Page 3 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Honestly THAT’S more pathetic than any video content you could make.
Shane-anigans
So now I know just how much I mean to you. /jokes
What about your scientist boyfriend? I thought you’d said you were going to invite him?
Nat1
Idk tbh. He’s been acting weird since I got myself fired. Like, overprotective weird. Which, yes, fine, leading up to that I let my grief get the better of me in a bad way, scared off the few people I thought were my friends and dragged my coworkers into a stupid confrontation I knew deep down was misdirected, ate an unfortunate amount of ice cream, that whole drill. But still it’s some shoddy energy to try bringing to an event that’s meant to be fun.
Also, and sorry if this is tmi, but I think he’s still sad that the guy he’s been thirsting over at work got laid off for being a vamp.
Like babe, he wasn’t into you??? I don’t understand why he’s so hung up. I mean just go fuck a cute blonde with fangs and get it out of your system already it’s annoying.
(He could also be fucking me, I’m RIGHT HERE, but no, he’s got to be protective and mopey instead.)
I swear one of these days I’m going to catch a pretty vampire twink and deliver him right to my bf’s doorstep.
There was a lot to unpack there, starting with, oh em gee, Nat was telling him personal details about her relationship, which was definitely a Stage Two friendship thing to do, and ending with the fact that he’d just used oh em gee in his head like it was a reasonable expression. He had to take a break from those damn ChatterDash columns.
Nat1
(Sorry did I scare you off.)
Shane-anigans
(No no, I was just getting some typing in on this vapid excuse for a ChatterDash article.)
This sounds like quite the conundrum with QUITE the solution, especially for you.
Are you sure you’d be ready to let another vampire get that close?
Shane didn’t know the details of Nat’s past—it seemed rude to poke at an open wound—but she’d admitted soon after they’d met that much of what she’d learned about vampires had come from her mentor, who’d done some kind of security and investigative work that put him in contact with them regularly. He’d been murdered five months ago, by a vampire with a record of forcing his fangs on sleeping victims. It had clearly fucked Nat up a bit, including instilling some ideas in her head that weren’t particularly kind to vampires as a community. But if they had been put there by an external force, then Shane wanted to believe that with some guidance, she could move past them. This seemed like a good sign: her fear and bitterness wearing off enough that she wasn’t acting like any vampire on the street might become the next murderer.
Nat1
Probably not, but I’m trying to be more open. I know, in my head, that not all vampires are like the one who killed my mentor. (Andlet’s be real here, I’ve kind of let my anger over that consume me to such an unhealthy degree that I had to get fired and meet you to realize it.)
But it’s still hard, you know? I’ve been so obsessed with protecting myself against them, that I forgot it’s not just about the fangs, it’s about what they do with those fangs. Literally but also, like, metaphorically.
Shane doubted Nat would approve of the way his own vampire used his fangs.
It had been luck that Shane saw that use happen, peering through the glass of the balcony door into the room where his vampire had cornered one of the Vitalis-Barron board members at the end of the night.
“You are the monsters,”he’d growled,“wearing our faces at your ghoulish party while your company feasts on our flesh.”
When she’d admitted to it—admitted her people were abducting vampires off the streets of San Salud—Shane’s vampire had sunk his fangs into her neck, drinking from her until she’d collapsed. That had scared Shane. It scared him so thoroughly that when his vampire turned toward him beyond the glass door—toward his only exit—Shane had wrapped both hands around the outside knob.
“Is this where Phaethon dies?”his vampire had asked, casting himself as the lover that the swan constellation, Cygnus, mourned for. And Shane had known that if it were true, his grief would indeed throw him into the stars in one way or another.
So he’d opened the door.
He’d set his vampire loose.
And as his vampire had run into the night, the valiant monster had turned back once, pressing his lips so gently to Shane’s. Though Shane’s right mind had warred against it, his heart had yearned in that moment to be swept off his feet and whisked away like the old lore. Which was ridiculous—he knewhow those biased stories ended, and it was not with happily ever after.
But he swore he could still feel his vampire’s kiss lingering like starlight on his lips, and if he left all rational thought behind, he could believe the ultimate mythical tragedy would be worth another chance at that.
