North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

Honor Me

Marvin and Skye took Rachel to see the new nets, but not before Marvin stopped and shook my hand. "When Morgan fell in love, it had to be with someone special. You all three exceed expectations all the time. I am very proud of all of you. An honor to be in this family."

"Thanks, Dad." I said. "Your daughter is a gift and being with her is my true honor."

Skye hugged me. "I can't believe I was ever against Morgan marrying you all!"

With hugs all around, the Olsen grandparents took Rachel dancing up and down and excited about the chance to try to kick some balls into the goals.

Rachel. The big Council member one, not the little one, looked me over with her arms crossed, and an amused look on her face.

"You know, my friend, I voted for this name change, and I thought you deserved it, but Helen was right. She said you would tear it down on sight. In my defense, I thought the watch was stupid, though. Human honor system. Not Vampire."

Morgan handed Rachel a bent up eye bolt. "He was even angrier than I would have thought, and that is saying something because I thought when I found out about this that he would be furious."

"Wow!" Rachel flipped the bolt around in her hand. "I am not sure I could have done this. The shank is half an inch!"

Jessica tapped the bolt. "He looked like Spiderman up there on the crossbeam ripping that down."

"I had leverage with the sign. Also, deep rage." I said, making a hand gesture to indicate the sign at an angle. "It was that or leave and never come back till they fixed it. I liked the more instant response, and even better that they knew that about me and were ready."

"So I can see." Rachel looked at the bent shank. Shook her head. "Well, in any case, sorry. I did not mean to piss you off."

"Not to mention make us get all of about two hours of sleep." Helen complained.

"Sorry dear." Rachel said. "My bad. Old ways. I can be taught too. I just hope the smoke stops coming out of Denise's ears. She wanted this so much."

***

Melissa came over to me and gave me a hug. "I saw the pictures of this place from before last night. I liked it!"

Melissa was kidnapped and in Siren captivity for over five years, and I had her freed. Her opinion of me is warped by that.

"OK: We can name this place after you if you like. We have to make fresh signs, anyway." I said.

Melissa looked at me funny. "Why: What did I do? Get kidnapped and raped for years?"

"Same. Not for years, though. Your road much harder." I agreed as if she made my point. She does make my point by virtue of being here. "Look at you. Here! Out and about. After everything you went through! The new Vampire guys here are on a road too: They did not ask to be Vampires. They just are. Now they need to learn about their new lives. Yeah. I like it. Should we put a last name on it or just call it 'Camp Melissa'?

"You are kidding me." Melissa said, with a 'go on, get out of here' gesture.

"He is deadly serious." Helen said.

"Vulcans don't kid." Jessica said.

"He'll do ANYTHING to keep his name off this place." Morgan added. "While I think the real point is that the camp needs to not be named after any one person, you would be an excellent choice. Your story and recovery are both horrible and inspiring."

"Well, why not just Camp Sagan, after ALL of you?" Melissa countered.

"Oh, HELL no!" Jessica said with vigor.

Morgan agreed "Melissa: I save cussing for special occasions and this is one of them. Fuck no! I mean that very sincerely."

Melissa looked at Helen.

"Don't look at me. I just work here." Helen said.

***

Denise and Anne came over to us.

"You hated this honor so much you and your family destroyed a month of work in a night?" Anne asked.

I looked around. Thought about digging the sign out of the stucco over there on that one building. How much red I was seeing at the time.

"Not all of my family. Denise was getting you at the airport. However: yes: So deeply angry." I agreed. "The worst thing I have ever seen, and I watched part of a horror film once. Why do they make Horror films? Life throws shit like this in your way every day! Gods: When I saw the sign over the entrance, I thought I had entered the Twilight Zone! One of the really scary episodes."

"We wanted to honor you! You did this to that." Anne said. We were standing by a broken trim board. Anne waved up at it in disgust. It responded by waggling in a sudden light breeze, ghost town style.

I looked up at the waving board. "That is not an honor, Anne. Listen to Victoria. She understands it now. That was an abomination, however well-intentioned. It required an immediate response. Rip it to shreds or resign from Council, and I am not done fucking up on Council yet. Honor? You two honor me every day, by being Leads on Crew. By partnering with me in the ways where we three be daring. We all created this place. Hell: the start of this place predates me on Council. We talked about a theoretical 'boot camp' and you took that literally and made this. The good, you do here. The honor is all mine, and that..." A look up at the waving board. "That cheapened it. Made it dirty. That made it look like what we are doing here is being done for names on places, not differences in lives. They didn't call the Civil War 'Grant's Kerfuffle', 'Lincoln's Legacy' or 'Jeff Davis's Deep Shame'. You can't ignore six hundred and twenty-thousand dead people, two percent of the US population at the time like they were not involved, not even counting all the maimed bodies! All that history and they did not even solve the goddamn problem! There are still people running around thinking white skin makes them better than others. Apply that to here. Our legacy is the difference we made so far and that we will make. The lives we save. You can't put one name on a place. It's all of us. All of us tilting at this windmill. I'm not a figurehead, I am a partner. If I am not, then why am I here? Not as if there are not other things I want to be doing."

"He also likes to be honored by being invited to bed, and I want a nap." Jessica said. "So, come to my bed, young man. I want to honor you."

"I like that 'honor' and 'have sex with' just became family synonyms" Morgan commented, and we four headed to our cabin. I wonder where Rachel is...

"We need to stop by the trailer and get a sticky note." Helen said. "All the 'Do not Disturb' signs went up in flames of shame. Why those had to have logos, I will never understand...."

"If you can come to bed not angry, you know where we will be, future fiancé." Jessica told Denise.

"Aww... Fuck." Denise complained.

I know Denise and Anne are still not happy, but if you don't tell people they did a shitty thing, they keep doing shitty things, thinking you liked it.

"I... Have to go." Denise told Anne. "Mom's calling."

"Go. I'll go find Nico. He's around here someplace. Probably looking down into a big old hole in the ground where a sign used to be and laughing at me." Anne replied.