My Guardian Vampire

“What?” I asked aloud, standing in the doorway. All of their faces screamed the “Oh, shit!” expression as they looked at me. I closed my eyes, trying to process through what just happened: yelling, Mike looking angrily at Gerard and poking him in the chest, and then saying “if you don’t bite her, I will.”

All three of them began to bumble out words, as this was an obvious “no way in hell was I supposed to hear that” moment. I then found myself being tug forward, and pushed down into a wheelchair.

“Time to move the human!” Tré sang from above me, IV bag in hand. Tré was wheeling me down the hallway away from my room and Mike and Gerard. Tré ran at a human speed down the hallway, gliding me along the corridor. After a few steps he’d hop on the wheelchair, and we’d recklessly pass down a hallway. Tré would wait the last possible moment before jerking the chair in a direction away from whatever we were about to hit.

“Duhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh BATMAN!” Tré then sang as he took another turn. Every time we’d see a doctor or nurse (which was very often) he’d take another sharp turn.

“Mrs. Cryptcarde!” A voice called out. Tré immediately stopped, just in time to avoid hitting an extremely shocked Mr. Regard.

“This is completely against protocol,” he lectured. I opened my mouth to speak, but Tré beat me to it.

“Frankly, Mr. Regald, I don’t give a damn,” Tré said in a weird high-society voice, and took off once again.

“You’ll never take us alive!” Tré yelled. I laughed, but knew this was just a distraction.

“Tré, c’mon, take me back there,” I said. Tré sighed and turned the chair around.

“That was an order,” he mumbled. I sighed.

“Sorry, I take back the order. But please, pretty please, do it.”

“Sure,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re gonna like what’s back there…”

“Gotta find out some time, though, right?” I looked up at Tré, and he only looked at me a moment before looking forward once again.

“I suppose.” The blinding lights of the hospital blurred as Tré ran extremely fast. We were back at my room in the next moment.

“Thanks, Tré,” I said, and got up. “Now, you guys, please tell me what the hell is going on.” Gerard and Mike were back inside my room. They both stared up at me, back at each other, then back at me.

“Please sit down first,” Gerard said. I looked at them suspiciously before sitting down. Gerard took my hand, and I looked into his eyes- and saw that cloud there, over the iris. It made me sick to my stomach, more than this baby stuff ever had or ever would. It seemed like every time I looked at it, the cloud hung and gripped his irises that much more permanently, and this time doubly so. I vomited in my mouth slightly from the entire expression on his face- not in a thousand years would I forget this look and the way it made me feel.

“Ali,” Gerard said, blinking. The clouds emulsified and then condensed, the rain in his eyes coming as tears pooling at the brim. “I was right, I think. I think- they think- you’re dying. Ali, you have cancer."

My initial reaction to this was the feeling of a quick, burning pain, as if someone had slapped me, then numbness. Gerard seemed to still be talking, but in that moment, there was no Gerard. There had been something so hard in his stare, so icy. Like foliage frozen over: the color still there, but an unusual, unreal hardness to it all, pretty in its own grotesque sense. I couldn’t believe it-but I should have known; everything in his poise and look said it was true, that we had both known something was wrong from the very start-

“Ali, please listen to me. Focus in,” he said, rubbing my face. “There’s more. We might have to abort the baby-”

“What?!” I choked out. Gerard hugged me lightly, and then broke off.

“Nothing is certain, yet, Ali. Please remember that. We have to see your condition, we have to see its condition-”

“I…can’t believe this,” I said. “No. I can’t believe it, I won’t. Maybe…Maybe Damien is paying off the doctors-”

“Ali,” Gerard said in a calming tone as I began to shake, “I know what you’re going though, obviously. You and I are going through this, together. I even thought it had to be a mistake or influence-” he shook his head, his shaggy hair falling in his eyes, “-but he’s completely clean; it’s true. He’s pretty much certain of it.”

“I-” I started, bile rising to my throat, “I don’t know what to think. Or feel. I don’t know what to do…” And it was true. I felt my insides slow as if I was dying at this moment-

Gerard then crushed forward into me, and held me tightly.

“Everything is going to be okay, I promise. I promise I promise I promise I promise…” He was holding my body so tightly as if he knew my body was about to collapse and was going to try to hold it together. Still I felt every part of me begin to tremble, an earthquake starting in my core and resonating in every single cell in my body. Gerard held tighter, as if trying to pass the promise through my skin into me. He kept repeating that he promised, that everything was going to be okay. My body felt like a ragdoll in his arms, limp and lifeless. Gerard had promised everything would be okay before, but-

But he had eventually been right. We had made it through so much before. He had shown me time and time again he was willing to risk everything for me, just to make sure we were okay...

I realized then it was the least I could do to trust him when he promised something. He had never let me down before.

“I believe you,” I said, still shaking. I then carefully and weakly pushed at him, and he backed away slightly, looking at my face to see if it was true. It might seem stupid, but when I looked back at him, he seemed… not unfrozen, but his eyes seemed to have to have the sparkle of dew on the frost that was hope, however small it was.

That was all it took for me. He had hope, and now so did I.

It was this point that I realized the emotion called love was truly something extraordinary.

I had always hated and hid from love, sick of all the stupid crap and marketing that went with it. But there was no denying this power, however completely dumb it was.