I thought in over a thousand years I&#39;d seen all there was to see.

"Well, I always thought vampires were a bit cliche, anyway," Lionel said, cocking his head as if he was assessing the situation, "but if we say that cliche involves being kinda creepy as well as really hot, then I think you're doing okay."

Being dead hadn't changed him much.

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"Werewolves are a cliche," Eric insisted snobbily. "Vampires are classic. Unless someone's written them as fucking sparkling. Then they should be killed immediately."

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"Aww, does that mean we should kill Robert Pattinson too?" A beat. "Oh my God, he's not dead, is he?"

Kate shook her head.

"Okay, good. But really, vampires aren't cliche? Hello, it's been done to death, pun intended. It's one erotic subtext after another."

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"Sometimes there's text too," Eric added helpfully, giving Lionel a smile.

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"Ho, okay," Kate said. Possibly calling one of them a ho. "No one do anything even vaguely like flirting. My emotions are conflicted enough as it is."

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"You are no fun at all," Eric decided.

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"He's sixteen, Eric." And Kate was no fun at all! "And whatever, you like me."

"Katie, don't worry," Lionel teased, "I'm not about to sully the memory of my love for your brother with some random post mortem fling."

Kate smacked him in the arm.

"Ow!"

She actually hadn't hit him that hard.

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"If we're both post mortem, does it just cancel itself out?" Eric asked, mostly to tweak Kate some more.

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Kate did the mature thing. Which was slapping her hands over her ears and going 'LA LA LA'.

"She's pretty sensitive for someone who used to wear leggins as pants."

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Eric snorted. "I've been around for a thousand years. Fashion will forever amuse me."

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"It was fairly tragic," Lionel shared. "And I kicked the bucket spectacularly at sixteen. I know tragic."

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"You would," Eric agreed. "I died nobly in battle, then was turned. It was a good death as these things go."

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"Yeah, crumpled up in my equally crumpled shitty car?" Lionel replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "Not good."

"Ugh, depressing," Kate complained, dropping her hands from her ears. She looked over at Eric. "Did you get a visitor? I can imagine you'd have people to choose from."

After a thousand years, that seemed lik a given.

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"He has arrived," Eric said absently, "but is busy getting dinner right now. My maker."

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"Wait, does 'getting dinner' mean ––"

Kate cut Lionel's question short. "Yes." She was raising her eyebrows at Eric. "That sounds potentially huge. Not the getting dinner thing. The him being here thing. That one."

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"It's unexpected," Eric replied. "He met the dawn several years ago."

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"Yeah, this is all unexpected." Pointed look at Lionel, there. "Still, that sounds like it'd be pretty big. How are you taking that?"

Kate was never going to stop trying to get feelings out of people. Even ones she really knew better about.

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Eric shrugged. "We don't have emotions the way you humans comprehend them."

In other words, Eric was dodging.

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"That... sounds like a fancy way of saying 'you wouldn't understand'," Kate remarked. "Or even a 'you'll get it when you're older'."

"It does kind of sound like a bullshit answer," Lionel agreed.

Kate shrugged. "But, I know you could snap me like a twig if I got on your nerves so I'm not gonna push."

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