Chapter Text
“Jules, stop!” Cal yelled, pushing Juliette’s head away from her arm. The two had been relaxing in Cal’s room, laughing and discussing the school play, when, without warning, Jules had lunged at Cal’s wrist with her fangs out, sinking her teeth into Cal’s skin and drinking from her veins.
Jules was raggedly panting as Cal took several steps back, grabbing a spear she had lying against her wall and pointing it at the vampire's heart. Paying the weapon little mind, Jules remained where she was, a trail of red dripping down the side of her mouth, her eyes clouded over. She lapped the remaining blood from around her lips, savouring it for just a moment before gulping it down greedily. With a hum, she blinked a few times, taking a calming breath as her sight gradually focused on Cal.
The couple remained in silence for several beats as Jules’ vision darted between making eye contact with Cal and staring at the wound on her girlfriend’s wrist. Then, with a gasp, Jules’ face crumbled, morphing into a look of horror and devastation.
“Cal— I— I’m so, so sorry— I just— I’m sorry— I don’t even— I don't know what to say— I didn't— I didn't mean to— I— I’m a monster,” Jules stammered, swallowing the lump in her throat as she tried to blink away the tears forming in her eyes.
Calliope let out the breath she’d been holding and lowered the spear. “You’re not a monster. Remember the bee?”
“You wouldn’t have gotten that—” Jules’ voice broke as she pointed at the broken skin on Calliope’s wrists, the bleeding, the lacerations in the shape of Juliette’s fangs. “If I wasn’t a monster.”
“I’m not going to say it’s alright, because it’s not… But I know you. And I know you didn’t mean to,” Cal said. “You just lost control.”
“Only monsters lose control,” Jules sniffled, a tear spilling from her eye and rolling down her cheek. “Why are you still here? Why aren’t you running away? Why haven’t you staked me?”
“We both know staking you won’t do anything,” Cal said. She took a step towards Jules, only for the vampire to take a step back. “I’m still here because I love you, Jules, and I know you didn’t mean to bite me and drink my blood.”
“But… I did bite you, and I did drink your blood…” Jules turned away, lowering her head. She noticed a first aid kit under Cal’s desk, which she went and picked up. “What if you didn’t push me off in time? This wasn't like the first time I bit you in the closet at that party. I was so hungry just then that I could have drained you dry. I could have killed you.”
“You didn’t,” Cal said. “And I can handle myself. I've fought you off, both times, haven't I?”
“You did…” Jules hesitantly nodded. “But you shouldn't have to.”
Cal sat back down on her bed, patting the empty spot next to her.
Jules remained where she was for a few seconds before relenting, going to sit next to her and opening the first aid kit. “May I?”
Cal nodded, and Jules got out an antiseptic and poured it onto a cotton bud, gently dabbing at the wound her very own fangs had caused. Of course, a bite from a legacy vampire didn’t last long. It was already mostly gone, and by the time Jules had retrieved a bandage from the kit, there was no use for it — not even a scar remained on Calliope’s wrist.
“I should go,” Jules whispered.
“I don’t want you to,” Cal replied.
“Why not?” Jules raised her voice. “Why are you so willing to forgive me? I don't deserve it.”
“You weren’t yourself—”
“I was exactly myself,” Jules sniffled. “I’m a vampire, no matter how hard I try to fight against it, I’ll always be a vampire. I’m always going to end up hurting everyone, even though I really, really don’t want to. I try so hard not to. But it will never be enough.”
“You lost control,” Cal said. “That hardly makes you an irredeemable monster.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re so willing to act like this is no big deal?” Jules questioned, lowering her head and fidgeting with her fingers. “You’re a monster hunter, and I’m clearly a monster.”
“If you’re a monster for losing control, then so am I.” Cal sighed, hesitating for a moment before she admitted, “Something similar happened with me once.”
“It… It did?” Jules asked. “What happened?”
“I was just walking down the hall at one of my old schools — I can’t even remember which one, there’ve been so many. I was lost and late, because as the constant new kid I’m always lost and late. I was just trying to get to class as soon as I could so the teacher wouldn’t give me detention so I was looking at the classroom numbers and not much else. That’s when it happened. A boy. A kid I didn’t know — I think from the year above me. He was walking in the opposite direction and accidentally brushed against my shoulder with his. And…”
Cal winced with a grimace, falling quiet, seemingly lost in thought.
“You don’t have to tell me about it if it’s too hard,” Jules offered.
Cal shook her head. “I want to talk about it.”
Jules nodded, taking Cal’s hand into hers and giving it a squeeze. Cal looked at their interlocked fingers and sighed, managing to muster a small smile only for it to quickly turn back into a grimace.
“I was only around twelve, but I’d been training to fight monsters since I had learned to walk, and so my instincts just kicked in. And I just started beating him up. I grabbed his arm and threw him over my head, slammed him to the ground, and started punching—” Cal shut her eyes, turning her head away from Jules. “He was just an innocent kid who’d done nothing wrong and I hurt him… badly.”
“He did bump into you,” Jules stated.
“So what?” Cal snapped. “That happens all the time, the situation should have ended with ‘oops, I’m sorry’, not a trip to the hospital.”
“Of course,” Jules said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply it was his fault.”
Cal nodded. “It was nobody's fault, I know that now. But at the time, he ended up with a broken arm and three broken ribs before I realised what was happening, what I was doing to just a regular kid. I felt so bad. So guilty. And we had to move again, even though we hadn’t killed all the monsters in the area, endangering all the people there.”
“So what did you do?” Jules asked. “How did you move on?”
“At first I couldn’t. I was just trying not to think about it but that just made it worse. My training suffered,” Cal said. “My whole life everything I did was to keep innocent people safe from monsters, but I felt like I’d become the monster. Attacking the innocent. And so I spent all that time feeling bad instead of doing something about it.”
“Until…” Jules’ prompted.
“It was my family who ended up finding a solution — they tracked down his parents’ phone number and I got to talk to him. I apologised, told him about my training, and he actually understood. He even asked me to teach him a few moves if I ever stopped by... whichever town it was. I didn’t feel as bad after, I was able to move forward — and my parents helped me focus my training so I wouldn’t accidentally hurt an innocent person ever again.”
“That’s great,” Jules said.
“So, instead of feeling guilty and calling yourself a monster,” Cal said. “Let’s find a way forward and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Okay,” Jules agreed, trying to ignore the nagging feeling deep in her stomach that this wouldn’t be as simple as Cal was making it out to be.