Chapter Text
“Anakin? Anakin, can you hear me?”
A small groan left his lips and as he tried to move, his body was… stiff. Different. He felt like pins and needles were being stuck to his skin with every movement and whatever light was in the room was hurting his eyes and he hadn’t even opened them. His throat burned, his ears rang and he felt a rush of emotions and unclear thoughts and he wondered just what the hell happened to him. A cool hand rested on his shoulder.
“Baby, do you remember the car crash?”
“What?” His throat was dry and itchy and he tried to move but hissed and the sound was different. And were his teeth bigger? He could feel them at his lower lip. The lights dimmed slightly and the face of his girlfriend came into view.
“The car crash,” she repeated. “We went off the road and hit a tree, you were bleeding.”
Flashing moments ran across his head and he shook it, trying to get them to clear out. “Barely. Are we in the hospital?” He asked in a raspy whisper. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she promised, moving to take his hand and squeeze it. “But the ambulances were taking so long, and you were losing so much blood… Ani, I’m sorry.”
He blinked at her and as his vision was clearing up, he could tell something was different. “What? Did we both die? Is this heaven and if it is, why do I feel like crap?” He tried a joke to light up her mood. She was so sober, so worried. “Baby? What is it?”
“Ani, I died a long time ago.”
“You have a concussion,” he frowned.
“I did what I had to do to save you. And in doing so, I damned you to the same life I’ve lived for the last five hundred years.” She opened her mouth and her canine teeth extended downwards into beautifully, deadly sharp points. “I turned you.”
Anakin gaped at her and then laughed, shaking his head. “Very funny. We’re no longer doing reruns of Twilight. Now, in all seriousness, are we in a clinic? And if so, can I get water or something? It’s cool, baby, I’m already up and sobered, no need to test my brain.”
“We’re in the closest bread and breakfast I could find from the crash site. I compelled the police and the hospital staff to protect you from being taken to a hospital, and brought you here to let you finish turning.”
He frowned as he paid attention to her serious features. Looking around, they were in a picturesque room, the curtains were drawn but he heard the birds chirping outside and he racked his brain for coherent memories. He remembered a deer jumping into their path on the pitch-black road, he remembered screams and intense, awful pain, but she didn’t make sense. “What… you are not making sense… we had an accident. We need medical attention,” he looked down at himself and saw that there were no bruises, no scratches. Nothing at all scarred his smooth skin. Even old scars were gone. “What?” He whispered.
“I work in night court,” she pointed out slowly. “And yet I have a townhouse that is far above the paygrade for such a career path. We’ve only ever had dinner together, never lunch, or coffee.”
He sat up fully and pushed himself back until he hit the headboard. “Next thing you’re telling me is that you sparkle,” he huffed.
“I know that sarcasm is your primary coping mechanism, Anakin, but if you could refrain from further references to the bizarre and often offensive fantasies of a repressed Mormon housewife, that would be appreciated,” Padmé replied with a hiss as she moved to a window. “Would you like to see what happens to me in the sunlight?” She pulled aside the curtains, and the sound of sizzling and the scent of flames filled the room, coming straight from her fingertips.
Anakin stared horrified and then shook his head and a hand came up to scratch at his neck as he winced. “This is a nightmare. I am in a coma. I am in a coma and having a nightmare,” he muttered to himself.
She closed the curtain and covered her hand as she walked back to him. When she reached him, the skin of her fingers was blackened and bubbling, but the bubbles were growing smaller, the black receding into the pale skin he’d always known.
“This isn’t real,” he gritted his teeth and felt his pointy canines. What the heck? “You’re not real. This is a freaky coma-induced nightmare.”
“I can bite you again if that would make you believe,” she snapped. He flinched away from her, and she sighed, closing her eyes. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. I didn’t want you to find out at all, but you were dying , Anakin. I could hear your heartbeat slowing.”
“You should have taken your chances and waited for the ambulance,” he hissed as he stumbled out of bed.
“If I had, I would have lost you. And I could not allow that.”
“People die. It’s a natural part of life. Car crash or old age, you always die, it’s the natural thing to do,” he grunted as he blindly felt for the bathroom door. “You don’t just… take that away,” he waved his hand around, half-crazed.
“Yes, I can,” she said hollowly. “It was taken from me.”
“And so you did the same to me?” He narrowed his eyes at her. Tears began to fill her brown eyes.
“The creature who turned me did so for power, to use me. I turned you to save you. Because I love you too much to picture a world without you, or picture living in it. I can help you through this, Ani. You won’t have to go through what I did, I can bring you into the shadows slowly, help you adjust until it feels normal.”
He shook his head as he entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Turning on the lights, he winced. The brightness was a bit too much for him. He fought through the discomfort in order to stare at himself in the mirror. His eyes were the same blue, maybe a shade darker and his face was clean of imperfections. His skin was smoother, lighter, and everything that scarred his body, that made up his life’s history, was gone, replaced by perfect, smooth skin. He lifted his lower lip and winced at the sharp canines that stared back at him and he understood that the itch on the back of his throat wasn’t hunger, was thirst.
Squeezing the sides of the sink, he felt the ceramic crack under the pressure and he pulled his hands away.
He couldn’t forget. He was a vampire now.
Vampire. His stomach did a flip. What about his mom? Ahsoka? Ben? Everyone that he loved? His friends and family?
Also, how in the world didn’t he notice anything off with Padmé? They have been seeing each other for nearly two years! Was he so blind that he didn’t see the red flags all around her flawless beauty and cleverness?
“I know,” she said from behind him. He was still the only figure in the mirror.
He turned around startled. “No mirror image?” He hissed. “You apparently know a lot more things than your average person,” he scoffed at her words.
“I know what you’re going through, and no, no mirror image,” she confirmed. “A mirror is a reflection of the soul, and mine’s long gone.”
And mine will be erased with time , he concluded. “How did I miss all of this about you? How? For two years we’ve been together and you’ve been lying to me all along!” Anakin snapped. He remembered her earlier words. “Did you… did you compel me too? To let these elephants leave the room?”
“No,” she shook her head. “Compulsions… they only work on the weak-minded. And you’re anything but weak-minded.” She reached out her now-healed hand and pressed her fingers gently against the two small puncture marks on his neck, the only scar left.
“You made me live a lie for the past two years then do… this,” he waved at himself.
“I didn’t plan this, Anakin, and it was more like selective omissions than active lying. You were the one who pursued me. ”
“You could have turned me away or something! Anything!” He shouted. “When would you tell me the truth? When you accidentally bite me? When I started growing old and you didn’t? When I spoke about kids and you had to say ‘Oh, honey, I’ve been dead for five hundred years, how do you feel about adopting?’”
“I wasn’t,” she said quietly. “I was planning to leave in a year, suggest long-distance, and let myself slowly fade from your heart without having to tell you.”
“Fantastic job,” he said dryly, returning to the bedroom and sitting on the bed, head in his hands. “What am I going to do now?” He groaned. “My job, my friends… my mom. ”
“We’ll figure it out,” she promised weakly, still standing in the bathroom doorway. “I’ve been living in the shadows for a long time, I can help you—”
“What do you eat? What do I eat now?” He growled. She sighed, and moved past him to open her suitcase, pulling out a refrigerated bag.
“Have a juice box,” she said dryly, holding out an unmistakable packet of red liquid.
Anakin frowned and looked from the obvious blood bag to his girlfriend’s face. He debated with himself as the itch grew stronger and what should have been a disgusting liquid that always made him gag, was suddenly too appealing. He shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“It’s as ethically sourced as possible, Anakin, if you don’t drink this, we run the risk of you tearing out the housekeeper’s throat when he or she comes by on their rounds.”
“I’m good. ” He gritted his teeth.
“You need to drink.”
He snorted. “Make me.”
She glared and zipped up the refrigerated bag, stuffing it back in her suitcase before she opened her mouth. Her canines extended again and she bit into the packet, sucking it dry in one continuous swallow. Not a drop spilled as she did so and she crumpled the empty plastic pouch into a ball, tossing it effortlessly into the trash.
“Makes me regret all those fancy dinners I paid for over the past two years. You don’t even taste the food, do you?” Anakin muttered, half-annoyed and half-turning away from her.
“I paid for some of those dinners too, Anakin, and actually, yes, I do taste them. A rare steak is particularly delicious. The food just doesn’t hold nutritional value for me, it dissolves in my stomach without needing to be processed further.”
He sighed. “What else?” Anakin asked flatly.
“As you see, we can be awake during the day, it’s just a matter of not letting sunlight touch us. Silver burns us. Garlic doesn’t actually hurt, our noses are just more sensitive than humans’ are. We don’t need coffins,” she listed. “And a stake through the heart is deadly, but that’s true for everyone. Regardless of species.”
Anakin nodded along her words and after a few minutes of silence, he dropped his shoulders. “Right,” he said slowly. “What now?”
“We’ll call your mother and tell her you’re alright,” she said softly. “But you’ll need to feed before you see her, Anakin, or you’ll be putting her at risk.”
“So I’m going to spend the rest of my life hiding in the darkness?” He asked with a strain to his voice. “I can’t go back to my day job. I can’t go back living my normal life, not when… when I’m this. When I could put everyone I love at stake.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s all you have to say?” He laughed hollowly. “ Maybe? ”
“Anakin, I’ve spent most of my immortality trying to find a way to undo it, and I might have failed on that count, but I have learned to live with it. And clearly I am very good at it, considering that you never noticed.”
“Or I’m just that stupid. I thought the lack of mirrors was a curious and quirky superstition. The lack of daytime activities didn’t bother me. I just… God, I was an idiot. Wait, am I still allowed to believe in God? Will I burn to ash if I enter a church?”
“It’s any sacred ground, and yes, but it won’t be immediate.” She turned away with a sigh. “It’s easier to avoid now than it was in sixteenth-century Europe.”
Anakin groaned and crawled up the bed, to stick his head under the pillow. “You should have let me bleed out,” he said, muffled by the fabric.
“No, I shouldn’t have,” she said stubbornly. “You’re just in shock and having difficulty processing this.”
He let out another long groan of frustration and placed another pillow on top of his head. “Just leave me alone,” he asked miserably.
“I’ll leave you to sleep.” She disappeared into mist.
Anakin pulled his head back and looked around the room, making sure he was alone. He was angry. He was upset. He was sad and bewildered. But stronger than that was that he was hungry. With a resigned sigh, he opened her suitcase and grabbed one of the blood bags from the refrigerated bag inside. He grimaced. The idea of sticking his canines into it was unappealing, so he dug around her suitcase until he found a grey water bottle. He took the lid off and threw the water away, replacing it for the thick blood from the bag.
Just like drinking water. Or milk. Or juice. Just think happy, normal food.
He sat on the ground and drank as he reeled. What was his life going to be like now? On the nightstand, his phone vibrated and played Ahsoka’s ringtone. With shaky fingers he grabbed the phone and answered it.
“H-Hey, Snips.”
“Hey, I thought you and Padmé were coming back today from your weekend getaway, what happened?”
“Oh, we… w-we ran into some car trouble and…” he swallowed, “and decided to spend another day or two to get it fixed.”
“Are you both okay? Do you need someone to come get you?”
“Oh, we’re peachy,” he said, dryly and sipped his drink again. “No, we’ll figure it out.”
“You sure? It’s no trouble, I don’t have classes today.”
“No, Ahsoka, I’m sure. I’ll call you once I’m back in town and we’ll meet for coffee or dinner, whatever’s easier,” he sighed, knowing he could no longer move around as he once did, unless he wanted to be burnt bacon on the side of the road.
“Okay, if you say so. But more importantly, did you ask her?”
Fuck. With all the vampire stuff, he completely forgot the reason for this getaway. “No. I didn’t. I was wrong, Snips, I might be rushing into this,” and the ring is probably in the woods somewhere. Oh well, there goes a year’s salary to the wildlife . “It’s not the right time.”
“What happened to ‘she’s part of my soul, the thought of not being with her makes my stomach turn over, my mouth goes dry, I get dizzy, I can’t breathe,’” Ahsoka put on a bad impression of his voice.
“Maybe I was just constipated,” he quipped.
“Nah, I know what you sound like when you’re constipated.”
“Ahsoka, really, it’s not the best time. I was wrong. I was rushing into this headfirst. It’s… it’s wrong,” he shook his head and drank the last of his blood. In his frustration, he reached into the suitcase and grabbed another one and dipped it into the bottle.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Did you hit your head or something?”
“Never felt so invincible,” he deadpanned.
“Okay, fine, weirdo,” she huffed. “I gotta go, Ezra’s trying to call me.”
He sighed. Wishing he could tell her. “I love you, Snips, you know that, right? You’re my baby sister.”
“Yeah, love you too,” she said distractedly.
He hung up and sighed, letting his head fall against the mattress. He had to make some life-changing decisions. He could not endanger her or his mom. Or anyone he cared about.
When Padmé finally reappeared, it was nighttime. “I had the mechanic who was working on your car bring it,” she explained. “It’s in the parking lot.”
“Okay, thanks,” he nodded, standing by the window.
“Anakin.” She moved over to stand next to him and placed something on the windowsill between the two of them. The red velvet box with the gold solitaire diamond engagement ring he’d had in his jacket pocket the night of the crash. “That’s why,” she said softly. He just stared at the ring as if it had offended him and his entire bloodline. A part of him had hoped it had gotten lost or that the same deer that caused him to lose his life had eaten it. ”It fell out of your pocket while I was trying to keep you alive, waiting for the ambulance. When I saw it… that’s when I chose to turn you.”
“Damn, screwed over by a diamond, who knew?” He shut the lid of the box so the offending jewelry wasn’t looking at him.
“You wanted to marry me. You wanted us to have a life together.”
He snorted. “Yeah, but I clearly wasn’t aware of what really was your life, now was I? All I’ve witnessed was a facade.”
“I’m not looking for your forgiveness, Anakin, I was just trying to explain. What I did was out of love. And I know it wasn’t how something like this should happen, but I just didn’t want to lose you. Not to death, and not to breaking your heart by ending things.”
Anakin sighed, and grabbed the small box. He aimed at his open suitcase, since he had taken the chance to change clothes, and threw it over the air. The velvet bounced off his jeans. “I appreciate the sentiment, I’m just wrapping my head around it, okay?”
“Okay, but we don’t have a lot of time before we have to get back home.”
“I know. It will do. I decided I can’t stay there anymore. I won’t endanger my loved ones,” he said.
“If you let me teach you, that won’t be a problem,” she promised. “I know how smart you are, and you have someone who actually wants to help you learn and thrive in this life.”
“Thrive? You’re kidding, right? Thriving will be not murdering anyone for their blood,” he scoffed. “I can’t go back to my normal life and if this hasn’t happened and I have to think of others around me.”
“I haven’t murdered anyone in centuries, you’re being melodramatic,” she scoffed. “I get my blood from a bank now.”
“I guess we’ll drive through the night,” he stood. “I already told my mother I would have dinner tomorrow night. I’ll see about changing shifts at work.” Fortunately, programming was a very flexible job.
“You’re still taking this well, I see” she observed dryly.
“Oh? Am I missing the confetti cannon?” He zipped his suitcase, the ring box nestled around his clothes.
“For fuck’s sake, will you stop being a child about this and lose the attitude?” Padmé hissed, her voice seeming to reverberate off every surface in the room.
“Check on me in a hundred years or so. I should be older and wiser by then,” he quipped as he headed to the door. “I’m checking out and you have the car keys.”
She tossed the keys straight at his head. “ I’ll check us out. You get the car.”
With the quickest reflexes he ever had, he grabbed the keys. “Nope,” he shrugged. “I have PTSD now,” he threw the keys on the bed.
“Well, I can’t drive, so it has to be you.”
“No time to learn like the present. If we crash, we won’t die. Isn’t that wonderful?” His voice drifted from the empty hallways as he left the bedroom and started downstairs to the reception desk. Padmé stormed after him with her own bag in one hand and the keys in the other.
“Anakin Skywalker, you do not get to walk away from me like this! Now you stop and listen to me!”
For some unknown reason, he froze. He wanted to move, but found his brain was not cooperating. He wanted to bite back with a sarcastic remark, but his mouth wouldn’t move. Obey her. An odd feeling lingered and took over his thoughts and he shuddered. What was this? She made you. She owns you. How much weirder could this vampire crap get?
Padmé stopped short. Given what had happened with her own sire, she’d forgotten about this part. “Anakin… I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong and you have every right to be angry, but acting like this… it’s not going to help either of us. I’m trying to do what I can to make this right.”
He shook his head numbly and grabbed the keys from her fingers. “You should have let me bleed out,” he said very, very quietly. “I’ll wait at the car,” he gripped the handle of his suitcase as he turned directions, heading for the front door as she had asked earlier. Padmé pursed her lips and went to go check out at the front desk.
“Trouble in paradise, dear?” The elderly woman asked, sympathy in her eyes as she lowered her book.
“There’s never been paradise,” Padmé muttered, more to herself than to the woman, “not for me.”
“Well, child, it’s nothing a good talk and romp in the sheets doesn’t fix,” the woman said with a small grin. “You are both young, you’ll have plenty of time to argue and then even more to be happy,” she patted Padmé’s hand in sympathy. Padmé fought the urge to roll her eyes. I’ve lived five of your lifetimes, old bat. Probably more.
“I’m not sure if I can fix this with fucking,” she said, just to scandalize the clerk with her language.
The woman looked unfazed as she shrugged. “Probably not. But it’s just as fun,” she retrieved the room keys. “Come back any time.”
“Doubtful.” Padmé tossed a few bills at her, then headed outside.
Anakin waited in the car, scowling, as he drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. Maybe there were more suicidal deers along the roads. Maybe one of them would ram an antler through his chest and accidentally puncture his heart. He just needed to hit it at the right angle…
“I see you’re at that point already.”
“What point?” He started the ignition and the car purred to life.
“The point where you want to end your existence as you go through the stages of grief,” she answered, sitting in the passenger seat. “I had it after Sheev turned me.”
He shrugged. “Wistful thinking, only.”
“Maybe I should drive.”
“Maybe you should be quiet.” He mimicked her tone as he raced down the road. “I need to figure out what to do next.”
“I could help ,” she huffed.
“Tell me, oh wise one, we have nothing but time until we get to the city.”
“I can get you blood from my supplier. And the guy who did the sunproofing measures on my townhouse. I’ll pay for all of it.”
“I’ll appreciate the contacts, but I have money of my own,” he said flatly.
“Anakin, this is going to be an expensive endeavor, you shouldn’t have to go broke because of what I did.”
He opened his mouth and was about to say something that could be really cruel on his side relating to a certain diamond stuffed in his suitcase, when he thought against it. “Whatever. Okay, I guess.”
“And you should stay at my place for a few days anyway. So I can train you properly.”
“Table manners for liquid meals? How to dress like a vampire 101?” He taunted.
“Controlling your strength, speed, and senses, managing your cravings, and coping in a world that’s no longer made for you,” she corrected with a sigh.
“Sounds fun, I’ll buy some notebooks,” he quipped. “Or is there a manual I can read? I ordered this thing from Amazon that highlights certain sentences and directly passes it to your computer or phone and I could make some dope notes from it.”
“Shut up,” she growled. With a frown, he automatically obeyed. “And take this seriously. Or do you want me bringing you back to your mother either as a corpse or a pile of ashes?” He shrugged, nostrils flaring. “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to stop using my position as your sire. I’ve never made a fledgling before. I was supposed to, but that was a long time ago, and—” she stopped, realizing that a trip down memory lane was not going to be helpful right now.
“I’m flattered,” he nodded. “I’ll do whatever you want, just tell me the most essential thing so I can have dinner tomorrow night with my mom.”
“We’ll need to stop and give you more to drink. This is the thirstiest you’re ever going to be, assuming you form the kind of habits I have now.”
“Fine. Stock up on blood. Got it.”
“And…” she twisted her fingers around themselves. “Hold on. To the love you feel for her. Make it your anchor. It’ll keep you grounded.”
Anakin paused for a moment. “That should be easy enough,” he said in a whisper.
“You have so many people who love you,” she agreed. “And so much love you give them back in return. It’s why I believe you can do this.”
Yet, I am a danger to all of them now. One slip-up and it’s over. “Let’s hope so.”
“If worse comes to worst,” she sighed, “I’ll do what I can to keep them safe from us.”
“You’re not turning them,” he said, his tone rising. “I’ll die before that happens.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good,” he sighed. They drove in silence for a while before she spoke again.
“You did want it though, didn’t you? Before I ruined everything? You wanted to marry me and have babies and a life together?”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes. I did. I wanted all of that,” he admitted. “But, I didn’t know the real you, did I? I fell in love with the idea of someone and not with the reality of who you are.”
“I suppose it’s up to you what the real me actually means,” Padmé conceded. “I did conceal my species and my diet and my real date of birth from you, but everything else is true. I really am a night court lawyer, I really do give to a lot of charities, and love romantic comedies. I did have a family that I lost a long time ago in a home invasion, and had to grow up alone. And the longer I knew you, the more I hated keeping the secret from you, but I just...”
“You just let me believe that I could have what I always wanted with you. I wasn’t shy about speaking about building a life together, having kids, and growing old, and instead of doing something, you let me believe we could have that,” he pointed out, numbly.
“I know, and it was selfish of me, but I knew that if I shut you down, I’d be that much closer to losing you forever. And for me, forever is literal and it is long.”
“If I had proposed, what would you have said?”
“I don’t know anymore. Maybe I would have just said no and disappeared. Or said yes and then staged my death to give us a clean break. I might have even told you the truth about me.”
Anakin sighed and focused on the road. Whatever option she had chosen, it would have had a bad fallout for either of them. “There was no good option.”
“No, there wasn’t. We would have been over.”
He shook his head, not really believing his luck. They would have been over, yes, and he would have never recovered from her death or her disappearance. That’s how much he knew he loved her. And he couldn’t tell if his feelings had changed or if it was the overwhelming fear of the unknown that was pushing everything down.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I never should have agreed to go out with you, but I thought maybe if I just said yes once and the date went really badly, that would be it. And then it wasn’t.”
Anakin tilted his head. “Is that why you were doing everything to make it go wrong?”
She couldn’t help laughing weakly. “Was it that obvious?”
“Yes,” he answered bluntly. “All the faux pas that you could do on a first date, you did.”
“So why did you still want a second date?”
He shrugged. “I found it adorable that you were trying that hard to make me leave. I mean, at first, I genuinely thought you were crazy, but I realized that you were doing it on purpose. The harder you tried to make me want to leave you, the harder I realized I needed to laugh it off and… stay.”
“You know that could be called harassment in a court of law. Or stalking.”
“You just turned me into a vampire, robbed me of my humanity and soul, what is the legal term for that?” He said dryly.
“Fair enough.”
“I thought so,” he muttered.
“Ani, it’s going to be okay.”
He rolled his eyes. “So you keep saying. Was it ever okay for you after you were turned?”
“I was turned after my family died and I was passed into the guardianship of my future sire. He had several other young women in his keeping, all my age, all wealthy and orphaned. We had each other to get through our transitions, and his plans for us.”
“You didn’t answer my question. And honestly, you don’t have to. I’ll eventually come to terms with this. Glad I have eternity now.”
“Look, your definition of ‘okay’ is different from mine. I learned how to cope. I learned how to change with the times. I learned how to be content with my existence. That’s my ‘okay.’”
He just sighed and distracted himself with driving. It was the most normal thing he’d done for the past twenty-four hours. Padmé turned on the radio and let it play without speaking another word for the rest of the drive. When they arrived at her townhouse, she got out of the car first and grabbed both their bags from the trunk.
“I can take those,” he said, following after her.
“I’ve got it.” she insisted as the building door opened without a single touch. “Let’s just get inside, moonlight’s wasting.”
“Right,” he headed after her, looking around. He had been to her house before but it felt like the first time. Now he knew it was her vampire lair. He snorted at himself at that thought.
“Is something funny?” she asked curtly as they went inside and she dropped the bags in the foyer.
He shook his head, a sarcastic grin on his lips. “Nope.” Now that he knew the truth, he found the lack of mirrors even more distracting. He wondered how long his own soul would take to waste away and when his image would truly fade.
“Then come into the kitchen with me.” Anakin followed her, looking at everything with a brand new perspective. Her kitchen looked completely new, barely used. Not a scratch on those surfaces, or appliances. She opened the fridge and pulled out a large, dark wine bottle and a two-pack of steaks. “Can you please get a pan from that lower drawer?” she requested. He did as he was told, handing her the pan and watching her every move.
She put it on the front burner of the stove and placed both steaks on it, turning the heat to low, then opened an upper cabinet and retrieved two red wine glasses. As she uncorked the bottle, a smell that was growing increasingly familiar to Anakin filled the room. “I don’t usually go with O negative, but tonight is not most nights,” she said as she filled the glasses and held one out to him.
“Thanks,” he accepted the glass and stared down at the liquid. This is my life now.
“Anything for you,” she said quietly.
“Literally anything,” Anakin sighed and sipped his ‘wine.’
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded in acceptance and sat down. “Are you?” He raised one eyebrow.
“I’m sorry about how I did it. I’m sorry that you found out the way you did, and for keeping secrets from you. I’m sorry for causing you pain.”
“I know all of that,” he said, more softly than what she probably expected. “But are you sorry for making me like you?”
“I don’t know anymore,” she confessed. “At that moment, no, I wasn’t. I told myself I was saving you. But I’m remembering now how difficult it is in the first days, and how I took away your choice just like he took mine, and…” She took a long drink from her own glass. “You wouldn’t have wanted it if I’d offered, would you?” Her voice was small and scared.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I really don’t, because there are so many things to consider and… I can’t tell you no or yes, because… I simply don’t know. I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip and turned away, getting out two plates and moving the steaks onto them. “You can have both if you want, your body will still process it in this early stage.”
“I’m okay with just one,” he said quietly.
“Alright.” She got out two forks and two steak knives and placed them on the side of her kitchen island with the barstools.
“They look good,” he complimented. “You’ve never cooked for me before.”
“This is the one thing I know how to cook,” she explained. “I figured you’d put it together if I were that redundant.”
“Yes, because I would immediately think that you would be a vampire if you had cooked rare steaks for us,” he rolled his eyes.
“If I did it once, you’d want to come over again. And again,” she argued with a huff. “And you think this looks good now because your palate is changing, but if I’d served this to a regular human, they’d think I was trying to poison them.”
“I would have kept thinking you didn’t know how to cook to save your life and probably end up doing something myself.”
“And then you’d wonder why I only had steak and wine in my fridge, and realize that it’s not wine.”
“I’m not that smart,” he said dryly and sipped his blood as he dug into the steak.
“You went to MIT.”
“MIT. Not paranormal academy.”
“Oh, I got a degree there, you’d have hated it,” she joked. “The professor was a total monster.”
He stared at her and blinked. “What?” He asked faintly. “You’re serious?”
“No, of course not. I have degrees from basically every university that offers night classes, but there’s no paranormal academy.”
“Ah, okay,” he shook his head. “Are werewolves real? Witches too?” He frowned. “Fairies? What’s real anymore and what’s a fairytale?”
“Witches, yes, fairies, no, werewolves, I don’t think so. At least I’ve never met one. There are some vampires that can take a wolf form, but they can do it whenever they want, not just at a full moon. Zombies, also not a thing. Neither is Frankenstein, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or the Phantom of the Opera. But there are ghosts. That’s about the extent of the supernatural as far as I know. Vampires, witches, and ghosts.”
“The world just got a whole lot creepier.”
“Ghosts and witches are more annoying than creepy.”
“No, no, it’s creepy.
“They’re really not, I’ll introduce you to a few.”
He grimaced. “Maybe not right away.”
“Of course not right away. You’re still a fledgling.”
Anakin sulked. “Right. I’m at zero years of being a vampire.”
“It goes by quickly, if that helps.”
He finished his steak and stood. “I’m going to bed. I need to mentally prepare myself for dinner tonight.”
“You can use my bedroom,” she offered. “Or the guest room. Both are sun-proofed.”
Anakin shrugged, setting the glass in the sink. “I like your mattress,” he muttered as he headed towards her bedroom. He was annoyed with her. Angry even. Disappointed. Sad. Frustrated. He was a lot of things, but deep down, he was still in love with her and that was something he would have to figure out with time now.
“Sleep well,” she called softly after him.