Serena absolutely adored her Trent, her Lucifer, and her Xander. Each of them provided a different kind of relationship energy. Trent was her best friend, had been for as long as they both could remember, and they were extremely comfortable together. Lucifer pampered and protected her, and had been willing to open his heart to her even though they had both been on the rebound when they'd met... the second time, at least. And Xander....

Xander was phenomenal. He gave her the feeling of being not just wanted, but needed. It was her blood that "sang" to him, and that made them special for each other. They had performed a bonding ceremony so he wouldn't go into a frenzy when he fed from her, and she was his alone as far as vampires were concerned. It had also bonded them emotionally, meaning he couldn't deliberately cause her distress, although they did have very different mindsets at times and accidents did happen.

Xander had always considered himself straight, so Serena made an effort to meet with him in drag. She loved him so much, she would have stayed like that forever if he had asked her to, and it was the same with Trent and Lucifer. Trent had assured her that he just wanted Serena's comfort and happiness, in whichever form that may be. Lucifer had indicated the same, but Serena knew he had a thing for curly-haired, blonde women moreso than men. As far as she could tell, Xander was still trying to work out how he felt about being bonded to someone who'd been assigned male at birth. So she tried to make it as easy on him as possible.

No one in their circle of friends much cared about that sort of thing. Almost everyone was some form of bisexual, the gayest being George and the straightest being Xander. Serena had teased George in drag once or twice, but Nathaniel had quickly put a stop to it when it was made clear how uncomfortable George was. The point was, no one was going to give Xander any guff for sleeping with another man.

Xander's presence lit up Serena's world in almost the same way Trent's presence had their entire lives. He was a joy to be around, the brooding lunk, and the cold touch of his skin was delightful. Serena was happiest in his arms, in his lap, being fed from by him, knowing she was needed and that she belonged to him, as though she had been born to be with him. He had let her know recently-- after they had been unable to meet for a while she had missed him something fierce-- that he preferred to feed from her when she was in a good mood. So when he was gone, she tried not to miss him too much. Sometimes it was easier than others, especially since she was putting effort into staying clean. 

Nathaniel was trying to encourage her to exercise more, because-- during one of their casual sex games-- he had noted Serena's blood was much sweeter than it should be. Serena had a bad habit of moping around home and refusing to come out of her room if her lovers weren't available, and another bad habit of taking eight clients a night when she got bored with isolating herself. She had tried to explain to Nathaniel that she couldn't become diabetic; the whole point of the angel feather in her back was to keep her free from disease. But the truth was that she had been living off of chocolate for weeks and didn't have the energy to exercise or the motivation to cook or even ask Lucifer or Trent to cook for her. Then Nathaniel, sneaky, clever Nathaniel, had told Serena that from now on, he was going to eat and exercise the way she did...

...which was a good way to motivate her to eat better and try to make it to the gym when the weather was nice.

(To be continued?)