The long-distance train was on its way to the north. The eight of them had four cabins to themselves, two slept in each. Night and Moon shared one, Rune and Hyde shared, Barry and Fallon did, and Thomas and Severn. They moved around between the cabins during the day to sit with and talk to others, each cabin had four seats.

  The Brightbold family all sat together this morning. Thomas and Moon sat on one side, Rune and Night on the other, and Severn laid on the bed above Rune and Night.

  Severn rubbed his thumb over the tip of what was left of his ring finger. It felt odd, like the nerves there were never supposed to be touched, but now they were and his brain had trouble processing the signals.

  He looked at Thomas staring out the window. He grinned. “So Dad, are you finally going to date someone again?”

  Thomas tensed as his face flushed. He cleared his throat. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

  “Wait, so that man isn’t just your friend?” Moon asked next to Thomas.

  “Well—” Thomas hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

  “You’re not straight?”

  “Have I ever told you I was?”

  “No, but you’ve never given me a reason to think otherwise!”

  “That would’ve been helpful to know earlier,” Night complained. “I had to go to Rune for help, because I was confused as a baby queer and he was the only more seasoned queer I knew. Meanwhile, we’ve had a senior queer among us all this time?!”

  “I didn’t realise my help was so terrible, damn,” Rune commented.

  Thomas uncomfortably pressed himself against the wall as if trying to escape this conversation. “What?”

  “You didn’t tell us you’re queer! Before Rune came back, I thought I was alone in this family.”

  “You hadn’t told me about you being gay before, either.”

  “Because I wasn’t sure yet, that’s why I wanted someone’s help!”

  Thomas scratched his cheek. “I don’t think I would’ve been much help.”

  “Why not?”

  “In my whole life, I’ve only been interested in one woman and one man, mostly because of other circumstances that had nothing to do with their gender. I doubt I would’ve been much help figuring out if you’re a lesbian.”

  “So, now I’m in the minority,” Moon interrupted. She looked at Severn. “Dad, are you with me, at least?”

  Severn glanced away and clicked his tongue. “Well—”

  “Seriously?!”

  Rune snorted out a laugh.

  Severn shook his head. “Since when is this a battle?”

  “How am I the only straight one in this whole family?”

  “I don’t know about Grandma,” Rune said, then tilted his head up to look at Severn.

  Severn huffed at the mention of her. “Don’t ask me.”

  Rune turned to Thomas instead.

  Thomas shrugged. “She never said otherwise, but that doesn’t mean much, does it?”

  “There is something I’ve been curious about, by the way,” Rune mentioned.

  “What?”

  “In that note he wrote you in that book, Barry called you a little rascal. I think I can guess why rascal, but why little?”

  “Everyone’s little compared to him.”

  Rune squinted. “He doesn’t call everyone little.”

  Thomas groaned. “I met him when I was thirteen, and I was a small thirteen-year-old and still three years away from a major growth spurt.”

  “How short were you?” Moon asked.

  “I don’t know, around your height? Maybe a little shorter.”

  Moon squished her cheeks. “Aw, you were so tiny.”

  Thomas glared with a light, embarrassed blush. “All of you were that height at some point in your lives!”

  “When I was eleven, maybe,” Severn joined in the teasing.

  “So what if you grew faster than me? You’re barely taller than me now.”

  “How tall was Mum?” Moon asked Severn.

  Severn raised a brow at the random question. “Why?”

  “You three are all around the same height, but Night and I are so much shorter. Is that because Mum was short, too?”

  “She wasn’t that short.” Severn showed the height with his hand in front of his face, stopping around his mouth. “Somewhere here.”

  “That isn’t that much taller than us.”

  “I guess so.”

  “How tall is Grandma?” Night asked.

  Severn only shrugged.

  “Not much shorter than me,” Thomas answered.

  Night hummed, then frowned at Severn’s hand, the previous movement drawing attention to his fingers again. “Are you upset about your fingers?”

  Severn hummed and examined his fingers for the millionth time. “I’ll get used to it, it doesn’t hinder me.” He messed with Rune’s hair below him to prove his point. “Who uses a ring finger and pinky anyway?”

  “Piano players,” Rune remarked.

  Severn froze up for a second. He hadn’t thought of that. “Shit,” he softly swore.

  “You of all people didn’t think of that?” Thomas asked, confused.

  “My mind has been a bit too preoccupied to think of pianos!” Severn defended. He sighed. “It’d be more difficult, I’d have to adjust, but I’ll manage.” He wiggled his ring finger stump. “I could still use this.”

  “I doubt it, but okay,” Thomas mumbled.

  “Could you be a little supportive?”

  Hyde, Fallon and Barry sat in another cabin, Hyde next to Fallon. He leaned on his dad, he held his mom’s sketchbook in his hands and stared at it, sad and unsure.

  “What are you thinking about?” Barry asked.

  Hyde hummed. “I don’t think I can live up to my mom’s drawing level. I don’t know how to start.”

  “Don’t overthink it,” Fallon told him. “She’d love everything you draw. It doesn’t have to be the same as hers, draw whatever you want. If you only want to make little doodles and patterns in it, that’s fine. There’s no standard to be met.”

  Hyde smiled sadly and nodded. He didn’t want to ruin his mom’s last sketchbook with his dumb doodles, but maybe that would make it better in her eyes.

  Later that day, Barry and Thomas sat next to each other, alone in a cabin. Thomas seemed more comfortable around Barry. He wasn’t tense, he didn’t flinch at every little touch, he smiled more.

  “Has Veritas changed much since I left?” Barry asked while Thomas looked out the window again.

  Thomas shook his head. “Not at all. Some shops might’ve moved around.” He turned to Barry with a smile. “Did you miss the winters? Because that’s on it’s way.”

  Barry chuckled. “I’m excited to see snow again, but not so much for the blizzards.”

  “Why not? Being stuck inside, wrapped in blankets, all cozy. What’s not to love?”

  “The ‘being stuck inside’ part.”

  “Then no one can bother you.”

  Barry leaned on the table with his elbows, he grunted. Finally going back there brought a lot of memories back. Not only of Thomas. “Would my family still live there?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He caught Thomas off guard. Thomas frowned. “You mean your parents?”

  Barry nodded.

  “I doubt they’d still be alive.”

  “I more so wondered about my brother.”

  “What—you never mentioned you had a brother.”

  Barry sighed and bit his cheek. “I know. I wasn’t sure how to feel about him. I felt guilty, and I kind of tried to forget.”

  Thomas sadly hummed. “Well, he might be alive as an old man somewhere.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Hyde laid in Rune’s arms in their cabin, alone too. They laid on one of the small beds. Rune sat up with his back against the wall, Hyde laid on his chest on his side with the sketchbook still in his hands.

  Hyde sighed. “Should I get more into drawing? It could be a way to feel closer to my mom again, now that she’s gone.”

  Rune rubbed his thumb below Hyde’s ear. “I think it’s a good idea. I learned piano to feel closer to my dad and it worked quite well. Plus, having a hobby wouldn’t hurt.”

  Hyde sniffed out a chuckle. He laid the sketchbook down on the bed and nuzzled into Rune’s chest. He hummed. “Meeting you was quite the snowball,” he mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  “If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have gone home. You wouldn’t have been killed, and thus Selene’s potion might not exist, or at least not be used on our families. My grandad wouldn’t be alive now, neither would your dad. I wouldn’t be a hybrid.”

  “So, it’s good that you met me?”

  Hyde titled his head up to Rune’s face with a raised brow. “What kind of dumbass question is that?”

  Rune tensed. “I don’t know, your tone was quite ambiguous!”

  Hyde snickered. He pushed himself up on his hands, he caressed Rune’s cheek. “Of course it’s good I met you.” He kissed him. “I love you. I love being around you, you always ease my nerves and make me laugh.”

  Rune smiled with tears in his eyes and put his hands on Hyde’s cheeks. “No one’s ever made me feel as wanted and loved as you.”

  Hyde pushed their foreheads together. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “You, too.”

  In the afternoon, Barry wanted to talk to Fallon. He wanted to be honest with him and make sure he wouldn’t be upset about it later, if he found out himself. They sat across from each other.

  “What did you want to tell me?” Fallon asked after Barry hadn’t said anything for over a minute.

  Barry wasn’t sure how to begin. “Well, I wanted to be honest with you about my relationship with your mom. And that I wasn’t always the happiest in Corburn.”

  Fallon didn’t seem surprised. “I know your marriage wasn’t the best.”

  “You did?”

  “What other conclusion am I supposed to pull from the fact that one of you slept on the couch at least once a month?”

  “Right…”

  “Makes sense you weren’t always happy in Corburn if you didn’t get along with your wife.”

  “It wasn’t only her. I was always homesick there, I never liked Corburn as a whole. The only thing keeping me there all these years was you. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve left years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was hesitant to tell you, cause I didn’t want to risk you somehow blaming yourself for me being unhappy. But I want to be sure you know, you were always the one thing that made me happy, no matter what.”

  Fallon rubbed the back of his neck with a frown. “I guess that was a fair concern to have.”

  “And one more thing.”

  “Hm?”

  “Before I died, I was planning a divorce. I wanted to go back to the north. And since you were an adult, we wouldn’t have all the trouble of a custody battle and such. Would you have gone with me back then, too?”

  Fallon processed that for a moment, then thought about what to say. “I’m not sure. But I wasn’t always a big fan of Mom either, so probably.”

  Barry smiled a little, he didn’t seem upset that his parents were going to separate. But he was an adult, so maybe he felt like it wouldn’t have affected him much. It was also somewhat vindicating to know he would’ve chosen him over his mom. Not that he was surprised.

  “Now that we’re chatting anyway, how about you tell me about your parents?”

  Barry flinched. “Why?”

  “I deserve to know why my grandparents were never in my life. How would you feel if I never told my kids why you weren’t around?”

  Barry sighed. “Okay, I guess that’s fair. I wasn’t close to my family. My mom was always at work, my dad mostly concerned himself with my younger brother, and my older sister drove me away from my brother and father and towards her. Until she left, right before we moved to Veritas when I was fifteen.”

  Fallon seemed very confused and wanted to ask questions, but Barry wasn’t finished yet, “I met Thomas at school after we moved. We both wanted to get away from our families. So, we did, the first chance we got, when I turned eighteen.”

  Fallon quietly stared at him, waiting to see if he’d keep going again. Barry waved his hand around as he said, “Ask.”

  “I have an aunt and an uncle?!”

  Barry nodded. “Valery and Daniel.”

  “Where did you live before the north?”

  “I’m western. We lived closer to the north than the south.”

  “Why did your sister leave?”

  Barry shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You haven’t spoken to any of them since you were eighteen?”

  “Yes.”

  Fallon frowned and glanced away. “Do you regret it?”

  Barry took a deep breath. “Kind of. Now, I think I could’ve tried harder to talk to my father and figure things out between us. But I definitely regret abandoning my brother. It wasn’t his fault our dad favoured him so strongly, he was just a kid.” He tilted his head. “Only two years younger, but still. We were both kids.”

  Fallon was quiet again, letting himself process all this new information about his family. Eventually, he asked, “Would you want to talk to them again?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d like to be closer with my family again, but I don’t know if I could with them. Or if they’d even want to be close with me.”

  Fallon frowned and nodded.

  “I’m glad we didn’t repeat the cycle. I never knew my grandparents, so I can only assume my parents weren’t close to them, either.”

  Fallon smiled a little.

  Severn wandered around the corridor between the cabins after taking a bathroom break. He looked through the small, square windows in the doors of their own four. Night and Moon both read their own entertainment; a book and a magazine. Rune and Hyde sat on a bed, tangled together. Thomas and Barry sat next to each other, chatting again.

  Fallon sat alone. How perfect. Severn pulled the sliding door open and stepped inside, saying, “Oh hey, you’re alone, me too.” He sat across from him. He scratched his chin with tense shoulders. “Everyone else is busy.”

  Fallon hummed and frowned at Severn’s hand. “I’m sorry you lost your fingers fighting my family’s battle.”

  Severn glanced at the fingers scratching his chin, then shook his head. “I just returned the favour. Hyde nearly died fighting my family’s fight. Rune wouldn’t have been able to get away from them without him. And in the end, it lead to me coming back to life. I can live with a couple fingers less in return.”

  “Well.” Fallon let a little smile creep on his face. “Thanks for your help. You kept my daughter safe.”

  Severn rubbed the back of his neck, feeling flustered. “It’s alright, really.”

  “Did it hurt?” Fallon asked, surprising Severn.

  “Have you ever cried in pain?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. But no, I haven’t.”

  Severn eyed the scar on Fallon’s arm, half covered by his t-shirt. “Not even when that happened?”

  Fallon absentmindedly put his hand on his scar and dug his fingers into the pits. “I didn’t feel this for a long time; adrenaline, you know? But once I did feel it, I was so out of it from blood loss, all I could focus on was staying conscious.” He removed his hand from his arm. “Did you cry when you lost your fingers?”

  “I did. Even though it healed quick, it still hurt like a motherfucker.”

  Fallon breathed out a chuckle. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

  Severn noticed he seemed to be in a better mood today. Maybe he had processed everything that had happened a bit more. It could be a good time to discuss the elephant in the room. The elephant to Severn, anyway.

  “Do you feel weird around me?”

  Fallon gave him a confused, raised brow.

  “Not in an Ew, you’re weird type of way, but do you feel some sort of pull towards me?”

  Fallon squinted. “I kinda do. Why?”

  “Why do I ask or why do you feel that?”

  “Both.”

  “I feel it, too. It’s because I turned you. When a vampire turns someone, their souls are linked, making them want to be around and interact with that person more. Usually, people who already love each other do it, so it isn’t a big deal. But this, between us, is odd. We don’t know each other.” Severn uncomfortably glanced away. “I’m not sure if we should try to fight it or not.”

  “Is it always a love connection, or a connection in general?”

  “It can be platonic.”

  Fallon was quiet, he considered what he thought of it. Severn didn’t know why he was so anxious about what he thought. Perhaps because it would hurt if he turned down his friendship. But was the link the only reason he wanted to be friends in the first place? Or was there more to it? Even before everything happened, when they arrived in Corburn, Severn gravitated towards him. Why? He wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t see the point in fighting it,” Fallon snapped him out of his thoughts. “It would be a lot of wasted effort. If our souls are bound, not much we can do about it.” Fallon shrugged. “We could lean into it. It’d be nice to have a friend for once in my life.”

  Severn chuckled. “Yeah, it would.”

  Barry walked through Veritas again after twenty-five years away. Twenty-five to him, anyway. To the city—and Thomas—it had been fifty-six long years. The familiar cold tickled his nose, the chatter in the streets sounded like music in his ears. He wanted to savour it, but they had to get Fallon inside. He didn’t have a warm coat. Neither did Barry, but he managed with a sweater for now.

  Thomas led them to the house.

  They went inside. Barry was overwhelmed by the smell of books, it was pleasant. The bookshelves in the hallway were a nice addition to the house. Thomas had a lot more books than Barry expected.

  Fallon tugged at his sleeve, Barry gave him his attention. “Where can I sleep? I’m exhausted.”

  “Oh.” Barry glanced at Thomas taking his shoes off. “Which room?”

  “The one that was yours. It’s Severn’s old bedroom now.”

  Barry took Fallon upstairs. They went into the second room. It was painted in greys and black, with one dark blue wall. A small, cheap piano stood against it. The bed stood against the blue wall. Other than that, it was barren. It was quite the contrast to what it had been like when this room was Barry’s. His had been lighter with more earth tones.

  Fallon sat on the bed and rubbed his face. Barry sat next to him and rubbed his shoulder.

  “Will you be okay?”

  “I’m just tired.”

  Barry turned towards him, one leg on the bed. “If you need anything, I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

  Fallon lifted his head out of his hands and smiled at him. He nodded. Barry wrapped his arms around him and pulled Fallon against him in a hug. He rubbed his shoulder and said, “I’m glad I can at least be here for you through this.”

  Fallon hugged him. “Me too. I might not have shown it a lot yet, but I am happy to have you back. Even though it still feels fake.”

  “I assure you, I’m real.” Barry smiled, he rested his cheek in Fallon’s hair. “Get some sleep, I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

  Fallon nodded and let him go. Barry rubbed his shoulder one more time before standing up and leaving the room.

  Barry went downstairs. He curiously went to the bookshelves, he searched through them. Thomas had built up quite the collection; a few hundred, perhaps. He looked for a few in particular. He found one, then another, and another, until he found them all. All twenty-five books he’d given him over the years, each year for his birthday. It was a small amount compared to the rest, but he’d kept them all. Even after Thomas thought he’d abandoned him.

  Thomas came into the hallway. “What are you doing?”

  “You kept all the books I gave you, even after I supposedly forgot about you.”

  Thomas shyly rubbed his arm. “I never let you go. I always kept them as a reminder that you did care at some point. And I actually liked a lot of them.”

  Barry frowned. “I never stopped caring.”

  “Yeah, I know that now.”

  “Did I ever give you any doubles?”

  Thomas shook his head. “Surprisingly, no. But there was one.” He searched his shelves for the book he was thinking of. He found it and pulled it off the shelf. “This one. I saw it at the store and almost bought it, but decided against it, because I already had five books I wanted to buy. So, I thought I should leave it for another time. But then, a week later, you sent it to me! And I thought, ‘Holy shit, he can read my mind all the way from the south!’ ”

  Barry laughed. “Yeah, I saw it at the store—I think it was a new release or something—and it seemed like something you’d like.”

  “It was.”

  Barry grinned. “I know you so well.”

  His eyes wandered. He took a deep breath, taking in the smell of the house. He smiled. “It feels so good to be back in this house. I’d only lived here for three years, but it still feels like coming home.” He focused his eyes on Thomas, who put the book back in its spot. “Or maybe it isn’t the house, but being around you again.”

  Thomas stepped closer. “It feels weird for you to be here, after all this time.” He smiled up at him. “But it does feel good.” He wrapped his arms around Barry’s chest and hugged him, pushing his cheek against his shoulder. “It’s relieving. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.”

  Barry tightly hugged him back. He took a deep breath, fully relaxing. “I’m finally back where I belong.”