#at the moment the vague scaffolding taking form in my mind is - something something Michael doesn't come home

[marypsue]

I don't, unfortunately, have any kind of a story to hang it on yet (she says, furiously sawing and hammering away at some trope-by-fours), but I would really love to write something where Sam and the boys, especially David, are forced into interacting for an extended period of time (and for Contrived Plot Reasons nobody can kill anybody else). I just think. It would be funny.

[marypsue]

#at the moment the vague scaffolding taking form in my mind is - something something Michael doesn't come home #and Sam goes looking for him #(maybe...Michael doesn't come home after the bonfire and Star shows up at the house to see him and ends up talking to Sam instead?) #anyway for whatever reason Sam knows about the cave and goes looking for Mike there - but none of the boys know where he is either #they'd all figured he'd just run home to mommy and he'd be back after sundown #but now it's past sundown and...no Michael #just his brat little brother accusing them all of eating him #(can Max actually be serious? he wants to saddle them with THIS twerp? for ETERNITY?) #(his mom must be a centerfold model with the personality of a saint or something because. ugh.) #anyway now Michael is Missing and they All Have To Work Together to Find Him #and also not let their respective parents find out that they lost him

"I can't believe you lost him."

"We didn't lose anybody! Michael just...needed a little time to himself, after we broke it to him. He's adjusting. Coming to terms." Sam can hear the smile in that bleach-blond douchebag's voice as he says, "Who knows? Maybe by the time he gets back, Michael will be over the last of his hangups and ready to really be part of our happy little family."

That's exactly what Sam is afraid of.

"And I'm looking at this as an opportunity. We're getting to know Sam. Real well."

Sam makes a face as he leans closer to the kitchen door, straining his ears. Unfortunately, the bloodsucking freak who stole his brother isn't wrong about that. Honestly, whatever Mike saw in these guys is a total mystery. The more time Sam has to spend with them, the more he catches himself fantastising about a nice, sharp stake.

"Michael will be back. He's got nowhere to go."

There's an undercurrent of threat in the mild voice that answers. The mild and, unfortunately, very familiar voice. "Well, I certainly hope you're right, David. Lucy's starting to get worried."

The words are dragged out in a mocking drawl. "Oh. No. Well, we wouldn't want Lucy to worry."

"Don't talk about my mom like that, you asshole," Sam mutters under his breath.

There's a sudden, ominous silence from the kitchen.

And then there's a gloved hand yanking on Sam's ear, forcing him to stumble after David or lose the ear entirely. "Ow! Watch the earring!"

"That," David says, through clenched teeth, staring straight ahead as he drags Sam away from the kitchen, "was a private conversation."

"Yeah. Between you and Max. How come you two got so much to say to each other, huh?"

The only answer Sam gets is a harsh tug that makes him think his ear's about to be yanked out by the root. He swallows down a shot of fear. His mom would be pissed if David mutilated him. And if his mom's pissed, and Max is really as worried about her feelings as he was just saying -

"I knew it. I knew it was him. Hey, how'd he pass all our tests, if he really is the head vampire?"

David, unsurprisingly, completely ignores Sam's question to snarl in his face instead. "If you say. One word. I don't care what your brother or your precious mother's going to think. You're mine."

"You seriously think I'm just not gonna tell my mom she's dating a vampire? Hey, how well-ventilated is that hole in the ground where you sleep, exactly? Because you've definitely been huffing some kind of fumes."

The iron grip on Sam's ear vanishes, just to be replaced by an iron grip on his throat. He raises both hands, palms out, as David shoves him back into the wall. But he's not ready to surrender just yet. "Whoa, careful with the merchandise. Mom'll freak if I get hurt. And we wouldn't want Lucy to worry, would we?"

Maybe Sam is actually going to need to seriously reconsider telling his mom she's dating an evil vampire. If the look he's getting from David right now is anything to judge by, he might continue to need the threat of Max's displeasure to protect him from getting his throat ripped out.

But the death glare only lasts a second before it's replaced by a slow, wicked smirk that Sam doesn't like one bit.

"All right," David says, letting go of Sam's throat and taking a step back, nodding toward the dining room where his mom's putting out dishes. He doesn't take his eyes off of Sam's face for a second. The smirk doesn't shift an inch. "Go ahead. Tell her."

There's a trap here somewhere. Sam squints at David, trying to work out what it is.

But he doesn't get pounced on and dragged screaming by his ankles back out of the dining room. Nothing happens and nobody tries to kill him.

Sam doesn't trust it.

His mom notices he's there before he can decide what he's going to say to her, spinning to push a stack of plates into his hands. "Oh, Sam, thank you. If you could just take care of these place settings, I think everything else is set out except the roast... Is everybody ready to eat? Where's your brother?"

"Uh," Sam says, trying not to drop good china all over the floor. "He'll be here. Probably."

"Well, he'd better be. Walking out on dinner last time was - rude, especially to poor Max, but I guess I didn't exactly invite you boys. This time, he has no excuse." Sam's mom tugs nervously at the tablecloth, then picks up the saltshaker she'd knocked over when she did. "If I went to all this trouble - if Max got his boys all over here for a big introductory dinner, and Michael can't be bothered to show up - I didn't even know Max had children. I would've thought that'd be something you'd mention. Don't you think that's something you'd mention?"

"Yeah," Sam says, putting down the stack of dishes on the table's edge and carefully extricating his fingers. "There's a couple big things Max forgot to mention. Mom, you gotta throw a pinch of that salt over your shoulder, it's bad luck."

Sam's mom does not throw a pinch of the spilled salt over her shoulder. She turns and fixes Sam with a piercing, expectant stare instead, the kind of stare she's used instead of a raised voice when she's walked into the living room and seen him holding a bat and Mike with a catcher's glove and her ficus lying on the floor with dirt spilling around the baseball nestled in the remains of its pot.

Sam tugs at the collar of his shirt. It suddenly feels too tight.

"Samuel Emerson," his mom says. "Out with it."

"Okay, so first of all, I want you to know this is nobody's fault," Sam tries.

"Sam."

Under the force of the stare, it all comes out in a rush. "Mom, they're vampires. All of them are vampires. Max turned all of those boys into vampires, and they're doing it to Mike too, and they're going to do it to us if you keep dating that loser!"

Sam's mom shuts her eyes. Sam can't tell if the sigh she huffs out as she turns her face toward the ceiling is a good or bad sign.

The next thing she says, though, definitely isn't. "Have you been reading those horror comics again?"

"Okay, I have, but Mom, it's not what you think -"

"You had to do this now? Tonight? You know, I'm starting to think Max was right. You just don't want to see me with a man who's not your father, is that it?"

"Mom! I'm really, really serious about this, they're actual, real-live vampires! Why don't you ask Max where Mike is tonight and see what he has to say about it, huh?"

Sam's mom is ignoring him, putting her back to him as she grabs up the stack of plates he'd deposited on the table and starts to angrily lay them out. Sam follows her around the table, trying with increasing desperation to get her to listen, to hear out all the evidence he and Michael have that Mike's becoming one of the undead. But she just keeps walking, raising her voice over his protests, until she slaps down the last plate and stops hard, spinning around so fast that Sam nearly walks straight into her.

"That's enough, young man." There's ice in her voice, and Sam can feel his own drying up and shriveling away in his throat. "I understand you're upset. But you've already sabotaged one dinner. If you can't behave yourself for a few short hours, then you can go upstairs and go to bed right now."

"But Mom -"

"Sam."

Of course, of course, when Sam slinks out of the dining room with his hands stuffed in his pockets, head down in defeat, David is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, fiddling with a cigarette. Before Sam can tell him he can't light that in here, his face splits in an evil smirk. "So how did that go? Oh. Did she not believe you?"

"I hope your fangs fall out," Sam mutters, and slouches for the stairs. He's got a comic book to find. And an emergency phone number to call.

I don't, unfortunately, have any kind of a story to hang it on yet (she says, furiously sawing and hammering away at some trope-by-fours), but I would really love to write something where Sam and the boys, especially David, are forced into interacting for an extended period of time (and for Contrived Plot Reasons nobody can kill anybody else). I just think. It would be funny.