eyes rolling back up in his head. His fingers jerk in his own ass, and this time the wail isn’t soundless.

“Would you let me fuck you, Michael?” David asks breathlessly, voice so low it’s almost a hum in the air. 

“I’d let you,” Michael pants. 

“Would you beg me to fuck you?”

Michael opens his eyes, and stares down at David. His eyes are just a flicker of hazel, lids lowered and almost sleepy, but the same way that a snake coiled up under a rock appears sleepy. At some point when Michael had put his hands in David’s hair, he’d worked enough oil in to flatten some of it down against his skull, stripes in the rough shape of Michael’s fingers pressing it out of its usual carefully maintained shape. It makes one ear look a little bigger than the other, in a way that’s almost disarming. 

Looking up at him, David’s chest rises and falls sharply, with breaths Michael isn’t even sure he needs to take. But there’s something in Michael’s own eyes that makes the movement pause, like David could somehow have his breath taken away by Michael looking down at him like this. 

“I’d beg you,” Michael says. David groans, mouth splitting into a grin, but his eyes open wide in something like surprise when Michael leans down, pressing his mouth close to David’s ear. 

“But only if you begged me first, David.”

Satisfied with this, Michael plans to shift back again but David’s hand is suddenly in his hair, holding him in place. Before Michael can adjust, David’s jaw shifts so he’s the one moaning into Michael’s ear. 

“Please, Michael, please,” David groans. “Please let me fuck you. Please, god, I’ll go crazy if you do, I’ll go crazy if you don’t.” 

There’s a shock of pressure, of shifting, of making way, as David works a finger in alongside Michael’s. Michael jerks in surprise, letting out a cry as he’s filled, split open, caught perfectly between David’s hand wrapped now tightly around his dick, and their fingers twined together in his ass, pressing further than he’d dared to go on his own. 

“I need you,” David snarls, like it almost hurts him to say it, “I need to be buried in you so deep—please.”

He twists his finger and his wrist, and Michael is coming with a shout, too taken by surprise to even try and hold it back. It rolls through his body like it’s being dragged out of him, catching every nerve and raking across every corner of him, like something’s tearing loose. Call it a release, shit, Michael’s never felt a release like this, like he’s caught in the biggest midair drop of his life. 

Michael comes back to himself a little bit at the touch of David’s hands on his face, his cheeks, his chest, David pressing open-mouthed kisses wherever he apparently can reach. With a growl almost of annoyance, he shoves Michael back and off him. Not having enough of his brain working to resist, Michael goes, sliding bonelessly back against the side of the tub and almost down onto his back. 

He almost lets out a surprised laugh, but the sight of David rearing up onto his knees cuts the sound off before he can even make it. David’s long, lean torso seems to glitter in the warm light of the room, shadows falling across his eyes and the rippling muscles of his chest and stomach as he pins Michael in place with a fierce look. Michael watches, mouth open and breath ragged, as David wraps a hand around his own dick. 

There’s not much elegant or patient about it, as David bares his teeth at Michael and works himself with a rough-looking grip. Not elegant, but gorgeous. Fearsome, like being caught in a thunderstorm, and with something like that edge of fear and taste of ozone at the back of Michael’s throat. It’s not long before David starts to come with a deep, rasping noise that makes Michael’s softening dick jerk with a little twitch of interest.

Gasping, David angles himself immediately so that his come lands across Michael’s stomach and chest. A drop of it hits as high up as his chin. Michael raises a dazed hand to thumb at it, but forgets what he was doing the instant David puts both hands on Michael’s stomach. He drags them along Michael’s chest and stomach in slow, winding strokes, working his come through the oil and into Michael’s skin. 

Michael lets him do it. David’s hands feel good on him, and he can’t think of a persuasive argument for why he should stop touching him, maybe ever. David does stop though, eventually, just when the touch of his hands has started to send little sparks of interest back up Michael’s spine, waking his body up again from that hazy, syrupy trance he’d been sinking into. 

David sits back on his heels, hands coming to a gentle rest on Michael’s spread knees. 

Reality, in as much as it ever makes a strong case for itself in David’s presence, seems to be slinking back in around them. Michael’s head feels clearer, and with it the first whispers of uncertainty. Maybe David can tell, from the inscrutable way he’s looking down at Michael. As though he’s waiting, uncharacteristically, for Michael’s doubts to render the whole thing as strange and uncomfortable. 

And yet. Michael finds himself starting to smile.

“So,” he looks down the length of his own body slowly, and then back up at David with an eyebrow raised. “Is that what you call getting clean?”

David’s loud bark of surprised laughter sends Michael’s worries scurrying away for the moment, banished even farther when he leans down and kisses him. Impossibly sweet, and slow, and long enough for Michael’s hand to make a slow journey up David’s side to wrap around his shoulder.

When they break apart at last, David leans over the side of the trough, and Michael is struck by the realization that he probably doesn’t have to hide it anymore, the appreciative way his gaze snags along David’s body as he stretches. He’s so busy drinking it in that he misses what David was reaching for, and is pretty unprepared when David’s white undershirt hits him in the face. 

“Wipe down with that,” David laughs, getting to his feet. “And then tell me if you don’t feel like a new man.”

“I’m not going to bother responding to that,” Michael mutters, carefully easing himself up and wiping the oil (and come, and David’s come, he’s sure he’s blushing again) off his chest, stomach, and neck, bending a little to swipe vaguely at his legs just for good measure. 

When he looks up again, David doesn’t seem to be bothering to hide his appreciation either. He extends a hand to Michael with a small smile, helping him step out of the trough. Michael feels weirdly like Cinderella, or something, even more so when David gives his hand a squeeze and makes what seems to be almost a slight bow over it. 

“What happened to ruining your clothes with oil?” Michael asks, choosing not to address any of that, and extending the undershirt hesitantly back to David. 

“Ruined is subjective, don’t you think?” David says easily. He leans back against the table, looking utterly at ease with being utterly naked. Letting Michael stand there holding the shirt out like an idiot, David instead reaches for his key necklaces and drops them down over his head as though that’s all the clothing he needs. 

He finally takes the undershirt then, and presses it immediately to his nose. Seems to breathe deep, and Michael wonders dizzily whether it’s the smell of the oil, of Michael’s sweat, or his own come that makes David’s pupils dilate like that, his gaze hot on Michael again as he drops his hand. 

“Sure,” Michael says distantly, suddenly unsteady on his feet. 

David grins at him. “Your boxers are over there, Michael,” he nods at the crumpled pile of clothes next to the trough. “Maybe leave the rest for now, until you’ve dried off. And until then, maybe we find a place for you to lie down.”

Michael bends for his boxers, pulling them on, feeling awkward. “What, do I look undead on my feet, or something?” He tries for a joke. 

David, halfway through pulling his pants back on (with considerably more ease than he’d had taking them off; maybe it’s the oil), pauses to look over at him. “Not quite,” David says. Smiling, the way he smiles at the rest of the band when they’re…playing with their food. 

Michael feels a slight chill, and ducks his head. “I wouldn’t mind lying down somewhere,” he mumbles, fiddling with the waistband of his boxers. He’s glad he went with the basic black today, and thinks with relief that yesterday’s Christmas-like red and green plaid would have maybe been a little more embarrassing, and he should probably get better at doing his laundry if–

Two fingers press underneath his chin, irresistibly raising his face to David’s. The anxious ramble in Michael’s head clatters to a stop, as he squarely meets David’s eyes. He draws in a deep breath, and finds himself smiling. 

“Then let’s go,” David says. 

Michael thinks for a moment he might kiss him again. But instead David takes his hand, and leads him out of the room, all other clothing and the mess of the bath left behind them. It’s somehow business-like, casual, the way he holds on to Michael. 

Michael lets himself be led, still feeling floaty and soft, body reminding him with every step that he’d introduced it to something new. Kind of a running theme there, so. Maybe that’s part of why all Michael can think about is how at least this new thing just feels… really good. Michael closes his eyes against the strange vampire-night vision, and just walks. He tries not to think that it’s giving up ground, somehow, to David. Letting him take control, and lead Michael wherever he wants. 

Whatever. It’s not, like, some bullshit extended metaphor. If David takes it that way, that’s a fight they will have later. 

He had sort of assumed they’d just be going back to the main room where they all seem to mostly hang out, but David comes to a stop sooner than Michael expected. When he opens his eyes they’re in a little alcove tucked next to a spiral staircase that comes to a jagged torn-off end thirty feet or so above them. The whole hallway seems to be on something of a tilt, the small door next to the staircase set permanently ajar by how the frame has warped. A triangle of rosy light extends across the floor towards them, enough illumination to restore Michael’s vision to normal. 

David pushes the door open unceremoniously, and Michael immediately knows whose room this is. 

“Um,” he says, standing frozen in the doorway. 

“So polite, for someone who doesn’t actually need an invitation,” David says, when he realizes Michael hasn’t followed him inside.

The room is small, and possibly once upon a time hadn’t been much more than a closet. But someone has made an effort to make it cozy: there’s a mattress on the floor against the back wall topped with a nest of blankets and pillows, most of them in shades of blue or green. A long piece of gauzy purple fabric has been nailed to the ceiling above it, falling in soft folds down around the bed to pool against the floor. A red handkerchief sits over a small lamp sitting on the floor next to the bed, which fills the room with a soft pink light. A few suitcases are stacked up against one of the walls, the closest thing there seems to be to any kind of cabinets or storage; David has casually yanked one of these open and is rummaging inside. 

“This is Star’s room,” Michael says. 

“Yes,” David says slowly, looking at Michael like he’s not making any sense. “You’ve been here before, Michael.”

Michael is surprised enough by that that he takes a step into the room. “What?”

“Was I not supposed to know about that?” David asks smoothly, smiling like a shark. “Oh dear.”

Michael closes his eyes, and forces himself to breathe. It’s actually crazy for David to do this to him right after… whatever that bath had been. But on the other hand, he really shouldn’t even be surprised. 

“We can’t go to your room?” Michael snaps. 

“I don’t have one.”

“You– what?”

David shrugs, an elegant lift of his bare shoulder. He raises what he’s taken out of the top suitcase on the pile: a long-sleeved shirt, and loose dark pants. 

After a moment of waiting for Michael to draw whatever conclusions he can from this, David smiles. “The Coronado is my home. And so are the people in it. I don’t need a room.”

“Nice philosophy,” Michael sighs, and is rewarded by a light in David’s eyes, like Michael is endlessly amusing. “So what it actually means is you just leave your stuff all over everyone else’s space?”

“Not everyone’s,” David says with a grin. “Don’t leave anything in Dwayne’s den if you ever want to get it back in one piece.”

“Noted,” Michael says grimly. 

David lowers himself to sit on Star’s bed with practiced ease. As though it’s as much his as it is hers. Which– that’s a thought to tease out for another time, maybe. For now, Michael gives up and allows himself to float closer to David. This soft pink light lends color to his bare chest and arms, an illusion of time spent out under the sun. Michael wonders if that’s how it had been for David, before. If freckles ever appeared across the tops of his shoulders. If he burned easily. 

David kicks his legs out long in front of him, and reaches up as soon as Michael’s within reach. His hand closes around Michael’s wrist gently, the care in the touch not quite matching the mocking light in his eyes. 

“It’s fine, Michael,” David says, a laugh hovering at the edge of his voice. “Sit down, before you fall over.”

Michael grumbles a little, in protest, but he eases himself down next to David, letting out a sigh as he settles. 

“Feeling alright?” David asks, reaching out to skate his fingertips slowly along Michael’s jaw. 

Michael rolls his eyes, but leans into the touch anyway. “I feel good,” he confesses. 

“Good,” David says simply. He puts the clothing in Michael’s lap, then lets his hand linger on Michael’s knee. 

“Here,” David says. “In case you wanted a change of clothes that doesn’t smell like week-old vampire. Not that there’s any need to cover up on my behalf, of course.”

Up close, the navy-colored shirt is more like a sweater, the knit soft to the touch and stretched out at the wrists, the way Michael’s old sweaters get from regularly being pushed up his arms. There’s a small hole close to the bottom hem, just big enough to fit the tip of Michael’s pinkie finger through. The pants are sweatpants, the same athletic kind with elastic ankles that Michael’s old school used to make them wear for gym, though made of a considerably softer fabric.

It doesn’t seem likely that David got these at gym class. But then, it doesn’t seem likely that David would have sweatpants at all. Michael wonders if there’s anything to the fact that these are the clothes he leaves in Star’s room. Not leather and metal, but soft knit and flannel.

“I do remember you saying something about having me in your clothes,” Michael says, and pulls on the sweatpants. He leaves the shirt off for now, though. It’s a little warm in this small room, or maybe it’s just the glow in David’s eyes as he takes Michael in. 

“Sounds familiar,” David says quietly, voice slow and dark as syrup.

Michael kisses him. He wasn’t really planning on doing it. He finds himself with his hands around David’s face before he even thinks about it. He’s managed to surprise David too, maybe, if the soft noise David makes against his mouth is anything to go by. 

David, unexpectedly, holds himself still. Lets Michael hold him in place and kiss him, parting his lips to let Michael in. Michael holds him harder, presses into him more fervently, feeling giddy on some kind of invitation to just forget everything else and explore. 

It’s too much for David, possibly. He shudders back into motion with a groan, and wraps his arms around Michael, tugging him close. Michael laughs against his mouth, and then the laugh turns into something else as David presses his mouth against Michael’s neck. He licks a long stripe up the column of Michael’s throat, and then fixes his lips in place and sucks hard. Like he’s drinking from Michael. The thought is, unfortunately, an exciting one. 

Too exciting, maybe. 

“You really want to do this here?” Michael’s hands land on David’s shoulders, pressing him back. “In Star’s bed?”

“Would that be so bad, Michael?” David pulls off of Michael’s neck with a wet sound, and sits back to fix him with an unimpressed hazel glare. “Everything could be so easy if the two of you could just…”

“Could just what?” Michael prompts him, when David trails off with a frustrated noise.

“...just let it be,” David says. 

Michael examines him for a moment, disturbingly sure that this is perhaps the most sincere thing that David has said tonight. 

“You think me and Star are the ones keeping things from being easy?” Michael says slowly. “Seriously, David?”

David twitches, as though the idea is an annoying one he’d like to shake off. But if he has an answer to that, Michael doesn’t find out what it is.

“What’s happening here?” 

David and Michael turn to see Star herself standing in the door, paused halfway through lowering her bag to the floor. She’s surprised, certainly, and wary– pretty much her default expression– but not, like, upset. Unless that’s just Michael desperately hoping that she isn’t upset. Michael is very aware of how they must look: both shirtless, leaning in close to each other, sitting on her bed, Michael wearing David’s clothes. 

There’s a moment that could be tense. But then Michael catches the side view of David’s grin, his eyes crinkling up in affection at the sight of her. 

“I was just leaving you a little present,” David says. 

A slow smile grows across Star’s face, though she arches an eyebrow at the two of them. 

“How thoughtful,” she says dryly. 

“Well,” David says, all faux-modesty. “I know what you like.”

Star crosses the room, and with only the most infinitesimal moment of hesitation, runs her hands across the top of Michael’s head, nails scratching gently against his scalp. Michael, feeling boneless and a little high, closes his eyes and leans into the touch. He might maybe let out the smallest moan; he’s not totally clued into what his body is doing anymore.

“Oh,” Star says breathlessly. “You really, really do.”

Michael opens his eyes in time to see David reach out to take her free hand, bringing her palm to his lips. It somehow seems like less of a kiss and more of a… some kind of courtly gesture, though maybe it’s just because David presses his forehead to the back of her hand right after. Like he’s just made a solemn oath or something. 

Star doesn’t look at him, though. Her eyes are still on Michael, wide and knowing and beautiful. It’s all okay, Michael knows all at once. As always, as soon as he’s with Star, everything is okay.

She steps in closer, and Michael presses his face to her stomach, wrapping an arm around her thighs. David is still holding on to his other wrist, his grip tightening for a moment, as though worried Michael might pull away. Michael does not. He just twists his hand a little, so that he can wrap his own fingers around David’s wrist too. It feels surprisingly light in his hand, without the studs and buckles weighing it down.

He likes this feeling too much, how they are. Linked together, one perfect circle. Michael holding Star who is holding David who’s holding Michael. It feels… complete. 

Unexpectedly, David is the one to break it. He stands up abruptly, dropping both Star and Michael’s hands. 

“You’re leaving?” Star asks, surprised. 

“Sorry to disappoint,” David says smoothly. “But the boys and I have a can’t-miss appointment with… some bikers, or something. We’ll figure it out on the way.”

“Oh,” Star says. 

“I’d say you’re welcome to join, but no doubt you two have your own plans for the night.”

“No doubt we do,” Star says, the slightest chill seeping into her voice. 

David nods, and turns to head for the door. 

“David–” Star calls after him, and he freezes. Just stands there for a moment, completely still. Then turns, slowly, like he can’t help himself. 

Star sinks down onto her bed next to Michael, taking the space David just left. Eyes still on David, she takes Michael’s chin in one hand, anchoring him in place. Leaning in, she drags her tongue slowly up Michael’s neck. Right where David had just been tasting him, and it’s not just that thought that yanks a small desperate noise up out of Michael’s gut. 

His hand lands on Star’s leg, her skin warm and soft under the fishnets. He lets his hand wander as she kisses his neck sweetly, hand fisting into her skirt and accidentally jerking it up her thigh when she bites down. 

Michael makes a desperate noise. He has to fight to keep his eyes open and on David, who hasn’t moved a muscle. 

Star sits back, and rests her head on Michael’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist. 

“Come back soon,” Star says to David, an unmistakable note of command in her voice. 

David doesn’t blink. He looks, just a little bit, like he’s been whalloped over the head. Michael can see his throat bob, as he swallows hard. 

It’s a good look on David, Michael decides. He grins. David’s eyes catch on his expression, zipping over to Star and back to Michael again, like he doesn’t know where to look.

David’s mouth opens, then shuts again hard enough for Michael to hear the click of his molars connecting. He turns without another word, and is gone in just a few long-legged steps, not bothering to close the door behind him. 

After a moment, Star laughs, and leans her head against Michael’s jaw. Michael gets his arm around her, and laughs too. Everything is going to be okay. 

“Eugh,” Star pulls back to smile at him, pushing his hair out of his eyes. She makes a face. “Why did you taste like an incense stick?”

“It’s a long story,” Michael sighs, then laughs again. “Well, I guess it’s not. David stuck me in a bath of it.”

“A bath? In incense?”

“Well, kinda. In patchouli oil. And maybe… maybe some other stuff too. Like, sandalwood, maybe? Lavender? I don’t know, he’s got a lot of bottles,” he finishes weakly. 

“So I gather,” she says with a laugh. “That explains the taste. And the smell, too. Where did that idea come from? Not that I’m complaining.”

Michael is suddenly too tired to be at all upright. He falls back onto her bed, drawing her down with him. Star allows it with another beautiful, stunning, poetic, gorgeous laugh. She curls up into his side, sliding her hand up across his bare stomach. 

“Mmm,” she says. “Whatever the reason, I’m for it. You feel really nice.”

“It was ‘cuz of the water thing,” Michael says drowsily, torn absolutely 50-50 between the need for a nap and his body’s increasingly pointed demands that he focus on the path of that hand and do whatever he has to do to keep her touching him like that. 

“The water thing?” Star asks. 

“Yeah, the ‘no water’ thing,” Michael sighs. “I was really starting to reek since we can’t touch any water, but then David said oil baths were okay, so…”

Star’s hand stills against his stomach. “‘Any’ water? You mean we can’t touch running water, right?”

Michael’s eyes open. “What?”

Star presses herself up to lean on an elbow, looking down at him. Her locs spill down over one shoulder, pooling across his chest. “It’s like, a super old vampire thing, apparently. So yeah, a shower or water from a tap will burn, but still water is fine. I take baths all the time. Normal ones. With water.”

Michael blinks up at her. “What?” he says again weakly. 

She appears to be fighting back a smile. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know. I’m sorry, I guess with all the crazy things happening, I didn’t think to explain it.”

“But David–” Michael stops, and covers his face with his hands. A bubble of hysterical laugher escapes him, as he remembers David’s face, right before he’d said oh, it’s an easy solution actually… “David said–”

He’s a little horrified. And a little bit turned on all over again. 

“He sure does know how to seize an opportunity,” Star says dryly. She tugs at his wrist, gently putting his hand away from his face. Her eyes track over him, concerned. “You okay?”

Michael considers. And he leans up, brushing his lips against hers gently. She relaxes against him, and he deepens the kiss, bringing a hand around her waist to draw her in closer. 

“I’m okay,” he decides, when he pulls back with a smile. 

“Okay,” Star kisses him again. “I guess that explains some things. But I think I’m going to need the whole story.”

“The whole story?” Michael recalls, with a flash of heat, David’s breath hot in his ear, David’s hand wrapped around his dick, the press of David’s finger alongside his own, easing him open. 

Star’s eyes are fixed on his mouth, which he realizes has fallen open slightly. 

“Every detail,” she says. She grins widely, throwing a leg over his. “Leave nothing out.”