Chapter Text
Vampires are supposed to start transitioning from about 25 to 35. Really late ones will go at 40. Everyone likes talking about that one guy they know who went at 20, but no one actually knows the one guy. It’s an anecdotal story that a friend-of-a-friend’s friend-of-a-friend told your aunt, who then told your mom, who then told my mom, who then told me—that kind of shit. No one goes Vamp that early.
Vampirism is a nihilistic meme we pass around in Discord groups because we’re all insensitive shitheads. Every time someone busts up an ankle or some shit at practice in high school, it’s like this dumb joke we mutter while icing or wrapping. That sarcastic shit we say because the world’s fucked, it don’t mean nothing anymore, polar bears are all gonna die, it’s all fucked, who fucking cares? Ankle hurts? I know a baddie with teeth. You didn’t sleep last night? Nah, man, I’m nocturnal, remember? Whatever. It’s just a joke.
Continued at Duke. Duke fucking hurt. Duke was tough. I mean, I went from high school to Duke, I was getting beat up, I was playing harder because I actually had a fucking shot at an NBA career. I was full of nerves and aching all the time, and it always came crashing in like a physical thing after practices, after games. Konny had to bully me into going to bed probably a hundred times because sometimes the aching was so bad that I couldn’t really sleep, and all my buzzing around the dorm was keeping him from getting any shuteye. Just go the fuck to sleep, you can’t hurt in your sleep. And like a particularly stupid teenager, I’d respond with something about not finding a good enough branch to hang upside down from.
And like an equally stupid one, he’d usually respond with I know a guy with painkillers in his gums.
Never really figured out if it was actually a joke.
Anyway, shit hurt, but it was the kind of hurt I could live with. Basketball ain’t an easy sport. Take a fall on that hardwood and you feel it for a couple days. Now do it like 4 times a game, 7 games in a row—yeah. It doesn’t feel too hot after a bit. Whatever. I figured I’d either get used to it or learn how to deal with it.
Remember the thing I said about a shot at an NBA career?
Yeah.
I start at point guard for the Mavs because Kidd’s got some kind of grand plan. I don’t know, man. I don’t have the handles for this. I’m a monster as a power forward, just let me be a power forward. Let me figure it out. Fuck, these games are so different. I knew the jump from college to NBA was supposed to be a big one, but nothing prepares you for actually being on the floor. Nothing prepares you for all the noise. Absolutely nothing could’ve prepared me for the hostility at American Airlines Center at the top of the season. D’you know how loud those fans were screaming to fire Nico? Like, I know he did an astronomical stupid by trading Luka, but what did I do to deserve this? I. Am. Not. Luka. I suck at point guard. I don’t know how, but it’s like my handles got worse than they were in high school or some shit. Backwards progress. And Kyrie tried to help but I just couldn’t get it. Whatever. Just do your best. All I can do.
The soreness that I had in Duke? Double it, and then pass it back because fuck me. Just woke up achy all the time. Schedule’s brutal, home stands were less brutal, but fuck, I hurt pretty bad. In January, Konny asked me if I was sleeping okay. What kind of question is that?
“I ‘on know.” He shrugged. “You just look a little off is all.”
We were by the scorer’s table during pregame warm-ups. Max and Ry are out there doing their shooting drills, some season pass holders are filing in, phones up, trying to catch anything they can of us before we play. I don’t know, maybe like we’re fucking circus animals. Celebrity is a whole-ass thing, I know, and I know I chose this, but NBA media is a monster. Like I kinda got used to the cameras and the photographers in Duke because I was shaking NCAA basketball by the ankles for all its lunch money, but now it’s like some weird panopticon bullshit where I can’t escape the cameras. If it ain’t the season pass holders, it’s the official photographers. If it’s not them, then it’s the media team. It was kinda fun in the preseason, but by January? Fuck off, man. Leave me alone.
I caught the sound of a shutter closing somewhere to my left and resisted the urge to mean-mug the photographer immediately because it would’ve given them a perfect view of my face.
“Haven’t found a good coffin yet,” I muttered.
He whacked me on the arm. “You’re gonna get canceled if someone hears you.”
Whatever. No one’s gonna hear me.
…
Midfoot sprain. How the fuck do you sprain your midfoot? How do you even do that? And why did it happen, huh? It didn’t hurt that badly when I fucked it up, but when I was in the trainer’s room and they were working on it, something weird happened. I’m lying on the table, right? Been on the table before, something’s always aching, just the way it is with basketball. Someone’s always working on you. But this time, the lights were killing me. It was needles to the eye sockets, even closing them didn’t help. They stung like I got pepper in them or something. And I tried waiting it out, but it just kept getting worse, so I eventually put my hands over my eyes.
Someone patted my chest. “Hey, you okay? Easy.” Kidd’s voice. Maybe he thought I was having a mental breakdown.
“Lights. It’s the fucking lights,” I said.
“The lights?”
“Yeah, I got a headache.” I didn’t, not really. But that’s the only way I could think to explain it without sounding like a loony.
One of the med staff spoke up. “Did you get hit in the head, Cooper?”
She’s sweet. Everyone calls her Darling. Couple years older than me, gotta be fresh outta school, big, bright eyes, blinding fucking smile—that’s not an insult, she like fully lights up a room when she smiles. Something about her makes me wanna keep talking to her, she’s one of those. She talks to strangers like she’s been their best friend for years. She’s usually one of the first people over when someone’s hurt. Just kinda hovers around, helps with what she can, mostly talks to us and explains what’s going on. I usually found her at team events after the social hour got tiring and I just needed to be away from people, but hiding in a corner wasn’t gonna happen. She was pretty happy to have a chill conversation to make it look like I had something too important going on for randos to interrupt me.
“No. I’m fine—ow!” Someone poked my arch and I flinched.
I forgot about the incident by the time the game was over. Went home, got to rehab, responded to Konny asking if I was okay with something stupid again, I’m sure. No weirdness with lights again, not for the rest of the season.
…
When I fucked up my ankle at the end of the season, shit hit the fan. And not just because I was pissed that the team wouldn’t let me play, but because I got sick after. Like sick sick. Headache, dizziness, nausea, water tasted like battery acid, my stomach was turning inside-out from hunger, but the idea of food made me wanna hurl. I thought I was sore before but fuckin’ everything hurt. Everything. I got some wicked kind of migraine or something because even the light from the digital clock in the bedroom was killing me. I had to unplug the damned thing. I tried texting the staff, but I swear to fuck, the individual pixels in the screen were murder on the eyes. Resorted to just calling my mom. I hate calling her when I’m sick. She gets so worried. But it was, like, almost noon or something, and I wasn’t even able to get out of bed yet. I had COVID in high school, and this was even worse than that.
She took one look at me and called Kidd.
“Send everyone.” That’s what I remember her saying. “I know my baby, send everyone.”
Here’s the damage, at least as much as I can remember: sky-high fever, negative COVID, negative flu, negative strep. Threw up twice or three times, couldn’t get water in, couldn’t keep meds down, so I had a tube in my arm. Immense joint and muscle pain. Fever wouldn’t come down with reducers, I was shivering so bad that my teeth were clacking together. My mom just held me. Kept dragging a wet rag over my forehead.
Mom. “We should just get him into a cool bath.”
Some guy. I don’t know. “Yeah? Cool bath?”
“He’s always run crazy high fevers when he’s sick. Cool bath is the only thing that works.”
So that’s how I ended up shivering in a room-temperature bath with my hands clamped over my eyes against the light spilling in from the bedroom. Mom needed to be able to see so I wouldn’t—I don’t know, have a seizure and drown? Or pass out and drown?—but the lights, man. The fucking lights. And do you know how fucking miserable it is to be in a cool bath when you’re running a 104? The water’s like ten thousand needles. It hurts to breathe.
I don’t know how long it took the fever to break, but I next remember being in the living room, half-melted into the corner of the couch, clutching a blanket to my chest. Had an ice pack on the back of my neck. I only managed to open my eyes for a second before groaning and snapping them closed again. It was dark, someone else was on the other couch looking at their phone. The screen light stung.
“Hey.” Darling. It was Darling. “Kelly had to run to a meeting. She’ll be back in about an hour.”
“What happened?” I croaked.
“Uh, your fever finally broke. You got five more minutes for that ice pack, then 30 minutes off. How’s your head?”
My head? “Fine?”
“No headache?”
I shrugged.
“Cooper?”
Oh. Right. It’s dark, she probably can’t see me. “Not really.”
“Good.” The couch cushions squeaked as she moved. Her voice got closer. “Is it okay if I sit here?”
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me and rasped, “Yeah, sure.”
The cushion next to me sank down. I tried opening my eyes, her screen glow made me recoil, she turned it off with a muttered apology.
“D’you want water? Gatorade?”
“No, I’m okay.” I wasn’t. My mouth was dry, but I was pretty convinced that if I took a sip of something, I’d hurl again.
I finally got to survey the room. It was really dark. Darker than it normally is at like midnight. I often got home well after dark, barring a few random games throughout the season. There’s usually some kind of ambient light around, providing background illumination, highlighting the edges of windows where streetlight or the Dallas nighttime glow crept in through blinds or curtains—not so much that time. It was concerning how dark it was. Like something was fucked up about my eyes. I kept hunting around the darkness for where I know the windows are, trying to catch a sliver of yellow-white in my peripheral vision, but nope. Nothing.
“Why is it so dark?” I finally asked.
“Lights are bothering you?”
“No, like, it’s darker than I’m used to. I can’t see a damned thing.”
“We have blankets up on the windows.”
The fuck? “Why?”
“Your eyes… uh, can I ask you a sensitive question, Cooper?”
That, probably because of the oppressive darkness smothering me, made my arms explode in goosebumps. Like I didn’t suddenly notice just then that I couldn’t see shit, but I became aware of how bad it could be that I couldn’t see shit. For some reason—don’t ask me why, I don’t know—my head conjured this image of some kind of monster. Like a demon, like those masks with distorted faces that you see everywhere in October, with the big, toothy smiles, the sharp fangs, the fat tongue, bulging eyes. A monster with raised claws, ready to pounce. It conjured the image of a demon sitting next to me, mouth already agape, teeth already hovering on either side of my head, ready to fucking eat me when no one else was home and I couldn’t see shit to defend myself. I wouldn’t see it coming. Fuck, I wouldn’t even have time to scream. Even if I did scream, no one would hear me.
I used to imagine shit like that when I was a kid. I think all kids do. It’s why everyone goes through a phase where they’re scared of the dark. Didn’t expect that fear to resurrect at 19.
What’s worse is I didn’t know how to deal with it. Like, sure, I could ignore it and tell myself the dark ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. But I’m sitting in the dark with someone I only kind of know, and—fuck all the stupid jokes—there’s a very real possibility she’s a vampire. Seriously, the fuck do I do about that?
“Cooper?” A light flicked on, her phone flash, fucking blinded me even though it was pointed at the floor. “Sorry, sorry.” She turned it back off.
“No, no, it’s fine. Uh, leave it on. I can’t see anything.”
“How about I turn on a light in the kitchen?”
“Yeah.” I said that too fast. “Yeah, that’s fine. The, uh, light above the sink.”
“I’m gonna turn my flash on again. Prepare thyself.”
Thyself. That got a chuckle out of me. Maybe it was the nerves. “Sure.” I shielded my eyes, but kept them open. Her footsteps receded, a faint white cast fell over the whole living room from behind me, illuminating the blankets that were haphazardly draped over the windows… somehow. Were they wedged in the curtain rods? They better not have fucking taped them to my walls.
“Do you want something from the kitchen?” Darling called. “A snack? Something light?”
The image of the demonic creature came back, but this time, I could convince it to go away. She’s just Darling. Monsters don’t exist. She asked if I was hungry because she’s just being her normal, sweet self. I’m just having fever dreams is all.
“Cooper, sweetheart, do you want something to eat?” That came out with gentle concern.
Sweetheart?
“No.” I looked over my shoulder towards her. My eyes watered. Yeah, light crossing my eyeballs seemed to be an absolutely not.
“You sure? Maybe just some fruit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it alright if I raid your fridge? I haven’t had dinner.”
“Yeah, take whatever.”
I couldn’t keep watching her; the lights were murder. I heard her milling about in the kitchen. The coffee table had several glasses and Gatorade bottles on it, a bottle of Advil, a bottle of Tylenol, two other orange prescription bottles for whatever-the-fuck, wraps for my ankle, a spent ice pack, a pitcher half-filled with ice water, two books, a laptop that wasn’t mine, is that a set of wired earbuds? Who even uses those anymore? The other section of the couch had a nest of blankets and a couple pillows where Darling must’ve been curled up to keep an eye on me. There was a stuffed animal peeking out from under one of the blankets. Maybe a rabbit? Or a teddy bear? Why was that so cute?
Something buzzed in the kitchen.
“Take the ice pack off, Coop.”
I forgot it was there, honestly. I plopped it onto the coffee table. “Why is there an ice pack on my neck?”
“It helps some people with migraines. Helped you.”
“That what it was? A migraine?”
“Among other things.”
A cutting board clattered. Made my ears ring.
“You, uh, wanted to ask me something—uh, Darling, right?”
“Yep. Darling. Do you have a knife?”
I have a knife block because my mom thought about it, but I’m not thrilled about giving you access to a fucking knife right now.
“Ope, I see it. Never mind.” She shuffled around a few steps. “Yeah, I wanted to ask if there’s a history of vampirism in the family.”
My stomach coiled into a knot. My face and hands went cold.
What?
A history of what?
In the family?
A what?
What?
She kept talking like the conversation was about allergies. “Grandparents, great-grandparents? Anyone with light sensitivity, high-protein diet, needed iron infusions, things like that?”
My heart tried to eject from my body, it was racing so fast.
Excuse the ever-living fuck out of me—what?
WHAT?
I think I just babbled incoherent nonsense trying to assemble a sentence through the shock.
“Easy, take a deep breath.” Why was she so calm? “It’s okay.”
“How-how—a t-test, how—” I was trying to ask how we were supposed to find out.
“Does your face hurt, sweetheart?”
“My face?”
“Your upper jaw, sinuses, like kinda behind your eyes. Maybe even your teeth. Usually upper jaw, can sometimes be both upper and lower. Sometimes the pain comes and goes for months and never seems serious enough to bring up to a doctor or dentist.”
“N-no?”
She clicked her tongue. “Ah. Well. Might be too early.”
“Excuse me, what the fuck is going on?” This time, I turned around in my seat and shielded my eyes from the worst of the light, but otherwise just gutted through the pain.
She was standing at the island, hovering over a cutting board where she was slicing an avocado, had a few other things out and around. Loaf of bread, a plate, I guess mom got some chives or something.
“You’re going vampire. I’m your transition guide.” She glanced at me with a smaller version of that world-ending smile. It probably should’ve comforted me. It just made me want to hide under the carpet. “Avocado toast?”
“N-n-no?” Are you really offering me avocado toast at this time? “What do you mean. I’m going vampire?”
“You’re going vampire, sweetheart.” Why did she say that so cheerfully? “You’re really early, so you caught us by surprise, but we’re getting the ball rolling fast. Kelly’s starting the process of setting up your care team.” She fanned the avocado out on a slice of toast, grabbed a bundle of chives, and went over to the sink to rinse them off. “I’ve never heard of anyone going vampire at 19. I mean—I mean, everyone talks about that one guy, but I’ve never actually met him or someone who knew him. You’re an interesting case study.”
“What-what does this mean?”
“Like, for your career?”
Not what I was asking—I don’t know what I was asking—but fuck it. “Yeah.”
She shrugged. “Well, that depends on how your body handles transition. Let’s get through that, and then we’ll see.”
Handles.
Transition.
How your body handles transition.
And then we’ll see.
Fuck hiding under the carpet, I wanted to fucking scream.