Chapter Text
Steak? Check.
Microwave? Check.
A glass full of pig’s blood? Check.
It wasn’t the most normal dinner— Breakfast? Or dessert, no. Midnight snack— but it was Sunny’s. Of course he had this all to blame on a very, very, poorly translated internet tutorial. Diving into a 90s forum for witchcraft he had to machine translate from Russian. Believing that the 'procedure for un-die ' as Google had so wonderfully put it would bring Mari back to life.
It hadn’t quite worked as intended. He’d harvested black roses under the full moon, chopped garlic 40 times EXACTLY, an utter pain to count, and then let that concoction simmer for a week. Apparently a liquid that would make Upton Sinclair cry hadn’t brought Mari back to life,. What a shock in retrospect huh? Making a soup hadn’t resurrected a dead girl who he'd accidentally pushed. It had only gave
him
a bit of undeath, one that took the form of blood lust and two sharp fangs… vampirism it was vampirism.
Speaking of Mari though, that had been a joy to remember. This vampire thing? It removed his ability to sleep, which was rather integral to repressing the fact he was a fucking murderer, sorry, manslaughterer. No hallucinations at least, which was good, but that shit load of guilt was a
really
annoying part of his daily life.
Hell, the only reason he hadn’t tried to kill himself afterwards was that the transformation had knocked him out of commission for the entire month. Vomiting up literally ALL of his blood had been an experience he could barely move from. Don’t forget the insane pain that had come with growing new teeth, replacing his old canines. Then there was the minor inconvenience of feeling like he was starving to death, until he convinced his mom to ask the local butcher for whatever blood they had drained after they finished cutting up the meat.
Yeah, that was a bad month to reflect on, but since then not much else had occurred. He had tried on several occasions to convince his mom of the whole 'I am a vampire this is not normal ' thing. Apparently, video calling her and showing her how the sun literally lit his finger on fire after a few seconds of exposure looked like video effects to her. She still bought the blood though, probably just humoring him in her mind.
The three years since then had been... reallyyyy boring! There was only so much self-hate one teenage vampire could schedule into his day. Sure, stressing out over Mari’s death and how he'd ruined all of his friendships by making a dumb stupid idiotic mistake had passed the time... for the first two years. Yeah, he still hated himself for, once again, being a stupid fucking idiot, but it didn’t really keep him occupied .
What he did attempt to do was sleep; a lot , and it worked out okayish, he supposed. He would usually burrow under his blanket for about… oh, 24 hours a day. Holy fucking shit he was that much of a NEET. Not needing to breathe, drink, or even really eat helped with that issue. He only needed to emerge to feed about once a week. Once, there was a time he woke up to his mom floating the idea of moving to the big city over a voicemail. He'd shut that down by crying into the receiver about how attached he was to the place. He was attached; he also just really didn’t want to move.
In the brief periods he was awake, he usually browsed the internet; he didn’t really have any interests as he felt he didn’t deserve hobbies anymore, but he did try to research this whole vampire thing as best he could. He'd dug up a few rules about his new form from more old, decrepit internet forums that seemed reliable enough.
He couldn’t see himself in a mirror IF it had a silver back.
He had to drink blood once a week.
He could drink animal blood, but it would only sustain him; if he wanted to develop any of these supposed supernatural abilities, he’d have to try the ichor of humanity.
...that was the forum's words, not his.
He would age until he was roughly 21, at which his body would pause in 'eternal youth'.
He couldn’t be killed unless staked through the heart by the wood of a willow tree in his 'lair', which he assumed to be his bedroom.
Oh, and there was that pesky little problem of literally catching on fire if he was in direct sunlight for more than a few seconds. That had been unpleasant to find out when the sun had greeted his eyes in the morning and suddenly he couldn’t feel his eyelids.
It felt like he'd just spent the past three minutes mentally expositing to himself. Who knows, maybe he’d write down his experiences and publish them someday in a book no one would ever believe? 'Sunny Armstrong, The Sister-Murdering Vampire Who is Just an Utter Monster Who Never Should Have Been Born!' That title was a mouthful, if accurate.
Regardless, it was time to make his pig blood-soaked, microwaved steak; truly, he was an artisanal chef. He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and threw a hard, days-old puck of solid steak into it. Tipped his glass after it, watched the meat slowly submerge in the red fluid. He soon had a bowl of what could be considered a very fucked up stew. Maybe borscht was closer? No. that was like beet soup.
He didn’t know enough cold soups for an apt comparison.
Regardless,he threw it into the microwave, hitting it for about… two minutes seemed good. That should get it boiling hot; he felt he deserved a bit of burning throat and tongue for wallowing in his misery once more. Soon enough, he was standing off to the side by the microwave, pacing back and forth.
He wished he had some of the cooler vampire abilities, like levitation, or hypnotic eyes, or maybe even super strength and speed, but according to the all-knowing, indisputable internet, he would have to start drinking human to develop that stuff. Considering he wasn’t intending on leaving this house until... he didn’t know when. Until he stopped hating himself? So probably at least a few decades.
POP!
He crouched on down and peered into the microwave. It appeared the heat caused an air bubble to explode inside the blood sauce. That was his best guess, from the sizzling red that was now coating the viewplate of the microwave, anyway. Sighing, he looked around for a moment; nothing in the vicinity to clean with. Plus, he could already feel his nose twitching from the smell.
Sure, it may be the vampire equivalent of dry cat food, but he was still going to eat it. Especially if it soaked into the meat well. Sometimes it took, sometimes it didn’t, and sometimes he questioned his sanity. Usually he stopped questioning it by lighting his big toe on fire with sunlight.
He stood still for a moment, a sigh coming from him before he popped the microwave open. He used his sleeve to wipe off the side and front. Becoming absolutely soaked from the hot liquid almost felt nice; dying and all that had made his skin rather naturally cold. Just more reason to burrow underneath blankets and let the comfy warmth take him.
Anddddd great! By the time he finished mopping up stringy meat and congealing blood, he had drenched his sleeve, the food had cooled down. Now there was just a blood-drenched steak that was slightly above room temperature.
Self-punishing by too-hot food was a stupid idea anyway. It probably would have just hit the spot with heat.
Next was the most animalistic of all steps, grabbing a napkin from the— GODDAMNIT HE HAD NAPKINS! Briefly face-palming over his inept clean-up, he resumed taking a napkin from the kitchen drawers, grabbing a fork and knife as well.
Soon enough, he was digging into the artificially juicy meat, using his wit sharp canines to rip it into naught but a bloody spray. It was the one teensy little benefit of vampirism, he supposed; he didn’t have to put much effort into chewing things. The disadvantages were pretty hefty though, and the main upside of not aging wouldn’t kick in for nearly 5 more years.
It was tasty enough at least, it tasted like dessert, almost? Blood, he found, had an enriching effect on most meals; one time, he'd dipped cookies into the blood of a lamb and it'd tasted like a sugar glaze. He had to wonder, if this was like the cheap knock-off store brand blood, how would human blood t— Stop Sunny, no bad thoughts. Cannibalism is still morally wrong. Probably. He wasn’t 100% sure if he was a human anymore. So technically, it wouldn’t be cannibalism? Sapientism maybe? He should probably stop wondering about the technicalities of cannibalism and focus on the not eating other people thing.
It probably wouldn’t even matter; what were the chances he’d even meet another person? He didn’t plan on leaving the house until he stopped being a sad sack of shit. He would always be a sack of shit for what he had done, but he could drop the sad part. So there was no chance of encountering anyone other than his mom, who barely came around, and when she did he was usually asleep. What were the odds— Why was someone knocking on his front door at 3AM?
It took him a second to recognize the noise, it'd been so long since anyone had stopped by like that! Blinking a few times, he glanced over to the living room, double checking that his enemy, the sun, wasn't coming in through the screen door. Safety confirmed once more, he slowly stepped towards the front door, edging around corners, peeking over his shoulder, before weakly calling out:
“W-Who is it?”
He heard a throat clear from the other side before speaking up, surprisingly awake and active voice for the current hour. One that he recognized with a slight pang of surprise.
It was Kel! A bit deeper, sure, but it was still Kel!
“Sunny! Oh my gosh you are up! I haven’t seen any lights for months! I thought you might have gone and died since we stopped talking! Well, ok not died, that’s a bit too far, there’s no way you would have died! Just like, maybe moved away and stuff? I’m glad you didn’t though! Especially glad that you’re up right now. My mom found an old stash of Orange Joe cans and I drank them ALL today, kinda fried my nerves with caffeine… So like, if you wanna hang out again! I’m here! Just come on and open up old bud!”
Oh, oh no . Alright, so he didn’t really have any options here; at least, not as many as he would have liked. He needed to think this through and make a plan that wasn’t as terrible as him.
- Open the door.
Pros: Reunite with an old best friend and see the outside world.
Cons: You’re an undead monstrosity, and you accidentally murdered your older sister before hanging her in what your light research suggests is a fugue state.
- Keep the door closed.
Pros: Keep up this self-punishment, live comfortably without anything shaking your life up.
Cons: Holy fuck Kel smells like prime rib out there. Maybe it was the amount of caffeine Sunny could just SMELL flowing through him, but Kel smelled exactly like he was always convinced food in anime tasted like.
Alright yeah, he didn’t really have a choice here. Well, he did have a choice. One that he could easily make if he was in any other physiological state. Sadly for him, he was a vampire, and while animal blood was sustaining him well, his instincts weren’t going to let him walk away from someone who smelled so delicious. Even if his moral side and common sense side were pointing out how bad of an idea drinking his blood would be.
He could resist, right? Just had to acclimate to being around people again, noooo sweat, it would be super easy! Just had to not think of gripping Kel’s athletic body, teeth puncturing into that skin and drinking his fill as he drained away that muscular, cared-for body. Easy thought to keep out of mind! So easy...
Fuck, he was drooling, okay? Wiping his mouth onto the sleeve, not noticing the obviously dried blood on it. He pushed open the door.
His eyes fluttered up Kel’s smiling form, illuminated by a street lamp behind him. Sunny’s eyes immediately rocketed towards a few notable things. The sweat on Kel’s brow; he'd been jogging, that meant his heart rate was up and blood would flow all the easier. His cheeks were a bit flush, probably from nervousness; still meant blood was located even closer to the neck. Then finally there was Kel’s neck, oh god his shirt’s neckline was low, so much collar bone!
Wait, was he gay? He was finding Kel to look rather cute, even ignoring the unholy infernal hunger that was consuming him. Wait no, he was bi; picturing what his mind created as an older Aubrey definitely brought similar feelings of hunger. Was he bi pre-transformation? Was biness just something that came with the territory? Questions, questions, ones he didn’t and would never know the answer to. He should really just focus on his sn— friend. Kel is friend-shaped, not snack-shaped.
“Sunny! There you are! You’re… really small still huh? Looks like you’ve barely grown a day! How have you been bud? ...what’s that on your arm, juice or something? I’ve gotten some stains like that before!”
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit , HE IS NOT A GOOD LIAR WHAT DOES HE DO . He should have cleaned up, oh god what if there’s still blood on his fangs? He can’t exactly lick them clean, whenever he tries to do that he always ends up puncturing his tongue. He froze up, before saying the first excuse that came to mind.
“I d-dropped a knife on m-my arm!”
Sunny kept his head down and speech quick; he didn't want to risk slipping the fangs out when talking, but he definitely felt the air flitting against those sharp canines even when he snapped his jaw shut once more. He could only watch as Kel’s expression shifted to one of surprise. Before he questioned hesitantly:
“O-On your arm? Sunny are you ok?!? I think I saw some on your teeth too! Did you try to lick the wound or something?”
Everything's fine Sunny, just keep up the poker face. The poker face that would crumble as soon as he said any more words. He could keep it up while he was not speaking easily enough, but when he tried to respond, he knew the nervousness was going to break through. Thinking tactically for a moment, he looked down, using his other arm to cover his face as he slid back the bloody sleeve.
“I-It h-happened a few weeks ago! Just h-haven’t washed it. Don’t w-worry a-about me K-Kel, all h-healed up see?”
He pushed the arm forward to Kel, his pale complexion all the more obvious next to the rather tan boy. Jesus, he did look like somebody who had basically no blood in his body, huh? Perhaps Jesus was the wrong person to namedrop considering what he was, but still.
“I... Jeez Sunny, you really scared me! I thought you hurt yourself and needed bandaging up! It’s not even scarred is it? You heal up really well for someone so pale! Well, honestly I didn’t expect to see you tonight! How about we go play in the park a bit and catch up, Sunny? If that’s ok I mean! I get if you wanna go to Hobeez, it is always open 24/7 after all.”
It was the prime time for him, after all, the sun shouldn’t be up for about six hours... Wait no it’s 3am. So it should be about 8 hours. Wait, no, fuck, he forgot how long the sun took to rise. He hadn’t been awake when it was up in about two months, so it wasn’t his fault it was hard to track. To be safe, he’d aim to be back by 7am. That should be ok, only four hours of not digging into the toned yet tender flesh of his friend. No biggie, noooo biggie.
Kel reached out his hand, seeming to be waiting for a response. Sunny didn’t want to speak again; if he spoke there was always the chance Kel would see the fangs again and start getting suspicious. With that, he reached out his hand to Kel, interlocking his fingers with his frien— HOLY SHIT HE WAS WARM .
Maybe Sunny had just forgotten how a living body felt, but Kel was burning compared to him. Which was fair enough, considering he was literally a living corpse; sometimes he forgot that little bit about his life. You would have thought that hanging his sister and sometimes thinking he saw her dead eye staring at him would be the weirdest part of his life, huh? Nope, he just ended up dying at thirteen and kept on moving despite it.
He was simply adoring the warmth he could feel from Kel. It was a reminder of what it was like to be alive he…. missed that. Without a thought of his hunger for a moment, he slowly leaned closer and closer into Kel, before pressing his head into Kel’s upper arm….warmmmmmmmm. It almost felt like he was melting.
“Sunny? Are you ok? You’ve just been, kinda… leaning for a bit? Are you sleepy? You don’t have to stay up for my sake if you are! We can always do stuff in the morning!”
He nearly bit Kel for that, speaking into his soft body.
“I am not sleepy, y-you’re just warm. I get c-cold easily.”
His arms slowly wrapped around Kel’s muscular forearm before slowly glancing up at him. Not meeting him in the eyes, instead staring directly at that vulnerable jugular.
“Let’s g-get moving.”
His grip loosened ever so slowly, the warm fuzzy feeling that was coming from Kel spreading throughout his body. Oh wait no, he felt kinda happy for the first time in years. Wait no just warmth. ….Wait no, he couldn’t tell the difference at all.
Wow, he really needed to find a better way to differentiate that. The question was, how did he do that exactly? He would need to get happy often, and he didn’t deserve to be happy and... nevermind, Kel smelled too good to have a self-hate spiral at the moment.
Slowly they walked forward, Sunny having an arm looped into Kel’s. Still leaning a bit too close and violating his personal space. He didn’t really think Kel would mind though, hopefully he didn’t, he didn’t want to drive away his orange joe c— FRIEND HE IS A FRIEND SUNNY! He may smell like a heavenly version of that vile caffeinated beverage, but that’s just too far!
“Sooooo, Sunny! Have you peeked outside to see the weather lately? It was pretty sunny yesterday.”
He had the biggest shit-eating grin in the world, seemingly incredibly proud of his little pun, before clearing his throat; tacking on a moment afterwards:
“It’s actually supposed to rain this morning, part of the reason I was excited to do stuff with you tonight. If it rains I’m not sure we’ll have time to go play B-ball before getting driven inside. I haateeee rainy days, I’d rather be out in the sun you know? Our best childhood days were spent under that amazing summer light!”
One Sunny would probably never know again; in his defense, he always preferred cloudy weather. He’d take a cool humid day he could run around during, relax under the sky with a light drizzle of rain on his cheeks, over the blazing sun any day. Well, maybe transforming had changed his opinion there too? For all he knew it made him bi, who knows what it could do? Like making Kel smell so fucking amazing; Sunny kept imagining drinking him like a Kool-aid Jammers pouch. He’d be orange flavored.
However, Sunny nodded along with Kel. He wanted to impress the big old teddy bear of a boy that Kel was to him. A teddy bear whose stuffing was made of cotton candy...
This wasn’t going to end well, was it? No, it was going to end amazingly ! He was going to make Kel his friend again, and he’d be able to say the truth, finally clear the air, clear his guilt, it would all go smoothly. It would all start with this night!
He found it really easy to believe that for some reason, probably because his brain was feeling kinda cloudy from breathing so deeply next to Kel. God he felt thirsty; he could hold off though. The two of them stumbled forwards through the streets, gloomy roads illuminated by street lamps giving way to the quiet darkness of the park.
The wild flowers shone with the moon suffused rays from above. Not a full one; if he had to guess, it was probably waxing? Maybe waning, wait no he was a vampire now, trust his instincts. He’d probably know more about the moon and night stuff now right? Wait, maybe that was just a werewolf thing; god he wished that the only good resources about this weren’t full of dead links and shitty translations.
Regardless, soon enough the warm, sweet, delicious smelling, scrumptious, heavenly, aromatic, Kel let go of his arm. The appendage left to cool back down to its natural deathly chill, one he was highly accustomed to. Kel did a grand sweep of the park with his hand, cheering out just a bit too loud for this time of night.
“Welcome to the park Sunny! Now, we have many attractions as you can see before you! The metal cat statue, the turf of the basketball court, a swingset, a slide, and finally the illustrious monkey bars! Do not forget the ever present benches if we get tired!”
His tone was fanciful, obviously purposefully so. Hyping it up as a grand amusement when it was a little bit rinky-dinky, now that wasn’t a bad thing by any measure. Sometimes it was fun to go back to the simpler things, especially when he hadn’t done "things” in years! Now, what things were they going to do together. Plenty of options, plenty of places to sink his teeth into Kel’s neck— god he was having a bunch of intrusive thoughts tonight.
“Kel, h-how about we swing a bit?”
He did his best to have his head facing the opposite way of his friend. He didn’t know how he’d explain the teeth; maybe as some sort of weird puberty thing? A birth defect? A marking by a demon for what he did to Mari? That last one would require a far harder explanation, one he really didn’t want to give if Basil wasn’t there. Basil… would he taste floral? Smell like an earthy bouquet perhaps? Maybe he’d still carry some of that sweetness in his aroma? Sunny was— Nope stop stop bad thoughts bad vampire thoughts.
Before he could think any more on the delicious nectar of the gods that was flowing in the veins of each and every one of his childhood friends— Mari didn't count she was dead and not in his way— Kel seemed to glow brighter, beaming at the offer of swinging. He nodded his head up and down before wrapping his hot hand around Sunny's, pulling him towards the swing at very high speeds before flinging him onto the seat on the right. Kel immediately threw himself onto the other.
“Alright Sunny! Let’s see who can swing the highest! Let’s get the night air in our faces, ya know?”
With that, Kel braced against the ground, those long muscular pillars of blood and flesh that Sunny couldn't stop looking at pushed against the ground. God it was like looking at a lollipop, all he would need to do is break the seal and— BAD SUNNY. Soon enough, Kel was pushing himself through the air, swinging higher and higher every moment.
Sunny had to figure out how to stabilize himself on the swing for a moment, it had been four years, and his muscles would have atrophied if he wasn’t vampiric. Sleeping for a literal week at a time wasn’t the best for coordination.. Regardless, he had pushed off the ground and was now swinging forwards and backwards.
It was fucking terrifying; apparently he wasn’t only afraid of heights if he was on his stairs and trying to get down, he was scared if he was anywhere above ground. Yeah, no fall was ever going to kill him unless he tripped onto willow really oddly, but still! Fear was an irrational thing and wanting to drink Kel like a soda could only distract him so much.
Oh god, and now he was starting to lose control, swinging side to side ever so slowly. He could feel it starting to twist further up. That was… well, not good, swinging wildly out of control, it was no surprise that with a small yelp, soon enough he slammed into Kel’s back on the swing down, launching him off of the swing and towards the ground, rocketing forward into the dirt.
A small groan came from Kel; oh no! Hopefully he wasn’t hurt! It would be such a shame if Kel had scraped his knee, wounding himself, letting that metallic red seep out of him. Vulnerable, not able to run or fight back as Sunny moved in, that would be... suchhhh a shame. It would be reallyyy bad if he hurt himself. The teenage vampire hopped off of his own slowing swing, eyes narrowed like a cat's.
He slowly stalked forward to Kel, his nose twitching harder in the air, before deflating as Kel turned over. No wounds, no blood flowing free; well that was really good in retrospect. It would be weird if Kel had hurt himself and those instincts had taken over. It would be pretty hard to explain why Sunny was licking a bleeding knee. It seemed he was just bruised from his fall; offering a hand out to Kel, his friend stopped groaning after a second before taking his hand. Once again, Kel was indescribably warm; Sunny hoped he would never let go, and pulled Kel to his feet.
“Thanks Sunny! Sorry that we bumped into each other, it can get really hard to control yourself when you pick up speed! You probably haven’t swung for a bit right? I should have thought about that before we started! Alrightie, how about we do some balling?”
This was going to be even harder, probably, but throwing the ball around did sound like fun. With the light hum of crickets filling their ears, they slowly walked over to the basketball court. Kel raised his hand, pushing some branches from a nearby tree out of the wa—
“Ouch! It caught me!”
Kel’s voice was sharp and high-pitched, a little whine about the situation; Sunny could tell instinctively why as his eyes turned into two narrow slits of black.
His cheek had been hit by a branch, a light cut dancing from the bottom of his jaw to the center of his left cheek. A line of what smelled to Sunny like concentrated ambrosia slowly appearing over the wound.
He wasn’t fully cognizant of anything else as he rushed forward, bracing his arms on Kel’s shoulder and doing a small hop upwards. His tongue danced on forwards, from the bottom of Kel’s jaw, up, and up, and-
His mind was instantly overwhelmed by the flavor. Hot and glorious, seeming to coat the insides of his mouth. It tasted like iron, sure, but there was more than just that. More than just what he had always smelt when alive. It was simply put, heaven; something that made his life feel complete simply by ingesting it. Creamy, savory, salty, bitter, sour, sweet, it seemed to mix every way to activate his taste buds at once in all the most amazing ways.
His tongue lapped away, once, twice, three times, before there was nothing left. Such a small wound like that couldn’t have given him much after all, just enough for a mosquito’s feast. Still, he could feel his unholy flesh start to process it. Working with Kel’s blood to only develop him further.
When he next opened his eyes all he was greeted with was Kel’s shocked and confused look. Seeming to question the entire reality of things, before creaking out hesitantly:
“.... Sunny? What are you doing dude?”
He had to be careful, he had to make a good decision here. If not tell the truth, tell a good lie. A good lie would be natural right? He just had to say the first thing that came to mind.
“I l-love you! I just wanted to k-kiss you!”
He wished he was as good at lying as Basil.