Page 57 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
“Tell me about this?” he asked, “The surgery, the transition? I’d like to know. I’d like to know you.”
“It was hard,” Shane replied. “And beautiful, and ugly. Perfect and messy. It was so much. Transition is more complicated as a diabetic too—the hormones threw my blood sugar all out of whack—and it took a while to get to my top surgery, because of the extra risks. When I finally did start it all, I left a great internship at a newspaper in LA, and I couldn’t bring myself to go back—to tell them all that I wasn’t actually a woman like they thought and watch them struggle to change their perception of me or reject the new me altogether. I’ve grown a lot bolder since, a lot more ready to claim who I am. But it’s still hard.” His voice went small, his shoulders sinking. “I wonder, sometimes, if I ruined my career because of it. I should have been braver. I should have taken what I wanted regardless of what people thought of me.”
Andres wanted to wrap him up, to press his lips into Shane’s hair and tell him that he was magnificent, then as he was now, and he realized with a sudden wave of joy, that he could. So he did, cuddling his little swan and whispering tenderly, “You need more than just bravery in this life. You need safety too.” He held Shane close, feeling his heart beat, his blood pump. Love, and life. “Everyone has always known there was something queer about me, but it’s taken me a long time to actually tell my family about my nonbinary gender nonsense. They still don’t knowabout the vampirism. I think they don’t really know me at all, anymore, and it feels safer that way. Some people aren’t worthy of certain parts of you, and that doesn’t make you any less yourself.”
“Very few people could possibly be worthy of you.” Shane lifted his chin. Their lips brushed, not in a kiss, but a smile. “Because you, Andres, are magnificent.”
Having the words Andres had used to describe Shane’s transness earlier repeated back at him broke something inside him—or perhaps, it didn’t break, but it mended; mended in a way that felt like being torn asunder, seen inside of for the first time in his whole goddamned life. “And you were always worthy of all of me. I made a mistake in ever worrying otherwise.”
“I was,” Shane agreed, staring at him so intently it was impossible to look away. “But how could you have known that?”
“I…”
“It was still a real fucked up thing to do, don’t get me wrong. I think I understand now, though, and I forgive you. Youareso magnificent,” Shane repeated, running his thumbs over the skin of Andres’s sternum. “And I’m so fucking obsessed with you. And I know we need work—goddamn, we need work. But I want to do that workwithyou,foryou. For us.” His brow lifted, and he pulled back enough that they could lock eyes properly. “We’re anus, right?”
Andres felt like he owned the world. “I figure if I’m not allowed to bite any human but you, the romantic exclusivity is implied.”
“Good.” Shane kissed him softly, then relaxed against his chest, nuzzling into Andres’s neck as though he were the vampire. His lips brushed skin and the touch shivered through Andres, landing pleasantly between his legs. Andres played with Shane’s hair, and for a moment they just sat like that, entwined and contented, until Shane finally asked, “How old are you? Iwas just thinking how vampires don’t always look like they’re aging and you could be twenty-five or seventy and I might not be able to tell.”
Andres laughed. “I’m thirty-four.”
“Ah, yes, just as I predicted, you’re ancient.” Shane fiddled thoughtfully with the collar of Andres’s shirt. “I’m only twenty-five. Is that a problem?”
“I think ifthat’sdubious enough to be an issue, we’re already fucked,” Andres said. “We’re both adults with jobs and a space of our own. I was a year younger than you when I was turned, and I went through a lot of growth in the few years after,”—he had Maul to thank for that, for better or worse—“but I don’t think I’ve changed much mentally or emotionally since.”
“How did it happen?”
“My vampirism?”
“Yeah.”
Andres shifted a little, his muscles fidgeting like they were trying to shrug out of the conversation. Which was ridiculous, because he was fine. For all the ways his vampirism had hurt—still hurt—it was ultimately a good thing. He’d found stability through it. His few memories of its inception weren’t even painful, just flat.
He was fine. He could talk about it.
He really did shrug then, almost accidently dislodging Shane’s head from his shoulder in the process. “I was stupid, and significantly more reckless than I am now. I tried to con Maul. When he caught me, he had his subordinates do it while he watched.”
Shane sat up. “He what?”
Andres saw his panic in the way he tucked his arms around his chest, fingers pressed to the sides of his neck so mechanically it seemed he didn’t even know he was doing it. Shane had suffered something he felt was similar under Maul’shands, and it clearly lingered in his bones, haunting him. But Andres’s turning had done the opposite for him. “He saw something in me that he thought he could use,” he said. “And we both know I’m stronger now that I’ve turned. I’m not afraid of him.”
“Peoplediefrom the turning,” Shane protested. His lower lip quivered.
“I didn’t die.” Nausea twisted in Andres’s stomach, and he fought the urge to run his fingers through his own hair by playing with Shane’s instead. He’d been doing that more and more lately, and it felt solid. Felt like existing.
“Andres…”
“I’m fine, I promise.” He was done talking about this. He cupped Shane’s chin and kissed him between his tight brows, then along the side of his nose, following the trail of his freckles across to his temples. Shane didn’t unfurl himself, but he relaxed enough that Andres could fit his hands beneath Shane’s and press them away from his neck. He bared his teeth, letting his fang graze down Shane’s jaw, into the soft space just beneath. “And I’d much rather not be human if it means I can do this to you,” he whispered, giving Shane’s hair the softest tug on one side.
Shane trembled as he breathed out, and he went limp in Andres’s grasp, allowing Andres to tip his head until his neck was laid bare, pale skin and light freckles and the small purpling bruises of his ill-closed bite at the club with the gentle pulsing of blood beneath. Andres kissed him just above the place he’d bitten last, then just below, circling the spot so gently that by the time he’d finished, Shane was shuddering against him, fingers gripping in his shirt like that was the only thing holding him to this plane.
“What a magnificent constellation you are, my pet.” Andres left a little possessive growl in his voice. “I’m going to bite you now.”
“Please,” Shane muttered. “Please, take from me anything you desire.”
The offer—the demand, for that was what it was, bundled in Shane’s submission and his beautiful vulnerability—was everything Andres had ever wanted. Just before he sank in his fangs, he whispered back, “I desire all of you.”
He drank Shane up, gentle and purposeful, and took him in, every soft sound and beautiful line and the intoxicating scent. Holding him close, knowing that he wanted this, not merely from a masked felon but from Andres, was intoxicating, euphoric. He swore he felt like himself, fully and utterly, vampiric and genderless and powerful, for the first time in… ever.
