Chapter Text
The sun is already starting to set by the time Abolish lets Legs and Cleo drag him to the tavern. He did not want to be forced to socialise, nor did he want to leave his house besides to search for more cure books, but he knew there was no way the doctor and Cleo would let him continue to be his antisocial self. He only agreed to come because he knows that the entire town will be there, so it’ll be easier for him to slip away after half an hour.
He casts one last wistful glance back towards his house before Cleo sighs and grabs his wrist, tugging him into the bar. He is met with the overly strong smell of poorly brewed alcohol and sweat, along with the loud laughter and voices of Ren, Martyn, and M. All the other humans are much quieter as they have their own conversations around the room. Abolish sighs, resigning himself to his fate. He takes a seat at the bar beside M, shaking his head when Ren asks if he’d like a drink.
“Abolish! I thought Cleo and Legs were lying when they said they were going to make you come hang out tonight!” M says with a giggle, clearly already tipsy despite not having been here for more than half an hour.
“I wish,” Abolish mumbles under his breath. He undoes the top button of his shirt to let himself get some air, the stuffy room making it hard to breathe. He’s exhausted from the past few days, and he wants nothing more than to be alone in his room or the forest. He notices M squinting at his neck, and he flushes, realising his mistake before the writer even says anything.
“You are sleeping with Scott, aren’t you? Cleo and Legs were right!” M says, his voice very loud. Abolish groans and buries his face in his hands.
“You’re sleeping with Scott?” Martyn asks with an angry expression, his disdain for the vampire evident.
“No! I’m not sleeping with anyone!” Abolish responds in exasperation.
“Then why is your neck covered in hickeys and bite marks?” M asks, a glint of amusement in his eyes, and he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“That’s- I- It doesn’t matter. It’s none of your business,” Abolish stammers, flushing and quickly rebuttoning his shirt collar before anyone else sees. Martyn scoffs and turns back to Ren to talk and get another drink.
“C’mon, Abolish, tell me!” M pleads, grabbing Abolish by the shoulders and lightly shaking him.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Abolish replies with a sigh of exhaustion, removing M’s hands from his shoulders.
“If you don’t tell me exactly what happened in detail, I’ll tell everyone that you and Scott are fucking passionately all the time,” M threatens with a mischievous grin.
“You’re blackmailing me?” Abolish asks, surprised at the man’s audacity.
“Let’s just call it an arrangement! You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll keep your secret!” M responds with a grin.
“It’s not a secret if it’s not true. And that’s still blackmailing.” Abolish sighs and rubs his temples.
M reaches behind the counter and grabs a bottle of Ren’s terrible homemade alcohol, taking a large swig before giving Abolish another pleading look.
“I’m going home,” Abolish grumbles, standing up.
“Oooh, I get it. You’re leaving to meet up with Scott so you two can passionately make love in the middle of the woods!” M says loudly, and Abolish sighs in annoyance and exhaustion as the entire tavern goes quiet, everyone turning to look at him.
“You’re doing what?” Apo asks with a look of disbelief.
“Didn’t you hear M? Abolish is doing Scott,” Pearl responds with a mischievous grin, laughing when Cleo elbows her in the ribs.
M reaches over, and before Abolish can stop him, he pulls on the collar of Abolish’s shirt, showing everyone the array of bite marks and hickeys. Abolish flushes and shoves M off of him, tugging his collar back up, but it’s too late. Everyone saw enough to come to their own conclusions.
“So you’re conspiring with the enemy?” Apo says, stepping closer in anger.
“I’m not doing anything with Scott!” Abolish huffs, letting a bit more emotion into his voice than he would ever normally allow due to his exhaustion, which he immediately regrets when he sees the surprised and amused expressions around the room.
“When Cleo and I visited you five days ago, he was contentedly cuddled up against your neck as a bat,” Legs points out. “And before we left you only had one set of bite marks on your neck. I’m quite certain no one else has visited you since, so the only logical answer is that Scott did that to your neck.”
Abolish glares at Legs, who shrugs sheepishly. With another sigh, Abolish gives up, heading towards the door. He’s already feeling exhausted from this conversation, which feels more like an interrogation, and the fact that he hasn’t slept in around five days isn’t helping whatsoever.
“Y’all can speculate all you want, but Scott and I are not sleeping together,” Abolish says as he opens the door, walking out into the cold late-evening air before anyone can respond. He almost heads home, but decides he might as well go out and continue searching for the rest of the cure books. He’d rather use his time for something important instead of something unnecessary, like sleep.
Snow still covers a lot of the town from the storm that happened a few nights before, which makes the trek to the town gates much more difficult. He exits town, and he barely manages to hold back a flinch when a bat drops down in front of him. Scott transforms back into himself before he hits the ground, smirking down at Abolish.
“Hello, darling,” Scott says with a grin. Abolish stares at him for a moment, blinking as it takes him a few seconds longer than usual to process Scott’s appearance. His brain catches up and he huffs under his breath, pushing past Scott and leaving town, heading towards the forest. Scott chuckles and follows him, catching up with ease, his footsteps barely making any noise even as Abolish’s crunch loudly in the snow.
“I swear to every god above, Scott, if you don’t leave me alone I will not hesitate to stake you right here and now.” Abolish says, exasperated. He’s already irritated and exhausted from the rumours about the vampire and him, and he knows that if they see him with Scott, he’ll never live it down.
“Someone’s grumpy today. What, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Or maybe you just miss waking up beside me,” Scott teases, ignoring Abolish’s threats and staying right beside him. He grabs Abolish’s hand to get him to stop, and frowns when he notices how badly the human is shaking. He looks at Abolish’s face, noticing the way he’s blinking much more than normal, as if trying to stay awake, his gaze slightly unfocused. “Are you alright? You look exhausted.”
“I’m fine. I’ve only been awake for a couple of days,” Abolish says as he pulls his hand out of Scott’s grip, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to skip out on a few days of sleep.
Scott stops walking and simply stares at Abolish in shock. Abolish continues into the forest, not even bothering to look back and see if Scott is going to follow.
“I’m sorry, I think I heard you wrong. What do you mean you’ve been awake for a couple days?” Scott asks, his voice sounding eerily calm in a way that Abolish can tell he’s hiding anger underneath it.
“Haven’t slept since that last time you were at my house. I got enough sleep when you were there to last me a week,” Abolish says with a shrug, continuing to walk, narrowly dodging a tree he thought was further away the first time he looked at it. Scott’s eyes widen and he’s in front of Abolish before the human can even blink, placing a hand on the man’s chest to stop him from moving.
“The last time I checked, humans are meant to sleep for eight to ten hours every night, Abolish. Not fifteen to twenty hours in the span of one day and then not again for a week,” Scott responds. Abolish just shrugs again, ignoring Scott’s small growl at the wordless answer.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Abolish mutters, pushing past Scott again and starting to walk deeper into the forest. He doesn’t get far, though, because Scott’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist, preventing him from leaving the vampire’s side.
“You have three options. One, you willingly follow me to either your house or the castle, and I make sure you go to sleep. Two, I knock you out and bring you back to your house, ensuring that you sleep in some form. Or three, I pick you up and bring you to a bed, where I forcefully cuddle you until you fall asleep. You have ten seconds to choose,” Scott announces, a no-nonsense look appearing on his face, though Abolish can detect a hint of a smirk.
“I don’t need to sleep. I’m fine, Scott,” Abolish sighs, trying and failing to pull his wrist out of Scott’s grasp.
“Five seconds!” Scott declares.
“Scott, let go,” Abolish huffs, wincing as Scott tightens his grip on his wrist and digs his claws in slightly.
“Three. Two. One. Last chance to make up your mind before I choose for you,” Scott says, pulling Abolish closer.
“I’m not doing this right now, Scott. I’m busy,” Abolish says as he continues to struggle against Scott’s grip.
“You’re sleeping whether you want to or not,” Scott responds, growling slightly at how stubborn Abolish is being.
Abolish opens his mouth to respond when he catches sight of a shadowed figure in the distance behind Scott. He squints, trying to figure out who or what it is.
“Abolish? Abolish!” Scott huffs, shaking Abolish lightly to try and get his attention. Abolish continues to look in the direction of where he saw the figure, completely ignoring Scott. The vampire growls in annoyance and lightly shoves the human. Abolish startles, not processing the situation fast enough to catch himself before he starts to fall over. Scott curses under his breath and catches the man, holding him against his chest.
“Lemme go,” Abolish demands, looking over Scott’s shoulder to try and catch sight of the figure again. He spots it peeking out from behind a tree.
“What are you looking at?” Scott asks with a huff, looking in the same direction as Abolish, though he sees nothing but trees and the occasional animal.
“The figure. It looks human. It’s right there,” Abolish says, pointing to it.
“Abolish, darling, there’s nothing there. You need to sleep,” Scott sighs.
“I’m fine,” Abolish insists, not looking away from the figure.
“You’re hallucinating.” Scott says, his voice softer than Abolish has ever heard it sound before.
Abolish doesn’t respond. Scott sighs again and lets go of the human, huffing in annoyance as Abolish stumbles, barely managing to grab onto a tree to keep himself upright. The vampire walks directly towards where Abolish had been staring.
“Is it here?” He asks, walking up to the tree Abolish had yet to look away from. Abolish nods, furrowing his eyebrows as Scott walks through the shadowy figure, making it disappear.
“What?” Abolish murmurs to himself under his breath, leaning fully against the tree that’s keeping him upright. He realises just how much he had been ignoring his exhaustion the past few days, but he still doesn’t want to admit just how sleep deprived and exhausted he actually is.
“See? It's not real. You're hallucinating, and you need to sleep,” Scott says as he stands where Abolish thought he had seen the figure.
Before Scott can return, Abolish turns and sprints back towards town. All he has to do is make it home and revoke Scott’s invitation into his house, and the vampire will stop bothering him. Then he can get back to work. He has a lot of paperwork to do anyways.
He hears Scott yell his name but he continues running, narrowly avoiding a few trees and bushes that seem a lot farther away than they actually are. He doesn’t stop to look behind himself, not letting himself celebrate getting away until he makes it inside his house. He closes the door behind himself and leans against it.
“Scott Goldsmith, you are no longer allowed inside my home. I revoke your invitation,” Abolish murmurs as he catches his breath. He hears an angry squeak as Scott tries to fly through one of the open windows as a bat, learning the hard way that he can no longer get inside. Scott transforms back into his normal form and lets out a sigh.
“Abolish, please. You’ve been awake for five days, that’s not healthy,” Scott says softly from outside.
"I've done it before," Abolish responds. “And I don’t see why you care about my sleep schedule.”
“I don’t care whether or not you’ve done it before, you shouldn’t be doing it now. And I care because you're hurting yourself at this point,” Scott responds with an annoyed huff, clearly reaching the limit of his patience. Abolish stands up shakily, opening the door and leaning against it as he looks out at Scott. Scott takes the opportunity, managing to reach far enough into Abolish’s house to grab the man and pull him out. Abolish yelps, falling against Scott, who wraps his arms tightly around the human.
“You have one last chance to agree to sleep before I take drastic measures,” Scott growls lowly, his lips brushing against Abolish’s ear. Abolish struggles against Scott’s hold, barely even listening to the vampire.
“I’m not going to sleep, Scott, I’m fine,” Abolish insists yet again despite how obviously not fine he is.
“I warned you. And I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Scott says with a sigh. Abolish frowns, pausing in his struggle for a moment as he tries to figure out what the vampire means. That small pause is all Scott needs to tilt Abolish’s head to the side and bite into his neck. Abolish’s reaction is delayed as his sleep deprived brain takes a moment too long to understand what’s happening.