Sorry for the incredibly long lapse in updates. I do have a couple of chapters queued up, so next update will be 6/2. Shoutout to MBAV fan66, TiredOfBeingNice, and Bye Felicia for their comments that keep me going!
And now for the continuation...
Ethan gingerly holds the still mostly full, now cold coffee in his left hand and gestures generally towards the water fountain down the hall, "I need to dump this." Benny nods.
"Why?" Rory asks, suddenly popping up on Ethan's left, effectively blocking the path to the water fountain. The vampire menace snatches the paper cup away while before Ethan recovers from the jump-scare enough to react.
Rory, of course, immediately downs half the doctored coffee. "It tastes fine," Rory remarks, confused. Ethan watches in horror as Rory's pupil's dilate into his glowing golden irises.
"Man, I haven't had coffee in a long time," Rory says smacking his lips.
"No, Ror…" Benny swipes at the cup. His face falls into a grimace when Rory, oblivious to the attempt, shotguns the rest of the coffee.
There's a moment of tense stillness, where Benny and Ethan watch Rory blink at them with black and gold eyes.
"I-should-hold-auditions-for-Benny's-girlfriend-Canada's-Got-Talent-style," Rory blurts out. Taken aback, Rory looks around as if to see who said that. "No-I-should-paint-a-love-sonnet-for-Anne-and-get-those-chocolates-she-likes-from-the-shop-on-main-street," Rory continues, his speech becoming manic and blurred. "Why-not-both?-And-a-pizza!-That's-a-great-idea!"
In a gush of wind, Rory is gone.
Insides his head, Other Ethan groans wearily. 'What could we even possibly do right now?' It's a fair question. They don't have any allies at school fast enough to catch Rory. And even if they miraculously catch hyperspeed-Rory, Ethan would bet money that Benny doesn't have the antidote.
The boys share a look of horrified bafflement. Benny shrugs. "What could possibly go wrong with letting the hyperactive ADD vampire drink a full vial of Ducerebra..." Ethan winces even though he feels fairly confident they couldn't have prevented this tragedy.
"Letting Rory drink what?" Jane demands, stepping out of the general hallway crowd into their personal circle. Her unexpected arrival causes Ethan to jump again, Other Ethan blames it on being too tired to notice their surroundings.
Benny shrugs again, this time meekly offering his defense, "It was for your brother!"
Jane pinches the bridge of her nose, "You didn't give Ethan any of my Ducerebra that you stole from my shelf, did you?"
Ethan watches the exchange silently. Jane and Benny have an odd rivalry. Jane frequently playing both the rolls of the responsible adult figure and the student struggling to catch up with Benny's natural talent.
"For Ethan! It was for Ethan!" Benny emphatically sweeps his open palms to draw Jane's attention to her brother. As if Ethan's physically presence lent credence to his argument. From Jane's expression, this is not a winning strategy.
"You don't know what Ducerebra does, do you?" Jane accuses, the fragile features of her face scrunching up in mental exhaustion.
"I do now!" Benny defends.
"Riiight," Jane says, her voice an eye roll. "How much did you give him?"
"I'm not sure." Benny shrugs helplessly.
Jane looks incised. Her whole body puffs up with the sharp intake of breath that precedes a rant. Before she can rail on Benny, Ethan interjects, "Benny put the whole vial in my coffee, and I had about five sips before I noticed the effects and stopped."
Jane checks her cell phone, "And that was about an hour ago?"
Ethan nods, and then when he realizes that Jane isn't looking at him, "yeah that sounds right."
Jane nods, mumbling under her breath. Ethan thinks she's using the calculator on her phone. "And your coffee was sixteen ounces?"
"Twenty," Ethan corrects. Jane seems mildly pleased with that answer. The boys watch her expectantly.
After a moment, Jane's eyes bug out. "Ethan sit down," Jane demands. Ethan balks momentarily. But he gives in to Jane's mini-mom glare.
"So E sitting on the dirty floor is helpful how?" Benny argues.
"Oh, like you care if the floor is dirty," Jane ribs, and shoves the phone back into her tiny girl pocket.
"Guys!" Ethan barks from the floor.
"Sorry," Jane amends before launching into a technical explanation of how the potion affects the human mind. Something about a time loop. Benny nods along. Ethan would normally try to follow the lesson as well, but the exhaustion is making his mind foggy.
'Jane's going to die if we don't prevent it,' Other Ethan muses sadly as they watch her prim gestures. 'And right now the seer dreams are too unreliable.'
It's the true and chilling thought that Ethan has been avoiding all day. 'Not for lack of trying.' Ethan reminds himself. Grandma, Benny, and Jane have all tried various magical means of improving his seer abilities. But they're just making guesses in the dark. The ancient tomes the coven collectively owns on the subject read like the garbled cryptic garbage that Ethan writes in the middle of the night. And it's not like they have anyone to ask. Current intel claims Ethan is the only living seer in North America.
'But you know what this means,' Other Ethan insists. There's a desperation in voice, like he knows his time is limited and he really wants to get this one point out.
Ethan doesn't respond, not actually sure what his other self might mean.
'The dreams take a lot out of us,' Other Ethan begins his explanation with a slightly patronizing tone. 'Which means when we wake up, we're not capable of remembering anything. The issue isn't with the magic, isn't with the seer dreams. It's with us! We need a way to like relax or something while we dream.'
'Okay,' Ethan agrees. The reasoning seems logical enough. 'But how do we fix that problem?' As he's asking the question, Ethan feels Other Ethan slipping.
For one overwhelming smothering moment Ethan is aware of the entirely of his and Other Ethan's memories. Then everything goes black.
The bed dipping rouses him back to consciousness. For a moment, he thinks Benny is climbing over him for some reason, but then fine-boned hands slide up the bare skin of his chest. Fingers splaying as Sarah transitions the caress into a cuddle, settling her weight against him gently.
"Mmm, hi" Ethan greets, feeling satisfyingly refreshed from his involuntary nap. He's still wearing jeans, so Benny must've taken his shirt and socks off. Sarah would've stripped him down to boxers.
"Hi," Sarah replies teasingly as she gives him a light kiss. It's a sweet kiss that matches the sweet vanilla flavor Ethan gets from her chapstick.
"How long was I asleep?" Ethan asks, sitting up and looking around. Benny's digital alarm clock is askew from the last time Benny's big ham-hand slapped it off. It was Thursday when he zonked out. Sarah had been planning to fly into town on Friday after her last class.
"I'm not sure, Benny didn't really give me a lot of details." Sarah runs her fingers through his hair, her fingernails pleasantly scratching his scalp.
"Is it Friday?" Ethan asks, sitting up. Sarah shifts with him, wrapping her legs around his torso and resting her chin lightly against his shoulder.
"No," Sarah giggles quietly. "No, Bunny. Actually Benny asked me to come early because you had a rough night? Prophecy?"
Ethan nods. So he couldn't have been out that long-just a couple of hours at most. He's not that hungry so it probably isn't dinner time yet.
"And…?" Sarah prompts.
Ethan sighs heavily, hugging her arm closer to his chest. Normally he would put off talking about his prophecies until he felt confident he knew what was going on and what to do about it. But that self-burdening habit is exactly what he had discussed with himself earlier. "Jane died. In the dream."
"Ow, that's not good." Sarah comments with bland sympathy.
Irritation spikes in Ethan's blood. "I read the report, and it's garbage!" he continues hoping that Sarah will understand. "I kept mentioning a smiling woman? Woman with smiling eyeballs?"
Sarah is quiet. Waiting. Her sweet honey eyes brimming with unaffected concern.
"I'm pretty sure she's mostly likely to die in a car crash, but there's another part of the prophecy that says 'car no car same,'" which I think means I have to really figure this out. I can't just have Jane avoid cars for the next couple of days." Ethan runs his fingers through his hair in frustration.
Sarah hugs him with all four limbs, "Don't worry Bunny, I know you'll dream the answer before anything bad happens."
"No! you don't know that!" Ethan snaps. "The answers don't just 'come to me.' I have to work for them! It's me doing my best all the time to make sure horrible stuff doesn't happen all the time!"
Sarah pulls back, her expression honestly shocked. "Hey this isn't like you." She gives him a little shake, gentle with her vampire strength.
"I'm sorry," Ethan relents immediately. "I um… Benny gave me this stupid 'two minds' potion today that made me talk to myself. Other "me" said I need to ask for help, but I dunno." Clearly this isn't working.
"Okay," Sarah says diplomatically, scratching his back in soft circles. "What do you need, Baby?"
"I don't know," Ethan replies with a shaky breath. His eyes sting; he's not going to cry.
"Okay…" Sarah begins.
"What if I can't fix it this time? What if Jane really dies?" The consuming empty feeling edges in along with the thought.
"We'll... cope. We'll have to," Sarah states finally. "But before we get too caught up with that, let's brainstorm stuff we can do, we can all do, to help Jane."
"Okay," Ethan agrees and is too relieved to worry about how shaky his voice sounds. "When I was talking to myself today, I realized that the seer dreams are working right, but I wake up before I have an answer. Like seeing Jane die stresses me out too much."
Sarah nods against his shoulder. "That makes sense."
They breathe together for a moment. Sarah's silence is contemplative, but Ethan just feels defeated.
"Would a potion that keeps you asleep help? Do you think it would help?" Sarah asks seriously.
"We already tried that. We tried a couple of different potions, and they all seem to block the seer dreams. I really don't think anything magical will help," Ethan adds impatiently.
"Okay, what kind of things would help?" Sarah asks instead.
Ethan shrugs. "I mean the theme of the day has been I can't go it alone. So maybe this? Having you there when I'm dreaming?" Ethan muses, brushing his fingertips lightly against the fine hairs on her arm.
"You know I don't sleep, Bunny," Sarah says apologetically. Ethan is confused, and about to ask what she means when she continues. "Besides I can't spend that much time flying back and forth. And your mom definitely would not be okay with that."
Sarah must've thought Ethan meant sleeping with her, when Ethan meant having an ally in the dreams with him, which he isn't sure is even possible.
"I know. It's okay," Ethan replies, not feeling the need to clarify what he meant to Sarah. It's not like she could share his dreams. She follows the apology up with gentle kisses on his neck. Ethan hasn't said anything, because he thinks it would make Sarah self-conscious, but she's really into kissing, licking, and nibbling his neck.
Sarah pulls back locking eyes with Ethan. "Hey I've got an idea!" Sarah proclaims.
"Eh?" Ethan laughs out nervously.
"I can't, but, Benny could," Sarah says finishing her thought.
"Benny could what?" Ethan asks.
"Benny could sleep with you!" Sarah exclaims. She obviously believes she's hit upon a fantastic solution.
"Sarah, no." Ethan argues.
"Just think about it?" Sarah wheedles.
"Fine, I'll think about it," Ethan agrees so she will drop the subject.
"Good," Sarah rewards him with a smile and a kiss.
Jumping on the chance, Ethan runs his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head to pull her closer to deepen the contact.
"I missed your kisses," Sarah breathes, mouth not quite leaving Ethan's, before pushing in again.
This kiss ends with a sharp sting that Ethan recognizes as Sarah's fang piercing his lip. Ethan dabs his lip, so he can see the blood on his fingers.
"Damn," Sarah swears looking contrite. For nearly three seconds. Until she wraps her mouth around Ethan's finger to clean the blood off. They haven't risked fellectio because Sarah almost always fangs out when things get heated, but the sensation of her hot mouth and tongue, even the scrap of her teeth, on his fingers is still shoots sparks down his nerves.
His arousal doesn't flag when Sarah sucks his cut lip. Ethan considers shoving a hand down his pants, or down hers. They probably shouldn't get that involved at the moment. Ignoring his own good judgment, Ethan twists her hips around so he can pull her down against his erection.
Sarah hums appreciatively, moving to lick his neck, her fangs dragging against his skin delicately. Ethan shudders.
"Hey guys?" Benny asks, barging into the room that is admittedly his. Sarah looks up in shock, her eyes and mouth still vamped-out. Her teeth just so slightly pink. Whatever Benny was saying dies in his throat.
"Recesserimus, qui transiens commiscetur rixae lamia!" Benny shouts.
Sarah flies off the bed and hits the wall hard.
The next chapter will involve legos.