It all goes down at practically the same second until the Church turns into a complete chaos. He can't pinpoint it, but Sixteen Candles swoop in through slamming the door open, which lets the pack follow in, Alex and Patty first, all while vamps start pouncing at them and Awsten ends up having his hand around some vamp's throat.

"You don't happen to have a stake I can use on you, right?" Awsten asked, knowing damn well what the response was. The vamp instead hisses at him and tries to clock him square in the face.

That's a little rude , Awsten thinks as he struggles to find something wooden and sharp around him. At the same time, he tries to evade the advances of some other vamps, ducking from a jab at his right and lets the fist hit someone charging at him from behind. Not bad for someone who's only dealt with vamps once.

But that doesn't stop him from not noticing the roundhouse kick swooping in from beneath him gets him tumbling to the floor. Eh, he was bound to fuck up at some point.

Some vamps that notice his fall hurl towards him, and Awsten decides that in that moment that a stake or some fucking garlic would be nice to have right now. Frantically, he grabs a barstool leg and gets up to swing the chair at his attackers, spinning in a circle to ensure he hits everyone. He watches as every vamp smacks down for the impact, except one, who turns to dust instead.

"You do realize that is made of wood, right?" Pete says, expertly piercing a makeshift stake along with a carefully crafted one through others trying to attack him.

He throws the stool leg over to Awsten, who copies his moves with it, stabbing the nearest (and most distracted) Dandy and watches as he becomes inexistant. "Now I do."

Pete rolls his eyes and continues with his business. "Some of your pack's tryna save the humans and some of the other Dandies are getting dealt with."

"But what about William and Gabe?" Awsten points out as a particularly nasty Dandy grips onto his shoulders and let out a wide open hiss.

Pete swoops in with a jab to the vamp's throat and frantically stabs him in the chest until he aims for the heart. He looks back up at Awsten grimly. "I'll handle them myself."

Before he leaves though, there's a low rumble and then, bam. More Dandies burst through the busted doors in hoards, swiftly attacking everyone they see against them.

"Fuck," Pete's malice fades as he watches their new attackers. "We can't take them all at once. We need a better plan. When are you guys gonna fucking turn?"

More Dandies gang up on them as their conversation progresses, the both of them trying to take down as many as they can while talking.

"Nine twenty. But we can't fully transform if we're not directly under the moon and you know the cops would get us if we took this outside." Awsten's beginning to grow weary from the combat and conversation, his strikes getting more sluggish and sloppy. He guesses one Dandy takes notice as someone charges at him with pure force, flinging him into the air only to crash into the wood of the bar.

He feels dizzy from the impact and tastes blood on his tongue. Great.

As he recovers, the Dandy jumps to the ceiling and starts falling back down in his direction. Even better.

Frantically, he grabs the closest and biggest thing near him (a half empty bottle of vodka) and swings it to the side of the Dandy's head, shattering the glass and knocking them out.

Awsten takes this as a good moment to regain energy and crawls to the back of the kitchen where the fighting sounds grow muted and his heartbeat pounds louder. He plops on the floor and bumps his head against a stove. His friends, his allies, were getting overpowered out there and they couldn't find another way to fight the Dandies. Another bottle of alcohol rolls next to the conflicted boy's knee and he grabs it, knowing it can be used as a weapon later. He wishes they never took up this mission, wishes Geoff shut his mouth, wishes he was in his stupid nightmares—

His stupid nightmares.

Bingo.

Awsten stood up to turn the dial on the stove and saw tiny flames encircling the stovetop as he wanted before shutting it off. He looks back down at the bottle, knowing what he should do.

He tunes into one of the channels. "Just found a way to defeat the Dandies, but uh, y'all are gonna need to evacuate everyone who's not a Dandy."

There's nothing but static and fighting noises for a while until Geoff picks up. "Really?"

"Really." Awsten assures him.

"Alright, but what about you?" Otto points out, pausing to engage in further combat. "Can you get out in time?"

"Ummmm," Awsten actually wasn't sure of that. "of course."

" Um ? That doesn't sound good. You're not doing anything stupid, are you?" Geoff sighs.

"Nope," he says unevenly.

"Why don't you just get out with the rest of us?" Otto asks.

"Because," Awsten states sharply. "I just—have to, okay? It's gonna take out a lotta the Dandies and we won't have that many losses for us. Let me do something for once. Go."

"Awsten." They say it a second apart, but both have the same choked up and quiet tone that makes his chest ache.

He feels warm, yet empty hearing them. "Love you guys too."

Awsten disconnects and turns the stove on full power, watching tongues of fire flick up before he swings the bottle straight down, sprinkling glass bits around him. The fire blazes up, dispersing through wires and their appliances. He takes this as his cue to run.

And so he does, sifting through Dandies that are frozen in shock from watching the sudden blaze and he can finally see it; the narrow opening where the last of the humans with the pack trickle out. He scratches any Dandy that comes in his way and speeds up his pace and God, he's so close that he—

Awsten's brought to the ground by a force he can't recognize and he's able to swiftly shove it off to the side, but then it catches up to him with an unpleasant surprise cutting through him, burning him, and stopping him completely.

He collapses to his knees with cut up breathing and looks down in terror at the object penetrating his chest. He was just stabbed by one of the fucking crosses, for God's sake, its neon light still illuminating even as a hidden blade from the bottom invades him and makes him bleed out in a dripping pool. What's worse is that it feels like his insides are on fucking fire because of it and the flames creeping dangerously nearer don't make him feel any better.

"Fuck you." William says from behind him, creeping an arm up around Awsten's throat.

"Wow, original." Awsten chokes out as everyone else around them scatters for the door or get caught in the flames trying. "I can see why you have that cross obsession now, y'know, even though blessed ones can kill you."

William screws his grip around him tighter. "I could kill you in an instant. If you weren't a little held up here, you could probably kill me too." He sounds a little hysteric now, and he looks like it too with rips and blood on his clothes. It's almost like all the classiness just fell off him like broken armor. "I wanna make you suffer like I had to tonight."

"Why don't you just drop dead?" Awsten snaps with a strain to his voice. But at that point, it's already too late.

William pulls out another cross knife from his coat pocket and stabs him in the chest once again, opposite to the first wound. Awsten heaves out some blood that can't stand being inside him because of how fucking shitty it feels. Everything around him is burning, his insides are burning, and the blood loss is making him want to take a nap he knows won't end well. He falls to the floor, bleeding out to an enemy he just met and the flames are excitedly greeting him. He never even got to live that long as a werewolf, he thinks regrettably.

William looms over him, pleased and holding his weapon to his side. Awsten's eyes droop shut and his breathing slows. Everywhere is warm around him. It feels like he's not sleeping alone. It's nice, Geoff and Otto are nice, they're dumb, but they're nice. They're warm and pretty, Awsten thinks as the temperatures spike up around him, they make him feel warm and pretty.

"Awsten," Geoff's voice crackles into his earpiece. He kind of sounds like he's been crying. "are you still there?"

"Of course, duhhhhhhh." Awsten croaks out happily. "I luh you guys. Looooooooooooooove."

Everything goes black after that and Awsten feels nice in that blanket of heat surrounding him.