Notes: The first line just popped up in my head earlier tonight, and the ball rolled from there. Just a silly bit of fun from my side.

Tequila with a hint of ginger

Getting bitten by a vampire was probably the most unsexy experience Harvey Newt had ever had.

It was nothing like what they described with such vigorous detail in his sister's cheap dime novels where arousal and getting your blood sucked by a 'creature of the night' were closely connected. Truthfully, having a vampire fanging your throat hurt like a motherfucker without anaesthesia, not to mention it was messy and likely to have your clothes soaked if the vampire wasn't careful enough. And then there was the noise of sucking and slurping- Harvey got chills when he thought about it.

On top of all that, the vampire to whom he had exposed his virgin throat to had been male.

Goddamn it.

What the fuck had he been thinking when he got so drunk last night?

He knew all too well how susceptible he was to getting into trouble under the influence of alcohol. After the third whiskey, in combination with tequila before that, his memory was fuzzy, but he could still vaguely recall the vampire who'd bitten him. The bloke had been good looking enough, he supposed, if your tastes ran towards men (not that Harvey knew a thing about that, mind you). Brown hair, a nice, though sickly pale face, big feet and strong, cold hands were what he remembered the most.

Pain shot through his neck as he tilted his head to the side to expose the fang marks.

Brilliant, just brilliant. It looked like someone had drilled two gaping, purple holes in his skin, and that was not a pretty sight. His co-worker, Janey, would freak if she saw them. He could hear her in his head, ranting about how vampires were sexy to boot with their marble white skin, light eyes and lack of a heartbeat. She was a fangirl of the undead, much as he loathed it, but he put up with it in return for the shit she got from him.

Grumbling unhappily he opened up the small bathroom cabinet, took out a large band aid and slapped it over the puncture wounds with a wince. He just hoped to God none of the kids would notice. That could prove to be pretty damned awkward.

Harvey ran the hair bush through his hair once, brushed his teeth, rinsed and spat, zipped up his pants and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He fetched his bag, put on his shoes and jacket and did the last few buttons on his shirt while walking to work. From between his lips breakfast hung; a piece of toast with raspberry jam and butter on, which he ate leisurely on the ride to work. Commuting was alright enough around here, and that was probably the main reason why he never got himself a driver's license. Paying for gas was way more expensive than riding the train.

It was a short ride, too. Twenty minutes later Harvey was perfectly presentable, if you ignored the scruffy stubble on his cheek, and he arrived at the kindergarten precisely five minutes to eight. His uniform today consisted of an apron-ish piece of clothing since he was the one in charge of the kitchen on Mondays, and he pulled his hair back in a small ponytail to keep it out of the way.

"You look like a demon chewed you over twice and spat you back out, Harvey," Janey kindly remarked the moment he stepped into the kitchen. Her eyes sized him up without missing a thing.

"Yeah, thanks." He rubbed at his tired eyes. There was a slight pounding at the back of his head, a reminder of just how drunk he had been the night before, but the pain killers he'd taken earlier took away the worst of it.

"Is that a band aid on your neck?" Janey's eyes lit up.

"No."

Of course, a no was nothing to her. Before he knew it she was in his face, touching the abused, patched up area with nimble fingers.

"Yes it is! Oh my God, Harvey- you dirty, dirty man!" She giggled.

He gave her the evil eye.

"Was she hot? Or did she hypnotize you? Come on, tell me all about it." He snorted and moved away before she could nudge him in the ribs.

If he told her the truth he would never hear the end of it. To meet fangirls was not at all uncommon (the girls loved vampires, for some reason. Harvey never did see the appeal), but Janey was the worst kind of fangirl- she loved the idea of two men getting it on, and he absolutely did not want to give her fantasies more fuel. Heavens knew they were bad enough already.

"Watch your mouth, Janey. We're in a kindergarten, for crying out loud."

She was not deterred in the slightest. "I'll make you talk, you silly boy."

Oh, he could bet.

Right then though their little conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the first three kids, and Janey rushed to greet them and their parents with her friendly, warm smile and voice. Harvey lingered in the background. There were small creases between his eyebrows, his expression deeply thoughtful (an expression he wore well. It raised his looks a notch).

Oh well. It wasn't like he would ever see the vampire again, so why was he brooding? Just to be sure he'd go to another bar next time. He might live in the suburbs, but the city was big, and the chances of running into the same person twice were minimal.

"Mister Harvey?"

He looked down to see one of his own fangirls, Belinda. Her blond hair was plaited today, and she wore a sailor dress that was overkill on the cute.

"Hi there, Belinda. Did you have a nice weekend?"

She beamed when he smiled at her, and Harvey thought that whoever said children couldn't fall in love at such a young age sure hadn't met this girl.

"Yeah, I did!"

"Harvey, come here for a second," Janey called.

"Let's go see what she wants, huh?"

Belinda reached for his hand and took it, nodding eagerly.

Janey was by the door, crouched down to be on eye level with a little girl Harvey hadn't seen before. Behind the girl stood the mother, or so he presumed, because there was a semblance between the two females.

"Pepper, this is Harvey. Harvey, meet Pepper. She will be coming to play with us every morning from now on."

The mother chuckled when the girl turned away and hid her face from him. "She is a little shy, but don't worry. She warms up to people quickly," the woman explained. "Right honey? Mommy needs to go now, so be a good girl and go with Janey, okay?"

Harvey frowned as he look at the little girl. There was something awfully familiar about her, but he hadn't met the mother before, so he couldn't pin point exactly what gave him that feeling. He forgot about it when Belinda tugged at his hand to make him lean down so she could whisper something in his ear.

"She's so pretty, like a princess."

"You better go say hello then, no?"

"Okay."

Janey shot him a look that said 'we'll talk later'.

-

It was Friday night, and Harvey was pleasantly buzzed. To have another tequila was probably a bad idea, but his judgement was not exactly up to par at the moment. The bartender served him his fourth one with a neutral expression, and Harvey had it downed in two seconds. A burn spread through his body as the liquid travelled to his stomach. He sighed and let his chin rest in his palm.

The music was loud and kind of lame, but he couldn't find it in him to care about anything right now, really. None of the girls had hit on him the entire night, which sucked. He might not be a total looker, but he was by no means ugly- just average, on the verge of being handsome. Maybe he should have shaved better before he went out. But girls liked a man with stubble, didn't they? Aw, fuck, he couldn't think very straight.

"Is this spot taken?"

Harvey was sluggish enough not to jump when someone talked right next to his ear. "No. Go ahead," he replied without looking at the stranger. He was weighing the pros and cons of ordering another tequila.

"Um, are you alone?"

Great- the guy was the chatty kind.

Harvey shrugged. "I guess. The girls are staying away tonight, it seems." He turned his head to flash a grin at the other, but it fell from place once their eyes met.

Wait a second. He had seen this bloke before, hadn't he? He scrunched up his nose while trying to remember, but his memories were like slippery fish in human hands. The tequila had a lot to do with that, he suspected.

First of all, the man sitting next to him was positively gorgeous, even from the perspective of a straight bloke. Brown curls adorned the man's head in a messy style that might be intentional or natural, he couldn't really tell. His features were a bit soft and muted, possibly because of the dim light in the bar, but Harvey freely drank in the sight and half envied the man for his looks. The girls should be falling over themselves to get this man, and yet here he was, sitting next to Harvey at the bar, talking to him.

It took him another minute to realise that the man also was a vampire.

His skin was so pale, even in the poor light, that it looked near translucent. And then there were the eyes, open and curious, a blue so light in colour that it was close to grey. No humans had that shade of blue.

"So, are you looking for someone to bite or what?"

"Excuse me?" The man's stare was priceless.

"You know, since you're…" He made a vague gesture towards the other.

"A vampire, you mean?"

"That's right."

"Just looking for company, that's all."

Harvey couldn't help but wonder why he was sitting here then. There was better company to be found in other areas of the bar. "Yeah, me too. But it doesn't seem like I'm going to get lucky tonight."

"I'll buy you another drink, if want," the man offered.

This was wrong, wasn't it? You didn't buy drinks for other men- you bought them for girls. But he wanted another shot, and his mind was too fuzzy for him to bother with brooding over details. He grinned again. "Fill me up, Captain."

He put the new drink to his lips, threw his head back and downed it with a pleased sound.

"You really like tequila, don't you?"

"Not really. Just a habit, is all." Harvey noticed how the man's eyes were fixed on his throat, and that made him a little uncomfortable. Did the man picture him as food? That was downright creepy. "Do you bite people a lot?" He was beginning to slur his words a bit.

The man's laugh was a deep rumble in his chest. "No, no. Just when I need to." He folded his hands atop the bar counter and stared at them with a little smile. "And sometimes for other reasons."

Harvey felt his cheeks flare with heat.

"You mean, for sex?"

Light eyes met his.

"Yes."

"Oh."

Oh damn. I guess it's true then, that vampires get off on the whole biting-people-business.

He put both elbows on the counter and leaned closer to the other man with an intensely curious look on his face. "What's it like?

It was obviously a question the man got asked a lot, because he didn't need more than a moment to reply. "It's…hard to explain, really, but it feels a bit like the rush you get when you're in love. You get the whole kick of adrenaline and that loopy feeling in your stomach, just…ten times harder. And there is arousal, of course."

Harvey hadn't been in love for a while, but he could still remember the way butterflies fluttered in your stomach when you were in love with someone. "Sounds real nice," he sighed. "I haven't gotten laid in three months, so I'm damned pent up."

He wasn't sure why he was sharing details of his pitiful sex life with a stranger, but the tequila loosened his mouth. It wasn't like he would remember much of anything in the morning, so what did it matter? "How about you?"

"Um, eight months for me."

"Man, that sucks even worse. I don't envy you. But you're a looker, so why? It shouldn't be hard for you to get into someone's bed."

The man looked away. "I don't know. I'm not like that, I guess."

"What, you're waiting for Miss Right?"

"Mr. Right."

An awkward pause followed.

"Oh. OH! You're gay!"

The man nodded, a guilty expression in place. Though, when Harvey burst into laughter and patted him on the shoulder he loosened up a bit.

"That's okay. I don't care. Gay or straight or whatever- sex is sex, isn't it?"

Somewhere between the next tequila and the two that followed after that Harvey found himself playing tonsil hockey with the other man. How it happened he couldn't tell, but he was too drunk to care, and it had been far too long since he last enjoyed someone's touch. The bartender looked pretty unhappy about having two men make out on top of his counter, but neither of them noticed.

-

The following morning Harvey awoke with a killer headache.

He rolled onto his stomach, cussed and pressed his face into the pillow in hopes of smothering the agony, unsuccessfully.

Fuck, he must have had ten shots too many last night, because he hadn't experienced a hangover this bad for months. When had he come home? He couldn't remember. Actually, he couldn't remember a thing from last night. His bladder wanted to be emptied, but he simply couldn't move just yet. He reached out a hand and fumbled around on the bedside table for his watch. His fingers found a paper note, folded neatly in two, which he brought to his face and skimmed through.

Sorry for leaving without waking you up,

but you looked like you could use the sleep.

If I drained you too much I'm terribly sorry.

Drink lots of fluids.

You should feel better by nightfall.

Thanks for last night.

G.

What the fuck?

He felt his neck, and just as he'd feared he found not just one, but three sets of puncture wounds. Just touching the skin made him groan from pain and want to swallow a whole bottle of pain killers. Damn it, what had he been up to last night? And who was G? Judging by the evidence he had brought home a vampire and had sex with said vampire, but he couldn't for the life of him recall her face.

It took a great deal of effort to sit up, and once he finally had his feet over the edge of the bed he dropped his head into his hands and moaned. He was naked, as to be expected after a wild night, and he felt something icky on his stomach that could be nothing but dried…sperm.

Hadn't he used a condom?

He scanned the floor for his socks and boxers, picked them up and sloppily put them on. A pair of socks that did not belong to him had been dropped on top of his discarded pants. A deep frown etched itself onto his forehead as he took one of them and held it up before his face.

These socks did not belong to a girl.

It took his mind two whole minutes to connect the dots, and once he did he dropped the sock in horror and read the note again.

"Oh bloody hell."

He had slept with a man.

A vampire man on top of that.

Vague images of brown hair, pale eyes and the most gorgeous orgasm face he'd ever seen popped up in his mind, much to his dismay and disgust.

Wait- if he had sex with another man, did that mean he…?

He ran his hands over his butt, took a couple of steps to see if he felt sore, but there was no such thing. He was blessedly free of sore muscles, which could only mean that he had been the one to do the fucking.

"I'm never having another shot of tequila," he grumbled.

And if Janey asked, he had scored with a nice vampire girl, not a hunk.

Speaking of vampires…How was he supposed to cover up the damage done to his neck?

-

"Did you catch a cold over the weekend, Harvey?" Janey's eyebrows were raised in puzzlement over the turtle necked sweater he wore.

"Something like that."

"My, you sure are gruff this morning," she remarked dryly and rolled her eyes.

The two of them were in the play room for the older children to make sure that everything was in order. Boxes of toys were lined up, crayons and finger paint was readily available and pillows filled the time out corner where they kids could rest a bit if they got tired. They heard a car park outside, and Janey gave him a meaningful look.

"Yeah, I'll go meet them." He shrugged. His mood had improved a bit since Saturday, but his neck still looked like the victim of abuse, not a one night stand. He wiped his hands on his 'apron' and went to open the door as someone knocked on it.

"Good morning," he smiled and came face to face with someone familiar.

His eyes widened.

"Um, hi there."

On the doorstep stood the very same man that had abused his neck to a point beyond recognition.

Of course, the shock was mutual, but the vampire seemed to recover faster than Harvey.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, breathless.

The man looked down at Pepper, the girl whose hand he held. "Just dropping off my daughter."

"Your daughter?"

Harvey had never been so bewildered in his entire life. Vampires couldn't have kids, right? But he saw the semblance between the vampire and the little girl- she had his lovely brown curls and traces of his mouth, not to mention his nose. Pepper smiled shyly at him, clearly uncertain about the situation.

"Do you know my daddy, mister Harvey?" she asked innocently.

The two men looked at each other, and Harvey was not the one to salvage the situation.

"Yes, honey. We've met before a couple of times, but I didn't know he worked here."

"Oh. Are you friends?" She looked from one man to the other, smiling still.

"Um, yes, something like that."

Janey appeared, and Pepper right away went to her with a big smile on her face. She must have noticed the tension in the air, but her smile was ever present. "Hello there, Mister Thompson. Pepper's mother said you'd be dropping her off instead today. Is everything alright?"

"It's fine," both men answered in unison.

She gave them a funny look, then chuckled. "I see. Well, I'll leave you two alone then. Let's put away your shoes, Pepper."

Harvey could swear that she winked at him, the conniving bitch.

"So, um…You are Pepper's infamous Harvey." The man smiled. "She talks about you a lot. I think she might be crushing on you."

"Not to be rude, but I thought vampires couldn't have kids?"

"We can't. Pepper was born before I became one."

The silence that followed was awkward, to put it mildly.

"Now that I know your name I guess I should introduce myself, huh? I'm Ginger." He reached out a hand, which Harvey shook after a moment's hesitation.

"Your name is Ginger Thompson?" he blurted out.

"Yeah."

"That's…"

"I know."

Another pause.

"So…Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee sometime?"

Harvey swallowed.

How often did anyone get asked out by a gay vampire in a kindergarten? He could bet the odds were small for that. And still, he fumbled for an answer. Ginger waited, his smile warm and trusting, and Harvey caught himself thinking that he really did have a beautiful smile.

He took a deep breath.

"Okay."

Christ, Janey was never going to let this one go.

But somehow, seeing the way Ginger's smile widened made him push that thought aside.

Harvey placed the entire blame on the tequila.