"… Yeah."

"I'm kinda curious about what I taste like."

"Well you can try eating yourself in that case and find out, because my response to that is: no."

"No, I meant being licked."

Eyebrow raise. "I think that's still a no," he says.

"Awwwww."

Sigh. "Okay, anyway, vampire and superspeed and memory and stuff – we should probably, like, test things and also you should possibly go to school."

"...there's like only three days left," he points out.

"… Good point," he says. "Well at least I'm not really gonna be missing any school with my sudden case of vampirism, woo."

"I mean you could go to tell people you're not dead, I suppose..."

"Yeah, I mysteriously didn't die, sorry, the hospital was wrong, and– what? There are possibly people who saw me savaging some people? No, I have no idea what you're talking about." He rolls his eyes a bit. "It's possible and I should probably go make it clear I'm not dead at some point but ugh. … And I should also tell my mom who is probably grieving right now since she presumably got the news, ugh."

"...yeah, telling your mom is probably a good idea, but she'll probably understand you were a bit in shock."

"Yeah, I know," he says. "She'll– I dunno, it's not like this has happened before but she'll probably be able to cope and I should probably tell her sooner rather than later so– now?"

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

"Okay," he says, and goes to do that.

And Sadde will stand here. He considers calling his mother but better not.

Okay. So what, now?

...so Theo's alive after all. He's not dead. He's a vampire, sure, but apparently that's not that bad? And Sadde's been trying to keep a lid on his emotions but now he finds he doesn't really have negative emotions, just profound relief and happiness and, okay, he didn't expect this would be how he'd roll with it but sure.

And he still really wants to kiss Theo. That might be where his grief has gone, too, it's not like he'd been pining or anything before Theo died, but darn.

Theo has not been giving Sadde any particular looks so far – he's been mainly focused on the vampirism instead.

The call: doesn't last particularly long and Theo tries not to sound particularly distressed and he demonstrates that he's probably him by mentioning some particular events that have occurred in their lives that most people probably wouldn't know and then his mom says that she was cutting her trip early because of– things anyway, and so she'll be back shortly and he says that he's not sure that's a good idea because of, uh, particular things that he should probably explain in person at some point but– well.

Overall she does decide to come back, at least for a couple of days, but probably not immediately. She'll make some arrangements and get back to him.

And then the call is over.

"Everything okay?" Sadde asks when he returns.

"Yeah," he says. "Mostly. I think."

He nods and smiles a bit.

"Anyway, right. Animal blood? Um. Should I just go try to find a squirrel then and drink a bit of it and hope I don't get too messed up?"

"Are you okay with the sun, then?"

"It burns – or feels it – but I don't actually go up in flames as far as I can tell."

"So that sounds suboptimal, but I'm not exactly good at hunting squirrels. Or any other animals. Also where would you find one?"

"Uh, maybe in one of the trees at the end of the yard or if not there I could go find one at the edge of town, probably?"