Summary: Prequel to my story "If I Was Your Vampire." How, exactly, did Danny become the one Steve feeds from whenever he needs to quench his thirst for blood?

Dedication: For Debbie, who enjoys my original vampire-based "Takers" series of novels, and said, "I would really like to see a prequel to "If I Was Your Vampire." I really want to know what happened to Danny and just how Steve saved his life." So here you go, Debbie…I do hope you like it!

Note II: Title of this story is taken from multiple songs of the same name, most notably by Roky Erickson and Entombed.

Note III: I will warn you that some of you may get a little fog on your slash goggles. But it's not because I'm writing slash. It's because the way I write vampires – in my original novels – is that the very nature of a vampire is erotic, period, whether it's something happening between men, women or men and women. So if you feel like reading it with slash in mind, feel free. If not, then just read it as you would one of my novels: sexy, whether they're slashing or not! *smile*

NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRE

Danny stretched his fingers, resettled them on the butt of his gun and kept himself plastered to the concrete block wall at his back. He looked across the hundred-foot open space to the wall of a similar building across from him, where Steve's stance mirrored his own.

They were after a serial killer, the first one Hawaii had seen in more than five years, who killed his victims by exsanguinating them. It was an M.O. Danny had never before encountered, and vampire jokes ran rampant through HPD and the media, with the papers and local TV news crews dubbing the man the Vampire Killer.

Steve had been on edge since the first body had been found three weeks earlier, but hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what his problem was. All the victims to date had been Caucasian males between twenty and forty years of age. The body found earlier tonight had been that of a tourist who bore an eerie resemblance to Danny himself, with his blond hair and blue eyes.

And Steve had somehow known which way to go. Known where the killer had disappeared to. Had led Danny on foot on a one-mile run before coming to the conclusion that their murder suspect was right here in this set of outbuildings in the middle of a sugar cane field.

Over the six months he'd known his partner, Danny had learned not to question certain things that seemed weird, out-of-place. He'd tried getting answers, and the more he'd tried, the more Steve had clammed up until one point over a month ago when they'd stopped speaking altogether. Until, that was, Danny had apologized for asking why it was Steve could run so fast, how it was he healed so quickly from injuries and why he seemed to be able to go without sleep for such long periods of time.

Not to mention the fact that while he ate the same as his teammates during work hours, his home diet was strange, consisting of mostly rare steak and ground beef. And he sometimes looked really pale, as though dying of some horrible disease.

So…when Steve had taken off with the words, "I smell him!", well, Danny had followed. And here they were getting ready to storm the third building that was perpendicular to the two they were flattened against, without any backup.

He watched Steve carefully, waited. Could barely see him in the darkness of one in the morning, and yet somehow still could well enough to watch his face and hands. Steve's left hand moved, motioning forward. Danny nodded and began to inch along the wall, gun held in both hands at the ready.

He'd managed to text Chin as they'd caught their breath four minutes ago, so he knew help would be on the way. He just hoped their teammates were in time to do more than zip them both up in body bags.

Danny got to the edge of his building, glanced left, saw McGarrett at the edge of his. Steve nodded once, and the two ran for the opposite edges of the perpendicular concrete block building. They were probably garages, filled with sugarcane farming equipment, but whatever else they held inside, Steve and Danny's only concern was a man of flesh and blood that they intended to stop here and now.

There was a large garage-like door on the side of the building facing west, just around the corner from where Danny was now flattened. Steve peered around his own corner fifty feet away, turned and shook his head 'no.' Evidently Steve had no door on his side. Danny motioned for Steve to follow him and rounded his corner.

Right next to the large garage-like door was a smaller one. Danny tried the knob, but found it locked. He made to peer back around the corner to see how close Steve was, but the sound of wood being torn apart made him stop mid-movement. He raised his gun, but found it slapped out of his hand by the door, which swung open so fast it broke right off its hinges and took Danny's gun with it.

Danny stumbled backward, looked up and had just enough time to register complete disbelief at what he was seeing before it…the man…the…the thing…in front of him, pounced.

There was an ear-piercing wail, a screech, a howl, a loud hiss, and Danny was flat on his back before he could even register what had happened. The thing straddling him ground its pelvis into his, and before Danny could even bring his hands up to defend himself, its face was down at his neck and he felt something tear into his flesh, then latch onto him and apply suction so strong he felt like his insides were just going to be sucked out.

He tried to let out a yell, but as fast as everything had just happened, so, too, did it seem to end. The creature was pulled away from him so violently, he felt an exquisite pain that made him half-scream when the movement nearly took the whole side of his neck with it. He clamped his hand to the wound, feeling like he wanted to throw up. Danny rolled to his left side, struggled to get up, looked up, and ceased all movement when he saw the spectacle before him.

There was their serial killer, only he was so pale he was very nearly glowing in the moonlight shining down from the clear night sky. He had blood all over his face from nose to chin, more blood dripping down from the sides of his mouth, and fangs. Two perfect, sharp, long fangs in place of his canine teeth.

"What?" Danny breathed, feeling himself sway even as he managed to get onto his knees and other hand, eyes still glued to the suspect who looked like a vampire.

But that wasn't the worst of what he was seeing. Oh, no. Because fighting with this vampire-costumed freak was yet another vampire-costumed freak. Only thing was, this other one? Was Danny's partner.

Danny rose so that he was standing on his knees, hand still clamped against his neck, dizzy, but determined to see what the hell was going on.

Steve was paler than Danny'd ever seen him. He growled and hissed at the murderer, shiny white fangs protruding from where his canine teeth should've been. His eyes had gone completely white. He re-holstered his firearm and lunged at the killer, taking a swipe at his neck. That's when Danny realized that the ends of Steve's fingers were much more claw-like than they should be.

The two men fought and fought, one-upping each other, rolling over and over, tumbling through the dirt, leaping into the air like they were in the middle of a good old-fashioned horror movie and taking swipes at each other constantly, all the while speaking their own language of growls, howls, screeches and hisses.

Danny toppled to the left, hand coming away from his neck wound to catch him before he went completely down. He was losing his grip on reality, feeling himself grow weak, more woozy by the second. A mist appeared over his vision, through which he could still see Steve and the killer brawling. Sounds began to mute themselves, as though they were coming from the opposite end of a mile-long tunnel.

His hand gave out and he fell to the dirt, blood draining slowly from his neck as his vision blurred more and more, as the sounds became quieter and quieter. Danny gasped in a breath. Stopped breathing. Gasped in another breath. His eyes remained open, but were no longer seeing.

Grace…

Steve was getting nowhere with this asshole who'd decided to move into his territory and lay waste to it one victim at a time. He'd tried all the tactics he'd used in the two previous times that enemy vamps had tried to do him in. Once here in Hawaii, with Nick Taylor…nobody had ever discovered precisely what it was about Nick that made it twice as difficult for Steve to kill him, thank God…and once before that, while on the SEAL mission that had sealed his own fate in more ways than one.

But this guy wasn't killing because he needed as much blood as his fourteen victims had given him. He was killing because he was bad. Of course, the lines between 'bad' and 'good' in Steve's life for the past four years had become many, varied and really, really blurred.

Still, he kept Hawaii safe. Safe for the humans he cared about. Safe for all the humans he didn't know. Safe for himself.

Luckily, that old thing about sunlight turning vampires into burning, smoldering lumps that would dissolve to ash and fly away on the breeze wasn't true, or Hawaii would never have been an option. Which would've meant no Five-0, no answers for his parents' murders and no Danny.

Who was, at this very moment, dying.

Steve ripped open his cargo pants pocket, hauled out a smooth, shiny, six-inch long object and wielded it like a knife. His opponent stopped dead in his tracks and hissed at him, eyeing the object warily.

"That's right," Steve growled. "You're done killing tourists on my island." With that, he leapt into the air in a smooth arc. The murderer turned to run, but before he could so much as twitch, Steve's feet were on his shoulders, shoving him down to the ground, the object…a six-inch stake made of 100% pure silver…smoothly jabbing into the right side of the vamp's neck.

He cried out into the night in agony as Steve quickly scrambled away. The killer was paralyzed, and the poison that silver represented to his blood would soon kill every cell in his body. Then he would shrivel up to a point where he more resembled pliable tree bark than human, and then crumble to dust. But Steve didn't stick around to watch.

Because "Danny!"

Steve vamp-ran to Danny's side, dropped to his knees and lifted Danny's head and shoulders into his lap. "No," he breathed when he saw the side of Danny's neck torn away, smelled that Danny had very little blood left in his body…watched as what little he did have seeped out of his neck.

Danny's eyes were wide open. He was barely breathing. His heart was so, so slow.

"Danny?"

Steve breathed in deeply, smelled the pallor of death that always happened around this point where you were draining a victim. He stared down at Danny shaking his head. It couldn't end this way. Not like this.

"Danny, can you hear me?" Steve asked, leaning down so his lips were close to his partner's ear. "Danny, please, I need you to talk to me, just for a few seconds. Please."

Danny moaned, and Steve thought it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. He scooted around, keeping Danny's head and shoulders cradled in the crook of his right arm, moving to he could look into Danny's eyes.

"Danny, it's me, it's Steve, can you hear me?"

"What…" Danny breathed, eyes trying so hard to focus on his partner's face. "What…are…you?"

"A vampire." Steve stopped, looked up at the stars, back down at his partner. "Our killer was one, too. He drank three-quarters of your blood before I got him off you. Danny, can you hear me?"

Danny whimpered, lips parted.

"Look into my eyes," Steve said. He shook Danny just a little. "Look into my eyes, Danny. I can save you, but you have to look at me. Can you do that?"

"Vamp…"

"Yes. But I won't hurt you. I won't hurt you, you hear me? I protect you. And Grace. I won't hurt you, please, Danny, look into my eyes."

He watched as Danny blinked, stared hard at Steve. And Steve felt him suddenly, right there with him. Danny was indeed looking into his eyes, and Steve found the connection so instantaneous that for a moment it took his breath away. Then he'd been right about Danny all along…Danny was compatible. He would be able to do this.

He stared deeply into those fading blue eyes, concentrating on the sound of Danny's slowly beating heart. Heard it thump. Then thump again.

"Steve…"

"Shhh," Steve soothed, left hand coming up to rest against his partner's cheek. "I got you, Danny."

Heard another thump of Danny's heart.

And another.

And then felt it mirrored within his own chest. He willed Danny's heart to match the beat of his own. Willed him to grab the tether that was being extended.

"Take it, Danny," Steve breathed, fingertips of his hand sliding into Danny's hair. "Take what I'm giving you."

Danny took a deep, shuddering breath, back arching up and away from where Steve held him in his right arm, then exhaled slowly, body lowering until Steve held his full weight again. And now…Danny's heart was beating in time with Steve's.

"Weak," Danny breathed, eyes still glued to Steve's.

"I know. What I just did can only keep you alive for so long. Danny, I can save you, but…I…" Steve couldn't bring himself to say it. Couldn't bring himself to ask Danny if he wanted to be a monster's pet for all eternity. What that would mean to Danny, to Grace, to Danny's future happiness, he just…

But he couldn't let Danny die.

"How?" Danny whispered.

Steve's left hand held the back of Danny's head. "I don't have to Turn you," he said. "But you're so low on blood, I have to…"

"Steve…"

Steve swallowed hard. "You still have your own blood inside you. If I let you drink some of my blood, you'll become my…companion."

A slight frown creased Danny's brow, and even though Steve's willing of Danny's heart had brought him back from the brink of death, Danny was now skating precariously close to the edge yet again. He simply didn't have enough blood left in him to survive.

Not without Steve's blood.

"Already…am…" Danny whispered, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face.

Steve couldn't help but smile even as his eyes filled with tears, because should he even do this? Condemn Danny to have to be close to him forever and ever, and how would they make that work? Could they? Wouldn't Danny hate him for this for all eternity?

"Don't let me die, Steve." Danny reached up, touched Steve's lips. Steve opened his mouth, let Danny see these instruments of death that were as much a part of his being as Danny's regular teeth were of his.

Danny's thumb ran from the top of one of Steve's fangs down to its razor-sharp tip. "Whatever it takes," he said, hand dropping limply to the ground, "for Grace."

Steve hesitated even as his own heart began to slow in time with Danny's. Because what Danny didn't know, was the tether Steve had extended, that Danny had taken…the tether that even Steve didn't know precisely how it worked...now meant that if Danny's heart stopped? Then Steve's would, too.

They would die here together on a dirt road in the middle of three buildings out in a sugarcane field. Their bodies would be found. It would be assumed they were the final victims of the serial killer, and that the serial killer had gotten away.

Danny's eyelids fluttered closed.

"I…" Steve bowed his head, forehead resting on Danny's. "I can't."

"Steve," was the barely audible reply. "I won't hate you unless you don't."

He backed away, looked at Danny's now-open eyes, at his too-pale complexion, at his lips that were turning blue. Squeezed his eyes closed, extended his left arm. He looked down at Danny one more time, then pierced his own flesh with his fangs until he'd ripped a good, two-inch long gash. Blood poured from it. He immediately lowered it to Danny's mouth.

At first, Danny tried to turn away, but then he got a taste of it.

And Steve knew that once a human had tasted vampire blood, it would hook them to that specific vampire for life, even beyond the power of the tether that had kept Danny's heart beating. He squeezed his eyes closed again, turning his face away as Danny's mouth latched onto his arm, tongue sliding over the wound to keep it open, sucking Steve's supernaturally-infused blood greedily into his mouth.

A tear escaped the corner of Steve's eye. Because he knew Danny would live.

He just didn't know if, once Danny realized what this all meant, he'd rather have been allowed to die.

The first thing Danny became aware of was that there was a strong breeze blowing through his hair, as though he was flying. Yet he knew he couldn't be flying, because he was being held…cradled…in someone's arms.

Then he felt a pang hit his stomach, like hunger – only deeper – and knew instinctively without even opening his eyes that it was Steve who was holding him so tightly. Felt a jarring bump and then felt weightless again, wind blowing again, and seconds later another jarring bump.

"Unnhh," Danny said, and thought, hey, that wasn't a word.

"Danny," Steve said, voice low and gravelly, voice very unlike his normal Steve voice.

Danny's eyes blinked open and when he looked up, Steve's face was only inches from his. Steve's eyes were locked onto his. Danny suddenly felt weak, like his legs and spine could never support him. Yet in that same moment, he felt stronger than ten thousand men, like he could take on the world. "What…?" he asked, mesmerized by the eyes that weren't so much eyes as they were white orbs sunk deep into Steve's eye sockets. He could vaguely make out an iris and a pupil in each eye, but they were shades of white as well.

There was some walking, some rustling and then Danny heard keys jingling. A door being unlocked. He couldn't stop looking at the face of the man he knew had to be Steve, but barely recognized. Pale, so pale…white eyes…and… Danny gasped. Fangs.

Suddenly it all came rushing back to him, those moments when a creature had attacked him, watching as Steve fought it…remembering that Steve had said he was "a vampire," Danny breathed.

A door closed and Danny felt himself being righted. Felt the floor beneath his feet. His hand flew to his neck to find…nothing. The wound that he'd been bleeding out from, was gone. There wasn't even a scar that he could feel. No sign at all that it had ever been there. He swayed; Steve's hand cupped his elbow to steady him.

Right before Danny's eyes, Steve dipped his head so his chin was almost on his chest, took a deep breath, and then looked back up...

And was Steve again. Regular eyes. Regular teeth. Regular complexion. Danny blinked. Had he dreamed the whole thing? Was that possible? A concussion-induced hallucination? A fantasy produced by his subconscious while out like a light?

Yet one thing was definitely different. Something Danny couldn't quite put his finger on, but as Steve turned away and headed toward the kitchen – Danny only now noticing they were actually in Steve's living room – Danny felt like he was being pulled to follow him. Like he could not let the man out of his sight.

So follow him he did.

Steve went to the sink, took two glasses out of the cupboard, filled them from the tap. He then reached up into another cupboard, removed a bottle, poured eight pills into the palm of his hand and put the bottle back. He turned to Danny, picked four of the pills from his palm and held them out.

"You need to take these to keep your iron up," Steve said. "Twice a day, unless you start eating a lot of dried herbs, chocolate and liver."

He hated liver, so Danny made a face as he held his hand out, accepted the pills. Accepted the glass of water Steve handed him. Couldn't stop staring at the man. He popped all four huge pills into his mouth, gulped three-quarters of the glass of water down to swallow them. Put the glass down on the counter. Watched Steve do the same.

"How do you feel?" Steve asked, looking concerned, looking guilty, looking…Danny swallowed hard. He just…he had this…he couldn't stop… "Danny?"

"What…why do I…Steve, I don't…"

"Come here, sit down with me," Steve said as he made his way to the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair, seated himself, gestured at the one to his right as he turned sideways so he was facing it.

So Danny did. Sat down just like that, without a word, because Steve had asked it of him. His eyes grew large. He knew somehow, deep in the core of his being, he would do anything Steve asked of him now. Anything.

Anything.

"It really happened, didn't it." Danny said, shifting to face Steve and continuing to stare.

Steve looked away. Nodded. "I'm sorry, Danny."

"For saving my life?" Danny asked incredulously. "You'd rather I died out there?"

Steve's head snapped back around like he'd been punched, eyes boring into Danny's. "No. Never. The only reason I even tried it was because I couldn't let you die. I couldn't make Grace fatherless because of what one of my own kind did to you."

Danny's hand came to his mouth, stayed there, then he rubbed it sideways, scrubbed down his chin, let his hand fall to the tabletop. "Explain to me what this means now. For me. For Grace. For Five-0." He looked down at his fingers, then back up at Steve. "For us."

"It doesn't change anything with Grace," Steve said quickly. "She won't be affected, she can't be harmed, and I've protected her since the moment we met at that football game."

Danny nodded. "And the team?"

"Won't change anything there, either, Danny. We're still partners, we're still Five-0, we can still do everything like we were doing before, only…you'll, uh…you'll heal up now if you get hit. You know, shot or stabbed, whatever."

"Heal up," Danny repeated, hand moving to his uninjured neck. "Like the hole in my neck that isn't there anymore."

Steve nodded.

"And, uh…" Danny paused, gestured in the space separating them. "For us?"

Steve looked away. He swallowed hard, ran a hand through his hair. "Other vampires I've known, they, um…well, what you are to me now, they call a 'pet'."

"A pet? I'm your pet?"

"No, Danny, I mean…I don't think of you as a pet. It's like I said out there in the field. I think of you as a…well, a companion."

"You mean a mate?"

"What? No. No, not like that, I mean…" Steve shook his head. "I've never had to explain this to anyone before. I really suck at it."

"I'll give you that much," Danny nodded, leaning back in the chair, studying his partner. "How did you become a vampire?"

"A battle in central Iran. My team ran into a gang of vampires. Everyone was killed but me. I was Turned by a man who was intending to keep me as a pet, but accidentally drained all my blood rather than leaving me some before he made me drink from his arm."

"Like I drank from you."

Steve nodded. "It was just over four years ago now, while we were on the trail of the Hesse brothers. Once the gang realized I was a full-fledged vampire, they fled. It happens a lot faster than movies make you think. I woke up eight hours later, murdered a local villager, came back to find the vampires gone. I had to figure most of what I am now on my own, through research and seeking out other vamps who're willing to answer questions."

"So you said you didn't Turn me. Into a…vampire," Danny said, trying desperately to wrap his brain around this.

"No."

"Will I still get old? Die?"

"No. Not like a regular human," Steve replied quietly.

"Well, how long are we talking here? I'll look younger than my daughter by a few years when she hits retirement age?"

"More like you'll live to see at least ten generations of her offspring, actually," Steve said.

"Jesus Christ. I have to watch my Grace die of old age?"

"I'm sorry, Danny. I shouldn't have…dammit!" Steve sprang to his feet, paced away, threw the lanai door open and headed out into the darkness of his back yard.

Danny sat there at the table for a few moments.

Steve had turned him into something inhuman, yet still somehow human. And he'd done it with Danny's permission, all to save Danny's life. So Grace wouldn't be left fatherless, although how the hell he was ever going to explain to her why he didn't age, he couldn't even begin to imagine.

Danny just wasn't sure how he felt about all of it, really. But he also felt once again like he had to follow Steve. Like he didn't have a choice. Like he might die otherwise.

So he took a deep breath. He rose to his feet. And he headed for the lanai.

Steve stood with his feet planted in the sand, arms folded over his chest, hating himself for what he'd done to Danny. Wondered if his own stupid need to keep the people he loved safe and close to him had overridden common sense. Humans weren't meant to be Turned. They weren't meant to know this life that Steve's had become. And Steve hadn't wanted to Turn Danny, not wanted to make him into the same type of monster he was. So he'd done the only other thing he could out there with no help around for miles and miles. Even if he'd vamp-run with Danny to the nearest hospital, Danny would've been dead by the time they arrived.

He felt…and heard…Danny leave the lanai proper and step into the sand.

"You haven't really explained what this thing is now, here, you know. Between us."

Steve turned around, kept his arms defensively over his chest.

"What a…a pet…is," Danny finished, looking down and away. Looking embarrassed.

"I'm never going to call you anything but my partner and my best friend," Steve said with conviction. He had to make sure Danny knew Steve hadn't done this for any nefarious purpose. "I also think I can resist feeding from you when the time comes, as long as I stay away from you as my hunger pangs begin."

"Steve, you need to explain the facts to me, and then you need to let me help you decide how it's going to play out. I mean," Danny huffed out a laugh on the last word, ran a hand through his hair, "we've always been in this together, this partnership thing, this friendship thing. But now it's more, and I need to understand it, wrap my head around it. Then we'll do this together, too, okay?"

Steve looked at him, felt the pull, felt like he had to be right next to Danny. Resisted the urge to move so fast Danny would know only that one minute Steve was three feet away and the next minute he was nose-to-nose with him.

"One vampire I met in Taiwan," Steve said, moving to the white beach chairs and sitting down in the one always designated as his, "had a pet. It was a woman. They were intimate, too, but he explained that it didn't have to be that way. They'd been lovers before she found out what he was, and she begged him to Turn her, too. But he refused because he didn't want to make her a killer like he was." Steve watched as Danny sat down in the other chair. "Same reason I didn't just Turn you."

Danny nodded. "Well, thank you for that, I guess."

"His name was Jack, and his pet was Annie. He told me about tethering, which is what I did when I got your heart back to beating normally."

"You mean, when I looked into your eyes and you told me to take what you were giving me," Danny said.

"Yes," Steve nodded, eyes focused out on the dark blob of the ocean. "A tether can be done without turning someone into a pet, just as a pet can be made without the pet being tethered. Unfortunately, I had to tether you to keep you alive long enough for me to ask if I could make you my companion."

"You, uh…didn't want to just do it."

Steve shook his head, met Danny's eyes. "Not without your permission." He looked away. "I still don't know if I should've done it," he said quietly.

"Well, I'm glad I'm alive," Danny told him.

"Yeah, right now you are. But will you be glad one hundred or two hundred years from now when your heart, your very life, is still so intertwined with mine that within every twenty-four hour period we can only be apart for twelve?"

"Well, there's a new fact, thank you, that's what I've been asking you for." Danny leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands rubbing together between the V of his legs. "You telling me we can't be apart for more than twelve hours every day?"

"That's right, to be at one hundred percent. And if something happens to you, and I'm not close enough to be able to save your life with the tether…if you die, I'll die."

Danny swallowed hard, and met Steve's eyes. "I thought you said I healed fast."

Steve nodded. "You do, from normal weapons. But there are vampire hunters, they do exist. Jack told me he lost his wife of three hundred and thirteen years at the hands of a hunter. They weren't tethered, so he didn't know right away that she was in danger. By the time he found out, she was dead and the vampire hunter was waiting for him. He barely escaped with his life. He met Annie fifty-two years later, fell in love with her, turned her into a pet. They'd been together for one hundred and twenty-two years by the time I found him."

Danny nodded. "So when it's just best friends and not, um…lovers…who are tethered like this, is there anything else I need to know?"

Steve looked up at the sky, where clouds were beginning to gather, obscuring the stars. "It's going to be real hard for either of us to have intimate relationships with other people."

Danny sighed. "No more Gabby?"

"Not no more, but…well, if you agree to feed me, which would actually keep me from having to feed from people I find dying in nursing homes and hospitals, then it becomes a thing we do. It's…well, it's an intimate act, feeding. It's…erotic, almost, I guess, I mean, you're taking life from a human being and you're making it part of you." Steve stopped himself, because the look on Danny's face was one he wasn't quite sure what to do with.

"Just you talking about it makes me want to let you do it," Danny breathed, then tore his eyes away.

"That's a combination of our tether and the fact that I made you immortal," Steve replied. "You can have a relationship with anyone you want, any kind of relationship, sex, everything. You can still father children, but I can't."

"What? You can't have kids?"

Steve shook his head. "I've come to terms with it. I guess that's one reason I enjoy Grace so much. She's like the daughter I'll never have," he said, throwing Danny a smile. "But whoever you're with, they have to understand that even on weekends, you and I have to be together for a period of time or we'll both suffer. If an entire twenty-four hours goes by and we haven't been within twenty feet of each other, Danny, we will, literally, die. Like a flower wilting until it dies from lack of water, only a helluva lot faster."

"Don't know any woman who'd get behind something like that."

"Now you know why I'm perfectly happy with Catherine's and my arrangement. If she gets too close, finds out what I am, I don't know how she'll react. And now with you, I mean…it really wouldn't work to have her here full-time."

Danny was quiet for a long while as all these new thoughts, these new facts about who and what he was…who and what Steve was…what Danny now was to Steve…how the hell to even handle it all, all rolling around in his mind.

One thing was for sure, and that was that he was exhausted. Yet at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to leave Steve's side. "You sure we can be apart?" he finally asked. "'Cause I gotta tell you right now, as much as it embarrasses the hell outta me to say it, I can't imagine walking back into the house with you out here, let alone going back to my apartment."

Steve smiled at him, and Danny made the mistake of looking into his partner's eyes. He felt it again, like before, when Steve had done it the first time. "What are you doing to me?" he whispered, choking the words out over the dizziness that made him feel like he was falling.

"Sorry!" Steve exclaimed, tearing his eyes away. "I can't help it with you. I felt it as soon as you opened yourself to me. We're compatible."

"Compatible. What, like, eHarmony for Bloodsuckers compatible?"

Danny could see Steve turn red even in the darkness of the back yard. "No," Steve growled. "I'm not trying to hit on you, Danno, Christ."

"Well, that is good," Danny said, and Steve turned to find him grinning.

"What's so damn funny?" Steve asked.

"Well, it looks like we are so damn funny," Danny replied, getting to his feet. "I mean, come on…we start out by pointing our guns at each other, aiming to kill, right? You commandeer me into being your partner, and now here we are six months later and I'm commandeered into being your own personal blood bank, your pet, if your friend Jack is to be believed, and to top it all off even though neither one of us is gay, the act of feeding is incredibly erotic and when you look at me like you were just looking at me I suddenly feel like I'm going over the top of a roller coaster hill, and now I find out I'm going to be feeding you my blood practically forever, going to watch my daughter and her kids and their kids and their kids ad infinitum die, and still be stuck with a man who'd rather blow his arm off than use the law to get into a building and the next thing you know we'll have to get the hell out of Hawaii because someone will start to notice that even though we're pushing a hundred we still look thirty-something, and—"

Steve couldn't take it anymore. He leapt out of the chair straight into the air, forming a perfect arc over Danny's head, coming to land on the other side of him. Danny whirled to face him, mouth clamping shut.

"You're making me hungry, Danno, shut up," Steve hissed, licking his lips.

Danny's eyes widened. "My talking makes you hungry?"

"You being around makes me hungry. The talking's more annoying than anything."

Danny made a face at him. "You want to…what, suck on my neck or something now, is that how we're starting this whole Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wackos thing?"

Steve swallowed. He could have Danny's blood right here and now if he wanted. All he'd have to do is look into Danny's eyes, and five seconds later he would be able to say, "Let me feed from you," and Danny would say okay and that'd be that.

But he wasn't going to do that. Danny took a few steps toward him. Steve steeled himself because fuck he'd had no idea the hunger would be this bad when faced with a tethered companion.

"Are you…hungry?" Danny asked, gesturing limply with his hands like they didn't have the words any more than his mouth did.

"I'll be fine."

"How many people do you kill?" Danny asked.

Steve blanched at the question. "At least two a week."

Danny closed his eyes, looked away. "Innocent people. And yet you're cop. How can you live that way?"

Steve strode forward, he had to make Danny understand. He put his hands on Danny's shoulders. "I only drain the blood of people who are already dying. Of cancer, of ALS, of horrible diseases. The blood doesn't poison me, no matter what they're dying from. Sometimes I go to nursing homes, take the ones who smell the most like Death. I can tell. I have incredible senses, Danny. I can see farther, smell better, identify things you can't." He stopped. Let his hands drop to his sides. "But it's still murder, even if it's of people who'd die within a month anyway."

He watched as Danny looked back up at him and saw something he hadn't expected in his eyes. He saw compassion. He couldn't look away.

"So, uh…using me to feed from. I mean, if you feed from me twice a week, you won't need to kill anymore?"

"That's how it's supposed to work," Steve confirmed. "It's why vampires often take pets to themselves, although…well, usually, they're…ya know…" He stops, waving a hand in the air.

"Do it," Danny said.

Steve's eyes widened. "Do it?"

Danny nodded. "You're a good man. A good…vampire. You help people. You protect the island where my daughter lives. If all I have to do is let you bite me a couple times a week to keep you from being a murderer, then I say, do it."

Steve felt his breaths coming fast and shallow, because Danny was giving him permission and fuck, he was so hungry and Danny was his and he could almost taste his blood already.

"How do we do this?" Danny whispered, looking half afraid and yet half like he was as desperate for it as Steve.

"Inside, to make sure we aren't seen," Steve said as he headed for the lanai, his desire for rich, iron-filled liquid overriding his earlier concerns.

And Danny followed.

Danny stepped inside the lanai door, turned and closed it. Locked it. Whirled around when he felt, more than heard, Steve looming behind him. "Jesus, no wonder you're a ninja. Ninja vampire."

Steve grinned like a feral animal and Danny felt his heart pick up pace. "Where do we, uh…" Danny flapped his hand in the air, voice dying in his throat when Steve's chin went down, his skin lost all its color, his canines lengthened into fangs. He looked back up at Danny, eyeballs gone white. "Oh, shit," Danny breathed.

"I can still stop," Steve said, his voice back to low and gravelly. His Vampire Voice. "I can go hunting."

"No," Danny said quickly, heart clenching. He didn't want Steve to kill. Couldn't bear to ask him to take a life just to spare Danny from something he simply was now. "No."

Steve nodded once, licked his lips as he eyed Danny like a hungry wolf. Danny then looked directly into Steve's eyes, as Steve reached down and took hold of his arm. Danny couldn't look away, even as the pads of Steve's fingers caressed the inside of his arm from elbow to wrist. "I won't drain you. I won't ever drain you," Steve said, though it came out as more of a growl. "I just…I need you, Danny. Now."

Danny swallowed hard, forced himself to breathe. He nodded. "Yeah, yeah, do it, okay? Just do it!"

And Steve threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, let out a screech that Danny was sure should've broken every window in the house. Then without warning he lifted Danny's arm, hunched over it and sank his fangs into the soft flesh midway between Danny's wrist and elbow.

The sensations that began flowing through Danny made him feel high as a kite, like he was flying, falling, soaring beyond the confines of the house, of his own body. His legs grew wobbly and he sank to his knees, Steve sinking right along with him. He felt Steve's tongue poke at the holes created by his fangs, then Steve stopped, looked up at him, Danny's own blood staining his lips and teeth.

"Thank you," Steve half-whispered, half-growled.

And Danny watched as Steve's mouth covered the holes in his arms, felt him begin sucking the blood from his body. He fell forward, his cheek coming to rest on the back of Steve's head. His eyelids fluttered closed.

It hurt.

It felt good.

And this, this secret, personal, strange, otherworldly thing with Steve his partner in work and in blood…this was his life now.

When Steve moaned it vibrated the entirety of Danny's being.

If it kept his partner from having to kill, Danny would do it for the next million years.

And so as the wooziness took over, as he sank further and further into Steve's body, as Steve continued drinking form his arm, Danny smiled.

Keeping Steve from murdering innocent people made it all worthwhile…no matter what the future held for them now.

Note: If you haven't yet,go read "If I Was Your Vampire" now, which this is a prequel to. Kind of shows how they are with the whole thing after a bit of time has passed. I hope you enjoyed this, and that I did Debbie's request justice.