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AI Fic: A Rush of Blood to the Head 17/24
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
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Part Thirteen
Part Fourteen
Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen



Part Seventeen

David wanted a stiff drink, as many painkillers as he could take without destroying his stomach lining, and sleep. Barring all of that, he would settle for running on barely-controllable rage. David trailed along beside the brunette who had introduced herself as Kelly as she made an inspection of the place that they called home. Behind them, her team as well as the girls were making no attempt to hide the fact that they were sizing each other up. Syesha looked as if she did not know whether to be enthused or repulsed by the newcomers; Carly was openly wary. She shared a significant look with David as soon as she noticed that he was watching her, raising one of her eyebrows. David answered with the largest shrug that he dared. He knew exactly what Carly was concerned with, without needing to be close so that she could whisper it into his ear. There was just something about the new group that was unsettling, something which suggested that their approaches to being the good guys was going to be several shades darker than even the methods that David and the girls employed, the methods which freaked them out far more often than they did not. David already knew that Kelly’s group would not have decided to let Michael finish turning before they dealt with him, much less had an extended debate about it first.

Maybe they have something going for them, David told himself in a bitter internal voice. Michael was gone, after all, well on his merry way towards becoming a mass-murderer, and the kid that they had been supposed to protect gone with him. He could now count on becoming a mass-murderer, too, if the vampires didn’t simply kill him first in order to protect whatever it was that he was such a threat towards.

David noticed a second later that Kelly was looking at him with open amusement, not even bothering to conceal the fact that she had stopped talking as he had drifted along inside his own interior world. “Sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Kelly said, waving her hand, although David got the feeling that she was not a woman who allowed people’s attentions to drift away from her often. She continued the tour that David could not quite remember having volunteered in the first place, hooking her hands into the pockets of her jeans and still managing to look dangerous even though it slowed down how fast she would have been able to draw her gun. “I’m impressed.”

“What about?” David asked.

Kelly glanced over at him, shrugged. “Three people’s not a team,” she told him. “It’s a bunch of amateurs indulging a hobby.”

Stung, David snapped back, “One, there used to be more of us.” Kelly’s face tightened for a second, and David remembered how she had professed to knowing Justin. Justin had never mentioned her, not even once, and she seemed like the kind of woman that would be hard to put out of one’s mind. “It’s been a hard year. And two, I dare you to go out to either of those ladies over there and suggest to them that fighting vampires is on the same level as scrapbooking. You might want to make sure that you have a good dentist lined up first.” David flashed the kind of smile that was really just a glittering of teeth. “Say it to me again, even.”

Kelly did not appear insulted by the threat. In fact, she tilted her head to one side as if something was making sense to her for the first time. “My apologies,” she said. “I didn’t intend to insult you.”

Bullshit, David thought, but his response had still seemed to gratify her, so he waited for her to continue.

Kelly tapped at the side of a weapons trunk with her boot as she passed it. “Small groups don’t tend to last long,” she told David. “It’s like going out onto a battlefield with only one spare clip of ammunition: inevitably you’re going to run out.” Comparing people to disposable weapons would have been immeasurably disturbing if Kelly had not glanced over her shoulder at her own weapons as she said, her face for a few seconds becoming reflective and sad before she turned back to David. “Twelve vampires against three humans out to have been a bloodbath, but you and yours were holding your own when my people got there. You wouldn’t have won, but you still would have made them hurt.”

“Thank you,” David said. Without time to play the fight over again in his head, he had no idea if Kelly really was right in her assertion that victory was hopeless, but it doubtless would have been a hard struggle, and the chances that they all would have gotten out without serious injury were infinitesimal. Kelly lifted her shoulders into another shrug without speaking. David studied her for a few seconds more before the question would not stay inside of him any longer. “Justin never mentioned you. Never mentioned that there was another group at work at all.”

“Justin was not the founder of your group any more than I’m the founder of mine,” Kelly said softly. “We were just the ones who had survived the longest. There are cells all over the country--all over the world--fighting vampires, but we’re not supposed to know about each other.” Her mouth twisted. “It’s supposed to make the individuals fight harder, when they think that they’re the only thing standing between the civilians and the leeches.”

David was aghast. “That’s horrible!” he exclaimed. “Knowing that there were other people out there going through the same things that we were would have given us...” He trailed off.

“Would have given you hope?” Kelly finished for him. The crook of her mouth was bitter. “I agree. I’m trying to contact as many of the cells as possible, get a confederacy going. The old ways are a load of horseshit designed by control freaks, and they need to be abolished.”

“Who even came up with that idea?” The very concept of it, taking people and using them as nothing more than faceless means to an obscure and far-off end, was leaving David aghast.

“An old man who is not nearly as important as he thinks that he is.” The way that Kelly clipped off each word made David wonder if this same old man might not find her standing at his doorstep one day. She tried to smile. “Justin wasn’t supposed to tell you about me, those were the rules. I just...thought that he might, anyway. He didn’t like following rules any more than I do.”

David tried to imagine this, or even Kelly for that matter running around proclaiming anarchy when she seemed able to control her people with nothing more than a meaningful flick of her eyebrow, and found that he could not. “More on heaven and earth,” he muttered.

“Horatio had it easy,” Kelly agreed. She rubbed at the back of her neck. “One thing that I’ve seen has concerned me, however.”

“And what’s that?”

“Your team fights well,” Kelly told him. A flat note had entered her voice. “This place is well-protected me, which makes me wonder how vampires managed to get in in the first place.”

“That situation is still a work in progress.” Until any of them finally managed to dehumanize themselves enough to strike the killing blow.

Kelly flicked him a sideways look saying that she knew full well that he was keeping part of that story to himself, but apparently decided to let it pass. “Nevertheless. This place is well-maintained. The UV lights in particular are clever. But I noticed that none of you introduced yourselves as the leader.”

“That’s not how we do things,” David said shortly. “Everyone gets a vote, everyone has a say in what our next move is.”

Kelly paused in her step and stared at David for a long moment as if she was not quite sure that he was actually serious. “That’s a fine ideal if you’re building a new society,” she said. “But this is a war. Someone has to take charge.”

“It’s working for us, this way. We don’t want anything else.”

Kelly snorted and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “How well does it work on a battlefield?” she asked him. “Do you stop and make a show of hands before every tactical decision, too?”

Kelly was not the only one who had a dangerous smile. “It works better than you’d think,” David said. “Since we were still managing to make twelve vampires hurt, after all.”

Kelly looked surprised for a moment, and then could not help but curving her lips. “Touche,” she answered softly.

How interesting, they were now on their way towards liking each other. David considered the prospect of maybe being part of a confederation of teams all working towards the same thing once this was over. It would mean that some of the incredible pressure would be off. It might even mean being able to take a breath once in a while. David could already feel his mood lifting at the very prospect until he felt something, a tingling of being watched, start at the back of his neck. He didn’t question, just drew his weapon and whirled. Beside him, Kelly didn’t bother to question it, either, before she was doing the same.

And maybe that was the best thing possible, because David could remember having taken one gun into the room with him when he had last been this close to Michael, and yet it had not stopped him from doing something so monumentally stupid that it beggared belief in the first place.

Michael had not been holding up his hands in a universal gesture for peace then, but he had also looked so much more human. Even the faint pretense that he had been maintaining then was well on its way towards being gone. He was so pale that he looked as if he belonged on a slab in a morgue, his eyes had a strange flicker to them that made David think that maybe they would take the light and throw it back in a reflective flash like a cat’s, and there was a sucking puncture wound in his shoulder, bleeding blood so dark that it was only a few shades away from black. That fact alone, and Michael’s continuing to stand there when he ought to have been flat on his back being rushed into surgery, should have had David shooting him where he stood.

And yet. And yet.

“Don’t put him down yet,” David told Kelly quickly.

The finger that she had been pulling back on the trigger stilled, and she gave him a look suggesting that he check himself into the nearest mental hospital before he became too far gone to save. “What?” she hissed at him.

“Just wait,” David told her, at the same time that Michael said, “David.” There was a rasping quality to his voice, but as he had never known becoming a vampire to change the way that a person spoke, David was willing to put that down to pain and fatigue; growing vampiric endurance or not, Michael still looked as if he was ready to drop off of his feet.

“What are you doing here, Johns?” David demanded. In spite of Michael’s raised hands, David did not come anywhere close to lowering his weapon.

Michael lowered his hands back down to his sides, ignoring the jerk of David’s gun which suggested that keeping him up might have been the wiser option. It was seconds later that David realized how much keeping them up must have been hurting his shoulder. “Jason has the boy,” Michael said.

“I’m well aware of that,” David gritted. “Considering how you went with them and all.”

Michael’s face became cold and still. “The people who only maybe wanted to kill me versus the people who definitely want to kill me,” he said. “Give me someone who would have had to ponder that one.”

“David, he’s more than halfway turned,” Kelly hissed at him. She was pitching her voice low.

Michael still heard her. “So this is only halfway?” he asked softly. “Something to look forward to.” He shook his head and didn’t seem to realize how close the abrupt gesture came to killing him. “I thought that maybe they weren’t as bad as you were saying. Clearly, I was wrong.” Another shake of the head. If he did not stop doing that, David was going to have a nervous breakdown right then and there and leave Michael to Kelly’s mercies. “I got the boy away from them for a little while,” he said. “If that’s worth anything. Long enough to see that he’s been bitten.”

Very aware of Kelly’s accusatory gaze against the side of his face, David said, “I saw that, too. Is Jason planning on letting him turn, or just killing him?”

“Killing him, probably.” Michael pronounced this with a certainty that was chilling, only slightly alleviated by the way that he shuddered immediately afterwards. “That kid is more of a threat to vampires than anything since sunlight.”

“What are you talking about, leech?” Kelly demanded.

Michael glanced at her, but spoke to David instead. “Did you see him just before Jason’s group took him? As upset as that kid was, there was enough blood in his face to give him a hemorrhage. He had to have been bitten at his house, but that was almost a full day ago, right? I haven’t been able to blush since just a few hours after I was bitten.”

David considered the full implications of what Michael had said and nearly had to sit down. Michael was blinking rapidly and turning his eyes down towards the floor to avoid the UV lights, his skin already starting to grow faintly pink as if with a sunburn, but Archuleta had been running around beneath them all day without even complaining that his skin itched. And David had grabbed the boy’s wrist when the fighting had first started: it had been warm, not cool like a vampire’s and not raging with the fever that marked someone merely on their way.

“He’s immune,” David whispered. “Somehow, he’s immune to the virus.” He spun towards Kelly. “Have you heard of that before?” he demanded. “Someone who could not be turned?”

She shook her head, her eyes wide. That plus news that Justin was dead were the only times that David had ever seen her rattled. “Never.” She sucked her lower lip into her teeth as she thought. “He can’t just be immune, there’s got to be something in his blood that outright kills the virus, or else they wouldn’t be so afraid of him.” Kelly cut Michael a sharp look. David could see the question in her eyes, but he beat her to it.

“Why did you come back to tell us this?”

Michael for a few seconds gave David a look suggesting that David should already know the answer to that question, and David thought that maybe he even did. “I’m already dead, right?” Michael asked. “Just a corpse that doesn’t have the sense to lie down yet. At least I can stop the kid from being killed, too.”

David held his breath for a few seconds as his mind whirled over all of the possibilities, the ways in which this could be a lie. And then he noticed that Michael was all but swaying on his feet, that he needed blood, and badly, and that if this was some convoluted plan of Jason’s after he already had Archuleta in his grasp, then Jason was on something much stronger than what David had many times over suspected.

But that did not mean for one second that David was going to put down his gun.

He stepped back so that Michael could go ahead of him and gestured sharply with the gun, ignored Kelly’s incredulous stare. “That way.” There was a faintly mocking light to Michael’s eyes as he obeyed, making David think that Michael might have been made for humor before all of this had happened to him.

“You have lost your entire mind, haven’t you?” Kelly asked David as he walked past. David thought that he saw Michael’s head turn very slightly to hear the answer.

“Years ago.” David followed Michael to where the others were waiting and scarcely waited for their gasps before he called out, “Someone kill the UVs.” Kelly’s entire group went rigid as if they were one mind sharing multiple bodies, while Carly and Syesha were a little more vocal.

“Michael,” Carly asked in a faux-sweet tone. “What?”

“We don’t hurt humans, right?” David asked. For all that he and Carly were the ones speaking to each other, it was Michael that he could not look away from, and Michael who seemed to be having the same difficulty. The wild desperation that David had managed to halfway soothe, even temporarily, with the crazy idea to kiss Michael, was gone. David did not even realize how much he missed it until he saw the eerie fatalism that had been left behind. “He’s still human.”

“For a few hours, anyway,” Michael said. Someone--David thought Syesha--killed the UVs and left only the standard issue fluorescents flickering in their place. Michael immediately bowed his shoulders and let out a sigh of deep relief.

“More like six,” the blonde that Kelly had introduced as Carrie said. She had yet to unfold her arms from across her chest during the entire short time that David had known her. She also flicked a glance Kelly’s way as if she were asking for permission to strike, and was even beginning to strongly consider the merits of simply doing it, anyway. “If you’re very good.”

“How you propose to do this?” David asked Michael. He was unsure of why he was even asking. Maybe he was looking for Michael to slip up and reveal his true nature, maybe he was hoping that he never would.

“Jason got Archuleta back by following my scent,” Michael said simply. “It stands to reason that, after I turn enough, I should be able to do the same to him.”

“After you turn that far, you’re not going to be anything more than a monster,” David told him. He was aware that there were others in the room with him, including two that he ought to have been conferring with before they made any kind of major decision, but it was hard to remember such details. He only wanted to stare at Michael.

“I’ll hold on as long as I can,” Michael said. Like David himself, he seemed to have forgotten that there was anyone else in the building with them at all. “And then you’ll get your chance to finally stop me, won’t you?”

“This is stupid--” Kelly started, but David was not in the mood to listen. He grabbed Michael by the arm and propelled him out of the room just as quickly as he had ordered him into it, noting a complete lack of resistance on Michael’s part even though he had to be incredibly strong by now.

Michael did not speak until they were safe in the shadows of an unused room--which room David didn’t realize until it was almost too late. He let out a breath when he realized that they had returned to the same room in which Michael had been imprisoned for most of the day, and saw Michael’s shoulders stiffen as he also made that connection. “I’m starting to think that you have a fetish for this place,” he said.

“Returning to the scene of the crime,” David replied. By an extreme act of will, he managed to stop staring at Michael’s mouth and start calling himself an idiot even harder. “You realize that you committed suicide by coming back here, don’t you?”

Michael shoved his hands into the pockets of the sweatpants that he still wore and managed to crook up the sides of his mouth. It looked so unnatural that David caught himself wishing that Michael had not even bothered at all. “I’m not a hero, David,” he said. “I think that I’m a decent person and all, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to see me rushing into a burning building. I played a part in getting the kid taken, so give me this one chance to make up for it.”

You really didn’t, David thought, thinking back to the way that Archuleta had been taken. Michael’s presence had been almost incidental, really, but he would never believe that. No one who actually was a decent person ever could. David cleared his throat. “You make one move out of line, you look like you’re double-crossing us for one single second, and I will drop you so fast that you won’t even feel the bullet entering your head.” There was a reason that they had only taken humans so far gone into vampirism that only their basic shape remained before.

Michael lifted his chin as he considered this. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” His eyes dark and grim, he said, “I wish that we had met differently.”

David didn’t answer, knowing that it was pointless. There were thousands of different ways that any of them could have met, not just Michael and himself, and it meant all of nothing when laid against the people that they were in now.

Michael read David’s silence as he would a novel and said, “I suppose that another kiss is out of the question. It helped, last time.”

David hesitated so that he could weigh how much he wanted it against how far gone Michael’s own self-control likely was at this moment, the chances that he would slip and give David a lovebite that David would not be able to come back from. “I don’t think that that’s a good idea,” he said finally.

Whatever response that Michael might have given was bitten back as he grunted slightly and turned his head to the side, pressing his hand hard against the deep wound that had been driven into his shoulder. It was still leaking blood, albeit sluggishly. David could only imagine what it must feel like, the wound and more.

“You need to feed, don’t you?” he asked.

Michael rubbed his hand across his face. His words when he spoke came out muffled. “I don’t know what this feeling is. It’s like I’m thirsty and hungry at the same time. It’s like I’m hollow inside.”

David knew now why they didn’t talk to bite victims while they were in the middle of turning, all over again. They became people, and it was then so much harder to deal with them after the people inside of the shells went away. David swallowed hard and told himself one more time that he was being a goddamned fool as he leaned down and scooped up the bowl that had been knocked over when he had last entered this room hours before. All of the water had long since evaporated; David had not bothered to take off any of his knives that he had strapped onto his body at the start of the fight.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked as he noticed that David had moved. David saw the edges of fangs starting to protrude beyond Michael’s lower lip and ordered himself not to think of it too deeply.

“I’m not about to let you bite me, champ, so knock that thought out of your head right now,” David warned him. “But you’re not going to be any help to us if you lose control.” It was a tactical decision, David told himself, and that alone. There would be no further allowing himself to get attached to the man that Michael was after it was becoming more apparent that that man would be around for a limited duration only.

“Lose control,” Michael murmured as he watched David ready the knife. The only time when he looked away from the blade was so that he could study David’s mouth in such a way as to let David know exactly what Michael was thinking. “No, that would be bad, wouldn’t it?”

David turned his gaze away from Michael’s face and drew a shallow cut across his own wrist instead, taking great care to stay fell away from the vein or to go so deeply that he could not stop the bleed with his own palm pressed over the wound. It stung and made him grit his teeth, but a steady stream of red began to run out immediately. David pressed the lip of the bowl just beneath the wound and watched as warm red liquid ran out of him, determinedly not looking at Michael’s face. That strategy only got him so far, for within seconds he heard Michael’s breathing change and had no other choice but to look up quickly, thinking that maybe Michael was on the verge of lunging.

“Are you all right?”

Michael’s eyes were all pupil as he stepped back quickly and licked at his lips. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’m all right.” A short laugh. “No, not even a little bit, but I know what you’re worried about. I can stay in control.”

David looked at Michael’s pale face and thought that Michael was maybe being more optimistic than the situation warranted. If there were any other way to do, he swore to himself, he would be the very first one to suggest it. David had an idea that seeing how far Michael could really push himself before the bloodlust took over was even crueler than simply killing him now, but if it would save Archuleta,..and if Archuleta really was as dangerous to the vampires as they seemed to think that he was...

“Here,” David said when there was enough blood in the bowl to make him feel just slightly woozy. He thrust it out towards Michael with his wounded arm and put his palm over the cut so that he could not lose anything else.

Michael stared at the bowl like he had never seen anything so simultaneously horrifying and appetizing in his life. He took a step back and then one forward, a bizarre little dance, before he reached out and took the bowl from David. David noticed that Michael’s hands were trembling.

“You have no idea,” Michael started, and had to pause so that he could swallow hand. “You have no idea how this smells.” He muttered something beneath his breath that David strongly suspected was either an obscenity or a prayer before tilting the bowl up to his mouth. “It’s warm,” Michael blurted out after, sounding startled, after his first gulp. David hesitated, unsure of how to respond to that. Michael was not waiting for an answer in any case, it seemed, for he raised the bowl up to his mouth again immediately afterwards. The slurp sounds which he made were disturbing by far, and though the bowl was small enough that Michael could have looked at David over the rim as he drank, he kept his eyes tightly shut the whole while. David asked himself it he really would have wanted a witness to the darkest thing that he had ever done and thought that, no, he would not have, at the same time that there was no way on this earth he was going to leave the borderline vampire running about the compound unsupervised. Not even after the line that the two of them had already crossed. Especially not after the line that the two of them had already crossed.

Michael finished the blood within moments and threw the bowl away from himself. It was plastic, it did not shatter, and Michael threw it an ugly look afterwards as if it had personally disappointed him in that regard. He leaned over with his hands braced against his knees, breathing hard. David could already see color rising into Michael’s cheeks; he swore that the edges of the wound in Michael’s shoulder were pulling together.

David could not help himself. “How was it?” he asked.

Michael glanced up. “Wish I could say that it was bad,” he said before he straightened and dragged his hand across his mouth. The corners of his mouth twitched, and the smile was wrong for so many other reasons than the edges of fangs that David could see protruding over Michael’s lower lip. He wanted to see Michael smile for real; he knew that this more than anything else ought to have signaled to him that he was getting in over his head.

“I don’t know why I kissed you,” David said. He would not apologize for it again--he was not sorry--but he still thought that he needed to explain himself.

Another weak attempt at a smile. David wished now that Michael would stop doing that, as it paid such disrespect to the real thing that David already knew would have been blinding. “I’m married and I’m turning into something terrible,” he said. “I’m amazed that you managed to resist my clear charms even that far.”

David checked his arm and noticed that the bleeding had mostly stopped. He made a soft snorting sound and then, because this was territory that he was not sure that he wanted to be in, asked, “Is that going to help you stay on top of it, or only make it worse?”

Michael glanced at the bowl thrown into the corner. He looked as if he would not mind giving it a good, hard kick. “I’ll let you know.”

“Whenever you do slip, I’m going to be the one to put you down,” David told him. He didn’t intend it as a threat, and he hoped that Michael could hear that. It was the closest thing to a gesture of respect that he thought he could give.

Michael glanced up. His eyes were unreadable. “That’s only if I don’t manage it first,” he said.

End Part Seventeen

Continue to Part Eighteen