Archive of Our Own

Stephanie Lauter was a vampire. She had been since 1976. Sure, it was less than great being stuck at 18 forever, needing a real fake ID and a fake fake ID, but there were benefits. They were few and far between, but they were there. Most things couldn’t kill her, for one. Gone were the days of strawberry allergies and ducking under the low-hanging telephone wire on her street. 

Still, it got lonely fast. Letting people in was hard enough, but finding people who actually got what she was going through was damn near impossible. It was, in fairness, her own fault. This time around, she chose college in Portland, Oregon. Sure, part of the reason she chose it was that no one cared if she was weird in college or Portland. But most of these kids didn’t get what it was like to lose everyone they had ever known. To go to funeral after funeral with no end in sight, knowing that for some she was the cause. To listen to their ghosts for the one day she saw them after killing them. She was lucky if she found someone with one dead parent, and that had happened to Steph while she was in middle school. 

One day, Steph was chilling in her dorm room . A single, to avoid suspicion from possibly killing a roommate, decorated with piles of clothes on the floor, a minifridge, and many vintage band posters. Some were her own which she had kept from high school, most were cheap knockoffs. A vampire’s gotta make a living somehow, after all. At least she didn’t need all her albums on vinyl - one Spotify account was all she needed to keep in the background while she studied. The wonders of modern technology. 

Fleetwood Mac blaring in her ears, she typed some bullshit class reflection. All she needed to do was hit the word count. Cs get degrees, after all. As she tried to think of synonyms for reveals and demonstrates, the front door opened. She couldn’t sense the person, or smell their blood. All she recognised was that the people in the common room started moving, so she went out to join them. 

A vaguely familiar girl with wavy brown hair, pinned back with butterfly clips, stood at the door. She wore a loose periwinkle turtleneck and embroidered navy jeans, with a WWJD bracelet around her wrist. Steph hadn’t seen someone wear one of those since the ‘90s. At least it wasn’t a cross. 

Her lips slightly parted when their eyes met. “Stephanie Lauter?” she asked. She asked like she had seen a ghost. 

How did she know that? Her face wasn’t anywhere on the Internet - hard to be, considering she showed up invisible in any kind of reflection. Sometimes she’d wear heavy makeup if she knew it was unavoidable, and close her eyes so they didn’t appear to be gaping holes, but that was for special occasions. Even then, she hadn’t been called Stephanie Lauter since she faked her death in ‘82. Maybe she found an old yearbook, or something. That had to be it.

“My name’s Amanda, actually. Sorry to disappoint. What about you?” 

She nodded, closing her eyes until she spoke. Taking a deep breath, she said, “It’s Evangeline.” 

Steph’s gut told her that couldn’t be right, that she had met this girl before and her name wasn’t Evangeline. Still, people had kids. Other people born in 1958 had grandkids by now. Maybe Evangeline was one of them.

“Nice to meet you, Evangeline,” she said, trying to ignore the twinge in her chest. “Did they tell you what room you’re in?”

“431. They said it was the single.” 

431?

“There has to be a mistake. That’s my room,” Steph said, bringing a hand to the back of her neck. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

All the rooms came with mirrors. That never bothered Steph too much because, after almost 50 years, she was used to what she was. It could at least be useful in covering up and looking at her outfits. But a roommate? She would know instantly. That wasn’t even getting into the standard bloodlust issue. The first time she tried college, she shared a bedroom with three other girls. It would’ve been a nightmare for anyone, but it was drastically worse for the girls who woke up every couple of weeks with someone’s head detached from their body. 

Evangeline stared at her with haunting brown eyes, eyes that knew something the rest of the dorm didn’t. Dark windows to a soul she now had to know, and had to keep alive. Steph’s heart - now used to pump stolen blood - fluttered, for the first time in a long time. The last time she really felt that way was with Pete.

This could not end like last time. 

“I’ll talk to student housing,” Evangeline said, voice overflowing with fake positivity. “Do you mind if I keep my bags in 431 in the meantime?”

“Of course not,” Steph answered. “Yeah, go for it.”

Student housing was useless. Not a fucking surprise. Apparently, they meant that 431 was currently a single, because Steph was alone in there, which meant there was enough room for Evangeline. Never mind the fact that Steph and Evangeline had already paid more money individually. They didn’t even provide a second bed frame, like they did for everyone else during moving week, but said that they’d provide an extra blanket. In January. It was thinner material than half Steph’s shirts. College was such a fucking scam. 

Evangeline sat cross-legged on the rough, shitty carpet. “If we’re going to share a room, we’ll need some ground rules.”

“For starters, we’re gonna need to decide who has the bed. No offence, but I don’t wanna share,” Steph said. She’d prefer not to sleep on the floor either, in case the sunlight came through the gaps in the door, but it was a lot better than ripping this girl’s head off.

“I can sleep on the floor. I run hot, anyway,” she answered. 

“You sure you’re down with that?”

“My coming here made you share a room. The least I can do is let you keep your bed,” she said. Then, her head turned to Steph’s mini-fridge. You know, the one where she kept a bunch of blood. In opaque drink bottles, she wasn’t dumb enough to show off her diet to the entire dorm, but it was still blood. Evangeline fiddled with her WWJD bracelet. “I have a bit of a… unique diet. Can I store my food in there, no questions asked? And don’t eat it either, of course, but that should be a given.”

Steph let out a sigh of relief, eyes drifting up to the ceiling. “Deal. As long as you don’t touch my shit either.”

“Of course. Is that all?”

If only that were all. “I… sunburn really easily. It’s why I take night classes,” she began. It was true when she was human, but sometimes people were weird about the prospect of a mixed race person daring to get sunburnt. Losers. “So if we can keep the curtains over the windows in the daytime, that’d be great.”

Evangeline nodded, lips pursed. “Are you often going to be out at night?”

“I’m almost only out at night. Night shift, all that. So, you know, if I’m out late, I’m probably fine.” Unless someone had run her through the heart with a wooden stake which, fortunately, no one had yet. 

“I get it. And it’s the same for me - when I’m staying late, I’ll let you know, but, when I say late, I mean it.” She spoke quickly, loudly, and the walls in the dorms were pretty thin. Fortunately, Steph hadn’t said anything too weird for college, and a lot of people who were still around at this hour were either making their own sounds or desperately blocking those noises out. 

After a few weeks of living together, Steph had gotten comfortable around Evangeline. Not too comfortable, slipping up too much around anyone would be dangerous, but sharing a room with someone and not having the overwhelming urge to drink their blood was a relief. She didn’t know why - Evangeline showed up in the mirror, after all - but she wasn’t about to start complaining. Even with how much she talked, how desperate she was to get to know Steph, it was endearing. Soon enough, she could answer those questions, and ask them back to Evangeline. Her mysterious new roommate was studying microbiology and religion, a weird combo which had zero crossover with Steph’s UX design course. Still, at least she was using her one life to do what she was passionate about. She talked about how being a Christian influenced her bisexuality with so much thought and depth and research that it was a wonder she was only minoring in it as an undergrad. And, of course, she wouldn’t let anyone forget it. Her “real home” was a small town, but she’d moved around the place a bit, from farmland to the big city and back again. Steph said it was the same for her, since it was similar enough, but without elaborating on how much time there was between moves. Evangeline didn’t have social media, and barely used her cell phone. It was nice, not feeling like she was this weird outlier who didn’t quite get using modern technology at every hour of every day. Sure, phones were cool, but not by that much. 

That was it. Evangeline made her feel normal again, for the first time in a long time. For the first time since she was a teenager, living at home with her dad in the swanky mayoral accommodation, not worrying about how she would get her next meal or who she would hurt on the way there. Going out into the world, or, hell, even the common room brought her back to reality, but there was nothing like that with Evangeline. There were days where she wanted to invite her into the twin bed, just to feel her living heat, but she didn’t know how dangerous that could be for her, and sure didn’t want to find out. The closest she got was sharing a pillow, and placing it under her head when Evangeline went out for her 6 o’clock run. 

It wasn’t until the fourth week of semester that Evangeline made good on her promise to stay out late. Steph didn’t get back until 2 o’clock at night, herself, after her general night classes and a frat party. She fed before she left, which was just as well, since it meant she had a clear head when Evangeline didn’t come home. She had been out since the morning. 

She knew. She knew she had told her not to worry, but Steph couldn’t help herself. She had never stayed out this late, even with the warning. Even if she had a normal sleep schedule, she wouldn’t consider going to sleep with her gone. The first person she had gotten close to, beyond just the surface of majors and music, and now, by no fault of Steph’s, she was gone.

At 3, Steph parted the curtains for the first time since she had moved in at the top of semester. Though her sight in the dark was better than anywhere else, especially with blood pumping through her veins, there was no sight of Evangeline. At 4, she called her, only to discover that her phone was buzzing against her desk, which stood at the end of her thin blanket and shitty blow up mattress. So much for trying to track her, or asking one of their neighbours to track her. At 5, after an hour of tossing Evangeline’s phone between her hands and pretending to watch the Christopher Reeve Superman, she took a closer look at it. It was an iPhone 6, and the fact that it still functioned explained a lot of Evangeline’s faith in God to Steph. The navy phone case was covered in scratches, barely hidden by the dark color, as was the screen protector. An old photo of a man with glasses and red-headed woman lit up the screen when she touched the home button. Like Evangeline, they looked familiar. Maybe these were her grand-parents, or great-grandparents. Maybe they had a Class of 1976 yearbook from Hatchetfield High. 

Now, what was Evangeline’s password? 6 digits. First, Steph tried her birthday: 09-14-05. Wrong. Next, she tried Christmas Day. 12-25-01, since Evangeline had drilled into her that there was no 0 AD or 0 BC. Last try before she would be locked out, and she didn’t want Evangeline to get back and not get into her phone. J-E-S-U-S-C. Also, no. It was worth the shot. 

No notifications popped up while Steph waited. Of course, no one else would have reason to be worried about her. No one else knew anything was wrong. 

When the sun rose, Steph drew the curtains closed in defeat. Still, she didn’t stop waiting. She didn’t leave the room. She didn’t blink. Not until Evangeline got back. After all, she had forever to wait. 

The door didn’t open until 9 o’clock. Slowly, carefully, Evangeline limped through the door in a loose black hoodie and sweatpants that Steph had never seen her wear. Steph had never seen Evangeline wear black, period. Her brown hair was frizzy, and the strands tumbled every which way. She grabbed an ice pack from the mini-fridge, as well as a package of raw meat.        

“Evangeline? Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick,” Steph said, reaching for her. 

She flinched in response, descending to the floor. “This is normal. Don’t worry about it.” Evangeline had never been so tired, so quiet . All the other times she whispered, her voice carried. Today was different. She bit off a large piece of raw steak, and breathed. “Can I have the pillow, please?”

“The pillow? You can use the bed if you want.”

“I’m already down here, Steph,” Evangeline said. It was the second time she had called her by that name, her real name, the name the world had forgotten. “Besides, where will you go?”

“ I can sleep on the floor,” she said. “Or at my desk, or in the library, or-”

“Don’t. This is fine. Just… Can you stay with me? Please?” Evangeline stared at her, desperate, the light hitting those haunting brown eyes that they turned hazel. That pleading voice, those bright eyes, those sharp nails. 

Steph knew her. Evangeline was Grace Chasity. Her best friend in elementary school, an annoying acquaintance in middle school, a stranger in high school. 

“Anytime,” she said. Though she rested her laptop on her bed, she wasn’t looking at it. Instead, she watched the girl fall into a deep sleep, not even breathing. However, Steph wasn’t worried anymore, because she realised Grace had stopped needing to breathe to stay alive decades before. She felt the wings of butterflies against her skin while gazing at her because, finally, she had someone from home. Not just anyone, but her.

The alarm clock on their dresser had already ticked over to midnight by the time Grace stirred. She did not rise like the sun, glowing and gradual, but like death, sudden and firm. Steph had caused enough of it to know. 

The moment she moved to the closet to grab her toiletries bag, which she insisted on not leaving in the bathroom, Steph’s heart struck her again. Maybe it wasn’t as dead as she had thought.

“Hey, Grace, can we talk?” she asked. 

Grace instantly whipped her head around, faster than she had ever seen someone else move. “You figured it out.” A smile spread across her lips, that face lighting up. Neither of them were alone, not anymore. Even her voice was the same. How could it have taken her so long to have realised?

“I figured out that you’re you, but… how?” She wasn’t another vampire, that much was clear. But, as far as Steph knew, even vampires were few and far between. Was she some other kind of vampire? Some other kind of being? 

“Not here. Not where people can hear us,” Grace answered, pulling out a change of clothes and a pair of shower shoes. “And I need to shower off last night.”

“See you soon?” Steph asked.

“Soon.”

On Valentine’s Day 2025, Grace Chasity took Stephanie Lauter to the Portland woods in the middle of the night. Steph didn’t know what part of that sentence was most unbelievable. It didn’t take long for them to find a bench on the hiking trail with a perfect view of the trees.

“I know you’re a vampire,” Grace said, fully confident. Okay, so they were jumping right into it. 

“How did you know?”

“Other than your skin being ice cold, you not going out in the sunlight, and speaking like everyone else did when we were human? And the fact that it was not hard for me to smell the blood in your fridge?” Grace asked. 

Huh. When she saw Twilight in theatres and her partner at the time begged Steph to turn them, she didn’t think it was the best representation of who she was. She certainly wouldn’t have thought holy Grace Chastity would have liked it. 

“Yeah, other than all that.”

She simply shrugged. “I know what you look like, Steph. I knew it was you the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“But… didn’t you think I was dead? How did you realise that I was… I hadn’t even met another immortal other than you.”

“Ye of little faith. Did you know Hatchetfield has the most monsters per capita of any town in the United States?” How was she so excited? So energetic? Other than just being Grace Chasity. 

“Huh?”

“I mean, sure, there are villages that are just exclusively werewolves, or vampires who feed on a group of humans, or fae and mortals cohabitating - though those can all be weird - but Hatchetfield, given its population, has a staggering number of monsters. Didn’t you ever hear the campfire stories? The Siren and Her Kiss of Death? The Boy, The Beast, and The Ghost? The Mutating Fairy Ring?” 

“My dad never let me go camping.” When they were 8, Grace had invited Steph to come camping with her and her parents in the Witchwood. While Steph had been excited, and her mom was absolutely fine with it, her dad vetoed it immediately. That was the only rule he gave her without being condescending, though he was even more serious than he ever had been before or since, and it was the only rule Steph never broke. 

“That’s right! Of course.” She bobbed her head around, searching for reasons. “And you went to Hatchetfield High, not Sycamore.”

“What? Why does that matter? I’m pretty sure there were plenty of freaks at Hatchetfield High.”

“Oh, there were! Eventually, at least. Some of them after you “died.” It’s just that Sycamore is a werewolf-run institution.”

Enough werewolves to make up a school. Steph had to look up at the stars. Her life for almost fifty years hadn’t been normal, but this was unhinged. “ What the fuck?”

Grace, eternally incapable of reading the room, continued. Steph hadn’t realised how much she missed her. “Most people don’t know that, not even the alumni. My parents didn’t know before they sent me there, they just knew that they didn’t have co-ed dances, and that our pastor was on the school board.” So that’s why they were the timberwolves. Steph had hardly seen or heard any when she lived in the town, but she figured they were in the Witchwood. 

“So… you’re a werewolf.”

“Yeah. Since senior year.” She confessed it so naturally. Even when Steph had the courage to share it, on her own terms, it came out in whispers and scrambled syllables. 

She let the wind whistle between them. The weight of Grace’s words began to fall onto her shoulders. Steph curved over, resting her elbows and forearms on her knees. The dirt path was easy. Her shoes were easy. Non-confrontational. She turned her head to look up at Grace.  “How?” she asked, more still and quiet than the night itself. 

“I was head of the yearbook committee, and I spent some of my lunches and free periods organizing the pages in the basement. They didn’t let a lot of kids down there, and most teachers didn’t let anyone go there. Some of the teachers weren’t allowed to go there. I had been a hall monitor for 3 and a half years before anyone gave me the key. While I was assembling the portraits, I started hearing screams that turned into howls. They had restraints, but not everyone wore them. Gabriel didn’t. I knew it was him when he bit me; he kept his eyes. 

“He was so excited when he saw me after that. I don’t know if he knew what he was doing, but he knew it was me. And I just cried. I couldn’t tell my parents, I had to lose this friendship with a boy I thought I was meant to marry. I cried out to God many times. To do something. To fix me. He didn’t, but I ended up loving it all anyway. Not Sycamore - never Sycamore - but it ended up being a gift from God that had its challenges, not a punishment. It ended up being me.”

“Did you ever end up telling your parents?” Steph asked. She didn’t know how she’d ever be able to tell a thing like that to her dad. Mayor Solomon Lauter had enough on his plate. She didn’t even see him cry at her own funeral. 

Grace smiled softly, lines briefly appearing in her youthful face. “Not fully. I never stopped visiting them, so I’m sure they knew something. But I was too scared to tell them, at first, and after a while I just wanted to make use of the time I had.”

“Are they still alive?” 

“Daddy passed at the end of 2022, but Mama’s still going strong.”

Another thought popped into Steph’s head, but she was too much of a coward to say it. Too much to find out another major truth tonight. “Your mom’s the best. The meatloaf she brought to me and dad was the only thing I could stomach the first month I, you know… especially when I hadn’t fed.”

Grace folded her hands together and pressed her lips together. Ever since childhood, that was Grace’s “please-don’t-ask-me-questions” face. Which always meant that Steph would ask her questions. “What was in that meatloaf, Grace?”

“Okay, even though my mom didn’t technically know about the supernatural - apart from Jesus - she… she still made meatloaf with, you know, human meat.”

“What?” Steph’s mouth dropped in shock, and it took everything she had to possibly stop a laugh from coming out. It didn’t work. “Grace, I ate that when I was a human. My dad ate that.”

“I did, too! She didn’t tell me until after Dad died, but you two said you liked it! And she thought what better place to hide the evidence than in the mayor’s stomach.” 

Steph sat up, bumping into Grace. Could she… Worth a shot. “So Hatchetfield has large quantities of monsters and serial killers, then?” she joked, throwing an arm around Grace’s shoulders. Just casual enough to seem careless, friendly, even. 

“As far as I know, my mom was the only serial killer in town. Monsters, on the other hand…” Grace turned to look into Steph’s eyes. She wouldn’t flinch. She wouldn’t turn away from her smile. Not this time.

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Me and you, for starters,” Grace leaned in as she teased. For a moment, Steph’s veins were alight, warmed by a certain old fire. “Gabriel, as I said. Max Jagerman told me he became a siren at the start of senior year, apparently the guidance counselor was, too. Deb Hollis, if you know her? Her sister, Nora, went to Sycamore, they both ended up as werewolves. Alice Woodward got bit by a vampire in ‘85. She and Deb moved to New York as “roommates”, and my mom was really uncomfortable with it. Alexandra and Hannah Foster were either fae or part-fae, I can never remember, and Patricia Johnson was a mermaid, which is very different from a siren. Oliver Brown, the one who worked at the Cineplex, died there and became the resident ghost. I tried to ask him how, but he made the sound painfully loud every time I went in after that. Oh, and Caitlyn and Reggie were also vampires, but you could’ve guessed that, since they moved to Hatchetfield in junior year and avoided photos like the plague. I think that’s the most important people you went to high school with.”

Steph sat with her mouth agape, her arm falling over Grace’s shoulder with even more abandon. “I didn’t know there were so many.” How was she supposed to find out? Ask? She thought it was safer to isolate herself from everyone who wasn’t six feet under, especially after what happened to Pete.

“It’s okay,” Grace said, holding one of Steph’s hands in both of hers.

“It’s not. I pushed everyone away, and for what?”

“No matter what you’ve done before, you have forever to try something new. I’m not the same as I was when I was a human. I’m not the same as I was a decade ago. You don’t have to be, either.” 

Steph couldn’t accept that with words of her own. Instead, she let Grace hold her, knowing that they couldn’t let each other go. Sitting with her, nestled in her arms, something continued to rise within her. That fire, that soft heat in her marrow, so foreign after how icy and cold undeath had been. They waited together through the night. Sometimes, they would sing a song from their youth, or a more recent hit. Sometimes, they would talk through the past decades, but Steph wasn’t ready yet to look back at the harder stuff of her years. Sometimes, they would sit still, heads interlocking, staring at the stars, but that silence didn’t last long on Grace’s end.

They left just before the first rays of sunlight crept over the horizon. Grace didn’t let Steph dawdle, marching in front of her back to their dorm. When they reached their little home, violet curtains blocking out the sun, Steph crawled under the covers, and invited Grace to join her. She obliged that morning, and each one after. 

Grace was there when Steph fed, and a ghost yelled at her for 24 hours. Steph was there when Grace turned, holding her paw, knowing the scratches could never bleed. Grace held Steph’s hand when she returned to Hatchetfield for the first time in fifty years, knocking on the door of the mayoral accommodation for the first time. Steph held Grace’s hand when she introduced herself as Grace’s girlfriend to Karen Chasity. They held each other as they kissed under the stars in the woods, on the beaches, atop buildings all across the world. 

Stephanie Lauter was not lost and alone anymore. She was a vampire, and she was loved.

O