"Fuck."

The word was said very quietly, but Steve was alert in a heartbeat, nevertheless. He opened his eyes to find Eddie had turned in his embrace at some point during the night and he was looking at the top of Eddie's delightfully messy curls. There was tension radiating from his boyfriend, so he knew Eddie was awake.

"You okay?" Steve asked quietly.

Eddie's head came up slowly and dark eyes met his own. Even in the low light, Steve knew it was not a natural darkening of Eddie's chocolate brown irises, and even as he looked there was the tiniest red glow.

"Ah," he said, "I was wondering when that would happen."

"How do you always take this so calmly?" Eddie asked.

Steve gave his boyfriend a small, but genuine smile, bringing his hand up to cup Eddie's face.

"I understand why this scares you," he whispered, making sure he conveyed his sincerity with his eyes since he couldn't so it with his voice. "This is all new, what I can do scares me sometimes too. But nothing about you scares me. The opposite. God, if I hadn't been so focused on the kids yesterday, when you took that guy out, I probably would have done something incredibly embarrassing."

"You really have a thing for vampires, don't you?" Eddie whispered back.

"Mostly I have a thing for you and that includes you being a vampire," he replied honestly, because he was pretty sure he'd never thought about vampires twice until Eddie, "and I think we should take this to the bathroom before Robin wakes up and tries to stake both of us through the heart."

"Steve, you're supposed to be recovering," Eddie pointed out.

"So are you," he countered. "You seem to have about a two-day cycle, and you used your vampire abilities today for the first time for anything but feeding. You need blood and it won't hurt me to give it. I'm still tired, yes, but I ate enough for a small army so my tanks are topped up, and we can sleep in."

"You had that argument planned," Eddie said.

"Yep," Steve replied and gave his boyfriend another smile.

There was no point in denying it. It had occurred to him while they were eating earlier.

"Don't expect to get the upper hand in this relationship all the time," Eddie said and rolled out of bed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Steve assured him, following along and slipping past Eddie into the bathroom.

As Eddie closed the door with a quiet click, Steve pulled the little chord on the light above the sink. The room brightened with the orange glow, picking out the details of the bath and shower behind him with deep shadows. It felt kind of ethereal. Perfect for the moment as he stared into the mirror.

"I can't believe how pretty you are either," Eddie said in a teasing tone, meeting his eyes in the reflection over his shoulder.

He replied with a small smile, but his mind was rushing too far ahead to really react to the joke.

"I want to watch as you bite me," he said, holding Eddie's dark eyed gaze.

A flicker of anxiety flew across Eddie's face, crinkling his forehead for a moment.

"Why?" was the quiet question.

"Because you're beautiful and I want to see it all," Steve replied without hesitation.

The atmosphere in the room was charged. Eddie's confession of a few hours previously was still so fresh in both their minds, it was obvious. Steve wanted him to understand how much he had meant it when he had said Eddie was not a monster. He did not find any part of this monstrous. He had been perfectly sincere when he said It did the opposite of frighten him. He needed Eddie to see it too.

"Like this?" Eddie asked, moving in close behind him.

One of Eddie's arms came around his waist, pulling him flush to Eddie's body. The other curled around his shoulder as Eddie's right hand stroked over his chest, fingers splaying out as they traced a path up his neck. He could feel the strength in Eddie's touch, remembering very clearly how he had seen it in action the previous day.

At times Eddie was just a human being. At other times, he was not.

The knowledge filled Steve with excitement.

"Yes," he said when Eddie waited for his reply.

Those fingers on his throat gently urged his head to the side and he obeyed, even as he kept his eyes fixed on Eddie in the mirror. His cock twitched in his sleep pants at the controlling touch.

"All for me?" Eddie whispered into his ear.

"All for you," he agreed, watching Eddie's eye glow red in the low light.

Eddie made a show of opening his mouth so Steve could clearly see his pearly white fangs. They were long and pointed and gave Eddie a dangerous air that made Steve shiver inside. It wasn't fear. Nothing could make him afraid of Eddie. It was pure excitement.

He bit his lip as the tip of those fangs touched his skin. Just the tiniest touch, like two pins, as Eddie showed just how much control he had.

Steve's cock throbbed and he breathed noisily through his nose, trapped in the delicious moment. The whimper that escaped him as Eddie finally bit was completely involuntary. About all he could do was keep it small, so it didn't wake Robin in the other room. The points of pain lit up his nerves like static electricity and he surrendered to it.

Eddie's eyes fluttered closed as his lips fastened to Steve's neck, but Steve couldn't look away. As that beautiful mouth attached to his neck, pleasure flooded through his system, and he stared. Such wanton noises stacked up in his throat, only held back by his own teeth digging into his bottom lip. One day, one day soon he wanted more than Eddie's fangs sinking into him. He was hungry for it, his cock throbbing to the beat of his heart at the very thought.

His legs felt weak, Eddie's strong arms keeping him in place and helping him stand. After only moments, he had to release his lower lip so he could pant out the overwhelming pleasure and need flooding through him. Every sensation seemed heightened. The touch of Eddie's tongue on his skin as Eddie drank. The seal of Eddie's lips against his neck. It made his heartbeat thud in his ears and his cock throb mercilessly.

Then Eddie looked up at him.

His breath caught in his throat. Eddie's whole iris was red and glowing from within. All the black was gone, and Steve felt like he had been caught. If the initial bite had been like static, now it was like being connected to the mains. His whole world narrowed to Eddie.

A tiny, still functioning part of his mind likened it to connecting with El or Will, but this had nothing to do with healing, or even simply communicating. This was much more primal. Raw need met raw pleasure and blew his mind. For seconds or hours, he had no way of telling which, nothing except Eddie existed. Eddie and overwhelming bliss.

He came back to himself breathing hard and shaking, on the tail end of an earth-shattering orgasm. He felt kind of floaty.

"Holy fuck," was about the only response that seemed adequate as he clung to the sink and Eddie clung to him.

Eddie's face was buried in his neck, and he could feel his boyfriend shaking as well.

"What the hell was that?" Eddie asked quietly, without lifting his head.

"Amazing," Steve said as his brain completely failed to provide anything useful.

"You ... me ..." Eddie said, apparently trying to articulate something.

"I know," Steve replied, because he couldn't explain it either.

"Fuck, I came in my pants," Eddie confessed, finally meeting his eyes in the mirror.

"You think I didn't?" Steve said, and he couldn't help it as a smile burst across his face.

He also couldn't help the small laugh that went with it. This was going to take some thinking about, some analysing between them, because it wasn't exactly something he felt comfortable talking to El about, but he felt so good it was hard to focus on that part. He'd just come without anything remotely touching his cock and it had been possibly the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life. It was both amazing and utterly ridiculous. Laughing seemed like a reasonable reaction.

When he noticed that his neck was also completely healed and realised he hadn't remotely been aware of doing it, that tipped him over the edge. He sniggered quietly, slowly sliding down against the sink because his legs felt like jelly.

"Are you okay?" Eddie asked, sounding slightly worried, but sitting down next to him.

"God yes," he replied, "I'm great. Are we both high?"

"Yeah, think so," Eddie said.

Steve sniggered again, doing his very best not to be too loud. If they woke Robin, she would probably kill them. If they woke anyone else, they would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

~*~

Steve wandered into the kitchen at what was nearly lunchtime, only mostly awake. He and Eddie had made it back to bed eventually, and they were going to have to talk about what happened, but he hadn't woken up enough for thinking about that yet. He was halfway through a yawn when another, smaller body slammed into his own.

"Steve," El greeted, enveloping him in a hug.

"Morning, El," he replied, hugging her back.

She beamed at him as she drew back.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"Very well," she replied. "Will and I have only just woken up also, and your mom is making waffles."

Steve looked over at his mother and blinked in surprise. Buying in breakfast and taking people out to breakfast were things his mom did, making breakfast not so much, at least not since he was small.

"Thought I would dust off my waffles supreme," his mom said, giving him a smile over her shoulder.

He grinned back. Now those he remembered. They had been reserved for birthdays when he was under ten, before the tradition had changed to going out to eat as he was deemed old enough.

"Can I help?" he asked.

"No thank you, darling, you just go and sit down," his mom said, turning back to what she was doing. "The first batch should be ready in a minute. Will Eddie and Robin be joining us as well?"

"If they ever stop arguing over who gets to use the bathroom next, then yep," he replied, letting El lead him towards the table. "I mentioned the main bathroom, but I think it's the principle of the thing by this point."

"Well, we all need principles," his mom replied with a laugh.

"Hey," Will said, as Steve sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Steve gave him a little wave as another yawn deprived him of his voice.

"Sorry," he apologised, "it's really hard to wake up today."

"It is often like that for me when I have pushed my powers too hard," El said. "It was much easier to wake up today though, Steve, thank you."

"My pleasure," he replied with a smile. "Now if I can just figure out how to do the same for me."

"More practice?" Will suggested.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"But not today," his mom said, placing a plate full of waffles down on the table, along with a plate of fruit and other delicious things.

"Oh, definitely not today," he said around another yawn.

He was not mentioning his and Eddie's early-morning escapade to anyone, especially his mother.

"I spoke to Max on the phone," El said with a delighted smile. "She is home and very annoyed to have missed all the adventures."

"I for one am very glad she did," Steve replied, "but don't tell her I said that."

El grinned at him.

"I am too," she said, "but I will not mention that either."

"Eat up before they get cold," his mom said as she produced a can of cream as well. "There's plenty more where that came from."

"Dad says we can go and see Max this afternoon," El continued to talk as she loaded her plate. "Did you want to come?"

"Not really sure I'll be awake enough," Steve replied, "but give her my love and tell her I can't wait to see her now she's free."

"She'll probably head over here the moment her mom lets her out of her sight," Will commented.

"I'm gonna need to go shopping again," Steve decided as he set about filling all the divots in his waffle with syrup before eyeing up the cream.

It was probably going to be way too sweet for his adult palate, but he hadn't had this since he was ten and he was going for nostalgia.

"What are you doing?" Will asked as he carefully added sliced strawberries to his creation in a very specific pattern.

"You do not get to criticize, Mr I-just-loaded-my-waffle-with-chocolate-chips," he replied, giving Will a pointed look.

"Is that a face?" El asked.

"It will be," he said, grabbing a couple of blueberries.

"King Waffle lives again," his mom said.

"May his reign be bountiful," he filled in for what his dad always used to say.

"But short," his mom finished, and Steve dived in with his fork, laughing as he did.

El giggled as Steve shovelled a large piece of King Waffle into his mouth, getting cream all over his chin. She appeared to take great pleasure in following suit. It was great to feel like a kid again, just for a while.