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As much as Marty insists nothing will go wrong, Mat’s got reservations. There’s barely even a queue to get into the club, even though it’s nearly midnight. The whole thing feels like a bad idea, sleazy and genuinely dangerous. Mat rues the day that the idea came to Marty at all, and Mat hadn’t been able to convince how fucking fucking stupid it is. “Paris is the place for it,” Casey had said, when he too came around to the idea. “They’ve got clubs where the whole point is to meet someone.” “Someone to suck your blood,” Mat said, incredulous. Marty just shrugged. “Aren’t you curious?” Mat still thinks that’s neither here nor there—there’s a reason people make films about vampires, or write books about them; it’s so that you never actually have to go out and meet them. They’re this abstract, far removed from Mat’s real life; he’ll occasionally wonder if he’s walked past one on the street, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to turn around and ask. Mat said, “I won’t say nice things at your funeral if you get yourself killed.” “There’s, like, laws about it, Barzy.” Casey told him. “They’re not allowed to hurt us.” People weren’t allowed to commit murders, either, but that shit kind of just happened. He’d looked it up, actually, to try and prove to them that it was dangerous. As it turns out, of all the homicides in Paris last year, only three of them were committed by vampires, but Mat didn’t mention that to anyone. “We’re more likely to get our wallets stolen on the metro,” Marty said cheerfully. “And that hasn’t happened yet, so I feel pretty lucky.” And after that, it went from just an idea to a solid plan—Marty looked up clubs in Paris to meet vampires in, and from that point on any objections Mat had fell on deaf ears. Now, in the queue, Mat doesn’t think there’s anything that would change either one of their minds. He says, “You know we can go to literally any other club to find someone to get your rocks off with.” “It’s not a sex thing, man,” Marty tells him. “It’s just—a Paris thing.” He’s got his arms crossed over his chest and he’s wearing a t-shirt that was probably too tight, like, five years ago. If it is a sex thing, he’ll have no problems with it. Mat can’t help but feel inadequate, because he’s wearing a button up he’s worn three times on this trip already, probably stinking with his BO and generally unappealing to anybody who might want to suck his blood, sex thing or not. But it’s the same shirt he was wearing when he almost went home with that girl in Amsterdam, so maybe it does something for him that Mat’s not aware of. They shuffle to the front of the queue, where a bouncer checks their passports. He’s broad and bored-looking. Mat can’t tell if he’s a vampire or not, but he doesn’t ask them for their blood types, or anything, so signs point to no. Marty and Casey rush forward, and Mat, dragging his feet, follows them inside. At the outset, it looks like any other club. It’s dark, with high ceilings and colourful strobe lights dancing across the floor. The music’s a lot quieter than usual; almost like the point of the place isn’t to dance or get sloshed. Almost like you’re supposed to talk to people. There’s plenty of dark corners, though, and Mat can see shadows moving in them. He doesn’t want to think about whether they’re doing the normal sorts of things you do in the dark corners of clubs, or the other thing. The thing he supposes he’s here for. “Look,” Casey says, kind of awed. They follow his gaze towards a guy leaning back on the bar. He looks about their age, dressed in plain dark clothing and talking to someone Mat can’t quite make out. Mat asks, “Do you know him?” “No, man,” Marty says. “He’s one of them, can’t you tell?” Mat squints through the crowd, but he can’t really make out anything that distinguishes him as a vampire. He’s just got a very big smile, unselfconscious in a way Mat almost envies. It's a nice smile. “You want to say hi?” Mat asks, hoping that the answer is no, they’ve reconsidered and they should go back to the Airbnb, actually. “Dude,” says Casey. “We’re looking for vampire chicks .” “Oh.” Mat feels his face heat. “Right.” Obviously not a sex thing was a fucking lie, damn. Marty looks around, taking it all in. “How do we do this?”“We can split up,” Casey says. “Just, like, text if you find someone?” “Sure,” Marty says absently, already making a beeline for someone across the room. Casey scatters too, and then there’s just Mat, alone in a crowd of people, with no idea how the fuck to start looking for something he’s not entirely sure he wants. He starts by getting a drink, an absurdly expensive beer that they probably give him some kind of tourist markup on. And then he kind of just finds a place by one of the walls and sips it slowly, telling himself that once he finishes it he’ll go. He doesn’t actually have to do this. But he can imagine how he’ll get razzed by Marty in the morning if he’s the only one who doesn’t go through with it. Mat takes a sip and squints into the soft lights of the club. Mat can’t help but watch the guy from earlier, eyes finding him despite every time he forces himself to look away. He’s shorter than Mat, kind of good looking. Whoever he’d been talking to before is gone.Even though he’s leaning back on the bar, body open with a sort of confidence Mat doesn’t think he’s ever projected before, he keeps looking around too. It’s like he’s searching for something. Mat drinks, and keeps watching. The thing is—he genuinely doesn’t know how Casey and Marty had been able to clock him at all. He looks, at least to Mat, like a normal guy, probably freshly out of university, maybe just out for a drink for fun. Not…Not one of them. Mat’s probably met vampires before, of course. Everyone has. He’s just never had a particularly prolonged conversation with one before. He can still remember hearing stories about them from his parents, what things had been like ten years before Mat was born, a hundred. Vampires feeding from whoever they wanted; being killed indiscriminately of their crimes. It isn’t like that at all anymore, but it’s still hard to dispel the pretty formative notion that vamps are something to be feared. Mat looks back at the bar, and—shit. The vamp’s looking right at Mat, no mistaking it, his head tilted in a predatory way as he sizes him up. Mat forces himself to take a breath, but it feels like the air doesn’t quite make it to his lungs.Mat takes a drink, just to have something to do, but his cup is pretty much empty now. He can feel the beer sitting heavy in his stomach; whatever buzz he’d hoped for to loosen him up is gone. The guy at the bar inclines his head, as if to say, come here. Mat stays still for a moment. He’s been spotted now, so the best he can do is find a different place to hang out, antisocial as all hell, until Marty and Casey text him or he summons up the courage to actually leave. He figures it’s not, like, the worst thing if he just goes over and says hi. He is curious. Mat starts towards him, and once he’s walking, his resolve to leave crumbles. He takes a step, and another, until they’re basically in front of each other. His eyes are so blue, even under the harsh club lights. When he grins, Mat can see the twin points of his fangs. His throat suddenly feels dry. He shouldn’t have come over. He should have stayed right where he was and just waited until Marty and Casey got this out of their system. But he’s in front of the guy—the vampire—and there’s kind of no backing out.“Bonsoir,” he says. “Uh, hi,” says Mat. “Hello.” He hasn’t taken a French class since the twelfth grade, and even if he used to be halfway decent at it, he’s too nervous to string together three words, let alone conjugate. “Anglais?” “Yeah, Canadian.” And then the guy breaks into a smile again, somehow brighter than before. And there it is; two long canines, far longer than a human. Mat feels a shiver run up his spine. “Shit, really?” he says. “Where?” Mat’s a little caught off guard by it—the seamless switch between languages, the way the guy’s got only the slightest trace of an accent when he speaks English. The fangs. “Vancouver,” he says. “Quebec,” he says, pointing to himself. “You know Sorel-Tracy?” Mat shrugs, but the guy doesn’t look particularly put out by him not knowing it. He’s still smiling, and Mat feels kind of dizzy just looking at him. “I’m Beau.” “Beau? Like beautiful?” Mat cringes, because he’s not, like, implying that he finds Beau beautiful, and he sure hopes it doesn’t come across that way. But Beau’s face lights up, and Mat gets a flash of that grin again, those gleaming fangs. “My name—Beauvillier.” “Uh. I’m Mat.” “Do you want a drink, or something?” Mat shakes his head. He already feels unsteady enough without more to drink.Beau leans back on the bar again. He keeps looking at Mat, almost like he’s sizing him up. Deciding where to bite first, maybe. Mat feels a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. He says, “Look—my friends, they had this idea.” It feels dumb—kind of offensive, almost—to be telling a vampire this. He doesn’t even know what compelled him to say it at all, really. “They, uh… wanted to try it while we’re in Paris.” He’s so glad for the way Beau nods, slowly, like he’s making sure he gets it. The thought of explaining it again makes Mat’s face burn. “Is that what you’re looking for?” Beau gestures over to where Casey and Marty are locked in conversation with a couple girls in dark clothing, gesturing vaguely at their necks. Mat swallows. “I… I don’t know.” Because he doesn’t. He’d thought this was such a bad idea, and he didn’t want to do it, and he was totally just going to have a few drinks before going back to the Airbnb. But now…Now he’s got Beau looking at him like that, and Mat’s kind of at a loss for what to do. He thinks about those fangs sinking into his neck. He thinks about what Beau’s smile might look like covered in his blood.  It’s not a sex thing, Mat tells himself. He’s not gay, so it wouldn’t be, obviously. At the very least, if it doesn’t kill him, it’ll be a very good story one day. If he tells some buddies at a bar about that time he let a vampire suck his blood, he’ll never have to be the one buying the round. But God. It’s strange, but the thought that sticks in Mat’s mind is of the first time he’d stumbled onto vampire porn. It’s a fucked up genre, and he can remember keenly being fifteen and watching a girl go totally unwound after a vamp’s teeth touched her neck. Mat had watched for a few minutes, horrified and curious, before clicking hurriedly away. He doesn’t know why he fixates on that, the memory of it feeling fresher than it has in years. That’s not, like… relevant here. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest. Beau must be able to hear it—Mat’s read that about vamps, that they’re always aware of the sound of blood pumping. But he just keeps looking at Mat, blinking so infrequently that Mat’s forced to contend with those eyes, those fucking eyes . “I don’t know,” Mat says again. “But I—we could…” “Come back to mine,” says Beau. Mat feels like there should be a hollow pit in his stomach, instead of this bundle of fluttering nerves. He wants—He wants it more than he should, more than he knows how to express. It’s fucking frightening—Beau could probably suggest they do anything right now, and Mat would agree, led around by the desperate anticipation he’s felt since they locked eyes across the room. But he can be smart about this. It’s not a sex thing.  It’s not gay to let this guy suck his blood. What would be gay is letting him suck his dick, and Mat definitely doesn’t want that. So.“Yeah,” says Mat, shakily. “Yes.” ───── It is so monumentally stupid. It’s only once Mat’s out of the heavy, humid air of the club and he can hear himself think without the music that it occurs to him this is the dumbest shit he’s ever pulled. Beau could kill him. Beau could suck him dry and dump him in the Seine and Casey and Marty would never even know. He shoots a quick text to the group chat letting them know he’s left, and makes sure his location sharing is on. Beau watches him do it with his arms crossed over his chest, smiling a little; something about it makes Mat feel crazed, like he should run away from whatever’s in store for him. He doesn’t, just slips his phone into his back pocket and follows Beau into the night. They talk as they walk; Beau’s got a really nice voice, his accent coming out more than Mat had noticed at the club. They’re the same age, Mat finds out, and he hadn’t come to the club for this exact purpose, but he’s not complaining. He smiles at Mat as he says that, sly, and it makes Mat’s heart kick a little. “So what are you doing in Paris?” “I just finished university,” Mat says. “We’re celebrating.” It’s half true—Mat graduated in June, but Casey’s been done his master’s for over a year, and Marty’s been doing fuck knows for pretty much as long as Mat’s known him. The whole Europe trip was Casey’s idea, but he’d framed it as being ostensibly for Mat as much as anything else. The idea of celebrating his graduation makes it easy to justify how much they’re drunk since they arrived in Germany almost two weeks ago. “Are you here long?” “Four more days?” He thinks it’s four or five, anyways. “Then we’re going to Italy, then back home. My friends and I are moving in together.” There's a lease with their names on it in Toronto, a cramped little place, but they'll be together. “Lots of sightseeing?”“Too much,” says Mat. “It’s all starting to blur together, honestly.” Beau laughs, like a good sport, even though it’s barely funny. He steers Mat towards an alleyway. “Shortcut?” says Mat, but Beau’s stopped walking, and for the first time, Mat’s heart starts beating faster with actual fear. “Hey,” says Beau. He gives Mat a bit of a push, right into the wall, and then he’s—His mouth is on Mat’s.Mat’s lips part. It’s kind of just impulse more than anything else; someone is kissing him and so he kisses back before he can remind himself that this isn’t a girl, that the stubble against his chin isn’t welcome. It takes a minute for his body to catch up, and by that point he can feel Beau’s tongue tracing the seam of his mouth, his hand firm on the back of his neck, his—Mat’s never felt an erection other than his own, but it’s there, pressed against his him, undeniable. It’s like being dunked into an ice bath. He’s pulling away, feeling sick. “Wait, wait—”Beau pulls back, but his hips are still pressed to Mat’s, and Mat’s dick isn’t really getting the message that this is wrong and he doesn’t like it. “Wait,” Mat says carefully. His voice sounds shaky and rough. “I don’t… I’m not.” Beau’s hand is on the back of his neck, tracing a distracting circle against Mat’s skin. “Not what?” he asks, still sort of smiling at Mat. How the fuck does he not get it? “I’m not like that, man,” Mat says. There’s kind of just a moment where Beau looks at him with that soft, fond smile. And then Mat sees the moment it dawns on him. The smile drops, and Mat misses it the second it’s gone. Beau steps back. His face is doing something odd, his mouth twisting. He runs a hand over his shirt, flattening it back into place. “I’m sorry,” he says flatly. “Clearly I misunderstood.”Mat runs a hand through his hair. It’s not fair that he’s the one left feeling like shit, because it’s not his fault Beau completely just… You’re not supposed to do that, just kiss someone without asking. It caught him off guard, is all. “Look, I should’ve said that’s not… what I’m looking for. We’re good, though?” Beau takes another step back. “I should go.” “I—I still want to do it, okay?” He snorts. “You can’t even say it, can you?” That’s not fucking fair. Mat’s, like, totally out of his comfort zone here.“Fuck you,” he says, immediately defensive. “That’s—come on, man.” Everything is slipping away from him and he hadn’t been sure that he wanted it before but he does now—he wants it. Mat inhales, sharp. He says, “I want you to bite me.” Suddenly Mat’s pressed back against the wall by a hand against his chest. It knocks the wind out of him, sends a shiver down his whole body. Beau is right there, eyes sharp and predatory. “Do you,” he says, barely even a question at all. Mat narrows his eyes. “Yes.” Beau stares at him for a moment longer, like he’s expecting Mat to run scared. Then he laughs, humourless, and takes a step back. “Fine.”  ───── The rest of the walk is quiet. Beau says nothing more, none of the gentle small talk they’d been making before. Mat has things that he wants to ask, maybe, but he feels like he’s already overstepped. Which… he shouldn’t, right? Beau is the one who kissed him. He’s the one who should’ve known better. The quiet really starts to get to Mat as they climb the steps to Beau’s apartment building. He hasn’t tried to touch Mat again, and it feels… weird. Mat’s gone home with so many girls in his life, and usually they’re all over him, fumbling with their keys in their haste to get him inside. But Beau keeps his hands to himself and says nothing untoward. But maybe that’s better. This isn’t a sex thing, no matter how confused Mat’s body got in the alleyway, no matter the fact he’s been kind of sporting a semi ever since. It’s just normal, okay? Just biology. Beau unlocks his door and ushers Mat into his dark apartment. The fear from the alleyway has come back just a little. He’s missed his last real chance to run away, so whatever happens now is his own fault. As he closes the door behind him, Beau’s smile comes back—or a soft approximation of the one he’d given at the club, at least. It makes Mat feel instantly less on edge, even though it shouldn’t. Plenty of people are capable of looking kind when they smile whilst being total psychos. Still, Mat takes a moment to look around. It’s just a small apartment—kitchen, a cramped couch, a little hallway leading to what Mat assumes is the bedroom. It’s pretty plain, a bit lonely. “Where do you want me?” Mat says, and cringes. “The bed,” says Beau, already halfway there without waiting to see if Mat will follow. He will, of course he will. He tries not to think about it as he does, what this all says about him. He should never have listened to Marty and Casey about any of this. There’s no way it ends well. But—Well, Beau could have hurt him at any point by now. He had Mat pinned up against a wall, and he hadn’t done anything but kiss him. Even when Mat had pushed him, denied him the one thing he’d probably wanted all along, he hadn’t lashed out. Mat has absolutely no reason to trust him, but he wants to. In his bedroom, Beau draws the drapes and turns on the light on his bedside table. It’s a nice enough room, small but obviously lived in a way that’s comforting. Still, everything is more real now that Mat’s confronted with the bed, an actual bed that Beau has probably brought people back to before under very different circumstances. Beau raises an eyebrow at him, and Mat takes it as his cue to get onto the bed. He wonders if this might have gone a little differently if he’d handled himself better in the alleyway—instead of this awkward crawl up to the headboard, maybe he’d be tumbling into the pillows with Beau crawling atop him eagerly, his hands—Mat stops himself from thinking about it. He needs to not think like that, because it’s absurd. He lets Beau position him how he wants, his upper body slightly propped up by the pillows. It’s quiet and awkward and Mat doesn’t think he’s very good at hiding how he flinches every time Beau touches him. Beau’s got this furrow on his forehead that’s been there since he unlocked the door, and Mat kind of wants to reach out and smooth it away. He keeps his hands curled firmly at his sides. Once Beau’s seemingly happy with how Mat’s arranged, he crawls on top of him, straddling his thighs. Mat tenses, and Beau just looks at him, hard. “It’s fine,” Mat says quickly. He can hold it together. He should’ve picked literally anyone else in the club. If he’d found a girl, this part would be hot, actually; maybe Mat would put his hands on her hips, drag her closer—Beau undoes a couple buttons on Mat’s shirt. It’s just so he can get better access to his neck, but with Beau straddling him it feels absurdly intimate. Beau’s hips are right there , and Mat can’t help but think of how Beau’s erection had felt pressed against him in the alleyway. He can’t feel it now, which is a good thing. It means Beau’s not riled up, that he doesn’t think this will go in a certain direction. Beau puts a hand on his bare chest, firm, but not pushing. “Okay?” It isn’t. It shouldn’t be. Mat should shove Beau away from him, because he isn’t—this isn’t—“Okay,” he says. His voice is so quiet that he barely recognizes it. Beau’s hand migrates up, fingers stroking across Mat’s Adam’s apple to his jugular. “I’m going to bite you here.” “Just—fucking do it,” Mat huffs out. Beau’s answering laugh goes right through him. “Bossy.” Mat takes the nuclear route, and turns his head completely, baring his throat. He hears a sharp intake of breath and then—Beau’s lips brush Mat’s neck, and Mat tries to breathe. But he feels… He feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin, electrified and impatient for whatever he’ll be given. There’s a gentle scrape of teeth on his neck, and Mat’s hand shoots out for something solid to hang onto. His fingers find Beau’s hair and stay there—not pushing or pulling, just feeling the fine strands against his skin, like that’s going to distract him from his nerves—and Beau doesn’t seem to mind it, judging from the way he hums and sends another shiver up Mat’s spine. He can feel the scrape of teeth again, Beau’s sharp inhale of breath. It hurts almost like a needle at first, a sharp sting that subsides after less than a second. And then there’s—It comes over him like a soft mist of rain. He turns his face towards it as everything goes hazy around him. His body goes entirely weightless, drifting into a place where nothing hurts, where nothing can even be felt. Everything is dreamlike, muted. His limbs drift away from him until the only thing he can feel is a gentle pressure at his neck. It feels like it goes on forever. It might be hours; it might be years. He could be growing old here, joints going gnarled and crooked, and he wouldn’t even know it. It is peaceful here, and nothing can hurt him. Nothing can even touch him. It is better than anything he has ever felt before.Slowly, the pressure eases off. The world trickles back in pieces. The sounds of the street permeate the soft, dreamlike place he’d been; he can hear a door slam and a quiet conversation somewhere far from them. His eyes are still closed but he’s becoming aware of the lamp on the bedside table being on. Pleasure rolls over him in waves, somehow getting more intense the more the bite fades. His skin is too hot, burning up. He’s moving, he thinks. He can’t stop—it feels so good. The pleasure concentrates in his groin, steadily moving towards a climax. His hips hitch up against the firm muscle of Beau’s thigh and—shit. Mat’s hard, and the body above him is undeniably male. “Fuck,” he says, breathless. “Shit, I’m—I’m sorry—”His hips still haven’t really stopped moving, little aborted thrusts up that he can’t seem to stop. He can feel a hand stroking over the bite on his neck. “It’s okay,” Beau says. His voice sounds weird—all strained and wrong. “It happens.” Beau’s tongue laps over the place where he’d bit Mat. Jesus, that feels good. Mat kind of hopes the mark will show tomorrow, so he’ll have a little piece of Beau on his body. It’s a terrifying, insane thought—and it’s gone as soon as he feels Beau’s tongue again, tracing down over his collarbone now. And then that wet heat lifts away, and Mat opens his eyes. All he can see is Beau, still braced only a few inches above him, his mouth bright red with… with Mat’s blood, holy shit. His pupils are enormous, ringed by only the smallest sliver of blue. He looks like he’s high. He looks how Mat feels—turned on and shaking and like he’s just felt something he’ll be chasing forever. Mat can’t help but reach out, his thumb brushing Beau’s mouth. It’s warm and wet, and Beau lets him smear his own blood over his lips. Mat pushes his thumb in, tracing over his fangs, and then Beau closes his mouth. His cheeks hollow as he sucks Mat’s thumb into his mouth, tongue laving over it. It’s obscene. It’s terrible in the low light, the blood still gleaming on the pucker of his lips. He can imagine what the hot, tight suction would feel like elsewhere. What Beau would look like curled over his body, eyes half-lidded as he…God. “Fuck,” Mat says. “You—” Beau lets his thumb slip out of mouth, but Mat can’t help but cup his cheek. He looks beautiful, and even the stubble under Mat’s hand doesn’t feel quite so wrong. Mat feels a pressure at his belt. Beau’s hands, far steadier than Mat feels, are undoing his buckle, dragging it out of the loops. Mat swallows hard. When he looks up, Beau’s still watching him, eyes wide. “Okay?” he says quietly. Mat feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin. “Yes,” he says. “Please.” There’s fingers on the zipper of his jeans, and it’s like it prods Mat into action. He suddenly can’t get his pants off fast enough. Beau tugs his boxers down his things, just enough to get at his cock. Then he’s sliding down Mat’s body, and it feels like his touch burns. His lips brush Mat’s stomach, his hipbone, the top of his thigh. Beau’s fangs graze right over his femoral artery and Mat can’t the full body shiver the runs through him. Mat’s gotten, like, a ton of blowjobs before, but he’s never felt this on edge before they even started. Everything is too hot and too bright around him. He can’t help but whimper at the first light brush of Beau’s tongue against his bare cock. He goes slow, drags his tongue from the very base up to the tip. He makes a noise when he tastes the precome beading there, like he likes it. Mat fumbles his hand into Beau’s hair just to have something solid to hang onto. Beau suckles at the head, mouth warm and wet. Mat makes a little noise, and Beau’s eyes flick upward. He’s grinning, even with Mat’s dick in his mouth, and there’s no reason for it to be this hot, the hottest thing Mat’s ever seen, maybe. Without warning, Beau takes him all the way down, chin brushing Mat’s balls, and Mat shouts. It’s everything he can do to keep his hips from slamming forward, from driving himself even deeper into that ridiculously tight heat. “Fuck!” His grip in Beau’s hair tightens. “Fuck, that’s—that’s good, it’s so good. It’s insane how good he is at this, taking Mat right down his throat and then sliding off, all tight lips and his tongue tracing a merciless line up the side of Mat’s dick. It feels like it’s all he can do to hold on, thighs trembling with the effort of not thrusting upwards. God, he’s never—There’s a tiny scrape of fangs on the crown of his dick and that’s it. Mat’s gone. It catches him off guard, and then his orgasm feels like it lasts forever, waves and waves of it drawn out by the clever swipe of Beau’s tongue until he has to pull him away by his hair, too overstimulated to do anything but tremble under his gaze. Jesus. Jesus Christ. Mat collapses back into the bed, arms trembling. He feels totally limp with pleasure. “Holy shit,” Mat says. “You’re good at that, fuck.” There’s no reply, but he becomes slowly aware of the fact that Beau’s moving next to him. He’s—uh. It was one thing to be presented with the evidence of Beau’s attraction to him when it was just pressed against him, but safely tucked away in his pants. Mat squeezes his eyes shut. He can hear the sound of Beau spitting into his hand, the slick slide of that hand on himself, the little bit-off groan he lets out. Mat wonders what might happen if he reached over. It would just be rude not to, is the thing. Beau sucked his dick, Beau made him come harder than Mat can ever remember coming before. It’s not nice to leave a guy hanging after that. Mat fumbles his hand out blindly, and Beau freezes next to him. There’s another moment of tense uncertainty, like Beau’s half expecting Mat to hit him. “Can I?” he says. His tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth. He opens his eyes to Beau watching him again. His tongue darts out to the corner of his mouth, where there’s a fleck of Mat’s still drying blood. “You don’t have to,” he says, and Mat feels like something inside his chest tightens. “Yeah,” he says. He doesn’t say, I want to. Mat reaches down and takes Beau’s dick into his hand. His skin is feverishly hot, still wet with his own spit. He makes a careful fist around the base of it. Beau hasn’t taken his eyes off him. Mat’s never touched a cock other than his own, but it’s not actually that weird. The angle’s different, sure, but the motion’s not. He does what he likes, tightening his fist when he gets to the head and Beau makes this little whimpering noise right in his ear. It’s like a straight line to Mat’s cock—he doesn’t think he’ll get it up again, but not for a lack of trying. So he does it again, and again, until Beau’s rocking his hips forward in time with the strokes. He’s panting against Mat’s jaw and he’s—Mat’s curious, is the thing. When Beau kissed him before the fact of being kissed kind of eclipsed his ability to enjoy it. And it’s, like, not wrong to wonder about it. Besides, Mat likes making out with girls, so he could just pretend this is the same thing. He wonders whether Beau tastes like blood—like Mat’s blood. He kind of wants to feel the points of Beau’s fangs on his tongue. Mat turns his face. They’re not quite kissing, but they’re so close they might as well be, Beau breathing right into Mat’s mouth. “Can you—”“Yeah?” Mat says. “Bit tighter?” He sounds— wrecked, like he’s out of his mind with desperation. Mat tightens his grip, and Beau swears in soft French. “Like that?” “Yeah,” Beau says. “Yes, yes—” And then he’s coming, body going tight with it as he spills all over Mat’s fist and his own shirt. It’s quiet for minutes afterward as Beau catches his breath. Mat exhales shakily. He kind of feels like he’s blacked out for the past few minutes. There’s nothing justifiable about what he’s just done. Beau pulls off his shirt and uses it to give both their bodies a perfunctory wipe. Mat tries not to look at even an inch of his bare skin, but it’s hard when there’s so much of it.He looks up, catching Mat watching him. “Are you staying?” “I, um.” Mat thinks about trying to find his way home in the dark, in this city where he gets laughed at every time he tries to speak French. Maybe it’s not the worst thing if he catches a couple hours of sleep here, at least until it’s light out. “I guess, yeah. If that’s okay.” Beau smiles broadly before he seems to catch himself, reigning it in. He flops back onto the pillows, jeans just pushed halfway down his legs. Mat at least strips off his shirt and pulls up his boxers, because he’s not an animal. It’s maybe a little bit gay to crawl into bed half-naked, and pull the covers up over both of them, but Beau makes this soft, contented noise and snuggles into his pillows and Mat kind of just—freezes. Beau’s thigh is a couple inches from his, radiating warmth. He’d thought vampires were cold and lifeless, consumed by the thought of when they could next feed. This… isn’t like that. Beau seems small and human next to him, contented the way only someone who’s just gotten laid can be. Mat wants to reach out and touch him, just to make sure he’s real. He watches the soft shadow of Beau’s eyelashes against his cheeks, listening to his breaths even out. It doesn’t take him long at all to fall asleep.  ───── Mat wakes up alone, and it takes a moment for the events of last night to come back to him. And when they do—Jesus. Mat sits up. He’s alone, and the other side of the bed is cold. The apartment around him is quiet. He finds the bathroom, pisses. His reflection over the sink stares back at him as he washes his hands. The marks on his neck are mostly faded, but Mat runs his fingers over them anyway. There’s two twin points against his skin, surrounded by the faintest yellowing bruise. They feel smooth, like a fresh scar. He’s read that vamps can heal the wounds they leave, which is probably what Beau had been doing with his tongue after the bite; at the time, though, that’s not how Mat’s body had interpreted it. He tears his hand away from his neck. God. The rest of the apartment is empty too when he gets halfway dressed and stumbles out into the kitchen. The clock on the stove tells him it’s just past six in the morning. Mat idly glances through the small pile of mail on the table. It’s not snooping, exactly—he’s just curious. The mail’s all addressed to an Anthony Beauvillier, so that must be Beau’s first name. He turns it over in his mind. It’s a normal name. It suits him, but Beau does too. There’s a couple sticky notes on the fridge that Mat reads to—just reminders jotted down in French that he doesn’t really know what to make of. He opens the fridge, just in case maybe there’s something to eat—He feels like someone has slapped him very hard across the face. There’s nothing in the fridge except bags upon bags of blood. They’re on the shelves, in the door where normal people would keep their OJ, filling up the vegetable drawer. Mat hears someone make a strangled noise, only to realize a moment later that it came from him . He slams the door shut so hard he can hear the shelves inside rattle. A single thought emerges amidst the buzz of everything else—he has to get out of here. He stumbles back to the bedroom, grabbing his shoes and his phone and his passport. Beau’s room suddenly feels entirely different than it had last night, but he can’t quite place why. There’s no outward sign of this being a lair that he intends to keep Mat in, feeding off him forever. There’s a monitor and a gaming chair in one corner. There’s those little string lights that change colours haphazardly strung up around the ceiling. The books on the bedside table look worn and well-loved. The trash can under the desk is pretty full with empty cans. Outwardly, this is a room that could belong to any guy in his twenties, gay vampire or not. If Mat just stumbled in here, he’d never be able to tell that whoever lives here is—Shit. The thought is abruptly terrifying. He jerks back from the bed, pulling on his shoes. He can’t find his belt and he’d liked it, fuck, but he just needs to get out of here. The unmade bed taunts him. What the fuck had he been thinking last night? By the time he makes it to the door he thinks he’s probably fully panicking. He yanks it open and—Beau’s got his key raised towards the lock. “Hi?” Beau says. His arms are full of bread and a carton of eggs; tucked neatly against his chest is a bouquet of flowers. “Oh,” says Mat. The panic has ebbed some, just at the sight of Beau, which is somehow worse. He can’t stop looking at the fucking flowers. It’s so at odds with the bags of blood in the fridge. “Yeah, I was—sorry.” Beau’s face has gone all tight the way it had in the alleyway. “I brought breakfast. Guess you’re not staying.”He pushes past Mat into the apartment, not waiting for an answer. He sets the eggs and bread down on his little kitchen table, none too gently. The flowers dangle limply from his fist.“I’m just going to…” Mat trails off. He feels abruptly out of control. He kind of wants Beau to turn around and smile at him again the way he had last night. Mat had noticed that first. The fucking smile. But Beau stays turned away from him and gives no indication that he’s going to say anything else, so Mat slips silently into the corridor, closing the door behind himself. ───── It occurs to him as he’s unlocking the door of their Airbnb that maybe the vampire thing should bother him more than the guy thing. Being gay is one thing—which Mat is not , thank you—but willingly giving yourself over to a bloodsucker is totally another. He’d heard people like that called bloodbags, once. It makes him feel dirty all over just to think it.And Mat isn’t like that, obviously. He did it the one time and Marty and Casey did it the one time, just to say they did, and that’s fine. Being young is about experimentation, or whatever. There’s like, campaigns and shit anyways. Vamp rights. Respect the bloodsuckers.All that to say, the gay thing and the vampire thing are equal levels of bad, and Mat is never going to indulge in either ever again. Or try either. Indulge implies that he liked it, that he wants to do it again. Which he doesn’t.He feels kind of terrible about how they left things, but what was he supposed to do? He tries to put the look on Beau’s face out of his mind. It’s not like Mat will ever see him again. Somehow, that thought isn’t as comforting as he’d thought it would be. Mat creeps through the quiet doorway of their place, careful not to let the door slam behind him. This is maybe the most humiliating walk of shame he’s ever had. He doesn’t think it shows on him. I touched a dick last night. A guy kissed me and I thought about doing it again. But it doesn’t matter if it does show on him; Marty and Casey are crashed, both out cold with the doors to their rooms thrown wide open. Mat sets himself an alarm so he can wake them up for sightseeing. Then he crawls into his own bed and closes his eyes.  ───── “So was it?” Mat finally asks later as they’re craning their necks to get a look at the Mona Lisa. “A sex thing,” he clarifies. “Oh, yeah,” says Marty. Casey nods. “Definitely.”  ───── “Can they do mind control?” Mat says, out of breath as they stare up at the last flight of stairs on the Eiffel Tower. “Like, if they suck your blood can they plant ideas in your mind?” “Dude,” says Casey. “I’m pretty sure that’s just in the movies.”  ───── “Do they eat real food?” Mat can’t help but ask as they listen to Notre Dame’s bells echoing over the Seine. “Like, eggs and toast. Just—for example.” This time both of them look at him a little oddly. “Shit,” says Marty. “Never thought of that before.”  ───── The marks on Mat’s neck are completely faded by the late afternoon, but Mat feels like everyone can tell anyways. When he’d woken in the Airbnb sometime after nine, still in his dirty clothes, the first thing he’d done was monopolize the one bathroom to stare at the place on his neck where the marks should have been. And then he’d taken a very cold shower to erase the memory of how it had felt to have Beau’s mouth there.Casey and Marty seem to have fared somewhat better than him. Marty’s neck is an absolute wreck of hickeys, enough so that Mat can’t even tell where his bite might have been in the first place. Casey keeps looking over at him and rolling his eyes. But Mat’s content to let them talk about their nights, because it means he can try not to think about his. He’s spent the whole day getting hard at inopportune moments when he remembers how Beau had looked on his knees, wide blue eyes and his pretty mouth stretched around Mat. It’s just so weird that he got hard in the first place, with a guy’s body on top of him. He’s not gay. Beau just, like, did something to him, maybe. The feeding felt so good that Mat’s body got confused. Mat’s body is still confused, because he has to spend a really, really humiliating five minutes in the bathrooms at the Louvre, just trying to get his erection to flag. He doesn’t get it, is the problem. He’s not, like, gay. It was one really weird, really confusing night, and he’d like to get on with his life now. He’s never looked at other men before, except maybe to admire guys who look good, who he’d like to look like. But that’s normal, right? Everybody does that. And the blowjob bit is justifiable. A blowie is a blowie, and it felt good. But he’d… He’d found the sight of Beau hot. He’d liked the sounds he made when Mat jerked him off. And that—whatever the fuck posessed Mat to do that in the first place—is a whole other thing.He thinks he might be losing it.  ───── And then it occurs to him as they’re heading back to the Airbnb after a long day of sightseeing: it’s like a science experiment. He has to recreate it, and it’ll prove last night was a fluke. He’s going to get Beau to suck his blood again, and this time it’s not going to make his dick hard and it’s not going to make him do anything stupid. This’ll be good.  ───── So he goes back. He needs to get it out of his system. Casey and Marty want to go to another club—a normal one this time—but Mat tells them he’s not feeling up to it. And then, an hour after they’re gone, he goes out to the same vampire club as last night. It occurs to him as he’s getting inside that there’s no guarantee Beau will be there. But he doesn’t remember exactly where Beau lived, so this will have to be good enough.It isn’t hard to find him. He’s in the same spot as last night, surrounded by a group of attractive people. Mat squints, but he can’t see anything that outwardly sets them apart as vampires. They’re just a bunch of super hot people in a club. And Beau, at the centre of it, looks beautiful. Or, like, not beautiful, but… Good. Like he belongs there, the fluorescent lights making a halo around his messy hair, his button-up just low and loose enough that it’s probably showing off his chest hair. Mat kind of wants to sink his teeth into his neck. It’s not a normal thought, and it almost makes him turn around and leave. But he came here for a reason, and he’s going to see this through. He circles the floor for a bit, turns away a girl who comes up to him to say hi, and only realizes how cute she was as she’s walking away. It’s fine, though. Mat’s not here to get laid with anyone. He’s got, like, a plan. As soon as he summons up the courage to go talk to Beau, everything will go right. He figures there’s no time like the present, so he moves a little closer, situates himself in Beau’s line of sight. Beau does kind of a double take when he sees Mat, his eyebrows furrowing, but he doesn’t seem in a hurry to come say hi. Fine. Mat takes a step, and another, and then he’s right in front of him. “Hey,” says Mat. There’s a moment where Beau’s mouth twitches, like he’s going to smile, but then his eyes slide right past Mat and back to the guy he was talking to. “Hey,” Mat says again, stepping closer. “It’s me, Mat.” It’s an objectively dumb thing to say—Beau recognized him, obviously, but he’s just choosing to ignore him. “Yes,” Beau says finally. “I know.” Neither he nor his conversation partner seem all that bothered that Mat’s here, that he came all this way to see Beau again. They just keep talking in French, Mat catching words that he knows here and there. Mat eyes up the guy he’s talking to. Older, thin, not that hot. He wonders if Beau is trying to take him home. Mat can’t tell if he’s a vampire. Maybe Beau’s an equal opportunist, and he doesn’t just fuck humans. Not that that’s what he and Mat are going to do tonight. The guy glances at Mat, his lip twitching in a way that kind of makes Mat want to hit him. Dick. Mat leans closer to Beau and says, “I want you to suck my blood again.” And that, momentarily, seems to get Beau’s attention. He pauses mid-conversation to look over at Mat properly for the first time, and it makes a little shiver of pleasure run down his spine. Beau’s looking at him, fuck that other guy. But then he just gives his head a little shake and looks away.“Come on,” Mat says. “You liked it.” “Yes,” says Beau absently, and then leans over Mat to say something in French that’s too fast for Mat to understand. It’s—well. It’s fucking annoying, actually, to be ignored like this. Mat wants to scream at him. I touched your dick, look at me. He crosses his arms over his chest and tries to take up as much space as possible, staring at Beau’s conversation partner in a way that, hopefully, communicates how little he’s wanted here. Beau sighs, and then says something in rapid fire French to his friend that makes him throw his head back laughing, before he makes an exit. And then it’s just the two of them—just like Mat wanted. Beau finally looks at him, long and lingering. His eyes track up Mat’s jeans to the t-shirt that looks totally out of place at the club. Maybe Mat should have put some gel in his hair. No—that would definitely be gay, like he’s putting in effort to make this guy want him. “I will do it,” says Beau, and Mat feels his body flood with relief—yeah, fuck yes . And then—“But only if you let me fuck you.” “No fucking way,” says Mat. Beau shrugs. “Okay.” Then he’s—he’s leaving. His back is turned to Mat and he’s walking away. It takes Mat’s brain a second to catch up to the conversation, and then he’s practically tripping over his own feet to get after him. “Wait,” he says. “Wait!” Beau turns. He actually has the audacity to look pissed off, like Mat’s not the one going out on a fucking limb here. He could’ve been getting drunk with Marty and Casey right now, but this is important. He needs this. “No—come on. We can do something else, man, I just…” He trails off. Under the club lights, under Beau’s gaze, he suddenly feels like his collar is too tight, vaguely like he’s going to be sick. “Something else?” “You want to bite me, right? We can… Whatever you want, okay? Just not… that.” Beau just looks at him for a long time. Mat tries not to squirm. Beau liked him fine last night. He maybe liked him a bit too much, actually, but that’s neither here not there. Beau inclines his head, calculating. It’s not comforting. But the bite had been so good that Mat figures it’s worth going out on a limb for. “I’ll suck you here.” Beau puts a finger on Mat’s hammering pulse. “And you’ll suck me here.” And then he puts his hand over his own crotch. Mat doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing.“That’s the deal,” he says, still looking Mat in the eye.  No, thinks Mat, immediately. There’s no fucking way he’s getting anywhere near Beau’s dick again. There’s nothing in Beau’s expression that would indicate he’s joking. His eyes are hard, his mouth is pressed into a line. Mat takes a deep breath. The whole point of this is that Mat’s not going to be into it. He’s had blowjobs before, good and bad. Probably it’s not hard to give one that’s at least satisfying enough to be an even exchange for the whole biting thing. Mat could probably find someone else in this club who’s just willing to bite him without needing anything in return, but the effort of that sounds absurdly unappealing. Besides, Beau’s place was clean, and if he wanted to kill Mat he would’ve done it last night. Probably. Mat can manage a blowjob, he thinks, if it means he’ll get that floaty feeling like last night. He’ll get this out of his system and he’ll prove—prove to Beau—that he’s not into guys. Beau’s just got the wrong idea about him, that’s all. Fuck this guy, honestly. It’s like he knows that something inside Mat is hard-wired to never back down from a challenge. “Fine,” Mat says. “Okay.”  ───── The walk back to Beau’s place is quieter this time. Last night Beau had been touching him, laughing and joking and just—just smiling at Mat. Tonight there’s nothing but stony silence, a wall up between them. It makes the knot of anxiety in Mat’s chest grow and grow until it’s all he can focus on. He is going to suck a dick. Jesus Christ. They pass the alleyway where they’d kissed last night, and Mat can feel the hair at the back of his neck standing up. His breaths keep coming faster and shorter. Beau sighs. “If you’re panicking, we’re not doing this.” “I’m not panicking,” Mat says. It’s pointless: Beau can hear his heartbeat. He must be able to tell that Mat is absolutely losing his shit. “You can tell me if you change your mind about it.” Mat can’t even look at him. He doesn’t have to be so fucking nice about it. “I won’t,” he says. “Okay,” says Beau. They keep walking. He thinks he’s maybe calmed down a little by the time they take the stairs up to Beau’s apartment again. Or at least, he doesn’t feel quite like he can’t breathe anymore. At the door, Beau looks up at him again, like he’s giving Mat one more chance to back out of this. The panic has settled into something more like determination, so he just stays quiet until Beau’s forced to turn back around and unlock the door. This time, they don’t waste any time with pleasantries. Beau just heads straight down the hall to the bedroom and Mat follows. The dark apartment seems more frightening than it had last night, now that Mat actually knows who—what—lives here. Beau strips off his shirt and tosses it onto the bed. This time, he doesn’t close the drapes or turn on the lamp. The light from the street is barely enough to see, but Mat can make out his belt slung over the back of the chair. The flowers have been stuffed into the overflowing garbage can under the desk. Mat feels a hot twist of shame at the sight of them. He’d feel so much better if he had the loose, hazy feeling he’d gotten from the bite yesterday. “Well?” says Beau. He flops back onto the bed with his legs spread. In Mat’s mind it’s easy. All he has to do is walk over and kneel on the floor in front of him and put his dick in his mouth. Girls have done this to him a thousand times. Girls have liked doing this to him. Mat’s throat clicks as he swallows. His feet feel like they’re bolted to the floor. Beau sighs, and then he’s reaching for his own pants. The sound of the zipper is loud, almost incriminating. Mat breathes in, and out, and watches Beau as he works his jeans down over his hips. And then he's staring at what is very obviously an erection, straining in Beau boxers. He’d touched it last night, and his hand didn’t fall off, or anything. The boxers come off too, and there it is, a cock same as Mat’s, maybe a little thicker. He hadn’t gotten to look last night—hadn’t really wanted to—but now it feels like that’s the only thing he can do. Mat walks forward. He goes to his knees. At this angle, the window at his back, Beau’s face is almost completely shrouded in shadows. He looks like a vampire, like something to be afraid of. Still, Beau’s voice is soft as he says, “You don’t have to—” “No,” says Mat, too quick. “No, I—said I would.” Beau strokes his fingers over Mat’s throat. It’s like a promise, but it kind of makes Mat feel dirty with how badly he wants it. Beau’s fingers find the shell of his ear, his cheekbone. Mat doesn’t think he’s ever touched a girl like this when they’ve blown him. Pulled their hair when they wanted it, sure, but he usually keeps his hands to himself. But Beau—there’s a kind of tenderness behind his touches. “Go slow,” he says. “Lick it first.” Mat feels a curl of heat run straight south, and he tamps that down, the fuck. It’s just that Beau has a kind of nice sex voice, rough and deep. Mat reaches out and makes a fist around Beau’s cock. This part, at least, is familiar from last night, and he hates that it is. He breathes in, and out. Then he bends his head for the first cautious touch of his tongue. Beau’s skin is soft here, and he can smell the musk of him. It’s undeniably male, but it’s not actually unpleasant. Mat drags his tongue up Beau’s cock the way Beau had done to him last night. He can hear Beau’s soft exhale above him, and he takes it as a good sign. There’s precome beading at the slit of Beau’s cock, and Mat cautiously tastes it. It’s salty, but not as terrible as he’d expected, somehow. None of this has been as terrible as it should be. Beau’s fingers touch his cheek again. “You really don’t have to—”“Shut the fuck up,” Mat says. And then he really puts his mouth on him, because he wants Beau to be quiet. He tries to mind the teeth, but he can’t actually get much more than the head into his mouth. He focuses on that, trying to make up for it by stroking with his hand what can’t be reached by his tongue. He thinks maybe he’s starting to work up to a good rhythm, because Beau keeps making these sounds, soft, like they’re punched out of him. They go right to Mat’s dick, which he can feel starting to press painfully against his zipper. Shit. It’s like Beau can sense it, because he says, “You like it?” His voice is so rough with sex that Mat actually whimpers. He squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn’t make it any less real. It doesn’t make his own desire any less obvious.Beau keeps talking, spouting filthy shit that makes Mat actually want to touch himself, just to take the edge off. You look good like this, and I knew you’d love it. His hands find Mat hair and stay there, not quite pulling but firm enough that Mat feels it all the way down his body. It feels good, the weight of Beau in his mouth, the firm surety with which he touches Mat. He takes Beau as far down as he can go, until he gags and has to pull off to catch his breath. He does it again, and Beau makes a noise that Mat wants to bottle up and keep for later. He shouldn’t want it. It shouldn’t feel good. He settles into a rhythm, only going as far as he can bear to. Beau’s hand in his hair starts to tug, urgent. “Wait—I’m—”Mat should move off him, but he suddenly feels like this is important. It’s important that he makes Beau feel good. In for a penny, and all that. He hollows his cheeks. He can feel Beau’s cock pulsing as he comes. It’s—it’s not great, actually, and it takes everything in Mat to not gag, to force his throat to swallow. He pulls off, coughing. The taste of it is going to linger in his mouth, he can tell. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. Beau’s suddenly pulling at him, dragging him up into his lap, clumsy with the aftershocks. “So hot,” he says against Mat’s ear, his mouth damp and hot on his skin. “That was so hot.” There’s teeth at his neck. Mat nearly forgot that he wanted this, but he bares his neck all the same and then Beau is biting down and Mat is—It feels like a riptide: it hits him in the gut and pulls him under so fast he can’t fight it, and then it takes him out to sea where he just floats and floats and floats.  ───── He comes to with a hand stroking gentle circles over the skin on his hip. His jeans are gone, and he cringes at the sticky feeling in his boxers. He’d come just from the bite, just from Beau’s hands on his body and his mouth on Mat’s neck. It probably says something about him. Mat’s pretty sure getting hard from sucking dick is  at least a little gay. This time, he can’t even blame it on the vampire bite, because that came after. He doesn’t want Beau to stop touching him, though. He doesn’t want Beau to ever stop touching him.“Was it good?” Mat says finally, once he can form words. It’s the first thing either of them have said, and his own voice is rough to his ears, embarrassingly so. Beau presses a kiss to the top knob of his spine. “Needs some work.” “Oh, fuck you.” Mat lets himself lie there for a while. Beau’s still touching him, and he can’t find it in himself to push him away. Eventually he fumbles for his jeans, dragging his phone out of the pocket. It’s late, and there’s an increasingly frantic series of text messages, but most of them have the misspellings typical of a drunk Casey. Mat texts back a quick, still alive, i’ll be back later. When he sets it down on the bedside table, he finds Beau watching him, eyes narrowed. “Uh,” Mat starts. “I’ll—can I stay? Just for the night?” “Sure,” says Beau easily, and draws the blinds. He’s pulled a shirt on at some point, and Mat tries not to be too upset about it as he watches his arms. He looks good like this, face still a little flushed, mouth stained dark red with blood. As they settle under the covers together, it feels familiar, almost like a routine. He lets himself relax. There’ll be fallout from this, he’s pretty sure, but he can deal with it when he wakes up.  ───── He’s woken a couple times in the night by Beau getting up to use the bathroom, or a commotion on the street below the window. But every time, Mat lets himself settle back into the blankets. Every time, he can feel Beau get closer, until his shoulders are right by Mat’s, until his steady breaths come right in Mat’s ear. He drifts in and out of consciousness, Beau still asleep next to him.Finally, the pinpricks of light through the tiny gaps in the blinds begin to change, and Mat drags his eyes fully open. It’s only when he checks his phone that he realizes it’s early afternoon. He’s been here for hours when there’s really no reason to be. Just lounging in Beau’s bed, Beau pressed against his skin. He feels suddenly sick, sweaty and hot and like he needs to get out of bed right now. He needs to brush his teeth—why the fuck didn’t he last night? He snoops through the drawers in Beau’s bathroom, but there’s no spare toothbrush, so he contends with squirting toothpaste on his finger and squishing it around in his mouth as best he can. It’s just normal Crest, nothing vampy about it. His reflection in the mirror looks sleep-rumpled, the bite on his neck starker than it had been yesterday. When Mat touches it, the skin is a little sore. Maybe Beau forgot to heal it. The sight of the twin marks shouldn’t make Mat feel like this, though; like he’s missed the last stair, like he’s been knocked down so hard it winded him. He wonders if he can sneak out without Beau catching him this time. Maybe, if Mat’s careful, he can press a kiss to Beau’s forehead without waking him up. It feels like kind of a nice thing to do.  But Beau’s sitting up in bed when he gets back, blinking sleep from his eyes. He looks soft and tired, his hair a mess that Mat kind of wants to stick his fingers into. And Mat—Mat wanted to leave, before. Now all he wants to do is crawl back into bed and maybe touch Beau again. He doesn’t care that he’s spent the whole day here; he’ll spend the rest of it here too, if Beau lets him. He gets back under the covers without a word, angling his body towards Beau’s. Their knees touch. “Are you nocturnal?” Mat asks, because he is curious. “Not more than anyone else,” says Beau. “So the sun doesn’t…?” There’s a shrug. “I mean, I don’t sunbathe, but it’s alright. Not like in the movies.” “Oh. I don’t really… like, know anything about it?” He gets a smile at that. “Yeah, I noticed.” Mat elbows him. “Come on , it’s fair enough.” “Go on, then. Ask me anything.” “Do you always have sex when you—uh.” Mat stumbles for the word that’s the most politically correct. “Feed?” “No,” he says. He strokes Mat’s neck with his thumb, smoothing over the place where his teeth had pierced. “I like it, though. I like to be able to give that to someone.”“Yeah.” Mat leans into the touch. “It felt really good.” Beau’s fingers tangle into his hair, and Mat lets him play with it for a while. “What about, like—do you eat normal food?” It’s maybe a poor use of the word normal, but Beau just shrugs. “Occasionally. It tastes… not quite as good as it used to.” Mat feels a pang in his chest at the confirmation that yesterday morning, Beau had gone out and brought back food for him, and Mat just totally blew him off. He hadn’t intended to ever see Beau again, and that would’ve been how they left it. “I… opened your fridge,” he says, and cringes at the expression on Beau’s face. “Sorry,” Beau says. “You must think I’m some kind of—”“No!” says Mat, too quickly, because he doesn’t want to hear whatever word Beau’s going to put into his mouth. He doesn’t really want to think about Beau alone in this apartment in the dark, drinking from a bag of blood. It makes something turn in his stomach. “No, you’re—it’s fine. Just didn’t realize that was, like, a thing. It, uh… caught me off guard.” “Okay,” Beau says evenly, but he’s withdrawn his hands so that no part of his body is touching Mat.Mat knocks their knees together again. He doesn’t know how to make it better. It occurs to him, then, that he’s been gone for hours. “I’m going to call my friends,” Mat says. Beau doesn’t say anything, but his face twitches a little and Mat feels absurdly guilty all over again. There’s no reason for it, and yet he can’t help but add, “I’m not leaving, I’m just—I just need to talk to them. I’ll be back.” He can see Beau’s shoulders fall with the force of the breath he lets out. “I can make you something to eat,” Beau says. Mat nods. “Yeah—please.” Beau slides out of bed as Mat thumbs open his phone and pulls up his contacts. He waits until he can hear footsteps retreating in the hallway, then clicks the call button. Marty picks up on the first ring. “Dude,” he says, urgent in Mat’s ear. “Where the fuck are you? I called, like, a million times.” Mat glances around the room. The sheets are a mess, his clothes are in a pile on the ground. “Uh,” he says. “I’m—with someone.” And then he cringes. Marty lets out a loud whoop directly in his ear. “Casey, dude, did you hear that? Mat’s been missing because he’s laying pipe!” Then Casey joins Marty on the phone and between the two of them Mat can’t get a word in edgewise to say that no, it isn’t like that. It’s not even a hookup, it’s just some weird Quebecois guy that Mat can’t seem to walk away from. “Jesus Christ,” Mat says finally, once it’s gone on long enough. “I’ll see you later. Don’t wait up.” That makes Marty cackle, and it’s the last thing Mat hears before he hangs up the phone. Mat kind of dawdles as he heads into the kitchen. The little smirk on Beau’s face tells him that he probably heard both sides of the whole conversation, courtesy of his crazy vamp hearing. Mercifully he doesn’t say anything, just presents Mat with the sandwich. As he opens his fridge to put away the ingredients, Mat can see that it’s not actually as full of blood as it had seemed yesterday morning. There’s the eggs, plus meats and cheeses, and a couple of tupperwares of leftovers. It had just looked so frightening, all that blood—it had made him realize that he didn’t know who or what Beau was, not really. And seeing it again in the light of a new day, he thinks he’s still not any closer to knowing. “If you want to…” Mat gestures inelegantly at the fridge. “Um, you can.” “I’m full,” says Beau, grinning, and Mat flushes at the open suggestion in his voice. “Do you want some coffee?” “Uh, yeah. Please.” He’s wearing an old-looking white t-shirt, the collar stretched out enough that it shows a pretty tantalizing glimpse of his pecs. The whole scene—Beau leaning against the counter with a mug of coffee, Mat eating the sandwich he made—feels horribly domestic. There’s kind of a sick feeling in Mat’s stomach. He’s already made up his mind that he’s going to stay, and it’s not a choice he can justify. After last night, it all feels too deliberate. It’s not really like he can pass off what happened last night as an involuntary side effect of the bite. “Do you have anywhere to be?” Beau says, like he can read Mat’s mind. It takes Mat a moment to be able to say, “No.” “Will you go to dinner with me?” He doesn’t phrase it in a way that particularly sets off alarm bells in Mat’s mind, but still. All of this feels like a very slippery slope. But he looks at Beau, his soft smile and his messy hair, and he doesn’t want to let him down. “I’d like that,” says Mat. It’s the truth.  ───── They spend most of the rest of the day lounging around the apartment, playing one of the few videogames Beau owns, or just talking in a way that feels far too easy for what this is. Beau retreats briefly to get some work done—he’s doing a summer programme at the Sorbonne, he says—and Mat brushes up on his French by watching a television show he can only half grasp the plot of. He feels a buzz of excitement in his chest, growing as the hours tick by. Finally, past seven, Beau says, “We should go soon.” Mat’s been lounging on the bed, reading one of the few English books Beau has on his bedside table. “Is it a nice place?” He thinks about making a joke, saying, You gonna expect me to put out after? But he finds he can’t do it. Acknowledging it makes it unavoidable, somehow, and he’s not sure he wants that. “The jeans are fine,” says Beau by way of answer. “But put this on.” He throws something at Mat. It’s a button-up, actually ironed unlike pretty much everything Mat’s brought on the trip. Mat figures there’s no harm in obliging. He peels off his shirt right there, not even thinking twice about it after all the time he’s spent in locker rooms growing up—but then he’s suddenly aware of the way Beau is watching him, hungry eyes taking in Mat’s bare chest. He tears his gaze away and Mat is left feeling hot all over, wanting, desperately, for something he cannot ask for. He does up the buttons of Beau’s shirt anyways. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’ll do. “Looks good,” Beau says, and Mat has to try hard not to smile. Beau looks good too; he’s put some kind of gel into his hair to slick it back, but a stray ringlet falls loose against his forehead. Mat’s got this insane urge to touch it, but he manages to keep his hands to himself. He’s not been particularly good at doing that recently. It’s still light out when they leave, and Mat tries not to stare too openly at Beau in the late evening sunlight. He is handsome, Mat can admit as much. His shirt stretches attractively over his broad shoulders, and the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks suit him well. He points out little landmarks to Mat as they walk, like a private tour. It’s special, somehow, that he can get to know all the places that Beau has known and loved. He turns them down a few streets with the certainty that only someone who has made this walk many, many times can have. He takes them to a… Well, restaurant is maybe a generous word. It’s kind of just a hole in the wall really, a couple tables in a tiny room, but there’s a delicious smell wafting out onto the street. Beau greets the waiter by name, and they’re seated right by the window. The place hasn’t even got a menu, as far as Mat can tell, but he likes it. There are fading black and white photographs on the wall, and from somewhere he can’t see, soft French music plays.The waiter pours them both a glass of wine, and Mat can tell just by looking at the label that it’s probably a lot nicer than anything he’s used to drinking. “I found this place my first spring here,” Beau says. He’s got this soft smile on his face as he glances around. “You’ve lived here a while, then?” Beau shrugs. “Four years, maybe. I came to Europe a year after I was turned, and I spent a few years travelling around the big cities.” “And you like it?” Mat doesn’t think he imagines how sad Beau’s expression goes. “I have everything I could want, I guess.” He kind of fumbles for something to say to that, and comes up blank. The table is small enough that Mat can feel Beau’s knee brushing his as he shifts in his seat, and that too is distracting. “Do you like it here?” Beau says, stilted and awkward. This feels kind of like a first date, the two of them scrambling for things to talk about. “Yeah,” Mat says earnestly, because right now, he really does. He doesn’t think he could list anything significant about the city that he’s seen, other than Beau’s smile, the shadows playing across it as the candle on the table flickers. “I like it a lot.” “And your friends?” Mat can’t help but smile. “Yeah, they like it. It was their idea to come abroad.” “You’ve know each other a while, then?” “We met playing hockey in university my first year,” Mat says. They’d met on UVic’s intramural team. Mat was looking for something to ease the void that quitting hockey a few years before had left, Casey was carrying the team on his back, and Marty was, strictly speaking, probably not even supposed to be on the team at all. But they’d all gotten on like a house on fire. “I used to play hockey,” Beau says. He smiles a little, not quite looking at Mat. “I had to quit… after, but I loved it.”“Were you any good?”Beau shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?” “I was good,” Mat offers. “It just got too much, you know? Expensive and shit. Couldn’t justify it for someone who might not even make the show.” That wasn’t how his parents had put it, but at the time, that’s how it had sounded to a teenaged Mat. “Sorry,” says Beau, and it’s Mat’s turn to shrug. “All roads lead to beer league anyway. I’ve gotten over it.” It’s like that opens the gates. Beau tells him about the city he’s from, and Mat’s content just to listen, taking sips of his wine and asking questions about his family, chirping him about the fact that he’d grown up a Bruins fan. The waiter brings their food out—a healthy portion for Mat, and just a few bites for Beau, like they know what he is, that this isn’t nourishing for him. It should be frightening, to be confronted in public with the truth of what Beau is, but Mat can’t summon up more than a distant sense of embarrassment that from the outside, it looks like he’s on a date with a man. He practically moans around the first bite of his dish, and he can see Beau’s pleased expression. “It’s good, no?“You’re just plying me with food and wine so I’ll give up the goods,” Mat says, pointing an accusatory finger at him. Beau smiles in a way that makes an unexpected heat pool in Mat’s gut.  He feels like maybe he should be more freaked out. There’s something dark in Beau’s gaze, there has been all night. He wants to fuck me. It should make Mat throw the glass of wine in his face and run out of there, but it’s like he lost the part of his brain able to reason a couple orgasms ago. He watches Beau take small bites of his food, the way he chews thoughtfully. He can’t imagine what that’s like. He can’t imagine what any part of Beau’s life is like, but the more of it he sees, the more uneasy it makes him feel. Mat sets his fork down. “How—uh. How did you know you liked guys?” Mat feels like maybe something should happen when he says it. He should feel instantly changed by it—but all he gets is a shrug from Beau. “I had a crush when I was ten. Nothing too profound.” “And it was… like it was okay? When you—” Came out feels hard to say, but Beau seems to get it. “It was okay with everyone that mattered,” he says. “Then the vampire thing happened and most people kind of chose to focus on that.” “Oh,” says Mat. “That’s—kinda shitty.” It makes Beau laugh, a surprised kind of sound that Mat really likes. “Yeah,” he says, and his eyes are still crinkled with laughter. “Kind 0f shitty.” Mat laughs too, and it feels… Easy. It feels far too easy, and he can’t find it in himself to care.  ───── Afterwards, they walk down towards the Seine. Beau had paid for the meal, even when Mat offered to pick up half, and he feels a bit shaky from it. Still, in the heat of the summer, in the light of dusk, he finds he can let himself relax. The riverbank Beau takes them to has a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. They sit on a bench, wordless, watching as the last light of sunset fades and the tower comes alight. It’s beautiful, like in all the movies Mat’s seen about Paris. Its glimmering lights reflect on the Seine, rippling with movement. “I used to come here all the time,” Beau says. “When I didn’t know anyone in the city, I would just come here. I knew her.” He gestures at the sparkling tower, then laughs a little awkwardly, looking away. “Sorry,” he says. “I feel like I never do this.” Mat asks, “Do what?” “Meet someone,” Beau says carefully. “And I know that’s not—”He shakes his head, quick. Not what? Mat wants to ask. “So you don’t go to the club a lot?” He thinks Beau might be blushing. “I, uh. It was my first time, the other night.” He’d looked so sure of himself at the bar, so confident. And yet, Mat can still remember how his eyes had been roving over the room, like he was looking for something.“But you went back the next day.” “Someone I spent the night with ran out on me. It was just a weird day all around.” “It was a super humiliating walk of shame,” Mat says, “if it makes you feel better.” Beau laughs, but the tightness around his eyes doesn’t go away. “Hey,” says Mat. “What’s wrong?” “It’s not even my name,” he says.“What?” says Mat, not quite following. “Beau. It’s just a nickname I got when I played hockey. People used to call me Tito, before. No one here really...” He shakes his head again. “It’s funny, here. Beau . Makes people laugh.” “It’s true, though,” Mat says unthinkingly. Beau glances up at him, and he supposes he has no choice but to double down. “You’re trés beau.”Beau grins, knocks their shoulders together. “Your accent is horrendous.” They lapse into silence after that. Something’s still a bit off, but Mat lets it go. It really is a beautiful place, but for some reason the thought of Beau alone here makes him feel a bit sick. He can feel a lump in his throat at the thought that this ever has to end at all, that they can’t just sit here forever. His knuckles brush Beau’s on the bench and Mat’s instinctive urge is to yank his hand away, but he just—doesn’t. They sit like that, knuckles to knuckles, listening to the sounds of the city spilling over. People pass by them, absorbed in their own lives. When Mat looks at him, Beau is already looking back.   He feels like he’s at the very edge of something important. “Tito,” he says, and Beau’s gaze snaps right to him. “Can we go back to yours?” Beau’s eyes seem to glow in this light, bluer than anything Mat’s ever seen. “Yes,” he says. “I’d like that.”  ───── As they walk back to Beau’s place, it occurs to Mat that he’s crossed a line. Stumbled and face planted over it, actually. The sex is one thing—but that dinner felt like a date . And Mat hadn’t done anything to stop it, just let Beau order him more wine, and pay for their meal, and talk about their childhoods, and take him on a romantic riverside walk, and here is now: following Beau back home knowing full well what’s going to happen when they close that door. Or at least, his mind is running through a list of possibilities, none of them that great. We’re going to fuck. We’re going to fuck. Last night the panic had been clawing its way up his throat. Tonight, he feels breathless, restless, for an entirely different reason. Beau hasn’t touched him in hours, but he’s going to. When they step through the doorway, a now familiar routine, Beau puts his hand on Mat’s back. Mat just lets him; it feels good to be touched. He tries to summon up even a bit of the terror he’d felt when he fled that first morning. He tries to recall whether he’d gotten a pit in his stomach when he first caught sight of the fangs in Beau’s smile. He tries to remember the bags of blood in the refrigerator. None of it fits with the way Beau is looking at him now, like he’s afraid Mat might break. He puts a hand on Mat’s arm. It’s maybe the gentlest touch he’s ever felt. “We can do whatever you want,” Beau says softly. Mat feels his face heat. “You—uh. You want to…” And he can’t get any farther than that. In his mind he’d built up an idea of how this would go; Beau would be all over him as soon as they were in the door, and Mat would be able to push him off and say, No way, dude. In that fantasy of things, it was so easy to pretend that he didn’t want it. But he does. “I want,” Mat says. “I want to do what you want.” Mat’s throat clicks as he swallows. Beau’s eyes drop to the movement. “I want to fuck you,” he says. “Is that okay?”There’s this moment where Mat feels like he can feel time stretching out before him. He feels a horrible sense of loneliness at the idea of turning Beau down, of going back to the Airbnb and never having Beau touch him again. The thought of those soft, gentle fingers not being on his body is unbearable. “Yeah?” says Mat. “I mean—yeah. Okay.” “It’s okay that I want to,” Beau asks, “or you want me to?” It’s like he can see right through Mat, right into the core of him and all the things he wants but can’t quite voice. It’s terrifying that someone he’s only known for a handful of days could be so good at peeling back his layers. “I,” Mat starts. The sound catches in his throat. Beau’s hand moves up to cup the back of his neck. They’re close enough that he can feel Beau’s breath on his mouth. “Whatever you want,” he says again. “No pressure.” “I want. Uh, I want to.” Mat breathes in, exhales. “Fuck me?” Beau inhales sharply, but nothing changes on his face. He just nods, thoughtful, like it’s a normal suggestion and not something Mat’s about to lose his mind over. “I guess you can find the bedroom by now,” he jokes, and Mat feels a little tightness unspool inside him. “Fuck off,” he says, heading down the hall. He undoes the buttons of Beau’s shirt, shrugging it off, and calls over his shoulder, “All you ever think about is getting me into bed.” Beau comes right up behind him, hands sliding over Mat’s bare chest. “Can you blame me?” It feels kind of weird to be joking about it, but they keep on like that. Mat chirps Beau as they both strip down, as if this is something they’ve done a thousand times before. And then they’re both naked. Mat reaches out to flick on the lamp on the bedside table. “Sorry,” he says. “Is that…” “It’s good,” Beau says. “I like that I can see you.” Beau sits on the bed, and Mat follows, letting Beau arrange him how he likes. It’s eerily like the first night, but it’s better. Beau’s hands linger longer, not the clinical touches of two nights ago but something softer, something that makes Mat want to stay here forever, being touched however Beau wants.“It might hurt,” Beau says. He smoothes a palm down Mat’s ribs. “It would be better if I give you a bite.” He thinks about it—about taking Beau inside his body while he’s still floating somewhere outside of it. “No,” says Mat. “I want—I want to feel it.” Beau squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “You—” he starts, and then stops, huffing out a little laugh. Mat doesn’t bother asking what he was going to say, because then Beau’s getting the lube and condoms from his bedside table drawer, and it’s all Mat can do to remember to breathe. When Beau’s first finger, cold and slick with lube, touches high up on the inside of his thigh, Mat jolts. “Sorry, sorry.” Beau peers at Mat’s cock, soft against his belly. “Do you want to come first? I can—”“No, it’s okay. Just—when you’re inside.” His face is burning. He’s never felt shy during sex before, but right now he just wants to hide where he can’t see Beau’s earnest, soft expression, the way he keeps glancing up to check on Mat. For a long time, he just keeps his finger still just against Mat’s rim, letting him adjust to the weight of him there. His other hand strokes up, knuckles brushing against his balls in a way that makes Mat shiver.“Bear down, okay? Like you want to push me out.”The finger circles, and circles, and presses in. Mat does as he’s told—and then he feels own body give, that tight ring of muscle loosening to let Beau in. It catches him off guard; for all he’d willed his body to relax, it’s still an intrusion that he automatically tightens around, and Beau has to stroke his hand up Mat’s thigh. “It’s okay,” he says, voice soft. “Can you relax for me?” It takes a conscious effort, but he lets himself get distracted by Beau’s soft touches, his voice murmuring, I’ve got you, over and over again. the finger inside him moves, slides deeper and then out again and Mat chokes on a sound. It hurts, but it doesn’t actually feel bad. He hadn’t expected that. Even though the intrusion is uncomfortable, the more he relaxes the easier it is to take it, like his body was made to open for this. Beau just keeps moving for a while, until the pain starts to easy away. “I’m going to give you another, okay?” He hears himself whimper as Beau pulls out to drizzle more lube over his fingers. Then he’s pushing in again, more of a stretch this time. It’s uncomfortable again, but he relaxes the same as last time, until his body gives enough that Beau slides in past the second knuckle. “You take it well,” he says. Mat’s face burns, and he tries to turn away, but Beau grabs his jaw in one hand, forces his gaze up. He’s flushed too, and his mouth quirks into a smirk, like he can see exactly the effect he’s having. “I can’t wait to be in you. You feel so tight.”“Fuck,” Mat says quietly, and Beau laughs. His fingers have started moving faster, and it feels kind of—good, actually. Not that good, but enough that he wants it to keep going, see how much better it can get. Beau’s hand slides down his body, over his throat and brushing his nipple. His fingers tangle with Mat’s where he’s had his hand braced against his abdomen.Beau moves his fingers, pressing in, and—Oh. “Fuck,” says Mat. His whole body has jolted, just barely avoided kneeing Beau in the head. “There?” “Yeah—there. Fuck, what—”Beau does it again, and Mat moans, the kind of sound he doesn’t think he’s ever made in his life. Holy shit, that’s good. He’s never…fuck. Beau pulls out for more lube, and then he’s pressing a third finger to Mat’s rim. This time Mat feels like it’s too good as he pushes in. Beau’s going to fuck him, maybe find that spot that had made him see stars. He lets Beau thrust his fingers in and out lazily for a while before the anticipation gets too much and he can’t help but roll his hips down, chasing that absurd rush of pleasure again. He’s hard. He doesn’t know when that happened exactly, but he is, and it’s so good. He wants to touch himself but his fingers are tangled with Beau’s on his abdomen, and Mat’s probably squeezing hard enough to hurt. He can’t remember the last time anyone held his hand at all and this feels different, it feels like nothing else ever has. “Can you—”Beau looks up. He’s breathing hard, eyes moving fast over every part of Mat’s body, like he can’t get enough of the sight of him. Like he’s starved for it. It feels like it lights something on fire inside him. “Fuck me. Holy shit, just—fuck me, come on, you—” Beau has to let go of his hand to open the condom packet, fumbling with it enough that Mat yanks it right out of his hands and opens it himself. He rolls it onto Beau’s cock, and it should be wrong, all of this should feel wrong—But Beau’s right there, cock nudging at his hole, and Mat doesn’t give a fuck about anything that isn’t getting him inside right now. His cock is thicker and longer than his fingers, and it should hurt, but Mat’s so desperate for it now that it just feels good as Beau presses inside him, a long, unending ache that he knows he’ll feel tomorrow. He doesn’t care. Right now, he just needs Beau inside him as deep as he can get, carving out a space in Mat’s body where Mat can keep him forever. It takes a minute for him to slide all the way home, going inch by agonizing inch. Finally, when he’s bottomed out, breathing hard, he presses his forehead to Mat’s. “Hi,” says Mat. Beau laughs, soft and fond. “Hi.” “You gonna fuck me now?” “Always something to complain about, merde.” Then he’s pulling out, sliding in and Mat doesn’t have much more to say. It feels absurdly intimate, in a way sex never has before. The pleasure of it is less intense than when he’s the one fucking someone, tinged by a sting as his body adjusts to something new, but Mat likes it. He can just watch Beau’s face, the way he bites his lip like he’s concentrating. He rolls his hips and couple times, the angle different, and— Fuck. Mat groans. “Found it,” Beau says, unbearably smug, and Mat can’t even do anything but grapple to touch his back, dig his heels into the backs of his thighs to urge Beau forward again and again. The only sounds are the slap of skin on skin, the little noises Mat can’t help but make involuntarily. He doesn’t know how he’s ever lived without knowing it could be like this. He’s right there, right on the edge. Beau presses his mouth to Mat’s neck, teeth scraping over his skin. “Please, please—” He says it in French too, over and over again, mumbling it into the place where Mat’s pulse is pounding. “Fuck—yeah. Do it, fuck.” Beau bites down.  ───── Mat is kind of expecting some kind of crisis, after. He’s lying there with his dick out, Beau draped over him breathing hard, and the great panic he’s been bracing for never comes. Beau pulls out, and it becomes pretty uncomfortable. His body is starting to feel tacky with come, and there’s an unpleasant ache in his ass that makes it hard to even try to deny what he’s just done. And yet. The first time he’d ever had sex, when he was sixteen and lasted all of ninety seconds, it had felt a bit like this; there’s a kind of relief that he’s done it, and the world hasn’t come crashing down. After a minute, Beau gets up and comes back with a warm washcloth. He wipes it down Mat’s torso, over his soft cock and between his legs. Mat doesn’t think he’s ever taken care of the girls he’s slept with like this, and it’s an abruptly sobering thought. It feels nice to be taken care of; everyone should get to have this. After, Beau settles back onto the bed. Neither one of them has spoken a word yet, but it doesn’t feel awkward. When Beau pulls the covers up over their naked bodies, Mat lets him. When Beau’s hand falls across his torso, Mat lets him. Beau’s fingers brush against his thighs, his hips. He presses a kiss to Mat’s throat. Neither one of them says anything in the quiet darkness, but he lets himself be touched. Beau should have whatever he wants, Mat thinks. He’d said he had it all here in Paris, but that doesn’t really feel true. The apartment is cold and quiet. The bed is too small for two people. Maybe Beau really is a thing to be frightened of, something Mat grew up hearing about in scary stories and watching in horror movies. And despite that, he stays.  ───── They fuck again when Mat wakes up sometime in the night to Beau watching him, and it doesn’t take long for those blue eyes to rile him up. Beau tucks himself along Mat’s back and when he slides in, Mat still loose and easy for it, he can’t summon up any feeling other than want. Shame has slipped away from him while he slept. It doesn’t take long before he’s spilling over his stomach, Beau’s hand tight around him and his mouth pressed to the back of Mat’s neck. He tries to remember every second of it. Afterwards, in the darkness, Beau whispers, “Tu es comme quelque chose que j'ai rêvé.” Mat thinks maybe he knows what that means, but dwelling on it leaves a lump in his throat. He lets Beau pull him back into his arms, where it’s warm and safe and he doesn’t have to think of anything. “I liked it,” Mat says finally. It feels like a relief to say it out loud. “I could tell,” says Beau. Mat gets the distinct feeling he’s being made fun of, but he supposes that’s deserved. In the dark he can’t see Beau’s smile, but he’s pretty sure of the lines of it by now. He could probably draw it from memory. “Can I ask you something?” Beau hums for him to go on, and Mat takes a breath before he says, “How did it happen?” Beau says, “That’s not really a first date question.” “Is that what this was?” Mat says, and he knows it sounds like flirting, but he’d asked the stupid question in the first place. He can lighten the mood. Just for Beau’s sake. “I’ll have you know that I don’t usually put out until the third date.” Beau lets out a soft little laugh, more exhale than sound, and Mat feels a warmth in his chest. He snuggles back into the pillows and lets Beau pull him closer. It’s quiet for such a long time that Mat thinks he’s maybe fallen asleep. Then Beau says, “I was fifteen. I thought I was in love.” Oh. Mat blindly reaches out a fumbling hand, and Beau’s fingers slide into his. He wants to ask, but he really doesn’t want to know. The thought of Beau at fifteen with a bite on his neck and his future irrevocably altered—it isn’t a particularly pleasant one. “I would have let him do anything he wanted. He chose this.” His voice is bitter, colder than Mat’s heard it before. Even when he’d been pissed at Mat that first night, it hadn’t sounded like this. “I’ve never told anyone that before.” “Thank you for telling me,” says Mat. He wonders if he should tell Beau that he’s sorry that happened to him—but people have probably been telling him that for years. It can’t be easy that the first reaction people have to his vampirism is to remind him of how badly it came to be. “Would you ever turn anyone?” Beau’s arm tightens around his waist. “Never,” he says.It’s a comforting answer, but the second Mat stops to wonder why it’s comforting, he’s hit by the realization that he’s lying next to a vampire. That his unprotected neck is just right there, and it hasn’t bothered him until now. It doesn’t bother him at all, actually. And it really, really should. It’s quiet for another long moment. Mat feels like he’s overstepped. The sex was one thing, but he doesn’t have any sort of a right to ask something so personal, something Beau’s never even shared with anyone before. “You know what people say about us,” Beau says, startling Mat. He sounds horribly sad. “When I was a kid—eight, maybe, before I was turned anyway—I saw a vampire starving on the street. His skin was like paper. My dad said that’s what happens when they don’t feed. They waste away into dust, slow and painful as hell. Not a lot of things can kill us, but that—uh. That does it.” Beau’s voice is soft, and Mat can’t help but squeeze his hand. “He would rather have died than live like this. So I’d—I’d never do that to someone. Make them choose something so horrible just to be free of it. Make them into a monster.” “I don’t think you’re a monster,” says Mat. It sounds small and stupid. Totally worthless in the face of everything that Beau has ever had hurled at him. And didn’t Mat think that same thing just a few days ago, that all vamps are dangerous? But he didn’t know. He really didn’t know.“I can’t live without it.” He scrapes his teeth against Mat’s neck, almost like he’s making a point. I could do it. You would let me. “Okay,” says Mat. I don’t care. I would want you to.  ───── “I always thought,” Mat says some time later, tracing his fingers up and down Beau’s bare abdomen, “that vampires were dead. That you don’t—breathe, or bleed, or…” Beau sighs heavily, like this is a topic he’d talked about a million times. “Are you trying to ask how I can get it up?” “I mean, no, but now I’m curious.” “We don’t bleed, technically speaking. Our hearts don’t beat on their own. It’s why we have to feed—to fill our veins with something.” It takes a second for Mat to follow. Holy shit . “So the blood inside you—”“—is yours, yeah.” Mat feels like everything inside him has been dialled up to one hundred instantly. It feels absurdly intimate, that everything Beau’s done over the past few days has been because of him . That his arousal was from Mat’s blood coursing through his veins. He reaches out, his fingers sliding over Beau’s soft cock. “You don’t have to—”“Yeah, I know,” Mat says quickly. “You keep fucking telling me. Just—let me.” He wants to take his time, this time around. The other night he’d been buzzing with adrenaline the whole time, always going a bit too deep and choking and trying not to think about the fact that he was sucking a dick. But he wants to, and it’s weird how not weird that is. It’s just Beau. This is just something to do for Beau, and if it makes Mat as hard as it did last time—Well, then he’ll have an answer to that question, at least. He slides down Beau’s body, a little ungraceful in his eagerness. He’s not hard yet, but Mat kisses his thighs and takes him in hand until he is. And then he presses soft kisses to the shaft of him, working his way up to the head. He doesn’t go deep, doesn’t force himself to do anything but learn the way it feels on his tongue, the taste of him. He finds what makes Beau moan, what makes him swear. Beau’s muttering soft things in French that Mat only half understands; beautiful and perfect and like that.This time, he takes himself in hand. He lets himself touch, doesn’t let himself dwell on what it means to be turned on from this. He just keeps going until Beau comes, this time onto his outstretched tongue and half way down his collarbone. Then he leans his forehead on his thigh and watches his own cock disappearing into his fist. Maybe there’s something wrong with him, because it’s not even his own hand that sends him over the edge in the end.It happens when Beau tilts his head up by his chin, thumbs over his mouth, and says, “Parfait.”  ───── Mat jolts awake the next morning to a loud pounding noise. He blinks into the half darkness of the room. Next to him, Beau makes an unhappy noise, pressing his face into Mat’s shoulder. He looks sweet like this, flushed with sleep and his hair a mess. The pounding on the door continues.“Let us in, you fucker, or I’m calling the cops!” yells a very familiar voice. “Shit,” says Mat, shooting out of bed. Fuck. He grabs his boxers, the only article of clothing he can find, and a shirt he’s pretty sure isn’t his own. He can see Beau starting to blink awake, but— Shit. Mat nearly trips over his own feet in the hall. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, what excuse he can possibly give. He yanks the door open. Marty’s got his shoulder turned to the door like he’d been about to try breaking it down.“What the fuck?” says Mat. Casey blinks at him. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘what the fuck’?”“I told you I’d be back.” “It’s been two days, man.” Mat cringes. Here, with the blinds drawn tight, time had become slow and unreal. Nothing existed outside of the bed and the embrace of Beau’s arms. “We’ve been calling,” Marty says. “What the hell?” “I think my phone’s dead,” he says. “How the hell did you find me anyways?” “Location sharing,” Casey says. “ Obviously.” There’s a sound behind him and Mat turns to see Beau coming out of the room cautiously. He’s at least dressed, but he looks… well. There’s kind of no denying what they’ve been doing. And Mat has to watch as it dawns on both of his best friends that no, Mathew has not been fucking some hot French chick. He’s been the one getting fucked. Casey’s eyebrows go up, and then they keep going up. Marty blinks at him, and then at Beau, wide-eyed. “This is Beau,” Mat says finally. “He’s—yeah.” “Hi,” says Beau. He seems small, arms hugged around himself. “That’s… the vamp,” Marty asks, “from the club?” “Uh. Yeah.” “Oh-kay,” says Casey. “You—okay.” “Did you do something to him?” Marty says, voice rising. “Is that why Mat asked about mind tricks? ‘Cause you forced him to—” Marty trails off, like even he doesn’t really know what he’s accusing Beau of. Mat feels vaguely ill. Beau looks at Marty, then Casey, then Mat. He looks sad, and tired, and very, very young. “You watch too much television,” he says finally. “Real vampires can’t do that.” “Well, how the fuck do we know you’re not lying—”“Marty,” Mat says. His means for it to be commanding, but his voice comes out all soft. “Stop it.” “Can we talk?” Casey says cautiously. He glances at Beau. “Alone?” Mat wants Beau to stay, actually, so he can get out of whatever he’s about to be subjected to, but he nods and disappears back into his bedroom. It’s not like he won’t be able to hear every word of this. Mat steps aside to let them into the apartment proper, rather than just in the hallway, where all of Beau’s neighbours can hear. Marty turns on Mat almost as soon as the door’s shut. “What the fuck, Barz?” Mat feels so small. “Sorry. I didn’t think it would be a big deal if we just hung out for a few days.” Marty snorts at that, but Casey says, “So you’ve just been living with a vamp for half our vacation?” It sounds really bad when it’s put that way. “It was your idea to go out to the club in the first place,” Mat reminds him. “I’m not sorry for finding someone—which you told me to do.”“I didn’t mean like that, Mat.” He feels viciously angry with them. “What, a guy?” “No!” Marty cuts in. “No, dude, that’s—it’s new, I mean, but we’re… it’s cool. Right, Zeeker?” “Yeah,” says Casey. “Obviously. That’s not what I meant.” “I don’t know what to say,” Mat says, throwing his hands up. “I’m sorry.” “Did he hurt you?” Casey gestures vaguely at his neck. Mat’s pretty sure it must look terrible. He doesn’t remember how many times he’d let Beau bite him in the past few days, or whether he’d done anything to heal the marks. “No,” he says. “I asked him to bite me.” Marty and Casey share a look, quick, like they think Mat somehow won’t see. Marty says, “We’re going home, okay? We should stick together for our last few days here.” It doesn’t actually feel like they’re asking. They’re just telling him what to do, like always, like he’s some kid who doesn’t know any better than to get himself into messes. “Yeah,” Mat says, because he doesn’t know what else there is to say. He can’t think of a single excuse to stay with Beau any longer than he already has, and he’s not really sure that Beau wants him to anyways. “Can you get your stuff?” Casey says. His voice has gone horribly soft. Mat’s eyes are stinging, but he nods. Back in the bedroom, Beau’s sitting on the bed. He’s gathered all of Mat's clothes into a neat little pile on the bed next to him, and he doesn’t look up as Mat starts getting dressed mechanically, pulling on his pants and slipping his dead phone into his pocket. He doesn’t say anything when Mat bends to do up his shoes, or when he straightens up. He doesn’t even look at him. Mat says, “I have to go back with them. I have—clean clothes, and stuff. You know.” “Will you be back?” Beau says. His eyes are on his hands cradled in his lap. “We’re leaving Paris soon, so.” “Right.” Beau turns away. If this were a normal hookup, Mat would kiss the girl goodbye. He’d say, I had fun. But this isn’t a normal hookup. It feels like the past few days have systematically rearranged everything inside him.“I’m really sorry,” he says stupidly. He means for all of it, for Casey and Marty, for the fact that Beau has to live like this. “I wish—”He stops; no point. Beau turns. He smiles, just a little. “Goodbye, Mat.” This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Mat breathes out, tries to smile back. “Bye.”  ───── No one says anything on the whole way home. Casey and Marty keep exchanging these looks. Finally, as they’re standing on the doorstep of the Airbnb, Mat says, “He didn’t make me do anything. It wasn’t a trick. I wanted to.” His voice cracks as he says it, like he’s not already humiliated enough. Marty’s voice is extremely, frustratingly neutral when he says, “Okay.” He unlocks the door. When Mat goes into his room, neither one of them follows.  ───── He sulks in his room for the rest of the day, refusing to come out. He’s angry with them for reasons he can’t even articulate, really. It’s not like they did anything wrong; Mat’s the one who disappeared in a foreign city, only for them to find him covered in bite marks. Objectively, he knows how bad it looks. It’s just that he kind of hates how he left things with Beau. They’re never going to see each other again, and Mat’s last memory will be of Beau refusing to even look at him. He charges his phone, scrolls mindlessly through Instagram for a while. He sends a photo of the Eiffel Tower to his sister. Then he throws the phone down and loses an hour glaring at the walls, head spinning. It shouldn’t matter, is the thing. Objectively, Beau is someone he has only known for a few days. Beau is someone who he slept with, and had one nice dinner with. He is someone who smiled at Mat, who called him sweet things in French, who held his hand while they fucked. He’s someone who probably never wants to see Mat again. Mat picks his phone back up. He tries to find him on Instagram, to no avail. Maybe he’s not on there, or he’s got an account under something other than the name Anthony Beauvillier. Fuck, why didn’t Mat get his number? But even if he had, would it matter? What could he possibly say? They live on different continents. Mat’s not even gay. Or like, he maybe is, more than a little bit, but it isn’t as if he can go home and say, this is my boyfriend, Beau. He’s a vampire. But why the fuck not, actually? Anyone who gets to know Beau would see that he’s nothing like the vampires in the movies, the mindless monsters driven by their thirst. Come to think of it, Mat can’t even remember the last time he heard of a real vampire doing something truly terrible back home. Beau wouldn’t hurt anyone. He wouldn’t ever. Fuck. Fuck. Mat feels sick to his stomach with regrets. He wants to turn time back to this morning, when he’d had Beau curled around him saying sweet things. Mat should’ve said something in return. He should’ve said a lot of things. He sinks back onto his bed and squeezes his eyes shut. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Not at all.  ───── It’s pretty late in the evening by the time that Mat’s hunger gets the better of him and he comes out of his room to ask if there’s anything to eat. Casey brings back frozen pizzas that they make in the Airbnb’s little kitchen. They don’t have plates or cutlery, so they just tear off pieces and eat them wordlessly on the couch. After, Marty props his laptop up on the coffee table and they watch an episode of this dumb show he likes. “Do you want to go out?” Casey says, as the second episode starts autoplaying. Mat hates the way he’s talking to him, voice soft like he’s an animal he doesn't want to spook. “We were thinking maybe we could go see the Eiffel Tower all lit up?” “Already been,” Mat says. He knows he’s sulking and he doesn’t really care. “With… uh.” Marty glances at Casey. “Beau,” Mat offers. They all watch the screen a minute longer as the opening credits play. Mat doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do here. Marty and Casey expect some sort of explanation from him, that much is clear, but he doesn’t know what to offer. “It wasn’t just sex,” he says finally. “Whatever you think—it wasn’t like that.” Slowly, Marty closes his laptop. Mat sighs. He’d known they would have to talk about it at some point, but it still kind of sucks to have to do it at all. Casey says, “What was it, then?” “I don’t know, just—I just like him, okay? I liked spending time with him, and I don’t know if that makes me gay or what, but I like him.” It spills out all in one breath. He curls his arms around himself. “He’s nice, and he was good to me. And we fucked, yeah, but it felt like—like, there might be something more, you know? I’ve never… it’s not usually like that.” Neither one of them says anything. “I kinda—” Mat feels so stupid just saying it, but Marty puts a hand on his shoulder, and that feels like enough. “I kind of wish we weren’t leaving, you know?” “Shit,” says Casey. “And it wouldn’t work out anyways, probably. There’s—he’s still a vamp, and I’m not stupid.” Marty raises an eyebrow and he amends, “Not that stupid.”“But why wouldn’t it work?” Casey says. “I mean, long distance stuff is hard, but why not give it a try?” “I don’t even have his number.” “You didn’t ask for it in all that time together?” Mat shrugs. “We were kind of busy.” “Dude,” says Marty. “You’re such a fucking idiot, holy shit.”“Hey,” Mat says defensively. “I don’t even know whether he ever wants to see me again.”“You don’t know that he doesn’t,” Casey offers. “You like him, though. You want to give it a try?” Mat draws his knees up to his chest. He feels so small and stupid. “I mean, if he wanted. Yeah. Yes.”They exchange a look over Mat’s head again, but Marty’s kind of smiling. “Then go give it a try. First thing in the morning, go woo him, man.” “That’s—”“Just say a proper goodbye, at least,” Casey says. Marty’s grin gets big. “Oh, yeah. A proper goodbye.” “Fuck you both,” Mat says. “Disgusting.” “But you’ll do it?” Marty actually pouts. “For our sake?” It’s not actually a horrible idea. At the very least, he can say he’s sorry that things aren’t different. “Okay,” Mat says shakily. “First thing, yeah.”Casey tugs him in a hug, and Marty piles on. It’s nice. It’s really, really nice. Mat closes his eyes. First thing.  ───── Mat doesn’t think he’s ever gotten out of bed so quickly. It’s before six, barely even light out, but he’s buzzing with anticipation. He spends looking enough in the bathroom trying to make himself presentable that when he comes out, Marty takes a single look at him, snorts, and says, “Look at you, all primped up.”“Fuck you,” says Mat. “I’m going.” Marty’s smile goes soft. “You’ve got this, Barz. Go get him.” It’s early enough that the streets are quiet as makes his way over to Beau’s. It’s not a particularly long walk, and he’d gotten the exact address from Marty and Casey, but he feels the anticipation mounting with every passing minute. Finally, when Beau’s building comes into view, Mat has to stop for a minute, leaning his back against a wall. The worst that can happen is—well, Beau never wanting to see him again, which is actually pretty awful. But then Mat will know, at least, and they won’t have left it the way it is now. It feels like a raw wound, like something he can’t help but pick at, and he—he has to know. Mat runs a hand through his hair, breathing in and out. Okay. As he sets off again, his eye catches on a florist just starting to set her bouquets out on the corner. He’s pulling his wallet out before he’s even really thought about it. The sign on the door says they’re not technically open yet, but he pulls out several more bills than he strictly needs to and says, “S’il vous plaît. It’s important.” She rolls her eyes sort of fondly, and gestures at him to pick.  ───── He takes the stairs two at a time until he’s breathless. He knocks a couple times to no answer. He’d not actually considered the possibility that Beau wouldn’t be home, but that would be just Mat’s luck, right? He grips the flowers, tight, and knocks again. There’s a long moment before the door opens when Mat thinks maybe it won’t. Maybe he’ll just have to go back to Marty and Casey and pretend that he hadn’t wanted this as badly as he does. But then there’s the telltale sound of the lock, and the door opens to reveal Beau. His hair is still messy with sleep. His feet are bare and he’s shirtless and he looks… normal. Real. Like he is a person that Mat could be with. His eyes fall to the bouquet of flowers in Mat’s hand. “Hey,” Mat says. “Can I come in?” Beau keeps watching him warily, like he thinks Mat might bolt. “Okay,” he says finally, emotionless, and steps aside to let him in. It’s not great, but it’s a start. He’s been in Beau’s kitchen a dozen times in the past few days, and it feels like he can see the mark he left. He can see his own dishes piled next to the sink, and a coffee cup one of them used. Mat sets the flowers gently on the table. “Look, um—” Mat breaks off. He’s never been very good with words, and right now it feels like he couldn’t string a sentence together if his life depended on it. But he has to try . It kind of feels like his life might depend on that, too. Beau looks at him the way he’s been looking at him for days, and finally, Mat recognizes that expression for what it is: hope. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Mat says. “Like, ever. And I know that I was a dick in the beginning, okay? I should’ve realized that maybe those things I was thinking when I first saw you weren’t necessarily the straightest and that’s—that’s on me. I shouldn’t have run out the first morning, and I should have said something yesterday. I’m sorry. But you… I’ve never met anyone like you? I think it caught me off guard, maybe.” He doesn’t just mean the vampire thing. Not at all. “And, um, I said I didn’t like guys but I definitely do. Or I just like you, I don’t really know. But I want to figure it out. Together, if you’ll let me. I know we’re leaving here, but we—we could stay in touch, okay? We could do whatever you want.” Beau frowns at the table, at the flowers. He’s looking anywhere but at Mat. “Can you just—” Mat starts. “Can you say something?” Beau looks up at him finally, and says, “I’ve been thinking of going back home.” It’s not what he’d expected at all. Mat feels his pulse jump, and judging by the way Beau’s mouth pulls up at the corner, he feels it too. “Yeah?” He sounds as breathless as he feels, chest tight with anticipation. “I’ve heard it’s not so bad for us in the big cities anymore.” “Toronto’s a big city,” Mat says. He thinks about Beau in the little apartment he's going to share with Marty and Casey. “I’ve heard.” “Well, if that’s what you’ve heard…” Beau’s grinning, and he’s making fun of Mat, and he’s moving closer. He slides a hand around the back of Mat’s neck and tugs him forward. “God,” says Mat, right against his mouth. “I was so scared for a minute, I thought—” “Sorry,” Beau says, sounding like he means it, and kisses him.It’s so good, Beau’s mouth opening under him. He makes a little noise, presses closer so Mat hands can fall into his hair. He feels wild with it, like he’s never kissed anyone before this. It’s better than it has any right to be. Mat can barely even kiss him properly, he’s grinning so hard. “You—” Beau starts, pulling back, and then shakes his head. He ducks back in to kiss him again, and they lose countless minutes like that. Mat lets Beau press him back into the counter until they’re panting into each other’s mouth, kisses gone sloppy and desperate. “I’m going to put these flowers in a vase,” Beau says against Mat’s mouth, and he is very gratifying breathless. “And you’re going to go wait for me in bed.” “Yeah—that’s… good idea.”But it takes him a while even to be able to break free of Beau’s embrace. Beau just kisses him back, again. Again.  ───── They lie in bed after, the way they have so many times over the past few days, but it feels different now. Mat can’t help but try to catalogue every detail of this room, of Beau’s body next to him. He’s only got this for, what—twelve more hours? He wants to grab with both hands and not let go. Beau touches his neck again, pressing down on the same spot with a thoughtful expression on his face. “You really like it, don’t you?” Mat’s face flushes, because he does, God yeah, but—“I really like you,” he says. “It’s not the vampire thing.” Beau raises an eyebrow and he amends, “It’s not just the vampire thing.” “I really like you too,” says Beau. “Yeah, I fucking hope so. I just rocked your world.” Beau smiles, and Mat wants to kiss him so he does, long and lingering. Everything’s so much better now that Mat can kiss him, can trace his tongue over Beau’s fangs while he touches every inch of bare skin he can get his hands on. He’ll have to leave at some point today. He has to pack his things, and their train leaves early tomorrow morning. But for now, the hours stretch in front of him; hours of just having Beau to himself. Mat has to hide a smile against Beau’s cheek. “I’m going to be such a bad boyfriend,” Mat says. It’s a big word, presumptuous, maybe; but it feels right on his tongue. “That’s just because you’ve never had one before.” Beau kisses him again and again. “But you’ll send me pictures every day in Italy, and you’ll pick me up from the airport in Toronto.” “Anything you want.” “Anything?” “Yeah,” says Mat earnestly. “Anything.” “I just want this.” It should be too big of an ask coming from anyone, but Mat nods. He’d meant it. Anything, anything. It feels like a promise. He smiles. Beau smiles back, showing his teeth.