Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rivers could barely remember the first time he’d fed on Matt. It was natural to him now — more natural than breathing, since, well, he didn’t have to do that — when he was hungry, he would just slink up to Matt, huff and sigh and poke around until Matt bared his neck, and then sink his teeth in. 

Some people were tense, resistant. But Matt never was. Piercing his throat had never been difficult — it was like dipping a hot knife into butter, blood pooling up like it was nothing. Rivers would lick it up eagerly most of the time, but sometimes he just liked to watch it collect, drip down Matt’s neck. The crimson blood matched how flushed his face would be by the time Rivers looked back up, and there was something nice about the expression of awe on Matt’s face, like he was still trying to believe that vampires were real. That Rivers was real.

Matt liked to pretend he was in charge. He’d push Rivers’ face away and grumble about how this was going to leave a bruise, people would see. Rivers never got the big idea. If people saw anything, then that would make it better. Then people would know whose band it was. Matt could hog all the interview time, and answer questions for the both of them, and jump around onstage as much as he pleased, but it was nice seeing him do it all with two tiny puncture marks on the side of his neck.

All this was idly drifting through Rivers’ mind one night, while everyone else was packing up from the show. It hadn’t been their best that week. Probably one of their worst, actually, with Brian’s guitar flat on the A string the entire time and Matt flubbing the Surf Wax America bassline with nobody but Rivers close enough to hear. Pat was on beat, sure, but… well… there just wasn’t enough panache.

Rivers had played fine, though. This he was sure of. Because he always played better when he was hungry. 

It was the desperation, maybe, that did it. His fingers just moved faster on the frets when all thoughts were blocked out by the guttural hunger for blood. When he couldn’t worry about if he was playing right, when he couldn’t muster up the energy to listen for everyone else’s mistakes — that was when everything came easier. 

And he was hungry that night for sure. It was a strange feeling, like the inside of his stomach was bruised, about to cave in on itself if the hunger wasn’t quenched, and soon. Every movement only reminded him of it — just underneath the chord changes, lyrics, the sound of their cheering audience, there was the thrum of starving, blood, need.  

So he didn’t mind for once that everybody else had been messing up, in his band, on his stage. As soon as the show was over and they’d all gone backstage, Rivers had stood stock still as Karl took his guitar off him, and then glanced over at Matt. And all the thoughts started flooding through his head. 

Matt was talking to a couple of girls wearing backstage passes, and all three of them lit up as Rivers approached — but, well, as much as he liked girls, they weren’t right for feeding on. They didn’t get it, and besides, he knew half of them would go home and write about every little thing he did on one of those forum boards, and — no — they just wouldn’t understand. 

So when he was hungry he didn’t mess around with girls. And he wouldn’t tonight. 

He nudged Matt’s shoulder, staring down at the ground. There was an awkward silence between the four of them, and then Matt leaned down to Rivers’ ear, faux-whispering, “Dude, they have the dick-sucking passes.”

Rivers didn’t look up. “I’m hungry,” he muttered, and Matt sighed deeply. 

“Ladies,” he said, clapping his hands together, “I think you’ll have to get your kicks somewhere else tonight. Hey, you —” he paused, and Rivers glanced up to see him pointing at the girl with shorter hair, “you go find Brian, he digs the chicks with the boy haircuts.” 

Rivers blinked. He was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but he didn’t feel like saying anything. The girls glanced at each other skeptically, but he turned away before they could protest their reassignments, and he could hear Matt following after. 

“Maybe it should wait,” Rivers said haltingly, looking around briefly for some kind of closet. There seemed to be people in every crevice, though, and half of them seemed like they wanted to talk to him.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Matt said quickly, putting a hand on Rivers’ shoulder. “There — there’s a — we can just go outside. If there’s nowhere in here, and you’re that hungry.” 

He nodded slightly and let Matt guide him out one of the side entrances, away from the loading dock and tour bus. In the blink of an eye they were situated, in one of the shadowy little alleyways nobody would think to look in if they were to pass by.

Rivers didn’t need to tell Matt to lean down. They’d done this enough times before that they moved almost in sync, Matt leaning down while Rivers slowly moved down the collar of his shirt and sank his teeth into the side of Matt’s neck. His palm splayed out on Matt’s other shoulder, while the other hand found Matt’s sweaty one and clutched it tightly. Their signal — when Matt squeezed then Rivers was done. But right now he was just beginning.

Everything was warm. Matt was always warm, and Rivers noticed he flushed redder than usual when he was being fed on. More blood to the face, which meant more blood to the neck, which meant more blood.

Rivers felt the skin breaking under his teeth, sinking into the heat of Matt’s neck, and the blood already beginning to pool. Before it started rolling down Matt’s shoulder Rivers was already sucking it up, burying his nose in the crook of Matt’s neck as he did so. 

“Ow,” Matt whispered softly, but Rivers didn’t pause. He was starting to feel better already. He could feel his body untensing, the memories from tonight coming into sharper focus, the ground steadying beneath his feet. The iron taste of blood coated his tongue, filling his mouth easily as he drank from the carotid artery. 

Matt stumbled back just briefly but Rivers didn't detach, feeling his bandmate lean against the wall to steady himself as his breathing grew heavier. Rivers never worried much about how it felt for the prey, but if he were a little more conscious he might have felt a bit bad. He felt Matt's free hand creep up his back, fingers tangling in his hair and staying poised there, like Matt either wanted to yank him away or push him closer. 

Rivers didn't think he could get much closer. Blood dripped out the corner of his mouth and rolled down his chin, and if he'd been wearing his glasses they would have been fogged up completely. 

Too soon Matt squeezed his hand. Briefly at first, then tighter, and Rivers pulled himself away with a slight gasp. He felt dizzy all of a sudden as he straightened up, stumbling slightly before Matt caught him. The heady rush always caught him off guard. But Matt was always prepared.

“Careful there, sugar,” he said, his words slurred just slightly. 

“Sugar?” Rivers wrinkled his nose. Matt snorted. 

“Sweetness.”

“Stop.” 

“Babycakes. Honeypie.”

“Quit it.”

“Darling. I’m still bleeding and my vision’s going dark. This may be the end for me.” 

“Sorry.” Rivers blanched and looked at Matt’s shoulder. The spot he’d bitten had already started to bruise over, and there was a little bit of blood pooling up, but it wasn’t that bad. Once Rivers’ teeth had stopped keeping the wound open it had already begun to close up. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m going to faint right here and you’ll have to catch me. Think you can do that? Or am I gonna end up breaking your twig arms?”

Rivers glared at Matt. Matt grinned back. The slurring of his words was gone now. He pulled Rivers in, letting go of his hand to gently wipe the corner of Rivers’ mouth. 

“Had some blood there,” Matt said softly, and Rivers nodded. Then he scowled. 

“You played like shit tonight,” he muttered, and Matt let out a choked little laugh. 

“What?”

“What was that out there? It was like you were too busy ogling the audience to remember how to play the basslines, they’re not that difficult, I could do them myself — and honestly, I should —”

“Yeah, yeah, you could take all our jobs and do them better,” Matt interrupted when the blood still in his body finally made it to his brain. He reached out and ruffled Rivers’ hair, muttering under his breath, “Relax.”

“You relax,” Rivers shot back, batting Matt’s hand away and turning on his heel, walking off. “We should get back now. We’re leaving soon.” 

“Not even a thank you?” Matt whined, catching up to Rivers easily and putting a hand around his shoulders. “You know, it’s just like Gary Numan said —”

“Stop.”

“That you’re just a viewer —”

“Stop it.”

“You’ve no intentions of saying —”

“Thanks.” 

“There we go.” Rivers glanced up at Matt’s face — paler than usual, now — and was met with a stupid grin. He looked away and shook his head just slightly, but let Matt stick by his side until they made it on the tour bus. 

And later that night when Brian asked offhandedly which chick had given Matt that bruise on his neck, he caught Rivers' eye and just grinned.

Chapter Text

Rivers hadn’t seen Mikey in a few days. This was self-imposed, or at least, it was supposed to be, but when Rivers re-emerged from his bedroom for the first time in three days, a cursory glance around the rest of the apartment was enough to tell him that his bassist was conspicuously absent from the scene. 

He was hungry. There was nothing in the kitchen, but it wasn’t that kind of hunger anyway. Eating real food was more something he did out of habit, and he could survive without it — especially when the tequila and Ritalin were still fully stocked — but blood was different. It was nourishment. And nourishment was part of the equation, the songwriting formula he was trying to crack. He was pretty sure that Noel Gallagher and Kurt Cobain didn’t compose on empty stomachs, so Rivers wouldn’t either. 

He wasn’t sure how long Mikey had been gone. He wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t noticed, either. Here was his latest songwriting experiment: to lock himself in his bedroom for days on end and strum his guitar until his fingers bled and his friends stopped calling. He would forfeit all pleasantries to the Encyclopedia o’ Pop, because Nirvana probably hadn’t had any fun while they were writing, so why should anybody following in their footsteps? Rivers was sure that if Kurt Cobain had listened to Blue he’d have hated it. 

The hunger was starting to fray the edges of his mind. He thought briefly about calling around to ask where Mikey was, but he’d unplugged the phone from the wall at some point in his Ritalin-induced haze and he wouldn’t know where to start calling, anyway. 

He couldn’t work under these conditions, and that irked him. Rivers cast a glance over to the chameleon tank sitting on the kitchen counter and wrinkled his nose. Oh, right. Budro. If Mikey had been gone then no one had probably fed the stupid thing. Rivers shuddered to himself and looked away from the fogged-up tank. 

He was about to retreat back to the safety (or at least familiarity) of his room when the front door opened downstairs and somebody — Mikey — stumbled inside. 

The air changed immediately, tinged with the scent of fresh blood. 

Rivers slinked down the stairs, coming to the foot of the steps and watching Mikey wrestle with his own jacket to take it off. He didn’t look well — pallid, sweat beading at his forehead, shaking when he paused for just a minute. But Rivers couldn’t imagine he looked much better, himself. 

Mikey didn’t notice Rivers was there until he’d flung his jacket across the little living room, leaning against the wall and sliding down to sit on the floor. He caught Rivers’ eyes as he went down. 

“Hi,” he muttered, and Rivers said nothing as he moved to sit next to him, too hungry to think, too hungry to form words. It was only getting worse with Mikey so close, the bite marks on his neck faded away and barely visible. Rivers wanted to make them stand out again. 

“What’re you doing?” Mikey asked, his words slurring together. He was on something, his pupils too-dilated and blood rushing too-fast, and Rivers just gave a half shrug, leaning down and tugging lightly at the collar of Mikey’s shirt. Mikey shivered at the touch. “Your hands are cold,” he whispered, looking up at Rivers with — well. It might have been fear, on anyone else’s face. But Mikey didn’t look scared. 

That was good. Matt had never been scared of Rivers when he was hungry. 

Rivers dipped his head and grabbed Mikey’s hand. He opened his mouth to bite down on Mikey’s neck, but right as he closed his eyes he felt Mikey shift under him and —

Suddenly there were lips pressed to his. Human warmth, surrounding him and making his head spin. 

Rivers pulled away, spluttering and wiping his mouth quickly. “Matt,” he said harshly, like scolding a dog, “no.” He took a deep breath, trying to remember how to put words together while his mind swirled endlessly around the sound of the blood rushing through Mikey’s body. Had he said the wrong name? He didn't really remember. “That’s not what I want from you right now.”

“Sorry,” Mikey said quietly, looking up at Rivers like his tail was tucked between his legs. Rivers huffed, leaning down again and sinking his teeth into Mikey’s neck without interruption this time.

It felt good. It felt amazing, actually — he felt Mikey tense up beneath him, but Rivers relaxed for the first time in weeks. Mikey smelled like sweat, clammy and grimy at the same time, he probably hadn’t showered in awhile — but neither had Rivers. It was fine. They were perfectly fine.

He tangled his fingers in Mikey’s hair to anchor himself, and if he hadn’t been preoccupied he might’ve wrinkled his nose at how long his bassist’s hair was getting. He didn’t like it long. He’d hired Mikey when his hair was cropped close to his head and that was how he wanted it to stay. 

The blood flowed easily, filling Rivers’ mouth quickly enough. He could feel the color coming back to his face, energy coiling itself in his chest like a spring waiting to pop. He could write again, now. If he detached himself this moment he could probably go upstairs and write a hundred more pop songs — structured, impersonal, distant. Perfect. 

He almost didn’t notice Mikey squeezing his hand. Or — did he squeeze it? He could hardly tell. Everything felt far away, everything except the blood in his mouth. 

“Rivers,” he heard distantly, Mikey’s voice faint underneath him. “Rivers, you’re…” 

If he’d tried to stop, he wouldn’t be able to. Mikey’s free hand, clammy, snaked up to his hair and Rivers felt a weak tug, like he was being pulled away — but Rivers didn’t move, and Mikey’s hand fell away quickly enough. 

Rivers breathed through his nose, the tangy, iron scent of blood filling his nostrils. He thought singularly of that three-ring binder sitting on his bed, the Encyclopedia o’ Pop — as soon as he was done with this necessity, he’d get right back to it, attack the music with fresh eyes, write and write and never get stuck again, become a songwriting factory because he’d figured out the formula, the way Oasis and Green Day and Nirvana must’ve done it, those geniuses —

Suddenly Mikey went limp under him, the hand holding Rivers’ falling away. Rivers sat up quickly, gaping at the sight before him.

It took a moment to click. 

He’d taken too much. 

Mikey had passed out, his face pale and slack as blood flowed down his shoulder. Rivers felt his stomach turn.

“M- Mikey,” he whispered, reaching out and shaking his shoulders, “Mikey, wake up.”

Matt had always managed to keep the blood at least on his body, if not in it. Matt had never fainted after Rivers took his blood. Matt knew when to tell Rivers to stop. 

“ Mikey, ” Rivers hissed, pressing a shaky hand to where Mikey’s neck was bleeding. He’d started to shake all over, actually. “Get up, c’mon. You’re fine.” 

And somehow that didn’t wake him up. Rivers wiped off the blood caught in the corners of his mouth as he stared down at his roommate. He felt wired, the fresh blood bringing his mind to life slowly but surely, energy surging through his body and escaping in his tremors. 

Mikey could sort himself out. He’d done it before. He didn’t need Rivers as much as Matt did — that was what was so good about him. He was steady, dependable, except when he disappeared. But he probably wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Rivers rose to his feet slowly, turned on his heel and stormed away to the bedroom. Everything would fall into place, surely. But until then, there was a magical three-ring binder calling his name.