outer space by LindaMarie Alaric was suddenly very, very awake. He was thoroughly tangled in the sheets, but managed to roll over on his back. What had awakened him? He quickly scanned his moonlit bedroom. There was a dark shape at the foot of his bed, just like in his dreams. His memories. As a boy he'd wake up and it would always be there. One fateful night, when he was an adolescent, his nighttime specter suddenly felt more like a companion, and he realized what his life's work would be. He hadn't seen it since then, and now he found himself wondering why it had returned. The conclusion that the other shadow and this were one and the same was, of course, ridiculous. That phantom did not have a voice. This one did. "Hello, Mr. Saltzman," it said--and then Alaric was struggling across the unnecessarily large mattress, fumbling for the bedside lamp or maybe his gun. He wasn't sure which. "If you're looking for a weapon, I've already taken care of any that would help you. You're a very sound sleeper." Damon Salvatore placed his knees on the edge of the bed, bracing himself on his hands. A thin line of undiluted light escaped the curtains, cutting a swath down the side of the vampire's head. Alaric shivered. "How did you get in?" Damon's laugh was slow, quiet, and menacing. "You let me into this house the day after you moved here." "I...did? I don't remember anything like that." Damon smiled at him, a flash of white in the dark, and one of his hands wrapped around Alaric's calf. The man had very delicate fingers. "It took a little...persuasion, on my part." "Oh." Alaric realized his heart was beating very fast. "What do you want?" "That's a complicated question, Mr. Saltzman." Damon was snaking his way up the bed, hovering over Alaric's prone body, which Alaric couldn't seem to move. When their faces were level with one another, he continued, "I want a lot of things. Mostly, at the moment, I want my brother and his dearly beloved to be left alone; I have plans of my own for them. I want to find a place to park my car where the robins won't shit on it. I want sex. I want your blood." His body thrust downward, coming to rest on top of Alaric's. His hips undulated, causing a friction that made Alaric groan automatically. He licked Alaric's throat and whispered, "I figure I'll kill two birds with one stone, hmm?" "Oh, god," Alaric breathed. Fear and desire melded in a pool at the base of his spine, traveling steadily upward. He was very acutely aware of two things: his own mortality, and his own hard-on. Damon lifted his head, and this time his tongue was tracing Alaric's mouth. His pelvis ground down in a way that made Alaric gasp, and then that tongue was in Alaric's mouth. So hot. Alaric had never thought a vampire's mouth would be that hot. And, of course, he had thought about it, which was one of the reasons why he just hadn't fainted by now. All that research, the interviews. He never recorded the ones who simply said that their dreams weren't bad at all. That any penalty would have been worth it. But he remembered every word of what they'd said, and he wondered if those needle teeth really felt as good as they said. He'd broken up with his boyfriend four months ago. The sex just wasn't enough any more. He dreamed of utter loss of will, of the swimming sensation of low blood volume. Now a vampire was kissing him and working his dick with his hips like a pro, and Alaric still couldn't move. He couldn't even close his eyes. Close-up, Damon's eyes had incalculable depths, like outer space. Alaric felt like he was laid out on an examining table--Damon was dissecting him with that gaze. "Oh, god," Alaric said again, and it was half-moan and half-embarrassment at the remembrance that he was wearing Star Wars pajamas. "Damon..." "I don't think, Mr. Saltzman, that I ever gave you permission to call me by my first name. We've only just met, after all," and Damon was reaching in between them and deftly undoing his zipper, pushing his pants over his hips before roughly tugging down Alaric's pj's. His long fingers wrapped skillfully around both their dicks and stroked. Alaric cried out, loudly, and he could feel himself leaking precome. Damon kept stroking, and now the friction was dulled a little by the wetness. Alaric wanted him to speed up, but he couldn't ask, so he simply had to moan and bear it. His dick kept twitching inside Damon's grasp; like it had such a mind of its own that it couldn't be kept still. He was at least a little less nervous when he realized that Damon's breathing was a little ragged too, that his rhythm was not quite steady. Their mouths met, again, again, and then Damon started kissing a trail away from Alaric's mouth, little nips and sucks that were almost bites. His wet hot mouth moved down to Alaric's chin, along his jaw line, settling for a few seconds on the little hollow just below his ear. His hand gave a startling little twist around their dicks sliding together, and this time Alaric's moan sounded more like a cry of pain to his own ears. Every sensation felt so intense, and now Damon was coaxing in his ear, "Yes, do it, come for me," and that was--that was just too much altogether. He came, with a little wail and a jet of hot wetness, and at the very same moment Damon's head darted up and back down like a snake, and Alaric felt a sudden burning that could have been part of his orgasm if it hadn't come from his throat, if it weren't going on and on even after the tremors had stopped. Damon's hand was still moving, a grating kind of ecstasy over Alaric's hypersensitive skin, and then Damon's mouth was free again, right above Alaric's, and he came in his own hand, his eyes widening, growling. Damon kissed him again, slowly, as his weight settled more heavily on top of him. Alaric could taste blood in Damon's mouth. Alaric's blood. And all of the sudden Alaric realized he could move again, and his hand reached up to tangle in Damon's hair. When their mouths parted, he smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Salvatore." "The pleasure was mine," Damon said, and in the blink of an eye he was up off the bed, and the air around him shifting weirdly. Then he was a bird, and the window slid open without anyone touching it. When he went out it closed again, and the room was very, very silent. Alaric rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. The color inside that dark comforting space was not as black as Damon's eyes; it had a clearly reddish tinge. End.