Aging

There were good nights, there were bad nights; short nights that went by too quickly and nights that seemed to last forever.

That night was a particularly rough one.

The Sun had started to rise, signalling the beginning of the morning, and so Lily and Damien were in bed and - well, for lack of better words - quite enjoying each other's company. It didn't matter that they'd been married for over a decade by this point, it was thrilling for both of them to make their bodies nothing more than a mess of roaming hands, soft lips and heaving chests with skin on skin, the heat rising.

Damien's favourite way to spend the end of the night - after all, he was a hundred and forty-five, a vampire in his prime, and it was with someone that he loved and cared for deeply.

There was something that kissing Lily did to him: it was a spark or something that ran through his body, like electricity, and it ignited his soul. This time was no exception, or course, and it wasn't long until things became rather heated between the two of them.

As he always did when things got heated, Damien slowly moved his hand underneath his wife's pyjama shirt so that he could cup her breast.

"No."

Damien had grown up by this point, he really had: he understood that boundaries were there, even in long-term relationships, and that when Lily said, 'no', she meant it. He knew not to push her into anything and that he had to respect her.

But this was odd.

"Hold on," He muttered, pulling away and frowning down at her. "What's the matter?"

Lily wriggled underneath him uncomfortably but kept her arms wrapped around him tightly. "Nothing! Well, I mean, I just...can I..." She dropped her eyes from his, suddenly ashamed. "You don't want to put your hand there, trust me."

Damien blinked, not understanding. "I hate to be crude but I do want to put my hand there - and you usually want me to as well."

She went bright red, still not looking at him directly. "I'm not...fit anymore." When he just stared at her, she elaborated quietly, "I haven't done dance since...well, since we started trying to have kids... And I'm getting old."

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at her, not sure if she was being serious. "Lily, you know that I don't care-"

"But I do," She insisted, moving to sit up. "Look at me and look at you; look at how young you are still! And then there's me...I look older than my parents for crying out loud!" She scowled to herself. "You're still so attractive and...and I'm not."

Damien felt his heart drop to his stomach and he swallowed the lump in his throat. "Don't be stupid, Lils; you're still as gorgeous as the day we met."

"People stare, you know," Lily continued, starting to fiddle with her wedding ring absent-mindedly. "You don't need vampire hearing to hear them talk about us; how 'scandalous' it is that a woman at my age is with a guy as young as you."

The blonde narrowed his eyes at the thought of others saying these things. "Well, fuck them. Does it matter what they all think? It's none of their God damn business!"

Lily shrugged. "I'm just saying that if you wanted to, you know, find someone else then I understand."

No. "No," He stated firmly, his grip tightening on her. "Lily, you're my zing; I don't want anyone else and I don't think I will after...after you." It pained him to think what might happen once Lily was no longer around so he put it to the back of his mind. "Why would I ever wanna leave? What's wrong with you and how you look?"

"Don't pretend to not know," She muttered, rolling her eyes at him. "Grey hair, wrinkles... My boobs aren't firm and perky anymore, my stomach is bigger and...and I just look fat."

Never in his life had Damien considered Lily to be 'fat' or any other word with the same meaning; when she'd been younger she had been a dancer and, really, all of that dancing had made her the opposite of fat. And when she had given that up when they had first started talking about having a baby, he'd decided that it didn't matter what she looked like: while it was nice that she was very fit and attractive, it was really her personality that he found to be his favourite feature.

Hearing her say that made as much sense to him as the legendary Frankenstein going near fire.

"Stop it," He told her seriously, frowning slightly. "That's stupid and you know it." When she just stared at him incredously, he gestured for her to lie down and didn't talk until she had done so. "First of all, your hair is not grey just yet so stop worrying about that. Second," He leaned down and brushed his lips against Lily's neck.

Lily jumped. "Oh! What are you-"

"For forty on a human, I don't think you look too bad," Damien continued, words nothing more than a whisper against her skin, and continued to move downwards. "Now, your boobs... Holy crap, Lily, I like them - hey, don't give me that look! I'm a guy, okay? It's natural." He kissed down her neck and against her chest. "You know, if you want me to stop then I can."

Lily shook her head. "N-No! Carry on!"

He grinned to himself as he pushed himself up to hover over her. "I love you," He stated honestly. "Not your body, not your looks - you. I knew what I was getting myself into when we got together and I don't care - if I did, then I wouldn't have asked you to marry me. That's quite a big commitment, you know."

"Huh," The human smiled sheepishly at him. "I suppose that's true."

Damien pressed his mouth down on her pressure point, his fangs brushing against the delicate skin just barely containing a pulse. Lily hissed softly, immediately grabbing at his back to pull him closer. "I love you, Lily, and I don't care if you become the most wrinkled lady in the world with a severe case of Alzheimer's - nothing is gonna make me leave."

Any arguments had gone from her head by this point, and they wasted no time in shedding their clothes.

No one wants grey hairs - but all the same, it wasn't easy seeing your daughter getting grey hairs before you did yourself - and then seeing wrinkles appear on a face that you knew was younger on your own was nothing short of a nightmare.

It was happening - Mavis' worst dreams were starting to become a reality.

The nightmares came back just after Lily's sixtieth; before, Mavis had been able to brush it off as her daughter just aging but no so much that she should be worried. But when she visited her daughter for her birthday that April, she couldn't deny it any longer no matter how hard she tried.

Lily's once vibrant and red hair - her beautiful long hair - was now nothing more than a mop of light grey and cut short so that it was easier to deal with in her old age. Once bright brown eyes - ones that Mavis could remember looking at her inquisitively - were now tired and faded with age.

And then there was her skin.

Oh God...it made Mavis want to cry when she compared the younger version of Lily's face to the current older one; Lily had once had pale - but not unhealthily so - skin with rosy cheeks, freckles dotted across her face that she'd inherited from Johnny and there were hardly any blemishes - Lily had been one of the few who had gotten spots in other places rather than her face.

But now it was horribly changed: sunken and sallow skin, wrinkles, the general colour a sickingly pale white that one would associate with being ill.

Before the sun set the next evening, Johnny was woken up by the sound of muttering and sobbing next to him; it took him about two seconds who realize that it was Mavis, and he hurriedly put a hand on her shoulder so that he could shake her awake.

"Mavis...come on..."

She gave a small cry. "No...all my fault...no!..."

Ah hell. Johnny shook her harder. "Mavis! Come on, Mavy, wake up! It's only a dream!"

The bedroom door opened and Mina took a step into the room, dressed in a pair of red and dark blue bat pyjamas. "What's going on?" She asked, yawning and rubbing her eyes. "Why is Mom crying?"

"She's...uh...having a bad dream," Johnny told her, frantically shoving his wife in the shoulder to wake her up. "Mavis, it's not real! Wake up!"

Mina took a step closer, suddenly looking intrigued and worried. "Mom?"

Mavis' eyes opened and she suddenly wrapped her arms around Johnny so that they were close; she was clearly still half-asleep or still in a dream as she was muttering and crying again.

Mina sent her father a nervous look and sat down on the edge of the bed to see what would happen. The red-head started to rub at Mavis' back in circles and whisper to her soothingly. "Hey, what's the matter? It's not real, Mavy..."

Mavis shook her head in an almost violent way. "I-I-It is...It's all my fault! I...I did this to h-her!"

It didn't take a genius to realize who 'her' was. Mina moved in closer and wrapped her arms around her mother for comfort. "Mom, don't say that..."

"It's not your fault," Johnny told her, voice somewhat shaky. "Don't...Don't even think that, okay?"

"It is!" Mavis argued firmly, pulling back to look at him. "D-Didn't you see her?! What she looks like?... If I hadn't... she wouldn't..."

Johnny looked at Mina for a second in an almost pleading way. "Why don't you go back to bed, cutie? Try and get some more sleep."

The girl bit her lip, clearly not wanting to, but nodded anyway. "Okay. I'll see you in the evening then."

Once she had gone, Johnny turned back to the matter at hand. "Look," He started calmly, giving his wife a small frown. "There's no need to get so upset, Mavis. Sixty is not that old for a human, okay? Most humans can live to be well over a hundred without any problem."

"Look at her, Johnny," Mavis said fiercely, shaking her head. "Look at what I did to her!"

"You didn't do anything to her," He replied firmly, believing everything he said. "I mean, apart from love and care for her, neither of us have done anything to her."

"I did it!" Mavis stated, looking close to crying again. "I...You know what I did, and now Lily is being punished for it! For my mistake!" She looked down, curling in on herself as the tears started to roll. "It's all my fault, Johnny; every time I see her I just remember what I did and how unfair it is that she has to suffer... She's not going to live much longer, a-a-and it's a-all my fault!"

Johnny wrapped his arms around her, shaking his head surely. "No, Mavis, it's not! I swear! You... When you did what you did it was out of love, a-and anyone would have done it. If you hadn't done it, then Lily wouldn't have gotten to be with us at all." When Mavis just shook her head at his words, he continued on. "Look, every day that we've spent with her has been awesome and I'm so glad that I've - we've - gotten the chance to be with her."

"But-"

"But nothing!" The red-head insisted. "My mom always told me that short things are better than no things...well, kinda. When she said that she was talking about when I complained about short straws at my birthday party once, but that's not the point!"

Mavis wiped her eyes and looked at him anxiously. "So...So you don't hate me for what I did, right?"

"Wait, what?!" Is she going insane or something?! "Why the heck would I hate you?!"

His wife ducked her head, as if embarrassed, but answered anyway. "Because of what I did... Going behind your back and making that deal with that witch so that...you know..."

"No," Johnny answered surely, eyes still wide from what she had said. "No, Mavy, of course not. Look, at first I was pretty upset but only 'cause we didn't talk about it first, but that was sixty years ago." He waited until she was done wiping at her tear-stained face before continuing. "Second, why would I hate you for having Lily? She was..." He swallowed thickly - after all, men weren't to get too emotional about these kinds of things but he did anyway - and reached across to the bedside table for the picture of Lily as a baby that they kept there. "Look at her; she was - is - one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Why would I hate you for that?"

Mavis didn't answer.

"You need to stop blaming yourself for it," Johnny told her softly, putting the photo into her hands and watching as she looked down at it. "I don't blame you, and I know that she doesn't either - why should you?"

As Mavis looked down at the photograph of Lily - because Lily had been human, she'd been able to appear in photographs and so they'd taken the opportunity to use a camera for these memories - she tried to get Johnny's words through to her head; to try and let go off the guilt inside of her head.

It didn't all go away, of course, but it eased enough for her to give a small smile at the photograph; looking at it, she could still see the similarities between the baby and her now elderly daughter easily...

It was that smile - that carefree smile - that made her feel calm: if Lily could still smile so innocently and happily, then she was clearly far from upset by her situation.

So, just a short little one that I managed to write...maybe I'll add more to the idea of Lily being older but for now I've written this.

My exams start next Monday (12th May) so...I don't know if I will update again until around 17th June because of my revision - after the 17th, the only days I have something going on are:

- 26th June: Leavers Assembly/Prom
- 27th June: College Enrolment Day (basically me trying out the subjects I picked to do next year at college)
- 21st August: My sister's birthday/Results Day.

And then of course September means College but still :D Thank You all for waiting patiently, I honestly appreciate it and I can promise that there will be more than enough updates as soon as I've completed my GCSEs.

Until then, I love you all! :)