Blood Red - A Vampire Brammy Story

Prologue

Braylen was your average boy-next-door kind of kid. He wasn't particularly great at school, though he did have a certain interest in literature and history that garnered him some plus points with his teachers, and he was fairly social, as most young boys are. There was nothing especially wonderful about him, but he didn't care. He didn't want to be wonderful – he just wanted to be happy. He was partners-in-crime with his best friend, Samuel. Everyone called the boy 'Sammy B', an affectionate nickname Braylen quickly adopted too. They became thick as thieves within weeks of knowing each other and spent most of their spare time in one another's company. Sammy's fourteenth birthday was a turning point in Braylen's life too and it changed the dynamic of their friendship in a way that wouldn't be noticeable until years later. Sammy told the red haired boy that his feelings for him were a little more than friendly – in short, Sammy had a pretty big crush on the boy-next-door. Braylen, not having even entertained the idea that he might be into guys, rejected his best friend in the nicest way he could think of. He couldn't accept Sammy's feelings, but he still wanted to be friends and he didn't see Sammy any differently than he had before. Braylen could see the hurt in Sammy's eyes but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't just open his arms to a same-sex relationship with his best friend. He wasn't "gay".

The years passed and the two remained as close as ever, going on day trips and nights out with Sammy's cousins and making a lot of great memories with each other. Their friendship blossomed and bloomed into a connection so strong, they could swear it was spiritual. Braylen didn't notice it, but the feelings he had for Sammy were developing and growing too. The boy he'd once seen as nothing more than a close friend was slowly but surely becoming a lot more to the redhead. Braylen was falling for Sammy and, because he'd never experienced having those kind of feelings for a guy before, he didn't really take much notice of it for a long time. A series of deaths in his family led to Sammy B moving away, away from his childhood home to somewhere distant and removed from all of the now-painful memories of Windenburg. Braylen felt lost without his best friend so close-by, but he didn't let the distance come between them. He made the effort to go and visit Sammy regularly, to spend time with him and to hang out as if nothing had changed. But things had changed. Things were going to change.

Braylen heard from Sammy's new housemates that the dark-haired boy had taken an interest in a mysterious man that lived over in the neighbouring trailer park. Micah. That was his name. This guy had a pretty sketchy career, from the sounds of it, but he had useful information and a good insight into their new hometown, and Sammy had been the one to go and retrieve that information. It seemed like he'd gotten pretty close to the guy – or at least close enough for Cody and Seb to mention it to Braylen. Braylen felt a painful ache that anyone with a brain would recognise as jealousy when he heard about it. He wouldn't admit it at the time, but he was deeply jealous of this Micah guy – not just because he was getting Sammy's attention, but because Braylen felt like it was his own damn fault that he was missing out. He started to realise that he didn't want Sammy to be fawning over Micah because he was in love with Sammy himself. It was selfish – Braylen knew that – and the war he was waging with himself inside his own head prevented him from saying anything or doing anything about it. Braylen had fallen undoubtedly and unequivocally in love with Sammy B, but years of self-doubt and fear had forced him to push those feelings down and bury them deep inside. He wasn't "gay". He wouldn't allow himself to be "gay". The feelings he had for Sammy were so much stronger than anything he'd felt for anyone before – male or female – and that terrified him. He didn't want to lose his best friend over the feelings he was too afraid to embrace. He tried to hide it – oh, God, did he try – but things like that can never stay hidden forever. It was an endless cycle of jealousy, wanting to tell Sammy how he felt, and being too afraid to actually do it. He was fighting a losing battle, until an evening of too much alcohol and not enough common sense forced him to deal with the feelings he knew for a fact he wasn't comfortable with.

The evening had started innocently enough, with the two boys enjoying a drink at Sammy's local bar. It was a bad idea to start drinking in hindsight. The alcohol coursing through Braylen's bloodstream stopped him from over-analysing every little detail of his interactions with Sammy and loose lips spill secrets easily. He didn't remember exactly what he said that night, but he knew that they'd flirted openly and jokes were made that probably shouldn't have been made. For every suggestive comment Braylen made, Sammy responded positively and it made Braylen feel free. He felt good to finally be open with the things he'd been thinking about for months. He didn't think about what would happen in the morning. He didn't think about how this would affect their relationship. He was perfectly happy to live in the moment, with whispered compliments and soft caresses of exposed skin. He was happy to see Sammy happy, and he didn't want it to end. But it did end.

A drunken night of innocent flirting and laughing together ended with the two boys in the same bed, clothes thrown aside and hands roaming to places on each other's bodies that were, until then, unexplored. Uninhibited by one too many beers, they both agreed to do something that would shake their friendship past their collective comfort zones and plunge them into territory Braylen never saw himself travelling. Their night of passion concluded with the redhead running away from what he'd done, running from his feelings in the process. Weeks passed, months even, and Braylen felt awful for leaving things as he did. He even tried to reach out to the other boy, inviting him for a night out clubbing like old times, but the request was never met with an answer and he concluded that Sammy didn't want to see him. He could understand that. Why would you want to see the man who slept with you, ran away and refused to answer your texts or your voicemails for months on end? A silly invitation to go clubbing couldn't erase the pain Braylen knew he'd caused Sammy, and he hated himself for it.

More than anything, Braylen was upset. He hadn't just lost his love. He'd lost his best friend. He was closer to Sammy than to anyone else in his life and not having the other boy around felt like a part of him was missing. He wanted things to go back to how they were before, when the two of them could joke around and just be with one another as friends – no complications, no expectations and no awkwardness. But that wasn't an option anymore. Even if their drunken night had ended differently, Braylen still found himself unable to fully accept his romantic feelings for the dark-haired boy, and that would put a strain on their friendship no matter what. Things could never be like they were, and that caused Braylen more pain than he would openly admit.

His mother had urged him to talk to someone – a professional – when she noticed the change in him. He didn't smile as easily as he once did. He didn't go out as much as he used to. He put an end to the hobbies that had once given him so much joy; his guitar was left un-played and his skateboard was sold for pennies to a local kid who wanted it more than Braylen did. He wasn't himself and his mother saw that clearly. She offered to drive him there, book him for an appointment and even sit with him if he wished but he said the same as he always did.

"I'm fine."

He wasn't fine. He needed to talk to someone, but he wasn't ready for that yet. So his mother's pleas were left unanswered, and he continued his life the best he could. He got himself a job. Nothing fancy; just a part-time position in an office. He moved out of his parents' house and got himself a small apartment and a ginger cat named Cherry – anything to help him feel less lonely. He wanted to carry on living, even if it was painful to feel like a part of him was missing.

Braylen hadn't expected that his dreary little life would change so suddenly and so dramatically, and he hadn't expected that this change would lead him back into the arms of the very boy he'd been missing so much. It would be bittersweet, to be reunited in this way, but perhaps it was for the best.