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The cottage was quiet except for the soft scrape of pencil against paper.
Twilight leaked in through the windows, drenching the stone walls in a blue-grey haze. Outside, the hills were shrouded in mist, the kind of cold that curled in your lungs and made you believe in ghosts. But inside their little haven on the edge of the Scottish town, the fireplace crackled gently, casting a gold-orange glow over the room.
Ben sat cross-legged on the floor, sketchbook perched in his lap, eyes flickering between the page and the figure lounging on the couch across from him. Ricky.
He looked almost too perfect to draw. Or perhaps too imperfect in ways only Ben could see. His long limbs draped lazily over the cushions, one arm slung along the backrest, the other resting on his stomach. Pale, nearly translucent skin caught the firelight in curious ways—like candle wax, all smooth and soft, marbled faintly with veins that only surfaced when he tilted his head just so. His black shirt hung open over his collarbones, revealing the sharp edges of his frame, the soft ridges of ribs. He didn’t breathe, not unless he wanted to. Right now, he didn’t bother.
His red eyes followed Ben with quiet amusement, lids half-lowered in that dreamy, patient way of his. His dark hair, slightly damp from the earlier mist, curled around his jaw and temples like ivy.
“You’re staring a lot,” Ricky said, voice low and accented with sleepiness that wasn’t real. He never needed to sleep, but he liked to pretend. “I’m flattered, really. Do I get to see this one?”
Ben didn’t answer at first. His hand moved in gentle curves over the page, shading under Ricky’s cheekbone, tracing the hollow of his throat. He bit his bottom lip in thought. “If it turns out right.”
Ricky tilted his head, the barest smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. “It will. You always get me right.”
“That’s not true,” Ben muttered, still sketching. “I always miss the mouth a little. Yours is… crooked.”
“Charming,” Ricky corrected.
“Crooked,” Ben repeated, lips twitching.
They fell into a silence that didn’t feel heavy. Just the fire crackling, pencil scratching, the occasional soft creak of old floorboards contracting in the cold. Ben’s brows furrowed as he adjusted a line. Ricky moved his hand up to rest against his cheek, watching quietly, his nails painted black, chipped at the edges. The marks of someone trying, not quite succeeding, to live a human life again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Ben lets out, voice hushed.
“What?”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
Ricky blinked, slowly. “Okay what is it, you’re scaring me.”
Ben didn’t say anything for a second. He just let the warmth of the moment settle over them. The space was full of all the things that didn’t need to be said out loud.
“I won’t be offended,” Ricky said eventually, trying not to smile. “In my almost 90 years, I’ve seen and heard basically everything
Ben finally looked up, pencil paused, eyes meeting Ricky’s. “I was just wondering,” he said. “How you got turned.”
Ricky gave him a long, still look—the kind only a creature who’d watched centuries pass could give.
“Sure, I can tell you.”
And then, gently, he raised his hand and beckoned.
Ben closed the sketchbook and got up, barefoot against the stone floor. He crossed the room and sat beside Ricky, who immediately pulled him in, long arms looping around his waist like he was something precious. Ben leaned into the cold chest, head resting just below Ricky’s collarbone. The fire popped again.
“Is this necessary for you to tell me this story?” Ben murmured.
“Very necessary,” Ricky replied.
The storm outside had rolled in quietly, brushing fog against the cottage windows and smearing moonlight across the floors. Inside, the fire had gone to embers. The room was dim, lit only by the shifting light of the coals and the occasional flicker of lightning flashing over the hills. Sketchbook now abandoned on the coffee table. The air between them was weighty—not uncomfortable, but expectant.
“I was nineteen,” Ricky said suddenly, voice low. “Still wearing that jacket you love so much, the one I wore every day of school. It’s lasted me sometime, good thing I took it with me when I ran away.”
Ben didn’t speak. He just shifted a little closer, giving Ricky the room to continue.
“It was fall semester. College upstate. Some tiny town with hills and nothing else. People had been disappearing for weeks—students, mostly. Nobody believed anything serious was happening. Just kids dropping out or going home or getting drunk and lost in the woods.” He exhaled. “But I knew something was wrong. You could feel it in the walls of the college. Like… something was watching. Always just outside the light.”
Ben watched him, silent.
“I had a fight with my dad. Stupid shit, same old crap he’d always get upset about—I can’t remember. I packed a bag and hit the road, hitchhiking south. I passed through my old town the next night. Figured I’d walk past the school, for old time’s sake. It was late. Past midnight.”
He swallowed. His eyes had gone distant, and the fire painted flickering shadows on his face like scars that weren’t really there.
“I smelled smoke before I saw it. The old high school was half-lit up, fire crawling out through the broken windows of the main hall. No sirens, no people—just fire. I should’ve kept walking.” His fingers clenched slightly. “But I didn’t.”
The room was silent except for the rain now gently knocking at the roof.
“I got to the doors, and the place was empty. Just firelight dancing in the corridor. The flames were too quiet. That should’ve tipped me off. Fire’s never that quiet.” His jaw tightened. “Then… I felt something behind me. Cold breath on the back of my neck. Before I could turn—”
His voice caught.
Ben’s hand found his.
Ricky’s next words were quieter. Slower.
“Teeth. Not like fangs. Like a fucking bear trap. It hit me so hard I slammed into the wall and the whole world went white. Then pain. Not sharp—deep. Like something was trying to crawl inside my veins. I tried to scream, but it had me by the throat.”
Ben’s hand tightened around his.
“It drank so much I thought I was going to die. And maybe I did. Everything went black. But I woke up. It was crouched over me. Still bleeding from the fire. Its chest was torn open. It slit its wrist with a nail like a blade and held it to my mouth.”
He paused, jaw twitching.
“I didn’t want to drink it. I really didn’t. I remember the smell—metal and smoke and something too sweet, like rotting flowers. But I was so cold, Ben. So, so cold. I couldn’t move, and something in my head started screaming that I had to live. I couldn’t die like that. So I drank.”
His voice cracked.
“It burned going down. I could feel it clawing through my throat. It made me vomit. Then scream. Then I started laughing, because I thought I was losing my mind. Every nerve lit up like it was on fire. My vision blurred. My bones cracked. And then everything snapped back into place.”
He was quiet for a long moment, the wind howling outside like it remembered.
“When I came to, the fire was gone. The building untouched. And the vampire? Vanished. Like it had never been there at all.”
Ben exhaled softly. “Jesus, Ricky…”
Ricky finally turned to him, eyes red—not from tears, just… blood-flecked and old. “That was seventy-three years ago,” he said with a tired smile. “And sometimes it still feels like it happened yesterday.”
Ben reached out, cupped his cheek. “You didn’t deserve that.”
Ricky gave a soft, bitter laugh. “No one does. Not even Heather and whoever she’s turned. But we get what we get.”
They sat like that for a while. The thunder rolled, and the embers burned low.
But back then, like a 50s American tune.
The night was damp and heavy, mist clinging to the earth like breath on a mirror. Nineteen-year-old Ricky stood in the middle of the cracked sidewalk, facing the house he’d grown up in—though "grown up" felt generous. The windows were yellowed from years of smoke and weather. The porch sagged to one side. A wind chime hung by one rusted nail, tapping against the wood like the ticking of a clock too tired to keep time.
He hadn’t been home in a week. A week since he bled out on scorched linoleum. Since his heart stopped. Since he changed.
No one had looked for him.
Least of all his father.
His boots hit the pavement with a sound too soft to be human as he crossed the front yard. The grass had grown up past his ankles—uncut, uncared for. The mailbox had rusted open. The porch light flickered, like it recognized him and hesitated.
He slipped through the front door without a sound. The hinges didn’t even dare to creak. The inside smelled like old beer, scorched grease, and the brittle scent of a house long since abandoned emotionally. In the living room, the television played a tape loop of some game show rerun, the grainy light flickering against the hollow of his father’s face.
There he was. Slumped in the recliner. One hand still clutching a bottle, the other hanging limp off the armrest. Mouth slightly open. Not snoring, just… breathing. Automatic. Like he wasn’t really inside himself anymore.
Ricky stood still for a long time. The shadows in the corners reached for him, tugged at the new thing inside him that could feel blood like music. But it wasn’t hunger that held him frozen.
It was sadness.
His father’s eyebrows were furrowed even in sleep, deep lines creasing his face like a man waiting for the next punch that never came. He looked thinner than Ricky remembered. Smaller. And so profoundly alone.
Ricky crouched beside him, resting on the balls of his feet. Carefully, he reached out, cool fingers brushing against the rough, sunburnt knuckles of the man who had raised him. Slowly, he took the clenched fist in both hands.
It was a strange intimacy. Gentle. Quiet. Like he was holding the last thread of a memory.
“I’m right here,” he wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come. He knew—deep in the marrow of his new bones—that they wouldn’t matter.
His father didn’t want him here. Hadn’t, not really, since the accident. Since his mother and sister had died and left Ricky behind, a boy with too many ghosts and not enough grace.
And now, not even a boy anymore.
Just a creature with the same eyes, trying to feel something close to warmth in a house that had never known it.
He lingered. Just a little longer. Watching the flicker of static light on his father’s face. Wondering if he dreamed of him. Wondering if he ever missed him.
Then, with careful fingers, Ricky let go.
If he woke his father now, he knew it would break something. In his father. In himself.
He would regret it.
So he stood.
And left without a sound, like he’d never been there at all.
The cottage was silent, save for the soft crackling of the fire and the distant call of a nightbird beyond the frosted windowpanes. A low fog rolled lazily outside, smudging the edges of the world—but inside, it was warm. Dim lamplight pooled around them, honey-gold and quiet.
Ricky stood just inside the door, his shoulders stiff beneath the weight of memory. His jacket was still damp from the walk, his boots streaked with mud from the hills. He hadn’t spoken since returning—just walked in, eyes far away, and stood there like a ghost remembering what it meant to be seen.
Ben didn’t say anything at first. He stepped forward, slow and steady, closing the space between them like drawing a curtain shut against the cold.
He reached up and cupped Ricky’s face in his hands, fingers gentle against cool skin. His thumbs brushed the sharp bones of his cheeks, and only then did he notice the tear tracks.
“Ricky,” he whispered.
Ricky didn’t answer. His lip trembled, and his eyes shone with a sheen he hadn’t registered—like something in him had cracked open on the walk home. He looked at Ben with something desperate and terrified and aching all at once, like a child waiting to be told it was okay to cry.
Ben didn’t hesitate. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Ricky’s right cheek, then the left. Soft and unhurried, the way you kiss bruises to help them fade. His hands moved to cradle the sides of Ricky’s face, thumbs sweeping across the skin beneath his eyes where salt clung like dew.
Then he pulled back, just enough to meet Ricky’s eyes—storm-dark and swimming. And he nodded, once. Silent permission.
That was all it took.
A sound escaped Ricky, caught between a sob and a gasp, and he folded forward into Ben’s chest like a dying leaf. His hands curled into the fabric of Ben’s shirt, clutching it like something to tether him to the earth. The sobs came hard—shaking, breathless, years of grief and silence and shame clawing their way out of his throat all at once.
Ben didn’t flinch. He just held him, one hand at the back of Ricky’s head, fingers threading gently through his black hair, the other arm around his waist, grounding him. Anchoring him.
“You don’t have to think about it anymore,” Ben murmured, voice soft against the top of his head. “You know...”
Head lifting up to look him in the eye, “The second you weren’t in my life, I felt it.” Ben says, “Like really felt it and I’d never want to feel it again.”
His thumb grazed his chin as he smiled—soft, crooked, and impossibly fond. Ben caught the look and huffed a small laugh, trying to act unaffected. But Ricky only chuckled back, head dropping shyly, that rare warmth unfurling in his chest like a secret too fragile to name.
He reached out, fingertips brushing delicately along Ben’s forearm, barely there. A cool touch on warm skin. Then his gaze drifted—past Ben’s collarbone, past the steady rhythm of his pulse, to the sketchbook lying forgotten on the coffee table.
“You said I’d get to see it this time…” Ricky said quietly, tilting his head toward it.
Ben followed the glance, shoulders tightening just a little. “Right,” he said, half-sigh, half-smile. He grabbed the sketchbook, flipping through it with practiced hesitation before settling on a page and turning it over for Ricky.
Ricky took it in slowly. The edges of the paper trembled slightly in his hands. His expression shifted—mouth parted, eyes wide, the air stilling around him. There he was, rendered in pencil and shadow. Every line of his face captured with aching detail: the curve of his jaw, the deep-set eyes, the ever-present undercurrent of sadness he never quite shook. It was uncanny. It was beautiful. It was him, as seen through Ben’s eyes—someone worth remembering.
“I don’t even recognize myself most days,” Ricky whispered. “But you… you draw me like I’m still in there.”
Ben flushed, reaching to pull the paper back, but Ricky held it tight, unwilling to let it go.
“Meeting you might’ve been the best thing to happen to me in my whole life,” he said, almost absently, still staring at the drawing. “And I’ve been around a while.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic,” he muttered, though his voice was thick with something tender.
He slid into Ricky’s lap without hesitation, knees bracketing his thighs, hands finding familiar places at the nape of his neck and the hollow of his collarbone. Ricky set the sketchbook aside and wrapped his arms around Ben’s waist, slow and reverent, like he was afraid the moment might vanish if he held on too tight.
Ben leaned in first—mouth brushing Ricky’s, soft and deliberate. Ricky met him there, cool lips parting, catching the warmth of Ben’s breath like it was the only thing tethering him to the present. Their kiss deepened, unhurried, built on trust and want and the slow ache of not always having the right to touch like this.
Ben’s fingers threaded through Ricky’s hair, tugging gently as he tilted his head to kiss deeper. Ricky responded with a quiet growl, his hands slipping under Ben’s shirt, not to undress him—just to feel. Skin to skin. Warmth against cold.
Ben’s heart beat fast against Ricky’s chest, and Ricky let his fangs graze against Ben’s bottom lip—just a tease, just enough to feel the tension shudder through him. He pulled back slightly, forehead pressed to Ben’s, both of them breathing hard, eyes searching.
“You okay?” Ricky asked, voice low.
Ben nodded. “A little blood never hurt anybody.”
Then Ben kissed him again, harder this time. Not letting him escape him again.