100% Freshie, Chapter 18 --PG-13

[librarian_7]

Disclaimer: The characters from Moonlight are copyrighted by CBS, and no infringement is intended.

Special note: This work takes place in the world of Moonlight, but your favorite vamps are not the main focus. Sorry about that; try to enjoy the story anyway. You might be surprised.

100% Freshie

Chapter 18


As he guided her to his SUV, a pencil yellow Xterra, Tyler could not help but be aware of Danger’s agitation, despite her attempt to disguise it. “Look,” he said, “do we need to cancel? I mean, obviously you’ve got some stuff going on—and if it’s not a good time…”

Danni shook her head decisively. “No, it’s fine. Really.”

Once in the car, he looked over at her. “So,” he said, “where would you like to go?”

“You mean, which club? It doesn’t matter to me.” Danger shrugged.

Tyler gave her an odd smile. “Actually, I was thinking I’d feed you some dinner. Seems fair, don’t you think?”

Danni looked at him in some surprise. This was more thoughtful than she’d expected. Truth be told, after the scene in the apartment, she had been looking forward, assuming Tyler didn’t choose instead to run screaming into the night, to going somewhere the music was insistent enough she wouldn’t have to think. Or, alternatively, crawling off somewhere to hide. “I’m not really hungry,” she said.

Tyler thought for a moment. He honestly didn’t care much for the freshie clubs, even if as a young vamp he was not yet to the stage of having private reserves. He thought resentfully for a moment of Will, who seemed so comfortable there in the apartment, so at home. He had to wonder why in the world Will would allow a freshie like Danni to be running loose. Freshie clubs—well, it was better than bottled, he supposed, but not a lot. There was something distasteful to him about not being more to the freshies than a convenient set of fangs. Some vamps loved that aspect of it, some seemed to thrive on it, but, Tyler thought, some humans seemed to thrive on drive-through hamburgers. Besides, tonight he didn’t need to find a freshie; he already had one. He’d been interrupted with her once, and he didn’t care to take that chance again. He sighed. He supposed he could simply ask for her wrist right now, but, well, he’d really been looking forward to her company. Spending some time with a pretty girl. “Okay,” he said, “any suggestions?”

Danni looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. Despite his attempts to cultivate an air of dangerous cool, he seemed like a pretty decent guy. She’d already agreed to be alone with him. She thought she could take a chance. She turned and smiled at him, laying one hand lightly on his arm, knowing he could feel the warmth of it through the sleeve of his jacket. “Would it be all right,” she said, “if we just went for a drive? I bet you know a good place to get a view of the city.”

“I bet I do.” Tyler smiled back at her, and they pulled away into the night.
They didn’t talk much as Tyler drove up into the hills. He hadn’t been on this road for several years, but it was essentially unchanged from the last time he’d driven it. He realized with a start that the first place that had popped into his head was the same place he’d gone to think through his decision to become a vamp. His sire had been reluctant to turn him without giving him time to ponder the choice. Not that there’d been much doubt at that point. He still wondered whether her apparent consideration was real, or if she had known him well enough by then to know that pretending to put what he wanted out of reach was just another seduction technique. Sometimes, the more hoops you had to jump through, the harder it was to win the prize, only made it all the more desirable. Well, he’d come here to the hills, and thought, and then he’d gone back down to the city and gotten what he wanted. So tonight, he was bringing something else he wanted up to this scenic overlook. He stopped the Xterra, and for several minutes they sat, silently looking out over the city.

Danni was the one who finally broke the quiet. “Tyler, can I ask you something personal?”

He looked away from the city lights below. The girl’s face, he thought, was serious but not stressed. He suspected he knew the question she had in mind, and he would be only slightly disappointed to be right. “Let me ask you something first, Danger.”

“Okay.”

“Why’d you agree to come to an isolated spot like this with a potentially deadly predator? Why would anyone sane do that? Why would you feel safe doing that?”

Danni chuckled. “A whole bunch of reasons,” she said, running down the list in her head, looking for the one this vamp wanted to hear from her. That knowing she had powerful friends, he’d be stupid to risk hurting her? That maybe she didn’t really care? Well, actually, maybe she did, now that Will was back in town. She wasn’t sure yet, and she’d gotten too much in the habit of taking these risks to give it up all at once. “I don’t know. Maybe I guess I just feel like I can trust you.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “Super. Let me guess what your question is—why did a nice guy like me decide to become a vampire? Assuming, of course, that I was willingly turned.”

Danni twisted in her seat, pulling up one knee and leaning back against the car door. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

Tyler nodded several times. “Thought so.” Danni could see his grip tighten on the steering wheel as he stared out into the night. “You know what they always say about how girls don’t pay attention to nice guys—how they’re all looking for a bad boy they can reform? There’s a lot to that.” He paused, and Danni sat quiet. If he expected her to disagree… “So I lost one too many girlfriends who said I was too nice—too boring. I set out to become a badass—how stupid does that sound?” He laughed bitterly. “And when I met—my sire—I thought, what the hell? Who’s more of an ultimate bad boy than a vampire, right?”

“You didn’t think about what you might be giving up?” Danni asked, curious.

“Not enough.” Tyler gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m not too torn up about it, though, Danger. And hey—I got my wish—here I am, close to a beautiful woman. Who maybe doesn’t think I’m completely boring.”

Danni laughed, flattered despite herself. “Very charming, Tyler.” They talked a while more, enjoying the night, enjoying the quiet, enjoying the very normal sort of interaction. Both of them were wondering, at some point, if they’d met when he was still human, when she still thought vampires didn’t exist, not really, if maybe they’d have connected…and both of them shaking their heads, knowing that it never would have happened. The paths that led them here, to this place, at this time, for this purpose—it was not meant to have happened any other way.

Finally, Danni looked at him with eyes turned tired and sad. She couldn’t bear the sheer normality of the night any longer. Once again, she laid a warm hand on his arm, stopping him in mid-sentence. “Tyler—“ she started, “please, please don’t think me rude—this has really been very nice—“ she blushed a little as he winced at the word “—but I’ve got to ask. What do you want from me?”

In the faint light from the city below, she could see that his brown eyes were troubled. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe just—maybe just someone to talk to me like I wasn’t a monster.”

“Well, shoot, honey,” Danger laughed, “being a vamp—that doesn’t make you a monster. Who told you that?”

Tyler shook his head. “Nobody had to tell me that. I bite people—women—and drink their blood.”

“Gee, I had no idea.” Danni paused. “Oh, for God’s sake, Tyler. You can’t really expect a freshie to be too horrified about that.” She sat up suddenly and opened her door. “C’mon, get out.” Danni was feeling too closed in, to overwhelmed by the turn of the conversation. She slid out and walked to the front of the Xterra, leaning against the hood, wrapping her arms around herself against the night breeze.

Tyler threw his head back against the headrest. Well, shit, he thought, blew it again. In a swift motion, he threw open the door and stood. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he rounded the front fender. “Danni—“ She turned to him with a fierce light in her eyes, and slipped close, her arms warm around him. She tilted her face up, put her lips softly against his.

“Tyler, shut up,” she murmured, “shut up and take what you need.” And with that, with another quick, silken kiss, she turned her head and offered him her throat, the skin shining like ivory in the moonlight.

Tyler hesitated, her words, her actions, and the warmth and closeness of her living body calling irrevocably to his beast. He took a deep breath as his fangs pushed out. He was so thirsty and her blood smelled so rich and so—desirable. He buried his face in her honey blonde hair, inhaling the scent of it, of her, and blew the breath out in a long exhalation. He wanted to speak, to tell her—something, anything, he had no idea what. Her pulse was so strong in his head that he would swear the very stars about spun and danced, revolving around the earth to the rhythm of this—one—solitary—heartbeat.

His arms folded around her at waist and shoulders, imprisoning her, supporting her. She was taking a dreadful risk, he thought. If she changed her mind, if things—if he—got out of hand, it was almost impossible to stop a vampire feeding from the throat. And a young vamp, like him, who might not have the perfect self-control she’d have come to expect from the older vamps she’d fed…He’d have been happy with a wrist. In most senses, blood was blood, but he knew she’d made this choice very deliberately. She was showing him her trust, however little he’d earned it, showing him that at least to her, he was no monster. And although he knew, as surely as the dawn brought forth the killing sun, that she had no real feelings for him, right at this moment, with her standing so close and warm in his arms, he loved her, just a little.

His lips grazed the skin at her temple, lingering there for a moment, before he dropped his mouth to her waiting neck.

Danni relaxed to the delicious, familiar pain of fangs piercing her skin, and then the soft inevitable pull as he sucked her blood within him. He drank hesitantly at first, then, as he sensed the growing tension of her pleasure, more confidently, taking harder, longer, gulping draughts of blood that seemed to go straight from his throat into every cell in his body, slaking a burning he hadn’t even known was there. And sweet, so sweet. It was going to be hard to stop; her pulse was pounding in his brain.

And then the arms that clutched him slackened, and she slumped in his encircling grasp. He tore his mouth from her skin and cradled her against his chest, sinking slowly to his knees, afraid of what he had done.

He forced himself to stop and listen. No—her heart still beat, slowly, steadily. He hadn’t taken too much, after all, but he could tell now it was a near thing, and he held her unconscious as the seconds turned into long slow minutes. At last, though, at last she stirred, her eyes fluttering open, and her hand drifted languidly to caress his face.

“Damn, Tyler,” she whispered faintly, “you’re not nice. You’re good.”

[francis]

Is Tyler trying to hit on Danger? Another vampire in her life could become messy. Tyler seems to have a little vamp-unlike complex, he dislikes the more bold freshies who want the vampire bite only. Almost like he feels diminished by them. Oddly reversed roles. Does it bug him too that freshies are seen as only food by most vamps?

There was something distasteful to him about not being more to the freshies than a convenient set of fangs.

I love their conversation in the car, so awkward. They both have issues, and I think Danny learned a thing or two about reality. And she trusts Tyler, maybe more than he deserves, and certainly more than he expected. She’s taking a risk and giving him a boost, and that’s a very nice thing to do. And she gets something out of it, too.