The pain was excruciating. Sofia was entirely blind. Not even blinding light just… nothing. She could feel her skin smouldering and cooking.

“Jesus, Sofi, Stop!” Jackie yelled, running over to pull her away from the window. “The fuck are you doing!” She scolded, pulling the blackout curtains closed with a zip.

Sofia had to tear her mouth open. Her skin had melted over, sealing it shut. She still could see nothing even as she felt her body now winning the battle. She could handle daylight better than ever before, sunbathing was still far beyond her. Her body’s ability to heal could keep up with some amount of light.

The first thing she saw when her eyeballs presumably un-shrivelled themselves was Jackie’s look of horror.

Sofia was trembling from the pain. She probably would be in shock if she was capable of that. “Just… testing things,” she offered dryly.

“The whole apartment smells like burning hair and flesh, and fuck… don’t do that. That’s… please don’t,” Jackie spluttered.

Sofia figured the injuries must have looked horrible. They sure felt horrible though her face had long gone numb.

“Sorry,” Sofia offered sheepishly.

“I made eggs, come eat,” Jackie sighed, shaking her head as she slipped back into the kitchen.

While the blood had rejuvenated her she was kinda hungry. Eggs were fairly similar to bacon, kinda… she could probably eat them. She hurried after Jackie.

Jackie motioned for her to sit and put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. This had not only never happened before but the tension in the air made Sofia wonder if this was somehow some kind of intervention.

“I think…” Jackie began, sitting across from Sofia at the small table. “I think we should team up.”

Sofia frowned, stabbing a piece of egg. “To do what?” She asked, popping it in her mouth. It tasted… fine. Better than raw bacon. She was a little disappointed by its normality.

“In general. We worked well last weekend and with exams approaching we both need to figure out what our plans are for the summer. I think we should partner up,” Jackie clarified.

“Like… you want to help me… kill more people?” Sofia asked. She didn’t love the idea, mostly because it would probably be easier on her own, and it wouldn’t endanger Jackie.

“Sure, and whatever other… special needs you might have,” Jackie nodded. “I know you decently, I know a hell of a lot about your condition and… quite frankly you need someone to look out for you.”

Sofia wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that. “You want to be like… my Renfield?”

“Yeah… kinda. I mean, without the bug eating, abuse and madness obviously,” she quickly amended.

“Obviously,” Sofia repeated, making sure they were on the same page. “But like… why?”

“What do you mean why?” Jackie huffed.

“I doubt you wanna spend the rest of your life chasing me around and getting into trouble,” Sofia snorted.

“Sofia, you’re a real-life vampire. I could not be paid to go back to some kind of normal life knowing vampires were real,” Jamie retorted with irritation.

Sofia had to give that one to her. If she had discovered the supernatural she would never let it go. “What’s in it for you then?”

“Well… you as an ally, paid vacation time when you become a millionaire and you blood bond with me,” Jackie listed.

“How much did you overhear?” Sofia groaned. Of course, Jackie had heard Eloise’s comment. “I’m not unnaturally extending your life just so you can be my bellhop.”

“Bellhop? I wouldn’t accept anything less than personal assistant,” Jackie scoffed. “And obviously a blood bond. It’s not fair of you to hog immortality.”

Sofia rested her face in her hands. The eggs were too plain to bother even eating. “In case you don’t remember, Eloise barely told me anything. Who knows what side effects there would be of… drinking my blood.”

“Pretty sure she mentioned longevity and vitality,” Jackie counted.

“Pretty sure obedience was somewhere in there.”

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“You have fucking mind control powers, you can already make me do whatever you want. So far you’ve been the perfect gentlewoman.”

“I… you want an unpaid, potentially eternity-long job as my personal assistant?” Sofia summarized, just trying to make sense of whatever the fuck the conversation had become.

“It doesn’t have to be so… structured,” Jackie sighed, leaning back. “We can just be… buddies. I help with daytime stuff and you help with nighttime stuff.”

“Like a queerplatonic relationship?” Sofia asked, still confused by this whole thing.

“Sure… I guess, I don’t know,” Jackie replied, furrowing her brows. “Look, all I’m saying is we should buddy up, like teachers made kids do in middle school when on a field trip, but for the foreseeable future.”

It didn’t seem like a terrible idea. actually it sounded kinda nice. They had already kinda been doing that since all this happened. Sofia didn’t even have anyone else in Toronto to turn to.

“You drink my blood, I’ll drink yours,” Jackie added.

The idea of having a partner in crime sounded delightful, a partner in immortality. If this… partnership was going to continue then making it official was a good idea. They needed to figure out their new normal together.

Still, she had only known Jackie since the fall and she wasn’t… always reliable. But Sofia had barred herself in her entirety and Jackie had accepted what she was. They had killed together, saved each other, and hurt each other. For better or for worse they were tangled up together.

They had each other, and neither of them wanted to let that go.

“Okay, I’m in. Buddies,” Sofia decided, feeling more confident in the decision with every moment that passed.

She might be making the worst mistake of her life. Yet Jackie’s excited little dance of victory made Sofia smile nonetheless. For better or for worse they had each other.

----------------------------------------

Sofia stood in the kitchen, staring at the cup and knife.

Her grades were really going to suffer from her total disregard for her studies. Even Jackie, normally a straight-A student, had been barely going.

Then there was the call from the police. Unlike Sofia, it was far easier to track Jason’s family down. When the police showed up to inform Jackie of his death Sofia had hidden in the bathroom. Ready to act if shit went badly. It hadn’t, the police didn’t seem to have any leads and Jackie was an eerily good actor.

Sofia turned her focus back to the matter at hand and ran the blade vertically up her forearm. Blood did not pour from her veins. The sticky purple sap oozed, with no heartbeat to spray it out.

She stood there awkwardly, letting her arm dangle as her blood dripped into the cup.

The pain made her eyes water. Now that she was adjusting back to being alive her tolerance seemed to be decreasing. Still… it didn’t hurt quite as much as it should have.

It had been a week since she had fed. She had snacked on food occasionally when she was hungry. But a week since she had properly fed. The effects were beginning to wane ever so slightly.

She was a little colder to the touch, a little number to the world, a little more sensitive to light. Or maybe she was just paranoid.

How long would a person's life last her?

She shook her arm, trying to get her blood to flow more. The glass didn’t even have a finger of her blood. Eloise may have given painfully little guidance but a tiny amount seemed safer than a small one.

How the hell had Eloise made her drink litres of the stuff? It was like molasses in her veins.

Her wrist pulsed, the flesh sealing up. Was it too soon to ask Jackie for blood?

She didn’t want it to be like an addiction, she didn’t want to allow herself to ever feel a need for more. But she couldn’t control the longing. Even if the effects had faded slightly she was still warm, but the high had worn off.

The handle of the knife dug into her palm, she set it down with excessive force.

She might crave life but she could lose herself in it either. Balance, she had to find a middle ground, somewhere between nothing and endless ecstasy.

Sofia had let herself burn in the brightness of the sun just for the thrill of it. She had recklessly shattered like half the bones in her body only to hurt Jackie. Both extremes were horrifying.

She sliced up her other arm and let the blood drip into the glass until she had a little over a finger.

Content with the amount she swirled it around in the glass. It was thick and it clung to the sides. She added water and grabbed a spoon to mix it. Finally, she was left with a weird purple mixture. She decided to ignore the… flecks of whatever that was.

Jackie had asked for this, as gross as it looked.

She carried the drink into the living room where Jackie was busy typing away on her laptop in a frenzy that spoke towards it not being school related.

“Here,” Sofia said, setting it down beside her.

“What… is it,” Jackie asked, glancing up.

“My blood, mixed with water to help it go down,” Sofia replied.

“Oh,” Jackie said, with a tone of surprise. Had she forgotten? That hardly seemed likely.

Sofia had been a little nervous that Jackie had been proposing their partnership just to extend her life but Jackie hadn’t brought it up in days. In fact everything had fallen into a sort of normalcy… beyond the police briefly showing up.

“You don’t have to drink it, you’re the one that brought it up,” Sofia pointed out.

“No, no, I will. I just…” she shrugged, “I don’t even know what I was expecting. I figured I would try to focus on the rest of the semester before vampire stuff.”

“You’ve been home for days and you're definitely not doing schoolwork,” Sofia snorted.

“Okay, maybe I got a little distracted,” Jackie laughed, picking up the glass and sniffing it. She wrinkled her nose.

“Down the hatch?” Sofia asked, biting back a smile.

Jackie raised the glass and took a big gulp. The downside of the added water is it was too much to take like a shot.

Jackie immediately gagged. “Oh,” she croaked, covering her mouth. “I thought… that’s… fuck that’s really bad.”

“Are you ok?” Sofia asked nervously.

Jackie nodded quickly though she didn’t look like it. She bravely downed the rest of it. Her body heaved in protest but somehow she kept it down.

Sofia felt a little sick herself. That was not a feeling she had missed.

“You sure?” Sofia asked.

“Yup,” Jackie whispered and quickly walked to the kitchen. Grabbing the carton of orange juice and drinking straight from it.

Jackie finally seemed to relax and twisted the lid back on.

“How do you feel?” Sofia asked.

Jackie blinked. “Uh… the same?”

“I guess it takes time?” Sofia offered.

“I mean I don’t think I would feel much different if I stopped aging,” Jackie shrugged. “Who’s to tell?”

“True, you may need to drink more. I think Eloise said you would need to drink my blood periodically,” Sofia pointed out.

“For how long?”

“Uh… forever I guess. Maybe it… wears off after a while,” Sofia offered, uncomfortably aware of her own life wearing off.

“Well… I’ll get used to it,” Jackie shrugged.

“Really?”

“Fuck no, that was… horrible,” Jackie snickered. “I was trying to be optimistic. When should I drink more?”

“No idea. I don’t even know how long until I need to eat more,” Sofia sighed.

“‘Maybe it syncs up, like a period,” Jackie suggested.

“I don’t think that’s an actual thing,” Sofia countered.

“Whatever,” Jackie grumbled. “I guess when you start getting all… corpsie again we can revisit this. I mean it would kinda make sense that I feed off your blood when you feed off someone else’s right? Where else are you going to get blood from?”

“Who the fuck knows, Jackie,” Sofia sighed. “Who the fuck knows.”

Actually… someone did know.