Arran spent most of the afternoon trying to answer James' questions about the supernatural world, often only to find that he knew a lot less about his own society than he thought. He couldn't say how long witches had been at the top of the pecking order, as far as he knew it had always been that way. He didn't know if there had been Neanderthal vampires among early humans or even why there were werewolves and no weremeerkats or weretuna.

"So if you put a werewolf on the moon would it never be able to turn human again?" Was the latest contribution to Arran's headache.

"James if you put a fucking werewolf on the moon it would probably suffocate before it did anything else."

"Nah, but if you had like a spacesuit-"

"A spacesuit capable of changing sizes to fit a human and a wolf," added Arran, trying to imagine James convincing any of the werewolves that he knew into a space shuttle.

"A spacesuit capable of changing sizes to fit both, right, with an oxygen supply, you plop them on the moon and then what? Surely to them, the moon is full because they're standing on it. Or would you have to get them in the middle of the illuminated side?"

"It wouldn't matter, werewolves aren't beholden to the moon being full, all they need is enough energy to transform and they can do it as much as they like."

"So how do they get their energy? If your lot drink blood, I mean."

"Honestly in my experience? Mainly Burger King."

James choked on the swig of beer that was halfway down his throat.

"I've just had the most ridiculous image," James managed to sputter between coughs, "of a really serious scene in an old movie: the music swells, the hero turns around, wide-eyed, the clouds part...and it's the fucking Burger King logo in the sky as wolves start howling in the background."

James laughed and Arran surprised himself by joining in. He could feel the weight of the past two days invading every part of his body and it felt strange to laugh but he couldn't stop himself as he caught his friend's eye. The ridiculousness of the situation was too much to ignore any longer.

He took a sip of his own drink, savouring the taste of the wine and the sound of James' near hysterical laughter. He wanted to root himself in this moment, he'd taken the relative ease of the past six months fore-granted, he had treated every moment laughing with his friends as if he had a lifetime ahead of him to enjoy it. But now that dream was over, he couldn't pretend to be human any longer. If this was going to be the last connection he had to the real world he wanted to remember the coolness of the wineglass in his hand, the sound of James' voice, the squeak of the barstool underneath him, anything and everything that he could cling to.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just you make it sound so normal," said James once he'd recovered enough. "Werewolves eating junk food, your century and a half-year-old mother picking you up from school, your..."

"My uncle getting a disabled badge for his car because his hand got melted off in a supernatural weapons test?" Supplied Arran after James trailed off.

"Yeah! It's just a little less Bram Stoker and a little more, well, human."

"I'm not human, James."

"Don't be dense, teen Dracula, I mean the adjective, not the noun."

Arran chuckled slightly, but his chest felt physically tight; at that moment he would have given anything to switch places with James, to be human. Humanity was finite, it had limits and within those limits came a few certain guarantees: one day the worst thing that could ever happen to you would happen, and then it would be over, but for Arran, every potential year that he might live for could be filled with heartbreak and pain.

He was not so naive as to think this was the worst it could get, in the grand scheme of things this whole ordeal was going to cost him some of the most important people in his life, but those people had only been a part of his life for less than a year. Cynthia, James, Naomi, all of them had become so important to him now but ultimately they were all just tiny blips in what would be a long and probably very lonely life. He wondered if in a hundred years time he would even remember their names.

"What's wrong?" Asked James, breaking Arran's morose train of thought.

"Nothing just...immortality is a hell of a concept."

James nodded and for a while, they drank in silence. Arran tried to put his thoughts in order but found he that he wasn't even sure what his thoughts were.

"So I have a question that is probably horrendously personal," began James, seemingly asking for permission to continue.

"Yeah sure, whatever."

"Are you going to...you know, convert Naomi or infect her or whatever?"

The thought disgusted Arran, after eighteen years of knowing what he was, he could hardly wrap his head around it himself. The idea of Naomi, happy as a human having a dark and endless future imposed on her did not appeal. But yet if she really was as ill as she said she was, she didn't have much of a future as a human.

"I haven't even told her yet, let alone discussed the concept of spending literally forever with her."

"How are you going to tell her?"

"I have no idea, you took it fairly well but she-"

"Is literally never going to believe you because she's far too sensible and this is all, quite literally, batshit crazy?" Finished James.

That was the crux of the issue. Arran's powers weren't exactly spectacular proof of the supernatural; if he erased some of her memory she would not even remember it happening, and he could not imagine her being ok with him looking into her mind, that is if he was even able to. A display of his physical strength might be impressive but she already knew that he was pretty fast and deceptively strong.

"Maybe I'll ask her over here and get my mum to punch her way through a 100-year-old oak in the forest or something."

"That does sound pretty convincingly unnatural, to be fair," said James, wide-eyed. "Could she really do that?"

"Yeah maybe. My uncle can move so fast that it's all just a blur and I'm pretty sure mum said my oldest sister once encased herself in concrete to see if she could get out."

"Woah! Did she make it?"

"She's fine, she's always doing stuff like that. We don't really know each other that well."

The two friends sat for a long time, sometimes in silence and sometimes following a specific line of questioning that James had about the supernatural world. Arran showed him the encrypted signal receiver that let him watch DHTV and a few websites hidden behind paywalls, a map of all the vampire controlled areas in Britain and even photographs of his mother and oldest siblings from as far back as 1890s. It was fascinating for Arran to see himself through his friend's eyes, to him the thought of his family wandering around the streets of Italy in the 19th century or even sitting not far from where they sat was just a part of life, but for James, it was a whole new world.

James had gotten the train to the nearest station and walked the considerable distance along the winding country road to Rose House, Arran offered to drive him straight back to the other side of town where he lived. Behind the wheel, with the road to focus on, Arran felt calmer. He has never imagined what it would be like to be honest and now that it had happened he was no more aware of how to feel, but at the very least something had shifted; things were in motion and while he had no idea where he would end up, he was glad to be going somewhere.

Outside James' house the two boys sat in the car for a while, James smiled slightly and shook his head.

"I don't even know why I believe you, like my mind keeps going 'this is literally impossible' but it just all seems to make sense somehow. It's almost as if I'm a moron for not expecting you and your entire family to be actual, literal vampires. I just cannot believe that I feel like an idiot for not figuring out something that by all rights should be impossible." James shook his head again, now that he had run out of questions the ridiculousness of the situation seemed to be taking its toll.

"You can't tell anyone, you know that right?" Arran asked his eyes on James' front door.

"Yeah, I get it. Torches, pitchforks, being run out of town; I've seen Frankenstein."

"It wouldn't get that far, humans find out all the time, the witches have a pretty good handle on keeping the secrecy. If you start making too much noise they'll..." Arran lost the words, the council could use all manner of magic to mess with peoples' heads. "I shouldn't have told you, dragging you into this was irresponsible, I am so, so sorry James."

"I'm not in danger or anything am I?"

For the first time since Arran had told him the truth, James actually felt scared, the strength of it permeated into Arran's head so quickly and unexpectedly that Arran instinctively reached out and grabbed his friend's arm, desperate to make him feel better.

"You have nothing to worry about, I'm totally allowed to tell people, it's just exposure that the council are worried about, a few people here and there is absolutely okay."

"I'm 100% reassured, especially since you're gripping my wrist so hard I think you might break my bones."

"Sorry," he let go of James' arm and rubbed his own temples, trying to clear his head. "I just don't want to scare you."

"You don't scare me, mate. The fact that there's an entire, massive and secret paranormal world out there scares me. That's not on you."

It felt very much like it was in fact on Arran, like James would be better off not knowing about any of this, or better of not knowing him at all, but it was all too late.

"Thank you, for being so cool with all of this ."

"Well I thought your mother was some sort of international super spy, so it's not really that much weirder in the grand scheme of things."

"I mean it, you've made this really easy on me."

"Yeah well, the hard part is still to come. Let me know how it all goes with Naomi tomorrow."

Arran nodded and promised to call him the next day and James got out of the car. As he went around to the driver's side he knocked on the window for Arran to lower it.

"Arran I just want to say that, you know, big picture: I don't care. I'm already over it. I love you man, fangs and all." 

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So hi, it's been a year and a half since I last wrote any of Redfern and it's been a really weird time for me. But last week I opened up the document and just let loose. I fixed and changed the plot from this point onwards and have written nearly ten thousand words, with more to write today and tomorrow. So here we are. I am determined to finish this project and leaving it unfinished on here seemed wrong. It's good to be back <3