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Avid sighed and scratched another failed test off in his notebook.
The lantern light flickered and he glanced at it from the corner of his eye. The oil probably needed to be refilled soon… He scowled at it a little and reached for his coffee, only to gag as he discovered that time had turned the last dredges into a cold thick black tar, half dissolved sugar hitting his tongue. Okay, maybe that was a sign to turn in for the night, or at the least make a new cup of coffee.
The lantern flickered again.
Avid reached for it to check the oil reservoir with a furrowed brow, and almost missed the sound of footsteps.
He whipped around and stared out into the room. The shadows outside the reach of the lantern shifted and danced in the way they always did when he… when he got like this. Avid pressed his eyes closed for a second, two seconds, three, and then opened them. They continued to move nevertheless.
“H-hello?” Avid called into the darkness, cursing inwardly at how small his voice sounded. “Are you awake? Did you need something?” His eyes flickered rapidly, seeing if the shadows formed the shape of a person. That… that happened sometimes, that he was so distracted he missed something that was actually there. “If you’re checking in on me, I’m… I’m fine! Turning in soon, I promise!”
She didn’t appear and he slumped and rubbed at his face with his hands.
“I’m just… imagining things again. It’s always worse when I’m stressed! Yeah, just stress. She’s probably asleep right now and doesn’t even know I’m still in the lab.” Avid laughed to himself weakly. “I just… need… sleep…”
He trailed off as he swore he heard footsteps for real this time. His mouth went dry and he backed up, stopped short by the table. Avid pressed his eyes closed and prayed to anything that would listen that nothing would be there when he opened them.
Avid opened his eyes to hers, inches from his face, blood red. She reached a clawed hand out towards him and he grabbed the stake on the table behind him, swung-
.
There was a yelp as Avid shot upright, swinging the stake he had hidden under his pillow wildly. The hand that had touched his shoulder retracted hurriedly, and he eventually connected the hand to an arm, to a face, to Drift quickly backing up, palms out in a defensive position.
“Christ, dude! I just wanted to see if you were okay-” Her eyes flickered to the stake still clutched in his hand. “D-do you sleep with a stake under your pillow?!”
Avid blinked heavily as his heart tried its hardest to beat out of his chest. “Drift…?”
“Dude, are you good? It looked like you were having a really bad nightmare.”
Avid ran a hand through his hair and tried to take stock of where he was. Right, Oakhurst. He was in the house Drift and him had made, lantern flickering on a stand nearby after he had nervously requested it, ready to defend himself that he wasn’t scared of the dark, it’s just his brain liked to play tricks on him, okay, only for Drift to have shrugged and said “I sleep better with some light too”. His legs were tangled in the blankets of his bed. Avid pulled them free and tucked them to his chest. He realized he hadn’t responded yet and gave a weak nod.
“Y-yeah, I guess you could say that.” The shadows at the edge of the room swayed and his fingers tightened around the stake.
Drift bit her lip guiltily. “Didn’t realize you would react like that. Do you want like… tea or something…?” Avid gave another weak nod and Drift bobbed her head in response. “Cool, alright. Let me. Put the kettle on.”
Avid squeezed his eyes shut and counted to three, but that didn’t fix the shadows, never did, he didn’t even know why he still tried, it was so dumb- He groaned and buried his head in his knees, cutting his thought spiral short. He focused on the noise of Drift gently shuffling around the house, striking a fire for the kettle. This part was at least normal, even if his eyes insisted on playing tricks on him.
His heart ached desperately. She had always been ready and willing to help him figure out what was real or not, sat by his side when even the lights weren’t enough, made jokes to make him laugh and forget about everything. Avid curled up tighter and fought the tears that threatened to fall. It felt like part of his soul had died when she did. He wasn’t meant to be flying solo like this, he was meant to be part of a dynamic duo, a pair.
Drift cleared her throat and Avid unwound himself, looking up to see her holding a cup of tea. “I don’t know if you take like, sugar or milk or anything, so I left it plain.”
“That’s fine,” he muttered, taking it after a moment, having to slowly and reluctantly put down the stake still clenched in one hand.
“Do you want to like… talk about it?”
Avid looked down at the tea. The red light of the moon filtered through the blinds and tinted the room crimson. The dark tea almost looked like blood, spilling up out of the cup, pouring down his hands, staining them with blood, her blood-
He blinked and it went back to normal.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” He couldn’t muster any bitterness even if he wanted to, just resignation.
Drift rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly and shifted from foot to foot. “Ah. Vampire thing?”
“Yeah. Vampire thing.” Avid took a sip despite the tea still being too hot. His mind was so committed to its lies he could almost taste the copper tang of blood and he grimaced. The words bubbled up in his chest and he couldn’t stop them if he tried. “Listen, I’m not crazy, I swear-”
“Not a reassuring start-”
“I’m not crazy,” Avid repeated, stronger this time. “I’m not. I just… My brain plays tricks on me sometimes, but I know what I saw was real.” His fingers clenched the mug so hard his knuckles ached. “I wouldn’t… I just know. My brain wouldn’t make up something like that, okay. It was real.” He almost felt like he was trying to convince himself rather than Drift. “It was real.”
“Your mind plays tricks? What like… hallucinations?”
“I guess. It’s worse when I’m stressed, or at night, or stressed at night.” Avid’s voice pitched up. “Which is, often, here! But it’s fine. I have strategies.”
Drift raised a curious eyebrow. “You have strategies.”
Avid nodded frantically. “I have strategies. You don’t… You don’t need to worry. I can deal with them myself.”
She held up her hands. “I’m not like, accusing you of anything. Just trying to understand. So the vampire thing-”
“Is absolutely real. I know they’re real.” Avid curled in on himself. “They’re not… That’s not the kind of thing I…” The word hallucinate felt dirty, felt like admitting he was broken. “That’s not the kind of thing I see,” he course-corrected.
“Can I sit?” Avid nodded and Drift perched delicately on the bed next to him. “What kind of things do you see, then, if that’s fine to ask?”
Avid’s eyes unconsciously flickered to the edges of the room where the lamplight grew dim and the shadows gathered, like liquid ink swirling across the ground. Drift’s gaze followed and she glanced between him and the empty space with a furrowed brow. “Shadows, mostly. The sound of footsteps. Um, a weirdly common one is seeing cats out of the corner of my eye?”
Drift poorly bit back a laugh. “Cats? Are they cute cats at least?”
“Are they…” Avid took a long second to process the words. “Are you asking if the ghost cats I see are cute?”
Drift nodded with a cheeky grin. “The cats’ cuteness is important info to the case.”
Despite himself Avid felt laughter bubbling up in his chest. “How… why would that be important?”
“You’re right, all cats are cute. Silly of me to assume. They’re the cutest of ghost cats.”
Avid tried to elbow her playfully and she dodged with a cackle. “I was having a moment and you’re making jokes about it!”
“Well, it made you feel better, didn’t it?”
He glanced down at his tea. It stayed normal as he stared at his reflection, grin playing on the edge of his lips despite the mess of bedhead and eyebags. “Yeah, I guess it did.”
Drift readjusted herself to sit more firmly on the bed and turned to face him. “Jokes aside, if you want, I can like… tell you if something you’re seeing is actually real, yeah? And I won’t tell anyone else about it so they can’t call you crazy for it. It can be just between us.”
For a moment Avid saw a different time, a different girl, making the same promise sat on a bed just like this. He blinked and it was Drift again. Avid raised one hand with his pinky out. “Pinky promise?”
Drift locked her finger with his. “Pinky promise.”