Fic: Do You Mind?
Title: Do You Mind?
Status: Complete
Genre: Paranormal/urban fantasy, m/m romance
Rating: M
Content: Swearing, references to sex acts
Length: 4, 708 words
Summary: Not being able to kiss Steve is the least of Abe’s problems when it comes to spending time in front of the TV...
Begin Here | Next | Tourist Information Centre
AN: Thanks to Dibbs for reminding me to finish this one off - even if Raif and Parker are a little disgruntled at being pushed back a couple of days... :D
“Do you mind?” Abe reached across the coffee table for the remote - a little relieved, to be honest, that he had an excuse to shut Steve up. He had brought with him brochures for all sorts of adventure-type sporting places, ranging the full gamut from bicycle camping to bungee jumping - seeming to think that a couple of (scared-witless) attempts at abseiling meant that Abe was now converted to all things extreme. At the very least Steve seemed to be gravitating towards a horseback day trek rather than paragliding, but the fact that Steve had all these brochures stored in a plastic folder made Abe suspect it was some kind of a to-do list - and he prayed that it didn’t involve him. Facing his fears by attempting abseiling - and spending time with Steve, something that hadn’t actually caused death-by-obstructed-airway yet - was a good thing, but that didn’t mean Abe went on to do increasingly crazier things - like skydiving or throwing Steve face-down over the couch. “What’s Good For You is going to be on in a minute...”
That last, though. The very idea tortured him - although, if he were to be honest, Abe would have been (momentarily) happy with just a good look at Steve’s elusive nipple piercing. (He was waiting, damn it, for Steve to have some reason to take off his shirt. Abe had spent way too much time last weekend thinking about ‘accidentally’ squirting Steve’s torso with the contents of his drink bottle...) It also wasn’t hard to wonder ... well, was sex really likely to kill him, as long as it didn’t involve Abe’s mouth? Some things were definitely out, but ... safe sex had been invented for reasons other than preventing conception. Hands, at the very least, weren’t going to cause any problems. Surely the only limit was creativity? Well, that, and talking Steve into the idea - since Steve seemed comfortable with them as friends who went rock-climbing, and hadn’t given the slightest suggestion that he wanted anything more. (In fact, he had this disconcerting habit of verbally admiring the shape of half the women he met, which left Abe even more uncertain.) He wasn’t uncomfortable around Abe, and in fact was as touchy-feely as ever, but that was Steve, who had no reserve whatsoever. With someone else, he might have assumed it meant romance, but with Steve, how could he really tell?
Steve snickered, but shut the folder and leaned sideways over Abe’s couch. “Sure, whatever. How can I complain, right?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Abe, your taste in TV sucks.”
He changed the channel and leaned back. Steve sat closer to him than any straight guy should, elbow propped against Abe’s leg. “Well, what do you watch then?”
Steve paused for a moment, as if this actually required thought. “Um ... the news. Media Watch. Sometimes a doco on SBS.”
“And you’re commenting on my taste in TV?” The show hadn’t started yet, so Abe snuck a peek, hoping that he didn’t look too desperate. Steve tended to bold colours and crazy prints, and it suited that near-constant smile right down to the ground. Over the past few weeks Abe had learned that he doffed his shoes whenever possible, and he still hadn’t cut his hair - Abe didn’t mind, since he pushed the glossy strands back off his face and tied them in a small tail, usually with a fluorescent hair-tie filched from his friend Joanna. (There was no need for jealousy, though, not since Abe had learned Joanna only had eyes for a zombie tour-guide who didn’t actually look half bad in 1850s period dress.) The tail suited him, even despite the fact Abe could never remember finding a guy with a ponytail attractive yet. The smile, though, was what caught his eyes, time after time: slightly crooked-set, soft lips that begged to be kissed, nibbled, touched. He laughed at the world, and Abe was caught somewhere between envy of Steve’s confidence, and envy of the fact that he couldn’t kiss those lips. If he’d known that kiss at Feeders was going to be the last...
Well, it probably would have made no difference, come to think of it. What else would he have done besides ... kiss Steve?
“TV in general sucks. Wait until you have to analyse everything for media classes. It’s all political bias. Even this.”
“A show with a segment about whether or not you can transfer bacteria by kissing?”
Steve broke into another round of snickering laughter. “Since you can transfer saliva and venom, I’m voting yes on the bacteria. Go bacteria, go! You can make it! We’re rooting for you, you can survive the journey from tongue to tongue...”
Abe bit down on his lip, trying his hardest not to roll his eyes - or laugh. (It was bad enough that Steve seemed to delight in using innocent-sounding words that smacked of innuendo...) “Steve, would you mind letting me watch this?”
“Sorry.” Steve sat up a little straighter, letting his shoulder brush against Abe’s arm. Did he have any idea just how cruel his close proximity was? Abe stared at the television screen, promising himself that he was going to concentrate on the show and not think about nailing Steve. Not think that, in all likelihood, it would be perfectly safe to nail him if they were careful. He could certainly research it, come to think of it: if vampire venom was a common allergy, there would have been someone else in this situation before. Unless they all just gave up, or lived perfectly celibate lives, although why anyone would want to do that, Abe didn’t know. Sex wasn’t quite the same, undead, but it was still ... sex. Still good enough that Abe had no reason to not want to do it... Oh, shit. I’m not thinking about this! He’d think I have sex on the brain... “Say, what aftershave do you use? You don’t smell like blood at all...”
“Watching...” he whimpered, not at all sure he could answer the question without the conversation descending into depths of awkwardness. “And ... you’re stopping the circulation in my kneecap.”
“You don’t have circulation,” Steve pointed out, but he raised his elbow. Abe gave him his best ‘please shut up now because I’m actually interested in this’ look and turned up the volume. “Oh, sorry!”
For five blessed moments, Abe had silence.
“Why don’t they cover more segments about the undead?” Steve leaned forwards, glaring at the presenter. Abe drew in a deep breath and resigned himself to having to Google for information about heatstroke as well as the possibility of vampire-and-allergic-human sex. (Oh, God. He wasn’t going to find porn on that, was he?) “It’s not like humans are the only ones with interesting medical phenomena. It’s discrimination, actually. I mean sure, the undead aren’t going to die, but isn’t the regeneration process in vampires interesting enough for mainstream television? What about showing how various enzymes in venom and saliva act on human tissue? Or is everyone too scared to admit that they actually live in a world where some people don’t die...?”
“Um ... I’m kind of watching this...”
“Why?”
“Maybe you’ll suffer heatstroke someday? And be eternally relieved that I knew what to do to stop you turning into a zombie?”
“Not likely,” Steve scoffed, shaking his head. There was one thing, Abe thought: the more disruptive Steve got, the less Abe thought about fucking him. That had to be a small advantage... “I’m not stupid enough for that. There’s always water in the car and in my backpack, and who the hell would go walking, or working, in the middle of a 40 degree day? Besides a vampire, that is.”
“What if you have some kind of infection that suppresses your thirst and you forget to drink, overwork, and it’s a very hot day?”
Steve raised both eyebrows. “What’s the likelihood of that?”
“Well ... as it turned out, I did actually need to know about emergency first aid for anaphylaxis.”
“Bite me.”
Oh, how Abe wanted to! “Are you conceding defeat?” He paused. “If you are, can you please be quiet? At least until the ad break? Please?”
Steve sighed and, at last, shut up for longer than a heartbeat, rolling his eyes at the presenter. Abe sighed - and then wondered why he was even surprised. He wanted to date an adrenaline junkie who, by his own admission, didn’t really watch TV? The same guy who insisted that he couldn’t sleep during the day? He could imagine Steve sitting down in front of his parents’ TV with a bunch of clips, ropes and harness, polishing, sorting or something - rather than just staring at the idiot box. Perhaps it meant something that Steve was even here now ... even though he’d started opening and closing his thumbs and index fingers on both hands to parody speech, right in time with the presenter. Even though he shifted every few seconds, pressing a different part of body against Abe’s skin - seemingly unaware of the fact that his every movement was arousing Abe quite nicely, to the point where he was going to sit with a pillow on his lap if Steve didn’t settle. Abe kept his eyes fixed on the TV, teeth gritted, wishing it were easier to ignore him. Couldn’t he sit still for fifteen minutes?
“I need a drink,” Steve burst out, now lying sprawled across the couch with his head propped against Abe’s knee. Abe didn’t mind him like that too much - if he didn’t block Abe’s view of the TV every time he moved his head and sat up again. He jolted to his feet, standing right between Abe and the TV; Abe sighed and gritted his teeth. “Do you mind if I get one?”
“Go for it,” he said, shifting to one side and swallowing a groan as Steve jigged sideways. “I’ve only got water, though.”
“No worries. Do you want anything?”
For you to shut up and let me watch this show! “I’m fine,” he murmured, craning his neck. Damn. I totally missed the end of that segment... Abe sighed in relief as Steve bounded off towards the kitchen, shifting over on the couch so that he sat directly in front of the TV - and then sighing again as he found himself watching an ad for cleaning spray. Steve, it seemed, did nothing quietly; Abe winced at the sound of a slamming cupboard door and the squeal of water through pipes. “Shit, Abe, you’ve got nothing in your fridge! Don’t you ever have breather guests over?” Chair stoppers scraped against his cream linoleum ... and Abe shook his head, gritting his teeth and hoping that there weren’t skid marks across his nice, new kitchen floor. It was one thing to meet a cute guy at a nightclub and think of nothing more than fucking him stupid, another thing to realise that dating him was going to be a complicated process of getting Steve to believe it was even possible, figuring out the mechanics of love that didn’t involve risking death ... but was that really the hardest thing about dating someone? Not kissing Steve - no matter how gorgeous he looked even when he was making childish hand-speak gestures at the TV screen, no matter how hard Steve’s head resting against his leg left Abe - seemed a whole lot easier than not throttling him when he couldn’t sit still for five freaking seconds, fuck it...
He wondered, taking a deep breath as the show resumed, if Steve found Abe’s unwillingness to commit to some crazy, dangerous extreme-sporting activity just as irritating...
“Abe?”
“Yes...?” He turned his head just enough to catch Steve standing in the doorway, one of Abe’s favourite glasses in his right hand, poking at the corner of left eye with the other.
“They’re talking about SARS. Is this a repeat? Are you getting all stressed out over missing a repeat?”
“Steve...!”
He paused for a moment, and maybe, just maybe, Steve realised that he’d crossed the line from being loveable to downright irritating. “Maybe ... I should look up times for trail riding in your kitchen. Mind if I use your laptop?”
“Go for it,” Abe said - feeling strangely enthusiastic about the idea of Steve planning trail riding. Anything that got him out of the lounge room so that he could concentrate, just for a moment or two, on his show, seemed like a fantastic idea. Even if it did involve risking life and limb - or at least, coping with a terror that seemed real no matter how much Abe tried to tell himself that he could not actually die, and pain was only an inconvenience until he regenerated - for a couple of hours on the back of a horse! “Just ... please ask me before you book anything, okay?”
“Oh, sure,” Steve said, waving the glass-holding hand - and sounding as though the idea of booking some frightening activity for the both of them without consulting Abe had never crossed his mind. Abe wasn’t sure that he believed him. “Damn, I think I got something in my eye...”
He walked back into the kitchen again, and Abe crossed his fingers ... hardly able to believe it when, after a few moments, he heard nothing. Rustling noises and the scrape of a chair, odd creaks and groans that didn’t exactly suggest a guy sitting down quietly at the keyboard, yes - but no conversations, annoying questions, stares, gestures, or Steve getting in the way of the TV. Nothing but relative peace and quiet - and maybe this would work out, after all. Maybe the trick was just to get Steve occupied doing something else, and then Abe could watch his TV and they would still be spending time together, sort of. Like the abseiling, they could figure out a compromise...
“Yaarrugh!”
It was a short, breathless shriek that sounded ... well, like Abe’s sister when he surprised her in the bathroom, if he were to be honest - shrill, high, and embarrassingly girly. Abe leapt to his feet, silently cursing as he said farewell to ever watching the rest of his show, and hurried to the doorway - before standing there, blinking. Steve sat slumped forward over the kitchen table, right hand rubbing against the outside of his thigh in hard, jerking motions. “They tell you it’s going to hurt,” he rasped - his breaths accompanied by that awful whistling stridor Abe had heard only once before in real life. At his foot - right beside a faint greyish skid mark on the lino - rested the black pouch Steve always carried on his person - just in case, he’d said jokingly, he got mauled by a feral zombie. Whether or not that was the case, at least Abe had felt grateful that Steve didn’t seem to worry about Abe ... until now. “That’s not hurt, that’s...”
“I think you’re supposed to do the rubbing gently,” Abe said - for something to do while he gaped. They hadn’t kissed. Abe felt reasonably sure there was no flying saliva involved - so why the hell was Steve sitting at his kitchen table, eyes running, face blotchy and suspiciously swollen? “Shit...” How could this have happened? It wasn’t like cross-contamination was an issue since Abe didn’t eat anything Steve would eat and Steve wasn’t going to start downing glasses of blood - they wouldn’t even use the same utensils, except for maybe a glass or two, and how could that be a problem if everything was washed? Maybe he had accidentally spat on Steve somehow, and what if he couldn’t even be near him in case some stray drop of venom-tinged saliva landed on Steve’s face or hands...? Abe looked away, even though there was nothing accusatory in Steve’s expression, and glanced around the room. His laptop and the water glass rested on the table, the only thing out of place the draining rack by the sink, pushed over to one side and missing...
“You didn’t take the glass off the draining rack, did you...?” he whispered - and didn’t have to wait for a nod. “Oh, shit. I ... um...”
“You’re a weird arse vampire ... who doesn’t put clean dishes on the fucking draining rack...?”
“I’m a vampire who lives alone,” Abe snapped back - feeling rather hurt for a moment, at least until he tore his eyes away from the offending glass - the glass Abe used to wash his mouth out after a drink and only rinsed under the tap, since it never really got dirty and he was the only person who used it - and back to Steve. Clearly when it involved Steve, rinsing didn’t constitute washing. His breathing, thank God, was only slightly raspy, but he shook hard enough for Abe to see his fingers move, and he couldn’t seem to sit still, constantly moving his hands, shoulders, legs and head. “Shit ... shit. Here.” He stood up and darted into the laundry, grabbing a bundle of clean sheets he hadn’t bothered to fold for three days, and came back, wrapping them loosely around Steve’s shoulders. “Do you think you can stand? You know I have to take you to the hospital, right?”
“Can’t stop shaking,” he muttered, half standing and leaning over the table - and then sitting down right on the lino. Abe crouched down beside him. He looked scared, wild-eyed, and Abe grasped one of the sheet-covered hands. “I don’t suppose you know ... what it feels like to have your heart trying ... trying to jump out of your chest...?”
“You kind of forget that kind of thing,” Abe admitted. “Getting scared or excited or ... well, anything. Most of it’s mental, so it’s dimmer.” He wrapped one arm around Steve’s shoulders, not trying to hold him still, but just trying to be ... comforting, he supposed. “Things aren’t so vibrant, they don’t have an edge any more. Maybe...”
“Yeah...?”
“Maybe that’s why it’s hard to try and not be scared of things,” Abe murmured - he hadn’t planned to say those words, and yet he couldn’t take them back, or regret saying them. Steve needed a distraction, and maybe it was good for Abe to make himself understood a little more. “Because you don’t have that excitement, that heart-pounding feeling, when you’ve done something that’s scared the hell out of you. You’ve done something, and that’s good, but you don’t feel it in the same way - you don’t have that awesome, all-conquering feeling afterwards. You don’t," he cracked a small smile, "have adrenaline pumping through your veins...”
“You ... are a fucking arsehole.”
“It’s not the same,” Abe said, running his fingers in small circles over Steve’s arm, sitting so close he could feel the quickened heartbeat against his chest - and unable to help a full grin at Steve’s disgust. “You don’t miss hormones until you don’t really have them, and then you realise that you’d do anything to feel ... the extremes of some things. It’s hard to convince myself that fear is stupid and unnecessary when there’s nothing...”
He blinked in surprise as Steve turned his head and kissed him. By anyone’s standards it wasn’t much of a kiss and probably didn’t even count as anything romantic: just a quick, light-lipped peck on the curve of Abe’s cheekbone, just underneath his left eye. Blink, and you’d miss it; Steve’s head slumped against Abe’s chest immediately afterwards, as if nothing had happened - but Abe couldn’t forget that soft, too-brief brush of lips over skin.
“You made me feel ... um ... annoyed,” he said, not at all sure what he was speaking and why, but anything would do just to fill the silence. What was it? Apology for the insult? Some kind of demonstration that, despite all good reason, Steve still wasn’t terrified of Abe? Could it possibly be ... romance, or was that Abe simply being delusional to think that the guy he’d nearly killed - twice - wanted anything at all to do with him in that way? “Before, with the TV. So...” Steve made him feel a lot of things, come to think of it. Nervous, anxious, terrified ... wanting. So much want involved, to the point where Abe almost forgot it had been a long time since he’d actually felt that way. A boyfriend was just something he was supposed to have, to not be the weird, lonely, boring freak that rarely left his house for anything other than work and trying to meet someone in all the wrong places. It was obligatory, and even Great Aunty Lizzie had started to wonder why Abe had never found a handsome-but-undead-looking boyfriend - or at least a few one-night-stands and casual flings. Steve drove him crazy ... but he wanted him.
Abe hadn't felt that surge of adrenaline when he’d finally stepped over that cliff wall on his second attempt (after having watched Steve backwards-walk that cliff multiple times without batting an eyelid, and Steve demonstrating exactly how safety lines worked, insisting that he really couldn’t go crashing to the ground and break every bone in his body), but Steve’s jaw-cracking grin as Abe hit the ground and tried hard not to throw up blood might have made up for it. Steve made him feel that little bit alive, physically as well as mentally and emotionally - as if Steve could do all the living Abe should have done, somehow...
“Um.” How to say all this? Did it really need to be said? “You...”
“You had a hard on, before.” Steve sounded way too smug for someone who was still shaking, still shifting restlessly as if he just didn’t know what to do with himself. “So you definitely feel something.”
He knew? Abe cringed, and then wondered if Steve felt that, given that Steve pretty much lay propped against him at this point. Oh, shit, shit, shit. What if I’ve scared him? What if he’s laughing at me? What if...
“We need to take you to the hospital,” he said, trying his hardest to sound both rational and calm. “It says so on the action plan.”
“You like me,” Steve murmured, in an attempt at a childish sing-song playground voice that ... well, it didn’t get there, but Abe knew what he was trying for, and couldn’t help a blush. “Sorry about the TV show.”
“Maybe I should get a hard disk recorder and watch everything when you’re asleep.” Abe forced himself up onto his knees. “Sorry about the glass.”
“Maybe ... I’ll just pick a glass just for me to use. Or go shopping and buy one so weird you’d never use it anyway. Would you mind?”
The thought of Steve shopping for some crazy-looking glassware just to keep in Abe’s house - well, his heart didn’t flutter in his chest, but the feeling was oddly close. He wanted to come back, and despite the fact that Abe’s TV drove him to distraction and that Abe had come a little too close to killing him again... “Not ... not at all.” He helped Steve up onto his feet, although he did wonder if the way Steve leaned against him was strictly necessary. Did it matter? He felt good pressed close like that, even with Abe’s clean laundry getting in the way ... and now the only problem, he supposed, was trying to do repeat this without involving a hospital visit. “Do you mind,” he asked suddenly, mustering all his courage because he needed to know, and because, for some reason, Steve had actually kissed him, “if ... um ... if I have a ... um ... a hard on?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Abe wrapped both his arms around Steve’s chest and walked them both forwards into the lounge room, trying hard not to grin into Steve’s hair. “We need to go to the hospital, you do know that.”
“You can drive, if you want.”
Abe couldn’t help a laugh. “That’s ... good to know, I guess. Not that I’d let you drive anyway.” He paused, letting go of Steve by the couch and darting over to the coffee table to grab his keys and wallet, along with Steve's boots. Would it be worth asking? He’d said he didn’t mind, he’d kissed him ... maybe it was worth taking the next step, and really seeing if didn’t mind translated into the words Abe wanted to hear: I am into you. Steve hadn’t laughed, teased or mocked him so far, and seemed to want to be his friend. If that was a second-best, it was still a pretty good one, so why not? He swallowed, able to think of hundreds of ways this could go wrong ... but this kind of fear seemed easier to conquer. He could live quite happily with a terror of heights - but could he live without finding out, for sure and certain, if this relationship had any kind of a chance of becoming what he wanted? Was fear worse than never knowing?
He could never ask, and things could remain as they were. Or ... he could ask, and trust that Steve's gestures and expressions meant exactly what Abe hoped they did.
“Um ... Steve. Would you ... would you ... um ... go out with me? Sometime? I mean ... I know you’re straight, and all that, and I can kill you, and you probably don’t even want this even if you’re cool with me wanting you and you’re a weird, hands-on sort of guy which does my head in at times ... both, I mean, and...”
“Where?”
“...and I’d totally understand if you said no and ... where?”
“Where,” Steve repeated. “The movies? The pier? Some nice place inland? A trail riding place?”
“I ... don’t know...” Abe wrapped one arm around Steve again and shepherded them both to the door - anything to try and hide his surprise. He ... he didn't say no... “I...”
Steve shook his head. “Looks like I’m going to have to do this one, too. Abe, there’s a little Italian cafe in Robertsville, one that’s right on the beach, serves different flavours of blood, and is disgustingly romantic and adorable. I’m free next Saturday night, so would you like to go out on a disgustingly romantic and adorable date - after we go trail riding? It’s a sunset ride on the beach, perfect for beginners and romantics since it’s all at a sedate walk, and yes, I’m quoting the brochure here. Translated, their placid, gentle, bombproof horses sound like they’re zombies, but we can work our way up to galloping.” He turned just as they reached the door, and Abe caught a glimpse of that broad, cheerful grin. “It just might take ... a lot of dates. Do you mind?”
It might have been far too early to say ... but in that moment, Abe felt pretty sure that he loved him.
“I’d ... yes. I’d like that.” Abe sighed, reaching around Steve to open and deadlock the front door. “Yes. That’d be ... good. And I’m free. I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t have been doing something, but I’m free...”
Steve laughed, hard enough that he sounded as if he were wheezing. “Good. I’ll pick you up at 3 PM.” He paused, still leaning on Abe more than probably necessary as they headed down the drive to Abe’s car. “My parents are going to die of shock, you know. A normal sounding date with a normal person. Not that I mind.” He turned his head to catch Abe’s eyes. “Thank you...”
“I’m not so normal,” Abe said, unlocking his car and opening the passenger door, very glad that he could no longer blush. It was hard enough not smile - not to jump up and down and shriek in excitement, not to babble out his relief that Steve had said yes - or grab him by the shoulders and kiss him. On second thought - maybe the grin was okay, maybe it was okay for Steve to know that he was over the moon, and even though there was no real reason for him to smile at the moment, Steve grinned back at him. That grin, after all, was a pretty decent second-best. “Just wait until you meet my Great Aunty Lizzie...”
Status: Complete
Genre: Paranormal/urban fantasy, m/m romance
Rating: M
Content: Swearing, references to sex acts
Length: 4, 708 words
Summary: Not being able to kiss Steve is the least of Abe’s problems when it comes to spending time in front of the TV...
Begin Here | Next | Tourist Information Centre
AN: Thanks to Dibbs for reminding me to finish this one off - even if Raif and Parker are a little disgruntled at being pushed back a couple of days... :D
“Do you mind?” Abe reached across the coffee table for the remote - a little relieved, to be honest, that he had an excuse to shut Steve up. He had brought with him brochures for all sorts of adventure-type sporting places, ranging the full gamut from bicycle camping to bungee jumping - seeming to think that a couple of (scared-witless) attempts at abseiling meant that Abe was now converted to all things extreme. At the very least Steve seemed to be gravitating towards a horseback day trek rather than paragliding, but the fact that Steve had all these brochures stored in a plastic folder made Abe suspect it was some kind of a to-do list - and he prayed that it didn’t involve him. Facing his fears by attempting abseiling - and spending time with Steve, something that hadn’t actually caused death-by-obstructed-airway yet - was a good thing, but that didn’t mean Abe went on to do increasingly crazier things - like skydiving or throwing Steve face-down over the couch. “What’s Good For You is going to be on in a minute...”
That last, though. The very idea tortured him - although, if he were to be honest, Abe would have been (momentarily) happy with just a good look at Steve’s elusive nipple piercing. (He was waiting, damn it, for Steve to have some reason to take off his shirt. Abe had spent way too much time last weekend thinking about ‘accidentally’ squirting Steve’s torso with the contents of his drink bottle...) It also wasn’t hard to wonder ... well, was sex really likely to kill him, as long as it didn’t involve Abe’s mouth? Some things were definitely out, but ... safe sex had been invented for reasons other than preventing conception. Hands, at the very least, weren’t going to cause any problems. Surely the only limit was creativity? Well, that, and talking Steve into the idea - since Steve seemed comfortable with them as friends who went rock-climbing, and hadn’t given the slightest suggestion that he wanted anything more. (In fact, he had this disconcerting habit of verbally admiring the shape of half the women he met, which left Abe even more uncertain.) He wasn’t uncomfortable around Abe, and in fact was as touchy-feely as ever, but that was Steve, who had no reserve whatsoever. With someone else, he might have assumed it meant romance, but with Steve, how could he really tell?
Steve snickered, but shut the folder and leaned sideways over Abe’s couch. “Sure, whatever. How can I complain, right?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Abe, your taste in TV sucks.”
He changed the channel and leaned back. Steve sat closer to him than any straight guy should, elbow propped against Abe’s leg. “Well, what do you watch then?”
Steve paused for a moment, as if this actually required thought. “Um ... the news. Media Watch. Sometimes a doco on SBS.”
“And you’re commenting on my taste in TV?” The show hadn’t started yet, so Abe snuck a peek, hoping that he didn’t look too desperate. Steve tended to bold colours and crazy prints, and it suited that near-constant smile right down to the ground. Over the past few weeks Abe had learned that he doffed his shoes whenever possible, and he still hadn’t cut his hair - Abe didn’t mind, since he pushed the glossy strands back off his face and tied them in a small tail, usually with a fluorescent hair-tie filched from his friend Joanna. (There was no need for jealousy, though, not since Abe had learned Joanna only had eyes for a zombie tour-guide who didn’t actually look half bad in 1850s period dress.) The tail suited him, even despite the fact Abe could never remember finding a guy with a ponytail attractive yet. The smile, though, was what caught his eyes, time after time: slightly crooked-set, soft lips that begged to be kissed, nibbled, touched. He laughed at the world, and Abe was caught somewhere between envy of Steve’s confidence, and envy of the fact that he couldn’t kiss those lips. If he’d known that kiss at Feeders was going to be the last...
Well, it probably would have made no difference, come to think of it. What else would he have done besides ... kiss Steve?
“TV in general sucks. Wait until you have to analyse everything for media classes. It’s all political bias. Even this.”
“A show with a segment about whether or not you can transfer bacteria by kissing?”
Steve broke into another round of snickering laughter. “Since you can transfer saliva and venom, I’m voting yes on the bacteria. Go bacteria, go! You can make it! We’re rooting for you, you can survive the journey from tongue to tongue...”
Abe bit down on his lip, trying his hardest not to roll his eyes - or laugh. (It was bad enough that Steve seemed to delight in using innocent-sounding words that smacked of innuendo...) “Steve, would you mind letting me watch this?”
“Sorry.” Steve sat up a little straighter, letting his shoulder brush against Abe’s arm. Did he have any idea just how cruel his close proximity was? Abe stared at the television screen, promising himself that he was going to concentrate on the show and not think about nailing Steve. Not think that, in all likelihood, it would be perfectly safe to nail him if they were careful. He could certainly research it, come to think of it: if vampire venom was a common allergy, there would have been someone else in this situation before. Unless they all just gave up, or lived perfectly celibate lives, although why anyone would want to do that, Abe didn’t know. Sex wasn’t quite the same, undead, but it was still ... sex. Still good enough that Abe had no reason to not want to do it... Oh, shit. I’m not thinking about this! He’d think I have sex on the brain... “Say, what aftershave do you use? You don’t smell like blood at all...”
“Watching...” he whimpered, not at all sure he could answer the question without the conversation descending into depths of awkwardness. “And ... you’re stopping the circulation in my kneecap.”
“You don’t have circulation,” Steve pointed out, but he raised his elbow. Abe gave him his best ‘please shut up now because I’m actually interested in this’ look and turned up the volume. “Oh, sorry!”
For five blessed moments, Abe had silence.
“Why don’t they cover more segments about the undead?” Steve leaned forwards, glaring at the presenter. Abe drew in a deep breath and resigned himself to having to Google for information about heatstroke as well as the possibility of vampire-and-allergic-human sex. (Oh, God. He wasn’t going to find porn on that, was he?) “It’s not like humans are the only ones with interesting medical phenomena. It’s discrimination, actually. I mean sure, the undead aren’t going to die, but isn’t the regeneration process in vampires interesting enough for mainstream television? What about showing how various enzymes in venom and saliva act on human tissue? Or is everyone too scared to admit that they actually live in a world where some people don’t die...?”
“Um ... I’m kind of watching this...”
“Why?”
“Maybe you’ll suffer heatstroke someday? And be eternally relieved that I knew what to do to stop you turning into a zombie?”
“Not likely,” Steve scoffed, shaking his head. There was one thing, Abe thought: the more disruptive Steve got, the less Abe thought about fucking him. That had to be a small advantage... “I’m not stupid enough for that. There’s always water in the car and in my backpack, and who the hell would go walking, or working, in the middle of a 40 degree day? Besides a vampire, that is.”
“What if you have some kind of infection that suppresses your thirst and you forget to drink, overwork, and it’s a very hot day?”
Steve raised both eyebrows. “What’s the likelihood of that?”
“Well ... as it turned out, I did actually need to know about emergency first aid for anaphylaxis.”
“Bite me.”
Oh, how Abe wanted to! “Are you conceding defeat?” He paused. “If you are, can you please be quiet? At least until the ad break? Please?”
Steve sighed and, at last, shut up for longer than a heartbeat, rolling his eyes at the presenter. Abe sighed - and then wondered why he was even surprised. He wanted to date an adrenaline junkie who, by his own admission, didn’t really watch TV? The same guy who insisted that he couldn’t sleep during the day? He could imagine Steve sitting down in front of his parents’ TV with a bunch of clips, ropes and harness, polishing, sorting or something - rather than just staring at the idiot box. Perhaps it meant something that Steve was even here now ... even though he’d started opening and closing his thumbs and index fingers on both hands to parody speech, right in time with the presenter. Even though he shifted every few seconds, pressing a different part of body against Abe’s skin - seemingly unaware of the fact that his every movement was arousing Abe quite nicely, to the point where he was going to sit with a pillow on his lap if Steve didn’t settle. Abe kept his eyes fixed on the TV, teeth gritted, wishing it were easier to ignore him. Couldn’t he sit still for fifteen minutes?
“I need a drink,” Steve burst out, now lying sprawled across the couch with his head propped against Abe’s knee. Abe didn’t mind him like that too much - if he didn’t block Abe’s view of the TV every time he moved his head and sat up again. He jolted to his feet, standing right between Abe and the TV; Abe sighed and gritted his teeth. “Do you mind if I get one?”
“Go for it,” he said, shifting to one side and swallowing a groan as Steve jigged sideways. “I’ve only got water, though.”
“No worries. Do you want anything?”
For you to shut up and let me watch this show! “I’m fine,” he murmured, craning his neck. Damn. I totally missed the end of that segment... Abe sighed in relief as Steve bounded off towards the kitchen, shifting over on the couch so that he sat directly in front of the TV - and then sighing again as he found himself watching an ad for cleaning spray. Steve, it seemed, did nothing quietly; Abe winced at the sound of a slamming cupboard door and the squeal of water through pipes. “Shit, Abe, you’ve got nothing in your fridge! Don’t you ever have breather guests over?” Chair stoppers scraped against his cream linoleum ... and Abe shook his head, gritting his teeth and hoping that there weren’t skid marks across his nice, new kitchen floor. It was one thing to meet a cute guy at a nightclub and think of nothing more than fucking him stupid, another thing to realise that dating him was going to be a complicated process of getting Steve to believe it was even possible, figuring out the mechanics of love that didn’t involve risking death ... but was that really the hardest thing about dating someone? Not kissing Steve - no matter how gorgeous he looked even when he was making childish hand-speak gestures at the TV screen, no matter how hard Steve’s head resting against his leg left Abe - seemed a whole lot easier than not throttling him when he couldn’t sit still for five freaking seconds, fuck it...
He wondered, taking a deep breath as the show resumed, if Steve found Abe’s unwillingness to commit to some crazy, dangerous extreme-sporting activity just as irritating...
“Abe?”
“Yes...?” He turned his head just enough to catch Steve standing in the doorway, one of Abe’s favourite glasses in his right hand, poking at the corner of left eye with the other.
“They’re talking about SARS. Is this a repeat? Are you getting all stressed out over missing a repeat?”
“Steve...!”
He paused for a moment, and maybe, just maybe, Steve realised that he’d crossed the line from being loveable to downright irritating. “Maybe ... I should look up times for trail riding in your kitchen. Mind if I use your laptop?”
“Go for it,” Abe said - feeling strangely enthusiastic about the idea of Steve planning trail riding. Anything that got him out of the lounge room so that he could concentrate, just for a moment or two, on his show, seemed like a fantastic idea. Even if it did involve risking life and limb - or at least, coping with a terror that seemed real no matter how much Abe tried to tell himself that he could not actually die, and pain was only an inconvenience until he regenerated - for a couple of hours on the back of a horse! “Just ... please ask me before you book anything, okay?”
“Oh, sure,” Steve said, waving the glass-holding hand - and sounding as though the idea of booking some frightening activity for the both of them without consulting Abe had never crossed his mind. Abe wasn’t sure that he believed him. “Damn, I think I got something in my eye...”
He walked back into the kitchen again, and Abe crossed his fingers ... hardly able to believe it when, after a few moments, he heard nothing. Rustling noises and the scrape of a chair, odd creaks and groans that didn’t exactly suggest a guy sitting down quietly at the keyboard, yes - but no conversations, annoying questions, stares, gestures, or Steve getting in the way of the TV. Nothing but relative peace and quiet - and maybe this would work out, after all. Maybe the trick was just to get Steve occupied doing something else, and then Abe could watch his TV and they would still be spending time together, sort of. Like the abseiling, they could figure out a compromise...
“Yaarrugh!”
It was a short, breathless shriek that sounded ... well, like Abe’s sister when he surprised her in the bathroom, if he were to be honest - shrill, high, and embarrassingly girly. Abe leapt to his feet, silently cursing as he said farewell to ever watching the rest of his show, and hurried to the doorway - before standing there, blinking. Steve sat slumped forward over the kitchen table, right hand rubbing against the outside of his thigh in hard, jerking motions. “They tell you it’s going to hurt,” he rasped - his breaths accompanied by that awful whistling stridor Abe had heard only once before in real life. At his foot - right beside a faint greyish skid mark on the lino - rested the black pouch Steve always carried on his person - just in case, he’d said jokingly, he got mauled by a feral zombie. Whether or not that was the case, at least Abe had felt grateful that Steve didn’t seem to worry about Abe ... until now. “That’s not hurt, that’s...”
“I think you’re supposed to do the rubbing gently,” Abe said - for something to do while he gaped. They hadn’t kissed. Abe felt reasonably sure there was no flying saliva involved - so why the hell was Steve sitting at his kitchen table, eyes running, face blotchy and suspiciously swollen? “Shit...” How could this have happened? It wasn’t like cross-contamination was an issue since Abe didn’t eat anything Steve would eat and Steve wasn’t going to start downing glasses of blood - they wouldn’t even use the same utensils, except for maybe a glass or two, and how could that be a problem if everything was washed? Maybe he had accidentally spat on Steve somehow, and what if he couldn’t even be near him in case some stray drop of venom-tinged saliva landed on Steve’s face or hands...? Abe looked away, even though there was nothing accusatory in Steve’s expression, and glanced around the room. His laptop and the water glass rested on the table, the only thing out of place the draining rack by the sink, pushed over to one side and missing...
“You didn’t take the glass off the draining rack, did you...?” he whispered - and didn’t have to wait for a nod. “Oh, shit. I ... um...”
“You’re a weird arse vampire ... who doesn’t put clean dishes on the fucking draining rack...?”
“I’m a vampire who lives alone,” Abe snapped back - feeling rather hurt for a moment, at least until he tore his eyes away from the offending glass - the glass Abe used to wash his mouth out after a drink and only rinsed under the tap, since it never really got dirty and he was the only person who used it - and back to Steve. Clearly when it involved Steve, rinsing didn’t constitute washing. His breathing, thank God, was only slightly raspy, but he shook hard enough for Abe to see his fingers move, and he couldn’t seem to sit still, constantly moving his hands, shoulders, legs and head. “Shit ... shit. Here.” He stood up and darted into the laundry, grabbing a bundle of clean sheets he hadn’t bothered to fold for three days, and came back, wrapping them loosely around Steve’s shoulders. “Do you think you can stand? You know I have to take you to the hospital, right?”
“Can’t stop shaking,” he muttered, half standing and leaning over the table - and then sitting down right on the lino. Abe crouched down beside him. He looked scared, wild-eyed, and Abe grasped one of the sheet-covered hands. “I don’t suppose you know ... what it feels like to have your heart trying ... trying to jump out of your chest...?”
“You kind of forget that kind of thing,” Abe admitted. “Getting scared or excited or ... well, anything. Most of it’s mental, so it’s dimmer.” He wrapped one arm around Steve’s shoulders, not trying to hold him still, but just trying to be ... comforting, he supposed. “Things aren’t so vibrant, they don’t have an edge any more. Maybe...”
“Yeah...?”
“Maybe that’s why it’s hard to try and not be scared of things,” Abe murmured - he hadn’t planned to say those words, and yet he couldn’t take them back, or regret saying them. Steve needed a distraction, and maybe it was good for Abe to make himself understood a little more. “Because you don’t have that excitement, that heart-pounding feeling, when you’ve done something that’s scared the hell out of you. You’ve done something, and that’s good, but you don’t feel it in the same way - you don’t have that awesome, all-conquering feeling afterwards. You don’t," he cracked a small smile, "have adrenaline pumping through your veins...”
“You ... are a fucking arsehole.”
“It’s not the same,” Abe said, running his fingers in small circles over Steve’s arm, sitting so close he could feel the quickened heartbeat against his chest - and unable to help a full grin at Steve’s disgust. “You don’t miss hormones until you don’t really have them, and then you realise that you’d do anything to feel ... the extremes of some things. It’s hard to convince myself that fear is stupid and unnecessary when there’s nothing...”
He blinked in surprise as Steve turned his head and kissed him. By anyone’s standards it wasn’t much of a kiss and probably didn’t even count as anything romantic: just a quick, light-lipped peck on the curve of Abe’s cheekbone, just underneath his left eye. Blink, and you’d miss it; Steve’s head slumped against Abe’s chest immediately afterwards, as if nothing had happened - but Abe couldn’t forget that soft, too-brief brush of lips over skin.
“You made me feel ... um ... annoyed,” he said, not at all sure what he was speaking and why, but anything would do just to fill the silence. What was it? Apology for the insult? Some kind of demonstration that, despite all good reason, Steve still wasn’t terrified of Abe? Could it possibly be ... romance, or was that Abe simply being delusional to think that the guy he’d nearly killed - twice - wanted anything at all to do with him in that way? “Before, with the TV. So...” Steve made him feel a lot of things, come to think of it. Nervous, anxious, terrified ... wanting. So much want involved, to the point where Abe almost forgot it had been a long time since he’d actually felt that way. A boyfriend was just something he was supposed to have, to not be the weird, lonely, boring freak that rarely left his house for anything other than work and trying to meet someone in all the wrong places. It was obligatory, and even Great Aunty Lizzie had started to wonder why Abe had never found a handsome-but-undead-looking boyfriend - or at least a few one-night-stands and casual flings. Steve drove him crazy ... but he wanted him.
Abe hadn't felt that surge of adrenaline when he’d finally stepped over that cliff wall on his second attempt (after having watched Steve backwards-walk that cliff multiple times without batting an eyelid, and Steve demonstrating exactly how safety lines worked, insisting that he really couldn’t go crashing to the ground and break every bone in his body), but Steve’s jaw-cracking grin as Abe hit the ground and tried hard not to throw up blood might have made up for it. Steve made him feel that little bit alive, physically as well as mentally and emotionally - as if Steve could do all the living Abe should have done, somehow...
“Um.” How to say all this? Did it really need to be said? “You...”
“You had a hard on, before.” Steve sounded way too smug for someone who was still shaking, still shifting restlessly as if he just didn’t know what to do with himself. “So you definitely feel something.”
He knew? Abe cringed, and then wondered if Steve felt that, given that Steve pretty much lay propped against him at this point. Oh, shit, shit, shit. What if I’ve scared him? What if he’s laughing at me? What if...
“We need to take you to the hospital,” he said, trying his hardest to sound both rational and calm. “It says so on the action plan.”
“You like me,” Steve murmured, in an attempt at a childish sing-song playground voice that ... well, it didn’t get there, but Abe knew what he was trying for, and couldn’t help a blush. “Sorry about the TV show.”
“Maybe I should get a hard disk recorder and watch everything when you’re asleep.” Abe forced himself up onto his knees. “Sorry about the glass.”
“Maybe ... I’ll just pick a glass just for me to use. Or go shopping and buy one so weird you’d never use it anyway. Would you mind?”
The thought of Steve shopping for some crazy-looking glassware just to keep in Abe’s house - well, his heart didn’t flutter in his chest, but the feeling was oddly close. He wanted to come back, and despite the fact that Abe’s TV drove him to distraction and that Abe had come a little too close to killing him again... “Not ... not at all.” He helped Steve up onto his feet, although he did wonder if the way Steve leaned against him was strictly necessary. Did it matter? He felt good pressed close like that, even with Abe’s clean laundry getting in the way ... and now the only problem, he supposed, was trying to do repeat this without involving a hospital visit. “Do you mind,” he asked suddenly, mustering all his courage because he needed to know, and because, for some reason, Steve had actually kissed him, “if ... um ... if I have a ... um ... a hard on?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Abe wrapped both his arms around Steve’s chest and walked them both forwards into the lounge room, trying hard not to grin into Steve’s hair. “We need to go to the hospital, you do know that.”
“You can drive, if you want.”
Abe couldn’t help a laugh. “That’s ... good to know, I guess. Not that I’d let you drive anyway.” He paused, letting go of Steve by the couch and darting over to the coffee table to grab his keys and wallet, along with Steve's boots. Would it be worth asking? He’d said he didn’t mind, he’d kissed him ... maybe it was worth taking the next step, and really seeing if didn’t mind translated into the words Abe wanted to hear: I am into you. Steve hadn’t laughed, teased or mocked him so far, and seemed to want to be his friend. If that was a second-best, it was still a pretty good one, so why not? He swallowed, able to think of hundreds of ways this could go wrong ... but this kind of fear seemed easier to conquer. He could live quite happily with a terror of heights - but could he live without finding out, for sure and certain, if this relationship had any kind of a chance of becoming what he wanted? Was fear worse than never knowing?
He could never ask, and things could remain as they were. Or ... he could ask, and trust that Steve's gestures and expressions meant exactly what Abe hoped they did.
“Um ... Steve. Would you ... would you ... um ... go out with me? Sometime? I mean ... I know you’re straight, and all that, and I can kill you, and you probably don’t even want this even if you’re cool with me wanting you and you’re a weird, hands-on sort of guy which does my head in at times ... both, I mean, and...”
“Where?”
“...and I’d totally understand if you said no and ... where?”
“Where,” Steve repeated. “The movies? The pier? Some nice place inland? A trail riding place?”
“I ... don’t know...” Abe wrapped one arm around Steve again and shepherded them both to the door - anything to try and hide his surprise. He ... he didn't say no... “I...”
Steve shook his head. “Looks like I’m going to have to do this one, too. Abe, there’s a little Italian cafe in Robertsville, one that’s right on the beach, serves different flavours of blood, and is disgustingly romantic and adorable. I’m free next Saturday night, so would you like to go out on a disgustingly romantic and adorable date - after we go trail riding? It’s a sunset ride on the beach, perfect for beginners and romantics since it’s all at a sedate walk, and yes, I’m quoting the brochure here. Translated, their placid, gentle, bombproof horses sound like they’re zombies, but we can work our way up to galloping.” He turned just as they reached the door, and Abe caught a glimpse of that broad, cheerful grin. “It just might take ... a lot of dates. Do you mind?”
It might have been far too early to say ... but in that moment, Abe felt pretty sure that he loved him.
“I’d ... yes. I’d like that.” Abe sighed, reaching around Steve to open and deadlock the front door. “Yes. That’d be ... good. And I’m free. I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t have been doing something, but I’m free...”
Steve laughed, hard enough that he sounded as if he were wheezing. “Good. I’ll pick you up at 3 PM.” He paused, still leaning on Abe more than probably necessary as they headed down the drive to Abe’s car. “My parents are going to die of shock, you know. A normal sounding date with a normal person. Not that I mind.” He turned his head to catch Abe’s eyes. “Thank you...”
“I’m not so normal,” Abe said, unlocking his car and opening the passenger door, very glad that he could no longer blush. It was hard enough not smile - not to jump up and down and shriek in excitement, not to babble out his relief that Steve had said yes - or grab him by the shoulders and kiss him. On second thought - maybe the grin was okay, maybe it was okay for Steve to know that he was over the moon, and even though there was no real reason for him to smile at the moment, Steve grinned back at him. That grin, after all, was a pretty decent second-best. “Just wait until you meet my Great Aunty Lizzie...”