~*~

Sayre fell on the long, worn, leather couch to his back.  A hand fell over his eyes, his boots dangled off the edge. Dramatic.

Her office was, firstly, not technically her office. But what was she to do when the actual manager and owner felt more inclined to drink and cavort about the city, so she as twenty-something was now given the responsibility of keeping something moving that she cared about (and also needed the money from).  The office was, secondly, more of a waiting room for files to collect dust than for anything else to really get done. However, as Sayre was demonstrating, the couch was especially useful for flailing oneself about as theatrically as men were drawing Disney princesses who were just overcome with emotion. 

Leah moved to the mini-fridge, shuffled some things to the side, then pulled out a blood bag. She appeared at his side a couple steps later. “I could pour it into a tiki cup,” she teased, but handed it over when a weak hand lifted. She then batted his legs away, and sank on the couch. “You okay?”

He gulped. “Yeah.”

“They seem like they’re getting worse, those headaches.”

“You never answered me.”

She turned her head. “About what?”

“Where’d you go? You had a vision.”

“None of your fuckin’ business.” She playfully smacked his legs.

“You had a vision. What happened?” he asked between sips.

“I’m…I’m not sure. It was hard to see. Just a lot of darkness. I felt like I was drowning in it. Like it was surrounding me. Then I felt something sharp on my ribs. Something…held me. Held onto me.”

Sayre lifted his hand, his eyes black and red, but fading back to his stormy, human blue. “Go on.”

She shrugged. “That was it. Gave me the fuckin’....heeby-jeebies.”

“Velma,” he teased and lowered his hand again over his eyes.

“What a babe,” she said, sinking into the couch.

“I always figured Daphne was more your—”

“Also a babe, both are babes.”

“Yeah? And how does Betty fit into that?”

“She’s both.” Leah wiggled her brows and smirked. “Damn smart, looks smokin’ in a dress.” She patted at his legs like a coach trying to encourage a youth. “Gotta get you a girl who can do both, buddy.” 

They laughed, though Sayre chuckled and groaned.

“How’s your head?” she asked a moment later.

“Coming around. I haven’t used it like that in a while.”

“You enthralled a whole fucking room.”

He huffed a laugh. “I once did a whole ballroom.”

“Shut up! Really?”

“In the Other-80s” —as he referred to the 1880s for her— “We had a whole party under our thumb. Made them say and do whatever we wanted.”

Sayre expected her to be piqued by: made them say or do whatever we wanted, but that’s not what she asked. 

A soft, “We?” came out of her lips instead. “There was a ‘We’?”

“Once. A long time ago.”

“I didn’t know that. …What happened?”

He lifted his hand from his eyes, now human again, but his expression was still of a guarded near-immortal. “You’re inquisitive today.”

“You’re a shit-head,” she shrugged, and beamed, “things even out.” Leah curled on her side towards him. Her head leaned into the hand she braced with her elbow against the back of the couch. “Go on. Who was she? I assume it was a she. Or…”

“No.” 

“Oh, ho, ho,” Leah cackled and drummed her hands on his legs. “Tell me, tell me! Tell me everything you deviant little fuck-weasel. You horned-up vampy boy!”

Sayre exhaled, low and slow. “No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s…personal.”

She exploded with offense. “You know so much about my life—”

“You’ve told me too much about your life.”

“And, I shared that willingly, because we are friends.” She threw his legs off her lap to the floor. “C’mon, why not? Really, seriously, why not? I know about your fangs, and the weird shit. You can’t trust me to know about your love-life? Or, even the fact you fuckin’ had one. Here I thought you were a Ken-Doll down there!”

He watched her face. “It’s…difficult,” he said a few seconds later, and that’s all she needed to know.

Her face softened and she nodded. Another wave of sadness washed over her expression and filled her eyes. “Oh,” she deflated.

Sayre opened his arms, and she crawled her way to his side, where she laid her head on his chest, once she moved the jacket away. Ear to his beating heart.

“You should go,” he encouraged. “You should go see him.”

She made herself small. “Cemeteries freak me out.”

Sayre let his arm wrap around her shoulders. “I’ll go with you. You should talk to him. Catch him up on you and Betty.”

“I don’t think he’d want to hear about that.”

“Lee, he’s your brother. He’ll want to hear it. Trust me, it’ll help.”

Leah had been young when her brother left for war. She idolized him in her youth. He took her skateboarding, played catch with her, taught her how to punch someone, then stood proudly defending her when she had to teach a class-mate that she wasn’t interested in him. They were inseparable.  Then, he was drafted. And she lost her older brother, and her best friend. She lost the only person who knew. Years later and the agony of it never left her, or her parents.

“Have you…” she lifted her head to meet his gaze, “had to talk to a lot of tombstones?”

He nodded. “Still do.”

“It never gets easier, does it?”

Sayre couldn’t answer. Instead, he clenched his jaw. He couldn’t lie. He wouldn’t. Yes, it got easier, but also, no, it never did. It was just a weight you grew more accustomed to carrying. 

“You remind me of him, sometimes,” she said as she lowered to his chest again. A finger wiped against her face.

“Yeah, you think he would’ve liked me?”

“Oh, fuck no!” She laughed, and cried. “He would have hated you. I would have loved it, teasing him about it.”

A moment of stillness fell between the two friends. To him, Leah was just a kid. She might have been twenty-something (honestly he didn’t care to ask, it didn’t make a difference if she were twenty or seventy; to him both were young), but that didn’t mean the weight was easier to bear. It was heavy, no matter what.

“Your heart…it’s…beating,” she whispered. “I didn’t think you’d have one? Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

His eyes traced over the lines of the popcorn ceiling. His mouth opened, but it took him a moment to push the words out. “I…didn’t used to.”

“How is that possible?” She sat up the full extension of her arm, staring down at him. “You didn’t have a heart, and then…you did?”

“It’s complicated,” he said softly. 

She tilted her head incredulously. A stare only a close friend, or a sibling could give. “Because of the ‘We’ you won’t talk about?” When he didn’t answer, she smirked. “But, like, how hot was she?” Sayre pushed her off as she laughed and pulled on his arm to come back. “No, no, Sayre, c’mon, tell me. Was she a babe? Was she—”

Sayre got to his feet and fixed his clothes. “Are you feeling better?” he deflected.

“No, I’m aching!” Leah flailed herself dramatically against the couch. “I’m ailing! Please, the only cure: you have to tell me.”

He rolled his eyes and tossed the used blood bag in the trash, burying it beneath papers and other trash. Then he leaned into the edge of the desk with his arms across his chest. His heart…beating.

“You know, I take it back. Maybe my brother would have liked you. You both give me that same glare.”

“Listen,” he started, eyes first to the floor, then to her as she righted herself, “I need you to promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Sayre—”

“I’m serious. There’s something going on, and I…I can’t lose you.”

She stood and crossed the room. “You know, I love you, right?”

He nodded. “You’re the only family I have.”

Her arms wrapped around him. Tight. “You know, if you told me a couple years ago that my best friend would be an old-as-fuck vampire, I would have laughed.”

“You would have punched someone, I know you.”

Leah chuckled. “You’re right.” She buried deeper into him. “Am I really all you have in the world? That’s pretty fuckin’ sad.”

Sayre let loose a brief laugh. “Keep an eye out, please. You and Betty. I love you both.”

“She loves you more than I do,” she teased. “It’s the cheek bones. She’s got a weakness for them.”

They broke apart when a knock came at the door. Sayre leaned into the desk, arms across his chest again. Leah stepped towards it with an, “It’s open.”

“Hey, delivery for you downstairs. They won’t let me sign.”

“Work, work, work,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “C’mon, put those muscles to use and help me. You owe me.”

Sayre snorted. 

“Free tickets to the next show,” she bartered.

“Fine.” He pushed off the desk and followed her down the stairs and to the back alley.

The entire time, his heart beating, pulsing, alive. Filled with worry, anxiety, and admiration. The thought of seeing Leah on the ground lost to the whims and fury of magic made his chest ache.

She had an exuberance about her that reminded him of someone, but when he tried to place it, he couldn’t. All he knew was that he had to look after her. A brotherly instinct he couldn’t explain.

Maybe it was his sister? His sister.

He tried to recall her face, but something spiked through his mind and he rubbed it away with a groan.

Another thing lost to time.

Still, he carried in the shipment for her, as he said he would, and when she had to return to the bar to finish setting up for the night, Sayre slipped into the basement, and kicked open Walter’s Coffin. The Den-Leader woke with a start and a hiss, but Sayre throttled him and fumed.

“If anything happens to Leah, I will inflict it upon you tenfold.”

“What the f—” Walker squirmed and tried to fight Sayre, but Sayre was unmoveable, even with only tapping into a fraction of his powers, and this time, he had just had blood. It may have been cold, but his body felt electric.

“Listen to me,” Sayre invoked the voice, “you will keep it clean here. You will not cause harm to Leah, bodily, emotionally, psychologically, or financially, et cetera.”

“Sayre—”

“Do you understand me, Walter?”

He wiggled under the heavy hand. “Yeah, yeah, I get ya. Next time leave a fuckin’ voicemail.”

Sayre hurled Walter up with one hand and brought him to his black and red eyes. “If I have to have this conversation again, Walter, I will be saying it directly to your brain.”

When Walter snorted in doubt, Sayre squeezed harder, until Walter nodded in understanding.

“Good,” echoed in the room. Then Sayre threw Walter back to the coffin, and slammed the lid shut.

He walked out of the club a couple moments later, stopping briefly to wave at Leah as she shouted, “Brunch soon, yeah?!”

“Burgers?”

“Even better!”

Then he was on the streets, in the sun, once more.