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There were a lot of reasons Phil liked living in Forgotten Hollow. The park at the center, for one. All the vampires who lived there to socialize after the sun went down, for another.
But there were a lot of downsides as well, and one random October night, he ran smack into one just outside his front step.
It was a vampire and a random human guy, the vampire staring intently and the human swaying in place. Great. The vampire was clearly mesmerising him and likely going to snack on him, and that was just...so unnecessary.
Phil sighed and stepped between the vampire and the human. The vampire's dark form face already looked scowly, but she more pointedly scowled at Phil.
"Excuse me," she said, crossing her arms. "Trying to have dinner here."
"Right in front of my house."
The non-inherent scowling dropped away. "Oops. Is there...like, some kind of rule about that?"
"More like a guideline." Phil regretted there not being a Miss Manners for vampires. He pulled a plasma bag out of his pocket. "Here. Go eat this at home, and don't bother the humans."
The vampire's red eyes widened, and she looked entranced as she cradled the bag in her hand. "Is this from a human donor?"
"Doesn't involve humans at all." Ugh, now Phil was getting anxious. The one thing he'd hoped to get from becoming an immortal creature of the night was a little help with his brain, but it just took what had been there in his human days and made it slightly more vampirish. He was in no good place to help baby vampires learn. He'd skipped through the baby vampire phase as quickly as he could for a reason. "You can Google it. Now run along before the human decides to get a stake."
The vampire nodded and turned to run. God, she couldn't even turn into a bat yet.
This was why Phil didn't ever leave the house. He never went to the park, even though it was nice, because there was also always someone trying to eat people. And that's why he didn't make vampire friends, either. It was just easier to sit online and fly around like a bat before sleeping in his coffin for the day. He liked the idea of Forgotten Hollow, but the reality...
Phil shook off his thoughts and turned to see if the human was all right. Didn't seem to be any neck wounds...
"You saved me."
Phil yelped and jumped back. He'd been so busy checking over the human that he'd missed him emerging from the trance the baby vampire had put him in.
"Sorry?" Phil asked, but it wasn't much of a recovery. His voice was awfully squeaky.
"That vampire was going to eat me."
The human was younger than Phil, but not by much, if he had to guess. He'd been a vampire for four years, and the human looked close to the age when he'd been turned. But there was something about the awe in his face that made him look like a child. And the emo bangs didn't help. Phil might still look around twenty, but at least everyone could see his forehead.
Wow. Phil hadn't expected to feel like Old Man Vampire until he was at least a decade into it. Four years seemed awfully premature.
"Yes, well, carry some garlic around." Phil waved a hand and turned toward his house.
"Wait! What's your name? I'm Dan."
"Phil," he said without stopping. He unlocked the door and went inside as quickly as he could manage.
At least locked doors kept out humans. The last thing Phil needed was a human stalker.
-
As much as Phil felt like he never left the house, he actually did go for walks a couple times each night. It was often enough that the vampires who usually fed on humans were mostly scarce when he went out. He'd been called Grandpa Lester by more than one of them, which was funny because half of them were old enough to be his granddad's granddad.
He was on one of these walks as a prelude to some yoga and dark meditation when he heard "Phil!" from a distance. Phil stopped in surprise. He didn't know anyone who knew him by his first name.
He turned to see the human from before, Dan, rushing up the dark path. His skin looked so flushed and healthy. It was unnerving, at a time when all the other humans were asleep.
"Hi," Phil said, waving awkwardly.
"I'm glad I ran into you again! My friend Louise lives in Forgotten Hollow, but I'm in Brindleton Bay most of the time, and she usually visits me out there."
Phil hummed awkwardly. There wasn't anything not awkward about him at the moment. "Probably shouldn't be wandering around here at night."
"Nah, I've got protection."
Dan had stopped several feet back, so Phil had missed the sting of garlic in his nose until Dan had said something.
"Garlic. Good idea."
"You were the one who mentioned it!" Dan beamed, seemed to remember himself, and schooled his features into something cooler, less enthusiastic. "As I said, my friend lives out here, and I work online and don't have any friends in Brindleton Bay. Would it be weird if I asked if we could hang out?"
Phil frowned. "You're not stalking me, are you?"
Dan's eyes widened. "No! I just saw you and thought I'd say thanks. No big deal, either way. I have plans today with Louise."
It was a bad idea. Phil hadn't spent any time with humans since he'd first been turned. But he hadn't spent time with much of anyone since he'd been turned, and Dan had listened to his advice without mocking him.
Maybe Dan wanted him dead. But all things considered, that wasn't much of a worst-case scenario for Phil.
"You know where I live," Phil said, jerking his head toward his house. "If you want to come by tomorrow night, I was planning on catching up on Riverdale."
Dan beamed. "Sounds great. Have a good night."
He left toward the house he'd previously indicated, and Phil waited until he could see a human woman letting Dan in before moving on. He didn't want some vampire swooping in and carrying Dan off, garlic or no garlic. Some of the older vampires didn't care. They thought it was fun.
But Dan was inside the house, and he was as protected as he could be in a place like Forgotten Hollow, so Phil moved on.
-
The doorbell rang promptly at sunset the next night. Phil had already been out of coffin for an hour or two with the drapes pulled and popcorn popping. He could still eat human food without it making him sick, but he didn't much because there wasn't a point. It was nice to smell the popcorn, though.
Phil opened the door and he couldn't help but smile. Dan was smiling too.
"That popcorn smells amazing." He started to step over the threshold and paused. "Wait. I should wait for you to invite me in. Right?"
Dan's foot was over Phil's front step. If he'd had any doubts about Dan being human, that would have ended them. Phil laughed.
"Isn't that my line?" Phil asked, waving a hand to beckon him in.
-
Dan was really funny. And, contrary to all the sincerity Phil had seen so far, oddly sarcastic.
He snarked all the way through Riverdale, to the point where Phil was both crying laughing and amazed that he felt like less of a storm cloud with Dan around. He also forgot about the night's passage, to the point where his alarm for "hey you probably want to think about your coffin soon" went off on his phone, and he turned it off without thinking about it.
It was Dan who noticed the alarm and checked his own phone. "Shit, it's getting close to sunrise. You probably have to sleep, right?"
Phil didn't have to, actually. But he wanted to pretend that something about his life was somewhat close to human, if only for a few minutes, so he nodded and rose off the couch with Dan and walked him to the door.
They'd swapped numbers earlier in the night, so it wasn't like Dan was going to disappear forever, but Phil found himself clutching the door and calling, "You'll want to hang out again soon, right?"
Dan looked over his shoulder and grinned. "You want me around?"
"Consider this an open invitation."
The sincere happiness returned to Dan's face, and for a moment, Phil thought the sun had come out early.
-
Dan came over a couple times after that, and the second time, he didn't leave for the next month.
It wasn't entirely on purpose - Dan brought over his X-Box, and Fortnite was a very engaging game - but Phil wasn't exactly rushing him out the door, either.
-
They kissed three weeks in.
Phil was trying to let Dan take the lead on it. He did a pretty good job, too. Even when their team got first in Fortnite and Phil leaned in for a celebratory smooch, he stopped himself halfway and said, "I, uh, want to kiss you?"
Not his suavest moment, but Dan grabbed Phil's face and kissed him hard, so at least it was effective.
-
Two days after that, and in the middle of an intense makeout session on the couch, Phil said, "Uh, I really do sleep in a coffin, so we can go in the bed you've been using if you want?"
It took Dan a second to understand that Phil was trying to say "I want to swap orgasms", but once he got it, his eyes darkened, and he said, "Uh, the coffin's fine."
Phil grinned. "Daniel Howell, you kinky bastard."
Dan grinned back. "You have no idea."
-
Phil learning Dan's kinks, and vice versa, meant was a lot of non-fang biting happening.
Dan spent a week covered in hickies and looked pretty happy about the situation. Phil winced and kind of regretted that Dan didn't have super healing. Not because he didn't like the bite marks, but because he felt possessive and kind of gross about feeling possessive. He gave the bites consensually. On both sides!
After several days of mulling it, Phil did his best to shake it off.
-
He had a panic attack the day after failing to shake it off.
He didn't entirely realise it was happening until Dan stood over him and his blackout curtains had the tiniest hints of sunlight peeking through and he wasn't in his coffin. Dan looked worried.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Phil waved a hand as a way to say yes, but he couldn't get the words out, so Dan wasn't convinced. He slid down on the floor next to Phil.
"Is there anything I can do?" Dan asked.
Phil shook his head and leaned over to Dan while he tried to remember how to breathe.
That vampires could get panic attacks was crap. That Phil got them specifically because he was a vampire was the worst part of all.
-
About a month after, Dan said, "How would you feel if I sold my house and moved in?"
Phil looked up from his dinner. Dan had made it, so it was vegan and tasted amazing, but Phil got spinach stuck in his fangs so easily.
"I...good! Very good!" Phil realised he was floating above his chair and forced himself to sit down. "Sorry. Um. Is it fast? I have no conception of time anymore."
"If it's fast, I don't care." Dan gave him the smile that seemed reserved for Phil. He didn't smile like that about video games, or music, or even candles. Just Phil. "Reckon you're stuck with me for a while."
"Good," Phil said. And he meant it.
-
Dan left to get his things from the house. He was nocturnal like Phil, but he seemed to just...function that way? Or browsing Tumblr as much as he did made him that way, it was hard to tell. Either way, he left to go to his house - old house - after dark. And after a kiss from Phil.
Phil felt like he was married at the same time he had the rush that came from a new relationship. He literally floated through the house half the time.
He was about to float to his coffin to think fondly of Dan when he realised he kissed Phil and walked right out the door and Phil didn't have any problems with it.
So he didn't have his garlic.
Phil immediately turned into a bat and appeared where Dan was. He wasn't going to wait.
And it was lucky he didn't. He was surrounded by a group of vampires that Phil didn't recognise, but they recognised him and snarled.
"Back off," Phil said, trying to project confidence in his voice that he didn't feel. He was more powerful than they all were together, and they knew it as well as he did, but Dan was there. Dan, fists balled and ready to fight a bunch of vampires as a human.
God, they would tear him to shreds.
Before Phil could act in a way that would get Dan out of the way, the vampires ran off together. Because they were too young to do anything else, so Phil was right that he could have taken them, at least.
Phil looked at Dan to make sure he was okay.
His nose was bleeding.
Phil swooped Dan with his powers and got him back to the house.
"Well, those guys sucked," Dan said with a slightly shaky laugh as he went to get a paper towel. "Can barely throw a punch, though, which is crap for someone who's supposed to be some great undead creature. Like, go back to primary school and fight bullies for a bit and get back to me."
Phil felt like he was floating by the ceiling as Dan went through all this. It was only when Dan stood over him again, like his last panic attack, that he realised he hadn't.
"Oh." Dan took a couple steps back. "I should probably wait until I'm not bleeding to be in the same room with you, right?"
"It's not your blood." Phil sighed. "It's just...I was turned kind of like that. What almost happened to you. I didn't have someone guide me through it. I was just left in a bloody pile in San Myshuno, and I had to crawl back to my flat. I didn't realise I was turning into a vampire until the pain started."
Dan swore under his breath, but he didn't seem daunted by Phil. He came closer and sat on the floor next to him.
"I'm sorry that happened to you," Dan said. "It won't happen to me. You wouldn't let it happen."
"I'm only one vampire. I can't help you during the day, every time you leave the house..." Phil sighed.
"So what, you're breaking up with me?"
"No! No. I just. I'm not very popular, and it wasn't a problem when it was me, but now that you're around..." Phil was beginning to see that there was a reason he hadn't made friends. Four years wasn't enough time to get adjusted to everything, it seemed.
Dan looped an arm around Phil. Phil could smell his blood, and he couldn't deny it smelled amazing, but he also had zero urge to drink from him.
"I have an idea where that's concerned," Dan said. "We'll make this work, I promise."
Phil rested his head on Dan's shoulder. He had an idea of what this entailed, and he wanted to trust Dan.
Was it as easy as just letting himself?
-
Turning someone who wanted to be a vampire into one was actually...kind of sexy.
He tasted Dan's blood by biting him on the neck. (The nice thing about talking through this with someone else was that hickies made him less squeamish.) He fed Dan his blood, which was way, way hotter. They climbed in the coffin for a little quality time afterward.
And Dan was obviously uncomfortable for the next few days, but it wasn't bad? It didn't seem to bother him much. He seemed annoyed more than anything.
Phil felt lucky he got to be a part of it.
-
It was late in Forgotten Hollow when Phil went out for his jog. He was actually jogging. He had never jogged before, hadn't really wanted to, but it was a nice way to stretch his legs. And the nights were so lovely.
It wasn't a shock when another vampire appeared in front of him.
"Surprised?" the vampire hissed, crouching.
Phil shrugged. He was jogging in place a little to keep his body as warm as it got. "Not much."
"You've bossed us around for the last time. Just because you like to be defanged doesn't mean you can tell the rest of us what to do."
"If you weren't killing people, I wouldn't tell you what to do."
"You're next on my list."
The vampire advanced.
A whoosh of air, and Dan appeared in front of Phil. This surprised the strange vampire, who shrank backward.
Phil guessed Dan's dark form would be pretty scary to a stranger - his face was covered in ridges, and the fangs at the front of his mouth looked like he could gut someone with a single bite. But Phil saw his glowing red eyes and felt very safe and warm.
He really was gone for Dan.
"You see, Phil here is a nice vampire," Dan said, stepping forward. "Very pacifisitic. I got bullied a lot in school, so I punched a vampire long before I was turned. Want to try your luck now?"
The vampire disappeared instantly.
Phil kissed Dan's cheek. "I'm gonna continue my jog, Danny Boy. Want to come with?"
"Nah, I'm kind of living in Spider-Man right now. I'll go later."
"Have fun!"
Dan turned into a bat, flew in a circle around Phil's head to say goodbye, and disappeared.
Phil grinned and resumed his jog.