“...we just...can’t do nothing!...”

“...mommy... she dead?...”

“...honey…please go...living room…”

“...it probably...be the stress…”

“...we need...call an ambulance…”

“...stop worrying so...she’ll be fine…”

As she came to be, she could make out the sounds of someone talking around her, but even though she tried hard to focus on what they were saying, they sounded mumbled and full of static, like they were coming out from an old and broken radio.

Her head hurt and her body felt heavy, she couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was wrong with her; this was something she hadn’t felt in a while and it unsettled her. She had always been so in tune with her body, even before she had been turned into a vampire, so being out of control of it always made her scared, she hated how vulnerable it made her feel and how she could do nothing to stop it. 

Open your eyes, the vampire thought, but she struggled with such a simple action; it seemed like her body wasn’t cooperating with her.

The voices grew louder. 

“There’s nothing we can do right now but wait for her to wake up”

“How can you be so calm about this? For all we know she could die!”

“If she was dead, we’d know already”

With all her might, she tried opening her eyes once again and finally succeeded. Everything around her was blurry, but little by little a face revealed itself, a pair of eyes watching her with worry.

Wow, such pretty eyes, in her delirium Bota focused on the figure in front of her, everything else still seemed a little blurry but her.

The most beautiful woman I have  ever laid eyes on, Bora’s mind went blank, Is she an angel?

Was she dead? Had someone finally gotten to put a stake through her heart and kill her? Was that why there was a beautiful angel right in front of her? Was the angel going to welcome her to the pearly white gates of heaven?

Bora shook her head -and then regretted it from the pain that came with it, a groan escaping her lips. No, there was no way she was in heaven; if the legends were true, vampires only had one sure destination after they died (for real this time): hell.

“Don’t move”, the angel said.

Wow, her voice is so beautiful, Bora thought as she stared right into the angel’s eyes. 

The angel chuckled, “Thank you”.

Did I say that out loud?

“It seems like she hit her head rather hard, shouldn’t we call an ambulance?”, the angel stopped focusing on Bora and turned to talk to the blob right next to her.

“I think she is going to be fine”, the blob said.

Stupid blob, why is she stealing the angel’s attention from me?, groaning Bora tried to sit up, immediately a pair of arms wrapped around her and helped her up. She gave the angel that helped her a dopey smile, internally rejoicing about the angel’s attention being back on her again.

Take that stupid blob!

“Maybe this will help”, the blob said before Bora felt a warm liquid on her lips.

“What are you giving her?”, the angel asked.

“Some of the protein I gave her earlier, it will help her. Trust me”

As Bora kept drinking the warm liquid, little by little her eyes could clearly see her surroundings, it seemed like the angel she saw was no other than Siyeon, and the stupid blob next to her was Yubin.

Ugh, what the happened, Bora drank the last drops of blood from the travel mug Yubin had given her.

You passed out, Yubin’s voice sounded in her mind, making Bora roll her eyes -something she regretted instantly as she felt a sharp stab of pain in her head-, it was either from drinking blood to fast or from the shock. Or both, Yubin chuckled.

Before Bora could mentally answer Yubin, Siyeon asked her softly, “How are you feeling?”

The amount of worry in Siyeon’s eyes was almost foreign to her, aside from Handong, Minji and her own parents, she had never had someone stare at her like that, a stranger no less.

“I’m okay, thank you”, Bora said softly.

Siyeon’s eyes ran all over her body, checking if Bora was hurt anywhere, once she got to her face, however, she let out a small gasp, “You’re bleeding!”

Both vampires' eyes went wide.

“I must have bit my lip when I fell or something”, Bora quickly wiped with the back of her hand.

Siyeon was about to say something but the sound of something crashing down coming from the living room distracted her.

“It wasn’t me”, Hyejoo´s not so innocent voice coming from there made Siyeon sigh.

“I’ll be back in a second”, and with that she left the two vampires behind.

As soon as Siyeon was out of sight, Bora looked at Yubin and whispered, “What the happened?”

Hyejoo had apparently decided that jumping from one end of the couch to the other was a great idea, but instead of completing the feat without a hitch, she had accidentally knocked down the lamp that was on one of the side tables.

They had decided that while Siyeon cleaned up the mess and Hyejoo was put on time out, Bora should rest a little bit on the back porch, since Siyeon thought a little air would do Bora good.

Now that she had some time to herself, the vampire could finally think about the whole ordeal. She couldn’t believe she had to pretend to be married and that she was someone’s mother, no less.

(That was a dream that she had left behind a long time ago, and now here she was, finally getting it come true in a really twisted way.)

I guess this is karma finally getting back to me, the vampire let out a sigh as she looked up to the sky. At least the view is kind of pretty.

The view wasn’t enough to distract her from her own thoughts, as she looked at the clouds moving her mind ran a mile a minute: Could she really manage to pretend to be married to Siyeon? What about Hyejoo? Could she really pretend to be that little girl’s mother in such formative years of her life? What if she ed it up? What if she did something that let the kid terribly traumatized and she ended up hating Bora for the rest of her life?

Not that Bora was a stranger to being passionately hated by someone, it was just that there was something about Siyeon and Hyejoo that was different. 

(But that was a thought that was better shoved to the deepest farthest places inside her mind; it’d do her no good to start analyzing this weird pull she felt towards the mother & daughter duo.)

Oh, how she wished for Handong to be here. She’d know what to do and the best way to comfort her. She’d have to look up for a way later to contact her, there was no ing way that Bora would spend however long it took for them to get out of this hellhole without having at least some form of contact with her best friend.

Bora took her face in her hands and screamed in frustration.

How did I end up here?, before her mind could spiral into darker thoughts, she heard a small psst coming from her left.

Slowly, Bora lifted her face from her hands and looked to the source of the noise; Hyejoo seemed to be crouching next to Bora’s chair, hiding from someone.

“Hyejoo, what-?”

Bora couldn’t even finish her sentence when Hyejoo quickly shhh-ed her.

The little girl lifted her head a little to look at her surroundings, trying to see if the older woman’s voice had gotten the attention from her mother.

After a few seconds of silence, Hyejoo deemed it safe enough to talk to Bora again.

“Mommy said I should leave you alone til you feel better, but I thought you seemed lonely”.

Hyejoo’s words warmed and amused Bora.

“I could do with some company”, she patted the place next to her, which the girl didn’t hesitate to take in a heartbeat.

They both sat in silence for some minutes; while Hyejoo had sat a little away from Bora at first, as time passed she had started getting closer and closer to the woman until she was buried right into her side.

It seems like she really likes me, the vampire thought with a little smile on her face, not saying anything to the little girl, just wrapping an arm around her instead.

Hyejoo’s presence seemed to be what Bora needed to calm her wild and dark thoughts, while there were still some doubts present in her mind, with Hyejoo by her side she actually believed that she could manage not to this up.

They had left their place on the porch late in the evening, only after it had started raining; once they were inside of the house, Siyeon had ushered both of them to wash their hands since dinner was ready.

Unfortunately, Siyeon had asked Yubin to stay for dinner, which the agent gladly accepted, saying that once they were done they could continue with the debrief.

Now that Bora had enough blood on her system and she was feeling better, she could appreciate Siyeon’s cooking, the other woman was a fantastic cook, the vampire was in awe of how with what little was in the pantry, Siyeon had managed to cook a meal that felt like it could be served on a fancy restaurant.

When Bora had told her that, Siyeon had just blushed and told her it was nothing to be in awe of, that what she cooked had been nothing but a simple meal.

They spent the rest of dinner in a comfortable silence; once they were done, Siyeon had told Hyejoo to start getting ready for bed while the adults talked. The child had started to protest that she was old enough to stay up with them but one warning look from her mother stopped her, making her sigh in defeat before dragging her feet upstairs where all her stuff was.

Bora watched them interact with fondness.

“So…”, the agent cleared to get their attention, “You have to be ready tomorrow at eight o’clock so me and my fellow agents can take you to get your hair colored and cut, some new clothes fitting to your new life and groceries. After we’re done with that, we’ll give you a small tour around town so you can get familiar with your surroundings”.

“When will we start our new jobs?”, Bora asked.

“Well, the sooner the better. But since we know all of this,” the agent waved her hand around, “can take time to get used to, we can manage to give you up to two weeks before you need to start working.”

“What about Hyejoo?”, Siyeon bit her lip, “I don’t want her to fall behind in school”.

“If you want to, she could start next week. There’s no point of her starting school on a Thursday”.

Agent Lee explained with more detail what she had told them in the morning, she went over every single rule they had to follow while being here, which included things like: not contacting anyone from your past life, not mentioning anything about it, trying to keep their covers at all times, and not doing anything that might put them in danger.

While explaining the last one, Yubin had looked directly at Bora, as if trying to warn her from doing something stupid like trying to contact Handong.

It had almost been half an hour when they had started the debrief when Hyejoo had bounced down the stairs and told her mother that she was ready for bed; Siyeon was about to excuse herself to help her daughter when the agent got up from her place.

“It’s late, you should all rest because we have an early day tomorrow. Goodnight”, with those last words, the agent left the house and headed to the guest house.

“I guess it’s time for bed?”, Bora also got up from her place and started following the others upstairs.

Now that she thought about it, Bora hadn’t taken a look upstairs yet. She knew that the last room to the bed was the kid’s room, something that was confirmed when Siyeon and Hyejoo headed there; but the other four closed doors were still a mystery to her.

She started opening one by one, the first one was a spacious full bathroom, the second one was an office, and the third one was a master bedroom that seemed to be lived in, probably the one Siyeon had stayed in the previous one.

Bora went to open the last door, the one she imagined to be the bedroom she would stay in, only to find a small storage space behind it. She closed the door and opened it again, hoping that her eyes were deceiving her, but they weren’t, behind it still was the shelved space she had seen when she had first opened it.

No no no no, it can’t be, Bora started opening up again every single door she had passed by and ended once again in front of the master bedroom. There can’t be only one bedroom!, cautiously, she entered the room, her steps careful as if the whole place was ytrapped.

The master bedroom was spacious, it seemed to have a really big closet that extended from one wall to another, a door that led to a full bathroom, a small couch right near the window, a tv mounted on the wall…

...and just one bed.

It seemed like Bora had spent hours looking at the bed, as if expecting it to suddenly split into two.

“Ah, I see you noticed”, Siyeon’s presence almost made her jump in her place, “there’s only one bedroom apart from the child’s room. I can stay with Hyejoo, it’s no problem for me”.

While having to share a bed with Siyeon made Bora want to run for the hills, the thought of Siyeon having to share what must be a small bed with her daughter bothered the vampire more; there was no way she’d let the other woman sleep uncomfortably for their time here.

(Also, it wasn’t like she needed that much sleep herself, she could last several days without, but that would surely arouse suspicion around her. The last thing she wanted was for her supernatural nature to be revealed.)

“No, I can take the couch”, Bora said with a shake of her head.

Siyeon also shook her head, “The couch is going to be uncomfortable after a while, I can’t let you do that”.

There was only one solution Bora could think of left, “Well, maybe…”, she scratched the back of her neck nervously, “we could share the bed? It’s big enough to both of us”.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, you’ve already done more than enough for us”

“I haven’t really done anything though”

“You saved my daughter, that’s not just anything”, Siyeon lightly touched Bora’s shoulder, and there it was once again, that weird sensation Bora had been feeling since she met them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, per se, just foreign. 

The vampire cleared , a blush rising in her cheeks, “Anyone would have done the same”.

Both women knew that wasn’t necessarily true, but neither elaborated further; instead, Siyeon just headed to the closet and opened some drawers, taking some clothes out of them.

“Here, maybe this will fit you”, Siyeon gave a set of pajamas to Bora, who gave her a small thank you before heading to the bathroom to change.

Before long, they were laying down on each side of the bed, trying to stay as far apart from the other as possible. The silence that surrounded became awkward as they realized the other hadn’t fallen asleep yet, both feeling hyper aware of their surroundings. 

Well, this is awkward, the vampire thought as a small sigh was heard from her left.

“It is”, Siyeon whispered back.

“Oh my god, did I say that out loud?”

“Yes”, Siyeon chuckled, and with that the awkwardness started dissipating.

“I just..” Bora turned to lay on her side facing Siyeon, who did the same thing as her, “...I never imagined to end up like this, you know?”

“I know”, she gave Bora a small smile. “The only thing that’s stopping me from taking my daughter away from here is that her safety comes first.”

Bora nodded in agreement, which made the mother look at her pensively.

“Is there something on my face?”, the vampire asked.

“It’s just… Hyejoo already trusts you so much and that’s something so…”

“Weird?”

“...different. Good kind of different, I mean.”, Siyeon shook her head and ended with a whisper, “There’s just something about you…”

Bora said nothing, since she too felt that there was something about the pair.

They both kept staring at each other in silence, a comfortable one this time, neither wanted to break the bubble they were in.

Siyeon’s eyes started to drop, but before she fell into a deep sleep she murmured, “This may sound weird, but I’m glad it’s you we’re stuck with”.

The vampire could only stare at Siyeon in wonder while she pondered her words; it wasn’t necessarily weird, more than a little bit unexpected? Sure. But Bora couldn’t deny how she was also glad she was stuck with this little family, despite the unusual circumstances.

And as she took in the other woman’s striking features, Bora resisted the urge of running a hand through her face, wondering if her skin was as soft as it looked; shaking her head, the vampire turned back around and closed her eyes, willing herself to fall asleep so she could stop thinking dangerous things.

(Which she ultimately failed at.)

hope you like it!!
title taken from: melrose diner - the wonder years

disclaimer: all mistakes are mine, english is not my first language.

you can also find me on
tw: @anothershipper
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