a little less dandy, a little more take this spike to my heart

iii

Awsten wakes up in a cold sweat accompanied by deep, heavy breaths.

Ugh. Nightmares.

It was the one with fire again; him, Geoff, and Otto would be sitting around in some house and everything would be on fire, including their hair. He could live with the fire, but it's the fact they went into their wolf forms and clawed him makes it a nightmare. Considering it's a recurring one, he's kind of surprised he's still shocked by it.

He looks out his window and the sky is the same black as before. Must be early in the morning.

With all the subtlety he can muster up, Awsten tries to slide out of bed without making too much noise. He accomplishes it (after maybe a five minutes) and creeps outside his bedroom to see a door opened to Geoff and Otto's room.

He scans the inside to see if Geoff and Otto show any signs of being awake, but they're both sound asleep and comfortably sprawled out on each other in their streets. It used to be all of theirs, his mind reminds him. There's a stupid longing in him aching to reach out, pretend they're all in love and just.

Just.

He grips the doorframe and his feet start creeping in. He's hyperaware of his heartbeat as it races with his thoughts. Just assure him that all his stupid lonely feelings don't have any reason. Just assure him he's not an outsider to their pack. Just fucking—

A soft hum comes from one of them and Geoff smiles in his sleep as he rolls close to Otto, who smirks unknowingly.

Awsten frowns, biting his lip looking at the scene. Stupid. What is he even doing? How would even explain himself to them? He's just tired, that's all. With a sigh, he slunks towards the living room, definitely not eyeing the door handle. He needs to stop thinking too much about them and needs to start thinking more about their mission.

Right.

He creeps to the living room to face the monstrosity of evidence there. They started a makeshift conspiracy board last night after handing the flyer to Jawn and Travis. Awsten walks up to the mess of sloppy notes connected by red string tacked directly on their wall.

So far, they've only come to two conclusions: Cobra Headquarters isn't a real place and the only way wolves and snakes would relate to each other would be because of the wolf snake (a snake with canines). Awsten lifts one of the papers tacked up to try and see if they missed out on something important.

"Hey," A voice startles Awsten from behind.

He swerves around to look at whoever's with him. Instinctively, he growls a little as he scans the room.

"Don't go all feral, it's just me." The source of the voice puts their hands up and walks towards Awsten. In their path to him, the faint bits of moonlight left shines on them through a window in the corner of the room.

"Mikey?" Awsten hushes in surprise. This was weird. Besides the raised question of "Why the fuck did you sneak into my house?" there's also the other question of "How did you sneak into my house if you're a vamp and I didn't invite you?".

"Yeah, I know it's weird, but I waltzed into Dandy territory getting shit for Gerard and I got ambushed because apparently, having a priest for a brother isn't so popular. I knew your pack lived nearby so I thought I'd just take a chance and see if you have any anti vampire shit Gerard can mix for Pete's weakening cocktail." Mikey walks to the side of Awsten to see the wall in all its glory. "Nice decorations."

"You managed to get in here and I didn't welcome you." Awsten points out, still confused. God, it was too early for this shit. "Not to mention you're literally assuming we have whatever ingredients Gerard needs here when he could just do it himself."

Mikey leans closer to the clippings tacked up, analyzing them in depth. "You guys invited me in here once, and that means I'm allowed to to come here for life, er unlife. Also, Pete's been getting these weird killer impulses and Gerard's trying to control so he needs a bigger dose of shit. I just need some garlic for now."

Weird killer impulses, Awsten repeats in his mind as he searches their cabinets. He considers writing it down and pricking it up on its own because the Sixteen Candles guys have to do with this somehow, right? He manages to find a pound of minced garlic bottled up in the corner of one of the cabinets and hands it to Mikey, who mutters a small thanks.

Mikey turns to leave, but he stops, eyes glued to the conspiracy board. "By the way, what's with this?"

It feels like the thousandth time he's had to explain it since the Sixteen Candles guys approached, but he tells Mikey regardless.

Mikey hums and looks at the board closely, running a finger of the location part of the board. "You figure anything out yet?"

"Only the fact that this place doesn't exist and wolves don't have to do with snakes." Awsten replies, raising an eyebrow as Mikey halts the finger over one of the papers.

"I think I might know some missing pieces." Mikey announces in his weirdly expressive monotone.

Oh.

What?

"Don't get too confused, I can hear your thoughts, y'know. But yeah, I might know where this is." Mikey views the rest of the wall, finger still set in its place. "Maybe like, a little before I was turned, I knew this guy, Gabe, and we'd meet up at this shitty club. It didn't actually have a name, but we'd call it 'Something Headquarters' and the something part would be an inside joke of the day."

Awsten furrows his brows. "But that doesn't really—"

"I know, but the thing is, one time we were there, this guy brought in a snake. Don't ask me why. So our dumb, drunk asses go up to it and it fuckin' bites Gabe right in the neck. And then he had all these weird hallucinations 'n shit he kept rambling about some 'spiritual experience' he had, but I haven't seen him around since." He turns to Awsten. "If I'm right, I just found the guy in charge of your mystery church."

Awsten drops his jaw because he's hearing Mikey, who basically broke into his house, solving their problem. "How the fuck."

Mikey shrugs. "Knowing things about people just helps sometimes. But, uh, you might wanna tell your, uh," He rolls his wrist trying to explain. "Geoff and Otto."

"My Geoff and Otto." Awsten repeats, only then realizing what he meant, eyes wide. "We're not like that . They're dating and I'm just kinda, uh, here."

It sounded kind of sad, but it was true. He was just there. The former human they just so happened to turn and take in. The memory's sharp enough he can still pinpoint where the blood from the fresh bite trailed down his chest. Everything was amped up to one hundred. He could hear every bit of a conversation in a room, smell everything stuffed in the air, feel every single detail with a stroke of his finger. He hated it.

They took pity on him, smothered him with affection. When he got used to everything, he slept in a bed with them and got to feel a mess of limbs and soft breaths against his skin each night and woke up laughing in a sleepy daze. That dissipated as time went on; they redirected that love to themselves and he knew it was time to give them space. Maybe, Awsten thinks, maybe that's around the time he realized why his brain was hardwired to mope just a little bit whenever they were happy without him.

Mikey judges him with a fixed gaze and Awsten has to mentally facepalm himself. He's gotta start remembering vampire telepathy and stop thinking for once.

"I'll look around for Gabe and the club." Mikey announces, turning to leave out the door for once. He targets his eyes towards Awsten's with a foot out the door. "You should talk to them, by the way. It'll be good for all of you."

The door shuts a little loudly in the quiet. Awsten is left alone once more with dead silence. He kicks the wall hard enough a dull thud rings out of the silence and slumps back to his bed.