A/N: This is...simultaneous with KABC, and I'll do my best to update the two off-and-on. I just craved vampires for some reason, which is the reason I started this. It may or may not be worth continuing. Let me know?

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“Did you get my present, Liebling?”

“Unfortunately.” You ass. I drag one hand through my hair, squinting at the kitchen clock. Half an hour after sunset? He doesn’t waste time, does he? Just before Dawn, one of his boys had dropped it off. At my home. I was not pleased, but proper etiquette – it is considered an insult to return a gift to the master who sent it to you. I believe he enjoys putting me in this situation; either I accept his gifts, or I shun them with a blatant act of hostility.

I would rather avoid bringing the attention to myself.

So I tolerate Felix. Barely.

He laughs appreciatively at my flat tone, and even over the phone, his voice is nearly tangible, like velvet coated glass. Mmm. I pause, leaning one hip into the refrigerator, and I can envision my German companion. Sprawled on the navy blue couch in one of his casinos, gracefully. You have to admire him – and he’s aware of it. Leather pants incase fit legs, perfect thighs, and his backside? Zeus almighty, the ass of a Botticelli masterpiece. He’s lovely. Slim, blue eyes, blond hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and a smirk he’s perfected – the art of suggesting, I want to fuck you and devour you inside out all the while seeming the perfect gentleman. His face is a little rough, unshaven but flawless, and it’s his jaw, nearly square, that saves him from seeming anything but masculine…very…tempting.

Very…irritating, as well.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do with it.”

“Feed it, water it, eat it for all I care…” he drawls absently, tone sharpening some towards the end, eagerly, “but if you’re going to eat it, can I watch?”

“I’m not going to eat it.”

“Pity.”

I wince, as the stench of curdled milk assaults my senses, baring fangs in the process. Urgh.

Keeping food when one does not eat is…well, I have my reasons.

The chicken is wrapped in foil on the second shelf – and I know that hasn’t gone bad. I cooked it last night. Rotisserie style, with lemon pepper. I shift the phone against my ear as I pull out the food.

“Mikhail is demanding blood,” Felix tells me conversationally as I prepare the dinner – microwave, silverware, a drink.

“Who the hell is he?”

“The master vampire of the fledgling you killed.”

“Ah.”

Pause. “Du scheißt' mich an!”

“No, I’m not ‘shitting you’.”

“Ah? That’s all you have to say?” He takes my silence as a yes. “You shouldn’t have torn her head off.”

“She didn’t know her place.”

“She was barely over a hundred. You should make allowances for youth.”

“I should make allowances?” I push the REHEAT button.

“You could have given her to Mikhail. He would have punished her.”

“He should have kept her on a tighter leash.” Ping. I pull out the food.

“He is her Master. You’ve…never had a fledgling. You don’t know how valuable they can be.”

His voice softens, tenderly, and I smile down at the plate. How cute. It would be cuter if I didn’t taste the ambition in his words. Felix has always been exceptionally ambitious. It’s how he became a vampire. How he successfully owns a chain of casinos. How he owns so many humans that to toss one or two, or fifteen away as gifts means nothing.

“I fail to see,” I reply smoothly, “how some sniffling, suckling little brat crawling out of a grave could possibly make eternity any more bearable.” I sift through the silverware drawer for a fork and knife, “I’ve heard the horror stories, Felix. They suck out all of your strength, your will, your time.”

Not to mention your money and your privacy.

He laughs. “What does a vampire have, Julian, if not time?”

“That is not the point. These…fledglings get queasy at the thought of taking a life, smear blood everywhere, never get rid of the bodies, lose control, can’t shield their thoughts, whine, or ask too many questions, and they inevitably try to behead you post mortem or fall ‘in love’ with a human – and that always works out so brilliantly. They’re moody and spoiled. They think the world is their dinner plate. It’s a mistake to raise them under the impression they are untouchable.”

I’m ranting.

Again.

I know because Felix is highly amused.

“We are untouchable. We are immortal.” He pauses, muttering something in German to someone I can’t see. A girl responds affirmatively. “We’re gods, Julian, gods of this pissdrunk prison some people call a world.”

“A few of us, perhaps,” I sigh under my breath, low enough that a person probably wouldn’t be able to hear it.

“You need to feed.”

That took me off-guard. I frown into the phone. “What?”

“I can hear it in your voice, Julian. You’re tired.”

“I just woke up.”

“You need blood.”

“I’m fine.”

“You have two-three, now! THREE!”

“I’m not going to eat them.”

“Just a bite…just one bite is n-“

“It defeats the entire purpose. I’m not feeding on them.”

“You’re an idiot.”

My grip unnecessarily tightens around the phone’s neck. I turn towards the humming refrigerator door. I hear the plastic in the phone crack. Watch your tongue.

He says nothing. Then, swiftly, easily sifting the subject, Felix adds, “Dasha was one of his favorites.”

“Dasha provoked me. I took her head. Better me than some hunter.” I take a can of root beer out of the fridge.

“If Mikhail could, he would take this out of your flesh. He’s furious.”

“The opportune phrase being, if he could.” I find a cup in one of the cupboards, empty the soda into it. Hit the CRUSHED ICE button on the freezer door. It rumbles to life. “You and I both know he hasn’t the strength or the intellect to take on a vampire twice his age. Let him try it, and he’ll meet the same fate as his twit of a fledgling.” I scowl when bits of root beer splash my hand, but I’ve got the drink. “She was a nuisance.” I back out of the kitchen, plate and drink in hand, make my way through the library, to the hall.

“It’s not like that. Not always. It can be a…a powerful experience.”

“Fifty years ago you wouldn’t have said that.”

“Ich nehme an, aber es macht nichts.” He shrugs mentally. “Things are different now…”

“Glorify it all you want. In the end, you’re nothing but a babysitter. So forgive me if I do not relegate myself willingly to a position as a nanny.”

“And what do you call what you do now? Tending the sick…the weak…like some hospice nurse, mein gott, Julian, you are the oldest vampire ali-“

“-that you know of, Felix,” I growl under my breath, pausing outside the second guest bedroom. I stare at the white doorframe, grit my teeth hard enough that fangs cut into the skin of my lip. “I am not a nurse. I do not care about these animals. I…simply…get rid of the ones sent to me as soon as possible. And if you would not add to this…problem, I would appreciate the decency.” The words fade into a hiss, and Felix is silent. Don’t. Do it. AGAIN.

“Ich verstehe.”

Good. I hang up.

“Are you awake?” I push open the door before I get a response, flattening it against the wall – revealing a room done in white and navy blue, dark mahogany wood theme. The bed is unmade…but he’s not in it. The boy is on the floor, as is one blanket – he must be used to sleeping on hard surfaces, or perhaps he’s just clumsy and fell. He’s in jeans, with no shirt, but his skin is smooth and dark, Italian cream, and he’s curled up on his side in a near fetal position, but as soon as I step into the room, he springs up.

“Springs” is too optimistic a word.

He rolls onto his stomach, slips to his knees. Stares at me, on hands and knees.

Breathes, “Master.”

Beneath a wash of bleach-blond hair (he was naturally a brunette, I think), those doe brown eyes widen and dilate, taking me in, memorizing every slope of my body, the shape of my face, everything. He’s committing it to memory, washing out every habit, order, image of his last master. To please me. He’s uncertain. Doesn’t know what I want. Doesn’t know what I could do to him. But he can imagine. It’s the same feelings – the lust, the fear, the need. Desperation and shame. He’s thinking I’m bigger than him. The last master. Felix. Stronger. Older. It’s true. The boy envisions nothing…and everything. That I could kill him, drain him dry in the time it takes a normal human being to cross a room. I could rape him. I could rape him, and then kill him…I could torture him.

I could force him to fuck another man.

My eyes widen – slightly.

He’s straight.

Interesting. Felix is a bastard.

It’s not uncommon for vampires to force it: two straight men to fuck, a gay man to eat out a woman, a gay girl to play the bitch in a heterosexual rape. We are sadistic, most of us. And, as it were, many take pleasure in seducing, bespelling, enthralling those who aren’t of their sexual persuasion. It must have taken quite a while to break a straight man. Enough that he’s willing to fuck men at the slightest indication of his master’s preference. I know this one will, repulsive as it is to him.

He’s disgusted. With himself. And he’s afraid because he wants me to do it.

He’s afraid that if I sink my teeth into his neck, he will beg for it.

“Master…”

I roll my eyes when he starts crawling.

I don’t like humans.

I don’t want servants.

I don’t want groupies, I don’t want a walking buffet.

Don’t they have any self respect? Slobbering, stuttering whores. Worse than dogs.

Pathetic.

“I’m not your master. You don’t have a master,” I tell him calmly. The human pauses, cocks his head not unlike a dog, actually. “You’re a human being.” I set the dish, the drink, everything, on the large dresser beside the door. “You’ll have to get off the floor to reach this, but you can eat it.” I pause. “That is not an order.”

“Mas…?”

“I am not your master. You’re a free man. You can choose to eat or you can choose to starve.” Frankly, I don’t give a damn which he does – as long as he makes the choice. I don’t have time for this. I never do. Vampires send human servants as gifts; I can’t give these people – if that’s what you call them -back. They’re my property now. According to whatever “laws” have been implemented by the more politically minded of my kind.

But if I can break their addiction, their need, and all that brainwashing…

Those humans walk right out my door. And I can be alone again.

That is what I want. That is what I do. I rehabilitate human servants that are sent to me, and I get rid of them.

The Italian human – I think he is Italian – slides one hand around the back of his own neck, lingering near the pulse points, and the scars marring his skin there. Plenty of bites, of tearing, of remembered pain, and all he can think about…

“You do not wish to feed, Master?”

“I am not your master.” I have said this too many times before.

“Sir.” It’s better than Master, I guess. “You do not wish to feed, sir?”

“No.” It’s always better to use small phrases with these things. They’re not very smart.

Oh, do I sound condescending?

Yes? Live with it. I am better than them, I am better than you. It comes with being a vampire. You’re just one step down on the evolutionary ladder, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to brag about, of course – you are rather fragile, for a species – but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Unless you’re one of them.

“Please…mas-sir, I…I wa-please,” he mumbles, absently tucking hair behind his ear with one hand – the strands sweep his neck, sliding along that pretty slope of the pulse, and his other hand…fumbles…at his pants-

“What are you doing?”

“I-I-I…sir…I need you. I…I want to show you. How much…I…”

“I don’t need to see it.” His erection.

“Bu-“

“You should eat.”

“I was told you…I’m sorry, sir, forgive me. I-“

“I do like men.” Damn. He’s halfway towards rebuttoning his pants, flushed with embarrassment – and something else. I feel the hope surge – he’s not gay, but he knows that pleasing me gets him…his…fix. And he still thinks he’s overstepped his bounds – he has. He thinks he deserves to be punished – he does. He wants to be punished. For Zeus’ sake!

“You should keep your pants on. You should eat.” I repeat.

“Would it please you, sir?”

“Y-“ No. If I say that, he will assume I am giving him an order. He will do it because he will expect approval. I can’t give him that. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I am if you say I am, sir.”

“How long has it been since you ate?”

“A day, sir.”

“And you are not hungry?”

“Do you want me to be, sir?”

Actually, I want to tear my fangs out. This is RIDICULOUS. I haven’t been this frustrated since the sixties. And he’s sitting Indian-style on the floor, looking at me intently and would you believe he is genuine? If I didn’t want him to eat, he wouldn’t. If I decided I wanted him to drink his own piss – he would do it. That’s how twisted he is. And I don’t have TIME FOR THIS. I have an appointment. I tilt my head back, momentarily, gather my thoughts. My irritation. This boy can’t help it.

But it’s annoying. “I wish you would do what you want, not what you think I want you to do.”

The boy blinks at me, and his brow furrows, absently his lips find the same words, echoing, “What I want…”

Finally. “Yes.” I sound as exasperated as I feel.

I need to eat. Felix was right.

That doesn’t help my mood.

For the love of HERA will you just DO something?! This is as fascinating as watching paint dry – and don’t think I haven’t done that before. Immortality can get tedious.

The boy can’t hear me.

Nonetheless, he moves. The boy gets to his feet, and manages not to sway. He’s taller than I thought he’d be. About five seven, thereabouts. He’s quite pretty, though scarred. Bite marks and scratches on his chest, his stomach, collarbones, throat and…he is undoing his pants again. He’s unbuttoning, dragging down the zipper with a thin squea-

“What the hell?”

“What I want,” he whispers, and then he’s out of his pants and there is nothing underneath. Smooth legs, and cleanshaven – both legs and penis. He’s also circumcised. And…I believe you call it pitching a tent. Without the tent. And I take my time, dragging my eyes from the delicious curve of his pelvis, to his hips, and stomach…he shivers, and I only realize this because he’s stalking towards me, this naked little boy, and he’s…touching me. Pressing his hands to my chest, down the glossy black buttons of my silk shirt, to the pants, and he’s fumbling with my belt buckle-

“I haven’t fed,” I murmur gently, watching his greedy little hands digging into the Armani, feeling for my crotch, stimulating…trying to… “I can’t.” Obviously. Without blood, there is no way for the vessels to swell, no way to fuck. I can be aroused but…it won’t make me hard. Physiological impossibility. No blood. No erection. It’s why blood and sex go well together. Don’t tempt me. At any rate, the boy isn’t paying attention; he has the single-minded focus of one who has done this before, needs to do it, craves it, wants it, and all the shame…he nearly gets the buckle-

I snatch up his hand before the belt gives.

“I wouldn’t recommend you do that.” My fingers crush his wrist gently, he looks at me. My waist, and my face.

“Take me. Taste me. Take my blood, you need it, you want it, I know you want it, and I want you. I want to feel it, I wan-“ He gasps when my hold tightens, threatening close to crushing his bones into flour. “-want to feel. Anything.”

“I’m not going to bite you.”

“Why not?!” The first traces of anger in his voice.

Interesting.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“What do you want? What do you want me to do?”

He purses his lips, shifting from one foot to the other, testicles swaying in tandem, looking at me, begging me, telling me to please, please, please, give me something. Anything.

“I think you should eat something.”

He grits his teeth, and I watch him. The play of emotions on his face is almost intriguing. “Fine.”

I smile when he moves away from me, towards the food.

“I have a meeting. You might consider clothes. There should be some in the closet.” As if, on cue, I hear him. Footsteps, hesitant outside the condominium door. “Right on time, Doctor,” I murmur softly, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth idly. I move back, away from the boy with little thought. But the doctor? My newest associate. Brilliant. It was quite the headache to insure an evening meeting. More diffi-

“Do you want me now?”

Superhuman strength, preternatural speed, and I…

…I glance up.

He’s clutching the fork between his fingers, one hand resting on top of the dresser.

He narrows his eyes into slits at me, and I nod – encouragingly – towards the food.

He doesn’t go for the food.

He-

“SON OF A BITCH!”

-drives the fork-

“IDIOT!”

-into his back of his hand.

I’m snarling curses as-

He screams.

I-

I slap him.

I backhand him across the face. Just to shut him up, and the whiplash makes his neck pop, and I think I bruised up his jaw.

While he recovers with his face, tears and pain, and the fact that he’s bitten through his tongue - I tear the fork out of his palm.

He screams again, and he’ll be doing more than SCREAMING when I get done wi-

One hand has his wrist in my grip, and I drag his arm towards me, assessing the damage. I turn his hand over, and his fingertips curl, cupping the blood filling his palm, in the creases of his skin, under his nails and…I…

I dig my nails into the marks from the fork, and the harder I pinch – the more blood surges through, and the more he flinches and yelps and-

“Serves you ri…” Hi…th…blood. It seeps through the pronged wounds in his hands, dripping down his wrist, coating his fingers, thick and hot an-an-and warm and…its spilling over his fingers and drenching mine and dribbling down to smack into hardwood floors and I…I…am so hungry. I jus-

“P-p-please, Mas-ster…”

He shoves his hand forward, and I close the distance, shifting to cup his hand beneath mine, dragging the palm to my mouth and I’m…drinking…it…spilling what he’s managed to keep from slipping through his fingers…I know I…I groan against his skin and the human is whispering please, please, please over and over and over again, and his need and my need mesh and I…swamped…in blood…it sweeps into my mouth, down my throat, burning like sex and acid…i-it…tastes…tastes…so…more…moremoremoremo…I bite down gently on the edge of his hand, pulling it into my mouth. My bottom teeth sink into the skin just under his thumb, and I suck it clean, tongue sliding under his nail, then down to lap at his skin, shoving the tip of it between the slim gaps in his fingers, fangs digging into the lifelines trailing over the hand, grazing just hard enough to make him gasp.

I tongue the jagged piercings, and I’m not holding his hand to my mouth – he’s pushing it against my teeth himself. Me? I bend his fingers back, not enough to break them, just t…to…open…flex…his hand…it tightens the muscle, stretches the tearing…pushes the blood…his pulse…his…heart…skips…fingers curl…he’s…sliding his fingers into my mouth, hooking them under my lips, and I am…sucking…them…clean…my tongue trails down his forefingers, across his palm and he…he’s clotting, clotting…but his wrist is sti…

I lick it clean, pressing nearly chaste, tongued kisses over his pul-

Scars.

My tongue flicks over his scars. Thin lines, jagged tufts from puncture marks, and some self-inflicted gashes an…

He’s cupping my face as I suck on the skin, stroking the line of my jaw, my cheek, encouragingly, and I press my bloody hand on top of his, rubbing my fangs against the thin, oh-so-thin flap of skin separating me…fr…from tha…

“Julian-san? The door…?”

I hear her voice, clearly, from some distance. My hearing hones and…yes…the door…he’s knocking…a-

“Go away, you bitch!” hisses the boy, and the anger twists his face into an ugly mask.

It’s enough.

I hear her footsteps.

Nearer.

Nearer.

Nea…I pull away.

Drag my lips away from him, and lick them clean.

I drop the hand.

He groans in prote-

I slap him again.

Leaving a nicely bloodied handprint on his left cheek.

“Don’t do that again. The next time you mutilate, I’ll drive that fork into your dick and eat it,” I mutter irritably, “No one will ever want you again.”

He stares at me from beneath heavy lidded eyes. I didn’t even break the skin, and he looks as mussed as if I’ve fucked him blind. “Promise?” is the purred, raspy response.

I shut the door.

I wish I had a padlock.

By the time I’ve wiped my face clean of blood, and lingering blood lust, I’m in the living room, and the Japanese girl – the second of the three I’ve got in this house – straightens from her bow of respect. There’s a man standing in the threshold.

I pause.

He nods. “Mr. Thanos, I presume?”