You knew Patrick was the same as you the moment your eyes met.

It was an instantaneous feeling— a realization, an awareness, a spark— and made everything you'd gone through until that point make sense. Vampirism ran in your family's blood, and it became something you knew would always keep you separate from others. Your family moved around constantly, you never made any proper friends, and you internalized the feeling of being different— of being other.

But not so much anymore. With that spark came Patrick, and with Patrick came understanding: if anyone else knew the intricate little details of your lifestyle, he did. But the othering— the guilt, really— still hits when you least expect it, and right now is a perfect example of that.

The inky-red ichor staining your lips and caking all over your fingers tastes like pennies and stings like cold metal, and you can't bear to look up at Patrick as he washes his stained ones under the kitchen sink. "S'okay, babe," he mutters yet again... you don't know how many times he's said that since you both got home and he lugged the body of some creep into the outdoor shed. The same creep who'd been following you from the store claiming the two of you were bad news and grabbed you. It'd only been mere seconds, but it was enough to leave the stranger exsanguinated in the street outside the house.

But he was being awful, and you were so, so hungry. It was an accident, truly; an instinctive reaction to the emptiness in your belly and the danger of the situation. If it hadn't been you, Patrick would've done the same thing and done away with his throat too.

Patrick's scrubbing a dish towel over your bloodied fingers now, and you don't get the chance to ask if he thinks you're bad for giving in to your true nature like you always do; his lips connect with yours, and when he pulls away your mouth is clean.

"All I think is that I love you," he whispers, and that's enough for the shame in your chest to simmer down. "You could never be bad."