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It was with aching hands and a very spiteful heart that Abolish presented the paperwork to Morcant.
“It's already in triplicate.” He told him, stretching his wrists once Morcant took the papers. They ached from staying up, carefully filling out each box with tiny, perfect letters.
Abolish has crouched in the eaves of a decaying manor for three days, glued to a telescope. He has mined for hours in dim light, hunting for silver, and then standing over a furnace to melt and forge it into protective blocks and equipment. All of that pales to this paperwork.
He had to restart it three times. It's written in ink. The smallest mistake nullified the entire batch.
Morcant raises a white eyebrow, trifling through the papers. “Did something unexpected happen on this mission?”
“No, that went as well as could have been planned. The vampire has been relocated and the mob broke apart naturally.” Luckily, the vampire seemed to hold no ill will against their former town, though Abolish had considered holding his ill will when the vampire chattered his ear off for two weeks straight while they traveled to a safer spot. “It was post-mission that I discovered this.”
“Post mission.” Morcant turned back to the first page. “It says you suspect it originates from that mission seven years ago.”
Gods, that mission. Abolish had never regretted taking it, to bring his parents to rest, to move forward and delve more deeply in his work.
He was also locked into a town with a bunch of insane people. Was turned into a vampires and barely avoided having to fill out that paperwork by the skin of his newly turned fangs after they cobbled together a cure.
And he still woke up with half his hair white. He was almost certain it was from the sheer stress.
Technically, Abolish had been cleaned for a return to standard afterwards, connecting with a doctor and witch contact for his final medical. They had examined him and announced that he definitely wasn't a vampire, and not dangerous, but definitely not quite human anymore.
Less paperwork than getting turned into a vampire at least.
Avid had dutifully filed his medical results and forgotten about it. It didn't really affect him, no sudden teeth or claws or hunger for blood. No turning into a bat or other little quirks, though he might not have minded invisibility. Just better eyesight at night, and hair that he had to dye occasionally lest he got accused of being cursed.
And that's how it went. For seven years.
See, Abolish had a habit of checking himself over a mission, even if he wasn't wounded. Nothing professional, but careful. Looking for curse marks, hidden injuries, scar tissue affecting his movements, and eventually for when he would finally slow down. Field operation wasn't forever, his trainer had warned him. Long nights in the cold and wet, working in dim light, fighting for their lives when they had to, took a toll on the body as it aged.
A key word there, see. As it aged.
Which Abolish wasn't doing anymore.
He had dismissed the earliest signs as good health and a good regimen. He was always meticulous in his preparations, and carried a more balanced mind than most. Good reflexes and good training.
But a body reaching its thirties was very different from one in its twenties. Looking into the mirror, Abolish didn't look like he aged a day after walking out of that town. And when he checks himself over, he found no signs he was aging at all. Not a single wrinkle, not a slower reflex, nothing.
The vampirism hadn't taken but it looked like something else had.
Morcant sighed heavily. “And you wish to continue on?” He asked. “We had operatives before he chose to leave and enjoy their eternal life.”
“I don't see much else I'd choose over this.” Abolish said with a shrug. He straightened his suit jacket.
“Perhaps join those three who you go watch every so often.” Morcant said. Abolish sent him a dry look. He preferred remaining sane. “Alright, let an old man have his jokes. It's not every day he gets this news.”
“Submitted as soon as I knew.” There would be more evaluations, he knew. They'd want to check him over physically, confirm it. See if he was simply youthful, but still fated to die of old age. Check his mind to see if it was sound.
“And your… vampire friends. Do you intend to tell them soon?” Morcant asked. Abolish waved a hand.
“They’ll realize in a few decades when I check in on Scott again and again.” He had no doubt that if he came to them now, he would hear no end of questions and confusion and constant interrogation.
Morcant’s lips twitched. “Are you willing to make that a bet? That your elder vampire would notice?”
Abolish side eyed Morcant. “A drink to the winner?” He had no doubt that Scott would notice when Abolish continued to check in, eternally young.
“I look forward to it.” Morcant said. “You’ll owe me one then. I would prefer that one plum wine again.”
“I doubt it.” Abolish said, fixing his gloves. “It’ll be me requesting that one whiskey again.” He hated the taste, but a fondness for the memory of when he first drank it.
“Ah, but unfortunately you filled out the wrong paperwork, you should have to fill out these forms, only about half a book's worth-”
“Morcant-”
Unfortunately.
Scott was an idiot.
It honestly made Abolish wonder how much the other had bluffed, or otherwise had others assume or attribute things to him during the chaos of those nights.
Two decades had passed. It was becoming more and more obvious than Abolish was no longer completely human. They visited the witch again, and then a second.
Both of them had shaken their heads, offering the same conclusion. Most vampire turnings took time to complete. He had been cured before the process had finished which meant either the cure didn’t fully take or the process had continued forward, unheeding of how any previous progress had been undone.
As far as they could tell, Abolish was immortal in much the way a vampire was. He showed no signs of slowing down, and yet, remained unaffected by silver. He still got hurt, but he’d heal eventually, much as a human would.
He simply… didn’t age.
On how to fix it, nobody knew. Abolish had thought about it, considered splashing holy water at his feet, continuing the same cure.
But then. Well. He had already filed the paperwork to report it. They had had to write new paperwork forms for it, even.
Instead, Abolish continued his rounds. Every so often, he dropped by Scott. The other always noticed him, even as Drift and Shelby drifted by without noticing. Elder vampire abilities, he presumed.
But despite keeping their white hair and red eyes, signs of a Level Three, none of the three had wreaked havoc or death. Instead, Scott had continued to mellow. Actually got human friends. He may be dead, but he looked far more alive than when they first met. There was a spark in his eyes now, one that flared to life during Oakhurst.
And every time Abolish appeared, the other would wave. Occasionally motioned for him to come over.
It was maddening. He knew the other other saw him, and yet, in the same vein, he knew the other hadn’t seemed to notice the strangeness yet.
Finally, briefly, Abolish broke the silence.
“Been a long time.” Scott had stilled from his walk down the alley way. High above, Abolish perched on the head of a gargoyle, looking down at him. Scarlet eyes turned up to meet him.
“It has been.” Abolish agreed. But instead of surprise or calculation, Scott simply looked mildly interested, as if a friend had dropped in for a surprising social call.
…surely the other couldn’t have missed this.
“What brings you by? Last I checked, I haven’t massacred any towns or gone mad with power.” Scott waggled his friends. “I’ve been a very good boy.”
“I knew you would be.” Abolish said. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have let Scott walk out of that town alive.
With what Scott did, he shouldn’t have. The other had hands dripping in blood. Even if he turned back in the end, held out a hand in alliance, it didn’t set aside that it was his fault that things escalated as they did.
Six dead. The rest vampires. Had the initial plan succeeded, had Scott suddenly not had a bizarre change of heart, it would have unleashed a nightmare.
He should have killed him.
But Abolish had had a frankly awful time. He had applied to do a simple mission and lay his parents to rest. And he had sincerely gotten tired of this doomed narrative, at so many dying because of the belief that they couldn’t change. So much death, because no one looked up from their path. No one assumed they could turn back.
Except Scott. But, perhaps, Abolish shouldn’t be so surprised. If there was someone who could twist the narrative, who had the sheer brazenness to demand a different ending, it would have been Scott.
He wanted someone to pick a different anding, to choose to change. Maybe he wanted to see if it was even possible.
And so, Abolish agreed to watch him. And he let Scott go.
“What brings you by?” Scott said, his gaze flickering away. He had a coffee meeting to make, Abolish knew. A gossip session. He had really gotten into those. “Normally, it’s you hiding and watching me with your telescope.”
“Just wanted to see how things have changed.” And for a moment, Abolish thinks the other must get it. This is almost brazen cheating. The other can’t have ignored that Abolish still looked the same as he did in the village, and yet, he should have grown old.
Instead, Scott shrugged, calm and lax. “It is funny how it did.” He said. “Drift told me about trains. Awful things. I despise them. Humans have a way of changing so much when one is sleeping.”
Abolish throws his hands up. And then realizes Scott is still staring and stiffly puts them back down. “That they do.” He said, turning to disappear back onto the rooftop. “That they do.”
He arranges for Scott to have to take a train trip soon. He’s a bit spiteful like that.
How does the other not notice?
Years passed. He keeps checking in. Scott still hasn’t seemed to notice Abolish remains untouched by time. He learns how to dye his hair better, keep it from dying his shirt collar with it.
Again and again, they meet. On roofs. Across alleys. In crowds. Little flickers.
The world kept turning. He could now see why so many older vampires seemed to stay the same over the years, watching the world flicker by.
It kept moving. Moving and moving.
“Why the long face, butler?”
He’s not surprised Scott came to find him. Abolish had been sitting on this roof for a long time, far longer than he should. He had settled down, checked on the other and just- the thought of turning in the report had made his chest seize. He can’t even muster up the aggravation at being called a butler again.
So, he sat there instead.
“Morcant is dead.” Abolish said, quiet. It had been a peaceful death, and one he knew Morcant was ready for. The old man had held on for a long time, but the decades had taken a toll. Slowly, he stopped coming to meet Abolish, Abolish instead returning to the estate. Eventually, they began to take their reports sitting.
In the last few months, he had stayed there, by Morcant's side. They both knew that that time would come. Morcant had chosen to never take the offer of eternal life, and Abolish would never change his choice.
It did not mean he felt joy now, or anything outside of an emptiness as he stared into a world that had changed overnight. Never again would he report to Morcant, never again would the other greet him. After his parents had died, it was Morcant who had taken him in and Abolish-
He wished he had just forfeited the bet.
They shared another glass of the plum wine. A glass of the whiskey. It tasted the same as when, in a fit of grief and rebellion, Abolish had broken into Morcant’s cellars and promptly looted the oldest looking barrel he could find. Morcant had found him there, shipped him off to bed, and promptly fed him the worst hangover cure he had ever tasted in the morning. He had nightmares of the taste. Morcant had laughed.
Morcant hadn’t wanted him to forfeit the bet. They had laughed. It was weaker then.
“Feels odd to live on in a world without them, doesn't it?” Scott said, resting his elbows on the fencing. It was his eyes that made Abolish continue to spare them. Gone was the spark of boredom and numbness forward the world, replaced with something calmer. More interested. “Feels like everything changes overnight and yet, you keep thinking of what they would think if they saw you now.”
Abolish's hands paused over his cuffs before he slowly finished his adjustments. “And you have so many things yet to say.”
After this, he would be reporting to another. He liked them. Morcant had picked them as his successor. He had made the offer to Abolish first and Abolish had declined immediately. The thought of managing operatives would send him around the bend.
They were nice, but he didn't want to talk with them. He didn’t want to see how the manor would change now. Morcant had passed it to him, his successor living somewhere new. But it wouldn’t have Morcant there. He wanted to drink tea. He wanted to listen to Morcant discuss how he could have done better.
He wanted to walk back into the manor, and step back into a slice of yesterday.
“Unfortunately life can be a cruel mistress.” Scott tilted his head back. “Even a vampire can be so fragile.”
Abolish took the information in, turned it over. He knew that many had been lost during Oakhurst, something had made Scott choose to be better. He wasn't quite sure what though, nor did he really care.
“Does it ever get easier?” He said, quietly. He doesn’t know who affected Scott like this, but it must’ve been big, with how Scott looks away like there isn’t the slightest glimmer of wet crimson at the corner of his eyes.
“Never.” He said. “I visit the grave every year. You learn how to go through life without it. It gets quieter. But you never leave that grave.”
They left far more graves than Abolish wanted in Oakhurst.
Ah.
Perhaps his age was making him sentimental.
“Want to come in for a drink? And tell me about whatever person affected you so?” It sounds odd. Stilted. Half smooth like manipulation, and yet, half clumsy overture of one unsure what was the normal thing to do next.
He could.
Morcant hadn’t wanted him to forfeit the bet though, and he knows it would slip out. “Another time.” Abolish murmured, slipping into the shadows.
Scott waves him bye as he goes. The night breeze ruffles through his hair. His roots were beginning to grow out white again on one side. Abolish closes his eyes, and for a moment, it almost feels like a ruffle through his hair, a quiet I told you so, Abolish.
Abolish doesn’t dye his hair anymore.
He still has the same telescope, delicately and lovingly preserved. And the suit. No longer the same, that had been carefully wrapped up and put away for safe keeping years ago when it finally began wearing down.
It hadn’t been an easy choice but Abolish had begun to come around more by then. His parents always called him sensible.
This time, he was dressed more casually. A hooded jacket, warm in the chilly smog of New York. Slacks. It matched his hair, he had been trying to do that more lately.
He liked the times he was in now. People no longer criticized his hair, for one. Sure, he got plenty of second looks but someone with half white and half black hair was no longer an oddity. No longer someone cursed or someone to be burned.
Also, it was surprising how if you walked with enough confidence, that people would just let you go into skyscrapers, to one of the highest floors, to stare down at a very specific window.
Abolish had watched the window for a few minutes when it finally happened. Scott had caught his thoughts, turning away from the other two to wave, sending Abolish a smirk.
Shelby had followed his look. “Who are you waving to?” Shelby had asked, and Abolish was thankful he had taken the years to brush up on his lip reading.
Among other things. He was the organization’s trainer now. He never took anyone in like Morcant did, but he thinks the other would be proud of him.
“Abolish is checking in.” Scott said back. Abolish can feel the guillotine descending, and he couldn’t help but smile. So many years Scott hadn’t mentioned his name to the other two.
Morcant would’ve laughed.
Shelby paused, mouth hanging open. Her eyes flicker to the window, he knows when she catches sight of him. Beside her, Abolish could see Drift's eyes flickering as she traced through the mental math. Scott waved again at Abolish's spot, assuming the girls couldn't see him.
“Scott.” Abolish read from Drift's lips. “It's been two hundred years. What do you mean Abolish is checking in?”
Scott turned, squinting at the other, then glanced at the nearby wall clock. “Has it really been that long? Now, I feel old. I've napped longer than two hundred years. He checks in every once in a while, bit of a stalker honestly.”
Rude. Abolish was asked to be a stalker.
“No, focus back in. It's been two hundred years. How is Abolish still alive?” Drift was starting to pace again, gesturing. She must be breaking it down for them now, detective mind moving faster. “Most people maybe make it to one hundred, two hundred is impossible. I thought the organization had someone new every few years.”
“Have you been calling them all Abolish? Because that’s just wrong.” Shelby protested.
He can see the moment it hits Scott, that elegant facade cracking as the other whirls around, eyes narrowing. Abolish waved back, a tad bit cheeky.
Perhaps he did still hold a grudge against the other.
Scott’s eyes widen, settling into something artful. He can feel the other scrutinizing him, taking him in. Checking for differences.
“Well, how was I supposed to know that? I haven’t remembered human aging in a long time, it changes all the time.” Scott complained. “But it's definitely Abolish. He hasn't aged a day.”
“What do you mean it changes all the time-“
“You used to whine about dying at thirty and now you live until three hundred or something-“
“It’s one hundred! One hundred is the general rule now! I think!” Shelby said, throwing up her hands. “I had to look it up for my latest fanfiction!”
As if on cue, all three looked out the window to where Abolish was hiding. But he was already slipping down the stairs, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. He had a flight to catch.
They'd follow, he was pretty sure about that. Those three were absolutely insane, he was certain it was a prerequisite for entering Oakhurst. They'd want to know, Scott would want to complain as if Abolish should have told him. The interrogation was nipping at his heels.
That didn't mean Abolish had to make it easy for them to find him.
He hummed something soft and light he heard while traveling fifty years ago. He'd catch the flight in, and then a few days' travel would bring him to his Oakhurst circuit. Someone needed to check up on Pearl and Cleo, just as he checked in on the trio.
Personally, he was almost certain Scott had picked the move to New York to annoy him more, because it quite neatly messed up his simpler travel plans. Luckily, he was reasonably certain the other vampire hadn’t learned about planes yet.
They were doing well. They had figured it out far faster, Cleo staring at him a decade after and then scoffing. Abolish was bringing a seed catalog for them.
After that, he would check on the graves. The two maintained them well, and often he found them clean and new, flowers still left. No work to be done for him. First, the flowers for Legundo, Martyn, and Ren. Then Avid. Pyro, whose grave he found the first year he drifted back, made by Shelby when the anger finally collapsed into grief. Owen, flowers there but always tucked in somewhere, as if not wanting them to be shown.
Time healed the pain, the anger. Left room for reflection.
Later, he’d curve up. Apokuna and Cherri were in university again, studying. He wasn’t sure what they had chosen, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they could teach most of their classes by this point. Apo had turned Cherri some time after Oakhurst, Abolish didn’t know when. They were happy together.
After, another stop. Sausage had a book signing, under a new name again. He’d watch from the outside, collect another book for his retirement nest egg. At this rate, a single copy signed from his collection could fund decades of retirement.
And then one more.
He still had a bottle of plum wine. And a bet to follow through on. He’d pour a glass at that grave, share with a ghost.
Abolish didn’t much like retirement.
But he liked this.