Kissing the Dark (Queer Vampire Romance)

Before we begin, let me apologize beforehand.

I would like to say sorry to the folks out there living in Romania who may have witnessed a series of altercations and scuffles near their homes—specifically those near the forested areas due to several disturbances that erupted thanks to conflicts that may or may not have been supernaturally-inclined. And especially those that had to also witness some gruesome scenes in the aftermath of a really vindictive and ambitious bloodsucking creature of the night feuding with gunslinging hunters toting around allium-scented bullets and flash bangs, of which no doubt traumatized anybody who has never been in contact with the otherworldly prior to these encounters.

And that’s about it. If you’re interested in forgetting what you saw that day, please feel free to contact the local coven or enclave of the magically-aligned that are probably on the case already; they’ll hook you up with a memory-wiping charm or something to get the weight off your shoulders. Just—uh—make sure the ones you do approach have no association with the words “ministry”, “foundation”, “coalition”, “insurgency”, “initiative”, or any other descriptors that make you feel like you’d rather have the aforementioned bloodsucking creature of the night gnaw on your neck than go through with the process at all.

For other issues, like missing body parts, damaged property, livestock casualty, and the need for blood transfusion, kindly contact Dr. Natan Demiraj. He most likely will call up his associates to get something arranged for you. Though you may have to get the enclave to send out the initial message first. He’s traditional like that.

What else, what else….

Oh, and if you’re reading this in hopes of learning a trick or two when it comes to slaying vampires, I would like to inform you that there’ll be none of that here; I’m just somebody that didn’t intend to get involved with matters of supernatural nature. Everything else that I might’ve picked up, like learning how to do the equivalent of eldritch blast and wild shape (or anything magical, really), was purely unintentional and situational. I am, in all honesty, just someone who had no idea this stuff even existed until I got roped into it unknowingly. Best I could offer as advice is how to find your local brooding vampire and talk their ear off until you either grow on them like fungus, or they start having a morality crisis. Or like—I dunno—how to cope after finding out a revelation so deep that you’ve hit the bottom of the Marianas Trench and need a way to process what you found out?

Anyways, not the place for recreating whatever Buffy Summers does on a regular basis.

Just saying.

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I guess I should explain myself and how it all started.

My name is Connie. Or Cornelian McIlvogue, although legal government documents will tell you otherwise and insist that I’d be called a name that I—quite frankly—don’t answer to anymore. I’m only seventeen, but I could hardly feel like one to begin with.

It’s not just some typical teenage experience either—with growing up and trudging through school, drama, and rebellion (although those were a factor too); for as long as I could remember, there was something about me that felt like it didn’t quite fit anywhere. Like….like a puzzle piece that looked almost right, but its shape was just a little off that it couldn’t be slotted cleanly along with the others. I suppose the closest thing I could describe it is listlessness, or drifting through life with a certain shape missing in my chest that couldn’t be filled by family or friends. Or anything for that matter. Not even the fanfics I keep stumbling into online while surfing the web for others sharing my interests and downloading MP3s of songs from my favorite bands.

Right. Fanfics. Musical tastes. I guess you could call me a geek. My brothers do it. My friends do it. Hell, even my school does it too, although most of it is out mockery rather than affection.

My life was….fine. As fine as one could grow up in a Chippewa-Cree household of mostly guys (me excluded, but we’ll get into that later) somewhere in Wyoming while the general population assumes we’re all extinct. While we weren’t struggling in a mobile home or sequestered away at a rez and skirting dangerously into the poverty line, the bar was so low that we may as well be in the deepest sections of the Great X.

In any case, my home situation wasn’t the problem. Everything else was.

Still, we did manage to get by enough to enjoy the things that sparked us joy, myself included. Others would call that faking some sort of victimhood, but really, it’s just finding some semblance of happiness amidst a world that would otherwise prefer you to be quiet and compliant. And Mom always taught us to live loudly no matter what was thrown in our way.

A lesson I took to heart completely, although my commitment to it would be tested to its very core after one bad day at school that just snowballed from there after.

Let me elaborate.

While living in Casper, Wyoming wasn’t inherently a challenging or problematic outcome for me, the general atmosphere and the way things had been handled in my district after many years of growing up there had left a particular bitter taste in my mouth and left me with no expectations for any form of justice whatsoever.

So when the time came that I was thrown into a circumstance that I neither asked for nor did I initiate, all I honestly felt was dread churning in my gut and the bubbling sense of impotent rage at the unfairness that others allowed to happen.

I guess you could say this unfairness was the powder keg that catalyzed how I ever ended up in a country from an ocean away.

────•⋅⊰༻♥༺⊱⋅•────

The whole mess happened one week before World Mental Health Day. And by mess, I meant it literally.

I was simply going about my day, blasting Helena into my eardrums while Claudine and I minded our business as we meandered our way through class to class on what otherwise felt like another uneventful day in high school. It had been pretty cloudy all morning, and given the weather, I suppose that made sense.

The thing about Casper in October is that it can’t decide if it wants to kill you with snow or lull you into thinking autumn is still a thing. Today it picked snow. Big, wet flakes slapping against my hoodie like Mother Nature’s spitballs.

I was already late for first period, but if you think I was about to run across the parking lot like some jock-in-training, you’ve clearly never sprinted in Converse. Those shoes are not “designed for athletics.” They’re designed for, like, making you look like you’re in an early-2000s band photo. Which, honestly, is enough cardio for me.

The hallway smelled like mop water and Axe body spray, which is to say: the usual. Maddison shot me a look as I walked past her cluster of cheerleader friends. You know the look—the one that says, “You shouldn’t exist in my field of vision”. I just tugged my earbuds in tighter and cranked up My Chemical Romance. Gerard Way doesn’t judge me. Gerard Way understands.

By the time I dropped into my desk, Claudine was already there, scribbling notes like the apocalypse was scheduled for third period and her hair in its usual messy bun. She glanced at my hoodie—today’s was black with white bats across the front—and raised an eyebrow.

“Another Hot Topic run?” she whispered.

“Hey, it was on clearance,” I muttered, letting out a quiet huff. Clearance racks are my natural habitat. Some people hike mountains; same here, except the mountains I dig through are bins of misprinted anime tees while hoping for hidden treasure.

Class droned on. Something about quadratic functions. My brain immediately decided that was the perfect time to wander into historical trivia. Did you know Vlad the Impaler’s favorite method of execution wasn’t even impalement? Yeah. He also liked boiling people alive. Don’t worry, I didn’t say that out loud. I’m not that socially suicidal. Yet.

Still, it’s hard to focus when your head’s a jukebox of useless facts and song lyrics, and your body’s stuck in a room where even the clock looks bored.

Mr. Duff was saying something important, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t focus nor stay put. It was pretty much my very own internal warzone, a prelude to the real one I didn’t know I was soon having.

Time rolled by like if one were to walk through Jell-O. Everything else felt muted and dull as we bounced from one class to another. Thankfully, I didn’t have to be bored forever, seeing as Claudine and her boyfriend, Daniel (who so pleasantly joined us not long after), kept me company throughout more than one period. My younger brother—Zach—couldn’t come because he was held up by some school project with his groupmates.

We hung out together during recess out in the courtyard, snacking on sunflower seeds and the lumpia Dan’s grandma packed for him back home. Claudine and I were having an animated discussion about this new one-shot I was writing up that was unrelated to the campaign I’d been hosting for our friends; it was themed around Halloween and other spooky, gothic vibes that felt suitable for the season, although Claudine teased me about riffing off of the Ravenloft module.

“You just want one of us to flirt with Strahd without baggage,” she remarked with a smirk.

“He’s a lonely dude!” I shot back, arguing my case. “Sure—he’s obsessively still clinging on to his beloved after losing her and then seeing her reincarnated again, not to mention being very stalker-ish when it comes to said reincarnation—but isn’t that such a gothic thing to do? Like, don’t you feel the absolute yearning that’s oozing from the pages of his description?”

Dan snorted, looking amused as he took a bite from the next lumpia he picked up.

“Didn’t he commit mass murder and other stuff just to get her back?” he asked casually.

“I’m rewriting him!” I said, to which the two responded with a chuckle. “C’mon, Dan. It’s the vibes we’re after here. They were writing a monstrous villain to slay for the players, but I want him to be compelling and sympathetic—even if he’s a walking red flag if he were to be a real person.”

“See? Totally just so we could seduce him into being a good boy,” Claudine teased again. “A problematic ‘good’ boy, that is. Might be compatible with Rain’s bard or Royce’s rogue. Who knows?”

“I can already hear Barovian wedding bells,” Dan added in, before pausing for a moment to reconsider his words. “Or whatever is the equivalent of a vampire marriage.”

I groaned, though I couldn’t help but smile at the way they were both engaging with me.

As we continued to chat about D&D lore and consume our snacks with gusto, someone less impressed with us decided to walk within earshot and express just how much she disliked our presence.

“Eugh, would you get a load of this?” Maddison said loudly to her two companions, Bianca and Paul. She was wearing her usual Abercrombie getup, a sneer on her expression. “Looks like the Geek Freak’s at it again with her dumb board games and emo cringe. God, don’t you ever get tired of yapping about the same thing over and over?” The last one was clearly aimed at me.

My initial smile faded. I pursed my lips but didn’t answer.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Claudine beginning to frown. Her gaze hardened.

“Can it, Pritchard,” she said firmly, not even looking over Maddison and the other two. “You’re acting as if you’re any better, when you talk about the same dumb gossip regarding everyone else—including yourself—all day.”

Dan didn’t speak, but I saw his lips twitch as he stared at his lumpia. Bianca and Paul had looks of affront painting their faces, and Maddison looked like she’d just swallowed something sour, but couldn’t quite figure out if she should swallow or spit it out.

“Says the rez kid who probably has nothing else better to do,” she snapped back, narrowing her eyes. “Like your opinion actually matters when you’re just smelling up the place. I mean, I’d hate myself too if I had nothing but reservation drama to look forward to and just get all my hand-me-downs from the town’s goodwill, right?”

“Hey!” I said, turning my body to fully face her. “That’s uncalled for.”

Cruel, too. Even I felt like bristling, but Claudine put a hand on my shoulder to ground me. Not worth it, was the message.

Still, it was a low blow and made me angry on her behalf.

Maddison had a nasty smirk on her face as she crossed her arms and looked back at me, as if the distress she gave us was done out of self-satisfaction. Beside her, Bianca and Paul were snickering and hurling tiny echoes of her remarks.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Bianca said with a scoff. “You don’t even look Native. Like, where’s your reservation? Maybe you should consider shutting up and stop pretending you’re a boy, y’know?”

I wanted to do something so badly. Yell at them. Call them out. Anything. But my stomach curdled with bitterness as the three jerks began to strut away, laughing to themselves as they bounced off of each other’s unpleasant vibes. As if they’d said something so intelligent and were congratulating themselves for it.

I felt sick.

“Hey,” Claudine said softly, bringing a gentle hand to my shoulder as I turned back to face the table. “You know Pritchard and her crowd are just being stupid bullies, right? They’ll say anything to get under your skin.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay,” I muttered, squaring my jaw as I stared at the picnic table. “That any of this is okay.”

I hated it. And it wasn’t even that educated of an insult, either, but it still landed because the only things people like Maddison knew about us were teepees, alcohol, crime, and poverty. Things that were surface level and defined by dumb stereotypes they perpetuated.

The worst part was that the school refused to curb it, or ignored it entirely. And now it’s mine and Claudine’s problem because we were one of the few Native students here and we’re forced to live through it. Don’t get me started on the “boy” remark either; getting insisted upon that you’re a confused girl is one thing, receiving jabs that borderlined on outright bigotry was another.

“I hate that none of us can do anything.” I brought a hand to my face, sighing.

“That’s not true,” Dan said, finally speaking up ever since the tense encounter. “Just because we aren’t punching them in face doesn’t mean we’re lying down and taking it. Look.”

He shifted on his seat to show me the recorder he had been hiding under the table. Neither Maddison, Bianca, nor Paul had taken notice because he was so quiet and unassuming that they’d chalked him up as some immigrant weirdo who couldn’t understand English (even though he had spoken it not too long before they’d pulled up, but then again, they were too focused on me to care about any other detail).

“Dan!” Needless to say, I was surprised.

“How much did you record?” Claudine asked, peering in with interest as her voice lowered.

“The moment I heard footsteps,” Dan answered, pursing his lips as he adjusted his glasses. “Maddison tends to walk in a specific way, and I could literally smell her expensive perfume though we’re out at the courtyard. It’s pretty heavy.”

“I didn’t even notice,” I admitted, feeling impressed. “Then again, we were neck deep in a discussion about my ‘dumb board games’.”

“Con, don’t let her get to you.” My best friend fixed me with a firm but kind look. “She doesn’t know shit about you, okay? Your interests, your hobbies…..she has no business or say on what you should be feeling.”

“Besides, she’s speaking for herself.” Dan smiled at me. “I like when we talk about whether you can thematically allow one of us to marry Acererak or turn a Tarrasque into a war mount. I enjoy our sessions.”

I tried to smile back, albeit weakly. It was nice to hear my friends back me up like this.

“Thanks, guys,” I said softly.

We returned to our snacks, our moods light despite the less-than-pleasant encounter moments prior. Dan pocketed the recorder, muttering about adding it to the pile of folders he stated was “evidence” that me and my family could use. Just in case.

Once recess ended, we headed over to our next class. This one, I dreaded just a bit; Social Studies was usually fine for me, seeing as I was obsessively reading whatever I could from whatever part of history I was fixated on at the moment (and continued to do so when I discovered the joys of the Internet), but for our current lesson being taught in that period, I was more or less feeling only apprehension over anything else.

I wasn’t expecting to avoid it forever, but that didn’t mean I actively wanted it to begin with. Not when I had to deal with the same thing every time stuff about my identity was brought up. I could tell Claudine felt the same way, based on her stormy expression as we took our seats close to the back row just as everybody had finished pouring in and the period started in earnest.

Our moment of peace lasted about thirty seconds until the lesson actually began.

The projector washed the front of Ms. Hargrove’s classroom in pale light. A slide titled “Indigenous Peoples: Local Histories” hung crooked on the board. She smiled, hands folded like she’s doing charity.

“Connie,” she said, loud enough for half the room to swivel. “You’re Native, right? Could you—maybe—tell the class what this symbol means? It’s in our textbook, but I thought a real family member might explain it better.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see Maddison nudging Bianca with a smirk from up front. Someone clicked a phone camera discreetly. Reeves was leaning on his back with a slow grin.

I felt every gaze on me like a pin. My mouth went dry.

“I’m not an exhibit,” I said, my voice small. I hated being singled out like this.

Ms. Hargrove, startled, began blinking. “No—no, no, I didn’t mean—”

“Then don’t put me on display,” I couldn’t help but cut in, my hands feeling clammy as my heart raced. My nerves were frayed, and I avoided focusing on everybody else’s faces. “And for the record, Ms. Hargrove; I’m Chippewa-Cree. Not Arapaho. We aren’t the same.”

A few people in the class laughed. I wasn’t sure if it’s from cruelty or curiosity. I didn’t care to look.

“Oh, well…..” Ms. Hargrove awkwardly looked over to Claudine. “….Claudine?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” my best friend said, although her tone definitely did not reflect that. I felt her place a hand to my shoulder. “I’m Shoshone.”

“I….see.” Clearing her throat, Ms. Hargrove shuffled her feet and turned her attention back to the projector and the lesson in hand. “Well, since we got a little off track, let’s turn our focus back to this next slide.”

I closed my notebook, my stomach churning with discomfort. Claudine gently squeezed my shoulder and Dan offered a small but empathetic noise.

As class went on without much incident, I kept my head down for the rest of the lesson. I only stirred when it was over and the three of us ambled out of the classroom to head towards the next.

The upside was that at least Mrs. Alvarez’s Spanish class felt a bit easier to breathe in, and she didn’t call on me for very specific things that she could’ve researched on her own. She also addressed me with my chosen name instead of insisting on my dead one, which was a plus. Maddison and her clique didn’t even get the chance to express their disdain for me since Mrs. Alvarez would chide them before they could, which probably only fueled their other less-than-stellar opinions about the both of us.

By the time lunch rolled in, I was more than eager to head to the cafeteria with Dan and Claudine to eat what we packed. And hopefully recover from the funk I’ve been in no matter how many times I tried to distract myself by playing I’m Just A Kid on repeat with my earbuds.

The three of us got comfortable in our usual spot, which was some ways away from the rest of the other students. As we set down our bags, Zach finally showed up and joined our table. My younger brother looked absolutely haggard, as if he’d rather be back on his bed at home than continue on with the rest of the day onward. Wearing an oversized graphic tee, boxy fit hoodie, cargo pants, and puffy skate shoes, he was the epitome of a skater boy that Avril Lavigne probably crooned over in song form.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked, yoinking a fried green tomato from Claudine’s lunchbox, causing her to jostle him in mock affront.

“Just the usual,” I told him, bringing out my own and spearing a blood sausage with a fork. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s Natrona,” Zach grunted, sidling on the seat opposite to mine. “I think I’ve got a reason to worry even a little bit.”

As we chatted, none of the other students in the cafeteria joined us. I noticed, but decided not to let that dampen me; most of them were pressured by Maddison and her group, so I couldn’t exactly feel too upset by that. Besides, getting teased by Zach halfway our conversation made me stop thinking about it anymore as I shot back with a quip of my own, while Claudine and Dan watched on in amusement.

“I can’t believe you’re planning to add what’s essentially Castlevania in some form for the one-shot,” Zach said with a snicker. “Was hopping your way to defeat Dracula that thrilling for you?”

“Like you weren’t the one who got me into this game in the first place!” I huffed, before poking him when he snagged a piece of my pumpkin fry bread. “Hey! Ricky literally prepped lunch for you too! Why are you stealing from me for?”

“No reason. I just wanted to.”

We continued to playfully bicker with each other over lunch. At some point, even Claudine and Dan got dragged into it and it turned into a four-way debate on whose food was worth yoinking in the first place. The unanimous agreement was that it’s Dan’s tapsilog.

“By the way, are you guys excited for the weekend?” I asked eagerly after we all calmed down. “It’s game night, and all of our friends are coming over.”

“Of course we are,” Claudine said with a faint smile. “It’ll be a special occasion, after all. Plus, Seth’s coming.”

“It’s been awhile since we’ve last gathered together,” Dan added wistfully, cutting up the rest of his lunch. “I miss Minowah’s weird experimental food.”

“I’m sure they’ll swing by with that soon,” Zach replied, resting his cheek against his palm. “Just gotta wait for Friday. Looks like I’ve got something to look forward to amidst the hellscape I call my group project.”

All four of us kept chatting, bouncing off of each other’s ideas and plans for what we saw as an anticipated day. We considered it to be super important, especially since most of our friends were from other states and only came by during holidays, meaning free time on theirs and our hands. And if possible, they also visited over the summer should their schedules align with ours, which was honestly more than what any of us could ask for.

We were so engrossed in our conversation that none of us expected what happened within the next few minutes.

“FOOD FIGHT!!!” someone yelled amongst the sea of students. A burger sailed through the air and landed squarely into a cafeteria monitor’s face.

And then pandemonium descended.

All of the sudden, the airspace was assailed with a variety of today’s menu; chicken nuggets shooting out like cannon balls, pizza slices cutting through like a boomerang, and a whole lot more that I didn’t get a closer look on because me and the others had already ducked for cover under the table to avoid getting pelted.

“What the hell?” Zach exclaimed, eyes wide in disbelief. “I thought this was only in movies!”

“Guess it’s real now,” I said, taking a small peep from out of our hiding spot, and then quickly ducking again just in time before a bowl containing half the salad bar crashed on to the side of the table and fell flatly on the floor. Claudine scrunched her nose in distaste at the sight.

“This is wasteful,” she grunted while shuffling her feet as she crouched. “Who’s the joker that thought this was a fun idea?”

“I’m more concerned on how we get out of this,” Dan admitted.

“We’ll get hit if we go out,” Zach replied with a grimace. “Unless we crawl.”

“Where would we even go to?”

As the three tried to figure out what to do next, I was watching the fight escalate from my spot under our table, trying my best to compartmentalize the chaos. From the look of things, it seemed like it wouldn’t end any time soon. I could see several other staff trying to intervene and bring order to the cafeteria, but they were easily mowed down by a faceful of tomato sauce and somebody’s tacos.

Yeah, there’s no way we’re getting out just yet. The cafeteria was like a PVP arena we unwittingly entered without heals.

Just as I reached that conclusion, the scent of something sharp and pervasive—mixed in with a lingering sweet and sugary aroma—wafted to my nose. Before I even had the miniscule moment of processing just what exactly I was smelling, someone screamed, “FIRE!!!”

What?

“Oh shit,” Zach remarked weakly, eyes almost as wide as saucers as he pointed to my left. “Something’s burning…!”

My breath hitched.

Immediate panic replaced the revelry within the cafeteria, and everybody scrambled back as far away from wherever the source was. This benefited the other monitors that had otherwise been struggling to stop the students from their dietary warfare, and they easily rounded us all up and had us evacuate the area for the time being. We made sure to grab our lunchboxes and hastily stuff them into our bags before we left, though.

Just as we were stepping into the hallway with the rest of the students, I decided to look back for a brief moment just to see how bad it was.

The cafeteria was a disaster—go figure. Food was everywhere; on the floor, sticking to the walls, and even on several tables. Somehow a piece of melted cheese sandwich had managed to get stuck on the ceiling. It was like an aftermath of an adventuring party thrashing a tavern while brawling with NPCs when somebody failed at an Intimidation check and triggered the scenario.

Just as I looked away, I caught sight of one of the monitors already stamping out whatever was burning and sending up smoke. He bent over and picked something up with his free hand. It was a half-melted black candle, and it was close to our table.

Frowning, I joined the others as we headed to our classrooms. Zach was halfway snarking about the whole event, while also admitting to hoping that this would hold off his group project’s submission by even a little bit.

“That’s assuming we’ll be in homeroom for the rest of the day while school staff handles the thing,” Claudine said. Beside her, Dan was inspecting his bag thoughtfully to check for food stains; most of our stuff got out of this intact, thankfully, although mine had grease smeared near the pouches. I was going to need my dish soap and baking soda mix again.

“I am hoping,” Zach replied, gesturing a mock prayer as he looked up the ceiling. “I pray to the gods of Unnecessary and Mediocre Academic Bullshit to lay off on me and find someone else to unload the suffering of homework and school projects to.”

“I don’t think there’s a god for that.”

“Shush. There’s always a god for every conceivable thing in history. I mean, look at the rest of America; they pray to God about wanting gay people and minorities to burn in hell. I’m allowed to pray for Gerald from AP to eat shit and fumble his presentation.”

We soon reached the classroom and got inside, heading to our usual seats (although my brother had to split because we were in different grades) near the back row. Just as I was in the process of sitting down myself, I decided to unzip my backpack and reach for my phone and earbud case—seeing as I wanted to listen to something and calm my nerves. My fingers brushed against cold metal, and my frown returned as I went to open my backpack fully.

I froze. The familiar unpleasant feeling churned in my stomach.

“Connie?” Claudine sounded worried, peering over to me after noticing my stare. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer, because a dozen thoughts were running in my head, and I didn’t know how to even begin processing the ugly sensation accompanying whatever my brain managed to connect.

The metallic sheen of a small lighter glinted under the fluorescents, sitting innocently on top my textbook.