the outtakes
instinct
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
o.o.o
Theo bangs into the third floor condo, door slamming shut behind him, the soles of his shoes squeaking against hardwood floors, his heart racing and thundering in panic. He's panicking. He's horrified. He can't even think straight.
"Shit, shit, shit!" he curses as he high-tails it to his room as fast as his legs will carry him, limbs trembling in the force of his emotion and he wants nothing more than to just shut down - just forget - oh, but that's impossible, isn't it? After what he'd done, he deserves to stew in this tightness in his throat, in the threat of bile dancing on the back of his tongue, in the hammering of adrenaline coating his veins -
"Language, Theodore!"
Theo collapses on his bed, head in his hands after shutting the door of his room - snapping it shut, really, all the better to cut off the sound of his mother's voice. He spares half a thought to his parent's schedules. It's a Wednesday, so his father would be in the studio, and his mother is clearly in her home office. Good. That's good. At least someone would have to touch him to figure out what's wrong - they'd already know if his father was home. Burdens of mind reading and all that. No privacy.
Christ, but the very thing Theo needs is privacy right now. Because he'd - he'd -
"Teddy?"
His sister's voice breaks his thoughts clean in two. Ellie has slipped into his room, quiet as the wings of a moth, and is staring at him with wide eyes, the same bright verdant that reflects back at him in the mirror - only Ellie's aren't awash with the guilt and shame he knows is gleaming in his. Because Ellie hadn't just -
"I fucked up…" he moans quietly, agonized, lungs shuttering feebly. He's lightheaded, both from the thin air he's breathing in too quickly to appreciate, and from the heady flush of raw energy coalescing in the lightning-fast conductors of his spine. It makes him sick.
He's going to be sick.
"Wait, wait," says Ellie, hushed as she rushes forward to crouch down in front of him, brows furrowed in concern. Her features are more delicate than his, the perfect feminine counterpart to his masculinity of his physicality even though they are twins - so identical, even while being fraternal. This is most apparent when the bird-fine bones of her fingers dart into his peripheral vision, a good third smaller in size than his own -
"No, don't touch me!" he yelps, flinching backward. He does something that he's seen his mother do countless times before and tugs his sweater over his hands, encasing his skin in fabric to protect the people around him from the intrusion of his gift - and now from the fatality of it.
"Honestly, you're not going to hurt me," Ellie chides, blithely pushing his sleeve back before he can so much as protest - but then, he and Ellie had been doing this since before they even knew what this was and it comes as naturally to them, to their twin bond, as breathing.
And she's right. Theo could probably hurt everyone else in the world except for Ellie - her gift is such a counter to his that it seems impossible she would ever have too little energy to meet the uncaged thing inside of him -
Not like Trevor -
Show me, Ellie demands, pushing her thoughts forward - always forward because that's the only way she operates. Not like him. He's a leech - he'd just proven today that nobody was safe around him, not even his closest friend, not even when he was well fed and well rested - no, because Theo is chained by this voracious shadow inside of him that has been clamoring to feedfeedfeed for months now and Trevor had been such an easy target -
Slow down, Teddy.
He does. Or he tries to. Theo fishes his memories of the afternoon from the banks of his mind, easily recalling them and kind of…shoving them toward Ellie. That's not the way his gift works, except for with her. Otherwise, he's just limited to taking and she's just limited to giving and they would be unbalanced -
Ellie receives the events that have so traumatized him easily -
"Oh, my God. Teddy." Ellie gasps, her hand falling to the side of his as she stares up at him in shock, dark copper hair falling across her forehead as she seems to struggle for comprehension.
He wilts, closing his eyes in the grief and guilt he has earned with his thoughtlessness. "I know - I know."
"Mom!"
At that, Theo straightens, staring at his twin incredulously. "Ellie! What are you doing?"
Ellie stands, arms crossed over her chest. "Mom can help - Mom can always help," she says firmly, faithful in her conviction.
And - yeah. True enough. Their mother is some kind of trailblazing pioneer of brilliance on a good day and something that is better off not messed with on a bad day. They've had the dubious pleasure of seeing both sides of their mother while they were growing up. Isabella Masen was one hell of a legacy to live up to - he'd seen her cut down a man twice her size with a single press of her pinky finger, only to turn around and coddle he and his sister in the next breath. She's even berated their grandfather, King Aro, heedless to the danger of contradicting him.
Theo didn't think his mother feared anything. His father either, for that matter. And that's what makes this so much worse - he doesn't want her to know what he's done because she has never lost control bad enough to really hurt someone -
Not like Theo.
Fuck.
His mother enters the room, hands empty save for pen stains on her skin that betray the brainstorm and inventions that lurked in her office. She's frowning slightly, obviously disturbed by the tone of outright frantic urgency that had been in Ellie's voice when she called for help. "Just what exactly is going on in here? Teddy, why did you come home - Oh." His mother stops, taking in the scene of angst-riddled teens, and then nods to herself, holding open the bedroom door. "Oh, I see. Ellie, go to your room."
"But Mom -"
"Now, Elisabet," says their mother, tone brooking no argument.
Ellie shuffles out of the room, casting one last worried frown over her shoulder before the door closes.
"Teddy."
The softness of his mother's voice is all that he needs to break - as if he had a prayer of hiding anything from her in the first place. The story comes tumbling out of him in hurried fits and starts, about how he and Trevor had just been doing homework and casually flirting and then Trevor had surprised him - had kissed him - and Theo had - he'd - the shadow had unleashed itself because Theo had been wholly unprepared, completely taken off guard - he hadn't been in control -
"Mom, I fucked up," he says, voice breaking, his eyes burning with a smattering of shameful tears gathering behind his lids. He bites his lips to cut off the shaky cry that threatens to leave his throat. "Jesus, I think I - did I kill him?"
Nurturing, familiar, soothing fingers card through the thickness of his hair. A gentle comfort. Forgiveness, too. "I don't know, sweetheart. Here, show me…" Theo tries not to flinch when he feels his mother ghost through his mind, glimpsing his memories of the afternoon with zero judgment. "Ah. Well, I can't be sure just from your memory, but it seems like your friend should be fine. Why don't I call your Aunt Alice and have her check up on the situation?"
He hadn't even thought of that. It seems so obvious.
"That would be - yeah. Good."
He listens as his mother dials up the resident psychic of the family. Not once does she stop carding her fingers through his hair and Theo wallows in this simple comfort because for as long as he can remember, whenever he was feeling down - something that happened all too often - it was his mother's habit to repeat the same motion until he felt better. Theo closes his eyes and counts the times his hair is pushed away from his forehead.
Thirty-three times before Aunt Alice's voice chirps on the other end of the line. Thirty-four times until Theo is shuddering in relief. And even though he has heard the news just fine, his mother still relays the message.
"Alice says your friend is okay. Teddy, you didn't hurt him."
Thank God.
"I'm so sorry about this," she says after a moment, sitting beside him on the navy comforter messily covering his bed. The apology - for Theo - seems to come out of left field. And then his mother surprises him again. "You know, when I was around your age, I had the same concerns."
"You? I don't buy it."
Her lips twitch in a sad smile, the darker green of her eyes dimming. "I know more about this than you think. Have I ever told you about a vampire named Victoria?"
It turns out his mother isn't half as perfect as he always thought she was - and that makes what he'd almost done seem all that much easier to handle.
o.o.o
o.o.o
(Theo isn't as alone as he would like to think, though. The burden of his power is shared not only with his mother, but with the mate that has stayed away to give Theo time to grow up. And if there is some part of him that aches in the dead of night, heart dead-certain that it is missing something - some one - then there is merit to that because it is true.
Theo isn't alone in this emptiness.
The vampire whose dead heart he has claimed is having trouble staying away. It's been a very long thirteen years since they saw each other last, although only one carries the albatross of remembering their single fated meeting.)
o.o.o
o.o.o
Ellie is - understandably - a bit freaked out.
After what happened with Teddy, she become on guard for the same thing happening to her. It's harder to control when she's emotional and Elisabet is admittedly quite emotional. Sue her, but she's a teenage girl and every day it dawns on her how young her parents are and there's the very distinct possibility that she and Teddy are going to out-age them and they already have to lie to the rest of the world that her parents are really just older cousins and now there's this -
Teddy had lost control. He'd nearly….
And they are so alike in so many ways, except that if Ellie ever lost control, she wouldn't be draining someone. No, she'd be flooding them and even if she's not a scientist, it isn't hard to imagine that overloading someone with energy would be way, way more violent than sucking the energy right out of them -
She can't sleep.
But the benefit of having a full-fledged vampire as a father means that he isn't sleeping, either. She finds him sat at the piano in the foyer, gently pressing on ivory keys that she can play just as well, and she sniffles as she lingers hesitantly at the edge of the room.
"Daddy…" she whispers.
Her father turns on the seat, golden eyes gentle as he takes in her plight - evidenced by the pallid tone of her complexion and by the thoughts roving freely through her mind, unencumbered by the strange shield that is sometimes there and sometimes not.
In short order, she is folded into her father's arms as he hums a short melody, a lullaby from her childhood when she was still afraid of monsters under the bed rather than being a monster.
"Sweetheart, I know you're scared of hurting someone, but you can't let that fear control you," he says after a while. "You and your brother are both gifted - and if you're anything like your mother, which I suspect you are, you will not let this cage you. You'll have to learn how to use this gift sooner or later."
"Sooner would be better, Ellie," says another from behind.
"Mom?"
Her mother sighs, perching on the corner of a overstuffed chair. "We really should have started the two of you on this training much earlier, but we thought we had time."
"And I wanted to protect them," her father adds, lips pinched together.
"Well, you are incredibly stubborn," her mother says with a faint smile.
"How can you be so caviler? You don't know what it's like!" Ellie exclaims shrilly, throwing her hands in the air with wide eyes moist with tears.
"Contrary to what you might think, we both have a bit of experience in this…It's actually how we met."
That throws Ellie for a loop and her hands fall to her sides when her father smiles gently, the same lop-sided tilt that Theo has but that has missed Ellie entirely. Her smile is even, just like her mother's, and paired with deep dimples.
"That's right," her father confirms. "Your mother knocked me right off my feet. Literally."
"Are you serious?"
Her mother's brows arch. "Ellie, there is so much you don't know - but as you've inherited this gift from me, you should rest assured that I've never seriously harmed anyone with this side of it... If you want a comparison, you might want to talk to Cousin Kate. Edward, why don't you tell her?"
Her father sits back down on the piano bench and Ellie takes her mother's newly-vacated seat. She watches as her mother exits the room, probably to go back to sleep or to check on Theo or something, and then she turns her avid attention toward her father, ready to latch onto anything that will make the anxiety keeping her awake easier to deal with.
"This is a story of how I met your mother…"
o.o.o
o.o.o
(It's weird to grow up knowing that your parents are icons, that they are so much older than they look, that one of them is constantly working on some plan to revolutionize the entire world for the better -
But sometimes - sometimes - Elisabet learns something about her parents that she hadn't known before.
Never deny your instincts, says her father solemnly. Take it from someone who knows how pointless it is to even try.
She's not like the rest of her family. In many ways, Elisabet is in the dark because she can't read minds, no, she can only push her thoughts, her energy, forward and hope that she'll get a response back. It's like tossing wishes into the starry aether and sustaining herself on hope and she doesn't think anyone really gets it. Some days, she feels so dissociated with the rest of her immediate family - but then that bleakness dawns and she abruptly realizes that she's lucky.
She gets to have her own mind. She doesn't have to worry about some shadowy thing that her mother and brother keep locked up. She doesn't have to share her innermost thoughts with anyone, not unless she wants to. She has privacy.
And then that epiphany teeters in response to a new revelation and Elisabet is again walking a tight-rope - torn between inadequacy and gratefulness, straddling some line of God-given solitude and the genuine fear that she was a ticking time-bomb, ready to touch and take out everything in her path.
She's emotional. And it's worrisome.
She needs a tether.)
o.o.o
o.o.o
It's a family discussion that most families probably don't have. Ever.
"You two should start thinking about this," says their father.
This being when to stop aging. Should they wait it out and see if they'll naturally stop aging at some point? Should they ask for the bite and choose how old they were going to be forever?
"You will have to chose," adds their mother. "I can only make rough postulations as, like me, there hasn't been anyone quite like you to ever exist on this world. You're truly unique…and that unfortunately means that you have to make some tough calls."
"We will fully support whatever it is you chose."
Decisions, decisions.
Although, probably not the decision most kids have on their sweet sixteens.
o.o.o
o.o.o
(In spite of his aching chest saying otherwise, Theo doesn't remember, but he is three years old when he meets the other half of his soul.
Alec is glad that Theo hasn't had to carry this with him for over a decade. Selfish as Alec is prone to be, he would not wish for the keeper of his heart to be burdened with the knowledge that it's best for them if they are apart -
He has had to stop himself so many times from going back to Chicago, to finding that lemongrass-sweet scent that had scrambled his brain and take the green-eyed boy for himself. Just one glimpse was enough to ruin Alec and he still feels the burning touch of a tiny, venom-blood warmed touch tapping against his hand - stealing the thoughts from his head as easily as the breath from his perfunctory lungs. As much as Mistress Isabella humors him, as much as Master Aro favors him, he knows a grievous sin when he sees one. And it would be the most grievous sin to take that which is not ready to be taken -
He stays away, he asks for longer assignments in more and more remote places, and he bides his time, calling on patience that he hasn't bothered to use since he was human - since long before Jane was strapped to that pyre and he was screaming out her pain. But now he must place the needs of someone else above his own. It is a sacrifice he willingly makes.
This doesn't stop Jane's ribbing, though, once she discovers what had knocked Alec onto his ass. Or rather, who.
"Him?"
Alec closes his eyes. "Shut up, Jane."
"Are you kidding? I've been waiting ages for this," she says with mirth, hooking her arm through his as she leads him - and it is necessary that he is led away, lest he do something really very stupid, like go and take his toddler-aged mate from the safety of his parents - to the elevator of the great New York tower that the Volturi have claimed for themselves.
"Jane."
"Him, though? I'm surprised you're not smoldering ashes right now. He's still a baby," she coos.
"He's three," he says defensively. It's a weak defense because Alec - though he looks fifteen - is several hundred years old.
Jane snorts indelicately. "Is the little Prince even potty trained?"
Alec presses his lips together, silent.
"What did Bella say? Oh, wait, what will Master Aro say - Hey! Knock it off!" his twin screeches when he turns his gaze to her, depriving her of even the most basic of her senses.
"I warned you," he seethes, cutting off his gift with an abrupt clip.
"No, brother, I warned you," Jane corrects caustically. " Tell me, do you rue teasing me that day, yet?"
Alec does rue it - and he recognizes pay-back for what it is. This is what he gets for being a pain in the ass when Jane was perusing Alistair. So, yes, he does rue his previous actions -
Almost as much as he rues the need for patience.)
o.o.o
o.o.o
"What do you think?" Ellie asks one spring afternoon.
"I think that I don't know what to think," replies Theo as he lounges lazily on the cushioned bench beneath the wide windows in the living room.
"We would be more durable."
"There's not much that hurts us now," he points out.
Ellie hums. "We wouldn't be older than our parents."
"Physically, at least," he says dryly.
"Teddy, be serious."
"I am, Ellie. I just don't understand why we have to decide right now-"
"Don't you feel it?" she asks as she cuts him off hastily, dropping down onto the floor beside him to enjoy the cool sun peeking between the glass towers of Chicago's downtown.
"Feel what?"
"This urge to just…slow down…before its too late…"
Theo sits up, abandoning the book he'd been pretending to read. "You've been spending too much time with Aunt Alice."
"I have not."
"Have too."
"I'm trying to be smart about this!" she argues, slapping her hand against her knee for emphasis.
"And I'm trying to tell you there is no need for urgency. Not yet," he returns coolly.
"You just don't want to talk about it because of that ache -"
"Ellie," he warns lowly. They don't talk about that. Not ever.
"Sorry."
"It's okay," he says, shrugging it off.
"I mean well," she says.
"I know."
Ellie reaches forward, clasping their hands together with a slight frown. I don't want us to age differently.
You should have just said that in the first place.
And directly influence you? Her thoughts skitter as she pushes this forward.
Theo shrugs nonchalantly. "You know I don't care either way. I'll take the bite whenever you want to. That's what we promised each other, right?"
Right.
o.o.o
o.o.o
(And then it all changes.)
o.o.o
o.o.o
The gravestone reads CHARLES BURKE SWAN, chiseled in white marble and sat beneath an old tree crawling with moss that must be older than she is. Aside from Beloved Father, there are no other adornments on the stone, not even birth and death dates just in case someone wandered onto the Cullen territory this far up in Washington and did some simple math to discover that Charlie Swan, her grandfather, had lived to the ripe old age of one-hundred and thirty-one - something that was definitely better kept a secret, even if he hadn't ever looked a day over eighty, according to her mother.
She'd never met her grandfather, or her grandmother Renee for that matter. They'd both died long before Ellie and Theo were even a twinkle in their parent's eyes.
She wishes she had met him. Ellie thinks that Charlie Swan might have been the most honest soul to have ever lived, if the stories about him are believed to be true. Even Grandfather Aro and Grandmother Sulpicia - the easiest way to refer to them, honestly - sang praises about Charlie Swan.
He's very missed.
After the yearly visit to the grave site to pay their respects, Ellie and Theo are released to the surrounding forest after a reminder to stay to the treaty line. There were werewolves from the local reservation that still prowled the forests - the way Ellie understood it, the vampire population in Seattle was great enough that the wolf genes in the Quileute tribe were still agitated. It probably didn't help that the old Cullen territory in Forks was still visited frequently, at least once a year if not more.
She and Theo had been raised to respect the long-standing treaty line, and so they limit themselves to running along side the river, laughing boisterously as they race - it's so rare that they can really just let loose because for as much as they love Chicago, the whole of Illinois doesn't lend itself well to privacy that would mask the unimaginable speed of vampires, even half-bloods like them. They certainly weren't as fast as the rest of their family - not yet - but they were much faster than the average human -
Theo stops on a dime. Ellie runs into his back a second later, making him stumble.
"What? What is it?"
"Wolf," Theo says quietly.
Ellie tilts her head, trying to catch the scent or the sound that had tipped her brother off -
Wow.
Her mind skids to a halt as she inhales the sandalwood-willow-musk scent coming their direction from the west. It smells amazing - to her. Theo is already wrinkling his nose in distaste, even before the massive russet wolf streaked with black markings around the paws, muzzle, and ears lopes into the small clearing they have commandeered. The wolf huffs once, lips pulling away from glistening white teeth -
But only for a moment.
In the next thundering wet thud of that massive heart, the wolf's head cocks to the side, lupine amber eyes locking onto Ellie with intent. The wolf steps forward, just a single step that Ellie mirrors as she edges around her twin, shrugging off his restraining hand on her shoulder. Her heart is rabbiting in her chest, pressing hot and too-fast against her ribs as she moves closer to the wolf, hand held aloft in greeting - in an unmitigated need to touch -
Never deny your instincts.
In the next breath, the wolf melts into a tall young man with shortly cropped ink-black hair, smooth terra-cotta skin, and caramel-bright eyes riveted on her. He's naked, but it doesn't matter. He's not bashful and Ellie isn't exactly shy - not that she can be bothered to move her eyes away from the strong, firm bones of his face -
He catches her hand, dwarfing her with his superheated touch. She imagines it's something like touching a supernova, that's how hot his blood is pumping.
She doesn't even think, pushing her thoughts forward. I'm Ellie - Elisabet Masen.
The wolf-man doesn't flinch at her surname, though surely he must know who she is - if he hadn't before - and he doesn't seem bothered that she had just pushed her thoughts directly into his head. "Nate," he rumbles back, ducking his head as they move closer together, drawn close like magnets.
They both ignore Theo's bewildered protests in the background, too lost in this new little world that has bloomed beneath the touch of their hands - the reaffirmation of an instantaneous bond.
Nate, she will soon learn, is short for Nathaniel Ephraim Black, the grandson of a boy her mother used to know and the rightful alpha wolf of the Quileute pack.
He's her wolf - and she is his imprint.
Together, they're something of a political crisis. An unprecedented event that results in the rehashing of treaty lines and the dissolution of pack rankings so that Nate is a pack unto himself and so that she and Nate can come back to this territory and make a life once she's out of school -
Who would have thought - a dhampir and a werewolf?
o.o.o
o.o.o
(It's time.)
o.o.o
o.o.o
"Theodore."
Theo spins on his heel, the plastic bag from the corner store rustling as he tightens his grip. A male figure melts from the shadows of the alley he's just passed as he walks back home - which isn't creepy at all - and now Theo is left to stare at the familiar deep, deep charcoal trench coat that has dashed through many of his childhood memories in one form or another. He blinks, darting his eyes warily around the boy - around his age, a few inches taller and lithe, wind-blown platinum blond hair, a straight nose, and the dead giveaway of vampire-pale skin.
"Who are you?" he demands, slowly making sure his other hand is free - just in case.
"Strange as it may be, I'm relieved that you don't remember me," the boy says softly, all velveteen voice and bittersweet chocolate scent. He steps out of the shadows more, the streetlight leaving the sharpness of his bone structure in stark relief.
Something clicks way in the back of Theo's mind. "I've met you before," he says. It's not a question.
"Yes."
Theo rubs absently at the center of his chest, then stops - freezes, actually, while his knees lock together and he blinks rapidly, looking at this stranger in a new light. His chest doesn't have that low-level lingering ache, anymore. His heart pumps wildly, bucking against his sternum as if it could beat right out of his chest - as if his heart isn't really his, but is actually this stranger's and he's just been holding it on reserve for sixteen years -
Never deny your instincts.
"I am Alec."
"You already know my name," Theo returns boldly.
"Yes."
Theo's eyes flick to the insignia, barely a shade brighter than the darkness of the upgraded coat that replaced cloaks in the Volturi once they moved from Italy, with a modicum of wariness. Not much, mind, because Theo is completely aware of what he is to the Volturi - if his mother is a Princess, then he is a Prince and all Volturi know this, know that Theo cannot be touched. No, if a Volturi vampire is seeking him out - well, he really hopes this isn't bad news.
"You're part of the Volturi?"
"High Guard," Alec confirms, hesitating for a split second. "Actually, you probably know my sister -"
Sister? Well, Theo only knows of one set of siblings in the Volturi - no, wait. He knows two. Grandfather Aro and Great Aunt Didyme and….Jane, with the sadistic glee and icy-blonde hair -
"Wait, you're that Alec?" he blurts in surprise, trying to reconcile crazy Jane having a brother that looks so - honestly - normal. He knows, intellectually, that they are twins, that they are the witch-twins, and that surely Alec must be at least half as sadistic as his twin - but there's something screeching in his hind brain that is addling his thoughts, jumbling them all together.
Alec sighs. "Jane has spoken of me, then."
"Well - I guess she has, but honestly, none of it has been stellar," Theo divulges with a wince.
"Of course not. My sister lives to torment me."
Theo knows a thing or two about insufferable sisters, so he nods. "Uh-huh. So, do you have a reason for pulling a classic vampire and melting out of the shadows, or?"
Alec's lips stretch into a mildly predatory smirk. "Isn't it obvious?"
Theo's breath catches as Alec steps closer and even though they're nearly matched in height, he still has to tilt his head back a bit to maintain eye contact. Alec's eyes are that odd sunset-orange color that happens when vampires are hunting humans and animals. He wonders what color Alec's eyes were when he was human. Blue, maybe, or sea-green.
Why is he thinking something so stupid right now? It's really not the time. Theo is being herded, slowly and deliberately, into the alley by patient steps, by an unbelievably intense spark racing between Alec and himself. He's never felt like this before. He never imagined it was possible.
"I've been waiting a long time for you," says Alec, leaning closer once Theo has pressed his back against rough wood.
"Why did you leave?" he mutters, shaking his head to clear cobwebs out of his thoughts.
Alec has been waiting? That means that Alec knew - and he still left - and Theo can't imagine that the reason is going to be anything he'll be pleased to hear - because if his racing heart and leaden stomach are anything to go by -
"It was better for you if -"
Theo's temper flares and he pushes against Alec's granite chest, doing very little to actually move the other boy away from him, not that he ever thought it was possible. "That wasn't for you to decide!" he hisses.
Alec's upper lip curls away from his teeth, a moderate show of aggression that doesn't scare Theo in the least, though surely it's cowed vampires before if Alec's reputation is anything to go by and he's positive that it is. "You were three -"
"And you're fucking demented if you think that sanctimonious, noble bullshit is going to-"
Alec catches his lips with a searing kiss that is heated enough to completely reboot Theo's brain -
Never deny your instincts. Take it from someone who knows how pointless it is to even try.
Theo lets Alec's touch be the balm to the ache in his chest that has mysteriously vanished
o.o.o
o.o.o
There are so many arrangements that have to be made - but the ones that matter are the ones that end with Theo and Ellie transitioning from mostly-human to mostly-vampire -
Two bites and two hearts pump slow - a single beat a minute - ta-thump - for eternity.
A/N: An outtake request for the collectives wondering about the twins and Charlie. I hope that everyone was as entertained by the mates as I was because I spent a lot of time just straight-up cackling over those reveals. I'm sure I looked insane. Alas, that is all she wrote about the twins.
We have one more outtake - one that I hope everyone is looking forward to - but I'm still cherry-picking scenes so it might be a few days.
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~cupcakeriot