Author's notes: Had a nightmare FF took down all of my stories. Not because of the naughty...but because I had too many villains. Even saw the angry (and poorly spelled) message someone had sent to the admins to get them taken down, too. Woke up, and for all of ten seconds I thought 'well, at least they're still on up AO3. What a stupid reason to trash my account...'. Maybe I need a break XD

Grandpa Emerson leaned towards the bedside table, time-worn dining chair beneath him creaking and wailing in protest as he snatched up one of the last few remaining Oreos on a crumb-laden plate. He hadn't been planning on eating so many of them during his watch, but...he also hadn't expected the boy to sleep so long. It had been three days since Michael showed up with Sam in his arms, though he hadn't been nearly as nice to Edgar and Alan Frog. Lucy might not have wanted her youngest to have anything to do with those two trouble-makers anymore, but it still didn't mean she'd wanted to be woken up in the middle of the night to find them tied up and flailing upside-down in a trash can outside the front-porch. She'd been more concerned with Sam at the time, though, so the angry lecture for Michael had been forced to wait until they'd bundled the boy up and rushed him to the local clinic. Grandpa had stuck around to see the Frog brothers home, and they were more than happy to be distanced from the rest of the Lost Boys (and Star) jeering at them from the front lawn.

Antibiotics. Bed rest. A lock on his bedroom window. That was all the doctor thought he needed when Michael wove her his wild tale about Sam trying to sneak out of the house at night to get himself involved with the wrong crowd, only to catch a nasty chest cold soon after before he finally came home after seeing the error of his ways. They'd all agreed it was probably best to keep things as vague as possible.

And Sam had regained consciousness when he first got home, so they were out of the woods (for the most part) now. He was still vomiting up odd-smelling bile into the toilet every few hours, but the occurrences were getting less frequent...and so far, he hadn't had any desires to dig through the front garden for juicy worms. He turned a little green, honestly, every time Nanook came into the room and started growling at a stuffed squirrel grandpa placed on his windowsill to keep him company.

"Grandpa," Sam opened his eyes blearily, yawning as he ran his hands over his face and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"How ya feeling, kiddo?" The old man rasped, holding out a half-eaten Oreo for him. Sam politely declined, glancing towards the door where Nanook waited, whining.

"Hey, Nanook, c'mere..." Sam called out, and the husky trotted towards his bed happily. The fish scent had finally dissipated enough for him to recognize his master again.

"I'm fine, grandpa," Sam shrugged. Physically, he was feeling way better. Could probably even go to school tomorrow, if he survived the embarrassment of all the odd looks he knew his classmates would give him. He didn't doubt Ed and Alan told as many people as they could about the ant incident in the office, probably even mentioning it in their increasingly detailed fliers for vampire hunting they'd hand out after school every Friday.

He could at least take solace that they wouldn't be hunting anymore. Not after what they'd all been through this week. Especially since Michael called them up on the phone the night before to 'check on them'. Sam wasn't too sure what he'd said, because nature had demanded his presence the minute Mike put his ear to the receiver. It must have been pretty bad, though, judging by how intense mom's lecture had been by the time he hobbled back into the kitchen.

"You're lookin' a lot better," the old man remarked, standing up from his chair. "Smelling a lot better too. Shame your brother ain't gonna have much luck there." He paused. "...He hasn't mentioned my car to you recently, has he? I'd kinda like to have her back, now that he got stuck on that all-liquid diet of his."

David leaned against his bike, tossing his head back to look up at the stars. Michael had about fifteen minutes to go before his little family pow-wow time was up. Then they'd have to go hunting. Should've done it beforehand, honestly, but David had been dialing back his ego the last few days. Maybe it was what Dwayne said. Okay, not entirely.

Something else was bothering him. It had started when they brought the little dork back to the house, and he set eyes on Lucy for the first time since...well, since before Michael and Star banged each other. Seeing that tiny woman weeping over her youngest as they bundled him into the car...didn't really bother him too much. He didn't really feel anything when he saw a crying woman, other than mild annoyance at the grating noise. But she did make him think of Max. And thinking of Max was like setting a mental mirror in front of himself. It irritated him to admit he'd kinda been acting like the former master of their bloodline, in some ways. A little crazy. A little obsessed. Okay, a lot obsessed. But, what's more, keeping his mate in the dark about everything just to have an extra bit of power over him, as if he honestly needed any. He was already much stronger than Michael, whether the boy knew about their telepathy or not.

David had absolutely no idea how he was going to actually bring that up, now, though. But he was pretty sure if he kept it to himself much longer, they were going to get to a point Michael actually might figure it out on his own. And there was no way in hell he couldn't see that possibility blowing up in his face. If he admitted it to himself, he really didn't just want a 'challenge' or a 'sex slave'...well, maybe that would be a nice treat on the side, but that wasn't what he wanted Michael for. If he'd wanted one of those, he would have just kept Star in the hotel and not even bothered giving her any blood in the first place. But it wasn't easy to just...change...after 83 years of doing whatever the fuck he wanted, as long as he didn't get in Max's way for 81 out of those 83. He didn't know how to treat someone like an actual companion, beyond what he had with the rest of the boys. Wasn't even sure where to begin. Fuck, he should have just waited until Michael was actually ready for this. Now they were stuck with amped up libidos and a shitload of drama just waiting around the corner.

Marko sighed and lounged on the grass with his face in the dirt, making it known just how bored an impatient he was getting with this ritual of hanging around the Emerson house like a group of fang-wielding lawn gnomes. David glanced down at him and nudged the smaller vampire with the tip of his boot, "stop acting like a baby. You're 89 years old."

Marko rolled over onto his back with a huff, "I'm not acting like a baby."

"You know what your problem is, Marko? You need to get laid," Paul smirked, leaning into Star and keeping his arms locked around her torso like the protective railing on a carnival ride. She just ignored him and stared silently towards the house.

"That's what I've been saying! Somebody needs to open a good strip joint down here already so I can do some window shopping," Marko bemoaned his limited choices on the boardwalk, and the prodigious lack of 'mind-blowing tits'.

"You've been acting like a sex-mad imp since we went on our road trip. You don't need to just 'get laid', Marko..." Dwayne snorted, leaving the smaller vampire to come to his own conclusion.

"Fuck you. I'm fine the way I am." He climbed to his feet and dusted bits of grass from his rear, stomping off towards his bike.

"You know, if you just owned each other's asses, that'd be two birds with one bone," Paul remarked with a cackle. Star just shook her head and un-linked his arms from around her torso.

"You're disgusting," she informed him, not for the first or even the hundredth time. Definitely not the last.

"Do you still like tea?" Lucy asked, pouring herself a cup of chamomile. It seemed like every time she was about to have an important talk with someone, these days, they were always in the kitchen. She'd never had so much coffee and tea in her life as she had in the past week or two.

"It's okay," Michael shrugged. "Same as always. Did you need to talk about something before I go, mom?" He looked up at her, arms crossed as he leaned his chair back from the table. Lucy frowned, and he sheepishly lowered all four legs to the ground with a soft 'clunk'.

"How are things...at...home?" Lucy stumbled over the last word, not sure exactly what to call the place Michael lived now. It hadn't sounded like a home, when Sam told her about the place. It sounded like a nightmare, frankly. Every night her oldest son went back to it, she couldn't help but worry he was going to get some sort of disease from one of countless bats or rats that were no doubt also residing there. But dad insisted Michael couldn't get sick now, and she really didn't like his reasons for knowing that, either. Whenever she heard him bandy the words 'death' or 'dead' about, referring to her eldest...it made Lucy's heart leap into her throat. He was walking and talking, and even if he had to...she still couldn't bring herself to focus on what he had to do...that still didn't make him dead. It couldn't.

Michael scratched the back of his neck, not really sure how to answer that question. Somehow: 'I wake up every night with a raging hard-on because the guy who killed me forced me into some kind of freaky bloodsucking marriage ritual against my will, I'm having a blast slashing open people's throats every night and dining on jugular cocktails, I hang by my toes when I sleep, and I'll never know the joys of a hot shower again' just didn't seem like the sort of thing he should be telling his mother. So, he settled on something much simpler and...a little bit of a lie..."It's okay. No complaints. I'm getting used to it."

She carried their steaming mugs towards the kitchen table and set them down, taking her seat beside him and holding out a hand, "Michael..."

He lowered his eyebrows, not too keen on the tone of her voice. That was the tone that said 'I'm about to tell you something important, and I know you're not going to like it. But I've made up my mind.' It was the same tone she'd used when she said she wasn't going to take dad to court for screwing her out of the house, or when she'd decided they needed a chance of scenery right before they'd rolled out of Arizona.

"Please don't look at me like that, sweetie,"

"Like what?"

"You..." Lucy licked her bottom lip nervously, "Michael, I don't know if you know this or not...but there's this...look in your eyes you have now. It scares me. I don't know who you are when you look at me like that." It really hurt to tell him. It really hurt for him to hear. But it was the truth. There was a disturbing lack of kindness in his eyes when he had that look. To be honest, every look he had now was a little bit more remote, and a little bit colder than it used to be. But that look in particular...that was one she didn't care to ever see again, if it could be avoided.

Michael nodded, scooping up his mug with a thin-lipped smile, "sorry. Didn't mean it."

"Honey...I think it might be a good idea for me and Sam to leave Santa Carla."

"WHAT?!" Michael exclaimed, nearly slamming his mug on the table before he realized what he was doing. He closed his eyes and steeled himself, "...I...I'm sorry. What?"

"This city isn't safe. Your brother isn't safe here. I'm not safe here. Nobody is safe."

"That's not true. You've got me and the others. We'll keep you safe. You can't leave," Michael insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly.

"This isn't up for discussion. And I don't want to be that kind of a burden on you," Lucy shook her head.

"Mom...you can't leave." Michael repeated himself. This time there was a slight edge to his tone, something to match the look she didn't like. Every moment they spent together now was reminding her more and more that...frankly...he really wasn't the same person anymore. Not by a long shot. No matter how much it made her heart constrict in her chest, and her eyes burn...she had to admit it to herself. Even from when they'd finally met each other again on the boardwalk only a few days ago...it was as if he was getting colder from day to day.

"Michael. We're leaving."

"No. You're not."

Lucy sighed, rubbing at her eyes, "why can't you understand? I know you're fully capable of visiting, young man, if it's about that. And you spent two years hopping from state to state doing just fine without us."

Michael took the hand she'd been holding out to him since she sat down, and squeezed it, rubbing at her palm with his calloused thumbs, "mom...I'm forgetting things."

She took a sip of her tea, pursing her lips over the steam, her voice muffled beneath the rim of the mug, "forgetting things?"

"Yeah..." He shrugged, "mostly small stuff. Like...old teachers, places I used to hang out at back in Arizona. But...bigger things too...like dad's face. I talked to Star, and it's happening even faster for her. I think it has something to do with being dead...I don't know...I'm not really sure..."

"Michael, please don't use that word," she said quietly as she set her cup back down on the table. "You're not dead."

"Not entirely, no...but I'm not alive," his lips twitched into a semblance of a smirk, "I'm just really...scared...that if you both leave, and I don't have a reason to see you every week...I won't have a reason to try to remember my old life, either..."

Lucy leaned back in her chair, stunned into silence as Michael released her hand and drew his cup to his mouth, "please stay, mom...at least a little longer. I need you."