Chapter 5
Misty walked into the living room, her head bowed. Gregory followed right behind her, resembling something of a love-sick puppy in Lynx's eyes as he walked in behind them. Rudolph, Anna, and their parents weren't far behind. The sound of the Thompsons' car shutting off in the driveway signaled that they would be joining them soon.
"Shall I just order pizza tonight?" Freda asked.
Misty nodded and sat down in the middle of the couch. Gregory sat at her right, though far enough to give her space, while Lynx took a seat at her left. Rudolph and Anna sat in the floor in front of them, eager to hear a story. The Thompsons walked in and walked immediately over to Misty. Freda had called shortly before arriving at the house and informed them of what was happening. There was a love seat that they took a seat in and Tony rushed to sit between Rudolph and Anna. Frederick sat in one of the reclining chairs while Freda called in the pizza.
"What toppings shall I get?" she called.
"Pepperoni!!" Tony called back with a big grin
"Same for us!!" Anna and Rudolph laughed.
"Cheese for me..." Misty nodded to her, "Just cheese..."
"I'll take pepperoni, I guess," Gregory added.
"Mushrooms, right Bob?" Dottie grinned, patting her husband's knee.
"Sounds good to me," Bob replied.
"I'll have the same," Frederick turned to her.
"Lots o' garlic!!" Lynx clapped.
"NO!!!!" Misty shouted, "You are not allowed to eat that."
"Why?" Gregory asked with a shrug.
"Heh," Misty laughed hollowly, "You've never experienced 'Lynx Garlic Breath'."
Gregory grimaced.
"You are sharing a room with me..." he turned to him, "Can't ya have something else?"
"Alright, pepperoni for me too, then," Lynx huffed.
Freda nodded and called in the order. A moment later, with money in hand, she returned.
"Misty," she turned to Misty first; "I got you a personal cheese pizza." She then glanced around to everyone in turn. "Then I got a large mushroom pizza for us adults. And then I got two large pepperoni pizzas for everyone else. Sound alright?"
They nodded before turning to Misty as Freda took a seat beside Frederick in her own recliner. Misty glanced at the light still peeking in through the windows. Using her psycho kinesis, she closed the curtains before turning back to the family.
"Alright..." she began slowly, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees, "I wear long sleeves all the time now. I can't afford to wear short sleeves in the sunlight anymore..."
"Why?" Anna asked.
"You'll remember last year," she sighed, "how I was a vampire for a night--"
"I said I was sorry," Gregory protested.
"I'm not reprimanding you..." she glanced at him, "If you'll let me finish...?"
Gregory contented himself to silence to let her continue.
"As I was saying," she went on, "When we were at the cliffs...after I beat the living sh...Do you mind if I curse, Freda, Frederick?"
"About Rookery?" Frederick smirked, "Not at all."
"Right," Misty smiled weakly, "Well, after I beat the living shit out of that bastard, Rookery, he caught me off guard and splashed holy water on the bare skin of my right wrist...leaving a scar...well...the trauma of being a vampire for a night and then changing suddenly back to a mortal took a toll on my body...and the scar...stayed..."
With that, she pulled the sleeve of her right arm up to show them an ugly burn scar. It reached from the base of her hand and nearly to the bend of her elbow. It was red and white and looked utterly painful even now; a year later.
"There's more, though," Misty went on, "I've tried...wearing some kind of bandage around the burn...wearing a wrist guard over it--anything...but I found out, while I was out there, that if my arms...are exposed to the sun...the burn will spread. The skin cells in my arm are still vampyric--very sensitive to light. I've no way of knowing what would happen if the burn spread up my arm and to my shoulder--how far the burn can spread. It started out with just my arm, from my elbow down, holding vampyric skin cells...but, as the burn spreads, so does the type of cells. My human skin cells die...and the vampyric cells move in....or maybe the vampyric cells kill the human ones to spread, I don't know...my body doesn't know what to do with these conflicting cells because of the trauma it endured..."
"What kind of trauma are we talking about...exactly?" Lynx asked in a hinting tone.
"Lynx," Misty snapped, "Keep your mind out of the gutter. Nothing of the sort happened."
"Whatever..." Lynx chortled.
"You can't tell anyone..." Misty warned to him and the others, "Especially not Bill. He's in a bad enough spot as it is...I don't want him to worry about me too much on top of that..."
Dottie nodded and glanced at Bob uneasily and sadly. The pizza arrived shortly after and they contented themselves to watching another episode of House while they ate.
--
Gregory tossed and turned under his covers before sitting up with a grimace. He headed straight for the bathroom, his foggy mind focusing only on his destination. Damn this human body. This was a precise reason for why he hated being human so much! He was always having to use the restroom and he had to sleep on a lumpy mattress. He missed laying in his coffin and hanging from the ceiling. Under his breath as he washed his hands, he cursed Lynx's confinement to his room for the second time. He would gladly sleep hanging upside down if that bastard wasn't around. He glanced up into the mirror and grimaced at the fog of his figure. Those stories about vampires having no reflection was only half true. He still had a reflection, it just wasn't very sharp. A part of him hated what he'd done that night when Dorothy had come to see him...
--
It was another night of attempted sleep as Gregory groaned at the ceiling. His back ached from the nights of curling up. Every night, he would curse becoming human again. What a stupid thing his family had chosen!! This life couldn't be worse! Giving up on sleep, he contented himself to staring up at the ceiling with his sad, coffee-colored eyes. He'd spoken to his parents about this loneliness. He'd discovered that, should a vampire take a bite of a human out of love, the human and the vampire who bit them share a connection. True, Gregory hadn't been 'in love' with Misty. He hardly knew her. However, he knew that he was attracted to her. He hadn't been lying when he'd told her that he liked her. She was pretty--beautiful if he could go so far, and he'd wanted so badly to be with her if they couldn't get the stone. So badly did he wish to share the next three hundred years with her if Tony had failed. Since he'd bitten her with an attraction to her, he developed a strong bond to her--one that somehow stuck with him even after he'd changed back. Misty didn't seem to feel it, but he was going mad without her.
He jumped at the slight sound coming from his window. Sitting up and staring at the balcony, he slowly walked towards the double doors, an awed look on his face. There was a woman standing just outside. She was tall, plump, and wore a slight scowl.. Black hair barely showed through the black shawl she wore around her shoulders and over her head to brace against the cold night air. Her clothing was all black, her skin; deathly white. Feral, honey eyes stared warmly at him as thin lips were drawn back in a smile while Gregory opened one of the doors for her.
"Gregory," she purred, stepping inside, "My dear nephew...how you've grown..."
"What are you doing here, Aunt Dorothy?" he asked, trying to sound as polite as possible, "And how did you get up here?"
Dorothy smirked.
"You didn't actually think," she chuckled, "I would give up being a goddess of the night, did you? No...I chose to escape that little ceremony."
"How?" Gregory asked.
Dorothy smiled and cupped his cheek.
"I fled," she answered, "as soon as I finished that little argument with that annoying little girl...I fled to the Valley of Doom. The magic didn't permeate to me there, so I am still a queen of the night."
"So...why are you here?" he asked.
"Oh, dear," she cooed, "You're my favorite nephew. I could almost taste your sadness as I stood out there. You long to be a vampire again...don't you, dear...?"
Gregory didn't answer as he batted her hand away and walked over to sit down on the bed. Dorothy smiled knowingly.
"Dear," she sighed, "I understand this loneliness...I don't understand what ever drew you to that girl in the first place, but now that you have this bond, I can't very well counter it...but I can make it easier. It'll hurt, but only a moment. And then you can have your little bunny again."
Gregory glared up at her, recalling just why Misty didn't like her.
"There's no way out of this..." he murmured, "She'd hate me for what I did...and I'd have to act human..."
"Yes," Dorothy nodded, "Since you'll eat like a human, you'll have all of the fun bodily functions that come with it...but you'll crave blood...and you will still be sensitive to light...but I suppose you'll just have to wear sunscreen, yes?"
Gregory shrugged as he considered it. It wouldn't hurt...
"I won't be able to go back..." he mumbled.
"No," she nodded, "It is a tough decision...but make it fast...I don't have all night."
He looked up at her pleadingly before nodding slowly. Dorothy smiled and spread her arms out, beckoning him to come to her. With a deep breath, he stood and walked towards her before letting her pull him into an embrace. Smirking, she bared her fangs before sinking them deep into her nephew's neck. Gregory cried out in pain, but buried his face in her shoulder to muffle the sound. The last thing he remembered was her chuckling.
--
He'd woken up the next morning in his bed and ashen faced. Now, as he looked into the mirror, he wondered if it was the right choice. With a sigh, he wandered back to his bedroom, but stopped dead at the door when he heard that loud rumbling of Lynx's snoring. He growled low before turning back toward the kitchen. He walked downstairs for a little peanut butter and started when he noted that Misty was, once again, missing from the living room couch. Groaning, he headed straight for the backyard. He found that he wasn't surprised to discover her sitting in the gazebo like she had been the night before. He stormed outside and marched up to her, alerting her to his presence much quicker.
"What the hell are you doing out here, again?" he demanded, folding his arms across his chest.
"Why must I have a reason?" Misty asked, "I mean, my father figure is in the hospital...do I need to explain myself?"
"You're really only out here because of him?" Gregory asked suspiciously.
Misty gazed at him hard before sighing to herself and sitting up.
"Partly..." she admitted.
She paused and stared down at the ground. Gregory sat beside her.
"So what else is bothering you?" he asked, speaking in a more gentle tone this time.
Misty remained silent before sitting up again and staring up at the moon.
"You know I'm a telepath..." she began slowly, "Well...as of late...I've been experiencing less control over my little curse...I say curse...because at night...I hear...everyone...I hear everyone's thoughts when I'm trying to sleep..."
Fear gripped Gregory's heart as he listened.
"C-Can you hear my thoughts right now?" he asked fearfully.
"Actually...no..." she relented, glancing at him, "There are times when I can, but, lately, your thoughts are cloudy to me...I don't know why."
"Maybe it's because you do love me and you unconsciously don't want to pry?" he smirked.
"Very cute, but very wrong," she smirked back.
He smiled at her knowingly.
"What?" Misty asked, furrowing her brow.
"You do like me, right?" he asked.
"I can't say I don't, for that would be a lie," she shrugged back, "But I don't like you that way. I apologize, but I suppose I'm still angry about what you did last year."
"About your friend?" he sneered.
"Oh no," Misty replied, "And stop saying that. No, I'm angry at you because I thought I could trust you and your family and you betrayed me. A part of me still wants to hate you for that, but I don't. You need to learn that women can hold a grudge that lasts a lifetime. You had me meet that bitch of an aunt of yours as well. Can't easily forgive you for that."
"I'll give you that one..." he nodded, "She's not quite the most wonderful person, eh?"
"Not by a long shot," Misty shook her head.
"So you hear these thoughts and you come out here?" he asked returning to the topic.
"Aye," she replied with a nod, "And when my head is cleared, I go back inside."
"How do you clear your head?" he asked, curiosity peaking.
"Well," Misty leaned toward him, "I read in the...fifth Harry Potter(r) book about something J.K. Rowling called 'Occlumency'. In the book, it is described as a method of closing the mind to unwanted thoughts. It's just a book, yes, but Lynx and I tried it. While we were in America, we worked on that method. We learned to clear our minds to close them off to others. And that's what I've been doing the last few nights."
Gregory nodded in understanding, while truthfully having no real idea what she was talking about.
"What are you doing up, anyway?" she asked.
"I'll be honest with you," he shrugged, "I miss being a vampire. I find sleeping in a bed uncomfortable after three hundred years of either sleeping in a coffin or upside down. Even after a year of humanity, I still find myself with aches in the morning from curling up in a bed."
"That's understandable," Misty shrugged with a nod, "The lifestyle you were used to ended so abruptly and you're still adapting somewhat."
Gregory smiled at her understanding before standing again.
"I better get back to bed," he sighed as he began walking away, "You too, you know. I just came down here to get some peanut butter."
"Lynx snoring?" Misty asked, smiling and standing with him.
"I would say, 'you've no idea', but I know you do," he laughed as he held the door open for her.
Misty chuckled as she walked inside and to the living room for some shut eye as Gregory grabbed the peanut butter from the cupboard. He walked to the stairs and glanced at Misty, who was laying on the couch with her eyes closed and the covers over her. With a blush, he padded over to her and leaned down before pecking her cheek oh so lightly. Misty blinked and looked up at him with a blush as he brushed a lock of hair from her face.
"Goodnight," he breathed.
"G-Goodnight," she whispered back as he turned to walk away and back to his room.
A/N: Okay, 2 things;
1.) I do NOT own the term 'Occlumency'. It is stated clearly in the chapter that Misty and Lynx stumbled upon the idea in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' and they tried it. I do not claim the art. It's not mine
and 2.) Don't bother me about it!!! I tell you I have no ownage of it and I don't so let it go.
Okay, now leave a review please so I can know what you think!!! Thanks!!