Heart from Beating

The problem with being a rockstar, Ben thinks, is that crazy shit is always happening to him. Well, crazy shit’s always happened to him, but now it’s almost obscene. Last night Cameron ended up wearing some girl’s leopard print bra and panties after a bender. A good thing about having a band, though, is that all the crazy shit happens with other people, people he can laugh it off with, make memories.

But not tonight. Ben started drinking an hour ago and he already could barely walk. He’s the kind of drunk where you can’t tell what’s moving or not, even yourself. Unbeknownst to him, he’s face down in a stranger’s lap, a girl who went to his show that night. She’s too young to be here, but maybe Ben making a total arse of himself would scare her off of the drinking scene. It isn’t really his concern anyway; he’s too hot. Drunk hot. He’s sweating out of every pore of his body and his leather jacket was thoroughly damp.

He slides to his feet and says goodbye to the new friends he’s made that he doesn’t give a single shit about. His band’s run off somewhere; as usual, Ben’s the one who gets left behind. He doesn’t know how he’ll get back to the hotel they’re staying at for the night; he doesn’t even really know what city of what country they’re in. But he does know that it’s colder than England, and the people are whiter.

Inside the club the air’s thick with smoke and sweat. Walking outside, the air is sharp and crisp. He doesn’t know where to go, and he’s lost his cell phone somewhere, but he can’t bring himself to care. To Ben, the more that goes wrong, the more ridiculous and surreal everything feels, and the less he gives a fuck, and the more fun he has. He hates when things feel real. He loves fantasy; he loves mistakes and danger.

The street is empty for a Friday night, Ben thinks. The only people are a few drunk girls throwing a fit outside a pub because it’s past two-thirty, they don’t let in anymore, and an older homeless man sitting against a brick wall somewhere up ahead Ben. It’s hard to tell; everything’s spinning. It’s the sort of vision distortion that stems from mixing weed and alcohol. He can’t even begin to imagine how fucking insane he must look, not that he particularly cares what these random people think. And from his understanding, they’re all intoxicated as well. The homeless man looks like he’s on a different fucking planet.

He doesn’t know where he’s going. Usually when he gets like this he trips around until someone points him in the right direction. Ben’s problem is that he expects other people to fix his problems for him. He’s coming up past the homeless man, and a stale feeling of fear settles in the pit of his stomach, and he can’t decipher why. His gut instinct is telling him to walk the other way, but he doesn’t quite know how to make his body turn around. So he keeps his head low and his hands in his sweaty leather jacket pockets, walking as quickly as he possibly can without toppling forward.

When the man speaks, Ben can only curse himself. He doesn’t have any fucking money to give this guy. “Oi,” the man shouts.

“Y’alright?” Ben responds, a low, slurred mumble.

“How much you charge?” the man is English. He’s dressed in all flannel, like pajamas or summat. Ben supposes that if you’re homeless, you wear whatever you can. His hair’s dark, and his beard is long and thick.

“I’m sorry?” Ben counters. His mind takes a while to catch up, but when it does, he exclaims, “Oi, I’m not a fuckin’ hooker.” He begins to walk again, even quicker. He’s sobering up quite a bit, and it’s pissing him the fuck off. The more sober he gets, the colder he gets and the direr his situation seems.

The man stands up as well. “You’re under arrest for prostitution, sir. I’m going to need you to come with me down to the station.” He holds out his arm in a pose that, Ben thinks, is suppose to represent showing his badge.

Ben keeps walking away. The man follows him. He’s shouting absolute nonsense. “I’ve been an officer for 35 years, you can’t walk away from me!” “Resisting arrest will just get you into deeper shit!” “You have the right to remain silent” (even though Ben hasn’t even said anything)

The street ahead of him seems endless, and there are no lights on, besides the streetlamps. He eventually turns his speedwalk into a slow jog, feeling a bit more desperate to lose the man following behind him. The man’s getting more and more violent the more he speaks. “How can you expect a man to not ask for a good time when you go around lookin’ like that?” he yells. Ben shudders.

He speeds up. The man gets angrier. “Slow the fuck down!” “Get back here you little whore!” “When I get my fuckin’ hands on you I’ll show you what a real man can do!” Ben’s fear slowly turns to anger and adrenaline, and he surges forward, easing into a sprint.

He overestimated his sobriety, though, because he missteps and stumbles forward on a crack on the pavement, landing facedown. The pavement is cold and hard, and it burns. And he can hear the man catch up with him, but he doesn’t try to get up. It feels like a dream, and honestly, maybe it is. This has happened before; Ben gets drunk and thinks something happens, but it’s all in his head. But the coldness he feels, the actual fear and dread, it all seems too real. He groans and places his palms down on the pavement to hoist himself up, but all of a sudden he feels a heavy weight drop down onto his back.

The adrenaline turns to fear, which turns to misery when he feels the man start pulling down his trousers. He’s mumbling to himself, stupid vulgar phrases that Ben tries hard ignore. His body feels like it’s floating, like he can’t get a grasp on solid earth. He can’t tell if he’s exerting any resistance to his attacker or not.

Ben lies his head flat on the cool pavement, letting himself drift to another place – until he feels the man stand up to pull Ben’s trousers all the way down, off of his ankles. Ben takes the opportunity and forces his mind back into reality, surging upwards and down the endless street. He hears the man cursing behind him, but he takes no time to check to see if he’s following. He just keeps running.

There’s a wide alleyway and he takes a chance by running down it. He doesn’t even stop to think about what could possibly be lurking down there – more crazy homeless people, rabid dogs…he just knows that the hope for safety was stronger the further he got away from that street.

The alleyway is long and seems wider the longer Ben runs down it. The ground eventually turns to grass, and the walls on either side are old, worn brick – and slightly damp, for whatever reason. Ben, out of nowhere, realizes how hard he’s breathing. Up ahead he sees shadows, he thinks, but he can’t be too sure. It’s too dark in here. He begins to slow down slightly, eventually coming to a stop when he hears voices. They aren’t in English…It sounds like…Latin. Ben tiptoes forward, hoping he hasn’t ye t been discovered.

“We need someone,” he hears someone say, in English. The woman has an American accent, and she speaks with authority. “A human, someone innocent, as you all know.” Ben moves closer to the wall to avoid being seen.

“I doubt we’ll find someone human around here, honestly.” Another voice speaks up, a woman with an Italian accent.

Ben’s mind swirls with confusion. He struggles to calm his erratic breathing. Yet another voice comes forth – this time a Nordic sounding male. “Why do we even have to do this?”

“Because,” the American woman responds – the leader, Ben presumes, if there even is one, “it will make us stronger. We hardly ever kill people, Felix, even though we’re supposed to. This will freshen us up, make us better.”

Ben can’t believe his ears. Kill people? “But I feel fine,” the man, Felix, protests.

“That’s too fucking bad, Felix,” the Italian woman snaps. “Bunny and I feel like shit, all the time.”

“Yeah,” the American, Bunny, adds, “It’s natural anyway. What do humans call it? Oh, natural selection. Survival of the fittest, and all that.”

“It doesn’t feel right,” Felix says, but he sounds defeated. Ben, however, feels nauseous. He leaves one absolutely fucking insane situation only to stumble into an even crazier one. Who do these people think they are – not human?

“Look at the little humanitarian,” Bunny taunts. “Marzia, go east and stake out residential neighborhoods. Try to find someone alone and young. And Felix, go –”

Ben accidentally slips against the damp wall and cuts his arm. He can’t see it, but he can feel blood bubbling past the surface, and he’s too goddamned scared to feel the pain.

He goes to stand up, only to be pushed back to the ground – hard. He cries out; he’d never felt a force so strong before, even when the man before had thrown his whole body on top of him. “Look at this,” the Italian, Marzia, says wondrously. “Looks like we won’t have to look very far.”

Bunny giggles and suddenly he’s hauled up onto his feet. He feels the blood drain from his face. His arm is still bleeding heavily, and it begins to drip onto the grass. “Do you smell that, Felix? He’s scared,” Marzia coos. “And he’s already bleeding. Let me take a look at that.” Childishly, Ben is reminded of his mean childhood nurse from primary school. He wants his mum.

“Felix,” Bunny croons. “I can feel you struggling. Stop restraining yourself – you know you’re hungry. And this one’s perfect.”

Ben tries to wiggle out of their grips, but it’s no use. He feels his perception of reality begin to shift, to block out what’s happening. This time, he reasons, there’s no hope. These…people have an iron grip, and his arm won’t stop bleeding. He feels dizzy.

“Okay,” Felix mumbles. He sounds miserable. Ben wonders what he’d sound like if he tried to speak. “Give him to me.” Ben feels himself shuffled forward into the strong grip of the male. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but he feels like he’s going to die. He doesn’t know what his last thoughts should be. What are you supposed to say, to get into heaven, or whatever the “good” version of afterlife may be?

Ben is shaking. He can’t think, even if he wants to. All he hears himself think is I love you Mum, I love you Dad, I love you Cameron, Sam, all of the band…

“Lie him on the altar,” Bunny orders, sounding manically pleased. A hand is placed behind his head as he’s pushed onto a flat portion of wood. “Tie his arms and legs down.”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Felix says. “He’s in shock; he won’t be moving.” Am I in shock, Ben wonders dumbly.

“Start the chant, and then we feast, brother,” Bunny exclaims. A fire is set, somewhere. Ben’s sense of reality is distorted; all he can see is Felix’s piercing blue eyes, set on him.

Felix starts a low mumble, “ O dea tenebris, mater immortalibus, puer tuus fac me sicut renascentur, mea lux vestra absorbere…” And it slowly grows in volume, “liceat mihi locus ad tenebras, sicut ex utero immortals, filios tuos in ulnis, quibus invocaverit te frater…”

And then Ben is unconscious.

--

All Ben knows is that his body feels like he got hit by a truck.

He cracks an eye open to see he’s outside, underneath a streetlight. And no one’s around. He sits up, groaning as his back cracks in protest. He looks around to see that he’s in some kind of park. There’s a playground nearby, a few benches, but no sign of those people from earlier.

Oh, fuck, Ben thinks. Am I dead?

He doesn’t know what dead feels like. All he can remember is being held down to some kind of…altar – and that boy’s eyes. When he closes his eyes, he can still see their cerulean color. He doesn’t know if he remembers out of fear or attraction – or maybe even both.

“Hey,” a voice suddenly pipes up. Ben shrieks. The voice laughs, a little manic-sounding.

He flops back against the grass beneath him. When does this night end? It’s still fucking dark out, and he has no idea where he is, what’s going on, if he’s even fucking alive.

“I guess you’re wondering what’s going on,” the voice laughs again. Suddenly there’s a body to the voice, and Ben gasps. It’s that boy, Felix. “Don’t worry about it. Just know that you’re alive and okay.”

Ben finds his ability to speak. “Don’t worry about it?” he rasps, incredulous. “Are you fuckin’ insane, mate? You tried to kill me, and I’m supposed to not worry about it?”

“Hey,” Felix retorts, indignant. “I saved you.”

Ben sits up again. “You did?”

Felix nods. “You passed out. I told them you died, and that you were no use to us.” He pauses for a moment, thinking. “Although, I’m sure they could smell the life in you. I think they just felt sorry for me.”

Ben feels dizzy. “Felt sorry for you?” he squawks. “And wait – smelled the life in me? What the fuck is going on?”

This has to be a dream, Ben thinks. Or another hallucination.

Felix sighs. “I’m not really supposed to tell you…In fact, if I did, I’d have to kill you.” He laughs. “But I can tell you that my friends and I aren’t like you – human, I mean.”

Ben can’t even comprehend how to be shocked anymore. “If you’re not human, then what are you?”

“I can’t tell you!” Felix exclaims. “Look, me even having this conversation with you is dangerous.”

Ben thinks for a moment. “But what if I give you what you wanted me for?”

Felix looks offended. “I didn’t want you for anything. My friends did.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Well, what did they want?”

“Your blood.”

It’s too blunt. Ben feels dizzy again. He glances down at his arm – the blood is crusty and the skin around the gash is swollen and red. Felix speaks up again, “I tried to bandage you up, but I couldn’t handle it.”

Ben smirks. “Why, are you squeamish or summat?”

Felix laughs, a hysterical bark that echoes in the abandoned park. “Did you not hear me? I said they wanted your blood.”

Ben gulps. “Yeah, but you didn’t.”

“Yes I do,” Felix retorts, not missing a beat. “Your smell, it’s divine. You smell fresh and young.” When he sees the look on Ben’s face, he laughs again, but sheepish this time. “I’m sorry – I’ll shut up now.”

Ben shakes his head slowly. “For whatever reason, you want my blood. But why did you save me?”

“Because I don’t like hurting people.” The intensity in Felix’s eyes made Ben look away.

“Why do you need blood?” Ben inquires. He can’t believe he’s having this conversation.

“Same reason as you – to survive. I just get it differently. I drink it,” Felix explains, and he winces. He must realize that he completely gave himself away, because the word that flashes through Ben’s brain like a burn is vampire. And Felix pleads, then, “Please don’t say it out loud.”

Ben isn’t used to people like Felix. He isn’t used to people exposing themselves to such vulnerability after not even ten minutes of knowing someone. Maybe the circumstances are just special, but Ben can tell that Felix is the kind of person to just walk around holding his bleeding heart in the palm of his hand. And maybe if the setting was different, Ben would find it…charming.

“Do you need it, right now?” Ben inquires. He can see the signs – Felix is like an addict, it seems. He looks ravenous, inhuman. There’s a strain lying just below his skin, and it shows in every move he makes.

Felix swallows. “It’s been a month since I’ve last fed.” Ben is swallowed in the vulnerability swimming in Felix’s crystal blue eyes.

Ben nods. “What if you fed from me, but didn’t kill me?”

Felix stands and moves back, as if the thought hurts him. Actually, it just might. “Why would you offer that?”

Ben blanches. “I don’t know. I just…want to help you. You helped me, anyway. Pay it forward, you know?”

Felix laughs. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” He shakes his head.

“I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I woke up today. It makes no difference now.” Ben stands up, too, stretching out his sore muscles and ambling closer to his new companion.

Felix stands under a tall, willowy tree that shrouded them from view of the rest of the park. Felix looks at Ben as if Ben is the freak and says, “What’s your name anyway?”

“Ben,” he says, and Felix repeats it in his Nordic accent.

“Ben,” Felix says. Ben sees a flash of white when Felix opens his mouth. And Felix’s eyes darken. He looks less and less human by the second. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Ben feels entranced, like he’s high or he’s still on a rush after a really good show. He nods, unable to make his voice work. Felix grabs him by the hips, pulling him so they’re pressed flush together. He pushes Ben’s straightened-two-days-ago hair away from his neck and breathes into his ear, “I’m not trying to be cliché; your neck really is the easiest way to do this.”

And then his fangs puncture Ben’s neck. It’s…intense, to say the least. Everything feels more real: Felix’s eyelashes brushing Ben’s jawline, the stubble on Felix’s face poking Ben in the shoulder, the pressure of Felix’s hands on Ben’s waist, which wrap around even tighter, and the almost unbearably pleasurable pain of Felix’s fangs puncturing Ben’s vein.

Ben moans – the kind of moan where you just can’t help it. He slumps so that Felix is almost completely supporting his weight, and Felix detaches himself from Ben’s neck. Ben feels infinitely closer to Felix, in the most inexplicable ways. He feels like his entire life was spent building up to this very moment – it’s like a climax of sorts. He wraps his arms around Felix’s neck and revels in the comforting words Felix murmurs into his ear. He hopes Felix feels the same way – maybe he can explain it.

Felix cuddles him close for a while, and Ben hopes it never ends. He knows nothing about Felix, yet he holds in his hand his deepest secret.

Ben leans back and gauges Felix’s expression. Felix looks back at Ben like he hung the moon in the sky. Ben rests his head back on the other boy’s chest, noting the absence of a heartbeat. “What was that?” Ben mumbles, sleepy.

“I don’t know,” Felix responds dreamily. “I’ve never felt that before.” They’re quiet for a while, too dopey to fill the comfortable silence. Felix says, then, “It’s a myth really – my kind having soul mates. But that…what happened then, it felt like how others describe it.”

Ben can’t help the smile that pulls at his cheeks. He’s still so drunk, Jesus Christ. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What now, then?”

Felix sighs. “The sun’s going to come up soon.” He nudges Ben’s head away from his chest, only to tip his chin upwards, leaning in to press his lips to Ben’s. It’s deep and loving, as if Felix is trying to convey the feelings he doesn’t know how to verbalize to Ben. And Ben feels it. The other boy runs his hands up and down Ben’s body, warming him up in the cold night.

Felix moans sweetly, deepening the kiss more. They part slowly, and Ben tries to push back all the questions lingering in the back of his mind. He just wants to live in the moment, even if it’s just a dream or a hallucination. “What happens when the sun comes up?” Ben asks naively.

The vampire smiles, endeared by Ben. “I have to go to bed.” Ben wonders if Felix bursts into flames dramatically in the sunlight, or maybe he sparkles. He snickers, and Felix strokes his cheek.

Ben isn’t used to this, loving someone without knowing them. “Lie down with me,” Felix says quietly. “Until I have to go.”

The other boy nods. They ease down together, cuddling up against one another under the tree. As soon as he settles into Felix’s warm embrace, he feels overwhelmingly exhausted. His eyes feel heavy, and Felix is so warm and smells so nice. He succumbs to sleep, nuzzling his face into the vampire’s neck.

--

Ben’s getting used to waking up confused and alone, unfortunately. He’s in a hotel room; he can tell by the starched sheets and whiny hum of the a/c unit. He squints his eyes at the ceiling, feeling cold without Felix to lie on.

He shoots up into a sitting position. Felix. What even happened last night? The door to his room of the suite is opened and James walks in. “When did you get in last night?” he asks, incredulous.

Ben shrugs. “It was a crazy night.” And it was. He doesn’t even know if last night even happened. He sighs; it probably didn’t. Nothing good like that ever happens to Ben, and if it does something always goes wrong. That’s how it always is.

“I can tell,” James smirks. “Look at your neck.” Ben stands and makes his way to the mirror. He remembers that he lost his pants last night, to that crazy fucking hobo. And the gash in his arm, it’s still there. But the most incriminating part of his night, the bite – it’s still there. It’s mottled and purple and doesn’t even look like a vampire bite – just a regular hickey. And for a moment, Ben thinks that maybe his imagination was just fucked up last night. Maybe the boy he met was just a regular boy with nice eyes and a nice mouth. But then he looks closer and he sees two puncture wounds.

He doesn’t know why, but they feel like a promise.