Sadly, the next day Dracula and Ericka took Joe to the hospital and his parents weren't any better off.
"Mom, dad, I love you and will always miss you." Joe teared up. "But I can't let you suffer any longer. Say hi to grandpa and grandma for me."
He then nodded to the doctor, allowing him to take his parents off life support. Once it was done, he rushed out of the room to cry to Dracula and Ericka who hugged him back comfortingly.
A funeral was arranged for a few days later, with Joe's friends and their siblings and parents invited along with Joe's parents' friends. Joe invited Dracula and his family as well, plus any other monsters who wanted to come. Only Dracula's closest friends and their wives/girlfriends agreed, since they didn't want to create too big a crowd at the funeral. Joe's parents' friends made a few speeches, and Joe said a small eulogy (mostly because he started to sob during it, preventing him from saying much else).
However it looked as if Joe would have to be sent to a foster home after all. His friends' parents weren't able to work out permanent rooming for him, since it would require either adding on to their own homes or moving to a new home and none of the parents had enough money for either option.
That, more than anything else, saddened Joe so much that after he put his shovelful of dirt into his parents' grave he couldn't stand it anymore, and ran away to cry by himself. Dracula and Ericka noticed right away, and went after him. When they saw him sitting under a tree crying they held back at first, and then mustered the courage to sit down in front of him and comfortingly put a hand each on his shoulders.
"I don't know what to do...I don't want to be put in a foster home!" Joe cried.
"You won't." Dracula smiled. "Ericka and I have been talking and we decided that you're welcome to stay in the hotel with us."
"But...but the hotel is your business. I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality." Joe sobbed.
"You won't...if you let us adopt you." Ericka smiled.
Joe stopped crying, shocked, and looked at them. They were still smiling and nodded, so Joe laugh-cried and hugged them. Truthfully he had been growing fond of them all these weeks and had started to think of them as second parents, but never said anything because of the hope of his parents surviving. But now that his parents were dead, there was nothing holding him back from accepting Dracula and Ericka as his new parents.
After Joe recovered all three of them got up to say a final farewell to his birth parents. To their surprise, they saw some firefighters show up.
"Sorry we're late, fire or no fire things still get busy around here." A fire chief, in fact the fire chief from the night of the Bradton house's fire, said.
"It's okay...thank you for coming anyway." Joe smiled.
They then saw Mavis and Johnny looking miserable.
"I can't believe we failed to save your parents." Mavis sobbed to Joe as Johnny put his arm around her.
"Now don't think like that." A firefighter said. "Even though Mr. and Mrs. Bradton died they were still given a chance to survive, which they wouldn't have gotten at all if you two hadn't shown up to fly them out of the fire."
"Yeah, take it from us." Another fire fighter said. "We've been fighting fires and helping people for years, and the harsh truth we've learned is that you can't save everyone. All you can do is save as many as you can, even if you only save a few during your whole life."
Mavis and Johnny smiled, feeling better. And truthfully so did Dracula, since all these decades he had still been feeling guilty over Martha's death.
"Um, Joe...while we haven't been able to work out you staying with one of us permanently you are welcome to temporarily move in until something can be arranged." Ray's dad said.
"Oh don't worry, Dracula and Ericka are going to adopt me." Joe smiled.
"Oh good." Tom's dad smiled.
"Man that's way cool!" Wally smiled. "We're going to have to arrange a celebration for you joining the vampire family."
"After everything is final." Tom's mom said. "It is going to take some paperwork first of all."
"Oh joy." Dracula rolled his eyes.
Ericka playfully jabbed him in the side, causing Dracula to smirk back.
"I guess owning a hotel means a lot of paperwork?" Ralph's dad chuckled.
"A lot doesn't even begin to describe it." Dracula chuckled back. "But a little extra will be worth it if it means adopting Joe."
"Speaking of which, we should get started as soon as possible. The sooner we finish the sooner Joe will be our son." Ericka said.
"Right. We'll at least go to court today and get the information we need if nothing else."
So that's what they did. There was definitely paperwork to fill out, but Dracula and Ericka willingly did it. The courts were fortunately willing to let Dracula and Ericka adopt Joe, mostly because they knew that Joe had been living with them while his parents were in a coma and had done a good job of looking after him.
After the paperwork was done the courts informed them that the garage connected to the Bradton house had been saved from the flames, so everything inside would be later delivered to the castle later that day for them to go through. This included the car.
"Well...we don't need an extra car..." Dracula thought it over.
"Maybe we could just save it for me to drive when I'm old enough? I'd like to have my own car either way." Joe suggested.
"That sounds fair. We have plenty of room anyway." Ericka nodded.
"Okay. Leave the car in the courtyard and have everything else delivered into the lobby." Dracula said.
With that, they started to leave.
"Say...new mom and dad?" Joe said. "I've decided that despite my fear of heights I'd like to move to your floor. After all I'm now your son so I should be with the rest of the family, and I want to get over my fear of heights anyway."
"That sounds perfectly fine to us. If it helps we can just keep your window locked until you're more comfortable living on that floor." Dracula suggested.
"Good idea. It's hard to be afraid of falling out the window if you can't actually go through the window." Joe grinned.
So they headed back, and got a room near the rest of the vampire family ready while they waited for everything from the Bradton garage. Joe ended up fine on the floor, mostly thanks to having gotten used to it through visiting Dennis in his room. And he was definitely grateful to finally get some bookcases.
A couple hours later, everything from the garage arrived. Joe's old childhood toys were in a few boxes, having only been packed in there because Joe ran out of room in his bedroom for them. He had thought about donating them to charity, but found it hard because some of them were given to him by his grandparents. And now that his parents were dead...well, he just couldn't completely get rid of them. So he decided to save them for his future kids, though he let Dennis select a few to temporarily keep so that he could always play with them.
Holiday decorations were in most of the other boxes, and Dracula decided that they could just simply be used to decorate his family's floor. They didn't have that many decorations for that floor anyway, and this way Joe wouldn't be forced to get rid of them. The rest of the items from the garage were photo albums, which Joe definitely kept in his room, and tools. Including smaller versions that Mr. Bradton gave Joe the previous year for his birthday. Joe of course kept his tools, but allowed the staff to keep his dad's tools.
After everything was settled, Joe switched to focusing on enjoying being with his new family and getting over his fear of heights. He first decided to just avoid going near the windows, which worked great. At times he even forgot that he was on a high floor. To further help, he asked his new parents to take turns turning into bats and slowly flying him up. They first went a foot off the ground, so he could get used to his feet not being on the ground, and then slowly went up higher and higher over the next few weeks. To help Joe feel better they had even made sure that giant cushions would be under him during every flight, even though they had never lost their grip on anyone or anything before.
Joe ended up loving his new family a lot, even though he still missed his birth parents. He did feel a little out of place due to being the only human in the family living there, but his friends continued to visit him often which made him feel better. Dennis treating him like a big brother/cool uncle made him feel a lot better too. Luckily he didn't have to worry about getting hurt like Mavis had with Dennis long ago, because his entire family made sure that he wouldn't get on the wrong side of the monsters' less-safe antics.
Heck he even was cool with Abraham. Yeah some people would find his old look and cyborg body creepy, but after having gotten over his hatred of monsters Abraham turned out to be a nice person. Sometimes even a cool guy, because while he gave up on weapons he was still good enough with technology to build other things
And of course due to still being human Joe continued going to human school. Especially since his friends were still there, plus he didn't want to have to worry about the monster-equivalent of bullies in a new school. Human bullies were bad enough.
Even so, later in September he decided to talk to his new parents about an important topic.
"Say mom, dad?" He said during breakfast. "I don't mind being human in a family of vampires, but I'm wondering if it'd be a good idea to turn me into a vampire in the future."
"Well, because human lifespans are shorter than monster lifespans it wouldn't be a bad idea." Dracula noted.
"However it would be best to wait until you've decided on a career. Certain jobs may not be safe for vampires." Abraham spoke up.
"Being a lifeguard at a beach definitely wouldn't be a good idea." Dracula chuckled in agreement. "Though the sunblock companies wouldn't protest the idea of a vampire lifeguard."
Everyone else chuckled.
"Okay." Joe agreed. "I've never really decided on what career I wanted, but I have time. And you do have a point about vampire safety."
"What careers have you thought about having?" Dennis smiled.
"Oh, the usual cool ones most guys think about. Being a cop and such. But I really just like pretending to be them, I'm not interested enough to want them as a career." Joe shrugged. "Really, interest-wise...I dunno. I've had some interest in the paranormal but I don't want to be those fake mediums that con people out of their money. And being something like a ghost-catcher probably wouldn't be appropriate either. What about you?"
"I may just help continue running the hotel. I've always loved this place, and I don't think I'd ever want to leave except on fun trips."
"Ah. Well, I guess I could just later work here until I decide on a permanent career." Joe decided. "Sometimes people get temporary jobs to earn a living until they can get their dream career anyway."
"That sounds like a good idea." Ericka smiled.
But then that night...
"Don't give up on the paranormal whippersnapper..." A new male voice said to Joe in his dream. "There's a secret about our family that you will have to slowly learn as you grow older... Right now you're a little too young to be worrying about it... Wait until you're sixteen..."
"Grandpa...?" Joe thought in his sleep.