It wasn’t that hard, being a famous vampire in LA. Not nearly as hard as opening for a chronically-late heroin addict and having to improvise another tight five while the audience only seemed interested in shouting out guesses about her bra size.
And fuck Richie too for turning that story into a bit for her West Coast tour.
But now she was rich and famous. She hardly remembered having to crouch behind a dumpster, sucking down radioactive rat blood.
New York was a toxic place to try and start a comedy career, literally and figuratively, and she had skipped town for sunny LA while trying to figure out why the fuck she had tried to live in that hellhole in the first place. The pizza wasn’t even that good.
Richie was a non-sleeping, non-eating, blood-sucking monster, a walking corpse barely animated by preying on innocents, but hey. So were all her friends in the industry. At least she never forgot to wear sunscreen.
Once a month, a guy who didn’t ask questions or tell her anything showed up at her door with a tasteful glass bottle. It wasn’t human, that much she knew. He had been hired by Steve, who also didn’t ask questions and refused to hear anything past: “So I’ll need blood delivered once a week—.”
She was happy like this, until. Until a phone call. Until a frantic flight to Maine, nauseated by memories.
Until she locked eyes with Emily Kaspbrack.
She wanted, so badly. Richie hadn’t drunk human blood since—
Since Emily, offering her palm, as Richie cried on her sewer-filthy shoulder and drank the blood out of the cut and cried and drank and cried and drank until Emily said she was getting dizzy. Richie had ran away from her so fast that Emily had to show up at her window that night, furious and stubborn and lovely, and say: “You’re my best friend. IT changed you, whatever, but don’t be stupid.”
She had to sit there re-remembering, as the others ate their Chinese food, how she had fed from Emily and Richie burned from the inside out.
It had been the best thing she’d ever tasted, over and over again. The other losers had offered and Emily had gotten weird and snapped at them and clambered over Richie like it was okay. It was okay to be a monster and drink her best friend’s blood because they were RichieandEmily.
The slimy truth of self-hatred, always writhing in her dead veins, drove her outside to try and smoke out the overwhelming need for Emily’s blood.
Emily didn’t even try to sneak up on her outside, just stomped right over from the door and snatched the lit cig out of her hand, grinding it out before Richie had a chance to complain.
Richie, trying to pretend like her hands weren’t shaking with the overwhelming image of her blood on her tongue, raised on eyebrow. “Here to give me a health lecture, pipsqueak?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Emily’s cheeks were so pink, visible even in the night air. Richie was pretty sure she was close to drooling. “Bite me.”
Richie tried not to wince. “Poor choice of words.”
“I’m being literal, asshole. Bite me.”
This was too much. “Emily, no—“
“Richie.” Emily’s voice was deadly serious and her big brown eyes were locked on hers with the intensity of a religious martyr. “I have missed you my whole life. I want you to get over yourself and bite me.”
Richie was now pretty sure she was close to crying instead. “Ems, I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” Emily snuck her arms around her waist, peeking up at her. She smelled so delicious, like warmth and life and sunlight. Richie just wanted a taste of it, just enough to keep her going…
Emily reached up and wrapped her fingers in Richie’s hair, gently but insistently pulling towards the divot where her shoulder met her neck. “You must be hungry after all those years. And we’re going to kill a clown tomorrow. If IT gets to you because you were too stupid to take what I can give you, I’ll reanimate you just to drive a stake through your heart.”
Richie let out a low groan, lips pressed to the soft barrier of her skin. Her blood pulsed below her mouth, as inviting as anything she’d ever know.
“If anything happens to you,” Richie said, voice rough, “I’m burning this town to the ground.”
Emily laughed and Richie sank her teeth into bliss.
