AN: Much gratitude to my F-list on LJ for encouraging this madness, and Svenjaliv for reminding me to be a little less in love with my worldbuilding. You've made this a much better story. *hugs*

***

Jake had collected eight hundred dollars, once they'd passed the hat around to anyone who knew Steve's name (and everyone put in what they would have spent on presents, drink and a night out anyway) – enough for the car stereo system he'd been lusting after for six months. It was the last thing he needed to transform his car from a tin can that got him to university and back into a car, into a road trip machine worthy of spending hours in the driver's seat. No more tape-deck, no more crackling radio that only picked up talkback shows (Steve knew far more about gardening, ghoul warding and investment portfolios than any journalism student had the right to know) – just pure music bliss in the only way it was meant to be heard: at volume high enough to vibrate Russian sub-machine guns off the back seat.

The dare seemed ridiculously easy for a ticket to driving heaven: all he had to do was seduce, and try to sleep with, a vampire. Jake had to be slipping if that was all he'd come up with, and it wasn't like he didn't have the whole town to pester for suggestions. He'd dared Phil, after all, to obtain a piece of coral from the council chamber in Mere Illara, and then made sure that every hire place for a hundred kilometre radius was out of scuba gear. Steve couldn't help a chuckle at the memory of Phil turning up to the beach with a snorkel, knowing that Mere Illara was twenty feet below the surface. A group of snickering teenaged mermen – with their girlfriends waving chunks of brightly-coloured coral at Phil every time they surfaced – had chased him back to the beach, waving harpoons and splashing.

Vampires seemed tame compared to that. They were practically human, after all, aside from immortality and blood sucking. Vampire chicks were even hot, if slightly grey-looking around the edges, and all a vampire ever asked for in return (if Steve's seduction skills failed and he had to ask someone to take pity on him and help him out) was a little blood. (It wasn't uncivilised like those in less-accommodating communities made out, either. Trading with a vampire involved half an hour at the local medical clinic, all nice and sterile and not a glimpse of fangs in sight. Steve had never understood why the myth of fangs-to-suck-blood persisted...) A vamp chick wasn't Steve's first choice for a hook-up – the vampires around Port Carmila weren't any more interesting than the breathers here, to be honest – but with that kind of money on the line? He'd even screw Sophie Williams with her damn pimple army...

At the very least Sophie Williams wouldn't back away because of the zombie thing...

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend his twenty-first birthday. Home for the summer with the promise of that awesome stereo installed in his car before the drive back to campus – and hell, he was even going to get laid for the privilege. Steve had even made an effort for this, not that he'd had a problem with trying to seduce anyone yet. Nice shirt, aftershave, polished shoes, and enough money in his wallet to shout however many blood-and-vodka shots it took to hook the cutest vamp there – just in case.

"Watch out, girls," he murmured, running a ten-second brush through his gelled-up hair and shutting his bedroom door behind him. His parents rolled their eyes as he ducked through the lounge room, but were far too engrossed with repeats of The Iron Chef to do anything more than gesture. Steve supposed they were only relieved his dare (Greg next door spilled everything, but maybe that ostensible responsibility came with the job) didn't involve attacking zombies, and just prayed that his next hook-up wasn't a topless circus performer...

His friends picked him up in Jake's rusting dual-cab ute a few minutes later, casually dressed; Phil snickered as Steve slid into the back seat - for once, taking care to avoid the crumpled hamburger wrappers and coils of rope littering the cab. (Jake didn't have fluffy dice hanging from his rear view mirror, but two sinkers and a couple of lures.) "What's that crap on your hair, Steve? I thought you said you didn't need to try and impress the chicks?"

"You'll have to try hard, where we're going," Jake chortled. "There's a new bar in town. Apparently it's the hottest vamp hang-out, so we're taking you there."

Shit, this was going to be easy. True, Steve had always thought himself closer to Jake than everyone else, but how had he lucked out to get such an easy dare? Joanna had spent a night in the old cemetery listening to settler zombies from the 1820s wail and moan about their untimely deaths – and then shooting them every time they tried to gnaw on her limbs. (It was one thing to say that all sentient creatures had equal rights, but feral zombies tended to forget that meant other creatures weren't food. The local coppers turned a blind eye to anyone emptying a round into a feral in the backyard and arrested people for littering and jaywalking.) This little dare was nothing at all.

"No worries," he said, not even bothering to check the gel in his hair. "This is going to be a piece of cake."

"Yep. We take you to a bar, you hook up with a vampire there, and you have twelve hours to get laid and back to us. Then the money is yours."

"Too fucking easy."

They both grinned, Jake pulling the ute over down the beach end of Bay Road. It was a new club – before Steve left for university it had been a sewing-goods emporium – with the walls and windows now painted black. Feeders was the name on the door, flanked by two muscular (and human) bouncers and one suit-clad greyskin checking ID. Steve flashed his licence; the greyskin bouncer stared at the three of them.

"Are you sure you've got the right place?" he asked, shaking his head and staring – not at Steve, who he paid no attention to, but at Phil (wearing his customary jeans and T-shirt) and Jake (who had forgotten to detach several hooks from the bottom of his flanno shirt). Steve couldn't blame him for asking, since while they weren't wearing thongs or singlets, they were only about one tier up the rung of what constituted an appropriate dress code.

"We're just here to support him," Jake replied, gesturing towards Steve. "Good friends can't let him go out on his own, can they?"

More like watch Steve land a chick and try and fail to catch one themselves, or spend the night snickering over beer; the bouncer stared for a moment longer, shrugged, and then waved them through. "Good luck." He had the most magnificent fangs Steve had ever seen, almost large enough to make speaking, kissing and any other jaw-related movements awkward. His eyes – dead, somewhat reminiscent of fishes and the Mer – flicked to Steve for the first time. "You've got some good friends there."

Fuck, did he think Steve was one of those desperate wanna-be-fae leeches? He grimaced and nodded, quickly following Jake through the doors and down a flight of narrow, black-painted stairs into the building's basement level. On first glance it looked like any ordinary club, with dance floor, gyrating bodies, pounding music (Brittney Spears, which wasn't so terrible when people were dancing, not that he'd admit that to anyone) and one guy splashing something over the bar as he downed his drink. It was dark, the club was packed, and rainbow strobe lighting made the mass of grey complexions seem, for a moment, almost alive.

It was the second glance that did it. Steve twisted his head frantically, hoping against hope that he was somehow mistaken ... but no. Vampires formed the majority, but there were a reasonable amount of humans (too many, actually, as he rethought everything he'd known about the town in a flash of a single second), two ghosts causing sudden screams as they floated through dancers, a small cluster of head-bobbing zombies, an aloof faerie prince glowing pale green by the bar and surrounded by a gaggle of adoring, desperate-looking admirers ... male admirers. No matter how hard he looked Steve couldn't find a single woman – except for Sophie Williams pouring something red and viscous into shot glasses behind the bar. Men of all shapes, ages, sizes and varying degrees of human and alive ... but not a single, solitary female vampire.

"Well, Akira-san?" Jake yelled in his ear, above the sound of a pop dance tartlet trying to sing – grinning so hard Steve wanted nothing more than to punch his face in. "What are you waiting for? Isn't this going to be too fucking easy?"

Steve swallowed, thinking longingly of his sound system, and the simple fact that nobody had wimped out on a dare yet. Phil had looked like an idiot with his snorkel, but he'd still tried. Joanna had risked boredom and limbs in the graveyard, and never looked like backing out once. What was a night spent with a vampire of the non-female persuasion compared to zombies?

How drunk would he have to get, he wondered, to turn gay for the evening?

"I'm just trying to see who'd be the best target," Steve said, glancing around. "Couples are already out, single ... guys ... at the bar are probably my best bet..." He paused, swallowed again, and then pointed at the back of a lone vamp sitting at the end of the bar. "Might try him first..."

He took a first, reluctant step towards the greyskin, trying to ignore the sound of his two best friends snickering behind his back.

***

The presence of non-vampiric immortals as well as human leeches meant that Sophie had non-bloody offerings; her broad smile suggested that Jake had planned this for some time – and worse yet, the whole damn group knew about it. Steve sighed, tried not to think himself as the laughing stock of half the town, and ordered a straight vodka, doing his best not to meet her grin. How the hell was he supposed to pull this off? It wasn't just about money, now – if everyone knew about this, how could he live failure down? Worse, though – if he somehow managed to achieve it, how could he live that down? Everyone would know that he was the guy who'd done a guy for a stereo system...

That, though, was still much better than quitting ... and Steve always planned to try for the big cities anyway, once he'd finished his degree. He'd save money by not coming home between semesters. It was totally workable and nobody would think he was avoiding Port Carmila, and everyone who lived there (including a guy he was going to screw tonight) if he made it sound reasonable enough. Nobody would know him in the millions of people in the city, and it wasn't like there were huge opportunities for journalists here. Unless he wanted to report on zombie escapes and the exorcism failure at Council Hall for the umpteenth time; hard news, like wars and international trade relations, didn't seem to exist in the local rag.

Sophie placed his glass in front of him (plastic: glassing might have been a problem elsewhere, but no one here wanted to risk a drunk breaking a glass and bleeding in a room of vampires) and Steve took in a deep breath before turning to look at the guy sitting beside him.

He too stared down the bar; Steve followed his gaze to see the green-glowing fae, and his legion of swooning admirers. (Fuck, was that Adam Swanston trying to sneak his hand on the fae's kneecap...?)

"Shit," he said, stunned – more to Sophie, who leaned over the bar, still smirking. "I know him; he played footy back in high school. Never thought he'd act stupid over a snooty fae."

"Isn't he gorgeous, though?" She sighed. "Too bad he's here and not down the road."

"Gorgeous? If you like jellyfish for brains. I've never met a faerie yet who could do anything more than glow and look pretty." The vampire folded his arms, looking indignant. "I was doing ... that ... once," he tipped his head in the direction of the admirers, cringing as if at his own stupidity, "and sure, he was the most gorgeous thing with a heartbeat, but he didn't have anything to say besides 'Yes, I know' and 'Buy me a drink'. Plus his idea of sex involved him and a mirror." The vampire raised both eyebrows. "All he wanted me to do was hold the mirror."

For some reason, it wasn't hard to imagine a vampire standing there, holding a full-length mirror while a naked faerie reclined on a bed (complete with silk sheets and some fancy embroidered quilt cover); the ridiculousness of the image had Steve snorting. The faerie kept to themselves unless they particularly wanted something, and he'd never met one willing to give a human (or anyone else, for that matter) the time of day yet.

Jake could have had him try and seduce a faerie, which made Steve feel grateful for being lumped with vampires – even male ones...

"Please tell me you're kidding," he said, still snorting.

"I swear – Stoker's Grave – it's the truth."

"Makes emptying a P99 into a feral look like an easy dare, then..." Jake's birthday was next month, and while nobody had seriously discussed what dare they should offer him, Steve thought he had an idea too good not to mention. Fuck you, Jake, because there's no way in hell you're going to pull this one off...

"Dare?"

Steve took his first good look at the vampire's face. His complexion was as grey as every other non-breather in the room, but he looked otherwise non-remarkable in jeans and a striped shirt underneath a black coat. No leather jackets, no protruding fangs – Steve wasn't even sure he was armed. He looked ... well, pretty boring, to be honest. No piercings, no lipstick (almost every other vampire in the club sported blood-red lips) and Steve half jumped in his chair when he realised the vampire was staring back at him in the same considering way. No ... wait. This is ... good, right?

"A friend of mine likes to issue dares on your birthday," he said, shooting Sophie a deliberate glare: say anything, and you're so undead and dismembered... "One of them was for one of my friends to camp out in the old graveyard overnight. You from around here?"

"I moved down here last year." He gestured towards the gyrating vampires. "There's so few of us in the city, you get shuffled between humans who – no offense – stare at you oddly, and then write protest letters to the paper when zombies uproot their rose bushes trying to get at their buried pet dog." Steve couldn't help a snicker, imagining outraged gardeners expecting the coppers to protect their gardens, and nodded. Old Mrs MacGillycuddy had an awesome old English-style garden, and she protected every inch of it with the help of her granddaughter and a pair of matching wakizashi. "There was a job opening with the council for a town planner, and Port Carmila doesn't specify the requirement for employees to have a heartbeat..."

"Good job?"

"Designing aquatic spaces in the CBD is a bit of a challenge. We need to widen the canals so there's space for four-lane swimming channels and access to the market..."

Steve hadn't paused to consider how difficult it would be to plan all town structures in order to accommodate several different species – he'd just taken it for granted that someone would. "There's going to be bitching if you have to narrow the road." He could just see the letters-to-the-editor now... He looked up, somewhat discomfited to discover that he was being stared at again, and not by Sophie – who'd drifted further down the bar to stare at the fae, apparently bored by talk of town planning. "Okay, what? Too much hair gel? Those fucks down the other end of the club who keep on pointing and laughing at me?"

"Well, I was wondering about the hair gel," the vampire replied with a suitably straight face, and then broke into a grin. He had small, barely noticeable fangs, and the thought occurred to Steve that if he refused to think about what it was he was going to embark on ... this might actually be the sort of vampire he could pull it off with. Aside from the grey-ish skin and the lack of a heartbeat, he looked human, and acted human. Hell, Steve even found the fact that he had a boring-sounding job appealing – much less creepy than working in a slaughterhouse, as a grief counsellor, or as a funeral director. Was there a sense of humour as well? "Actually ... I was wondering why you were here. You don't look like a leech or a fae-fapper, and guys who prefer ... humans ... usually hit the bars inland. Not that I wasn't wondering about that guy with the fishhooks..."

How did one go about seducing an undead guy? He knew what to say with a girl – or more correctly, knew how to flirt with a girl – but he couldn't help the feeling that it just wasn't going to work here. This vampire, he felt certain, was sitting at the bar cursing the faerie and his admirers because he wasn't looking for some flirtatious one-night stand – otherwise he'd be out on the dance floor, grinding his pelvis in the company of one or more people. No, he was actually here to meet someone – real, long-term.

There were leeches aplenty, their make-up resembling corpsepaint, looking for someone to fuck them, bleed them, turn them – or at any rate, just pretend. Most of them were probably from out of town – there was quite a booming summer tourist industry in Port Carmila as people came down from the city to spend a week gawking at the Mer, the vampires ... and usually leaving about the time they met their first zombie. Tour boats above Mere Illara (both the Mer and the tour operators, often the same thing, knew that there was no chance of anyone seeing anything interesting about the submerged city, aside from bored teenagers – with fins in the water and legs in boats – throwing seaweed pallets at snorkelers) were the town's second-highest cause of income, after the fishing trawlers.

"If you were really after a vampire," Steve said, quite truthfully, "the last thing you'd do is dress up like a leech and have every vampire in the room trying not to laugh at you." He paused. "Okay, the hair gel was a mistake, wasn't it?"

He nearly jumped off his stool when the vampire offered his hand. "Abe Browning."

Steve couldn't help a chuckle, silently praying that Abe was not as old as his name sounded – because that would be way too weird for him to handle, no matter how young Abe looked. "Your mother was born in the 1700s?"

"No, but my great-great-great aunt was, and she talked my parents into naming me after her father." Abe rolled his eyes. "Everyone else was being named 'Adam' or 'Erin' or 'Shane' when I was born. Not Abraham..."

That sounded like Steve could place his birthdate – it was never polite to ask an immortal's date of birth, and the problem with most vampires was that they had been turned hundreds of years before you were born – somewhere in the 1980s; he gave a huge sigh of relief. "If it makes you any feel any better," he said, "my grandmother still can't figure out how to tune a radio, and she doesn't have the excuse of being five hundred years old." Telling himself that reluctance was pointless – he wanted to come onto the guy, didn't he? – Steve took the offered hand. "Steve Nakamura, and no, I probably shouldn't have been named 'Akira' or 'Hiro' or ... something..."

Abe laughed. He had a firm, but not crushing, handshake, and for some strange reason, was quite content to let his grip linger. Shit. If this is seduction, it's the worst way I've ever gone about it ... but is this actually working...?

"If you don't mind my asking ... what would it be like, growing up with a vampiric great-aunt?"

"You know all the 'back in my day things were so much better because we conveniently forget that while technology sucks, people died of the chicken pox and sodomy was a hanging offense' stories?"

"When I was young, it was a time honoured occupation to look after one's grandparents and honour ones ancestors and all we ever ate was rice and seaweed and we were so much the better for it...?"

"Times a factor of about a hundred for all the extra years she's lived, of course." Abe shrugged, grinning. "It scares me stupid to think that one day, I'll be doing that to my sister's great-great-great grandchildren ... while they sit there, roll their eyes, and bitch about me to some stranger they meet in a gay bar ... if they have gay bars, then."

The first thing ever drummed into his head in school – child vampires and zombies were fairly rare, but there were one or two recently-turned vampires of school-age who still needed an education – was never to ask a vampire or sane zombie when she had been turned, or how: it was just good manners. Steve couldn't help curiosity, though – Abe seemed to be around his age, perhaps a little older. He looked a little younger, which meant a turning relatively recently... perhaps while he was at university? Had his aunt turned him? At least his family would be comfortable around vampires, when most humans weren't – which was probably why he had chosen to be turned in the first place, come to think of it.

"In a space station somewhere because we've blown up the Earth, probably."

"Or zombies took over."

Steve snorted. "No zombie representative body is going to let that happen, or anyone else. If ferals take over the world and we're all dead or up in space stations, there's nothing left for the zombies, feral or otherwise – and they're smart enough not to work towards their own self-extinction. Plus this way ACPIZ – which does fuck all for the hard-working zombies out there - can pretend they actually care about human or breather welfare, despite protesting deathside dismemberment. Meanwhile your conservatives are too busy being scared and refuse to pass legislation that would allow zombies to recognised as equal, voting, sentient citizens." He shrugged. "The sad thing is that a test – sentient recognition determined on a proven basis of social intelligence – would solve everything. Then my mate's girl and my neighbours could have the rights we all take for granted, and ferals can still be shot on sight. It's not like you can't tell the difference."

Abe raised both eyebrows. "So what do you do, then?"

"Journalism with a minor in Political Science." He blinked, surprised. Part of the problem of being best friends at home with a bunch of die-hard fishermen was that someone had usually slapped him over the head and yelled at him to shut up by now. Nobody Steve knew was interested in listening to him talk about the politics of sentient awareness. Whether revolvers with big-game shells, or semi-automatic handguns were more effective in taking down ferals, yes (Steve liked a semi just because it was easier to carry around and didn't bulge so much under clothing, and despite what Jake said, that wasn't a gay sentiment, just practicality) – but not politics. The Johnsons were great people despite being dead and the ferals needed to be shot, and why were they even discussing this when it was so fucking obvious? Nobody let him chatter on within a 100 kilometre radius of Port Carmila – except for Abe. "And I probably just bored you..."

"Do you know what most people talk about around here?"

"Fishing, footy, water polo, fishing, feral plagues, fishing and how much the city sucks?" Steve grinned. "There wasn't a reason why I chose to go to uni as far away as I could get and still be in the same state..."

"Exactly, except that you forgot fishing." Abe grinned back, and Steve couldn't help a laugh. "Don't get me wrong, I love working and living in a place where nobody stares at me, where I can drink blood in the office and no one complains to the boss – hell, where I can be employed without someone thinking up a reason to hire the breathing rather than dead person without it sounding like discrimination – but at times ... well."

He didn't finish the sentence, but Steve understood. It was nice to be in the company of someone who didn't think you were an overeducated douche and listened to what you had to say ... and he sat there for a moment, glancing towards the untouched vodka glass. Abe was ... well, a nice guy. He deserved to find someone in this town that was interesting, but more than that, he deserved to find someone that wasn't going to use him and lead him on for the matter of a bet – someone who was actually interested in him.

"Look," he said, meeting Abe's fish-like eyes, decided – and wondering why that, too, felt odd. Steve had spent the last few years chatting up girls, sometimes (at least, back in Port Carmila) with the sole intention of getting laid – and he didn't lie, but he had stretched the truth here and there when he thought he needed to. There was a good chance a few of those girls had thought, or hoped, he wanted something more ... and sometimes he had even known that for sure. (Then, of course, he got to watch it all fall apart when he admitted the truth ... because no city girl yet had failed to freak at the thought of sex with a carrier. Admitting it straight up only meant he didn't get to have fun flirting first.) It had, however, never stopped him yet, and Abe wouldn't care about zombies, so why did he feel guilty about this? Some of those girls had been nice girls, no less nice – in a different way, of course – than Abe was. The perfect sound-system was riding on this – and for some crazy reason, Abe seemed a little interested in him. It should have been easy ... and yet. "There's something I have to tell you before you get any wrong ideas..."

***

Nothing good had ever started with "There's something I have to tell you"; Abe winced and nodded, wondering what the problem was – besides the obvious ones, and there were a lot of them. (Great-Aunt Elizabeth-Not-Lizzie-Thank-You-Very-Much had spent the day of his turning listing them all, advising him at the end to stick to immortals or a life spent single and annoying his sister's descendants. Did he want to spend five hundred years moping after his flash-in-the-pan mortal lover the way her brother had? Because throwing one's self into the blast zone of a nuclear bomb wasn't a guaranteed suicide...) He could understand why a human would want nothing to do with a vampire (plenty of them were still horrified by the blood requirement), or why Steve might like talking to him, but at the end of the day, prefer the company of someone human ... or faerie. Someone attractive, someone with a heartbeat, someone who wouldn't stay eternally eighteen ... and Steve seemed smart enough to be able to think that sort of thing through and decide it was better not to deal with it. He would be right, too – and Abe hadn't even come here to look at humans. He shouldn't have even answered, except that Abe was tired of the snooty, self-absorbed preening going on at the other end of the bar, shouldn't have kept on talking except that Steve was interesting ... and, okay, cute.

Great-Aunt-Never-Aunty Lizzie would have been screaming, if she hadn't been on the other side of the country plaguing her breathing relatives. What if he didn't want to be turned – like most sensible humans? What if he waited until he was near death to turn, and Abe was stuck with a partner of eighty until the world ended? Most sensible humans – and most vampires, for that matter – were quick to argue against any seeming benefit of becoming undead, and that was if one had a choice. (Zombies and ghosts rarely made the choice, poor things. Abe had heard of some choosing vampirism just to make sure they wouldn't become a zombie later on.) How could it not end but badly?

What he didn't expect to hear, however, was a story about a series of dares, a sound system, and the unfortunate fact that Steve Nakamura – too-long dark hair (slicked back with way too much gel), button nose and a relaxed, easy grin – had expected to be chasing girls this evening ... not male, gay vampires.

Thank heavens you're not here right now, Aunty Lizzie ... not that I can't hear you laughing anyway...

"Oh," he said, as Steve gave him a nervous, expectant stare. "I bet that was a shock..." And yet ... he had come over here and started talking like someone who wanted to chat a guy up – a little serious and awkward, perhaps, but there was nothing in his manner that suggested a straight guy stranded in a gay bar. If he were prepared to go through it ... that meant there was a tiny, slight chance he'd think about it, right? For that matter ... if that was his plan, why had he just blown it by telling Abe? Now he'd have to go chase someone else ... maybe one of the guys that actually knew how to dance, the cool vamps that never lacked for a partner and didn't waste time sitting at the bar envying shallow faerie arseholes. (Nor did they ever make the mistake of agreeing to go home with one, and suffer the awesome humiliation of being considered as indifferent to the night's proceedings.) Abe ... well, if he were brutally honest, he would have taken Steve back to his place if Steve seemed into it and he got up the courage to suggest it. Why the hell would Steve – who seemed to possess far more confidence than Abe ever would – ruin such a workable plan? All Steve had to do was sleep with a guy, but he couldn't help but think that Steve had the balls to do it.

It was nice to think that Steve had that confidence because maybe, deep down inside, he wasn't quite as straight as he made out to be, but also delusional.

"Why ... why are you telling me this?" he blurted, once Steve trailed off and glanced over at the two awkward looking guys sitting by the door, shuffling a little closer every time some looked as if they were going to approach. A few did – anyone with half a brain knew that they were as straight as they came, but the fun lay in listening to them try and explain that they weren't interested – and Abe wondered how much longer they could stand. "If that was your plan..." He paused, trying not to blush. How to say this without being offensive or threatening? If Steve had risked being honest, Abe didn't want to make him uncomfortable. "If ... well, I'd have gone along with it."

Steve nodded. "I know."

Abe only stared back at him.

"You're all right," Steve said, with a shrug. "I think it'd be nice to know someone in this town I can talk to. Screwing you over would fuck that up." He shrugged again. "It's no big deal ... the vampire thing or the gay thing. My next door neighbours are zombies – y'know, the non-feral kind – and my mate Joanna's got a girl. This town? We've all seen weirder things."

That statement shouldn't have caused a sudden thrill of delight, but it did. He wasn't just after a night, not just sitting here to save face and win a stereo system ... but because he liked Abe, liked talking to him. (The fact that he hadn't touched his glass was a good sign, right?)

"Besides," Steve added, "if it wouldn't be too ... weird, maybe you could tell me ... how to go about this..."

He could just imagine it – his whispered tips, just enough knowledge to give Steve some expectation of what might happen, and that calm, confident guy standing up, waltzing over to the other end of the room, and kissing someone else before heading out into the night. Just imagine watching it, when that guy could have been Abe, if Steve hadn't ... liked him enough. Wouldn't it work out for the best anyway, if Steve just became a friend?

Friends, though, helped each other out, even when it was awkward, right? "I don't mind being your ... one night stand, now that I know about it." (Had he really just said those words? Abe had never done a one night stand before, never hooked up with someone purely for sex – or short-term anything. Even after turning, when a lot of human customs no longer mattered – or he at least had the elbow-room to ignore them – he still hadn't thought about chasing ... just to chase.) What if this worked out exactly the way Steve wanted, and was just a sexual encounter with a guy who ... just wanted a stereo system? Abe sat there, wishing he could take his words back, wondering what was worse – watching the gorgeous guy beside him flirt with someone else, or knowing that he was spinning delusions out of fairy floss, ready to melt and fall apart under the slightest inspection. Would Steve really want anything further to do with one stranger he'd met at a bar and screwed, when he'd likely prefer to forget a night spent with a guy, and all the awkwardness and embarrassment that entailed?

"Really? Cool." Steve shot him a beaming, cute-as-a-button grin, and Abe's thoughts seemed to pop right out of his head. Nailing that seemed far more important, somehow... "Nothing too ... out there, okay?"

Why did Abe have the feeling that Steve was far more likely to go 'out there' than Abe ever would?

"You're really willing to do this?" he asked instead.

Steve shrugged, a short dip of the shoulders. It was easy to imagine him never lacking for a girl – he was no model, but that was why. He had that comfortable sense of ordinariness about him, cute in the way of a next-door-neighbour ... and while Abe had the feeling Steve would prefer not to hear it, the fact he looked like a Tokyo schoolboy only helped his case. The bartender spent most of her time staring at the faerie, but every so often she shot Steve a quick look, and Abe couldn't blame her – certainly not when he was doing exactly the same thing. "Why not? I won't say I've never thought about it, just for fun ... and curiosity's sake." He grinned again. "Besides, it's nice to know I can pick up a guy."

His words were nothing close to what Abe had been sitting at the bar for ... but maybe tonight that was good enough.

"Besides," Steve added, "if we don't do anything more interesting than talk soon, we're going to have those two fucks come over, attempt some ear-burning witticism, and then bore us all by talking about snapper or something. There's not much that can be worse than that!" He turned in his chair, vodka glass ignored, one hand drifting across the space between them to rest, lightly, on Abe's thigh. As if he knew just what kind of effect that gesture had – his eyes never glanced away from Abe's face – he tapped his fingers up and down, brushing the tips over his jeans – and the skin beneath. "Do your lips taste like cherry chapstick?"

He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. "Do you say that to all the girls you try to seduce?"

Steve raised both eyebrows at him – and Abe wondered if he were expected to take the lead here. It was logical, surely – Steve had confessed to being both straight and inexperienced with men. Abe should be the one ... guiding him, or something – at the very least making sure Steve felt comfortable with where things were going. Not just sitting there like a rabbit in a spotlight, too nervous to reach out a hand and touch him... "I was hoping you'd say no, because I can't stand cherry."

He couldn't help a giggling snort – and then Steve leaned in, sliding his other hand around the back of Abe's neck, guiding his head just a little until their lips met in a soft, chaste kiss.

Abe pulled his head back, startled; Steve let him move, but left his hand where he was. "I thought I..."

Steve ran the very tip of his tongue over his lips, and Abe thought he was going to melt through the floor. Making gestures that made Abe wonder just what he'd look like on his knees with that tongue running over Abe's cock ... had to be illegal. Or at the very least, unfair. What exactly did Steve include under the label of 'out there', anyway? A blow job wasn't out there by anyone's standards as far as Abe knew ... although for a straight man, it could be. Well ... he'd still look gorgeous doing a hand job, and he'd at least be willing to get naked. That'd be good enough... "No offense, Abe, but I think I know a little bit more about seduction than you do..."

He would have said none taken, but Steve's lips brushed against his own ... and somehow Abe found himself with one hand resting on top of Steve's, kissing him back as if devouring him was a distinct possibility. For a moment, letting his tongue trail over Steve's, he wondered what Steve would taste like – not out of hunger, but simple curiosity. He had ready access to blood whenever he wanted, absolutely no desire to sink his fangs into someone else's neck – that was kind of disgusting and messy, to start with. Not to mention the fact the human/vampire jaw made nothing like the neat twin puncture marks in stories, but caused major damage to the victim – biting was only for turning, and the release of venom that turned a breather into a fellow walking, blood-devouring corpse. That didn't stop him wondering what it'd be like to drink Steve's blood – or what blood-taking in sex would even be like. As erotic as fiction made it out to be (Abe didn't delude himself that it'd be any kind of good experience for Steve) or just grotesque?

"What..." Steve jerked back suddenly, shifting back onto his chair – odd, since his response to the kiss hadn't been lacking in enthusiasm. "What was ... that?"

"I'm sorry!" Had he scared him off? Too enthusiastic, what the hell made you think it was going to be okay, to kiss him like that...? "If ... if at any time you don't want this ... just..."

Steve burst out laughing and gestured in the direction of his friends by the door, both of whom had jaws hanging wide enough to catch a swarm of flies. "We're cool on that. I don't quite know how to put it ... and I'm sorry if this is going to offend you ... but your mouth tasted ... weird, just then."

Abe gave a deep sigh of relief, more out of habit rather than any need for oxygen. (He hadn't yet lost the ability to stop breathing; force of habit was a hard beast to conquer.) "Bad?" He had brushed his teeth before going out (he always brushed his teeth after drinking, just because co-workers started avoiding him if he had blood-breath) so it shouldn't be the blood, but...

"Just ... salty." Steve shook his head – and then wrapped one arm around Abe's shoulders, waving with the other arm as his friends finally gave up (the guy with the fishhooks tapping his mobile phone) and headed, far too quickly, through the door. Abe leaned closer to him, rather enjoying the warmth of a hot-blooded breather against his body. He didn't feel the cold, or the heat for that matter, but boyfriends and cats felt good curled up against his skin – maybe it was just because it was someone living who wasn't afraid to get close to him. "Not bad, but it was there all of a sudden."

It hadn't taken Abe long to get used to the taste that permeated everything – he didn't even notice it anymore. "Venom, probably." He paused, wondering if there was any non-frightening way of putting it. "Most of us tend to release a little when we ... um ... get excited."

Steve raised both eyebrows, but like a true native of Port Carmila, didn't freak over the prospect. He didn't even look terribly concerned, and Abe gave a sigh of relief. "Not enough to turn me, is it?"

"Not even close. I'd have to actually bite you to do that." Abe met Steve's eyes, both as an attempt to make sure he understood ... and because, well, he liked looking at Steve's face. "It's like a bee sting – only toxic in large enough doses. The only problem I ever heard of if someone's allergic to it."

Steve shrugged, dipping one shoulder – and while Steve seemed pretty laid back, Abe's words probably confirmed what he had already been taught about vampires – because he wouldn't have come in here trying to seduce one if he had any fear of being turned. "Yeah, I heard that. I kissed a vampire back in primary school, though, and nothing happened. We were going to swap kisses for blood until one of the teachers caught us, told us off, and gave us a big scary lecture about blood-borne pathogens." He broke into another grin. "I don't remember the taste, though. May I?"

This kiss was slow, leisurely. Steve explored Abe's mouth with the soft, teasing tip of his tongue, running over teeth ... and tasting, no doubt. Abe held as still as he could and let him, unable to forget that he had pulled away last time ... but Steve only shifted his head so that he could nibble on Abe's bottom lip, not acting bothered in the slightest, and that was more than Abe could stand, sliding his tongue between Steve's teeth and deepening the kiss. Sitting there wasn't good enough, wasn't close enough – it was too soon for sex, and he didn't want to take any risk of scaring Steve away (or worse, to somebody else who had some kind of restraint, or just wanted someone to hold a mirror), but ... Steve was too cute to stay seated in a chair. Any close contact and grinding would be acceptable if they were dancing, and watching that body move, feeling it move against him, would be enough – for the moment. For a heartbeat he didn't think he could do it – Steve's kiss was a warm, salty pressure against his lips, how could he end this? – but Abe jerked his head away, panting.

"Want to dance?" he gasped, and silently thanked whichever gods Great Aunty Lizzie's parents had prayed to when Steve jumped off his chair, rubbing one hand at his eyes, and led the way to an empty spot on the floor. His kiss had been good, but Steve dancing was a temptation, an eternal torment: he didn't exactly follow the beat of the music, and he didn't really know the steps of the dances – Abe had the fleeting suspicion that whatever music Steve listened to, it wasn't played in most dance clubs. What Steve did know how to do, however, was flirt – how to hook Abe with just a glance, how to bend and flex his body so that all Abe could think of was throwing him over the closest chair or bench and fucking them both senseless. He danced around Abe, sliding in and out of his reach, constantly twisting and turning so that Abe could admire his entire body – he was fit without being built, lithe with a firm, tight arse that was just made for sex. No, his whole body was made for sex, teasing him with just a brush of fingertips over a shirtsleeve, or half-shut, winking eyes. No surprise that Steve was a confident flirt: he probably had no trouble at all picking up a girl, being a straight man that wasn't afraid to get out and dance – even if he couldn't really follow the steps. It didn't matter in the slightest, because Steve's own steps were attractive enough – perhaps that in itself was what drew the eye, his refusal to follow the crowd – and Abe wasn't the only one who watched him. The whole room watched him at one point or another, but Steve's eyes never drifted away from Abe's.

For some reason, Abe was his sole focus of interest in that room, and he couldn't imagine why.

He also didn't care.

It was barely five minutes, but five minutes of splendid torture until Abe wrapped his hands around Steve's arms and dared to pull him closer, the hot skin pressed against his, groin brushing against groin. Steve's breaths were heavy against his ear, growing heavier as Abe grew harder, holding him as close as he dared – and then he jerked away, shaking his head. His eyes were wide in the reddish-black lighting, one hand rubbing against his cheekbone. Like everyone else living on the floor, sweat beaded on a flushed face. "Can't ... can't ... back in a sec..."

Abe just blinked in surprise, not sure what to say or do; Steve didn't wait for a response, tearing out of Abe's arms and towards the door, leaving Abe – and most of the club – staring after him.

Idiot! You fucking stupid idiot! Steve had guts and balls and was a natural flirt besides, but that didn't mean he was prepared or ready to be jammed up against a gay vampire (or man) who too clearly wanted him. He might not have even been aware of just how much he flirted or how attractive he was, for that matter, or expected a man to be as entranced as a woman would be. How could he have? Abe swore again – everyone else close by gave him sympathetic looks – and then headed for the door, trying to bring himself under some sort of control. He'd apologise. Steve seemed interested as a friend, and if Abe hadn't completely scared him off ... well, he'd have to settle for that. They barely knew each other, after all, and maybe once they'd gotten to know each other better, once Steve got used to the idea ... and maybe, just maybe, found Abe interesting in that way in return. He had kissed him, after all, and Abe hadn't felt much reluctance in that kiss...

The air was much colder out on the street, and for one moment Abe thought he'd missed him entirely, but then he saw a shadow slumped facing the corner wall, shirt illuminated by the fall of the street light, and ran towards it, feet slamming against the concrete footpath in a way that would have broken bones had he been human. Bone crunched and shifted, accompanied with spikes of pain he ignored – vampirism didn't dull pain, but at long last Abe had learned to accept it as something that no longer indicated damage, the signals of a nervous system that never realised its messages were irrelevant and outdated. Steve half lay, half sat on the ground, hands clenched around the front of his shirt – breathing heavily, unevenly, like a guy that had just been winded and couldn't fill his lungs.

The street was much brighter than the dance floor, and under the fall of the steady, yellow light, what had looked like the human flush of exertion in the club seemed a mottled, reddish rash spread over his face, neck and forearms.

For a second – a heartbeat for a breather – Abe just stared.

"It's okay," he said, crouching down beside him and taking Steve's hand in his right, scrambling at his jeans pockets with the other – and finding nothing more than the bulky leather outline of a wallet. No pouch at his belt; a brush over his legs found nothing hidden under his jeans. Fuck. "Steve. Do you have an inhaler? An EpiPen? Any medicine you take for asthma or allergies?"

He jerked his head upright – and then slumped further to the ground, eyelids fluttering closed for a moment before opening them again. Was it a trick of the light, or did his face seem swollen? "I ... I'm not..." His eyes widened further, whatever he would have said lost in a struggle for air, limbs and hands as tense as strung fencing wire as his breaths came in and out in a series of frantic, panicked whistles. "I ... don't..."

Whether he meant he'd forgotten or he didn't own anything was a moot point; Abe pulled out his mobile phone.

***

He couldn't breathe. It was nothing like being winded – he'd done that before, multiple times. The time he raced down the Forestry Road hill on his bike, tried to turn the corner, failed, and slammed straight over the gutter and into the fence, for one. (That had also been the day he'd been bitten, because he'd been too busy struggling to breathe to be able to do anything of worth to protect himself from the zombie who took advantage of his distraction and ripped a chunk out of his right shin. Nobody had been too distraught over the bite, though: it wasn't like everyone else wasn't infected...) Or the time he'd been thrown from his cousin's horse, and slammed on his back in the dirt – that feeling that he couldn't make his lungs expand no matter how hard he gasped ... but by the time he got really panicked over it, it passed. This was more like something half stuck in his throat, something preventing all but a little bit of air getting through. The air outside didn't help, as fresh and cool as it was – and somehow Steve found himself on the ground without really knowing how he'd gotten there, struggling and gasping for breath. He couldn't get enough air in, he couldn't...

It's ... it's got to be all right, this will stop now I'm outside ... I don't... I can't...

The running eyes and itchy skin that had annoyed him on the dance floor seemed as if they'd happened to someone else, irrelevant and forgotten.

Abe's one-sided phone conversation sounded unreal, words and phrases that described someone else. He couldn't breathe, but ... allergies? Hives? That wasn't him, it didn't even make the remotest sense...

"What..."

"Get the club's first aid kit. An EpiPen or some other adrenaline autoinjector if you have it. And chuck me your jacket."

They surrounded him in a sudden cluster of people, one of the bouncers doffing his coat and darting back into the club, the other herding onlookers on. Abe draped the borrowed coats over him, gently prying Steve's free hand from his shirt and loosening the collar. "Steve." His voice had that set level of calm to it that reminded him of unflappable school first aid officers and the kind of teacher you could never truly startle. "Everything is going to be okay, right? Just try and relax. The paramedics will be here in no time ... and then you can complain to some stranger in a gay bar later about how your birthday was ruined." He smiled as if this were funnier than it was, pulling off his coat – a nice dressy black suede, the kind of thing only a vampire would wear dancing in the summer because everyone else would die of hyperthermia – and wrapping it over him. "I'm just going to move you a little, okay? I want to raise your feet." He guided Steve's head and shoulders so he lay flat on the footpath, and then propped his ankles up against the wall; it was only then Steve realised he was shivering as well. "Is today your actual birthday, or just the day you, or they, decided to select a target?"

He held Steve's right hand clasped in his, rubbing his fingers over Steve's palm and wrist, staring as if he expected some kind of answer; he choked, struggling – and then nodded, frantically trying to draw in even the smallest panting breath, trying to move and find any position where he could breathe a little easier.

"Take it easy. You've only got to put up with this for a minute or two, okay? Try slow, easy breaths." Abe gripped his hand tighter, as if oblivious to the fact that even a minute was too long, the whistle of his forced intake of air pounding through Steve's ears. "It's all going to be fine. Just lie here until the paramedics arrive and then they can do all the work. So ... did you get anything good for your birthday? Annoying phone calls from your relatives that you only ever hear from on birthdays and when someone's...? Um, I mean..." He gasped, floundering when he couldn't get even the smallest gasp of air; Abe leaned over him, staring into his face. He seemed vaguely hazy around the edges, blurry – it was hard to focus on him, as much as he seemed to want Steve to manage it. "Steve? Steve! You're not allowed to pass out, okay? Not until you tell me what you got for your birthday..."

Can't, he wanted to say, Abe's eyes refusing to let his go, his fingers poking him every time Steve tried to let his shut. Why had the whistling stopped, or was it just the sound of that siren drowning it out? Why...?

"Steve? Steve. Here! Over here! He's barely breathing and his eyes and face are all swollen..."

"Hey, Steve! What the hell have you gone and done this time...?" He knew the voice, the way he leaned over the fence and told everyone the neighbourhood gossip. Doors slammed and people spoke, bustling all around him. He gasped in vain, trying to claw at his shirt collar with arms that felt too limp to lift; someone new crouched beside him "Going to help you breathe, okay? It's going to hurt, just a bit..."

He didn't have the breath to cry out at the sharp, jabbing pain in the outside of this thigh; his heart pounded crazily in his chest, kind of like the way he felt when he hit the ground after a parachute jump and realised that it was over, that he was on the ground and alive after plummeting through thin air and watching the ground grow closer ... except that was fun, and even the fear left him feeling as though he could manage anything (including doing it all again, because this time he knew that he'd survive it). This just left him shaking and gasping, and didn't stop. Not fun at all, and for a moment he wondered if he were really going to die, if his heart was going to suddenly stop, if this was what heart failure felt like. He didn't want to become a zombie – what if he were a feral? What if they were dismembered but still awake, even though everyone said they weren't? What if...

"Steve?"

He blinked, startled to realise that as raspy his breaths were, he was breathing again, staring bleary-eyed up at a small cluster of people, including two of the bouncers. His parents' next-door-neighbour grinned down at him, and Abe sat where he'd been a minute or two earlier, still holding his hand – and wearing a shaky, relieved-looking smile.

"You have to stop running into me this way." Greg grinned, but he always grinned; Steve had vivid memories of him grinning his way through the Johnson's funeral. (Since the Johnsons turned out to be perfectly sane and well-adjusted zombies, though, it wasn't as out-of-place as it could have been.) Somehow he'd ended up wrapped in blankets and Abe had his coat back, abandoned on the footpath along with the mobile phone. "Try and take slow, calm breaths, okay? As soon as we get you in the back we'll get you on oxygen and to hospital ... and then you can spend five hundred hours filling out paperwork." He gently squeezed Steve's shoulder, smirking as if that last line was remotely funny, and stood. Did he look as terrified as he felt? He could breathe, but he couldn't stop shaking, even despite the blankets, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on staying still.

Nobody asked if he could stand, which at least saved him from having to admit that he didn't think he could; it was an effort just to raise his head and catch Abe's eye, and even that movement made him feel woozy. "A watch," he rasped, and Abe gave another grin, only letting go of his hand and getting out of the way when Greg and his partner started to load him onto a trolley. "They all ... put in together and got me a watch." He gasped a few times and then paused for a moment, trying to concentrate on deep breaths. "I smashed the last one abseiling." He swallowed. "And yeah, they usually ... all only ring on a birthday, or when ... someone's died..."

Abe looked as if he were caught somewhere between extreme embarrassment and the urge to collapse into fits of laughter. "Death is only a theoretical concept around here," he muttered. "I just..." He winced as he bent his knees, picking up coat and phone, and then standing. "Fuck, I'm sorry, Steve. I didn't mean..." He paused for a moment, just watching as Greg and his partner wheeled Steve towards the back of the ambulance; Steve couldn't figure out his expression at all. Terror? Guilt? "Anyway ... I'm sorry."

Sorry? Why the hell should Abe be sorry? Hadn't he just helped save Steve's life? He wasn't sure what had happened, yet ... but if Abe hadn't come and rang for help so quickly, Steve felt quite certain he'd be a zombie right now, and knowing his luck, one with all the mental faculty of a very hungry granite boulder.

"Thanks..." he called out; Abe shook his head just once and turned away, heading at a very fast clip down the street.

***

The advantage to living in a small municipality was that Abe didn't expect S. Nakamura to be listed two dozen times in the phone book. There was, in fact, only one listing for Port Carmila (a D. and A. Nakamura) and the address was easy to find – Abe didn't have to bother with a map search to know that 23 Wakeland Drive was very close to Port Carmila's cemetery. It couldn't have been easier to chase Steve up, but now he had both the number and the address, he dithered. The receptionist at the hospital told him that Steve had been released early that morning – which was a relief to know that he must be okay, but another reason to do nothing. After spending all night – the night of his birthday, and just the thought made Abe cringe – in hospital, he was probably asleep right now, and wouldn't want to be disturbed. He could ring tomorrow, or the day after. Possibly never. Was there any logical reason to chase him up? The bet was over, Abe felt reasonably certain that Steve wasn't going to go around kissing vampires in a hurry, and ... well, he was straight, so what was the point? He could be wrong (how was Abe to know for sure?) but even if he was ... Steve was still unlikely to want a vampire boyfriend.

It didn't matter, in the end, if he was right or wrong. He'd had a night and most of the day to think about it ... and after watching him dance, even just for a moment, how could Abe be just Steve's friend ... without envying something he couldn't have? It was so much simpler to stay away. Easier. Steve could go off and do whatever it was he'd done before last night, and so could Abe for that matter. He'd find someone else interesting and amusing, given enough time – and it wasn't like Abe had a shortfall of that. Everything would work itself out.

So why did he keep looking out the window towards his car? He could write a letter of apology, or make a quick phone call some other time, when Steve would be awake. Just a quick call to make sure he was okay, and then be done with it. Why the hell did he feel like he should go see Steve in person, apologise in person, when every skerrick of logic screamed that it was a bad idea?

Just once, just to see that he's really okay, and apologise properly. Then never again...

It was a ten minute drive from Abe's flat to Steve's house, one that he could only stretch out to twelve minutes by driving at 80 KPH, situated directly across the road from the cemetery. Three cars filled the driveway (two small sedans, one ute covered with peeling bumper stickers) and Abe drove past the house twice before getting up the courage to pull over. Meeting new people was a much less daunting task here than it had been at home, and if Steve didn't have a problem with saying hello to a vampire, it was unlikely his family did. The thought of having to apologise in front of a crowd, though, had Abe regretting his last drink – so he sat in his car for a few minutes more, staring over at the front windows of the house.

The repeated twitching of the lace curtains suggested that someone, at least, knew he was there, and when Abe could see a face staring out one of the windows, it was probably past time to get out of the car.

He knew he'd been sitting there too long when the door opened before he had a chance to knock, a middle-aged blond woman staring at him with raised eyebrows and a too-amused smile. Maybe testing Great-Aunty Lizzie's theory about the survivability of a nuclear blast zone wasn't such a bad idea after all. Or he could find a bunch of feral zombies. They wouldn't be able to eat him, but they'd tear him apart in fury after they realised he was just dead flesh...

Just what had Steve told his family, anyway? Nothing? Everything? Enough that if Abe gave his name, they'd know he wasn't a random stranger off the street? "Hi," he said, unable to help the feeling that he'd also spent far too long just staring at the woman in the doorway. Why was talking to strange people so damn hard? "Um... My name's Abraham – Abe – Browning. I ... um..."

"I'm glad you're a good sight more communicative in an emergency," she told him, shaking her head – and then darted out and grabbed him in a rib-cracking hug. "Thank you! Please, please come in. We don't have any blood on hand, but if you would like water, or anything else ... don't hesitate to ask..."

"I just..."

"Steve's in his bedroom. He says that he can't sleep during the day, but I bet you anything he's out of it right now. Do you have long? I don't think he'd mind if we disturbed him..." It was only then she let go, pulling Abe into the hallway and shutting the front door behind him. "Oh, I'm so sorry – you must think me so rude! I'm Debra Nakamura." She darted in for another hug – Abe stood there, not having the faintest idea what to say or do, not at all used to being hugged by strange breathers – and then stared as she darted away again. "Oh, goodness, I hope I'm not startling you ... but oh, thank you so much. Greg said that you were there and rang for help so quickly made all the difference ... and you know it's going to happen someday, but nobody wants to be related to a zombie when there's no guarantee they'll make it through sane..."

Zombie? Abe swallowed and stared at her. "It's nothing," he said, feeling rather more like he wanted to throw himself off the edge of a cliff. "I just wanted to make sure that he's okay, that's all..."

"Tired, but otherwise just fine – thanks to you! This way, we'll see if he's awake..."

What had Steve told her...? Abe didn't even have time to offer a polite demurral, because Debra had already tugged at his wrist and headed down the hallway (well, this was where Steve got his ability to comfortably rest his hands on strangers from) to an ajar bedroom door. The house – or hallway, at least – was really quite nice, with landscape prints hanging on the off-white walls, but as plain and ordinary as any other house in Port Carmila; Abe felt a little disappointed to realise there was nothing Japanese at all about it – and then Debra pushed open the door. "Steve?" Her voice was just low enough not to waken someone deeply asleep. "Are you awake?"

Silence lingered long enough for Abe to think that he wasn't, and then he heard a low, groggy-sounding mumble. "Just resting my eyes."

Debra broke into a grin, clearly not believing this for a second, and Abe couldn't help a returning smile. "Do you want a visitor?"

"Tell Jake I'll ring him tomorrow."

"What if it's your vampire friend?"

"Abe?"

"Go in," she said, giving him a light shove to the lower back; he took an unwilling step forwards to balance, and by then he was halfway through the door. Steve had a small, rather poky sort of room, dulled by half-drawn venetian blinds – but they provided light enough for a vampire to see the coils of rope on the floor, harnesses hanging from wardrobe doorknobs, a collection of assorted clasps, clips and buckles on the bedside table along with glass of water and a paper bag. The walls and wardrobe door were plain, but the back of the bedroom door was covered with layer upon layer of yellowing, curling posters – people surfing, riding horses, rock climbing, and bungee-jumping. Abe nearly tripped over a pair of hiking boots and the pair of dress shoes Steve had worn last night as he took another cautious step forwards. Steve lay curled up on top of the bed in a pair of tracksuit pants and T-shirt, head raised, a somewhat-damp paperback shoved up against his chest. Somehow, the idea of Steve drooling on a book while pretending not to be asleep seemed adorable, even if he looked nothing close to adorable at the moment. Much better than last night, but tired and drawn, gel-stiffened hair flattened into an array of odd spikes, and Abe took a step backwards. He'd been right, after all, and it would be better for everyone if he left Steve to get back to sleep...

"Abe!" He sat up, waving him over. "My mum didn't scare you, did she?"

"A little," he confessed, finding a clear place to stand near the end of the bed.

"Sorry about that." Steve's easy grin, too, looked so much like his mother's, even if he looked nothing like her physically. "She scares everyone, though. Chichi reckons that if we parked her out the front, her smile would even freak out the zombies."

He couldn't help a laugh at the thought of Debra Nakamura grinning at a starving feral trying to chew on her arm, and Steve laughed with him.

"I was going to ring you," he said, slumping back against the pillows. "It's a bit hard to thank you properly from the back of an ambulance."

"You don't have to thank me." Abe bit down on his lower lip. "I just came here to apologise, really..."

Steve frowned for a moment, and then patted the bed. "You want to come and sit down?"

Why would he even want Abe to get anywhere close to him? "I'm happy standing..."

Steve let out a long, slow sigh; it was a relief to hear him breathe so easily, without that terrifying whistle. "The doctor told me that I had – or have, rather – anaphylaxis. Like a nut allergy, except that we don't think I'm allergic to nuts." He grinned again. "Which is good, because I'd be a little bit shattered if I couldn't have cashews again."

Abe couldn't help a sigh of his own. Vampirism was better than the alternative, but it had been years since he'd been able to enjoy cashew nuts. Great-Aunty Lizzie had expounded at length on just how hard it was to be a vampire and watch a human partner enjoy the delight of eating, and it was a decent argument for avoiding human contact. But how could one do that at all, when he needed a job, needed to buy blood, needed to spend time around people? Watching them eat was just something he needed to learn to deal with – in a way, it wasn't too dissimilar to an allergy as far as avoidance went. The consequences weren't good if he ate ... so he didn't.

"Do they know what triggered it?" he asked, quite sure that he didn't want to hear the answer.

"Not for sure. I've got to see my GP on Monday and get a referral to an immunologist, and then they'll find out, I hope." His eyes met Abe's. "Since I wasn't allergic to anything before, since I wasn't eating or drinking and didn't get stung by anything, they're liking vampire venom as a cause, since it's apparently a common allergen." He grinned. "If you don't mind, I think I'll hold off on kissing you for a while, just in case. You can actually sit down, though, as long as you promise to behave and not spit on me. I'd prefer not to make it a record by ending up in hospital twice in twenty-four hours, though - I'm a bit too tired for that, and Greg would fucking kill me."

Abe didn't move, trying to figure out why Steve didn't look the least bit reluctant. "I nearly killed you..."

"Nearly zombiefied me," Steve corrected, sliding just a little down the bed so that he could rest the back of his neck against the top pillow. "I'm a carrier. Like you said ... death is just a theoretical concept."

Was becoming a zombie any different from dying, given that there was only a twenty-odd percent chance one survived death with any kind of mental faculty intact? Steve might have still been Steve (just more likely to lose a limb here and there) but more likely he would have been a walking, mindless corpse trying to chew on anything with a heartbeat, probably dismembered and destroyed a short time after death – if he was lucky enough to have someone attending his death. In many ways it was worse – at least death came with a funeral, and the knowledge that a loved one was rotting into the earth, and not roaming the country harming people. If his family found it hard knowing that their son had turned into a vampire, knowing a son had become a zombie, and escaped into the bush, had to be heartbreaking...

"That ... doesn't make it any better."

"None of this makes it your fault, either."

"Aren't you ... scared?"

"Terrified," Steve whispered. "They're only guessing at this point. They don't know if anything could have caused that ... and sometimes they don't ever find out what does cause it. I've never been so scared in all my life and I don't want to go through that again, ever. But speaking to you from across the room? Is stupid. It's not your fault – you even told me that some people were allergic to vampire venom, remember? If that was even the trigger anyway."

"I meant hives..."

"I had those, too, so you weren't wrong." Steve sighed. "C'mon, Abe. Sit down. You saved my life, so you don't get to stand awkwardly at the back of my room. I want to thank you." His smile verged on the edge of rueful. "I liked kissing you, you know. I don't think you'd know ... but it's hard at uni. Most of the girls I meet back away as soon as I admit that I'm a carrier, they think up some crazy excuse to end it there even if they were all over me a second ago. They just ... freak. It's worse than having HIV and I'm not even sick. But I'm legally obligated to tell anyone I have sex with that I'm a tested carrier, even though there's a pretty low chance of anyone catching with a condom. Nobody wants to date me then – hell, some people don't even want to go near me. It was nice to be able to spend time with someone interesting who doesn't care about that ... even if you are a guy. Just about everyone around here ... well, they talk too much about fish!"

Abe didn't think Steve had meant to guilt-trip him, but it worked. Sure, there were plenty of people entranced by the vampire mythos, but just as many people wanted nothing to do with the undead, even if it was perfectly safe to be around him. People looked for reasons not to employ him, to shun him from the breathing world without it looking obvious. Port Carmila was one of a few settlements where equal opportunity – in both numbers and practice – was a given, where nobody batted an eyelid at the undead. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a breathing, living human, and yet shunned for being something he would only become on death.

He sat down on the bed, and Steve reached across and grabbed his hand. Steve might be shunned by people with only a very small reason to fear him; Steve had a significant reason to fear being around him, but here he was, refusing to treat Abe the way he had been treated in return. Abe just stared at him ... and smiled, trying to hide a sigh. Maybe it was something else, and there was nothing to fear after all. Maybe it was exactly what they expected ... and then they would figure it out. Abe had fallen hard in lust over a cute face, a tight arse and a sexy dance, but Steve the person ... might just be worth getting to know. Perhaps even if there was no chance of ever kissing him again...

"If you don't mind my asking," he said, "what exactly did you tell your mum?"

"Everything."

He blinked. "You told her that you kissed a strange male vampire at a gay club?"

"And that freaked the parentals out so much less than the time I told them I wanted to try base jumping. Or the time I got my nipple pierced."

Abe could only stare for the umpteenth time, not at all sure which one freaked him out the most.

"The last girl I seriously dated was a wanna-be trapeze artist," Steve added, breezily. "They're probably just relieved that I'm seeing someone normal."

The idea – that an undead male vampire who was the possible trigger of serious anaphylaxis-causing allergies was normal - had Abe leaning forwards, bursting into laughter; Steve snickered along with him. "Normal! If I'm normal..." He sat up and shook his head, glancing around at a room that was some kind of unofficial homage to – or at least a storage space of – extreme sports equipment. "This ... abseiling, and rock-climbing. I've never done anything like that. I've always been too ... scared. I hate, hate heights. I'm scared I'd fall off a horse. As for base jumping? No fucking way. Do you want that kind of normal?" He reached over and picked up one of the metal clips from the bedside table, something that looked like an oval-shaped dog clip, fiddling with a round clasp that seemed to hold the whole thing shut. "I don't even know what this is, or what it does..."

"It's a carabiner. You use it to connect a harness to your ropes, amongst other things. I haven't actually been base jumping yet, although I still want to. And just for the record ... I used to be fuck scared of heights." He paused, head held on a very slight angle. "You're off work tomorrow, right? There's this place a couple of clicks south-east of Darrensford where there's a nice, easy short cliff-face, great for first-time abseiling. Want to go?"

What was it about Steve that left him unable to do anything but stare? And why was that not such a bad thing?

"You ... you want to go abseiling? Tomorrow? You nearly died last night...!"

Steve shrugged. "Okay, so tomorrow you come around and we play Trivial Pursuit. What about next Saturday?"

He didn't have anything planned for Saturday; Abe seldom did – besides sitting at the bar at Feeders and watching someone else pick a guy up. There was no reason in the world not to, come to think of it. It wasn't even like there was any risk of fatal injury – hell, he'd probably hurt himself worse in the run down the street last night than he would carefully, secured with ropes and harness, scale a cliff-face. The only thing holding him back was fear – fear of heights, fear of injury, fear of getting close to Steve ... fear of hurting Steve. It was all irrational, he knew that (well, not that last one) – but that knowledge never left him feeling the slightest bit more confident about anything.

He must have paused for far too long.

"You amaze me," Steve said, and the oddest thing about it was that the words were completely devoid of sarcasm. "I'm gasping like a fish on the footpath and you know what to do, you know what to tell the person that answers an emergency call, you even know enough to look at my symptoms and make a few accurate guesses on what's going on, and start ordering the bouncers around. You know that part about saving my life again? That's huge, and you didn't bat an eyelid throughout any of it. Something small like backwards-walking down a cliff face? How can you not believe that you can't do anything?"

"I ... um." He would have blushed, if he could. "I just watch a lot of ... ah ... real life ... medical TV. Like What's Good For You. RPA." Steve sat up, and Abe got to watch the transition from a bright, startled smirk to shoulder-shaking laughter with his next words. "I don't know what it is, that stuff just became ... interesting, after I died..."

It took a very long time for Steve to stop laughing, but even Abe couldn't help a tenuous grin.

"They sometimes show the 'what you should do in said emergency' bits," he muttered, and then fixed Steve with a stare. "Aren't you glad I have this addiction to bad TV?"

"Sorry," Steve gasped, biting down on his lower lip as if he could stop laughing through sheer force of will. "It's just ... Mike Johnson, my neighbour? He's a zombie, and he and his missus are fascinated by shows featuring children – don't get me wrong, not in any sick way, but just in an 'Oh, they're so young and alive, isn't that beautiful?' sort of way." He smirked again. "They're awesome babysitters, once the kids get used to Mike doing weird-arse tricks with his dismembered arm. But now I'm wondering if I'm going to be stuck watching ACA or something after I'm dead..." He swallowed, and then hit Abe with a stare of his own. "But believe me, yes, I am grateful!"

Just how was he so cool with everything? He should have been scared, or nervous – but every time Abe turned around Steve seemed to be reacting in ways that were opposite to what any sane person should expect. (The only thing he'd gotten at all correct, he reflected, was the exhaustion, and Steve still didn't seem interested in kicking Abe out of his room.) He should have been the vampire: Steve would have done something with it, something wild and crazy. Base jumping. Climbing to the caldera of an active volcano. Parachuting from space. Abe just went to work, sat at home, watched TV and sometimes, tried to find a boyfriend – meanwhile Steve had no guarantee he would ever get those extended years in which to live without fearing death, had a body he could and did injure, and went about dating trapeze artists and climbing cliff faces.

It would be nice, Abe reflected ... to be a little ... braver. Bolder. Maybe saying yes would be a step towards that? It also means spending time with someone I can't ever have. Can I do that? Or do I want to be another Great-Aunty Lizzie – sitting back at home and doing nothing?

"All right," he said, and then shook his head. "Trivial Pursuit? That's ... I mean, it's not very ... um..." He swallowed. "I mean ... I thought ... video games, or something..."

Steve broke into yet another smirking grin. "I hide my hentai collection and my Hello Kitty sex-bot in my wardrobe if you think Trivial Pursuit isn't Japanese enough."

Abe looked down at the floor and regretted the fact that he could no longer wish himself dead.

"Our game board is from the seventies or something like that, which means no-one knows the answers about sports stars, films ... well, anything but geography, really. It'll skullfuck you. If you provide the blood, I'll provide the popcorn, and we can spend the afternoon learning what it feels like to know fuck all about anything, and dropping crazy, outrageous hints to try and get someone to answer a question..."

Oddly enough, that sounded ... like a great deal of fun. "All right ... for both of them, I mean. Can I bring Cluedo?"

"Abe Browning, in the gay club, with his fangs?"

"Exactly."

Steve's near-constant grin was warm and broad and ... like nothing else Abe had seen directed at him for long time. "I won't let you fall down a cliff-face, Abe. Promise."

"I can't promise the same."

He raised one eyebrow, but the smile didn't leave his face. "It seems to me like you already did."

He gripped Steve's hand in return, and prayed to something that it would all work out ... somehow.

***

"So what happened?" Greg leaned over the fence, watching as Steve secured his gear, plus a picnic cooler, in the tray. It was a gorgeous mild summer's day, perfect for driving out to the middle of nowhere and scaling a cliff face; driving out with Abe, at the very least, gave him something to listen to other than talkback radio, and if he looked forward to it a little too much ... well. It wasn't something he had to worry about for a long time yet, and if that were the biggest issue on his horizon, Steve would be genuinely grateful. Quite likely it was no more of an issue than whatever he tried to make it out be. "Was it ugly?"

"Swelled up this big." He gestured with his fingers; Greg winced. "In a way ... it was kind of funny. All the usual things – pollen, food allergens, insects, whatever – did absolutely nothing. Which is good, because I'd really hate to stop eating processed food because everything might contain nuts. Vampire venom? Yep. Turns out I'm also allergic to zombie saliva. There's some kind of protein or something the undead develop..." Steve shrugged, tugging the last rope tight, and then braced his arms over the back of the tray. It hadn't come as a surprise – more like unwelcome confirmation of something everyone suspected – but it was a relief to know that his anaphylaxis had a cause, which meant he could try and avoid things like kissing vampires, or being bitten by zombies. (Exactly how he was supposed to avoid either of these things and still live in Port Carmila was another question, though. Feral zombies didn't do the courteous thing and try to avoid nibbling on the allergic. Both his immunologist and his GP liked the idea of desensitisation, and so did Steve, but he hoped they could work something out that didn't involve his driving up to the city every week...) "Apparently it's not uncommon, but then again ... most breathers still don't kiss vampires, either. So it's not like they have a huge amount of data on the subject."

Greg raised his eyebrows. "So, about that..."

Steve shrugged. His parents hadn't thought to start asking, but they were more relieved that he was alive – and they both liked Abe. It was kind of hard to dislike a vampire who brought cupcakes as well as blood to a game-day and apologised – repeatedly – for putting their son's life at risk. Besides, he hadn't lied: Abe was pretty normal compared to some of his past girlfriends. They probably hoped that Abe exerted some kind of sensible influence – and besides which, how could Steve date someone he was allergic to, even if he did swing that way? (He wondered. The kiss, the dancing ... had felt pretty damn electric, and he wished he'd had the chance to experience it without being distracted by itching hives. Did labels really matter, when he'd liked it, and Abe was a cool guy who found Steve attractive? There was also no reason why they couldn't go dancing, at least, as long as Abe kept his lips to himself...)

He doubted there was anyone in his family who would even care what gender he was interested in romantically, as long as said romantic interest didn't encourage him to go base jumping. "We're friends, and I couldn't carry out the dare anyway..."

Greg looked doubtful, but he didn't have the chance to say anything – not when Jake's dual-cab pulled up down the street and Phil slammed the doors hard enough to rattle the windows in all the surrounding houses. "Steve!"

He shook his head and waved back. No one besides Joanna (who mentioned it in passing before demanding to know every last detail about Abe) had said anything about Steve's failing to attempt his dare; Steve just resigned himself to his radio, and wondered if he could talk his boss into more hours. At the very least, he knew he had given it a shot worthy of Jake's gossiping to half the town about the kiss, and that was good enough. As birthdays went ... well, it was certainly memorable, he'd made a new friend, and ended up with a watch he was probably going to smash sooner or later – it could have been much worse. I'm still breathing, and that's definitely a good birthday gift...

"You going somewhere, Akira-san?" Jake had his battered, hook-and-sinker-studded hat on, a tangle of fishing line coiled around one wrist, and a dangerous, evil grin.

As always, Steve pretended he didn't hear that abomination of a nickname fall from Jake's lips. "Darrensford. Abseiling."

Jake rolled his eyes, in much the same way Steve wanted to every time Jake mentioned fishing. "Well, we got something for you. I mean ... we feel so guilty about this. We put your life at risk ... that was an awful, horrible thing for us to do." Steve said nothing, quite sure that everyone here knew that there was no way he would have known Jake's innocent dare could kill him ... and quite sure he didn't want to know why Jake was laying it on quite so thick. (Besides, he'd put Joanna's life at risk with the zombies, although everyone had been hanging around with guns at the ready just in case she needed a hand.) "We're just so lucky that you didn't die..."

Greg's eyebrows had reached his hairline, but he said nothing.

"Because of that, and because you did your best to carry out the dare ... we're going to give you the chance to attempt another one. This time, we're going to make sure that it's safe, that there is absolutely no risk to you at all ... because we're just cut up with guilt over this, man." Jake drew in a deep breath; beside him, Phil just nodded. "So. The community sewing group's running classes again this summer down at the library. We're going to dare you to sign up for the embroidery class."

Embroidery? What the flying fuck...? Steve stared at him, quite sure that the last thing he wanted to do this summer was embroidery ... and that Jake wasn't finished.

"This way we can all be sure that you're safe," Jake continued. "All you have to do is complete the embroidery class – it goes for six weeks. By that time, you'll get old Mrs MacGillycuddy to help you embroider a version of The Lord's Prayer. Then you enter your marvellous embroidered creation in the handcraft division at the ag show. Along with all the wonderful old scone-baking ladies of the CWA." He grinned, far too broadly. "After the ag show, and the whole municipality has admired your oh-so-devout creation ... you win. See? Perfectly easy, and perfectly safe – all you have to do is avoid pricking your finger with a needle around the vampires. There's no way you could fail to pull off this one!"

Learning embroidery was one thing. Learning to embroider The Lord's Prayer – which would probably make his atheist parents get quite concerned about his mental state – was another thing. Displaying that embroidered religious monstrosity before everyone at the local agricultural show...?

Being the guy who screwed a guy for a stereo system? There was no real problem there, he'd realised. (After all, at least he would have been getting laid for it, and demonstrating his seduction skills at the same time. Besides which ... Steve was starting to wonder if screwing another guy was even different enough to matter. It wasn't like anyone talked about Joanna and her zombie girlfriend anymore...) Being the guy who learned to embroider religious passages and entered said embroidery into the agricultural fair, though? No one would ever let him forget it. Every year it would come up, just as every year they talked about Aggie Skipton's hideous hand-sculpted clay pigs from 1976. They were town legend, those pigs, and Steve could see whatever woeful attempt at embroidery he made going the same way. That was if he survived a couple of hours a week with the gossiping old ladies who flocked to the community sewing group – he could see it now, the incessant questions about his allergies, his sexuality, his career path, life as a university student in the city, and whether or not he thought their great-grandchildren were cute in hand-knitted beanies. Complete with wallet-sized photos, probably.

The thought made his legs shake. Great-grandchildren. Fucking hell ... I can't do that!

They grinned at him, both of them looking so innocent Steve felt like contemplating murder – or perhaps suicide. Did he really need to attempt this one? After all ... with Abe to talk to, maybe he didn't need a stereo system after all. The 8 AM Saturday morning call-in show might cover allergies, or new innovations in immunotherapy. Who knew what kind of awesome talkback radio he might be missing out on?

"Jake," Steve said, "you know what? I think ... that I'd rather kiss a vampire." He paused, trying to ignore the sound of flesh thudding against wood. "Um, Greg? You can stop banging your head against the fence right about now..."

***

Acronyms:

ACA: A Current Affair
ACPIZ: Australian Council for the Promotion of Interests of Zombies
CWA: Country Women's Association
RPA: Royal Prince Alfred (name of the hospital where the TV show is set)

Thank you very much for reading. Concrit and feedback are always appreciated.