Chapter Text
As Pearl watched her friends walk past the horizon and into the woods she felt a tear dribble down her cheek. They had done it—her and Cleo had saved so many with their plan and now everyone was heading home. She had finally found a new home after leaving the coast. She traded the sand in her toes and sun on her face for the red glow of a blood moon and grime under her nails.
“Looks like everyone is heading home” Pearl murmured to Cleo who stood by her side with their hands intertwined.
“Yeah, where do you want to call home?” Pearl turned to Cleo. Cleo had clearly been crying but she was trying to hide it with a faint smile.
“We’re staying here, to guard Oakhurst?” Cleo let out a light chuckle at pearls words “no, no, no do you want to stay in the town or the castle?”
“Ohhh” Pearl turned back to face the town. The town was in shambles, their house being one of the few that still stood. The paths were cluttered with ash and rubble. A half hearted wall barely protected the town. Everything looked on the verge of falling apart.
“I think I would rather stay at the castle if that’s okay? The town looks like a major safety hazard”
“That sounds good but we should figure out where we want to build our cottage”
“Yeah” the two walked over to their house they had built together. If you had told Pearl when they met that the beautiful woman she had found in the dirt of Oakhurst would soon be the most important person to her she wasn’t quite sure if she would have believed it. As they entered the house the two vampires never needed permission for, Cleo lovingly scooped up Oscar, letting go of pearls hand. She immediately missed the calming touch of cool skin.
“Is there anything important we need to take to the castle?” Pearl questioned.
“Uhhh, can you carry Oscar’s stuff and our clothes?”
“Yeah but I need to pack them back into our suitcases” Cleo lovingly put Oscar back down. “That sounds like a two of us task” Cleo quietly sat down beside her pulling out an old worn satchel bag. The bag was embroidered with night shade flowers and few of the stitches had clearly snagged causing the embroidery to fray. The bag had most certainly seen better days, Pearl assumed that there was a sentimental reason why her girlfriend kept it.
Cleo had brought a lot more to Oakhurst than Pearl, but both of them still had relatively few possessions. Most of Cleo’s appeared to be sentimental items like old clothes and blankets. She also had a lot of letters; Pearl had heard her writing them every morning but didn’t fully know their contents. Pearl on the other hand had only brought the pure essentials: a couple changes of clothes, basic hygiene supplies, her hunting tools, and a couple letters from her family. All of this meant her bag had a lot of empty space for Oscar’s stuff.
It was nice just sitting quietly next to Cleo sorting through their stuff. Everything had been so chaotic the last few weeks that they never had time for quiet moments. It took Pearl around an hour to pack up all her stuff and figure where all of Oscar’s stuff had been hidden. She got up to place her bag by the door before settling back down. She let her head lull onto Cleo’s shoulder. Cleo paused folding her clothes to grab Pearl’s hand, “I really thought I was going to die today—I didn’t know if at this point there was a way for everyone to survive” Cleo turned to face Pearl, burying her face in Pearl’s hair “I’m really glad we both made it out”
“Yeah,” Pearl squeezed Cleo’s hand before she continued, “when the town burned down I didn’t know how to handle it. I couldn’t understand the purpose of endlessly killing each other until we never came back—when we all got the feeling that Avid died I was so scared that it was you and I had no idea what to do if you had died.”
The two turned to each other, enveloping the other in a choking hug and letting their tears drip down the other’s shoulders. The two stayed for a while longer quietly supporting each other, and while they still had a lot of healing together, it would come with time. And they had eternity for it.
When they finally finished packing up, Cleo picked Oscar back up and Pearl grabbed their bags. The sun was starting to set and Cleo felt everything get lighter as the dark set in. That was the thing with becoming a vampire; you got so much power and strength but the sun would take all of that away, making you weaker than the average mortal.
Now that Pearl was turned, her hair had these beautiful red streaks, which perfectly matched the roses that already adorned her. She was currently wearing some of Cleo’s clothes, a red blouse with a black dress that sported rose embroidery. It really fit her. Cleo’s mother had loved embroidery; she said it gave her something to do in her long life. Now that Cleo would live just as long she might as well start too.
The bridge was barely held together with a series of small rope bridges making it crossable. The bridge violently shook as Cleo crossed, scaring Oscar. “It’s okay baby, you're fine” Cleo mumbled to the cat. Once Cleo crossed she turned back to Pearl, “fixing this bridge is the first thing on our agenda.” Pearl finished crossing before bending down and petting the cat in Cleo’s arms, “yeah we don’t want this poor baby getting scared anymore” Oscar meowed softly in response to Pearl. Cleo couldn’t help but find the sight of the two adorable.
Once they entered the castle, Pearl headed down into the crypt to put away their stuff while Cleo started taking stock of how the castle looked. Despite living in the building for the last few weeks, she had always been too busy being a double agent to actually take a good look. The coven never slept so there wasn’t really anywhere to lay down, which Cleo immediately noted would annoy Pearl. It wasn’t too late to go back to the town and get a bed. Just as Cleo was saying bye to Oscar before leaving Pearl walked into the ball room.
“Hey Cleo?”
“Yeah?”
“Does something feel a little off? I know it’s a blood moon and all is normal to feel a little bit weird?”
“This is perfectly fine.”
“This is fine?”
“Yeah, this feels normal.”
“Okay…” then suddenly Cleo watched her girlfriend turn into a wolf as tall as her. Her fur was the same color as her hair with her belly being a lighter shade. The roses in her hair fell to the floor and the dress she was wearing seemingly disappeared.
“Oh” the two said in unison before pausing, promptly being left with no more words to utter.
“Pearl, you look very cute,” Cleo finally managed to say.
“Cleoooooooooo” Pearl sounded like a cat that had just got caught in a storm and was now begging to be dried off.
“Yes, my puppy?”
“I can’t change back, when I was a bat I could change back and I’m trying but nothing is happening,” at which Cleo grabbed Pearl and hugged her. It was a bit awkward with Pearl still taller than her even as a wolf on all fours, Cleo was more hugging her neck then Pearl herself. “Do you want me to bat so we’re not people mode together?”
“Yeah,” Pearl mumbled
Cleo let her body blur the lines of existence as she faded into a bat. She was now significantly smaller than Pearl, so she perched on top of her head. “Cleo, where did the other vampires sleep? I want to just go to bed and hope I’m back to normal in the morning.”
“The vampires didn’t really sleep, we were always running around at night and didn’t need to sleep so we didn’t.” Pearl let out a sad howl at that before slowly walking into a corner of the ballroom. She was careful to not knock Cleo off her as she walked and laid down. Cleo quietly moved down to Pearl’s fluffy stomach. There was so much fur that she was practically buried, it was so warm and comfortable that she might just pass out there. But then Oscar settled beside her on Pearl’s stomach filling the room with a loud purr.
Cleo’s heart was filled with all those warm fuzzy feelings that surrounded her outside. The sweetest treat after so much hardship. “I’m really glad I met you Pearl—I love you,” something about this moment made the words she held back for weeks slip out easily. She felt the gentle rise and fall pearls chest rapidly increase after her confession before the love of her eternity whispered “I love you too, goodnight Cleo.”
“Goodnight Pearl.”
An eternity with the best woman in the world was the greatest thing a monster like her could ever receive—maybe one day she could truly feel like she deserves it.