"Sir... It's your 8th Bloody Mary this evening and we're closing in 10 minutes. Are you okay to call someone to come get you?" Mark asks.

 

The man stares at the empty glass in front of him, watching it as if waiting for it to refill itself.

 

Sadly, it doesn't.

 

Mark sighs. What an evening.

 

(At least the ty customer is cute.)

 

"What's your name?" The man asks. "I'm Jackson." He says proudly before Mark.

 

"Mark." Mark answers immediatly after and then sighs at himself. He hopes this strange dude doesn't have stalkerish tendencies.

 

"You're very beautiful, Mark." Apparently Jackson raises his eyes from the glass and meets Mark's with a polite smile.

 

Mark just takes away the empty glass

 

(with secret appreciativeness for the compliment)

 

and calls a cab.

 

Jackson doesn't leave without scribbling down his number on the bar table which Mark has to sit back 10 minutes after his shift to clean.

 

(But not before writing it down into his contacts.)

 

 

 

It's when they're on their second date does Mark throw a sarcastic comment towards a couple they see making out on a park bench does Jackson starts screeching with laughter, surprising even himself.

 

His surprise is probably nothing, compared to that of Mark's who sees two large canine teeth poking out.

 

Mark doesn't say anything because what the was that.

 

Jackson catches himself laughing, quickly shuts his mouth and when he turns to look back at Mark's wandering eyes and ask what's wrong they're gone again.

 

"What was that?" Mark asks, pointing to his own teeth.

 

"My... teeth?" Jackson asks, laughing awkwardly. "What's wrong with them?" He asks, opening his mouth and touching one of his teeth to check.

 

"It's nothing." Mark shakes his head and looks ahead again to the paved pathway, lit up with old school lamps at the sides, and listens to Jackson's ramble about some friend which almost killed him once.

 

He unconsioucly peaks back at Jackson's teeth time and time again and almost every time he gets caught by Jackson.

 

He acts like he doesn't notice it because Jackson is great and Mark will be damned if he doesn't score it.

 

 

 

Next time, weeks later, when it happens again it's a little harder to ignore, because they're making out on Jackson's couch and Jackson dips down to bite at Mark's neck.

 

And Mark only feels two teeth graze at his skin and the next second Jackson pulls away with a curse.

 

Mark turns to look at him and watches as he run to his kitchen and comes back with a paper hand towel.

 

Mark feels something hot drip down his neck and he reaches to touch it only for Jackson to tell him to stop.

 

"Don't touch it." He says, sitting back down where he sat before and carefully sets the towel against Mark's neck. "You'll get dirty."

 

"Did you literally just bite me so hard I started to bleed?" Mark asks, looking at Jackson's concentrated expression as he's holding the towel to Mark's neck.

 

He tilts his head sideways to make Jackson's job easier.

 

Jackson's heart probably stutters.

 

"No?" He tries and Mark looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "I mean yeah. Sorry, a total accident."

 

"I didn't know you had a blood kink." Mark teases and sees Jackson's eyebrows furrow.

 

"I didn't either." He asnwers. "I guess being a vampire does that to you." He says and Mark doesn't think for a second it's a joke.

 

He sighs, not believing his damn luck.

 

Jackson stares intently at Mark's face to see how he will react.

 

"Mark, are you crying? Did I hurt you?" Jackson panicks when he sees a tear rolling down Mark's cheek a moment later.

 

"I'm not crying." He says. His voice cracks, a second tear hits Jackson's couch.

 

Jackson startles.

 

"What's wrong baby, why are you crying?" He asks, voice shaking, his fangs which decide to show themselves again gets caught behind his lips every other syllable.

 

"This is just so, so..." Mark's voice keeps cracking. "So ridiculious. Are we in a manhwa? Is this a dream?" He sobs and Jackson doesn't know what the to do, so he only chokes up a short laugh.

 

"Your reaction is more ridiculious though." Jackson tells him and gets his throat slapped.

 

It's only a given Jackson being a vampire doesn't stop Mark from wanting to tap it and keep tapping it for a longer period of time.

 

It's good that at this point Jackson's become so lonely and desperate for human contact he'd take anyone, and anyone, this time, happened to be Mark.

 

 

 

"We've been dating for, like, half a year now and you honestly don't seem like a legitimate vampire to me." Mark says one day and Jackson snorts at his phone. "What's up?"

 

"Well, I am so flattered that my boyfriend finally shows interest in my vampyrism."

 

"Right? Isn't that nice." Mark smiles at his own phone, and kicks at Jackson's arm, Mark's legs conveniently draped across Jackson's lap.

 

"Are you gonna ask or do you want me to talk?" Jackson asks, elbowing the leg.

 

Mark screeches.

 

"Who turned you?" He asks right away

 

"This dude named Jaebum. I got in a pretty bad car accident, our cars collided face to face. I was 22, then. It wasn't pretty, I got my face full of glass. Also ed up my ribcage by hitting the steering wheel. The airbag didn't work."

 

"Ouch." Mark says and Jackson eyes him suspiciously, feeling no remorse or pity coming his way.

 

"Funny thing was the last thing I heard before dying was 'Oh, ', and the first thing I heard when I came back practically alive was 'Sorry, man. My bad.'" He talks and Mark smiles a bit.

 

It's a little sad imagining your boyfriend dying in a car crash.

 

Mark likes the idea that he'll never experience it.

 

"We still stay in touch to this day. I was living with him for like a year until I got used to all this, I owe him big. That -face wouldn't let me off the hook even if I did try to hide from him." He sighs and Mark laughs, then.

 

"How long ago did you turn?" Mark asks, curious.

 

"Uhh..." Jackson thinks. "19...78? Somewhere in the 70s, not that long ago, honestly. Jaebum's been around way longer."

 

"How do you get around like that? Since you don't age, don't you have to move around constantly?"

 

"There are specialists who fake our documents for some money. It's not really that hard. Finding jobs every five to ten years is harder."

 

"That's pretty interesting, honestly." Mark tells him, completely not honestly. "What're your symptoms, that's what I'm curious about. You're not a twilight vampire, are you?"

 

"No, Mark, I don't glisten in sunlight." Jackson deadpans and glares at him. "I melt in that ."

 

"You what?" Mark laughs.

 

"Yeah! It's ridiculious!" Jackson screams, annoyed. "I'm like an ice cube, if I stay long enough in the sun water starts dripping down my skin since my body's so damn cold. It looks like I'm sweating buckets, though." He talks and Mark still laughs.

 

"It's so ing annoying, honestly." He says as his finishing statement and Mark just wants to push him out for a walk the next day. "Stop laughing! It's miserable."

 

"What else is there besides your excessive water sweat?" Mark says after he's done laughing.

 

He wipes a tear at the corner of his eye, Jackson still glaring at him.

 

"I don't age and I can't die. I can't eat food, but I still need the vitamins."

 

"Is that why you drink blood?" Mark asks.

 

"Yeah." Jackson nods. "I'm also stronger and faster.

 

Mark thinks of last night.

 

"I noticed..." He says, not the least bit regretful.

 

"Oh, please, I am so gentle with you."

 

"...Right. My is sore just because it wants to be." Mark says and Jackson rolls his eyes, not the least bit apologetic.

 

It scares him how close they're coming to be Twilight's Edward and Bella.

 

He shudders at the idea.

 

 

 

"Mark, where are you?" Jackson asks over the phone.

 

"In the lab like a good biochemistry student." Mark answers, phone smooshed between his shoulder and ear as he keeps pacing around the room with books in hands.

 

"It's half past midnight, what the are you doing there?" Jackson curses into the phone.

 

"Shut the up, I'm working."

 

"Shut the up, you picked up my call!" Jackson shouts. "Who even let you in there?"

 

"My professor gave me a card since I'm such a good student."

 

"Old lab or new lab?" Jackson asks and Mark hears a car honking over the phone and Jackson apologize quickly.

 

"Don't go killing yourself-- oh. Right." He remembers that Jackson, indeed, does not die.

 

"Yup."

 

"Old lab. Come over if you want to." Mark offers.

 

"Be there in a bit." He says. "Wait!" He shouts when Mark's ready to end the call.

 

"What is it?" He asks, annoyed, and slams another stack of papers onto the table.

 

"If that professor is trying to get favors from you for the special treatment then he's got another thing coming."

 

"My professor isn't trying to get into my pants. He's, like, eighty or something. He probably hardly gets into his own." Mark says and almost feels bad for badmouthing someone who favors him so much.

 

Jackson is bad influence.

 

But the laugh Mark hears over the line makes him feel as though his morals are hardly a price to even consider.

 

Jackon pushes the the door open with two cups of coffee in hand twenty minutes later.

 

"What're you doing, sweetheart?" He sings, way too chipper for Mark to even look up at him and act not annoyed.

 

So he does neither.

 

The only thing he does is stand there looking pretty with his glasses and without his white lab coat he's obligated to wear here.

 

"Making you a substitute for blood." He answers, deep in one of the books he's brought from the tiny library the lab has.

 

"You're what?" Jackson doesn't drop the coffee but he barely manages to stop himself, wanting to make the situation even more dramatic.

 

 

 

"If you are here to rob me, I have nothing!" Mark calls into his apparently not empty apartment from his bathroom.

 

He opens the door and exists the room clad in only his sweatpants because he doesn't care if he dies at this point.

 

It's 2am and it's too late to care.

 

"Oh, it's only you." Mark says when he sees Jackson sprawled across his couch.

 

Jackson raises his head to greet Mark.

 

"Hey." He says and Mark nods at him, putting on his shirt.

 

"How'd you get in? The door's locked." Mark asks, going to his kitchen to get Jackson coffee knowing he's most likely staying the night.

 

"You gave me a key, like, a month ago." Jackson calls to the kitchen.

 

"Oh, I did?" Mark asks. "I forgot. I should probably stop doing that."

 

Jackson pouts, even though Mark doesn't see it.

 

He comes back a minute later and hands Jackson the cup.

 

Jackson takes it with a small thank you.

 

"What'd you need?" Mark asks, sitting beside him, taking a sip from his own cup.

 

"Nothing. Just came over for a visit."

 

"Then you can leave now. Nobody wants you here." Mark says, voice fakely annoyed.

 

"Excuse you." Jackson scowls at him.

 

"Go jump out the window or something."

 

"You live on the 15th floor. I'd die."

 

"Didn't you say that nothing can kill you on, like, our first date?" Mark raises and eyebrow at him.

 

"Well... yeah."

 

"You also mentioned it at the bar when we met, as you were asking for your 3rd Bloody Mary. You told me not even her, if she were to appear in the mirrored wall, could take you."

 

"I said that?" Jackson asks, not embarassed one bit.

 

"Yeah. It's weird that you don't remember, you looked sober."

 

"I was completely wasted by then. Sorry." Jackson says and Mark nods.

 

They watch a movie together that night, when Mark finally finds the little sense to ask.

 

"Are you hungry?" He asks.

 

The arm Jackson has around him stiffens.

 

"A little." He admits, shameful.

 

"Here." Mark stretches his arm out in front of Jackson's face.

 

"Are you making fun of me?" Jackson raises an eyebrow, not finding the wrist wiggling by his nose all that appealing.

 

He couldn't Instagram it.

 

"Do you not want a piece of me?" Mark wiggles his eyebrows teasingly with a smirk and Jackson sighs.

 

He does drink, but refuses to look Mark in the eyes until next morning when they both wake up in Mark's tiny bed.

 

 

 

They're in the lab again, Mark working dilligently, Jackson goofing off on the couch in the corner to keep Mark morally supported.

 

"Are you hungry?" Mark asks, eyes set on the different glass veils in front of him.

 

"No. Your blood is disgusting." Jackson answers, the ball he's been throwing at the wall suddenly hitting a hole into it. Jackson sighs, annoyed.

 

Mark doesn't look the least bit offended. Frankly, he doesn't look like he's paying attention at all. Only talking on autopilot.

 

"Is it?" He asks, pushing a couple bottles, all labeled differently, to the side.

 

Jackson tries to at least think but his mouth works faster.

 

He sighs exasperatly.

 

"No." He says, voice annoyed. "But if I wouldn't tell you that you'd keep offering and I can't tell you no when I am actually hungry." He says, leaning back into the couch.

 

"Oh." Mark asnwers like the topic doesn't faze him at all. It probably doesn't. "Then I guess you're on a diet until I find a solution." He says and Jackson groans.

 

Diets were his second least favorite thing in the world when he was still alive and human, when he was doing fencing.

 

Right after that prick on his team which would always challenge him to dance offs and when Jackson would be this close to winning he'd suddenly not feel well.

 

"I'm not sure why you're doing this for me, but I appreciate it a lot." Jackson tells Mark, pushing away the bitter feeling at the end of his throat he know's hell be feeling as long as he doesn't get what he needs.

 

"I'm not doing this for free, Jackson. Not even if you're my boyfriend." Mark says, finally looking up from his notes. "Time's precious for someone alive. I don't have a lot of it."

 

"Oh." Jackson stutters, his mind immediatly thinking of how he can make money in legal ways. "How much do you want?"

 

"It's not how much. It's more of a what."

 

"And what is it, stop making this be so suspenseful." Jackson cries.

 

"You're going to turn me."

 

"Into a vampire?" Jackson asks, just to make sure.

 

Mark finally looks up from the table.

 

He nods at Jackson's wide eyes.

 

"Why?" Jackson asks, not sure why anyone would want to be one.

 

The perks are there, sure, but when you take time to think about the whole of it there're really way more cons.

 

"Because, Jackson, I want to live forever. Like everyone does." Mark explains, feeling like he's talking to a child who just doesn't get how humans work. "I bet you did, too."

 

"I mean, yeah, I did." Jackson answers. "But do you really want it? I can turn you. I'm not sure how I do that, but I can ask Jaebum, so, if you're positive..." His voice goes weaker with every word.

 

He's just not sure.

 

Not sure he wants this for Mark.

 

But he does want Mark to stay with him a little longer.

 

Much longer.

 

"I'm positive."

 

"But a forever is a long time..." Jackson still says, ignoring Mark's stern gaze. "And there's no way to kill us as far as we know."

 

"I know." Mark's determined nod scares Jackson a little.

 

"And a forever is a forever, Mark!" Jackson exlaims. "Do you realize how long is that? We'll go mad! We'll probably go challening people to kill us, we might rampage! We'll probably turn into monsters!"

 

"But going mad together after a forever doesn't sound all that bad, does it." Mark says, voice easy as if it were trying to assure Jackson.

 

Like it didn't bother him one bit.

 

"Then why don't we turn you now?" Jackson asks immediatly. To force Mark to see that he doesn't want this.

 

That he isn't resolved enough to live dully for a forever.

 

Because they will eventually run out of new places to see in this world.

 

Because they're gonna move faster than normal people and they're going to have to wait for something new like generations were magazine issues, offering something new every issue.

 

Because they'll have to see their friends come and go, generations change.

 

Because they might grow tired of one another.

 

"I can't do it now." Mark says. "Not until I find a substitute for blood. I don't want to kill people for food."

 

Jackson doesn't answer. Mark probably doesn't want him to either, with him still looking so concentrated with his work even when talking.

 

Jackson doesn't feel tired, a long time will probably pass until he gets tired of anything, but he still turns to lay down properly and try to sleep.

 

 

 

"Are you still sure?" Jackson asks, Mark wrapped around him.

 

Jackson's cold body is the only protection Mark has from the heatwave which doesn't seem to get any weaker even at 3 in the morning.

 

"About what?" Mark asks, eyes refusing to open, and as soon as Jackson opens his mouth he talks again. "I'm sure about everything."

 

"About me turning you." Jackson still says like he doesn't do that whenever he gets the chance.

 

"Yup, that goes into the everything." Mark nods against his chest.

 

"Stop being a smartass, Mark. I'm serious." Jackson says, arm around Mark squeezing just a bit, probably a sign of his nervousness.

 

"Oh, when I wake up at 3 in the morning and my head barely functions is when you decide to be serious for once."

 

"Yes." Jackson nods desperately.

 

"Okay." Mark copies his nod. "I'm sure." He says. "We've talked about this every other day for, like, the past two years. Don't you get tired of it?"

 

"But are you honestly sure?" Jackson asks again and Mark groans.

 

"Would you stop asking that? You're like a parrot, so damn repetitive." Mark's tone is harsh, but he still snuggles to Jackson closer.

 

Clings to him and hopes he never has to stop.

 

"I'm growing old here, Jackson. I'm almost 25 now. I finished my research, I finished everything I wanted to when I was alive. So do it." The way Mark says it it sounds like a challenge.

 

Jackson isn't sure he wants to take this one, though.

 

"I just don't want to this up." Jackson says. "I don't want you to change your mind. This is serious. It's a forever we're talking about here."

 

"I understand that." Mark says. "Even if something were to wipe out humanity we would be the only ones alive with others like us."

 

"If a meteor hit earth and completely destroyed it, leaving only a bunch of rocks floating around, we would be soaring through space on those rocks." Jackson says.

 

Says and hopes it's scary enough for Mark to think about it even more.

 

To think about it even more and then still decide to spend a forever with Jackson.

 

"Would we not die then? Without any supplies. From lack of vitamins, of oxygen." Mark asks.

 

"I'm pretty sure we wouldn't." Jackson says. "There are vampires to conduct these experiments. We should try to get in touch. I heard they share information."

 

"That's good." Mark decides. "But if a killer virus killed off all of humanity vampires would be left to fix everything. That could be interesting." He offers a reluctant Jackson.

 

"I guess."

 

"And if we get tired of trying out every single country's in the world hipster ice cream and pizza we can go fight in the war. Not like we'd die."

 

"Hmm." Jackson nods.

 

"We can go to North Korea, by foot, and assassinate Kim Jong Un."

 

"That's an idea." Jackson agrees.

 

"Then we can swim to America by hand and assassinate Donald Trump and then rob him." Mark talks and Jackson smiles secretly.

 

"And then we can lose our whole sympathy for humanity and forget of human emotions." He says. Mark chuckles.

 

And why does Mark chuckle, it's literally the worst thing that can happen to them.

 

"That's right. We'll live grey lifes, then, in some villa in Bell Air and in ugly designer clothes."

 

"I like penthouse apartments more. Somewhere in the middle of a bustling city." Jackson says.

 

"We'll be forced to move often, anyway. We'll get to try out every single type of housing. We can also start different jobs and donate to people in need." Mark seems to be full of great ideas.

 

"Or we can just go to Africa ourselves and try do something there." Jackson offers his own take.

 

"That's right." Mark says. "We can become legit astronauts or deep sea researchers without fear."

 

"Oh my God." Jackson smiles into Mark's hair and Mark smiles as well. "Let's just start our bucket list now."

 

He tells himself he can't possibly stop the shiver of excitment crawling up his spine.

 

"There's so much to do. I can't wait for the day when there's nothing left." Mark says, voice just slightly excited.

 

He yawns.

 

Jackson follows with his own yawn, knocking his chin on the top of Mark's head tucked under it.

 

"When we get really over everything we can legitimately spread killer viruses and rebirth humanity over and over again."

 

"That sounds like an evil plan. I'm probably gonna be so down for anything at that point." Mark's voice is barely above a whisper and Jackson cold, dead heart melts as if he were in the middle of a street and the sun was shining above.

 

Mark basically has the same effect as the sun, that's not all too good.

 

"I really hope that you will."