Addiction, a Port Charles story by Glacis. Rated NC17. Based around the events of the Desire arc episodes preceding 6/7/03 and AU thereafter. No copyright infringement intended.

He had to find her. Rafe Kovich was more than mortal man, had been for more years than he cared to count, lifetimes past and present, alive, dead, and somehow in-between. None of his gifts, none of his strength, none of his cunning seemed to help him now. Because of the blind jealousy of one foolish vampire who would be Queen, Alison was gone.

Rafe was her only chance.

It was a risk, taking on the vampires in their nest, bringing the fight to the heart of them, but it was the only option he had left. Joshua was too well-protected, and Alison's whereabouts too heavily guarded, to wait for a break. He had to make his own breaks, and he did.

Until Jack stepped into the middle of the fight, and under cover of confusion, Frank thrust a knife into Rafe's side. Jack stopped Frank from killing Rafe but Rafe thought perhaps he'd only put off the inevitable. If he couldn't find Alison, couldn't get his love back, he might as well be dead. He felt his strength drain from the wound in his side along with the blood, but he pressed on, determined to find the woman who owned his heart, and bring her back to his side where she belonged.

He was still trying to forge on when he collapsed. At Casey's insistence, Ricky dragged him along to Ian's apartment, as Rafe flat refused to go to General Hospital. He had no time. He was on a mission.

"I can't help him," Ian told them, trying to shut the door in their faces.

Rafe would have laughed if he'd had the breath.

Casey ignored Ian's surly denial and pushed the door open, demanding, "You have to help Rafe! He's hurt!" as Ricky dragged Rafe into the room.

"Take him to the hospital!" Ian repeated more forcefully, even as Ricky dropped Rafe onto the sofa. The cushions were too soft beneath him, and he tried not to groan as he felt the torn flesh give beneath his skin.

"He won't go!" Casey protested. "He trusts you! You're his friend! Help him!"

"He shouldn't trust me," Ian shot back.

Beneath the smell of fresh blood and lingering lust, the stench of fear was nearly overwhelming. Not his own, not his cousin Lucy's... Ian's fear. Terror. Bone-deep and drenched in sweat. Rafe wondered for a moment what had triggered Ian's panic, as the doctor had been handling his involuntary change into a vampire with great control as far as Rafe knew. Then Ian pushed the edge of his shirt up, revealing the knife wound, and Rafe lost his train of thought as pain streaked through him.

By the time he caught his breath, Casey’d made distressed noises about needing air and Ricky had taken her outside. Rafe watched the door close behind them, then told Ian, "Take care of it."

"You have to go to the hospital!" Ian growled at him, frustration written in the lines of his face.

"No time," Rafe said simply. "Joshua has Alison. I have to get her back." He saw understanding in Ian's dark eyes.

"I don't have any anesthetic," Ian said.

"I don't care," Rafe answered, and he didn't. He was no stranger to pain. "Sew it up."

Ian muttered under his breath as he gathered a bottle of whiskey and a black bag from the side table. Rafe stared at the ceiling, divorcing his mind from his body, doing what needed to be done as he always had. Accepting the whiskey bottle from Ian, he took a deep swallow, closing his eyes as it burned down his throat before warming his stomach. A long moment passed, and nothing happened. Wondering what was causing the delay, Rafe opened his eyes again and looked over at Ian.

The doctor knelt motionless beside him, staring at the blood slowly seeping from the deep wound in Rafe's side. The blood looked obscene, nearly black against the white skin. "Did it hit anything important?" he finally asked.

A nearly imperceptible jolt ran through Ian, and Rafe narrowed his eyes. Ian still hadn't blinked, his gaze locked on the wound.

"No," he answered slowly. His hand reached for the needle.

Suddenly, along with the old scent of fear hanging in the room, came the heavy smell of hunger. Rafe groaned silently. Just what he needed. The one man he trusted to fix him up was a vampire who, from all appearances, was starving to death.

"Take what you have to," he said softly, watching another jolt, followed by a shiver, run through Ian's frame. "You can't hurt me." Glazed dark eyes stared up at him for a moment before returning to the wound. "Do it, then sew it up, and get a move on. I have a woman to rescue." It didn't come out as harshly as it might have, unwilling sympathy gentling the words.

Ian closed his eyes, then leaned down to nuzzle the wound, lapping at the slick blood. His expression was a mix of revulsion and ecstasy. Rafe could only sigh and relax, shivering himself at the rough feel of the tongue cleaning his skin. The first pass of Ian's mouth directly over the wound burned much as the whiskey had, and Rafe was hard-pressed not to moan.

The burn felt good.

Cleansing, and arousing, connecting vampire to Slayer in a way Rafe had only felt once before.

In the moments before Caleb Morley killed him.

Ian, luckily, had no such intent, and with a final bare graze of fangs over Rafe's skin, a final swipe of his tongue to clean up the fresh blood, he pulled away. Rafe looked up at the ceiling again, as much to give Ian the privacy he needed to lick his lips clean as to give Rafe himself time to force down the arousal now pressing heavily against the flies of his jeans. There was no way Ian could have missed Rafe's erection.

He made no mention of it. As Rafe made no mention of Ian's breathy moans as he licked up the blood from Rafe's skin.

A minute later, the needle bit into him, pulling the wound closed, and Rafe bit back a curse. He didn't need painkillers, but he rather preferred them when they were available. Since they weren't he'd grit his teeth and ride it out.

Then Ian dropped a bombshell on his head.

"What do you mean, the antidote I gave Caleb was sugar water?"

Rafe was horrified. True, he'd destroyed the antidote rather than give it to Caleb, because Livvie had broken their bargain and turned Alison over to Joshua. As punishment, Rafe had refused to hand over the antidote to the poison on her fangs that kept her from turning Caleb back into a vampire. In the struggle, the vial had dropped to the ground, and Rafe had crushed it under his boot.

"I told you," Ian said, sounding more tired than angry, "you shouldn't trust me."

Now it turned out the man he'd trusted had double-crossed him. "Why'd you do it?" he demanded, before the answer hit him. "To kill Caleb." Of course. "So Livvie would think she was cured, and bite him, and kill him."

Ian nodded once.

"You could have gotten Alison killed."

"I told you, you can't trust me."

Rafe pulled his shirt down over the bandage now covering his stitches, and took a deep breath. Staring at the vampire who used to be his friend, he said slowly, "Thank you for patching me up. But don't come near me again. Or next time we meet, I'll have to kill you."

Because Ian wasn't the man Rafe had known. Not anymore. He was a bloodsucker, as treacherous as any other, and Rafe was the Slayer, the natural enemy of the Vampire.

He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Not looking back, Rafe stormed out of the apartment and headed through the woods toward the caves where Livvie and Caleb were last hiding. He was going to get Alison's location from Livvie if he had to stake her to do it.

Halfway there, he ran into Jamal.

Who was now a vampire. After he got over his shock, Rafe did what he had to do, and beat the information he needed out of the man who had once been Alison's best friend.

His day couldn't get any worse.

Or so he thought, until he fought his way into Joshua's lair, and came face to face with the woman he loved.

Several hours and three bottles of Jack Daniels later, he staggered back out into the woods. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

It was insane. Stupid. Ridiculous. He was the Slayer. It was his destiny to protect.

Not to lose the woman he loved because she was doing what she thought she had to do to protect him.

Oh, not just him, of course. She softened the blow, telling him she had to stay with the new Vampire Lord of Port Charles, the unctuous Joshua, because that was the only way she could protect her grandmother, and her first lover Jamal, and Rafe himself.

All of which only made it more blindingly clear how he'd failed. All of them. Her family, her friends, but most of all, Alison. His angel, the one he'd left heaven to keep, the one he lived for, the one he’d built his world around.

The one who'd told him to leave and never come back. To go have the life he'd been robbed of the first time Caleb killed him, the second chance Caleb's insane lover Livvie nearly stole from him before he fought his way back to Alison's side.

Only to lose her, losing the battle as he'd lost the war, her loss a microcosm of the evil that had overtaken Port Charles. He often felt he lived in a twilight world, unseen by the majority of the daytime world, and he'd preferred that. Living in the shadows to fight the evil that lurked in those shadows. Until one day there was more shadow than light, and the fire in his heart that kept him fighting was taken from him to remain at his enemy's side of her own accord.

To keep the Slayer safe.

Fuck that.

He was done. It was over. She wanted him to live? Fine. He'd live. He'd chuck the whole Slayer gig and move to Tahiti. Get drunk and stay that way because he never wanted to be sober again. Stay in the sun because he never wanted to see another shadow again as long as he lived. Love nobody and fight nobody and need nobody. But when he tried to raise a toast to the fucking bloodsuckers and tell 'em they could have the lousy town, goddamned Jack stepped in again and tried to pour coffee down his throat.

Rafe thoroughly enjoyed breaking the coffee pot over Jack's head. Then kicking Frank in the pitiful excuse for the balls he had left since becoming Joshua's lapdog, a little payback for the knife in the back, before stepping over Frank's writhing body and wandering, still drinking, vodka now instead of whiskey, off to nowhere in particular.

He wasn't quite sure how he ended up back at the cave. It was full dark, the moon barely illuminating the ground, but a Slayer's eyes were sharper than a cat's even when he was drunk off his ass. Staggering through the opening of the cave, he felt the world tilt and landed with a jarring crash as his legs gave out.

"Well, hell," he grumbled.

From somewhere close by, muffled, hysterical sobbing rent the air. Rafe forced his head up, heavy as it was, to see Livvie, blood on her mouth and tears running down her face, crumpled in a ball, staring up at Caleb, who loomed over her. There was blood on Caleb's neck, and on his mouth as well, but he didn't look too happy about it.

"Whassa matter," Rafe asked snidely, "Ian's antidote didn' work any better n'mine?"

Caleb swung around on him, fangs flashing, eyes red. Rafe wasn't impressed.

"Hunh?" he prodded.

A look of puzzlement replaced the rage on Caleb's face. The fangs receded slightly and the red faded until the usual startling blue appeared.

"Are you drunk?" Caleb asked incredulously.

"Why, no," Rafe replied with exaggerated courtesy, lifting his bottle in an extravagant toast. "Working my way to shit-faced, but at the moment merely tipsy. Now, as I was saying, wha' happened?"

Caleb glared over at Livvie, then put his hands on his hips and sighed. "Livvie leapt before she looked again." A strangled wail from the corner and a fresh bout of weeping was soundly ignored by both men. "She drank Ian's antidote, then we tried to make love, and she bit me."

Rafe patted the dirt next to where he was sprawled and waved the bottle in Caleb's general direction. "From th' look of it didn' work out quite like ya hoped. Siddown. Have a drink. Tell me abou' it." He took another long swig.

With a short laugh that sounded like it hurt, Caleb shrugged and took Rafe up on the invitation. "What the hell. I can't seem to do anything else right," he shot Livvie an irritated look, "so I guess I might as well." He wrapped his fingers around Rafe's fingers, but Rafe wouldn't let go of the bottle, so with a sideways glance, he brought the bottle still caught fast in Rafe's fist up to his mouth and took a deep swallow.

His hand felt wonderfully cool around Rafe's fingers. Staring at Caleb's throat as he drank, Rafe realized he could actually see the torn flesh knitting. At the same time he could feel his own wound healing, and a strange feeling of synchronicity hit him. Unearthly gifts, light and dark, good and evil, warm and cold, yin and yang.

He shook it off, refusing to feel any connection to his oldest enemy beyond shared hatred. Unfortunately, the abrupt motion left him dizzy and he swayed against Caleb's shoulder. Once resting there, he decided it was too much effort to move, so he leaned against Caleb, head lolling against his shoulder.

"Er, Rafe?" Caleb asked. He sounded like he wasn't sure whether to snarl or laugh.

"Go 'head," Rafe urged. "Talk t'me."

Livvie's sobbing made a rather soothing background noise as Caleb shifted Rafe against him until they were both comfortable and started to recount his disaster of an evening. It was almost as bad as Rafe's.

Almost.

"No, it didn't work. Not the way Ian intended, obviously, since I'm still alive, and not the way Livvie intended, since we still can't be together. Joshua's a sneaky bastard."

Rafe growled at the name and took another drink. Caleb nodded agreement and took one as well. His touch seemed to linger on Rafe's fingers much longer than it should.

"Yeah. Sonuvabitch took Ali away and she said she's stayin' with 'm. Wha'd he do t'you?"

"She what?" Caleb exclaimed, shifting suddenly away as if to get a better look at Rafe.

Deprived of his leaning post, Rafe slid down, then across Caleb's torso, somehow landing with his head in Caleb's lap. It was surprisingly comfortable. Looking up into Caleb's incredulous eyes, looking back down at him, Rafe rambled, "Can't keep HER safe so she's stayin' with the sonuvabitch to keep ME safe. Ain't that a cosmic joke? Slayer can't do his fuckin' job so the girl has to do his dirty work. Fuckin' Joshua. HATE him. Much more'n I ever hated you. Even when ya killed me." He had the feeling he wasn’t making sense. Worse, he was getting dizzy again looking up into Caleb's eyes, so he abruptly returned to the subject at hand. "What'd he do t'you?"

Caleb blinked, stared down at him a little longer, frowned, and blinked some more. Eventually he answered slowly, "Reversed the poison. Now I'm a vampire again, but I can't bite Livvie. The smell of her blood alone makes me sick and the taste burns like acid. And there's something else he added to the potion, so I'm ravenously hungry, but only for her blood. He set us up so I'm likely to starve to death and Livvie's likely to kill both of us from sheer frustration."

Rafe turned that over in his highly inebriated brain, but the best he could come up with was a choice between a cheer for Joshua for finally finding a way to get rid of Caleb, or commiseration with Caleb because Joshua found a way to take his lover away from him, too. Given that no power in the universe would make Rafe cheer for Joshua under the circumstances, he found himself forced to feel sorry for Caleb.

"That sucks," he announced.

"I wish!" wailed Livvie.

Caleb bared his fangs at his lover, and Livvie crumpled up into a weeping ball again. He sighed. Absently began running his fingers through Rafe's hair. It felt oddly soothing, and Rafe nudged against his hand, encouraging him to continue. Caleb looked back down at him, that quizzical look in his eyes again.

"What?" Rafe asked, running his tongue around his teeth and wishing he'd thought to liberate another bottle while he was at the bar.

"It's strange," Caleb mused. "When I'm touching you, the craving to bite Livvie doesn't seem quite as compelling."

"Course not," Rafe answered unthinkingly. "Only way for a vamp to counter a blood addiction is immersion in a Slayer."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Caleb hissed, moving so suddenly all Rafe could see of his face was a blur. His fist tightened in Rafe's hair, pulling him back sharply, and Rafe gasped, arching his spine to relieve the pressure against his scalp.

Tears started in his eyes, taking him by surprise. It wasn't the pain. He'd fought through much worse. It was emotional exhaustion. Rafe felt so tired, defeated, and worse, he could feel sobriety creeping up on him, taking away the blessed dulling alcohol had given to the ragged edges of his heartbreak. He found himself wanting to curl up in Caleb's lap and sleep for a year or two, and that was a spectacular indication of how completely screwed up his life had become. Wanting above anything else to take refuge with his worst enemy.

Couldn't be worse than his friend. Or his lover. Both of whom had turned on him.

Caleb moved again, and for the second time in forty eight hours Rafe felt a vampire licking him. Only this time it was tears instead of blood the questing tongue washed from his skin; this time it was his enemy who held him, not his friend who had betrayed him.

It was infinitely more arousing when Caleb touched him than when Ian touched him.

Sheer shock kept him immobile as Caleb licked away the last traces of Rafe's tears, resting his cheek against Rafe's as he whispered, "Strange. It doesn't burn."

Rafe wanted to contradict him, wanted to tell him that yes, it did burn, like shame and desire and falling into shadow, but Caleb was kissing him, and Rafe couldn't get the words out. Distantly he could hear Livvie screaming at him, screaming at them, but he was dizzy again, and Caleb wasn't letting him breathe.

Breathing was highly over-rated anyway.

He sensed movement, cool flesh against his legs, dirt grinding into his back and silky hair under his hands. Rafe opened his eyes, fighting vertigo, to see Livvie leaning against the far wall as if her knees wouldn't hold, staring at him. Her mouth was open, her fangs extended, her eyes dark as night. One hand moved along her breast beneath her shirt and the other rubbed between her legs. Someone whimpered. It might have been her.

It might have been Rafe. Might even have been Caleb, although Rafe thought he would have noticed, since his cock was down Caleb's throat, and Caleb was growling as he swallowed around it. Rafe bucked, to get away, to get deeper, he wasn't sure which but it didn't matter, because Caleb wasn't about to let him go. An angled shoulder pushed his knees further apart, as Caleb wrapped one arm around Rafe's waist, digging his hand into the muscular flesh of Rafe's buttock, holding him in place.

The other hand slid between his spread thighs, rubbing his balls, making him whimper again, and yes, it must have been him. Rafe could feel it in his chest, catching in his throat. Then those wicked fingers slipped further back, probing at his hole, making him jump again, pushing his cock so far down Caleb's throat Rafe could feel a pointed chin digging into his balls.

It ached, but Rafe was distracted by the fingers stretching him now, delving inside him and opening him up. His hands clutched at Caleb's head, holding him close while trying his best to push back against that hand in his ass, sending tremors through him unlike anything he'd ever felt. The whimper clawing at his throat broke free, a breathless cry, equal parts need and hunger, a sound like agony. As it did, Rafe felt his control give and jolted against the iron hold, pouring himself down Caleb's throat.

The growling at his crotch intensified, the vibration from the throat around him pulling the last of his orgasm from him, milking him until he hurt. He was trembling, shudders ripping through him, when Caleb finally pulled back. Shifting upward until he lay atop Rafe, face to face, Caleb kissed him again.

He was right. It didn't burn.

They were still kissing when Caleb moved again, shoving Rafe's knees apart and settling between the spread thighs. Instinctively Rafe wrapped his legs around Caleb's, ankles locking together, as Caleb wrapped his hands around Rafe's buttocks. Separated them. Pushed up inside him.

Rafe screamed.

So did Caleb.

That burned, but a deeper burn than Rafe had ever felt, a burn like acid cutting through a deadbolt, and something bound inside him broke free. Caleb strained against him, each thrust working him deeper, and Rafe put his arms around Caleb's shoulders, pulling him closer until there was no space between them. Only the slick impact of flesh on flesh, the slide of skin against skin, the appeasement of a hunger Rafe had only ever before fed with death.

Who knew fucking a vampire was even better than killing one?

Or maybe it was just Caleb; maybe that was why his touch was so much more powerful than Ian's. And maybe that was why making love to a Slayer was the only thing that could slake a vampire's blood thirst.

It was addictive.

He found himself getting hard again as Caleb pumped into him, the smell of lust and sweat and heated blood making him pant as much as the heavy movements jostling him. Glancing over through the hair falling into his eyes he saw Livvie, eyes liquid, head falling back, slide down the wall into a heap on the ground, hand still moving between her thighs, before Caleb caught his mouth again in a fierce kiss.

His legs were shaking with strain by the time he freed a hand to work it down between their bodies, wrapping it around his cock and pulling it desperately. Rafe could feel Caleb speeding up, knew he was close to coming, felt the echoing need in his own body. Caleb's hand slid across his chest to wrap around Rafe's and together they squeezed, stroking in time to Caleb's thrusts, until Rafe grunted into Caleb's mouth and came a second time.

The bulk moving in his ass froze in place as Rafe convulsed, then Caleb jerked against him as he came in response to Rafe's climax. The world spun, flashes of pitch black and blood red shooting behind his eyelids as Rafe flew apart, pinned down by Caleb's weight against him, hand around him, cock inside him, mouth devouring him.

It was several long moments before sanity began to seep back. Lying half-smothered beneath Caleb, Rafe didn't know whether to laugh himself sick or reach for a stake. Before he could make up his mind, he heard Livvie stomp past them on her way out the cave.

"I am going to KILL Joshua!" she wailed as she headed out into the night.

"I may send him a magnum of champagne," Caleb muttered against Rafe's sweat-soaked temple.

"Uhngh?" It was the best Rafe could manage. He’d been in a bloodsucker gang fight, gotten stabbed, been sewn up then betrayed by his friend, abandoned by his lover, then fucked into the ground by his enemy. He was wiped out.

"I think I'm addicted to you," Caleb said, sounding bemused. "I want to do that again. And again. This just might be something... incredibly good! Certainly couldn't be worse than the train wreck my relationship with Livvie has become. As long as we can keep from killing each other. If it weren't so twisted, and if it didn't feel so damned good, it'd be funny."

Rafe peeled himself away from Caleb long enough to glare at him. "You talk too much," he said, then wrapped himself back around Caleb's wonderfully cool body and relaxed. He'd deal with reality when he had to, and not before.

The last thing he heard, as he drifted off to sleep to the rhythm of gentle fingers petting his hair, was Caleb’s laughter.

END