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Sammy is changing. Over the summer, the baby-fat has melted off his face,
leaving sharp new angles of cheek-bone and jaw. His voice is cracking and
deepening, slowly dropping in register, and he's grown so tall he can nearly
look Michael in the eye.

Normal enough changes: no glowing red eyes or vampire fangs here. But
Michael finds them just as terrifying.

His excuses are almost gone now. Sammy has already stopped crawling into his
bed when the nightmares strike, and their casual roughhousing doesn't feel
so casual anymore. There's a different quality to the way Sammy squirms
beneath him now, lets Michael pin him to the ground. More than once,
recently, Michael has looked up to see a frighteningly adult knowledge in
his little brother's eyes. The excuses of childhood are fast disappearing,
and the uncomfortable truth is taking shape more and more clearly between
them.

And the truth is that Michael doesn't know what he'll do when his brother
finally tells him to stop. As he will. As he *must*. He's been trying to
prepare himself; he stays away for days sometimes now, or keeps to his room,
avoiding Sammy as much as possible, but in the end his need always brings
him back. Michael knows how wrong it is to want this, but it feels like
without Sammy's touch he might shrivel up and blow away like dust, like
David and the others when the sun rose. He doesn't need Sammy's blood
anymore - they're back to sharing chili and hamburgers, fighting over the
last of the ice-cream. But what he needs now feels just as compelling, and
as Sammy grows into his new body, there's no escaping it - one way or the
other, things are going to change.

One way or the other. Sammy has taken to walking naked from the bathroom to
his bedroom, and it forces Michael to recognise again how much he's grown
up. His shoulders are broadening, there's new definition in his chest and
legs, and his cock... his cock is no longer the sweet pink childish scrap of
flesh it once was. Now it rests heavily in a thicket of dark blond curls.
Waiting...

Some days Michael takes his bike out and rides along the edge of the cliff
for hours to punish himself for noticing this, for *looking*.

He's not sure how to read his brother's behaviour. Some days he thinks it's
a warning. "Look," Sammy seems to be saying, "look, I'm almost a man now,
these childish games have got to stop." Other times, tense and hot and
sleepless in the windy Santa Clara nights, he thinks it might be  . . .
display. He doesn't  *want* to touch himself at that thought, but it rushes
through his veins like a drug and some nights he just can't help it.

Tonight it's long past midnight and his cock is hard in his hand. The
blankets are down around his ankles and he's trying desperately to keep all
images from his mind, to concentrate on the rhythm of his own strokes, on
the sound of his blood pounding in his ears and the feel of the wind from
the open window on his body. But it's no good, his mind won't stay blank, so
he lets it happen, lets himself think about his brother's touch, and the
burn of his shame joins the fire in his veins until it's all just heat,
lifting him high, higher, up where he needs to go.

He's almost there now, cock slick in his hand, spine tense and electric, his
hand's motion nearly a blur.  His other hand is cupping his balls, and he
tightens his grip to the edge of pain, bucks up hard into his own touch.

The door to his room flies open. Michael lets out a frightened yelp and
scrambles frantically for the bedclothes, twisting himself to try and hide
his nudity, his hard and dripping cock. "Hey," says Sammy's voice from the
doorway, "it's just me. Did I scare you, bro, or am I ... interrupting?"

Michael hopes the darkness covers his shamed crimson blush. "Sorry," he
grunts at Sammy, "I was having a dream."

"Me too," says Sammy, moving into the room. "A bad one." He's wearing white
cotton boxers, pale in the dimness of the room, and Michael's throat
tightens as he comes nearer. "I think it's this wind - vampire weather." His
voice is quiet, its deepened tones still strange to Michael's ears, and
there's an odd edge to it that Michael can't interpret.

"Remember what we used to do when I had a bad dream?" Sammy is standing at
the side of the bed now, looking at Michael with a strangely defiant
expression, and Michael is desperately aware of the thin sheet over his own
nakedness and his still half-hard cock.

"Remember how I'd climb into your bed, and you'd tell me that everything was
all right? Remember when we actually used to talk to each other? What's
going on, Michael? Are you mad at me? I've hardly seen you all summer."

And now, oh god, Sammy was climbing *into* the bed, the cotton of his shorts
brushing Michael's thigh, and none of this was helping his stubborn cock go
down. "Sammy!" he says desperately, "I think I- I don't think - "

"Well, that about covers your options, doesn't it?" says Sammy, that strange
edge still in his voice. Michael wants to turn his back on him, wants to
curl up tight around his own shame, but Sammy is holding him there with his
eyes, lying there next to him, far, far too close. "You wanna know what I
dreamt, Michael? It was David and the others again, only this time they
didn't take me. This time they took *you* - you went with them, you chose
*them*, and you left me here alone. And it was lonely here without you, you
know. No one else understood."

Sammy's voice sounds rough and husky as he says this and Michael wonders for
a horrified moment if he's crying, but then Sammy rolls against him, closing
the last inches between them, and Michael feels the cotton shorts press
against his stomach, the cotton shorts and his brother's cock hard inside
them.

His mouth shocks open but all that emerges is a low breathy wordless sound
and then Sammy is kissing him, a wet and enthusiastic kiss that only reminds
him of just how *young* Sammy still is. He tries to pull away but Sammy
rolls after him and Michael hears himself hoarsely whispering "No, Sammy,
no, no," as if it wasn't *his* hands that were reaching out and pulling his
little brother close, gripping his ass and moving him so that their hard
cocks met and slid together, making Sammy pant and whimper in his ear.
Michael feels as though something is shattering inside of him but he can't
stop now, it's all too much after too long spent wanting this.

Sammy moves away a little and Michael is suddenly afraid, but then Sammy
takes his hand, takes his hand and guides it down, down across his flat
young stomach to his shorts and *inside* and with a groan Michael closes his
hand around his brother's cock.

Sammy laughs a wild, half-frightened little laugh in his ear and says
urgently, "Come on, Michael, please, please, come on," and so he does, he
works his brother's cock in his hand until Sammy clutches him tight and
cries out and shoots hard against Michael's stomach, and then Michael can't
wait anymore, he takes his own cock in the hand still wet with Sammy's come,
and finishes himself off with brutal stripping strokes while Sammy lies
panting, half-stunned, beside him.

There's darkness, then, and drift, and Michael welcomes it. Fuzzily in the
back of his mind thoughts are trying to form. "Just another dream," he tries
to tell himself, "just another fucked-up fantasy." The shame at this thought
is familiar and manageable. But then fingers are touching his face and
Sammy's voice is saying "Michael? Michael! Are you OK?" and he opens his
eyes and sees Sammy there beside him, flushed and sweaty and come-spattered.

Panic rips through Michael, making his heart pound wildly and his head feel
like something's been detonated inside of it. He pushes Sammy's touching
hands away frantically and tries to scramble from the bed, but his legs
crumple under him and he's left kneeling weakly beside it, clutching at the
edge of the mattress while Sammy stares at him.

The corners of Sammy's mouth are turning down, the smooth skin on his
forehead creasing. A few years ago this would have meant tears, but he's
holding them back manfully now, Michael can see the effort. "You really
*are* mad at me now, aren't you?" Sammy says. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
make it *worse*!"

Michael hears this and thinks he might die. Then he does the only thing left
for him to do now. He crawls back into the bed and pulls Sammy into his
arms. "No," he says, "I'm not mad, I was *never* mad at you, Sammy, and you
shouldn't have done this just because you thought I was."

"That's not why I did it," Sammy says, and his eyes are dark and adult
again. Michael is rocking him, gently, and he means it to be soothing, he
means it to be innocent, but his brother's hands are touching him, and his
brother's breath is hot and intimate against his neck, and with every beat
of the younger boy's heart Michael can feel his cock getting harder and
harder once more against his belly.