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AI Fic: A Rush of Blood to the Head 2/24
TITLE: A Rush of Blood to the Head
AUTHOR: Mari
RATING: R
PAIRING(S): Michael/David
DISCLAIMER: This is a wild-ass AU. Nothing that happens in it is true.
SUMMARY: There’s someone in Los Angeles who could change the dynamic of vampires versus humans forever. Naturally, both sides want him dead.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Due to subject matter, most of the details of David Archuleta’s family have been changed.

Part One



Part Two

David opened his eyes, stared up at his bedroom ceiling, and waited for the moment when adulthood would kick in. The crisscrossing of faint cracks through the plaster looked the same as it always did, and he felt the same as he always did; clearly, if a great epiphany that was going to thrust him forward and into the next phase of his life was going to take place, it was going to happen after breakfast. David pushed himself out of bed reluctantly so that he could dress, grumbling all the while about the ridiculousness of not allowing someone to skip school for this birthday of all birthdays. An ordinary one, sure, but this was one of the big ones.

You could check yourself out of school, David told himself as he dragged a brush through his hair. His reflection grinned at him. After all, you’re an adult now. They can’t stop you. Yeah, and his dad could show him as soon as he found out what David had done just how far that new adulthood stretched. The grin faded.

He had gotten at least one present out of his birthday already, and that was being left to sleep fifteen minutes later than he ordinarily did. David could hear the house moving about beneath him as he sat down on the edge of his bed to put on his shoes and grab for his school bag. He also smelled bacon cooking, and something wheaty that could have been either pancakes or waffles. As hurriedly as they were all trying to go in different directions in the morning, it was usually a glass of orange juice, or maybe a bowl of cereal if he was very lucky and absolutely had to sit still so that he could finish up some neglected homework. All right, maybe the day was off to a more auspicious start than he had been willing to give it credit for at first. He nearly bounded out of his room.

And straight into Alexandra, who was applying what had to be her fifteenth layer of Bonne Bell since she had risen from her bed that morning, and she tended to sleep late as much as David did. “Watch it, brain trust!” she exclaimed at him as she darted to the side to avoid smearing pink glitter across her chin. She had powder on her face, applied with the thickness and lack of expertise of someone who’s girlfriends were also all too young to have mastered the technique and then shared the wisdom, and David could smell the fruity scent of some kind of cheap body splash from where he stood. He thought that he vastly preferred his eighteenth birthday to his thirteenth one. He couldn’t remember that it had made him lose his mind in any kind of fundamental way, but the things that it was doing to Alexandra were making him wonder if his memory wasn’t flawed.

He shoved at his sister’s shoulder when she came close enough again and watched as she made a face and raised her open hand as if she meant to slap his arm. “Still got brains, at least,” he said before he pushed past her and down the stairs. David didn’t have to turn around to know that there was an impressively pink tongue being pointed at his back.

He had been right, and there was already both a stack of pancakes and a plate of bacon waiting for him when he entered the kitchen. “Awesome!” David exclaimed as he hurriedly poured himself a glass of orange juice and sat down. The pancakes were still so hot that the butter he put on them melted into a pale glisten within seconds.

“Happy birthday, mi hijo,” his mother said as she put the last of the cooking pans into the dishwasher and came to give him a kiss on the head. She smelled like Chanel No. 5, and there was a faint smudge of Bisquick along the sleeve of her nice suit.

David made a face and tried to squirm away. “Mom, come on--”

“I can’t show affection to my son?” she asked in mock outrage. “And on the very first day of his adult existence? He must have grown too old for it overnight.” But she grinned and ruffled at his hair, he thought mostly to see him duck again, before she went back to her coffee.

“Son.” David paused with his mouth full of bacon and more poised to go in and looked up when he noticed that his father had entered the kitchen. His father was dressed in a suit as well-tailored and expensive as his mother’s, but stray grains of flour would never dream of marring the lines. Everyone said that he looked like his dad, with his high cheekbones and deeper set eyes, but David didn’t see how that could possibly be true. His father had a directness of stare that let the watcher know immediately that he intended to get what he wanted and it would be best for them all if they bowed before that from the start, while it was all that David could do to keep making eye contact when he was in trouble.

“Hi, Dad.” David belatedly realized that his mouth was still full of bacon and that it could be taken as disrespectful. He swallowed. “Good morning.”

His father walked over to the coffee pot without saying a word, but he put his hand on the back of David’s neck in passing. David knew his father well enough to read the well wishes into the gesture; he had not been born to a man who believed in over the top displays of affection. “I assume that you’re going out tonight?” his father asked.

David shrugged, already feeling a little self-conscious. “Birthdays on a Friday don’t come every year,” he said. “Andrew and Paris said that they’re going to take me somewhere, but they won’t say where.” He saw both of his parents start to raise their eyebrows and added hurriedly, “I’m sure they just don’t want me to know how lame it is and back out, though.”

“Mmm-hmm.” His mother’s hum told him clearly that she wasn’t buying it; his father did not even need to do that much. The lift of his eyebrow made him hunch a little lower in his seat.

“I don’t want you drinking at this totally lame thing that you’re friends are taking you to,” he ordered David.

“Okay.”

“Or doing anything else that anyone offers you.”

“Got it.”

“That includes strange girls.”

“DAD!” David felt his entire face abruptly fill with blood, and he shoved his plate away from himself. Even his mother was staring at her husband with a slightly open mouth. He grinned at both of them, his version of a full belly laugh.

“I remember the things that I did on my eighteenth,” he told David. “Even if you never, ever admit to any of them, I have to warn you about the dangers beforehand.”

“Okay, okay.” David stared down at the kitchen table, his cheeks still burning. “Even though I’m really not going to do anything.” And the hell of it was that he wasn’t. He was still trying to figure out a polite way to tell Colton and Paris that upside-down beer bongs followed by throwing up in the backseat of Colton’s car was really not his idea of a satisfying evening.

“Don’t forget that your family party is tomorrow,” his mother reminded him before she took her husband’s elbow and steered him determinedly out of the kitchen. David could hear them as they went.

“I was a danger?”

“I didn’t meet you until I was twenty-two. And yes.” They sounded like they were kissing next.

And suddenly he didn’t want his breakfast any longer. David threw a longing glance over his plate before he grabbed a final fistful of bacon and shoved the rest of the meal into the fridge. Without knowing what his friends had planned, he might still have a few hours to himself at home that afternoon, and he always came home from school ravenous. David chewed at his bacon as he jogged out to the driveway and began the ritual of turning the key and praying that got his car started every morning. He drove with a heavier foot than he ordinarily did on his way to school, taking great pleasure in passing his sister’s bus and waving at her on the way, and for once was able to arrive several minutes before the warning bell was ringing.

“Birthday boy!” David had barely gotten his locker open before someone short and energetic plowed into his back and nearly knocked him off of his feet into it. She twined her arms around his neck and made ecstatic kissy noises into his ear before he was able to pull her off.

“Jesus, Paris,” he said as he untangled her. “You would think that it was your birthday.”

“She’s been like that all day,” Colton said mildly. He was standing slightly behind Paris, content to let her do the first charge. He was tall and thin, Scandinavian pale and with slightly watery blue eyes. Paris was short, black, and loved color where everything that Colton wore seemed to become slightly washed out as soon as it made contact with him. David had never been able to figure out how the two of them had remained such good friends for so long except to compare it to the movement of tides: when one ebbed, the other flowed, and somehow managed to make a whole out of the contrasts.

“I’m priming both of you for my birthday,” Paris corrected them both. “If I show both of you what you’re supposed to do early, then you don’t have any excuse.”

“I’m not going to jump on you and make kissing noises,” David said as he pulled his English book from his locker and then shut the door. “Sorry. Guys can’t get away with that without going to the principal’s office.”

“The patriarchy had to help a girl out sooner or later.” Paris fell in step between David and Colton as the first warning bell rang and students began scurrying off to their classrooms. David caught her giving Colton a sidelong glance and sighed.

“What are we doing today?” he asked.

“What do you want to do today?” Paris asked him. She busied herself by opening up her locker and pulling out her books. David wanted to tell her that she was doing an admirable job of pretending that she and Colton had not worked all of this out beforehand.

“There’s a blood drive during first period,” David said. “Since I don’t have to have a permission slip as of today, I thought I would go, you know, give.”

“And that’s why we have to take this out of your hands,” Colton said. “Your idea of getting all wild and crazy is civic responsibility.”

“No beer bongs,” David said firmly. He thought for a second. “And no other kinds of bongs, either. I promised.”

“Sometimes you are too cute for words,” Paris said. “Fine. Feel free to behave yourself. Here. It’s from me and Colton both.” She pulled a small rectangular square of plastic from her pocket and presented it to him with a flourish. David grinned as he took it from her.

“I’m really 21 today?” he asked, staring down at a truly professional fake ID.

“It would keep people from looking at you cross-eyed for all of that wild and crazy behavior that you won’t be doing,” Colton piped up.

“You want to know why it’s from the both of us?” Paris asked. She tapped at David’s picture. “Quality costs, son. That thing could fool a cop.”

“Sweet. Thanks, guys.” He reached out to hug Paris, and then nodded to Colton over her head. “Now I have to get wild and crazy with it, don’t I?”

“Here’s hoping. We’re going out to a club tonight. You do not have a choice.” Paris squeezed him back before squirming away and running down the hallway. “Hey, Carmen!” David heard her call. “Did you understand any of those biology diagrams at all?”

Colton was openly grinning at him, making David believe that there was a certain terror in his voice at the very prospect of dancing and drinking the night away. “Dress to impress, bro,” he told David before punching him lightly in the shoulder. “We are taking you to a dive.”

“I hate you both.”

“You love us. You know it.” Colton drifted off down the hall towards his own first class, leaving David alone and with no choice but to do the same. He wished all over again that his eighteenth had been enough of an event to let him skip.

He slid into his seat in English seconds before the bell rang and pulled his assigned reading from his bag. He shook it quickly to make sure that there were no spare grains of granola or sand stuck between the pages before he opened it up to where the class had last left off; his book bag was not the cleanest place in the world to reside. He saw a female figure slide into her seat from the corner of his eye. She was keeping her eyes on the teacher, who was still writing on the whiteboard with her back to the rest of the class, to make sure that her late entry had not been noticed. It was probably good that she wasn’t watching him; David was sure that she would have seen the way that his heart constricted in his chest at the sight of her if she had.

“Hey, Carmen,” he whispered to her after she had gotten her things settled.

Carmen twisted around, gave him a sunny smile. David loved the way that she did that, the way that she could smile at someone as if greeting them was genuinely making her day. He only wished that she had some variation of that smile that was just for him, rather than just being one of the dozens of people who entered the sphere of her general good nature. She had long dark hair and beautiful green eyes, and David desperately wished, just once, that she would look at him for more than three seconds at a time.

“Hi, David,” she said. “I heard Paris talking in the hallway. It’s your birthday?”

“Yeah.” David ducked his head and suddenly felt shy. “Big eighteen.”

“Doesn’t get any bigger than that until you hit twenty-one,” Carmen said as she pulled out her own book. The teacher turned around to give Carmen and David both arch looks; Carmen lowered her voice further. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.” David ducked his head further. He hefted his book in his hand. “So, uh, you liking it so far?”

“I guess.” Carmen shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “It’s just, you know, not that suspenseful? It’s like Romeo and Juliet. We’ve all seen the movie by now. And...” Carmen lowered her voice and got a mischievous twinkle in her eye, as if she knew that she was about to say something naughty. David’s heart leapt again and made him look down at his book. “If Mrs. Chapman is right, and all of the sucking that Dracula was doing really meant that he was having sex? Stoker was twisted.”

“They didn’t have Dr. Phil in the nineteenth century,” David offered. “He had to do something.”

Carmen giggled, putting her hand quickly over her mouth to muffle the sound. Her smile became just for him. David decided then and there that he didn’t care what happened tonight, this birthday was already one in the win column.

“Class,” Mrs. Chapman said as she finished writing down her notes for the class period. David had a feeling that she was really addressing Carmen and himself, and he flicked through his pages again. “Business first. All of you who are participating in the blood drive today, you may proceed to the cafeteria.” As students began to pop out of their seats immediately, she raised her voice. “If you have your permission slips with you. They will be checking for them at the door, and monitors will be patrolling the halls for stragglers.” Mrs. Chapman smiled for the first time since the hour had begun. “You’re all seniors, you’re old enough to be treated like adults, and you’re doing a good thing here. I trust that you’ll live up to it.” The shuffling of people leaving the room began again, David included.

“You have your permission slip, David?” Mrs. Chapman asked him as he passed.

He couldn’t help but grin at her. “Don’t need one,” he said. “I’m eighteen today.”

“I remember my eighteenth,” Mrs. Chapman said. “Dimly. Don’t ever get old, Mr. Archuleta.” She waved him on his way before turning back to the rest of the class.

The cafeteria smelled like antiseptic instead of tater tots as David entered with the dozens of other students who were participating. Most of the tables had been moved to the side so that cots could be set up instead, and the lunch ladies had been replaced by women and men in scrubs and carrying....some truly impressive needles, was what they were carrying. David stared at them and began to feel faintly sick.

“Jesus, I thought that the monster they used when I got my navel pierced was big.” David would recognize Carmen’s voice anywhere, but he still jumped. She gave him a curious look.

“I didn’t see you leave the classroom,” David explained, mentally calling himself an idiot. Girls wanted to date men, not flighty freaks.

“Oh.” Carmen lifted one of her shoulders into a shrug and swished her hair back. “I couldn’t find my permission slip at first. Turned out I had stuck it in my makeup bag.” Carmen shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I swear to God, the fact that I get out of the house in the morning without using my mascara as lip liner is an eternal miracle.” She squeezed at his arm in parting as one of the nurses waved her over to an empty cot. “Don’t look at them. That’s how I got through the piercing.”

“Will do.”

Another nurse got David’s attention. He took a seat on the very edge of the cot. “You all right?”

“Nervous,” David confessed. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He squeezed at David’s shoulder. “It all depends on what kind of nurse you get, and I have no problem telling you that I have finesse. You’ll feel a slight prick as the needle goes in, but that will be the worst of it. Some people have reported a pinching sensation as the donation goes on. Just because you feel it doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to stop, but let me know if it gets bad, all right?”

“Okay.” David took Carmen’s advice and resolutely did not look at the arms of any of the people who were already mid-donation.

“Good. And now for unpleasant part.” The nurse handed David a clipboard and a pen. “As complete a history as you can give me.” David spent the next fifteen minutes filling out everything that he knew about himself, ranging from the mundane to whether or not he had received any tattoos or been overseas in the past three years-no-to whether or not he had been treated for any STDs recently-NO. David almost felt like underlining that last part, and he was sure that his face was red as he gave the clipboard back. The anemia test was so quick that David didn’t even know what it was until the nurse explained it to him, and then he was lying back on the cot. The nurse swabbed quickly at the crook of his elbow with alcohol and then said, “Okay, here we go.”

David turned his face away quickly so that he did not have to see the needle go in. The nurse was right, the pain was so slight that it could have been an insect bite. David waited a few seconds and then looked back. It was startling, to see his own blood running out of his arm through the clear plastic tubing. It was so clean and well-contained that it was difficult to believe at first that it was even blood, if it was not for the tingling and somehow primal sense of wrong that was also overtaking him at the sight of so much of himself running away.

“Creepy,” David breathed as he watched. In spite of Carmen’s advice, he now found that he could not turn his eyes away.

The nurse glanced up from adjusting the bag that was collecting David’s blood. “A little,” he admitted. “I work in the ER, though. Seeing blood going where it’s supposed to go in a controlled environment is so much better than watching it run all over the floor.” David shifted on the cot. “Sorry, am I making you queasy? I tend to run on sometimes.”

“No.” David shook his head. “It just...kind of helps me realize what I’m doing here.”

“And we’re done. Hang on.” The nurse put his thumb down over the needle so that he could slide it from David’s flesh, leading to that pinching sensation that he had warned David about. He kept pressure on the tiny wound for a few moments more, only moving his gloved thumb so that he could put a cotton ball in its place and then gesture for David to hold it down with his own thumb. David kept up the pressure himself while the nurse dealt with his donated blood and then taped a bandage down over the needle mark.

“That’s that.” The nurse said, straightening. “There’s juice and cookies over there.” He pointed. “It sounds like a cliche, but I definitely encourage you to eat up. Your blood sugar is going to be a little low for a few hours. Like I said, I’ve got skills, so I don’t think that you’ll bruise up, but don’t worry about it if you do--it’s very common.” He noticed David leaning over slightly so that he could examine the discarded tubing with interest and said, “Just think, that could be saving someone’s life tonight.”

“Cool,” David breathed. He hopped down from the cot so that the next person could take his place and went over to where the food was kept. The nurse had been right, the world was swaying from side to side just slightly when he wasn’t careful, and David was acutely aware that he hadn’t had a chance to eat all of his food that morning. He grabbed a fistful of Oreos and had to fight the urge to drink the juice straight from the carton. Colton waved at him, his cheeks already bulging out with his own food, and David went to sit with him. Carmen staggered by looking slightly green a few seconds later.

Colton watched David watching her and said, “You know, we could ask her to come with us tonight, if you wanted. This is your thing.”

David considered for only a few seconds before he shook his head. “Nah. You guys are the ones who set it up, and you’re my buds.” He knew that he had made the right choice when Colton broke into a huge, delighted smile.

The smell of antiseptic was stronger in the cafeteria than ever, and underneath it, even though David knew that it was impossible, he swore that he could smell the tang of the blood itself. He set his cookies quickly to the side as a sense of nausea overtook him; his fingers, independently of his control, reached up to touch at the short, curved line of scar tissue that was hidden just beneath his hair at the base of his skull. He had been fine throughout the entirety of the donation itself, but now his head was starting to ache.

“Are you okay, man?” Colton asked. He had stopped chewing and was now looking at him with concern.

“Yeah,” David gasped, even though he really wasn’t. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just need some air.” He rose to his feet and pushed quickly through the cafeteria until he made it through to the cooler air outside. David took in deep gulps there until his head stopped spinning, though he could still smell that unmistakeable copper tang long after it should have faded.

End Part Two

Continue to Part Three