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Allison is no longer new in her job. After all, she's been working here for 3 years, yet there are still things she doesn't know about the company. "Allison Argent" a pretty strawberry blonde young woman addresses her. "Please come with me you are supposed to be assigned somewhere else in the company today." The black-haired woman nods and follows her supervisor to the elevator.
She swipes a bronze key card through the slot that is provided for it. A moment later, the elevator door opens. "Lydia?" The woman addressed looks at Allison briefly. "Uh-huh?" makes Lydia as she inserts a key into the elevator. After the third turn, a secret switch opens, where she presses the last button, number 13.
"How come I've never heard of this building having more than one basement?" asks Allison as she watches her good friend. Lydia sighs, dropping her formal mask. "Not everyone in the company needs to know what we keep in the basement and believe me that's not even the craziest thing. Only select people, such as me and now you, are entrusted with this secret."
"What do we keep in the basement?" Allison looked at her friend curiously but also a little disturbed, she was assuming the worst. "You'll see in a minute" Lydia replied, shortly after which the elevator door opens again.
At about the same time Chris enters the building. There is still blood on his clothes, but he doesn't care. He's done his job and that's all that matters. The other employees stopped asking questions a long time ago. Noah Stilinski is standing in the entrance, making his last rounds before the coffee break.
He is the head of security and has been asking him questions for the longest time, but even he gave it up after a while. Just as their ritual demands, Noah lowers his head and Chris returns the gesture. After that, they continue to go their separate ways. Melissa McCall, a very nice nurse, comes running towards him, presumably she is on her way to have a coffee with Stilinski.
Chris takes a different elevator than the two women. He, too, swipes one of his key cards through the slot so the door opens. He presses the button with the number 12. Once there, he walks down a long hallway and stops in front of the door with the number 16. A device scans his face and opens the door after he has entered a code.
The blond enters his apartment and sighs in dissatisfaction. "Just hold on a little longer Peter. The cure will be ready soon." He stands in front of an old painting. It had been a wedding gift. The painting shows Peter posing with him, with a wooden cabin in the dense woods of Beacon Hills in the background. The home of his lover.
"Why do I have to stand around here so long Christopher?" Peter looks annoyed at his lover. "Don't move!" The painter waves his brush in the air. "Sorry" he returns to his original position. "Hey, I have to stand here as long as you do" Chris replies "and besides it's a wedding present." The brown-haired werewolf smiles happily and gives his lover a little kiss.
Chris returns it by holding Peter in place longer to intensify the kiss. The painter curses incomprehensibly in the background, they don't care at the moment anyway. "I love you." The werewolf looks a little sad. "Hey what's wrong?" "Nothing. I love you infinitely too" he puts on a smile.
"Peter... tell me the truth" the blond forces his beloved man to look at him again. "It just makes me sad that none of our families could come because mine died last year. And your family thinks you are dead because you come from a hunter family and now you are a vampire."
Chris kisses his husband again. "Our families wouldn't have shown up to our wedding either if they were still alive or didn't think I was dead" he explains. The brown-haired man sighs in resignation. "I know. Hunters could never have tolerated that, and marriage between vampires and werewolves is just as forbidden as between hunters and werewolves."
Chris turns away from the painting and goes to the bathroom. He gets rid of his dirty clothes and stuffs them into the washing machine with those from yesterday. To turn on the machine, he looks at the note that was written for him to do so. Then he gets into the shower. The former hunter takes a cold shower, not caring what temperature the water is as long as he is alone.
After the shower, he shaves his beard so it will look well-groomed when Peter wakes up again. "Tomorrow's the day." He wears a smile as he walks to the refrigerator. After a two-day break, there's another blood bag today.
It's Peter's blood, Chris has been drinking only his blood for hundreds of years, he's sure he wouldn't take any other by now. A small prick in the bag and the blood spurts out. Immediately he puts a glass to the prick and lets the blood flow into it. While he takes a sip now and then he goes into the bedroom and puts on fresh clothes. On the right side are his clothes and on the left are Peter's old clothes. Over the years, Chris has occasionally bought something new that his husband might like. So far there has been no opportunity for the brown-haired man to wear other things.
Meanwhile, Allison and Lydia stand outside the door with the number one. "Put your card through the slot," Lydia instructs her friend. Allison pulls out her key card and does as instruct. A small camera then scans her eye. "Identification" a robotic voice comes from the speakers. "Allison Argent. Identification number: A49911013A" shortly after, a light turns green, and the door makes a clicking sound.
The woman with strawberry blonde hair opens the door and walks on with determination. Allison closes the door again behind them. "Hey girls! Glad you could come." A young woman with short light brown hair approaches them. She is wearing a white overall with matching white boots. "Malia? This is where you work? I thought you were in charge of machine maintenance?" The black-haired girl was confused.
Malia laughs softly and gestures for the older one to come with her. "I am, come I'll show you" she says and then turns to Lydia. "See you on Friday Lydia." The addressed agrees with her and after that leaves the basement area again to attend to her other tasks.
Malia pushes open another door and behind it are many pieces of equipment that lead to a kind of coffin made of glass. Allison is a little startled at the sight. "Oh God I just thought there was actually a person in that thing." She has a hand on her chest to steady herself again. The brown-haired lady laughs slightly hysterically.
Allison sighs heavily. "Malia, please tell me there's not a person inside, but that it's just a doll." The younger one shuts up and continues walking towards the coffin. "Oh God, oh God no, oh please don't" the black haired one continues to walk after her and starts to doubt the morals of the people working here. There is a man lying in the coffin and on the monitor next to it, she can even see that his heart is still beating.
"I understand what's probably going through your mind right now. I felt the same way when I saw him for the first time. It took me a week to get over it and now I even talk to him.... Not that he can hear me or anything, but it makes the time alone more bearable."
Allison looks at her colleagues, not sure what to say. "You work down here all by yourself?" "Oh no, Theo works here too, but we're not always here at the same time so I'm alone more often, but don't worry that doesn't bother me." Malia smiles as she checks the vitals. The values should be neither too high nor too low. The other woman comes a little closer and looks at the room, the equipment, the pipes only to see the coffin again.
"Why is he down here?" she asks after a moment's hesitation. The brown-haired woman looks at her thoughtfully. "To be honest. I don't know. All I know is that he's been in a coma ever since I started working here, and Theo once said that he was even lying here when he was a kid."
She only now realizes that this company has more surprises in store than she expected when she signed up for a job here. Malia and Allison are still finishing up the final preparations for today, so they'll be ready to go in the morning.
When Allison arrives at work on Friday, she sees this man for the first time in her life, yet she feels as if she already knows him. He's wearing a long coat, even though it's late May and the temperatures are rising.
He wears his hair in a short cut and his beard is slowly turning gray. His eyes are a bright ice blue with an equally cold look. As soon as he looks at her, she turns away and heads for the elevator to get downstairs.
Chris is sure he sees a ghost as soon as he says goodbye to Noah. A young woman with long black hair just turns her gaze away from him and disappears around the next corner towards the elevator. "It can't be" he says quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. He goes after her, quickly finding her again. He is, after all, a vampire and now naturally faster than humans. "Wait" he calls after her.
She turns around, just as the elevator opens the doors, the young woman gets in, and the doors close again. He stops in front of the elevator. It was useless, the girl could not be his daughter anyway. His daughter died in 1563 at the age of 74. He knew that, after all, he had been at the funeral. Still, something in his chest ached where his heart lay.
Allison, meanwhile, didn't think much of the encounter and went back to the lab from. "Good morning, Malia," she greeted her colleague. "Hello Allison!" The brown-haired one looks up happily from her equipment to greet her. "Why so happy?" she laughs softly before inquiring.
"We're waking up the mystery man today. Can you imagine that Allison?!" Malia was on fire for her tasks today. "Did you bring the serum, from the lab?" Allison pulls out a small tube from her lab coat pocket. "Yes, I brought it."
The elevator door opens another time; it's the man in the long coat getting off. Allison looks at him in wonder. "What are they doing here? Are they authorized to be here?" The blond man looks like he's seen a ghost. "Celestine?" Chris has to ask it will not give him rest otherwise. "I'm sorry but my name is Allison." A little disappointed, he slumps his shoulders. "Oh, I'm sorry, you just look so much like my daughter," he apologizes. Allison looks a little sad.
Chris walks past her to the glass coffin. There he lies, his beloved husband. He looks as beautiful as the day he was put on ice. Even the same clothes he still wears. He hasn't heard Peter's voice for so long and yet he hasn't forgotten. Chris misses feeling the werewolf next to him, being able to touch him.
Malia observes the situation and wonders about the connection between the two men. Chris looks so lovingly at the sleeping face of the other man that she considers only two things. Either they are relatives, or they have a relationship. She shrugs, in a few minutes she will know the answer.
"Alright, guys I'm ready. For all I care, we can try to wake Snow White from his beauty sleep" she says and steps closer to the coffin. Allison nods to her colleague and hands her the tube.
Chris is excited, the last time Peter was awakened to test a cure on him was almost 50 years ago. Malia turns off most of the equipment, broken the power supply. Then she carefully opens the coffin. Ice-cold air comes towards her and makes her shiver for a moment. With the help of a syringe, she draws the serum from the tube. She injects the green liquid into the still sleeping man.
She then quickly steps up next to Allison to watch what happens. After 45 seconds, his heart starts beating faster again, blood pumps through his veins and his eyes move behind his eyelids. "Peter? Open your eyes Peter... please" Chris kneels next to the glass coffin. He places one of Peter's hands in his. The hand is cold. After another minute, he begins to move.
Restless ocean blue eyes look around the room. He grips the hand holding him. "Christopher?" His voice is weak and a little rough. "Yes, I'm right here with you" he watches every move his werewolf makes. "You look worried, bastard" the brown haired one laughs softly. Chris pulls him into a tight hug. "That's because I'm worried about my husband."
"I feel sorry for any man who wanted to get married with you, after all." A typical Peter grin flits across his features. "I mean you, you idiot, there was never anyone else" Chris says offended only to kiss his werewolf then. Peter wraps his arms around Chris neck and deepens the kiss. "It was so cold and quiet without you" he says after the kiss. "I felt the same way" the vampire admits.
This now answered Malia's question, the two are married. "What a touching reunion. But how about we try to heal your husband first and you lick each other's faces afterwards?" "Theo, when did you get here?" Allison turns in surprise in the direction the voice came from. "Two minutes ago," he replies after a quick glance at his watch.
"All right... do what you have to do..." Chris lets go of his man and hands him over to the other three. "I have a question first" Peter turns to his husband. "What year is it?" The blond vampire smiles as he answers, "You look just as beautiful as the day we first met." Peter sighs in resignation and goes along with the others.
While a few tests are performed on him, he looks at Malia a little closer. "Elizabeth?" Both Malia and Allison turn to him. "Excuse me?" "You look like Elizabeth. Sorry, I guess I'm just wallowing too much in the past" he replies. Malia was a little curious, so she kept making conversation with him.
"It's okay. You've been in a coma for a long time" she pauses briefly as she checks his blood pressure, seeing black veins. "Who is Elizabeth, if you don't mind me asking?" "My daughter... I thought..." Peter looks sadly in another direction. "What? You can keep talking." Allison is also listening closely now. Because the other man also said that she looks like his daughter. "No, I actually don't know what I was thinking. I was watching my daughter die. I'm sorry I even bothered you about it." Peter smiled at her; Malia sees that his eyes are full of sadness while he smiles. It looks fake and forced.
"Don't apologize for something like that. I'm sure I seem rude, but can I ask how she died?" He nods, watching Theo and Allison mix something together in the background.
"It was a fire. Our house was set on fire while my whole family was inside. It spread to a forest fire. I was the only one who survived from who was in the house. My nephew and his big sister were lucky they weren't in the house, they were in town."
"That's terrible. I'm sorry for your loss." Malia didn't know what else to say, so she set to work helping the other two.
It took them an hour to get the remedy ready. As a final refinement, Chris added two drops of his blood and one drop of blood from direct Hale descendants to the mixture. It turns into a dark purple.
Chris is nervous, shaking slightly as he hands the serum back. Theo says nothing in response, grabbing a needle and standing next to Peter. "Please free your left arm so I can give you an injection." Peter rolls up his white sleeve, exposing many black veins. With his right hand, he holds Chris tight. "It can't get any worse than my disease anyway. How long do I even have?" Chris looks deep into Peter's eyes.
The coma has prevented the disease from progressing. "There's only two years left," he says with a rueful look. "I understand..." Peter averts his gaze from his husband again and watches as the injection is guided into his arm. Slowly, Theo pushes the fluid into Peter's veins. "Did it work?" Allison is the first to speak. "We don't know for another two hours," Theo replies as he and Allison begin to evaluate Peter's results.
After the two hours, Lydia is now also in the room. The two husbands sit across from the scientists. "How does it look? Is he healthy? Were you able to cure him?" Chris is about to burst with emotion. Peter weakly squeezes his lover's hand to reassure him.
Malia smiles happily. "I can happily tell you that Peter is healthy!" Relieved, the two smile. "After all these years, it's about time!" the werewolf says grumpily, giving his lover a kiss on the cheek.
"There's something else you should know" Lydia speaks in a serious tone. The two older men sigh. "Of course, there is something. What is it?" the vampire inquires. "Peter is no longer a full werewolf because of the medicine we gave him. He's part vampire, too. There was no other way to save him otherwise."
Peter smiles happily, "That's a small evil, considering I actually get to spend more than twice as much time with my husband now than I could have."
Malia and Allison, on the other hand, look at Lydia in complete horror. "Werewolf?" "Vampire?" Ask the two at the same time. Lydia sighs and gives Theo a sour look. "We will explain this to you later. Before that, though, I'm going to have a talk with you Theodore."
