Chapter Text
The veil that trapped them in Oakhurst vanished. Everyone was free to leave, everyone who survived, at least. Apo looked back one last time. The house she built with Pyro, Martyn's house next to theirs, the wooden walls now burnt down. The hill that led to the crypt, where she was lured to what they saw as death, to the castle in which they turned. The castle that they lived in and pretended to be on the vampires' side. The castle that took everything from them.
"I hope I never see you again."
She meant it. Every syllable.
The journey home was long. Hunger was manageable, barely. She focused on the sound of their footsteps, the way the gravel shifted, or leaves crunched. Anything to keep her mind from circling back to that hill, the crypt, or the smell of blood in everything she passed. The sun settled behind her, the moon bright and high, no longer encased in a red sky.
The forest began to open; rows of buildings came into view. In the distance, her eyes found a little house, the light shining through the window. Warm, yellow, and steady. They could see her moving past it once, twice. Alive, breathing, same as always. Untouched. Apo wished she could say the same. Ignore the cold truth as if the world hadn't just swallowed them whole and spat them back out unrecognizable.
They walked up the path, paved in stone, until they were in front. The door inches away, the knob just moments away. They stopped, sucking in a deep breath before turning away, walking back up the hill, hiding themselves in the trees. They lingered, watching the window until the light went out, then she watched it in the dark. She was home, and yet still so far.
The letters continued. Each opening in that familiar line every single time: My beloved Cherri.
They read through carefully, making sure there were enough mundane details to keep her from worrying. The outpost, the weather, the townsfolk. Nothing about the crypt. Nothing about the castle. Nothing about what they became, nothing about what had been done without her consent.
She kept writing as though she was still away. Still finishing up. A little longer, always just a little longer. When Cherri's replies came, she read every single one over and over.
My dearest Apo, there is not a day that goes by without me missing you. I'm glad to hear you are doing well, but I wish you'd come home faster. I've been keeping your side of the bed warm. Don't make me wait much longer.
Each letter folded small and kept in her pocket until the ink faded away.
She told herself one more week. Then another. Then another.
𓆩𓆪 ཊཌཬརདཏ 𓆩𓆪
The weeks flew by, staying in the safety of the trees as she’d watch Cherri move around the garden with gentleness and care. Cherri would bring out her easel, setting herself up in the flowers, painting the rows of colors. The way her tongue would stick out as she added the finer details, smiling in the morning light. At night they’d see her shadow dancing in the kitchen window, hear her low hums and the whistle of the kettle. Apo’s hands would itch, wishing to sway with her, but then she’d look down, fingers replaced by claws, and she’d stop.
The house was dark and quiet. The moon high above the trees. Apo moved carefully up the path, letter in hand. The mailbox a few steps away. In and out, Cherri would never know. She hasn’t known.
The porch light flickered as the front door opened. Apo froze.
Cherri stood in the doorway, a blanket settled on her shoulders, hair loose, clearly not expecting anything beyond a cool night and a moment of quiet. Her eyes found Apo immediately. She went still. Neither of them spoke.
The forest echoed around them. A cricket in the grass, wind moving through the trees. The small buzzing of the light.
Cherri's gaze dropped to the mailbox, then back up.
"How long?" She whispered.
A beat.
"A while." Apo turned away.
They heard Cherri exhale slowly, deliberately, the way she did when she was deciding something.
"You were here. This whole time you were here, and you were writing me letters saying-" Her voice cracked. "Apo, look at me."
They turned back slowly, their heels dragging against the stone.
Cherri's eyes swept over her the way they always did. Her brows pulled together, her hand lifting halfway before she caught herself.
"What happened to your hair?"
Apo opened her mouth. Closed it.
"What happened to you?"
It wasn't a question anymore.
Apo swallowed. "I'm sick."
"Sick," Cherri repeated slowly, "You've been standing outside our home for — how long, Apo? How many weeks have you been out here, and you're telling me you're sick?"
"Cherri-"
"Don't you dare say my name like you're about to talk me down." She pressed a hand over her mouth briefly, chest heaving. Then her fist curled, her voice tightened. "You lied to me. Every letter."
"I know."
"Why?" The word came out raw. "Why couldn't you just," She gestured at the door, at the house, at everything behind her. "Come home?"
Apo rehearsed this moment a hundred times. For weeks. For months. Every answer falling short.
"I didn't know how," they said finally. "I didn't know how to walk through that door."
Cherri stared at them. Then she crossed the remaining distance and grabbed Apo's face in both hands, turning it up toward her, studying them in the dark like she was memorizing something.
"You're going to tell me everything," she whispered. "But first you're coming inside."
The kitchen was warm. Cherri lit a candle, put the kettle on, and moved around the way she always did, like she needed something to do.
Apo sat at the table as they watched her move.
"Tell me," Cherri said quietly. Her back was still turned.
"I'm dying." The words sat differently out loud than they ever had in her head. Flatter. More real. "I don't know how long I have. That's - that's what the hair is. That's what the sickness is."
Cherri stilled for a moment. Then she poured the tea. She set a cup in front of Apo and sat across from her, both hands wrapped around her own. She looked at the candle flame for a long moment before she looked up.
"And you don't think I deserve to know?"
Apo bit her lip.
"You were going to die," Her voice stayed low, "Alone. Without me ever knowing. Without me ever getting to," She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "You were going to disappear one day, and I'd never know why?"
Apo stared at the table. "The militia would have told you. I didn't want to put you through it."
"That isn't yours to decide." Cherri blinked back tears, but her voice didn't waver. "I have loved you every day you were gone. I have kept your side of the bed warm and written you letters and waited. You don't get to take that choice from me. You don't get to decide I'm better off not knowing." She reached across the table and covered Apo's hand with hers. "I would rather have had every horrible day of this with you than one peaceful day wondering."
Apo felt something in their chest give way.
"I was scared," they said. Barely a sound.
"I know." Cherri squeezed her hand. "I know you were. But you're here now."
𓆩𓆪 ཊཌཬརདཏ 𓆩𓆪
She didn’t die.
The weeks turned into months, and she didn’t die. Eventually, Cherri stopped looking at her like she might disappear between one breath and the next. Their lives continued, waking up early, tending to the livestock, watering the garden. A mundane, simple life.
She wasn't sure when pretending something became closer to living.
Nights were the hardest. Cherri was breathing slowly next to them as Apo tried to drown out the sound of her heartbeat. Her stomach would yell, and her claws would betray her as the smell of Cherri’s blood pumping became too much. She’d run outside, claws digging into her skin, watching the cattle tempted. She never acted.
Mornings were the easiest. Cherri made too much noise getting out of bed, always had, and Apo would lie still, listening to her move through the house. The kettle. The creak of the back door opening. The particular sound of Cherri humming to herself when she thought no one could hear. The smell of paint and the strokes of the brush. Small and constant and so achingly familiar that it made hunger quieter somehow.
She still hadn't told Cherri everything. The full shape of it. She'd said she was dying, that she was sick, and she'd let Cherri fill in the rest with something human and manageable.
Rise and repeat. She did the dishes. She mended fences. She walked the fields at dusk when the light was low, and the hunger was restless, and she needed movement. She pretended to write her reports, sent them, received new ones, and filed them away. She did whatever was asked of her, and she was very careful not to think too hard about the pit growing louder beneath all of it.
Then one evening, Cherri fell asleep against her shoulder before the candle burned down, her breathing slowed and her hand loose around Apo's arm, and Apo sat very still in the dark thinking not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Eighteen months. They lasted eighteen months.
Eighteen months of careful mornings, quiet evenings, and lying very still beside Cherri in the dark while the hunger carved itself deeper. She learned its rhythms, ate discreetly, told herself she had it under control, that they were fine.
It was late evening when they came inside from the fields to find Cherri standing at the stove, and the smell of her stopped them in the doorway. Cherri turned around, smiling, ready to say something when it dropped.
“Apo?”
“I’m fine.”
“What’s wrong?” Cherri set down the spatula, stepping forward. “What’s going on?”
Apo flinched. Cherri stopped.
“I said I’m fine.”
Cherri bit her lip but nodded. She turned back to the stove, slowly. Picked back up the spatula with tense shoulders. They went about the rest of their night. Apo lay in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, cursing herself over and over again.
It wasn’t until the sun was just beginning to bleed over the horizon, pale gold creeping over the fields. Her knees were cold and damp against the earth. Her hands were worse. Apo looked down at them. Then at the field around her. The haze lifted all at once, and the hunger finally went quiet. Until clarity of it all, along with the silence of the farm, pressed in around her.
The back door creaked. Light footsteps tapped against the porch. They couldn’t look up.
"Apo?”
They couldn't turn around.
Cherri crossed the field, quiet for a long moment, taking in the scene around them. Apo waited for the screaming. For running footsteps going the other way.
Instead, Cherri lowered herself down beside her in the damp grass, not touching, just present.
"Are you hurt?"
Apo let out a strangled breath. "No."
"Tell me what's happening."
"I’m.” The word stuck. She tried again. "I'm not what you think I am. What I was. I'm not” She stopped.
"When?" Cherri asked quietly. "When did this happen?"
Apo opened her mouth.
Oakhurst sat behind her teeth like a stone and wouldn't move.
She shook her head.
Cherri reached over and took her hands, bloodied as they were, and held them in her lap without flinching.
"Okay," she said softly. "Not yet then."
𓆩𓆪 ཊཌཬརདཏ 𓆩𓆪
Cherri knew Apo. She knew when Apo was pulling away, what her smiles would say, and what her silence meant. She knew what caused Apo to shut down, how to get them to calm down. All of it. She learned it early, long before Apo left for Oakhurst. When Apo wants something to stay hidden, it will. So, she asked in whispers and tangents, circling the truth until Apo was ready to meet her halfway.
Most nights, Apo would lie there and say nothing. Cherri would feel their breathing stop, until they’d remind themselves to mimic it. Her fist would curl, and Cherri would find herself wrapping her hands over them, small circular motions until they relaxed. She’d want to ask; she’d tell herself tomorrow. Apo will tell her tomorrow. They never did.
Instead, she started small. “What was the town like? Did you make any friends? What about the food?” Apo would answer briefly, carefully, only ever scratching the surface. The town was fine. She made friends. The food wasn’t bad, before they could no longer eat it.
Cherri got more specific. “How was everything when you first got there?” The answer was small, empty, and broken buildings; it was supposed to be empty. “You wrote about a house?” She learned they had to build their own; most people paired up. Then finally, she got something. A hidden smile as they talked about some nobleman they fought with on the first day, how he wasn’t really a noble. Apo went silent again afterwards; they’d lie in the dark once more. Cherri was glad for something, but she knew there was more, so much more.
She noticed things Apo didn’t know they were giving away. The way they went still at certain words. The way hunger sometimes crossed their face like a shadow before they smoothed it back down. She noticed but never pushed.
Until the night Apo spoke first.
It was late, well past midnight, and the candle burned almost nothing.
"I didn't choose it."
Cherri stayed very still.
"What they did to me." Apo's voice was flat and quiet. "I didn't choose it. It was me or someone else, and I- I couldn't let it be someone else."
Cherri exhaled slowly. "Okay," she said softly.
"That's all," Apo said. "That's all I can-”
"That's enough." Cherri reached over and found their hand in the dark. "That's enough for tonight."
Apo didn't say anything else. But they didn't let go of her hand either.
Cherri lay awake long after Apo's breathing finally evened out, staring at the ceiling, turning those words over carefully.
I didn't choose it.
She thought about everything it meant. Along with everything that sat unsaid underneath it. She thought about the castle Apo had mentioned once and never again. The hunger. The hair. The months standing outside in the dark rather than walking through the door.
She didn't sleep for a long time.
The nobleman came up again three weeks later.
Cherri hadn't pushed. She'd waited, the way she always waited, on a quiet night with rain against the window as Cherri stroked Apo’s hair. They spoke into the dark unprompted.
"His name was Martyn."
Cherri’s hand slowed.
"The nobleman. He wasn't actually one. He just carried himself like he was owed something." A breath that was almost a laugh. "We argued on the first day. He was insufferable. Then he was my closest friend, and I'm not entirely sure how that happened."
"It sounds like something you'd do," Cherri said softly.
"He found out what I was. About halfway through." Apo paused. "He was scared at first. Kept his distance for a little while. Then he came back around, and I thought we were fine until he sat me down and told me off for keeping it from him for so long." Another breath, almost fond. "Said he was more upset about the secret than anything else. That he deserved to know."
"He was right.”
A beat.
"He was," Apo admitted. "After that, he treated me the same. We never talked about it much, but it was easier. He made Oakhurst feel smaller somehow. Even amongst the worst of it."
"He sounds like a good person."
"He was." The words landed flat and final.
Cherri continued running her hands through her hair.
"I miss him every day," Apo whispered.
Cherri said nothing; sometimes it was the only thing left to offer.
The weeks flew by until Cherri could put the story together piece by piece. She watched Apo smile again, watched her become more comfortable and confident to drink in front of her. The morning light shone into the kitchen, and Apo hummed as she cleaned. They turned towards her, eyes catching the light. Cherri saw for the first time how red they were and how the whiteness of Apo’s hair shone in the sun. That’s when she knew. She always knew she wanted to live out her life with her. She knew from the first day they innocently held hands. She couldn’t grow old without Apo. She refused to.
Time passed. She went about their mornings the same way she always did. The kettle, the garden, painting, the livestock. She thought about Martyn. The way Apo said he was with that flat finality. She thought about the hunger Apo managed alone every single night, claws and willpower, and never once asked her for help with it. She thought about growing old. About Apo standing at the edge of some future garden, watching her age alone while staying back the way she had stood at the edge of town all those years ago.
Then she thought about the first day they held hands. How simple it had been. How certain. As night fell, she waited until the candle was low and Apo's breathing had slowed beside her before she spoke.
"I don't want to grow old without you." It was a whisper.
Apo was quiet for a long moment.
"Cherri-”
"I know what I'm saying." She got louder. "I've been sitting with it for days. I'm not asking impulsively." She turned her head toward her in the dark. "I want you to turn me."
The silence stretched long enough that Cherri could hear her own heartbeat.
"You don't know what you're asking," Apo said finally.
"Then tell me," Cherri said. "Tell me everything I don't know."
Apo was quiet for a long moment. Then she sat up slowly, and Cherri followed.
"Martyn." Apo paused. "It was the day after I was turned, and I was on the outpost. I needed air, distance, anything. Then the scent hit me. New blood, close." They exhaled slowly. "Cleo had been turned, and I found him in the river beneath the castle. Hurt. I didn't think I just, I gave him some blood. Not enough to turn him. Just enough to keep him alive." Their hands tightened in their lap. "I'd only just been turned myself. I thought I was helping."
Cherri stayed quiet.
"At the end of everything, before the veil finally lifted, there were too many vampires and not enough humans to leave. Someone found a cure. The plan was simple; Legundo would sacrifice himself, turn everyone who needed it, they'd take the cure, and we'd all go home." Apo's jaw tightened. "When he got to Martyn, it went wrong. My blood was already in him. His body couldn't host two sires." A long silence. "He died because of what I put in him months before. Because I was trying to save him, and I didn't know what I was doing."
Cherri reached for her hand.
"There's more." They looked down. "There was another, Avid. He was erratic about vampires, then he became one, and he just,” They swallowed. “He lost himself. Then the situation turned desperate; the other vampires were trying to kill me, and I acted without thinking, and he was there, vulnerable. I tried to kill him first." The words came out flat, like she'd turned the feeling off to get through them. "He survived it. Others finished what I started. But I was there. I didn't hesitate."
Her words were shaky.
"I tell you this because turning goes wrong," Apo said quietly. "I have seen it go wrong. I have been part of why it went wrong. And if you regret it.” They met her eyes. "You'd have to kill me. That's the nature of it. A sire needs to die for the cure. If you regret it, that would be the only way."
Cherri held her gaze without blinking.
"I won't regret it."
"You don't know.”
"I won't." Her voice was steady and certain and left no room for argument. "I have listened to everything you just told me. Martyn and Avid and all of it. And I am telling you plainly, I still want this. I still choose you." She squeezed Apo's hand. "I would rather face all of that than grow old watching you outlive me."
Apo looked at her for a long moment.
"You're certain."
"I have never been more certain of anything."
Apo moved closer. “The only person I’ve turned was Sausage, and that was by accident. It wasn’t quick or painless.”
“That’s okay.” Cherri held her hair away from her neck. She felt Apo exhale before she felt fangs piercing into her skin. She felt herself growing dizzy, weak, then she felt nothing. The bedroom became bright despite the darkness. Her senses heightened. She turned to Apo, cupping her face gently. Planted a kiss, then another, and another.