Black Sun 019: Angela’s Supernatural Silent Pines Flowchart (Original Draft)

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“Do you want to tell me what the hell this is about?” Leo greeted Angela, holding out his phone.

She found him waiting on her stoop when she got home from school. He’d gotten a haircut; it was shorter, a little more cleaned-up. His leather jacket was missing- and come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him wear it in a while. The rest of his outfit was still typical Leo, though: band t-shirt, jeans, boots.

He pushed himself up from a sitting position, managing to stretch at the same time as he was dangling the phone in front of her. The screen was filled up with Angela’s texts.

“Do I do laundry?” he demanded, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Well? DO you? Is there time for laundry between stalking prey, writing dark poems, and staring longingly in to the moonlight?” Angela eyed him. He was all freshened up. She’d figure out what that meant later. For now she had an armload of books and folders, along with her giant purse and was stepping around Leo with a big old smirk to get to the door. Her dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, so it looked like he was going to have another late night at work.

“I also want to know about your underwear. I’m pretty sure if I was a vampire I wouldn’t bother.” The front door wasn’t locked at all and she rolled her eyes. Her pops was always forgetting to lock the door. Thankfully there wasn’t anything all that valuable to steal. Or at least, nothing LOOKED valuable enough to steal. She pushed her way inside and waited for Leo to follow before kicking the door shut.

“I haven’t even gotten to the GOOD questions yet. Are you here to play with me or did Mikey send you here to make me stop sending him texts too? I don’t think he understands the value of thorough research.”

“I don’t do any of those things,” he retorted. “Well, okay. Stalking prey I’ll give you.”

He slid around Angela to give her a knowing glance.

“If you wanted to know about my underwear, you didn’t need to come up with excuses. I go commando.” Folding his hands behind his head, he smirked. “Nothing to do with being a vampire though. Pretty sure Michael wears tighty-whities. He’s irritated with you, by the way, yeah. Not sure what it is about you that gets to him so damn bad.”

She laughed out loud. “Babe, if I wanted in your pants, I woulda already been IN them.” Angela made a fishy-kissy face at him before gesturing with her head for him to follow. She lead the way through the tiny living room and open kitchen, to a cramped hall where she passed through the only open door at the end.

Angela Mercy’s room looked like a tornado blew through and dumped a library on top of some fourteen year old’s bedroom and no one ever bothered to clean it back up. Tossed, draped and dangling all over the place were a mix of clean and dirty clothes with no way to tell which was which aside from taking a sniff of it. Books were stacked up everywhere. On the floor, on her desk, on the bed. Most of them just seemed to be school books or recent novels, nothing of value. But that was probably because everything that was actually worth something to her was carefully placed on a built-in shelf in her doorless closet. There was a handful of volumes tucked neatly away, along with a jewelry box, a few treasures and several pictures.

The walls were probably purple, but it was hard to tell because they were covered in layers of stuff. The bottom later being posters of cute boys and movies she liked, along with the occasional map of a country, tablet of elements or star chart. Here and there you could see an unfinished and abandoned pinboard of past obsessions. The perfect prom dress. How espresso machines worked. The best road trip for hitting all the state parks. More interestingly though was the newest stuff. Pieces of paper pined up and scribbled on with a cluster of words. Sticky notes with people’s names and a few observations. All of them were very recent.

Apparently Angela’s bedroom was now headquarters for Supernatural Silent Pines Studies.

“I’m pretty sure it’s cause I’m not a demure and well behaved young lady, so I offend his sensitive ears every time I say fuck and shit and call him a prick.” she dumped everything from her arms on to the bed and snatched up one of her folders. “…I don’t think I said prick out loud, yet, though. But he knows.” She riffled through the papers until she found the one she needed and over she went to the wall to start a new project. Big bold letters written in her sparkling gel pen were at the top.

vampire hightower(???) of doom(!?)

Resting her hands on her hips she stared at it for a second. “Anyway, welcome to my room. I don’t care if you go digging through my stuff, just DON’T be in here when my Dad is home. As far as Dad is concerned I don’t even talk to guys, he’d have a heart attack if he saw you.”

Leo let out a low whistle, turning in place to take it all in.

“Damn, Mercy. You’re like the poster girl for organized chaos.” He plopped down on her bed, disturbing a pile of books and immediately reaching out to steady them. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this setup on the wall of a paranoid schizophrenic. Should I save you some tin foil for crafts day?”

Kicking out his legs, he wiggled until he was in a more comfortable position. In fact he looked a bit too comfortable on her bed. Personal space didn’t seem to be in Leo’s vocabulary.

“So.” He looked up at her, suddenly all business. “Research. What’ve you got?”

“Where the fuck do I even start.” She was staring at her handiwork as if SHE didn’t even have a clue of what was what. Angela scratched the back of her head and held up a finger to follow along the paper trail, trying to find where her starting point was. Her finger stopped at a name circled in purple ink.

julian – god tier oracle wtf

“There. This started before you assholes got in to town. Has Julian ever actually told you about her dreams? Like… in detail at all?” she cast a look at Leo from over her shoulder. He was getting her blankets all rumpled up and she frowned, which was a weird thing for her to have a quirk over when her room was nothing but disorder.

Angela held up her hands and wiggled them. This was going to be FUN! No one ever gave a SHIT about her charts and brainstorm maps unless it was boring schoolwork. This was a presentation. She pounced over to the Julian bubble, gesturing with both of her hands.

“Behold! Julian Hollinger. Before Parents M.I.A., Julian Hollinger was a perfectly fine and normal teenage girl. IF you call talking to ghosts and randomly spewing out things she shouldn’t know normal. It’s not like it happened A LOT, but it happened enough. Then at the end of freshman year it all stopped. Like flat out STOPPED. No more eerie statements. No talking to things we couldn’t see. No one else really noticed, and SHE didn’t notice. It’s like she forgot she ever did it at all. THAT’S my starting point.”

She took a glance to make sure her was still on board, then grinned wide, pointing at the next bubble. “Then Parents M.I.A. That happened after school start during Sophmore year. The car was just abandoned and no one knows what the fuck happened. Zero info there. BUT-” down to the next bubble, “for the first few days she got to stay with me and Dad. Things were cool. But this social worker showed up and then there was this whole bullshit deal about her not getting to stay here because her therapist said so. I didn’t even know she HAD a therapist. It’s CRAP. She ended up staying with this family for two weeks. Which you should ASK HER ABOUT. Because she still won’t tell me what happened there. Anyway, that must’ve sucked because they did the whole emancipated teen thing. Which was good because at least she was coming to school again and I could see her. But you pretty much know the whole grim-dark Julian bits, no clubs, no friends, just sad sad Julian.”

“However~!” Angela hopped to the other side, gesturing at a new paper with a scribbled title.

the badass psychic voodoo of julian

“Here she starts having the nightmares. BUT AH! Not just nightmares, I think it’s ACTUALLY multiple layers of past, present, and future. Past events that relate to current events that will trigger future events. That’s just a theory though, based on some of the crazy bullshit you guys have been getting in to. Blood Moon night was like a huuuuge addition to all of this.” She waved her hands at the paper where other psychic voodoo things were listed. Talking to ghosts. Drawing memories. There was a question mark next to Telepathy, and a scribbled note of please god no under Mind Reading, among other things.

“We’ll talk about the many gifts of Julian later, right now we focus on this recurring dream she goes through as I am super positive that it’s connecting everything all together. The stuff in it always changes, but there’s still these common things that happen in every one. LIKE, it always begins at the school. I’m thinking because that’s what she knows the spot as, but in the dream there’s always fire and smoke and she says sometimes instead of classrooms they’re rooms of an old house.” Angela shifted away from the wall for a second to search around her room until she found the notebook she was looking for. She flipped it open to the page where she scrawled out a detailed description of one of the rooms. She had even tried to draw the layout of it, but apparently Angela was NOT an artist.

“Does that sound familiar? Because I believe that’s the Lanier house. She’s connecting to that night specifically, the WHY I’m still trying to figure out. It could be you, it could be Michael, it cooooould be our mystery vampire. You’re going to have to tell me more about it so I can add to that bubble.” Angela cast him a cheeky grin. There would be no refusal. Luckily, she was still on a roll, because she was shifting over to the next dream bubble.

“Now the present, that’s always changing. Last time the school shifted in to the Devil’s Wood and she was dreaming wolves and witches and ghosts. That was Blood Moon night, by the way. I don’t know if she’s had another dream yet, and if she does PLEASE make her tell you everything. Like no detail left out. These things are chock full of crazy symbolism bullshit that I haven’t even started deciphering yet. You’ll know when she has one, cause she’ll probably be screaming or wandering around the house in the middle of the night being jumpy as fuck or something.”

“The future is tricky, cause that’s where all the weird stuff I can’t figure out yet comes in.” Her finger pointed where that bubble was scribbled on the wall. “There’s a person that follows her in the dream and she’s running scared. But before we find out what that is about she-”

Angela paused suddenly and slapped her hand over a circled bubble so he couldn’t see. Shit! She was getting carried away and almost let that one slip. She kept her hand there, pretending to lean against the wall as she rest her other hand on her hip.

“Aaaaanyway, are you following so far? I’m gonna skip the parts where you assholes show up, cause you already know all the shit going on there. Ha. Barely. But I can tell you what I’ve got on the Big Six of Silent Pines and where I thiiiink the trails will go next. I have some fun ideas about our mystery vamp.”

Leo had to admit, he was impressed. Crazy flowcharts aside, Angela was dangerously intuitive. It’s not like he hadn’t known she was smart… but seeing it in action was something else.

Of course, she was also a little bit insane.

He was following along just fine though- granted, with a hell of a lot to think about- until she slapped her hand over one of the bubbles. Alarm bells immediately sounded in his head. This was a Julian Flowchart, and this was something Angela didn’t want him to see. Why?

Either 1. it had to do with Michael, and she thought it would piss him off or 2. it was something really bad, and she thought it would freak him out.

He tilted his head sideways.

“Yeah, I’m getting all this,” he said smoothly, peeling his eyes away from that word bubble to raise his eyebrows at her. She wasn’t going to get away with this, but he was willing to put it on pause. Or, you know, hope she got so caught up explaining that she moved her hand. Whichever. “I’ll hold my comments until the end of the lecture. Go on.”

With all the sticky notes on the walls with temporary comments, why did that one have to be written directly on the wall. Whatever, she could work around this.

“You’re lookin’ at me like I’m three steps away from lunatic.” Frowning, she took another glance at the wall. “…okay, this whole setup IS kind of crazy. But you have NO idea how interesting it all is. Normally I get bored after like, a month. But this is actually requiring time and thought and energy. Which is AWESOME – aside from the whole scary douchebag vampires, murder witches, and werewolf exes. It gets increasingly less awesome when you’re knee deep in the scary bullshit.”

“Whatever! YOU’RE crazy too! Don’t even try to play it off. Moving on-” There, small distracting tirade, now for a smooth transition away from the Julian chart. Angela made sure to step in front of it so she was blocking any further view, as she gestured at a new paper.

important assholes of silent pines

“I don’t have a lot yet. Basically a census report and a few local history books. The common assumption is that all six families were involved in witchy shit, which you already know. There’s this CRAZY theory about demon worship that’s kind of cool, and each family representing a cult or something. But then it falls apart when he goes down whackjob road. So not so sure about that. But if you kinda use that perspective and think of each family in combo with true-facts it DOES sort of make sense. If Julian’s family were psychics, and the Whelan family are werewolves, then it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch that the other families also have supernatural ties.”

“Thus, BAM!” Both hands gesturing at the newest paper that only had it’s title for now. “Mystery Vampire. That guy turns Michael, kills a bunch of people, and runs away in to the night. He might BE a Hightower, which means what the fuuuuuuuck was that family in to? Michael didn’t have a brother and there’s no record of one in the census report. But there he is. Options include bastard half-brother. Secret child in the basement. Evil twin. …and the possibility that Julian is getting fucked with. Not going to rule that out yet.”

“What do you think? Obviously, the best thing to do is touch all of Michael’s things and see how many Hightower secrets we can drag out. But I suppose we don’t want to disturb His Majesty.”

Okay. He was going to have to hold off on Mystery Word Bubble.

“Calm down, I don’t think you’re nuts. Well, not totally anyway.” Leo held up his hands. “Actually, it is interesting. And uh, here’s the thing. I can actually answer some of your questions now. I couldn’t before because Michael told me not to, and… I don’t know if Jules has explained how that bullshit works to you yet.”

Hopping up off of the bed, he walked up next to her, following the web of lines and circles with his eyes. Where to start first?

“Here.” He jabbed a finger at the IMPORTANT ASSHOLES bubble. “Okay, so. Remember how I’m Michael’s ‘witch expert’? That’s kinda because I was one.”

Excellent. Distraction worked and now he was focused back where he should be.

And then he threw her. Once upon a time Leo Lanier was a witch.

“No! Are you freaking serious?” she said first, not sure if he was messing with her or not. He wasn’t. “…I’m fantastic. Margrit Berkshire can fucking suck on that.” Angela was all too pleased to find out her theory was on the right track. She was practically oozing with smugness. It was a damn shame there was no one she could brag to or rub in their faces since this was all a big secret. Except Michael, maybe, but Angela wasn’t that kind of crazy. She kinda wanted to live.

“Humf.” she cleared her throat and sobered herself back up. She could preen her ego later. “She gave me the Thralling 101, yeah. So a witch, huh? Was that a family thing? Should I be writing that on the board?” Angela was already turning to fuss over all her stuff in search of a pen. “Does that mean I can finally ask you all the fun terrible questions too? Because as much fun as it is thinking about you guys doing laundry, I have better questions.”

“I dunno if it was a family thing or not, not for sure,” Leo told her, “but I think so. I think my folks were waiting for something, for the right time to talk to me. Just… never got to it. I figured it out on my own.”

No point in getting all broody, he reminded himself, chewing the inside of his cheek. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Michael was, too. But I was better at it. Michael knew things, had all the right books, but I… I made things happen.” He grinned. “I once made my sister literally get her nose stuck in a book. She never did figure it out. I don’t think she had a magical bone in her body.”

He glanced at her askance.

“You can ask me whatever you want. I might answer; I might not. But if I don’t, it’s because I don’t want to.”

A world of questions was opened to her. This was a precious gift! …And Angela quickly found that she had so many questions that she had no fucking idea where to even BEGIN. There was over a hundred thirty-something years worth of his life on top of vampire stuff, and now witch stuff and-

“Ffffffuck!” she exclaimed, once her excitement boiled over in to the annoying realization there was just no TIME for an in depth interview right now. “Okay, all this shit first, and then later… like ALL the time I will shoot you texts.”

Angela turned and put her focus at the wall, even gesturing with her hands at it. “Okay, Witch Leo and Crappier Witch Michael. It probably does run in the family, cause that’s just how it makes sense. I have NO idea how it ties to the vampire stuff, though, and the super secret Maybe-Hightower.”

“…Can you do witchy stuff still?” she asked curiously, giving him an up and down examining gaze as if she could see it on him.

“Nope! Apparently, witch mojo and vampire mojo are mutually exclusive.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t really bother me. Witches suck.”

Leo examined the wall, tapping his fingers against his elbow and slowly stringing pieces together.

“This is more or less accurate, by the way. Pretty sure that’s our library.” He picked up her notebook, the one with the description of what she (correctly) guessed was of a room in his house. It was a little fucking eerie seeing her sketching up rooms that had been burned up a long time ago, he had to be honest about that. After a moment’s beat, he snatched a pen off of a nearby pile and started inking in a floor plan that didn’t look like shit.

“I don’t know where vampires come in, either, but like I said… Michael had books. A lot of books. I’m pretty sure he stole them from his parents.” His hand paused mid-sketch, reaching up to trace over her Mystery Vampire note. “So they were definitely involved in some weird shit, if not witches themselves. I always did get the feeling his dad could read minds. Speaking of which…”

This was the part that was really, really bugging him.

“…I don’t know how to say this,” began Leo, muttering under his breath. “Okay. So. I’d already kinda started getting suspicious, but this whole thing you’re telling me about Jules? It’s not possible.”

“It sounds to me like we’re going to be digging around in Hightower stuff no matter what. One of them did something stupid as fuck and it snowballed.” She leaned to peer at his corrective sketching. Puh. Her art wasn’t that bad. …Alright, maybe it was barely recognizable. Angela didn’t have the patience for art practice.

“You’re gonna have to be hella more specific about which part about Jules, because in MY world EVERYTHING about her is impossible.” Angela straightened and stepped to the side to eyeball her chart. Yep. Kind of hard to know what was possible and what wasn’t when psychic mojo was kind of insane to begin with.

“Any of it.” He snapped the notebook shut and set it down. “Psychics aren’t exactly common. Honestly, I’ve not really run into many; most of what I know is from what I remember of the Hollingers in my day. Because come on, everyone knew the Hollingers were psychic. But…”

Leo frowned, then glared at Angela like it was all her fault.

“She can’t do…” He waved a hand at Angela’s wall of Julian Voodoo. “That. That sort of shit isn’t possible, even I know that. No one’s ever heard of a psychic being that powerful. And that shit on the blood moon? With the ghost army? No fucking way.”

Angela crossed her arms, and her scowl almost mirrored his frown. “You can’t say it’s not possible, she DOES it. You’ve even seen her do most of this shit yourself!”

“This one.” She tapped the Ghosts bubble. “She’s done this a couple of times. She did this with my mom right after she died. And THIS-” she dragged her finger over to Memories, “is annoying as fuck, because she doesn’t even know when she’s doing it. She can touch you, or your stuff, or even just be in the room with you and she’ll blabber off something at random. You saw what happens when we get her drunk. And I’m not sure if the mind reading is actually a thing, but I sure as hell don’t think about anything around Julian that I don’t want her to know just in case.”

“If you’ve ever wondered why only obnoxious assholes are her friends, it’s because no one with secrets wants to be around Julian.” she added, now staring at her chart like it was some sort of evil revelation. Was Julian ACTUALLY a god tier psychic? Angela just wrote that because it was funny and seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

“…Maybe you just haven’t met enough psychics. There’s all kinds of shit in psychic lore about oracles and seers doing this kind of stuff. Greece was all about their oracles.”

“There’s all sorts of lore about vampires, too, and I can tell you that most of it is crap,” Leo replied drily. “Look… I’m not saying that she doesn’t do it. I’m saying that she isn’t supposed to be able to. I’ve spent over a hundred years as a goddamn vampire, so I think I’ve got a bit more experience than you when it comes to sorting out what’s legit. I’m saying that if anyone other than the two of us figures out that she can do this, it’ll be bad.”

Pursing his lips, he turned to face her.

“I don’t think I need to tell you to keep this between us, though. And I’m good at keeping secrets myself.”

Bad. Yeah. Angela’s wheels were already turning. A psychic that can figure out anyone’s secrets and rile up a bunch of angry ghosts could do some serious damage. That was only counting the stuff they KNEW she could do. Julian wasn’t properly afraid of people. She had to go and be all trusting and talk to strangers, and adopt a couple of vampires, and who knows what else she’ll get in to and where it will go.

Julian seems to know exactly where it’s going to go.

And that’s when Angela made the decision that was going to piss off her best friend and probably start all KINDS of shit. But this was for Julian’s own good.

“I get it. It’ll be bad. This is just between us and it doesn’t leave this room.”

Slowly her hand rose, finger pointing at the bubble on the wall. One extra bold and underlined word.

death

It took a minute for his brain to make a few leaps and sort out what that signified. Why would-

…No.

It took a minute before Leo’s world came crashing down.

“Not going to happen,” he said briskly, over the roaring in his ears and the steady chant of No, not her, this is bullshit, this isn’t supposed to fucking happen, NO. “So get that out of your head, right now.”

“Hey, I’M totally on board with the Julian not dying bit. She’s the one convinced that’s what it means.”

Angela watched him. Normally he was REALLY good at hiding his thoughts and feelings, and this so wasn’t one of those moments. She didn’t blame him. She went through some of the same motions before she got, well, obsessively aggressive about solving the problem.

“Don’t panic yet. All we know for sure is that she can’t see her future, and she keeps dying in that stupid recurring dream. Honestly, maybe it’s not even her that’s dying. She could be looking through someone else’s experience. It could be a past thing and not a future thing. She just-”

Angela groaned, running her hands through her hair and tugging at it. “She’s SO stubborn though and she didn’t even want to TELL you or Michael, which is so fucking insane! Because you might actually be able to DO something.”

“I’m not panicking,” he insisted. Except that was totally what he was doing, because didn’t it just fucking figure that he fell for the girl who predicted her own death.

Fuck. Was it his fault?

“It’s not going to happen,” repeated Leo, already going through damage control in his head. The touchy-feely flirting was going to have to stop. He should probably move out too, just to be safe. He’d have to stop aggravating Michael too because god knows if anything was Leo’s problem, it was that he couldn’t stop poking the bear. Fuck, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to put the brakes on that train at this point-

Leo slammed down on his off-button.

Everything got quiet.

“Jeez. Don’t be all dramatic,” he told Angela, rolling his eyes. “Let’s look at it logically. Stuff changes in her visions, right? So it follows that nothing is a fixed outcome. No big deal. Now, is there anything else you needed to tell me or are you done wasting my time?”

“That’s what I was just saying, ya jackass!” Like, literally. She was just saying it might not be an end all deal. There were still options and other routes. Now he was trying to be all sassy when a split second ago he was-

“Are you pulling vampire bullshit on me right now?!” First Angela threw her hands up and waved them around between them the make sure eye contact was broken and no thralling was going on. Would she even KNOW if she lost a few minutes?

Wait a second.

“Holy shit, you’re freaking out. …not just freaking out, you’re freaking the fuck out.” she pointed at him, and then she got in the way to make sure he didn’t try bolting out of the room. “Vampire switch. She said you get upset and you just start mashing the switch.”

Holy shit, fuck. Fuuuuuck. Julian was right. This will break Leo. This poor stupid asshole!

“You CAN’T do that right now. You can’t keep her safe if you’re a dick and don’t give a shit, RIGHT?”

Leo looked at her like she was the source of a particularly amusing anecdote in his morning Tumblr feed.

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I just need a bit of a break right now. Time to stretch my legs, so to speak. I’ve been spending way too much of my life hanging out with humans anyway. It’s exhausting. You guys die so easily, it’s a wonder Jules isn’t predicting more deaths.”

Tilting his head to the side, he glanced between her and the door.

“What are you going to do to stop me, Angie?” He smirked. “I’m faster than you. It’s cute that you think you can, though.”

This shit was kind of creepy. And she really, really wished Julian was here to fix this monumental fuck up. Julian would know EXACTLY what to say and if that didn’t work, she’d just punch the shit out of him despite the fact he probably wouldn’t feel it.

Angela, on the other hand, was not so keen on trying that. Especially since he had to go and call her Angie. Her favorite nickname was forever tainted by asshole vampires. What a bunch of dicks.

“Listen, you stupid fuckface!” she was just going to have to do it her way and hope he wasn’t the bitey type. “You’re gonna turn that fucking switch back on because YOU LIKE JULIAN. And if Julian catches wind that you’re pulling stupid bullshit because of her, SHE’S going to go pulling stupid bullshit to save YOUR dumb ass from yourself. And you know what’s gonna happen then? You’ll probably kill EACH OTHER. Then my new best friend would have to be Michael.”

“So what we’re gonna do, is YOU are gonna stop being a scared baby about this and deal with those feelings like a normal person. We can go get smashed and hit on bitches if you want. But you’re gonna FEEL and you’re gonna keep staying with Julian and make sure she doesn’t do anything insane, cause you KNOW she’s gonna try some shit. And I will keep working on this stuff. We’re going to figure it all out and the only peeps that are gonna die will be douchebags that try to breakup our little posse. GOT IT?”

Something flickered in his expression. His features tightened just a fraction, like he was struggling.

“What are we, first graders? Do you like me, check yes or no?” He narrowed his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get serious here. If I gave a damn about anyone but myself… which I don’t… I wouldn’t act like a ‘scared baby’. Just because I don’t want her to die-”

“SEE!!” she pointed at him, as if the statement was now hanging from around his neck. “You care about her. You like her. You probably more than like her because the two of you are just-” Wait, backup, rephrase that before she ends up making this ten times more complicated and puts Julian in a situation she’s not ready to deal with yet.

“The two of you are real actual friends. You can’t take it back now. She depends on you, and I am willing to fucking bet you’re attached to her. Stay attached. Don’t be a psycho and fuck this up.”

For a moment, it really did look like he was about to bite her.

“UuuuuugggGGGGGHHHHH,” he growled instead, clutching at either side of his skull and tearing at his hair. “Teenage girls! I fucking hate teenage girls! Just… shut… up.”

By the time he’d finished talking, he was sitting on her bed again, holding his head in his hands and not lifting his face so much as a fraction. The seconds ticked by in silence.

Angela paused, hands outstretched towards him and not quite level. With a wary expression on her face, she wiggled her fingers and inched closer. Did that work? He sounded pretty pissy, that was definitely a lot better than an emotionless sack of shit giving her the blank-stare.

She’d just have to take the risk.

So Angela pounced. Though it was less like a pounce and more of a dramatic dropping on to the bed and throwing her arms around him in a viper-like hug. Angela squeezed and if he thought he’d try to escape, she just dug her nails in too. He was a vampire, it wasn’t going to kill him.

For once it was just more appropriate she didn’t open her big mouth.

She actually managed to topple him backwards onto the mattress, displacing a bunch more books in the process. This time he didn’t bother to try and catch them. He didn’t really try to fight her off, either.

He just… sort of lay there. Letting her hug him.

“You’re lucky I didn’t snap your neck like a twig,” he mumbled, finally.

“Oh thank god! Jesus fucking christ, you scared the shit out of me.” she hissed at him, but she didn’t let go. She was going to hug him until HER heart stopped pounding like a maniac.

“You stupid asshole, don’t pull that crap again. I was made to be someone’s hot wife, not a goddamn vampire wrangler.”

Angela glared at him for a moment before her expression softened. “It’s gonna be okay, you know. We’re going to handle it. We just have to out-psychic a god tier psychic. Piece of cake.”

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Silent Pines

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