Voila! Because it's midnight here and I just couldn't wait for you all to read it. Sorry if they're not edited but I'll eventually get to it. It should be legible. Enjoy!

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CHAPTER TWO:
Phantom Pains

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Some conversations and revelations on the path to self-discovery.

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MITCHELL

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I led Annie downstairs where George was curled up on the couch, waiting for Nina. He’d fallen asleep and begun to snore, mumbling something about pipe cleaners and glue. Annie and I shared a look and smirked at each other across the kitchen table.

“So you just saw her in the club?” Annie asked, breaking the silence with her sad attempt at interrogation. She and George were making me crazy with all their suspicions. Why couldn’t they tell I was in pain? Why weren’t they happy about it?

I just scoffed at her. “I smelled her, Annie. You happy? She was covered in vampire blood. I thought they’d found me or something. When I realized she was just a scared kid, I got her out of there and brought her here… She, uhm, tell you anything?”

Annie scrunched up her nose like she was debating whether or not to tell me. “She killed her brother,” she whispered as though it were something truly shocking. I’d actually suspected it since she told me her brother had been turned. “That was all the blood. She let him feed off her for months but they couldn’t do it anymore and she—”

She interrupted herself and silence smothered us again. Annie was sipping her empty mug absentmindedly, staring off at the wall. No matter how many times she staved off death or how moody she got, she was still the same innocent little girl we met all those years ago. Silly to think a ghost would change.

I reached across for her hand across the table. She flinched and my hand went right through her, slamming on the table as I tried to hold onto her. In a blink, she was gone and just as quickly, she was back in her seat.

“You okay?” I asked. She was never so twitchy about me touching her. We used to curl up on the couch all the time, watching old movies when I couldn’t sleep. Lee had been the only change and I realized what she feared. I was the same as the monster that had done that to Lee. “Look, Annie, I get that you’ve always seen me as just another guy, your friend through anything, and I’m still him, I promise. But I’m the monster too. I’m not like George. I can’t put it away for a month then have my happy jaunt through the woods and wake up refreshed. I saw her covered in blood and I felt hungry. I saw those scars and I wanted to feed off her. I know it’s ugly but I’d rather you see the truth than the lie, even if it makes you a little jumpy around me.”

She gazed at me for a moment then refused to look at me again. “I see you,” she answered softly. “You think I don’t. I know what you are, Mitchell, and it doesn’t matter. It never has. I just—I wonder some things.”

“Like?” I urged her on with a lazy smirk.

“Like whether you ever thought about… you know, not killing the girls you sleep with. I mean, Lee’s brother fed off her for months and she was okay. Why don’t you get a human girlfriend? They’re not as exciting but hey, you might actually be happy for once.”

I laughed, so loudly that George shot up all of a sudden, screaming something about too much glitter on the pears. Annie wasn’t amused at all.

“No,” I answered, the laughter dying. “Annie, what am I supposed to tell the poor girl? ‘Hey baby, how about I suck your blood? Don’t worry, it’ll only hurt for eternity.’ I’d have to reveal what I am! It’s not the blood they’d be missing. It’s the safety of not knowing we’re out there!”

She shushed me, nodding towards the stairs. “Don’t wake her. I didn’t mean to rile you up. It was just a question.”

I shut my eyes and sighed. “Sorry. No, you’re right. It was just a question.”

A stupid question. It wasn’t an option. I’d accepted it years ago. These were different times and I didn’t believe I could fall in love again. Even if I did, it’d be temporary and I was too hungry right now. I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

I looked at George on the couch, snuggled up with his plastic fruit. He’d found Nina. He’d found someone who loved him for the beast he was. Maybe it was a possibility. I was much harder to love but maybe there was a chance after all. Annie saw my line of sight and she seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Something caught fire inside me, maybe the remnants of my dusty heart. For a moment, just a moment, I saw Annie as the girl and not the ghost. Not just any girl either. She was beautiful and she was here and she was… glowing before me like I’d never seen. Did ghosts even have blood? She could touch things and feel more and more. She was cold, I knew from our makeshift kiss, but her hand kept getting warmer the longer I held it. Maybe giving up death made her corporeal again.

I chuckled to myself, after some time of silence, for even pondering such foolish things. George was woken by his cell phone. Nina had apparently gone home alone and he ran to meet her at her place. The boy was turning into a desperate puppy but I didn’t say a thing. I quickly went back to my quiet contemplation beside Annie. We moved to the couch and cuddled up as we usually did. George was the only one that could ever really get a good night’s sleep around here. I was right. She was warmer than before. I could hear something pulsing beneath the surface of her skin.

I gulped because I’d never really seen her like this. I had always known she was beautiful and a wonderful, caring girl but never had I thought of her as a possibility. Now, any little touch meant something to me. I was hungry in more ways than one and I was painfully aware of it. I wanted to feel normal. I got up around 9:00 and went to make myself some more tea, just a pretense to get away from her for a second. When I came back, I sat on the other side of the sofa and put my feet up on the footrest. She decided to scoot over and rest her head on my lap. Great. Like I wasn’t getting all sorts of dirty imagery already.

Around 10:00, Lee woke up and started down the stairs. She looked definitely different too. For one, she was smiling and her eyes just seemed to light up.

“Hey,” she greeted with a timid wave of her hand. She was wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of my plaid boxers. She caught me looking her up and down and blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have anything to wear. Uh, have you noticed that your room is shaped like a coffin?”

I laughed and nodded, going to stand up and give her a hand down the stairs. It was pure instinct since I’d basically had to carry her all night. I wasn’t used to seeing her stand on her own. “Yea… it was just a strange coincidence. You feelin’ better?”

Annie stood up behind me and, in a blink, she was in the kitchen. “You like omelets?” she shouted at us. “You must be starving!”

“I guess, yea,” said Lee. “You’re all very kind. Thank you for this.”

I laughed and pulled out the chair for her at the kitchen table. “Well, you know about our kind. That makes you rare and, to us, family.”

Annie muttered something to herself in the distance. She pulled some omelets out of nowhere for me and Lee and we all ate in silence.

“I promise I’ll be out of your hair before night. I’ve got a place on the other side of town. Haven’t used it in a while. I guess it’s been waiting for me,” said Lee through a mouthful of eggs. She really was starving, the poor girl.

“It’s no problem,” I offered. “Stay as long as you need.”

She shook her head adamantly. “No chance, Mitchell. I know your reputation with girls. I already woke up naked in your bed once, thank you very much. And you didn’t even buy me dinner!”

We all laughed humorlessly. I lent her my most androgynous pair of jeans and button-down shirt and walked her home. She was pleasant company after all. She was an artist and lived in a studio big enough for her to be a good artist. Her paintings and sketches were hung up all over the walls and there was a staircase that led to a loft with a queen-sized bed, looking lonely and still unmade. She hadn’t seen it in months. I could tell by the way she lit up and collapsed face-first atop it as soon as we came in.

She made me some tea and we talked some more. I told her about the war and the “fun” years with Herrick. She told me about growing up in London with hippie parents and we laughed about the Beatles, agreeing that Ringo was greatly underrated. I was about to leave when she remembered she was still wearing my clothes and asked me to wait a minute so she could change.

“No!” I told her, gesturing her to stop. “It’ll give you reason to stop by again.”

She smiled at me like she was looking for something in my eyes and reached to open the door. “Thanks for saving my life, Mitchell the Vampire.”

I chuckled and slipped on my sunglasses. “Thanks for the company, Lee the Artist.”

I was extremely happy to have a human friend I didn’t have to hide from, perhaps too ecstatic. And so, we parted as quickly as we met.

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GEORGE

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Nina was asleep in bed when I got to her place. I had a key so I let myself in. She was probably exhausted and had just dropped into bed in her scrubs, her shoes still on and everything. She was the cutest workaholic I’d ever seen, even with her mouth half open as she drooled onto her pillow.

She wasn’t the kind of girl I imagined myself falling for but the kind of girl I once wanted would never accept a werewolf so easily. At first, she’d been riddled with questions, mostly about the transformation. I answered them quickly, unabashed. I figured she’d seen the worst and stayed so the details were a lot less gory by comparison. Good thing she never asked about that first night we made love. I had been a bit feral. I think she just put two and two together.

I looked at her limp body and all I could think of was the smoothness of her skin, the salty taste of her after the first hour of love-making. I thought of her tiny moans when I kissed her and the way she called out my name in bed and I couldn’t help myself. I crawled in beside her. She stirred but didn’t wake.

I loved the way she smelled, even after a day at the hospital, so I breathed in deep. Her particular scent was always there, loyal and true, no matter how long we’d been apart. I nuzzled closer and buried my face in her neck, looking for warmth. I could have stayed like that forever.

The alarm rang some time later, probably near dusk. I reached up to silence it. She didn’t have to work today, I knew for sure, so she couldn’t avoid me. She curled up into me at first but, upon realizing who I was and where we were, jumped up off the bed. “George!” she screeched. “What are you doing here?”

That was the last straw. What was I doing there? Seriously? What was I doing there?

“I’m your bloody boyfriend! I spent the day with you here, that’s what I did. I kept you company and you didn’t even notice. Now you ask me that like I’m some sort of invader, like I’m Napoleon incarnate and—”

“You scared me, George!” she shouted back, stopping my rant in its tracks. “Stop it!”

I whimpered uselessly and stood up off the bed. I went to retreat back towards the main door when I felt her grab my wrist. I froze. This was the most she’d voluntarily touched me in weeks. I knew what this was about, I thought.

“I would never hurt you,” I said with a soft, incredulous chuckle. I couldn’t believe she’d even consider it. “That beast is not me, Nina! I thought you understood that.”

Her bottom lip started to quiver and tears starting flowing all over the place. Was this woman insane? Suddenly, she took a step forward and lifted up her sleeve. I realized then this was the first time I’d seen any part of her in weeks, any real emotion. I left the safety of her eyes and wandered down to the scars on her forearm, long and menacing as the ones on my own shoulder. I touched mine by instinct. They started to ache, a phantom pain.

“When did I…” I stuttered so softly that I didn’t think she’d heard.

“That day. Herrick. You pushed me against a wall,” she answered, the tears rolling down her chin.

“Nina, I—” I began but she looked away, covering her arms again so quickly that you’d think she were smothering flames.

She shook her head and went to the front door. “Go away, George,” she said, her eyes to the floor. “Please. I can’t stand to look at you right now.”

My heart shriveled up as painfully as any full moon and I bit my tongue to keep from screaming. I could taste blood. She had given me one choice. Do as she said.

So I left.

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ANNIE

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I watched them go, laughing as they went, and realized I was left alone again. I hated being alone in the house these days. I kept thinking that the door would show up again and I’d have to take it without a goodbye. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to resist it a second time without Mitchell and George there. There’d be no reason to stay without them.

They didn’t get back till noon. In the meantime, I cleaned the house and the mess we’d made when Lee showed up. I also discovered George’s secret glitter stash and accidentally misplaced it down the toilet. He’d thank me later when he could still claim his manhood.

I looked around at the bad wallpaper from twenty years ago. I found the house to be suffocating without my boys. I knew George would be spending the day with Nina to make up for last night and Mitchell would probably spend it working at the hospital, if not at Lee’s. I wouldn’t put it past him if he decided to stay for a quickie. Okay, so maybe I’d never seen him have a quickie but one cannot deny that his last sexual encounters have all ended kind of pathetically disastrous. They are, by his nature, very quick.

When he got home that night, I met him at the door so I could glare at the dark circles under his eyes, looking for any change. There was none. I sighed with relief but he just rolled his eyes. I might have been a bit obvious with my intentions.

“Annie, would you like me to pee in a cup for you something?” he joked, kissing my cheek hello. He was in a jolly mood, which was strange considering he was still obviously suffering. George hadn’t noticed his shaking hands but I did. What else could I do but observe the world around me? They were shaking as bad as ever.

I smiled at him sadly and raised a hand up to caress the spot he’d kissed. I loved it when he touched me. When George did, when Tully had, it was just a distant echo like I knew it was supposed to hurt. A phantom pain, I suppose. When Mitchell kissed me, it’s like I recognized the death in him. We were on the same plane of existence, one might say. And his plane felt warm on mine, like the faraway glow of a fireplace.

I knew he was cold to anyone else but he would always be warm to me. I tried to imagine how cold I must feel to him. Surely, he was used to kissing corpses by now. After all, he couldn’t kill them if they were already dead.

I let the kiss and the moment pass as another tiny, meaningless sign of his brotherly affection. Because, of course, this was all it was.

He made himself a sandwich and practically skipped up the stairs. I pondered giving him some space but I was curious and I was not one to deny my own curiosity. What else did I have for entertainment? Television? Mitchell’s life was so much more interesting than those cheepo fang boys with the black eyeliner.

I was about to follow him, to barrage him with questions I always did, when George came storming past me to his room. He looked… broken? He moved too quickly for me to tell.

I looked up at the stairs. Mitchell had poked his head out into the hall, his sandwich caught between his bared teeth. We looked at each other. I shrugged, helpless. He crossed the hall and knocked on George’s door.

He swallowed his bite of sandwich and called out, “George, you okay in there, mate?”

I watched from the stairs, terrified. Images of George changing in our living room all those months ago rushed back into my memory. The pain, the screams. Even if George wasn’t crying out now, if he was silent as the grave, we all heard the cries for help.

Mitchell said he couldn’t sleep without seeing that George was okay so we camped out against his door, huddled close, waiting for him to come out. He wouldn’t, of course, but it didn’t matter after a while. It was quickly becoming a habit. He and I. Looking for an ever-increasing warmth the other didn’t know existed.

We didn’t talk but he held my hand as usual. It’d never been like this and we both knew it. We were just waiting to see how far we could last like that, immobile, before it all fell apart again. He eventually fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. I tensed as his shoulders relaxed and he drifted gently off to sleep.

“You’re warmer,” he mumbled into my sweater and I wrapped my arms around him. If I indeed was warmer, the least I could do was act as his blanket when the night got cold.

“You should go to bed,” I answered. “Go ahead. I’ll keep watch in case he comes out.”

He shook his head and his hand slid across my stomach. I flinched and the tiniest whimper escaped me. “No, I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone,” I answered, rolling my eyes. Men were such babies. It’s not like I could go anywhere. I’d be lingering just outside his door, haunting him from a distance. “You’ve never been alone a day in your life, Mitchell.”

“And you have?” he replied just as sleepily, barely comprehensible.

I smirked at my beautiful walls, once my only company. “Before you two… I thought I’d spend the rest of my existence completely alone. No one could hear me scream or cry or laugh. So, I know you’re feeling bad right now. I know you’re counting the seconds till you can allow yourself to kill again, but I want you to know that it’ll be okay. No matter what, I’m always going to be here when you need help or company. I’m good company, I promise. You never even have to talk.”

He didn’t move again and I thought I’d maybe gone too far. Had I offered something that was not mine to give? He didn’t breathe but I knew that didn’t mean anything. I wished I could see his eyes.

A few minutes passed and he hugged me tighter by the waist. I took it as a sign to continue. “Mitchell?” I whispered.

“I thought you said I didn’t have to talk,” he said, his voice light and louder. He was awake now, fully.

“Did I wake you?”

He shook his head again. He didn’t seem in the mood to talk at all. So, because social cues were kind of nonexistent to ghosts, I went on. I rambled on about every worry I had and every hope and I realized that they were the exact same thing.

“…And I just can’t help but wonder about eternity. I mean, I know you’re used to it. I know you’ve survived a hundred years and my eternity is considerably less but it’s still wrong to me. Every night when I go to my chair and stare off at something till morning, I’m just waiting for you both to wake up so I can get a chance at talking with people again. I miss it so much. I don’t care if you just complain about missing mugs or Nina’s constant bitching or the arseholes at the hospital. It’s just nice to hear voices again,” I said. I stopped when he gave my stomach a tiny squeeze to let me know he was listening. I bent down to see his eyes were closed.

He must have felt me move and added, cheerfully, “You can always visit Lee now, you know. She invited us over. She’s got a nice big art studio just fifteen minutes away. I’m sure she’d love the company herself.”

I pursed my lips and furrowed my brow. I didn’t want freakin’ Lee. I wanted him. But, of course, he wouldn’t get that part. So I tried to elaborate, completely ignoring the subject of his new plaything.

“Hey, Mitchell? If George and Nina get serious one day and he decides to move away, would you leave too?” I timidly asked. It was another one of those floating concerns.

I didn’t expect him to lift his head up like that, startling me. “Annie, I’d never leave you!” he shouted. “George and Nina wouldn’t either. Even if they move away, I’m sure they’d stay nearby.”

I must have started to cry because he took my face in his hands and wiped at my cheeks with his thumbs. I didn’t really want to look him in the eyes. I thought if I did, he’d be able to read my soul and know what I was thinking, what even I didn’t know I wanted. I looked at his lips for a split second and instantly felt guilty.

“What about a hundred more years from now?” I whispered, fumbling with my hands on my lap. I looked down and away. “What happens to us after they die and you and I are alone?”

He smiled sadly. “I’d still be there, Annie. I’m kind of forever.”

I gulped. “Right. Until you get yourself killed, you mean. You annoy the wrong vampire, the wrong paranoid neighbor, and I’m alone again.”

He looked at me like I was being ridiculous, smiling bright as always. That smile could be painful at times. “What would you like me to do, Annie? I promise I’ll try not to pull any more stupid moves but if I don’t feed soon, I’m going to die. It’s a big probability.”

“But you can try. For as long as you can.”

He shook his head. “Annie, the longer I let the hunger fester, the harder it’s going to be to stop when the time finally comes.”

I’m not sure how I arrived at this. I’d thought about it once or twice just as a curious something or other to pass the long nights. It was an impossible probability. But I asked it nonetheless.

“Damn it, Mitchell!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet. “Couldn’t you just drink from me?”

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Remember the title, dears.

Reviews are better than slightly inappropriate touching between friends.