Cure by Te February 2000 Disclaimers: If they belonged to me I would need even more therapy than I'm already getting. Spoilers: The Lost Boys. Fandom: The Lost Boys. Pairing: I hesitate to call this Michael/Sammy, but I suppose it could be defined that way. Which should let y'all know what you're in for with this. Ratings Note: NC-17. This could be a standalone, but you should probably read "Outcast" first. Summary: Michael sinks a little deeper. Author's Note/Acknowledgments: For all you sickos who wanted a sequel. Thanks go to Chelle for audiencing and encouragement. * School has started and Michael's pretty sure they all can smell it on him. The taint. Just about everybody at Monroe High lived through their own long, strange Santa Carla summers but they all know he's different. He knows they do, because of the way they look at him. The way people neither invite him nor explicitly shut him out. David's blood in him, maybe, but more probably his own. Too heated, too close beneath his skin. They all know, and so it's only the others along the periphery who pay him any mind. The one with the glasses over there by himself, trying to escape through a book. That girl with the shadows under her eyes and the sweet acid sweat at her temples. A few others, here and there, and *they* look at him with a strange blend of hope and contempt. Michael just watches, and goes through the motions of life as a high school junior. He hands in just about all of his assignments, just about on time. He goes to just about all of his classes. He asks out the shadow girl, and idly lets himself consider her to be *his* shadow girl for a while. Paints a picture of the two of them on the outside of it all, black leather jarring against all the pastel neon and tanned white skin. He lets her drift away from him again with some relief -- there had been an edge of permanence in the fantasies that was just too much to take. Permanent mediocrity, in life as well as deed. Michael wants a lot more than that. Michael wants to feel. On the inside, where no one can see but him, not if he doesn't want them to. He wants pieces of that belonging, wants to devour them whole and make them his own. He deserves it, really. If it wasn't for him, if it wasn't... it was complicated. The important part of it all was that Michael had sacrificed bits and pieces of himself, innocence and dreams both, and he desperately needed them back. Needs them back. And Sammy knows. Michael sees the way his brother, his beautiful little brother looks at him, and knows the look for what it is: Simple love. Unconditional, uncomplicated. Sammy knows that Michael hurts, and wants so badly to make it better for him. Sammy makes sure he eats, and sometimes makes him warm milk at night for no reason at all. Sammy gets invited to all the best parties -- even the ones just for seniors -- and always tries to bring Michael along. It makes his heart swell, big and full and aching as anything else, and sometimes Michael almost goes along... but then he thinks about what it would be to see Sammy surrounded by all those bright bright strangers, and him the brightest of them all. How would they see his smile? How close would they get? Would there be a girl? Someone tanned and blonde and smiling, softnesses tempered with healthy muscle, warm and hungry for Sammy? Sammy would be able to taste the sweetly spiked punch on her breath, but he wouldn't push her away... And always Michael wrenches a smile onto his face and turns his brother down, pushes him a little towards the door. And Sammy never takes the push for a goodbye. Sammy always leans right into it, until Michael's palm is flat against his brother's still narrow chest, flat against the beat of his heart. Sammy waits there until Michael relents and lets him close enough for a hug, for a bit of wrestling that leaves Michael with Sammy's clean fresh scent in his nose for the duration of the too-long night. And Michael knows with all his heart that *Sammy* knows that was what he needed all along anyway... Why else would he give it? When Michael dreams it's always the same. Blood in his mouth, Sammy in his arms. The colors fade before the shadows, but everything is sharp just the same. Sammy's sweet scent and still, trusting body. The taste of something like heaven and the bone deep satisfaction of sated grief. He knows what it means. Tonight the dream wakes him just before one, or perhaps it's just the sound of Sammy trying -- and failing -- to sneak in without waking him up. It's about an hour past his Saturday curfew, which is actually pretty early for him. Michael listens, counts the creaky floorboards. One, two, two and a half, and Sammy's at his closet door, three, four and a complaining squeak and Sammy's on his own bed. Michael can't quite distinguish specifics from the sound of rustling cloth, he just knows his brother is undressing as quietly as possible. He waits for the rustling to stop, waits for the squeaks of the mattress to slow to the even-ness of a boy preparing to sleep. More minutes pass in increasing silence, but Michael remains wide awake. Waiting. And then he slips out of bed himself, silent with the practice of many long nights, and steps softly out of his room and down the short hall. The first night after they had killed the vampires Sammy had left his door open, with a cheerfully defiant smile for Michael and Michael alone. Sammy always left it open at least a crack from that night on, and Michael accepted the gift gratefully. Accepts it now, as well, widening the crack until he can see moonlight falling across Sammy's face and one outflung arm. The silvery light is distancing, though. Tonight Michael can't quite accept that and moves into the room itself, glancing around at the oddly neat piles of clutter. At the posters on the wall of dark, pale-skinned celebrities. He wants very badly to tell Sammy that he understands, but it would be wrong to say the words aloud. It would break the fragile peace they have here, in these nights, when it's just the two of them and the only sounds are breath and stifled moans. Michael peels the sheets back and runs his hands over and over flushing skin. Laps at the acrid, needful sweat. Listens for the sound of Sammy's heart racing to meet the rhythm of Michael's own. "Please, Michael why --" Not really words, not really, and Michael swallows them whole, chewing gently at Sammy's mouth, tasting sweet cheap wine and desperation. It only makes him hungrier. Sammy doesn't begin to thrash this time until Michael gets them lined up, groin to groin, need to need. It's easy to get his hands around his brother's slim wrists, to revel in the rabbit-fast pulse against his palms, to press him down and press them together and move fast and slickening and drown in wide blue, blue eyes -- "*Sammy* --" And it's easy to fall just to the side of him, to hold him close and kiss the salt from his cheeks, the slight redness from his wrists. To work one hand between their bodies to where Sammy needs him most. To where Michael needs to be. It's going to be all right, Michael will make it all right, just the two of them, just like always, and forever, no one else, no one... And when it's over Sammy is fully his once again, pliant in his arms and still. Michael kisses the plushly swollen lips again, and again, and does not return to his own bed until he knows Sammy is asleep and the only scent on Michael's body is that of his beautiful brother. He is pure again, and easy within himself once again. End.