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title: Exit Music (for a Sunrise)
visibility: public
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This is a short story I wrote because I was feeling inspired by Spooky Season and a Veritasium video. It involves unique vampire lore and self-destructively horny characters, and I'll probably eventually write an explicitly explicit sequel.

Close your eyes, smell the pine forest and chlorine, hear the hum of an ice machine faintly down the hallway, and then...

----

"It's the acidity, that's the stupid thing."

I glanced dozily over at the boy sitting next to me. I wasn't entirely sure if I could feel his pulse pushing back against mine. The short length of aquarium tubing between us was a much darker red than I would have imagined, and I felt just fine.

He pointed at his neck, in two places, symmetrical on either side, and continued. "Your carotid forks like a wishbone on either side. And there's a little bit in the fork, that tells you if your blood is acidic. That's what tells you when to breathe."

"Really?" I smiled warmly. "What's acidity got to do with breathing?"

He smiled too, but his eyes were on the horizon. There was a thinness in his expression, an old pain. I felt my heart leap for him in that moment. I don't know why. "Acidity's got everything to do with breathing, especially the yearning for it. You've felt the need to breathe before, haven't you? The desperation that comes from being denied air?"

I shrugged, a little put off by the question. "Yeah. Obviously. I'm alive, aren't I?"

He chuckled. "Obviously. Silly question. It's been awhile for me." I wondered what he meant by that, and waited for him to explain, but he was determined to get back to his original topic. "You can't really feel low oxygen. And you can't really feel high carbon dioxide... directly. But carbon dioxide, it makes your blood sour. Those little bits in your neck, they tell you that your blood is sour, which means you probably have high carbon dioxide, which means you probably have low oxygen too. Sour blood means you need, more than anything in the world, to *breathe.*"

"Really?" I stared off into the orange-ripple sky, wondering if he was seeing something particular in the clouds, or the skyline. The night air was cool on my skin, but by now I'd warmed the concrete of the balcony, at least the parts I was touching. It felt a little less warm now than I vaguely remembered it feeling half an hour ago. It was beautiful out there in the expanse of the world, and complicated, and so was he. I turned to him, and pointed down at the tubes. "Am *I* sour?"

He turned to me, and his short sandy hair rustled in the breeze. His lips were turned up in a grin, and he held a finger up, gesturing. From inside the hotel room, Thom Yorke's voice rang in sweet, distant echos from the FM radio. Pleading, crooning:

 *Breathe.... keep breathin'....*

The boy tapped his finger in the air to seal the moment. "No. Not sour at all."

I relaxed a little further, cozy in my spot. "Cool."

His brow furrowed then. "I'm sorry about this, by the way. Either way it goes."

The wind opened up the neck of my shirt a little further, and I didn't mind, but I wished so badly it would do the same favor for him. I laughed, I honestly laughed. "Well, what are the ways it could go? Sounds like there's just two of 'em."

He just stared at his palm, the gorgeous hand which flowed in clean lines upwards to the softly sculpted arm that had the needle stuck into it. He didn't answer my question, he just said, "You probably think I'm unfathomably selfish, don't you?"

I shook my head. "Why would I?"

He looked at me fiercely then. "Because *I* do." And there was a razor buried in his voice, a fresh fire in his eyes like I'd never seen. "Because I'm trying to convince myself desperately that I'm *not,* that I don't have *choices,* and really, do I? When it's like this, when the price is this high to simply _be?_"

I wasn't sure what to say to that. So I said nothing, and he continued, gathering terrible momentum.

"It would be easier if I could pretend what so many of us pretend. A divide between the divinely ordained race, and the livestock. There's certainly a host of fucking incentives to believe that. But it's a house of cards. It falls apart when you can talk to the cattle, and they're just like you, except.. briefer. And you were like them once - even if it feels more like a story than a memory anymore - it happened, and you can't escape knowing that."

I leaned toward him, careful of the needle in _my_ arm. "You say a lot of words to dance around what you mean, Conrad."

His expression softened. "There are more than two options, actually."

The trees were visible several stories below us, and stretching out for acres. Just barely visible, mind you, but a texture of the world painted in moon-grey tinsel. The birds were beginning to wake now. I asked him, gently, silently. Insistently. I asked without words.

He hesitated. "I'm... deciding."

I sighed, peeved.

He looked me up and down. "You could live forever, you know. If you don't mind the dark."

I scooted closer to him, and it was harder than I expected. My muscles were heavy. I didn't care, and I kissed him. "The dark's not so bad. But your voice has a catch in it, something darker than that. I want to know what it is."

He took my hand, put it on his chest. I steadied my heart - I had to. He was looking at me earnestly, and I matched him. "Do you feel it?"

 *Breathe.... keep breathin'....*

The rising, the falling. "Yes."

"I still do that. It'll buy me about a week. But it won't last. Blood breaks down, it gets sour, and I'll feel like I'm drowning... all the time."

I nodded. My mind was starting to feel clear, even as my body as getting heavier. "You're deciding whether to put me through the same wringer, aren't you? Forever, but with an asterisk."

He nodded back, eyes serious as Sunday service. "It's one of the options. And it's a big asterisk. But it's bad to be alone like this. You don't die, but it's hard to find fresh blood when you can't function, and you can't function without fresh blood." He cupped my face in his hand. "I've been alone for ten months, Elizabeth. A blink in my lifespan, and I can't count the times I've nearly spiraled into helplessness and suffering in that time. It's the longest blink I've ever endured. We're not meant to be alone."

I smiled at him. "I've loved other men. Gone on a NyQuil run here and there. Sounds like the same thing, just with higher stakes."

He winced theatrically, barely containing a giggle. "Oh, don't talk stakes to me!"

His hair felt so soft as I twirled it in my fingers. "You're an idiot, Conrad. But I don't mind it."

He stared into me, warm and kind. I was starting to feel a bit cold in the morning chill myself. "I really could. I really could do it." The last vestige of my glass of wine was in his voice, and it sounded like spun gold.

I kissed him again. "Call that Plan A. And the other options?"

"Cheeky!" The smile lasted for a moment, then faded, and he was looking _through_ me. His voice resumed hollowly. "The next option is to just drain you. You know that's on the table."

"Walk the earth alone? Take your chances with that vicious cycle of yours?"

He raised his eyebrows at me. "That's a remarkably selfless way to talk about the consequences of dying tonight."

"I won't." I winked at him. "You need me and we both know it."

He rolled his eyes. A little of the morning light - indirect and pale, but with the promise of a turmeric sunrise - was beginning to dance through his hair. "I told you, I lived ten months without you so far."

"Oh, I know." I poked his nose with my finger. "I heard you describe it. Good luck with month eleven, sounds like real glory days for you. Lap of luxury, through and through."

"It's not a kindness to put you through that."

"Then don't." I traced my fingers up his bare leg, towards the cuff of his long-dry swim trunks. "Take me with you. You said it yourself, we're not meant to be alone."

He stopped my fingers with his, gently. Sadly.

"There's a third option."

He stared off into the horizon, but I stared upwards at the wall of the hotel. The rising sun was already peeking over the forest-covered hillside at the cold stucco of the upper floors. The curtain of light would find its way down the wall to us in a few minutes. In these hours at the open and close of day, the sun is at such an oblique angle that, if you watch carefully, you can see the borders of shadow moving moment by moment. It still doesn't seem quick, and yet if you take your attention away for what seems like no time at all, it creeps up on you with a ferocious and unwavering pace.

*That* is what made me feel truly cold.

"You wouldn't," I said, with none of my previous confidence.

He stared off at the hillside, wind rustling his teal polo shirt, saying nothing.

"You _wouldn't_."

He opened his mouth, idly stroking one of his fangs with his finger. "Did you wonder why I didn't use these?"

I gulped. "Because it's hard to talk while drinking?"

"_We don't drink it._ Our fangs are... highly vascularized. What good would blood do in our stomachs? We don't _drink,_ we _drain._ That doesn't make talking hard, it makes it impossible." He turned to look at me again, a weariness in his gorgeous shoulders that I could barely stand to witness. "And I sorely needed to talk with you tonight."

I felt a hot tear run down my cheek. "Before you go?"

"In case I decided to."

"It doesn't have to be like this."

"It's been a long ten months, Elizabeth."

"The next ten don't have to be. They could go by like nothing at all. You and me."

"And the trail of bodies we'd leave behind together."

"God _dammit_, Conrad!" I shouted, suddenly impatient and furious and terrified. "Don't do this to me. Not now."

  *You can laugh...*

He smiled at me, transparent in a way I'd not seen him before, old inside and visible and vulnerable. He was pink and warm, and if anyone had seen us, they would have guessed wrong which of us was a vampire. Pink and warm and tired. "I asked you, when we met, what you'd do if you only had one night left on earth..."

  *... your spineless laugh...*

I couldn't even raise my arms anymore, but my hand was clenched in a fist by my side. "You fucking bastard."

  *We hope your rules and wisdom...*

He looked up at the sky, its stars stolen by clouds and the rising dawn. "And we did it, you know! We actually fucking did it."

  *... choke...*

I felt lightheaded. I looked up again, and the light was beginning to glare off the frame of our room's sliding glass door, the top edge.

  *... you....*

What they don't tell you about exsanguination is that it feels a lot like not being able to breathe.

He held my hand, and stared into my fading vision. "I'm so grateful to you, Elizabeth Maroney. And you've helped me decide, at the eleventh hour. Down to the fucking wire."

 *... Now, we are one...*

He unstuck the needle from his arm, and started for the sliding glass door, which was still open. "I'll never forget you, Lizzy. Sorry it wasn't Plan A."

And then he fell like a mailbox making the unfortunate acquaintance of a vehicle-speed baseball bat.

 *... In everlasting peace...*

My hand was clamped down hard on the tubing. I don't think I could have let go anymore if I wanted to. "Fuck you, Conrad."

He stared down at the noose of deep-red tubing around his ankle, yanked into an impenetrable knot by his resistance against it. I guess he never felt me wrap it around him when I was teasing his leg.

 *... We hope...*

He stared at me, dumbfounded. "Lizzy, what did you _do?_"

 *... that you choke....*

"Insurance."

 *... that you choke.*

The blaze of the sun was upon us, and I realized one last time that I finally felt warm again. I was distantly aware that he was struggling with the tube around his ankle, and then with my hand, beating me, screaming in panic.

 *We hope... that you choke...*

The sun was so warm.

 *... that you choke.*

Let there be no mystery about how I died. February 4th, 1996, exsanguinated next to a severely burnt corpse. His name was Conrad. And my name, the last goddamn word he screamed out of that pretty little throat, was *Elizabeth.*

* [02 - Lime Slushie](/writing/em/02)