FicWad

I must’ve blacked out from exhaustion because the next thing I knew was falling to the ground. But someone had caught me and carried me outside. I was pretty sure I knew who it was but I wasn’t sure it’d be possible that he could even move with his condition. But Pete was pretty far from the ordinary vampire.
As he laid my body out on the concrete, he whispered something quietly in my ear, “I don’t think you know how truly amazing you are,” before petting my hair gently; the coldness of his hands soothing the agony stirring through my blood stream.
Eyes still shut, I managed to smile a little and whisper a raspy reply, “Maybe just a little…but how are the others?”
His little grin stirred slowly into a frown as he turned and looked at Jess and Patrick. Everyone was together now, sitting outside of the bat mobile as they tried to treat everyone’s wounds as best as possible. Patrick lied still as a stone as Jess sat beside him, her hand caressing his chest with as little pressure applied as she could manage. Her eyes were stone cold but there was a sense of optimism raised in her as she poured water down his throat from a bottle.
Then I looked at Andy and Joe, who were both passed out against the wheels of the vehicle, weapons still in hand as they crashed from exhaustion. Sighing, I tried to sit up, Pete helping me up. My body hurt badly but it felt like nothing compared to the feeling of victory welling up deep inside me. It was finally over. I had killed the burden with my own hands. And then I remembered the feelings that erupted from before, when Pete and I had shared quite a moment back at the warehouse. We had made it through the final battle. But what was I to him now?
I reached out for his hand and quietly emitted, “So…about that time back at the warehouse…I-”
“Don’t say anything,” he interrupted swiftly before saying, “I’ve been wanting to tell you something since I first met you. I…have loved you for a really long time. And I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d be disgusted with me…because of what I am. It’s been a long painful process learning to cope with what I’ve become because when I died, I learned that the greatest I’d lost was the ability to love. All I felt was anger and thoughts of revenge. But you changed everything I thought I knew. Because being this way has made me closer to you.”
I was stunned by his seriousness. He really meant everything he was saying. And I couldn’t believe that the words were true, that he really knew me better than I knew myself. He’d been in my head, he knows everything I did up to this point. And he didn’t care about any of that. He discarded all that and still tried to protect my secret from his closest friends. How could I not feel the same, or even more in love with him than he claimed?
My eyes watered but the tears didn’t fall because he had seen right through me and hadn’t loved me any less than he would’ve if he hadn’t known all the terrible things I’d done. I didn’t deserve such a creature.
“Pete,” I murmured, still not finding the words to respond, “I-I love you so much. I can’t even think of what to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” he chuckled a childish grin before saying, “Just show me.”
With that, he crawled on top of me, pinning me to the side of the bat mobile, and kissed me hard on the mouth with every bit of energy he had left. As his lips touched mine, it felt like a bolt of lightning had struck my nerve endings. Every inch of my body was covered in goosebumps and my heart raced desperately as if grasping at a breath of air. Responding to my suffocation, a puff of breath exhaled from Pete’s non-living lungs, filling my taste buds with the sweetest taste.
As he pulled away, it felt like he’d absorbed all my energy as he I plopped backwards onto the car door. Almost giddily, he looked over at Patrick, who was now taped up from head to toe by his new love interest. Patrick appeared to be conscious now as he smirked over at Pete and joked, “Get a room.”
“Oh shut up, you cripple,” he retorted back before adding, “You’ll be in the same predicament relatively soon.”
Patrick blushed and looked down nervously as Jess nuzzled his neck. I smiled before remembering that this would be what I could consider the very first day of my life. The day I start living is on the day that William Beckett dies. And Amber Beckett stands tall.



Epilogue
After a few weeks, things were slowly starting to go back to normal, or at least what common humans considered normal. For the vampire squad, things seemed rather strange…foreign. The nights were quiet, which in itself haunted us with impenetrable images of the gruesome fight we’d undergone to finally get things this way. But I think Pete had it the worst of anybody. After all, William had impacted his life forever. William’s initials were permanently branded into the walls of Pete’s soul. The death of your master is never something to overcome publicly.
So we left him alone to privately mourn and celebrate the death of not only his worst enemy but his master. Meanwhile, the rest of us helped clean up the lab after the incident that almost led to Patrick’s peril managed to incarcerate an entire third of the wall.
“So what do you think is going to happen to us now that we’re out of a job?” Jess asked as she picked up a few chunks of plywood from the wreckage. Smiling, I replied, “To be honest, I don’t really know but I have a feeling that things will never quite be the same.”
“Yeah,” she admitted, eyes staring down at the piece of wood she held in her hand, “I’m a little afraid of that though.”
Tilting my head at her peculiar expression, I asked, “Why?”
“Well,” she started, “I always kind of thought that this team was what made us all so close. So now that everything is over, do you think we’ll all drift apart?”
Straightening up, I tried thinking about it before answering her, “I don’t think that will happen. You guys have been through so much as a group. If anything, you could all use a trip back to the real world.”
“I want to go to Disneyland!” she giggled before throwing another piece of wreckage into the trash.
Just at that moment, Patrick walked into the room with a box in his hand. Out of curiosity, I asked, “What’s that?”
“Oh, this little thing? It’s a little gift for my ‘girlfriend’,” he replied with a smile, emphasizing the syllables on girlfriend. As I looked up at Jess, I smirked to myself at her dumbfounded expression. Deciding that the situation might appear to be a little bit awkward with me standing there, I started towards Pete’s room to check on him.
As I approached his door, the same chill came over me as it had before, but this time I knew better than to be afraid. I grabbed onto the latch and opened the door to find Pete standing just behind it, grinning at me with his fangs gleaming.
“I heard your thoughts outside the door,” he grinned toothily, “I could see what you came here to do.”
“Oh, and what is that?” I asked, curious to what he was getting at with this sudden change in atmosphere. And with a swift movement, his arms were latched around my waist as he whispered, “You came here to seduce me.”
“What!?!” I squealed, “I did not! You pervert!”
And a loud smack filled the room with silence. He blinked once before saying, “Do you always have to kill the moment? I was only joking around, Amber.”
Then I smiled and said, “I know. So was I,” before leaping at him, slamming the door behind us as we stumbled into the comfort of his one-person coffin.
“You know, since we’re living together now, I might have to consider getting a real bed,” he mumbled as he outstretched himself against the tight space. Resting my head on his shoulder, I nuzzled against him and smiled before I shook my head and said, “Let’s sleep forever…”
` “Sounds like a plan to me,” he said leaning into my neck sweetly… teeth reflecting off the little speck of sunlight that shone through the darkness…as darkness swept over us.