Chapter Text
Owen was exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that lingered for years. The kind of exhaustion that appeared when you had nothing left. Without all the anger, there was nothing left to burn. He didn’t feel much of anything. There was no happiness, no sadness, no anger, and even the ever-present grief was notably hard to reach.
He stared at the stake in his hand. It wouldn’t be hard to do it. It would work this time. He may have failed 200 years ago to rejoin Louis, but now, now it would work. Now he knew so much more. Now he knew exactly how to kill a vampire.
He had really thought he had built something here. That he had built a– a family, but of course that was a ridiculous thought. A family? Who was he kidding? He didn’t belong with the traitorous fledglings or the stuck-up noble elder vampire. He was foolish to believe he belonged with anyone, even with the other creatures of the night.
And the humans. They were all good-for-nothing livestock. They were true monsters. Even the doctor. Especially the doctor. He claimed to want to help him, but all he wanted to do was take Louis away from him. He wanted to ‘cure’ him of something that was never anything but a gift. He really thought he was like Louis. He wanted him to be like Louis, but he was just like all the other livestock.
No, Legundo was not like Louis. He only wanted to snuff out the last connection to Louis Owen had left. Though wasn’t that what he was going to do?
He didn’t want to do this anymore. He couldn’t do this anymore. He just wanted to rest. He just wanted to be with Louis. He didn’t even care about revenge anymore. Louis wouldn’t have wanted him to enact revenge anyway. He just wanted to feel his embrace once more. He wasn’t sure he deserved it.
Owen unbuttoned a few buttons of his shirt– the shirt that had belonged to Louis– and clutched the stake above his heart.
He pushed and watched as the skin gave way to the sharpened shard of wood. Blood bubbled up from around the stake, the corrupted substance quickly seeping into the fabric. Owen took a deep, unnecessary breath. The pain felt like life; it felt like salvation. He slid it further in, pushing past the weak resistance of his muscles. Owen’s body shivered as he pushed further. It hurt. It felt like a breath of fresh air. An empty sob wrecked him as he pushed it further, his body no longer capable of producing tears. The heart was only like an inch and a half from the surface, right? He still had to go deeper.
It felt euphoric. It felt devastating. He wobbled on his knees. He flurched it forward again an unneeded gasp filled his throat. Pain blossomed in his chest. It was so dark. It felt like forever since anything was dark. This was it. He would finally get to see Louis. He hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed in him. He hoped Shelby wouldn’t cry when she found him. He hoped Legundo had already given up on him.
Warmth enveloped his hands, and then there was nothing.