"Tonight."

Edward ruffled Henry's head of hair. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"Positive." He nodded a firm shake. "The romanticism of it all. . ." Edward gasped at the thought. "To be an immortal, it's everyone's dream, finally settling down and becoming close with someone. It's the life worth living."

The sun was setting in the distance, ending a sultry summer day, and the coolness of the air caused the heat of Edward's skin to pulsate with an undeprived mind.

"Are you comfortable?" Henry, his shirt thrown haphazardly across the room, dripped sweat onto Edward's chest. He straddled Edward who laid serenely on the bed beneath him.

"I'm—fine." Edward was stiff with anticipation. His body carved itself into the bedding beneath him, and as the light from outside dimmed to a dark blue, the world welcomed its new immortal being.

Gingerly, Henry scooped down and came up to Edward's quivering neck. He tried his best to not graze Edward's skin with his nose. Running his hands up Edward's chest, Henry grabbed his neck with his fingers caressing his jaw. Edward took in a quivering sigh.

"Make that your last dying breath, my love." Henry's voice deepened to a bellowing tone before he bared his fangs and slowly bit down on the fragile skin of Edward's.

Edward let out a moan of pain and excitement. He gripped Henry's hair between his fingers, lacing them all the way down to his scalp. His legs wrapped around Henry's waist in attempts of trapping him. This, sensitizing his skin, left him with a fuzzy feeling.

"Oh, Edward!" Henry moaned his name, taking a breath between clamping his mouth to Edward's neck.

It was a mixture between whining and a moan when Edward tried to respond, listening to the way his old name sounded between his lover's lips. Henry backed away, his mouth dripping with blood, watching it as it laid little drops on Edward's cheek. He pulled his thumb across to wipe it off, sucking his finger in sweet delight. Soon, it was everywhere, streaking down Edward's chest and staining Henry's lips. His teeth became pink. It was all a haze to Edward as the pain erupted in his mind, and all that he could remember was falling asleep in Henry's arms.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'*'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

"Could you make sure the billing code goes through, Dr. Davenport?"

Dr. Davenport worked in emergency medicine, seeing all sorts of things—the craziest she's seen was a man whose chest was fully cut open to the heart where they proceeded to shock it. Well, that sort of thing happens more than once on occasion, but this man was an exceptional case because he woke up after they got his heart started. Dr. Davenport vividly remembers his voice as he looked down at her.

"You're holding my heart!"

It was late into the night on her forty-eight-hour shift when she was called to the OR. Dirt covering his body, dampening his clothes and hiding any sense of lifelessness he possessed, the man straggled to the receptionist in the lobby.

"w a t e r," He weakly mumbled.

The man at the desk, at the sight of the dirty ghost, called for the rapid response team. In the emergency room, the man was identified and hooked up to an IV.

"Okay, Mr. Earl Jones, I'm just going to check your vitals." The attending nurse wrapped a BP cuff over his left arm.

"Call me Edward," he laughed. It was a weak laugh—one that hovered in his mouth.

As the machine whirred, Edward felt it tighten as the pressure increased, and increased and increased and increased—it never stopped, and right around 260mmHg, the nurse unplugged the machine.

"Sorry about that," She scrambled over the buttons on the vitals machine. "Let's try that again." She tried four more times, and the same result occurred again. The PCT nurse finally turned the machine off and called in the attending nurse. She checked his pulse. "Call the rapid response!"

But when rapid response arrived, they just stood there puzzled. "He's fully conscious!"

"But—his blood pressure is zero?"

Edward, conscious but weak from thirst, grabbed hold of the physician. "So, thirsty!"

"Have you tried giving him some water?"

"I have! But he hasn't been drinking it, or when he does, he spits it right back up!"

"His heart has completely stopped, doctor!"

"I KNOW THAT!" The attending physician towered over the resident. "Unhook him from the monitor for chrissake!" The nurses turned off the machines with haste, and the monotone low hum of flatlining ended abruptly. "What's your full name, sir?"

"My name is Earl Edward Jones."

"What year is it?"

"1984."

"What color is my tie?"

Edward squinted his eyes at the doctor in scrubs. "You're not wearing one, doctor."

The attending turned to the nurses and residents who filed in. "What's the reason you're in here for?"

"I'm thirsty."

"You say you're thirsty, but you can't keep any water down."

The resident got close to Edward's pale face. "You look like you're ready to keel over, Mr. Jones."

"I'm so thirsty." He muttered to the young doctor.

"His lips are chapped," She pinched the skin on the back of his hand watching it stick upright. "He's severely dehydrated."

"But his heart has stopped! There is no blood flowing through his veins!"

"The man should be dead."

Edward pouted and crossed his arms, "I'm still here, doctor and other doctor people."

The attending physician got to his knees at Edward's bedside. Softly, he spoke condescendingly, "Where did you come from?"

Edward blushed as everyone grew silent, waiting for his response: "I woke up in a ditch," he lied. Well, half of it was a lie. He didn't tell them about what happened at dusk.

"Hmm..." The attending hummed. He got up from the bed and turned to the crowd that gathered. "Start him on a 1000 cc IV and see if his dehydrated conditions subside."

"But doctor!"

"His heart!"

The crowd erupted into chaos.

"Do as I say!" And that was that.

Despite the IV bag, Edward was becoming weaker and weaker as the hours dragged on. His nurse was very attentive to him, staring at his frail body through the windows of his room. Every half hour, she'd check his vitals, but only for practical purposes—they all turned up as zero.

"Hang in there, buddy." As the nurse leaned over to adjust the bed, Edward stole the nurse's badge from her scrub top and hid it in his gown. "We're going to get you back in shape." She tucked him in before leaving back to the nurse's station.

Edward laid in his bed stiffly for about a minute after the nurse had left, finding the strength to get up.

Get up, Edward.

Get. Up.

His body lifted from the bed, peeling himself off the mattress. While standing, he felt weightless, and moving, he knew he looked like a ghost as he floated to the elevators and down to the basement where the blood bank was located nearby. Somehow, he evaded everyone including his nurse, hiding behind corners whenever a physician or EMS walked by. Carding in, Edward, in a daze, unleashed the full terror of a thousand years of hunger, ravaging the small bags of thick, pure, blood. He mixed the RBC and plasma, downing them both at a time in under ten seconds, finally finishing with twelve empty bags circling him.

With a gasp of epiphany, Edward looked at his surroundings. He had to get out of here.

Stealthily, but noticing how easily that had become, Edward made his way back to his hospital bed in the ICU. After several assessments by the nurses and doctors, Edward was allowed to go free with the lecture on how important staying hydrated was.

"But doctor! His heart!" The resident doctors all exclaimed.

The attending hushed them with: "You do realize how slow the heart can get from dehydration? I bet the machines weren't sensitive enough to measure it." He huffed proudly, thinking himself better than modern technology. According to everyone else, he raised the dead.

And he was okay with that rumor.

Chapter 18

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