# HNTBL: Trying Something New

By: TheDragonBoy

## Content

Okay, Elizabeth, this is it. Now’s your chance. He only has one friend with him right now and lunch is almost over. You can do this.

She took a deep breath.

You can do this.

She forced herself to start walking.

Her heartbeat picked up pace along with her legs. But as loud as she could hear it in her ears, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to.

Oh no! They’d spotted her! They were looking at her! She tensed and almost stumbled but managed to save her balance before it showed. She was just a few steps away. She took a deep breath to try and calm her stomach, and whatever butterflies, birds, bees or other wildlife might be causing the fuss inside.

Brave face. Cute face.

“Hi,” Elizabeth said quietly through a shy little smile.

“Hey, um…”

“Elizabeth, sorry. You don’t know me. My, um, friends call me Liz. You’re Nicholas, right?” The words fell out clumsily. He was looking right at her, right in her eyes. Wow, he actually was kinda cute.

“Yeah?” he looked a little confused, maybe even on guard.

Of course he is! she scolded herself.

“Sorry,” she apologized again, “I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve just seen you around, overheard you a couple times.”

“Yeah?” he said again, but the intonation was different this time. Less cautious and more… interested?

She seems kinda weird, Nicholas thought, but… kinda cute. Something about how softspoken she was, came off as sort of sweet. And her eyes were… just pretty somehow. Enough to drown out whatever else it was about her that made her feel odd.

“Yeah, you seemed… nice. So I wanted to… introduce myself.” She hoped her cheeks weren’t burning the way they felt. She thought back to a few of those moments when she’d happened to pass him by. He’d been quiet and smiling and didn’t at all come off as mean or aggressive. Lots of other boys like him usually did.

“Oh, well, uh, hi.” He glanced away for a moment when he felt his own cheeks start to burn a bit. From the glimpse he took, his friend seemed totally paralyzed, like he’d never once even talked to a girl before and was overwhelmed just by the proximity to the conversation. “I’m, Nicholas,” he introduced, motivated to do at least better than his petrified classmate.

“Yeah, Elizabeth,” she replied.

Duh! She already said she knew your name! Dumbass! He scolded himself. But she only smiled in return. A bit amused and… maybe even a little nervous herself?

“My friends call me Liz,” she added again. She hadn’t really meant to the first time, but now that she’d offered her nickname she didn’t want to accidentally signal that he’d somehow lost the privilege.

“R-right,” the boy recovered. “My friends call me Nick.”

“Nick,” she repeated through her smile.

This is going well! This is working! she cheered internally. It’s time! I just have to do it! Right now!

“So, um, Nick… I know this is… kinda crazy but…” She almost couldn’t hear her own words over her heartbeat. “Lately I’ve been kinda looking for… someone like you… and I wanted to ask if… maybe you’d want to go out on a date with me?” She resisted the urge to bite her lip, but she couldn’t help a bit of foot-crossing and dress-grabbing.

“O-oh, uh-” Nicholas blinked a few times like he’d been struck. He’d been getting the vibes, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this fast! He’d never had a girl he’d never met just walk up and ask him out! He wasn’t, like, that hot, was he!? His mind scrambled to catch up with his mouth.

“S-sure!” He saw her flinch just a touch at the sudden volume in his voice and so quickly turned it down. “Yeah, that sounds… nice,” he agreed. She smiled larger; if she’d had a tail like some of their other schoolmates, it would have been wagging.

“Wow, really? I mean- could we meet after school? You, um, can pick the place. Anywhere you want.”

“Sure, okay. Let’s, uh, meet out front and then we can go… um, well, I’ll think about it in the meantime?” He chuckled at himself, more than a bit giddy. His head was way too overloaded to be coming up with date ideas on the spot. Luckily, she just giggled too.

“Okay,” she agreed. Her smile got so big her lips parted. Suddenly, Liz looked ten times cuter and Nick could not believe he’d just scored a date with her like that. A bit of her long hair fell over her shoulder and she brushed it back.

…Wait… are those…? A coincidental bit of light happened to catch Nicholas’ eye as it glinted off her smile. Off her teeth. Off one tooth in particular. One particularly long, pointed tooth. FANGS!? ARE THOSE FANGS!?

He glanced at her hand now as it came down from her face. The hair she’d just adjusted moved over her ear, revealing its shape. Pointed. Just slightly larger than human.

WAIT! WHAT!? NO WAY! SHE- SHE’S A VAMPIRE!?

“Thanks, Nick!” she beamed happily. “I’ll see you after school.” A bit too excited by her success, she failed to notice the stark shift in his expression as she turned and quickly hurried away before she could mess this up.

“Dude!” his friend cheered once she was gone, “That was so smooth! Nice one!”

Nicholas didn’t respond.

…

I can’t believe it! I’m actually going to go on a date with a human! Elizabeth thought, finally heading toward the exit doors after the last class of the day. Oh, I hope he didn’t get eaten or anything. That would really blow. She quickened her pace, not wanting to keep him waiting now for a multitude of reasons. Ooooh! I still can’t believe I’m ACTUALLY DOING THIS!

Elizabeth still couldn’t believe how Nick had reacted. Most of the humans she approached were usually pretty mean, or at least kinda stiff. Hands always at their wands if they had them. Not that she could blame them. But Nick hadn’t seemed like that at all! He’d actually been nice to her! She’d treated him like an equal and he’d done the same! She just couldn’t believe it! Maybe she had good taste in humans in more ways than one?

There he is! Oh, thank goodness! She felt a bit of relief seeing the now-familiar, distinctly undigested boy, walking down the front steps. Having to work up the nerve to ask out a boy had already been a lot. Asking out a human boy had taken at least double the nerve. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage it again if this one got taken.

He hadn’t seen her yet, though, and he didn’t seem to be stopping, so she sped up again to avoid losing him in the crowd. Most people would have probably called out at that distance, but having super-sensitive hearing tended to shape one’s mannerisms. With all the nimble grace of a huntress, she weaved through the other kids and managed to place a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Hi, Nick,” she greeted invitingly. His whole body jolted suddenly, which she definitely felt, but it wasn’t clear whether it was in response to the sudden contact or her sudden voice in particular. Nicholas took a sharp breath and turned around quickly.

“H-hey.” He had a definite look of fear in his eyes. Elizabeth noticed with a bit of worry, but decided to smile through it. She couldn’t blame him for feeling a bit of cold feet.

“Sorry if I spooked ya, I’ve been kinda excited,” she admitted, quickly withdrawing her hand.

“Oh, um…” his fear started to half melt away into confusion as her pleasant demeanor and lack of biting and swallowing disarmed him. But he didn’t exactly reply, so she tried to keep the conversation going herself.

“So… did you think about where we should go?”

He hadn’t. He’d been too busy freaking out about the fact that he’d somehow let a predator walk right up to him, past his guard, and neither he nor his friend had even realized! He’d dedicated most of his free brain-space to trying to figure out what in the world had actually happened in that conversation. Because the fact that he’d almost walked away thinking he had a date was clearly wrong. What had she actually been up to? Some kind of prank? Some kind of trap?

“…Nick?”

His eyes consciously refocused on her face. Not that he’d dared look anywhere else, but he actually paid attention to it now. He’d been sure he’d missed something the first time they’d talked, some sign of trickery or sarcasm or at least misunderstanding, but looking at her now, it all seemed just as clear as he remembered it.

“…You… really want to go on a date? …With me?” he asked.

Her smile had been slowly fading, but it wasn’t quite gone yet. In fact it grew just a bit at his rather blunt question. The idea still excited her. She nodded, still just a bit hopeful.

He tried to think of a pred-human relationship that had worked out, but couldn’t. But he tried to think of a reason for her not to have just sunk her fangs into his neck when she came up from behind, and likewise, couldn’t. If she was planning to… eat him… why hadn’t she already? He’d heard of a few preds in school who seemed to revel in devising horribly cruel plans for their prey to fall into; they were infamous. But he just… didn’t see it in her face.

Elizabeth found the mounting silence to finally become too awkward and looked away. But she still stood there, waiting.

…Would… would she try to eat me if I tried to back out? But he realized that just by asking himself the question he was already assuming the premise. How could she be mad at him for backing out of their date unless she actually wanted it? He just couldn’t deny what was so clearly painted on her fanged face. By whatever stroke of fate, she was asking him out. For real.

He looked at her face again. He’d never caught himself finding preds attractive before, but if he ignored the teeth and the ears, she really did just look like any other girl. No. A really pretty girl. He knew better. He really knew better. But what if…

Elizabeth felt a frown coming on as the negative thoughts threatened to surge. She should have known better than to-

“I was thinking, um, the park?”

Elizabeth blinked back to attention, meeting his gaze again, and the next moment her smile returned in full force.

“Sure! That sounds nice!” she agreed. A weight lifted from her chest, and she resisted the urge to do some kind of excited little hop.

The park? Yeah, I guess that’ll be fine… Nick thought, his head catching up with his mouth. Who am I kidding? I’m going to the park with a-

…

“Wait! No! You seriously didn’t know I was a vampire!?” Liz exclaimed. That was about the loudest she’d been since they’d met, momentarily overcome by a mixture of surprise, embarrassment, and guilt.

“Nooope,” Nick confirmed sheepishly, more than a little embarrassed himself. “I, um, didn’t notice your fangs until you left. My friend thought I was nuts until he watched you walk back to the pred side of the room. …Bet he thinks you’ve already eaten me by now…”

Elizabeth missed that last comment, busy replaying the entire exchange in her head, recontextualizing every action and reaction. She frowned and put a hand to her head.

“…That does explain a bit…” she muttered woefully. “Wait, so when I came to find you after school…?”

“I, um, wasn’t really sure what was gonna happen,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. I’m still kinda not sure…

A hyena he thought he recognized from school passed them by on the park path, he subconsciously moved to keep his distance, but the predator just gave him a sort of strange look and kept going.

“Aww, I thought I was being so… direct,” Liz lamented. She wanted to say ‘brave’, but thought that would just sound silly. Besides, it was an accolade she wasn’t sure she deserved anymore.

She hadn’t been trying to trick some human into dating her! It just never occurred to her that she’d have to announce her species! That wasn’t a thing! Of course she was a vampire! Just look at-! …Well, looking human was one of the ways she caught prey, wasn’t it…

…He never would have said yes if he’d known I was a-

“But you still came with me!” she pointed out encouragingly. “You did know then, and you still decided to come!”

“Y-yeah, um, I did…” he replied, as if trying to convince himself that he’d actually done that in real life. He might have pointed out that part of his decision involved worrying about how she’d handle rejection, but he didn’t think mentioning that detail would improve his safety.

“At least you got to pick a place where you feel safe, right?”

“Huh?”

“The park? That’s, um, why I wanted to let you pick. So wherever we went would be somewhere you’d be… comfortable taking me. I’m glad you chose this place, it’s nice. Quiet too.”

“Oh, um… sure…” But he obviously didn’t sound very convincing. She shot him an immediate questioning glance.

“What? You don’t like it here?”

A shadow passed overhead and he quickly looked up to see a harpy descending. He tensed lightly for a moment before he determined she wasn’t aiming at him, and watched her land a couple seconds later in the nearby grass. The avian teen gave him an odd sort of quick glance before walking off.

“It’s, uh, not a bad spot,” he answered after the short pause. “The fresh air is nice. But if I was supposed to pick the safest spot, I don’t think I did the best job.”

“What’s so dangerous about the park?” she asked. Sure, plenty of preds came out to hunt there, but that wasn’t unique, was it? Preds hunted almost everywhere.

“Well, the advice I got is that it’s usually fine as long as you keep your distance.”

“Oh, well we can do that if it makes you feel better,” she offered encouragingly, glancing around to spot any potential threats in the area.

He smiled back at her very awkwardly then looked away- well as far away as he dared, never fully taking his eyes off her.

“…Oh…” she finally realized. Duh! If there’s any pred he’s worried about having him for dinner, it’s the one standing next to him. “Do you… want to go somewhere else?”

“No, it’s fine,” he half-lied. “…Everyone’s being weird around here anyway.” He’d added that last part without really thinking, just to stave off the awkward silence he could feel coming, but she seemed to latch onto it.

“Hm?” she hummed inquisitively. He realized he wasn’t even quite sure himself what he’d meant, people just seemed a bit different, so he tried to put his finger on it.

“…Like, that hyena kid we passed. And that harpy who landed back there.”

“What about them?” There was a genuine curiosity, an interest, in her voice. Strangely innocent considering the many fatal screams which had undoubtedly disappeared down that throat.

“Just… the way they’re looking at me?”

“Hm… Oh! All preds?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” he agreed, thinking back at the various faces he’d noticed.

“And mostly the ones our age?”

“Yeah, uh, how’d you know?”

“Relative size bias. Teenage preds are the ones most likely to view a teenage human as prey. Not too big, not too small, you know?” she explained happily, like a proud bookworm quoting her favorite text. “Both your examples fit, so it seemed like a good guess. Predators have to decide whether or not to pursue their prey for a meal, so they have to get a good look.”

“Sure…” he replied, a bit uneasy. He wanted to drop the subject, but just then a neko from his math class passed them by, and gave him that same strange glance. The strangeness demanded an explanation. “…But I’m kinda used to that.” It was basically impossible to spend any time in high school and not be intimately familiar with the hungry eyes of hyper-carnivorous classmates.

“Good point,” she conceded, thinking for another moment. “Oh, duh! They must think I’ve already claimed you. You’d have to be a pretty big jerk to steal someone else’s food, so they’re probably paying you less attention than you’re used to.”

Elizabeth smiled in satisfaction at a problem solved. Nicholas frowned, the blunt description of the situation both perfectly correct and perfectly objectifying.

“…R-right…” Yup, that definitely explains it. They all think I’m vampire chow. It’s so obvious to them that they’re not even trying. She even just said it herself… ‘Claimed’… by-

“N-not that you’re food!” she suddenly blurted out, realizing her colossal faux pas. “I-I mean maybe semantically you might be considered- b-but I mean, I didn’t come here to eat you or anything i-if you’re still worried about that!”

If he wasn’t going in her mouth, then her foot certainly was. She clammed up and her cheeks turned red.

Nicholas, heart pounding from the increasing tension, caught sight of the face and couldn’t help but laugh a bit despite his nerves.

“It’s, um, actually kinda good to hear you say that, honestly,” he admitted between tense chuckles. He knew it was stupid to just take a pred’s word that they ‘didn’t want to eat you’, but somehow it still felt reassuring.

“I swear! I asked you out cause I actually wanted to try and go on a date.”

“With a human?”

“I know, it sounds crazy.”

“I mean, I’ve definitely never read about anything like that in history class,” he agreed in a joking tone. In case she was telling the truth, he didn’t want to come off as too negative and give her a reason to change her mind.

“Neither have I. And I looked, too!” she replied somewhat enthusiastically.

“Yeah, all I can think of is, like, the story of Tray,” he commented in passing, but she immediately jumped into the topic.

“Right? Where the human and pred ‘fall in love’ but then she eats him anyway.”

“Wasn’t it just the pred who said she was in love? To trick him into lowering Tray’s defenses so she could come visit?”

“Huh, now that you mention it, I did read it that way somewhere. But Ms. Dracoria tells it like the two really were in love.”

“Not enough to save him from her stomach when The Great Hunt took Tray.”

“Yeah, I guess not… Either way, not the most encouraging story when you’re trying to ask out a human for the first time.”

“You’re telling me. I feel about as safe as a prisoner in Stonehaven.” Another remark he hadn’t really thought too hard about, but she cocked her head with obvious curiosity.

“Stonehaven dungeons were horrible, but they weren’t really ‘dangerous’, were they? Didn’t they keep their prisoners kinda safe?”

“Pred prisoners, yeah. So they could feed them all the human prisoners as a threat to keep everyone in line.”

“Oh, right,” Liz recalled. When she’d studied that chapter of history, she’d mostly focused on the ‘preds being held captive’ thing, and the free human meals seemed like a small redeeming quality if anything. But she could understand how he might see things slightly differently.

“…You, uh, know your history, huh?” Nick asked as the exchange died down.

“Yeah, I do a lot of reading.”

“Me too. I’ve spent… probably too much time at the library.”

“I fell asleep in there once,” she admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was on the last book of a trilogy and wouldn’t stop.”

“That good, huh?”

“The best!”

“Hey, um…” Nicholas considered his next words. “The library isn’t actually that far from here. You want to go there?”

“Sure! Um, I mean, if that’s what you want. Like I said, you get to pick.”

…

‘Books don’t make good breakfast’ read the poster on the wall as they walked into the familiar building. It showed an illustration of a teenage bear very noticeably separating a kid from his bookbag before indulging.

“Do preds really eat people with their books?” Nicholas found himself asking.

“I guess some do,” Liz replied disapprovingly.

“And when you… don’t, are you guys supposed to, like, return them for us?” He didn’t love the wording he’d chosen, but that’s how it had come out.

“It’s the nice thing to do, but not everyone does,” she answered honestly as they made their way through the lobby. “I think the hall monitors at school have a return program, but sometimes I find books just out on the street when I’m- Oh!”

Nick resisted the urge to flinch as his vampiric ‘date’ made a sudden move. She reached around to the small bag she’d been carrying on her back and fished around for a moment.

“I actually found one the other day. Guess I should return it while I’m here.”

She redirected them toward the librarian desks, and he followed silently as his heartbeat returned to normal. There were two or three humans in the area sporting the official name badges, as well as a fellow vampire, whom she approached.

“Hi,” she said quietly. “Returning a lost book.”

He slid it from her hands and opened to the inside cover, looking it over. His expression seemed utterly dull and stiff.

“Thank you,” he said, lacking any and all enthusiasm. He made a note in a log while only half looking.

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a smile, turning to leave with her date.

“No eating in the library, miss,” the practically undead librarian droned. Liz blinked in confusion for a moment, then finally glanced at Nick.

“Oh, uh, yes, don’t worry, I know,” she assured.

They walked off together into the winding maze of shelves, and even though the tight spaces and limited sight lines were typically negatives, Nicholas started feeling a sense of familiar relief.

“Feel safer here?” Elizabeth asked in a near whisper.

“Yeah,” he admitted. Part of him felt bad- after all, Liz hadn’t given him any reason not to trust her yet- but knowing he actually had some level of protection here was still a much-welcomed fact. “Not a lot of places actually ban preds for eating.”

“Hey, humans too,” she corrected. “I don’t care if it’s a mage munching on chips or a jock gurgling their lunch, I don’t want to hear it while I’m reading.”

“Yeah, good point,” he agreed. “So, uh, what do you wanna look at first?”

“Um…” she thought for a moment, staring at him. “Whatever you want. You choose.”

“My choice again? I already got to pick the place.”

“Yeah, I just…” she smiled awkwardly, “I don’t know anything about dating humans, so I thought I should just leave it up to you.”

“Well I don’t know anything about dating preds,” he replied- with a bit too much emphasis. “…Uh, sorry.”

“No- I, um- guess you have a point… Maybe we just… look around together and see what’s interesting?”

“S-sure.”

Library silence returned to fill the space between them as they set their eyes to the shelves- well, mostly. Every now and then they stole glances at each other, and the air quickly grew awkward as unspoken thoughts and unanswered questions built up between the quick flicks of turning pages.

She keeps saying she’s never done this before and doesn’t know what she’s doing… So then…

They both glanced at each other at the same time. Their gazes interlocked like passing Velcro as each ended up staring for a moment, waiting for the other to speak.

Come on, Elizabeth! If this is gonna work, you have to ask!

“So…” she whispered, hardly even disturbing the silence. “I get you thought I was a human at first, but… after that… What made you wanna come?”

“I… um… don’t know… You just…” He thought back on the moment and tried not to blush from the various emotions. “If you weren’t a vampire you’d be a nice, pretty girl.” His eyes widened when he heard himself and his mouth immediately launched into correction mode. “N-not that you’re not a girl!” he stuttered out, trying to keep his urgent voice down. “I mean, not that you’re not still nice- for a pred you haven’t tried to, you know, eat me- and you’re probably really pretty for a vampire- you know, to other vampires.”

“Shh!” came an annoyed shush from a nearby table.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he whispered back frantically, then promptly shut up. Elizabeth had a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to stifle her own giggles (and hide her own blush).

She would be pretty if she wasn’t a pred… he couldn’t help thinking again.

“Wow,” she breathed when she eventually calmed down. “Um thanks, Nick.” She sounded largely genuine.

“S-sure, um, sorry,” he offered as they moved to a new aisle to avoid disturbing that table again.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m, uh, enjoying this.” The blush threatened to return. “This is actually going pretty well, I think.” There was that uncertainty again.

“…Hey, um…” He’d been wondering all afternoon, and now suddenly seemed like the right time to finally ask. Maybe it was because he was finally starting to really believe that she didn’t intend to eat him, or maybe it was just the right break in the conversation. “What made you want to take a human on a date?”

“Oh,” came Liz’s surprised reply, as if she’d only now realized she was the only one of them with that knowledge. The concept had been so ubiquitous in her mind for the last few days, she hadn’t even thought to explain it.

“Well, I saw this werewolf in the cafeteria the other day, totally cozying up with a human guy. At first I thought she was gonna eat him, but she didn’t. They sat together the whole period. They held hands and talked and they just seemed so… happy together. I kinda haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. I’d go hunting, you know, and every time I’d catch a boy I’d look at his face and go ‘what if?’”

Nick very much did not ‘know’. And the image of Liz contemplating a frightened human’s face, moments before probably sucking them down to the size of a finger and then sucking them down her throat, was far more vivid than it was comforting. He did try his best to understand, but he had no idea what it was like to see other people as food, let alone how it must feel to try and see some of that ‘food’ as a boyfriend. So the best he could do was simply stare back at her with awkward blankness and hope he wasn’t coming off as dismissive. Maybe he could at least comment on the story?

“Huh, a wolf girl and a human guy? Good luck with that.” Several fables and historical accounts vaguely passed through his mind, none of which motivated him to give that relationship the vote of confidence.

“I know, but they were really happy. I could hear the whole thing,” she insisted. Well, far be it from Nick to argue with a vampire’s ears.

“Huh, how about that…” he remarked. “So, did you, um… have any luck before you asked me?” Despite how well things had gone so far, his human instincts demanded an exit strategy. And he was still keenly aware of how little he knew about Liz- and how she acted when she didn’t get her way.

“You’re… actually the first one I asked. I-I mean, I tried a few other times, but everyone else ran off before I could manage, or threatened me with magic before I could say much.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he nodded.

“…I guess I can’t blame them. I mean lunch isn’t the best time to go talking to humans. It was hard sometimes to remind myself I wasn’t trying to hunt,” she admitted. “Probably just as hard for them to remind themselves I could just be coming over to talk.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas agreed.

Finally, one crazy thing she said that actually made sense to him. All afternoon he’d been actively working to remind himself that she wasn’t about to end him. Was she… was she constantly reminding herself the same thing? That he was supposed to be a date, not a meal? He wasn’t sure if that idea made things better or worse. Maybe it was enough for him to know that she was really trying?

“Have you ever thought about trying to date a predator before?” Elizabeth asked after a moment.

“No,” he replied, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean, I don’t think most humans do,” he elaborated in a weak attempt at self-defense. She frowned a little but nodded understandingly.

“How’s it, um, going for you so far?” she asked hopefully.

“It’s, erm… nice…” Such a simple question, but it contained so many complications and pitfalls that a single, vague word was all Nicholas could muster. Not quite reading between the lines, though, Liz took his reply in the best possible light, her smile starting to return.

“Oh yeah? What’s nice about it?” There was that genuine, almost naive curiosity of hers again.

“Well, uh…” Not getting bitten, surprisingly. “…getting brought to the library was a nice surprise, um…” Not spending the afternoon struggling in a stomach. “… it’s a struggle sometimes- you know- to find someone who wants to go for the afternoon, especially someone nice who likes to talk about history.” That last bit sort of snuck in before he realized it while he was fumbling for words.

Her face instantly brightened, like she’d been a dying fire he’d just supplied with fresh fuel. A situation he was hoping to avoid in the slightly more literal sense.

“A-and you?” Nick quickly asked, before she could ask anything more about him. “What’s been so nice for you about going out with a human?”

“Oh. It’s just been… kind of exciting, I guess,” she admitted. “Yeah, it is kinda weird, but it’s also kinda fun. You’re not mean, you’re a good height, you’re in good shape, you smell good-” When she noticed the words coming out of her mouth, she cut herself off. “Nice! You smell nice! You know, like, no B.O. and stuff,” she hastily retconned.

Had she just gone from complimenting her date to complementing her dinner? She hadn’t meant to; it had just snuck in there so naturally. But the looks on their faces said they’d both definitely noticed it.

“S-sorry,” she muttered. A heavy weight of embarrassment and regret pressed down on her, but she did her best to quietly laugh it off. “Unexpected troubles with dating a human, I guess,” she admitted like it was a bad joke.

Sensing the conversation was about to take a dive into deeply awkward silence, and wanting to dwell on literally any other thought, Nicholas scrambled to find some way to keep the exchange going, even as he processed what had just happened.

“Uh- um- what- were you expecting? F-for the date, I mean?”

“Honestly… I don’t really know,” the young vampire admitted, but the small smile returning to her face showed she did have at least a few pretty nice ideas floating around in her head.

“Well, uh, what’s like, your dream date? Best night you can think of?”

“Um… hm…” The atmosphere lightened a bit as she imagined. “Maybe a really nice, quiet spot in the park, or even maybe out in the forest? With a couple good books to talk about? Now that I think about it, the library actually isn’t a bad runner up.”

“Huh, so that’s a vampire girl’s idea of a good date? Sounds like we’re doing pretty good so far.”

“What about you?” she asked, turning the tables. “What’s a human boy’s dream date?”

“Oh, um… Well, I guess there’s this kinda fancy restaurant. I walk by it sometimes and I’ve always thought, if I met a really nice girl, it’d be cool to have dinner with her there.”

“That’s what you wanna do?”

“Yeah, it’d be nice,” he confirmed.

“Cool, then let’s go,” she agreed happily. Alarm bells went off in Nick’s head.

“W-What?” Nick’s eyes widened a bit as he played back the conversation and realized the misunderstanding- far too late.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Um, y-yeah, I guess.”

“So? Let’s go. It’ll be fun. We’ll have a human date.” She smiled brightly and the beautiful sight unbalanced him further for a moment.

“Uh- uh- um-okay?” he finally replied, failing his chance for a final objection.

With her grin broadening enough to show her fangs again, she took him by the hand and started leading him back out of the library. It was only once they were leaving the relative safety of that quiet building that the reality of the new moment fully struck him.

Nick was going out to dinner, with a man-eating predator.

…

“Hey, um, are you sure about this?” Nicholas asked, more for his own sake than for hers. “I- I mean it’s, um, kinda expensive, right?” Of course, that wasn’t his primary concern, but he wasn’t about to broach that subject directly.

“It’s not too bad, I can cover it if I have to,” she assured with a smile. Apparently being able to eat large, filling meals for free whenever you want did wonders for a young woman’s wallet.

It wasn’t the most assuring choice of words, though: knowing that she could pay the bill herself if he somehow ended up ‘not being around’ by the end of things. Blissfully unaware of the double meaning, Liz happily looked over the menu.

Nick caught the weary eye of the waiter as he approached. Naturally, the teenage vampire walking into a restaurant with a human was given a bit of scrutiny. Businesses didn’t take kindly to messy, distracting scenes spooking their customers- or to said customers disappearing forever down pred gullets. Especially since that human would often take the place of food that otherwise could have made some money.

Still, a polite smile had gained them entrance, and they’d been seated at a nice booth. The distinguished-looking server glanced across Liz’s face and glimpsed Nick’s. The boy had taken his place first, expecting her to sit across from him, but she’d instead seated herself right next to her date, and he hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to object.

So now he was boxed in. In a restaurant. Next to a vampire. Who was currently deciding what she would be having for dinner.

“May I take your orders?” the well-dressed man asked.

“Sure,” Liz replied happily. “I’ve always wanted to try ‘garlic bread’, can we have some of that?”

“Yes, of course, miss,” came the respectful reply, followed by an expecting silence.

“Hm… Nick, what do you think? I don’t know human food that well. What’s your ‘dream meal’ here?”

“Um… I guess, steaks?” His imagination had usually been preoccupied with the girl, not so much the entree.

“That’s beef, right? Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Good, um, we’ll have two of those, please.”

“Very good,” the waiter replied, relieving the table of its menus and walking off.

“Thank you!” Elizabeth concluded cheerily as he left.

A few minutes of silence began. Liz curiously took in this strange, new environment. Being a vampire, she was more than happy to simply sit and enjoy the relative quiet of their booth as she looked around. Nick might have normally tried to spark up some kind of conversation, but he was feeling a little tongue-tied at the moment- though to be more accurate, it was his guts that felt like they were being tied, especially as he contemplated hers.

The girl casually reached for her complimentary glass of water and put it to her lips. Nick watched her take a few gulps, deceptively petite throat twitching with each quiet swallow as the liquid disappeared down into her personal abyss.

“Ahh,” she breathed. “You’re right, this place is fancy,” she belatedly agreed. “Somehow even the water tastes fancy. Not to mention the dressed-up staff, and all the woodwork. Some of it almost looks antique.”

“Um, y-yeah.” Uh-oh, that hadn’t sounded very convincing. She focused on him directly.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah-” Just worried about taking a vampire to dinner. “-just worried about taking a girl to dinner, I guess.”

“Don’t worry, you’re doing great so far,” she encouraged. “And I’m sure the food will be good too. Almost doesn’t matter, cause I am starving,” she added casually.

“Y-you are?”

“Yeah, it just kinda snuck up on me. I wasn’t really that hungry before, but I guess the walk over here worked up an appetite? Must have been the anticipation or something.”

Or walking the whole way with someone you could enjoy swallowing on a whim, some corner of his mind added morbidly.

“You know, I thought about maybe trying to catch a human before I came to find you for our date,” she continued, “so I could kinda go ‘look, I’ve already eaten, so you don’t have to worry’. But I thought that might just make you uncomfortable, or like, freak you out.”

“Y-yeah, um, it probably would have. A-a bit,” he answered as respectfully and calmly as he could manage.

“See, I thought so. I’m really glad I didn’t, too. Not only would that have made things even more awkward, but we probably wouldn’t have been able to go to the library or this restaurant if I’d had a belly.”

Nicholas didn’t quite know how to respond to that. The un-block-able image of Elizabeth with a big belly full of human- and the inescapable thought of what it must be like to be the one inside it- left him a bit less than able to find many words at all.

Luckily, Liz moved off that subject fairly quickly all on her own. Unluckily, the new subject she picked was nearly just as awkward and treacherous.

“…I’m, um… I’m really happy you went out with me today,” she said, even more quietly than usual. The girl tried not to blush. “I’ve been thinking about what you asked before. About what I was expecting, and my ‘dream date’ and… I’m still not sure what I was expecting, but I don’t think it really could have gone better than it has.” She was definitely blushing now. “So, um, thanks.”

Nick’s heart was beating extra-hard for an entirely different reason now.

“Uh… uh…” the boy muttered, grasping desperately for a response as he started blushing himself.

“Your meals,” came the waiter’s voice, having arrived at their table while they’d been distracted. “Sir. Ma’am.” He placed down a plate before each of them in turn. Nick’s looked perfectly prepared, cooked just right, and garnished tastefully. Liz’s looked… very rare.

“Oh. Thank you,” the vampire replied sweetly with a smile, working to compose herself again.

She did want to hear what her date had to say, but she was also hungry, and the moment seemed to have passed. She leaned over a little and sniffed visibly at the portion of beef she’d been served. It must have seemed agreeable to her, cause Nick saw her smile acceptingly and reach for her utensils.

Unlike most preds, vampires were one of the few who really needed to use tools to eat neatly. While their stomachs could certainly stretch, their necks neither had the capacity nor the requirement for handling human-sized meals, thanks to their unnerving ability to shrink their prey down to more manageable sizes.

So Elizabeth looked almost like a normal human girl, happily slicing up little bite-sized pieces of her dinner, if not for the rather pink color of the meat passing her lips, and the fact that she didn’t bother to actually chew before swallowing her savory mouthful down.

*gulp*

“Does yours not look good?” she asked with a concerned frown. Nick gave a startled blink, realizing he’d just been staring at her eating for the last few seconds.

“Uh- no- I mean- yeah, it looks great. Sorry.”

Forcing himself to turn his attention to his own dinner, he set to work absentmindedly carving up his own steak and started taking a few bites. It honestly tasted amazing, perfectly seasoned and seared, but he wasn’t really in a position to enjoy it. Instead, he was in the position directly next to a hungry predator who was already half done cleaning her plate.

*guuurgle*

Elizabeth ignored her belly’s complaint. The beef was actually pretty good, especially for human-prepared food, but her body was evidently in the mood for something more filling. Whatever, she’d tend to that need later. At the moment, she had bigger things on her mind. Nick. He was on her mind. She felt like they’d had a really nice time together, but she knew that dinner would probably be the last event of the evening, and well… Even though she hadn’t really known what to expect, there was one thing that she had… sort of been hoping for… something too silly to bother telling him before… just a long-shot fantasy… just a silly dream…

*glurg*

She gulped down a few more bites of steak in a semi-awkward rush, attempting to placate her annoyingly noisy gut.

Nick watched his date clean her plate at three times his speed from the corner of his eye. His ears couldn’t help but focus intently on every sound her body made as it effortlessly consumed its meal and hungrily called out for more.

The atmosphere only grew more awkward and tense when she inevitably finished. She sat there silently, staring fixedly at nothing while she contemplated her thoughts, regularly glancing in his direction as he gradually worked down his steak. Dull, distant chatter, punctuated by the errant clink and clatter of cutlery, was broken up only by the odd rumble of the predator’s stomach as it considered its new arrivals.

Nick’s progress was slow, and not at all aided by his flagging and distracted appetite, but his meal too eventually reached its end. Meat methodically stripped away until at large only bone remained; he couldn’t help but think that much the same process took place with anything or anyone that descended into a predator’s belly. Like the one rumbling next to him.

“…Was it good?” Liz asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Y-yeah,” was what he could mutter. “Yours?”

“Yeah. Good.”

The air grew awkward and still for another moment.

Come on Elizabeth! Look at how far you’ve made it! When are you ever going to get a better chance! You have to try!

“Um, Nick?” she asked slowly.

“Yeah, Liz?” he replied with just as much hesitance.

“Did you, um… have a nice night?”

“S-sure, yeah. It was nice.”

“I-I mean… did you have a nice time… with me?” She took a breath to calm herself.

“Yeah,” he answered, rather quickly and certainly. “I mean, I don’t think I would have expected dating a predator to go this well.” His tone was much more appreciative than derisive. She smiled in response.

“You’re a really nice boy,” she replied with a blush, glancing away. “…Do… you think I’m a nice girl?” she forced herself to ask. Nicholas, literally cornered in the back of a restaurant booth by a teenage vampire, knew there was only one correct answer. Luckily, it was also a truthful answer.

He nodded, and looking at her flustered face he couldn’t help but blush a bit too. He never would have thought a pred could be this nice… or this pretty… He couldn’t imagine ever admitting that last part to any of his friends. He had no clue how he was going to explain any of this at school tomorrow.

“So… you wouldn’t mind if… I… um…” He watched her blink nervously a few times, saw her chest rise and fall faster.

But then she took a deep breath. And she closed her eyes.

And she puckered her lips.

And she started leaning forward.

What? Oh… Oh! OH! OHOHOHOHO!!

Nick was completely stunned for a moment. All at once he felt so hot he thought he’d start to sweat. His clothes suddenly seemed far too tight. And all the world faded from his vision, say for the sight of his date’s blushing face, lips extended, quivering, approaching.

She wants to kiss me! She wants to kiss me she wantstokissmeshewantsto-

Words failed him. Thoughts failed him. Feelings and instincts and the universe took over, as there in the booth he looked upon his beautiful, deadly, waiting date.

And he puckered his lips. And he leaned forward.

*smooch*

Elizabeth’s eyes shot open, bright and wide. She took a sharp breath. His soft lips caressed hers. His scent filled her lungs. Her heart leapt in joy. His taste soaked into her tongue. She felt goosebumps. Her stomach gave a loud, ravenous rumble.

*GURGLE*

Nick saw the change in her eyes. In a heartbeat, his blood went from red-hot to ice-cold. He realized fully what he was doing.

And so did she. All at once she could feel the drool welling up behind her puckered lips. Her stomach flexed. Her fangs itched to plunge into the flesh of a delicious, savory, meaty human boy.

Liz opened her mouth.

Nick stopped breathing.

The rest happened so fast that he didn’t even register it until after it was basically over. Or maybe he was just so dazed that the reality escaped him for a few seconds.

But not so with her. She was fully present and acutely determined for every moment.

She felt her mouth open, and she turned. She spun around in her seat, saw a man dining across the aisle, lunged in an instant, and pierced her fangs straight through his fancy suit.

His sudden, startled scream brought the entire restaurant to a standstill. It lasted only a few seconds before starting to fade away, dulling quickly to less than a whisper as she ravenously sucked the size out of him.

The poor man hardly even got a look at his predator before he was no larger than a finger or two, and he hardly had even a moment to comprehend his new size before a fleshy, saliva-soaked maw enveloped him in final darkness.

Nicholas came back to his senses at about the moment Liz shoved the shrunken adult past her soft, pretty lips. They smacked shut around her meal, fangs clacking with enthusiasm, and not a second later, a gulp sounded from her gullet loud enough that he could hear it clearly from the next booth over. The frozen boy watched her deceptively petite neck bulge noticeably as the miniature man passed beneath her skin. A smooth lump quickly passing down her throat, and then it was over.

The waiter was quick to arrive, wand in hand in lieu of a pen.

“Ma’am!” he scolded harshly. “This is unacceptable! Predation is not allowed between guests inside the restaurant! Release your prey immediately or I will have you banned from this establishment.”

Elizabeth was absolutely mortified. Everyone was looking at her. In an instant her eyes scanned across all the faces and fell on Nick’s, wide-eyed and stunned. She felt her stomach clench greedily around her second course as it arrived.

“I- I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “I- I can’t.”

She moved quickly for her bag, still sitting next to her date in the booth. He flinched but she didn’t even notice. She quickly pulled out all the money she had on her and put it down on their table- enough to probably cover three meals and then some. Then she grabbed Nick by the arm without even looking him in the eyes and rushed toward the exit, muttering a stream of quiet apologies as she went.

“Deryl!?” came a woman’s voice from behind them as they fled.

The fading words of the unhappy waiter followed as he briefly explained the situation.

“Oh, just my luck! I finally get a date and he gets eaten by a teenager.”

…

“Stop! Liz, Stop!”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“Okay okay! Just stop pulling so hard!”

The vampire stopped abruptly, now two or three blocks away from the scene she’d caused, having practically dragged her date along behind her.

*guuurgle*

*glurp*

She could feel her midriff already starting to bulge substantially. Her bite had been for speed, not duration. Her meal would have slowed her down within another minute even if she hadn’t listened to her companion.

She realized she was still holding his arm, and that she hadn’t looked at him since it happened. The air grew tense.

Well, this is it, thought both the teens. They braced themselves as she turned around.

… … Nothing. Nothing happened. Neither said a word. They stared in awkward, terrified, embarrassed muteness.

Elizabeth’s belly quickly stretched and swelled between them, until within just a few seconds the struggling, wriggling human inside had returned to full size. Feeling the edge of hunger leave her was a relief, but a small one. The loud, unabashed groaning and sloshing of her gut did very little to ease the tension or the embarrassment.

Come on! Just get it over with! went the thought which once again passed through both their minds.

Liz took a shaky breath. She knew she was the one in control.

“…Dinner was good,” she choked out. She let go of his arm. “I think we should break up.”

Nicholas took his arm back and rubbed it. It was a little sore, but he didn’t pay it much mind. He kept his eyes completely fixed on Elizabeth’s.

“Y-yeah… That’s probably a good idea…” he agreed. He felt an immediate wave of relief, but also… a lingering twinge of sadness…

“I… um… don’t think I’m ready to date humans yet…” she explained.

*GLORSH* went the grown-up in her gut.

“Sorry again, for… all this …” She took one last look at him then started to turn.

“Liz wait-”

*SLOSH* her belly jerked as she halted.

Nick heard his heart still beating hard in his ears, both from the running and from everything else. He spared a glance down to her swollen stomach and then back up to her face as he forced himself to speak while he still had the chance.

“…Thanks… for tonight… You’re a nice girl, and… Yeah. Thank you… for taking me out… And, you know, for not eating me for dinner.” He muttered that last part hastily, glancing away as he felt a warmth building in his cheeks. He heard a small giggle and looked back up to see a tiny, awkward smile on her lips.

“…You’re welcome, Nicholas,” she replied, taking a breath. She was starting to feel the weight of her adult human meal on her legs.

“Nick,” he corrected.

“Nick,” she repeated, and smiled just a bit wider.

Originally Published: 16-Jul-2025