Chapter Text
When Legundo had first gone to medical school, he had only academically understood the intricacies of the human body— the arteries nestled in muscle and fat, the push and pull of tendons and muscle, the bones throughout. But he hadn’t truly realized the beauty of it. Of how it was possible to understand someone so deeply, that there were no mysteries left. A road map left by God, telling any who wished to tread along it how to step.
The first time they opened a cadaver in the class, Legundo had fainted.
He wasn’t the only one, and he consoled himself with the fact. In fact, it was apparently very common in the medical field, and he had awoken from his swoon to find his amused class mates helping him up, patting him on the shoulder and back. They had congratulated him for remaining for the rest of the procedure— a few of the students had realized very suddenly that the medical field was not for them, and had exited the theatre looking green and shaky, never to resume their courses.
But after his initial shock, Legundo had fallen in love. How perfect, to be able to cut someone open, and fix what was wrong. Excise the rot, the infection, close the wounds that spilled out what kept people alive. He became rather good at it, and it was only his mandatory enlistment and the ensuing… events, that had halted a skyrocketing surgery career.
Truly the human body was a marvel— blood to push things along, the muscles adapted to whatever task they were set to. Even something like the human eye sent him marveling, because truly who could know the entirety of how it worked? Even with microscopes and alchemical tests, it seemed magic that the pupil could contract and expand, and you could gather the light around you to perceive your surroundings. A wondrous miracle.
There was something miraculous about this, as well.
Owen’s grip was strong. Inhumanly strong for obvious reasons, and Legundo couldn’t help but think of the mechanics of it all, the logistics. Muscle elasticity. Did the flesh covering a vampire have the same give as a humans? Or was it hard as stone, flexing only when the vampire chose? And what of the internal muscles? The tongue, the throat, the stomach, and the snaking feet of viscera that were in some way involved with the process of turning blood into sustenance?
There was magic here, yes. Legundo wasn’t so stubborn as to be blinded to reality— Scott and Pyro and Owen had all turned into bats before him, and he had to assume the others were just as capable. He had seen Martyn cast fire in a ring that had singed all of them, smoke rising into the sky above the sieged castle. The only conclusions to draw from such evidence was either he was insane, and hallucinating who knew how much of his interactions since arriving in Oakhurst; they were all insane, some environmental factor or pathogen causing the entire village to be drawn into some insane horror story—
Or magic was real.
But in spite of the inherent magical nature of vampires, Legundo knew that there had to be some semblance of science happening as well. Some factor of biology that meant the vampires could drink animal blood, but gained more nutrition from human. Something that made garlic deter the vampires from drinking from whoever ingested it, if not make them ill when they tried. Some molecular level of physiology, that made Scott’s skin sizzle faintly in the sun, the smell like that of a damp forest thing drying in a hot summer sun.
(Scott hadn’t appeared bothered by anything close to pain at the time, his gleaming pinkish eyes looking at Legundo with an unmistakable amusement and hunger, that had caused him to take a step back, frightened despite himself.)
If there was science, than he could effect it. If there was science, then there was discovery to be made. Not for glory, or his own pursuits, but to help those effected. If there was science, Legundo could do something, and not just sit helplessly in town waiting for everyone to tear themselves apart.
Owen’s grip was strong, but he was gentle enough. Legundo could feel misjudged pressure on his wrist causing a bruise, the familiar bloom of bone deep ache that meant he would be nursing that wrist slightly when he managed to finally sit to write in his journal. (Growing increasingly hard to do, as events grew more unbelievable.) Legundo knew it was misjudged, because there was nothing but careful concentration in Owen’s deep brown eyes, an almost gentleness as he moved Legundo to be against a tree, his front cold against Legundo’s own as he moved in close.
Legundo couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from Owen’s mouth— the sharp, pointed white teeth resembling nothing so much as the nib of a pen. The lips, chapped, but full, and still stained faintly with the remnants of some meal. The faint dusting of moles clustered under Owen’s left jawbone, revealed as he tilted his head to put that chapped bloody mouth against Legundo’s neck.
Legundo braced himself— he didn’t shut his eyes, because there was every chance someone would come upon them. Martyn, and his lantern. Scott, who had some power or partnership over Owen that the village was still trying to untangle. Even one of the younger vampires wouldn’t be welcome here, for reasons of his own that Legundo couldn’t quite place.
Jealousy? He tried to be honest with his motives. His first duty was a doctor to a potential patient— convincing Owen he could help was the first step in getting him to accept it. It required honestly, and vulnerability, and judging by Owen’s surprised expression when Legundo had offered, it was something he hadn’t encountered much of in his long life.
(Certainly not from Scott, Legundo thought, a hint of sourness causing his thoughtful frown to turn more melancholic.)
Despite the long moment of silence, where Legundo could hear the crows in the trees and the wind groaning through the gulch, Owen still did not bite down. No air moved between them because there was no breath to breathe, but a damp cold emanated from the spot Owen’s mouth hovered over.
“...Owen?” Legundo asked after the pause had dragged on for too long, only his own heart beat marking the passage of time. He put his free hand up to— he didn’t know. Touch Owen in some way, perhaps on the shoulder. Some small voice in his head thought, how soft Owen’s thick chestnut hair looked, untamed and wild and barely contained by a leather thong.
He could put his hand there, perhaps.
Before his hand could finish it’s journey he felt Owen bite down, the pain sudden and piercing but not as intense as he had expected. A small gasp escaped him and he couldn’t help but shut his eyes at the sensation.
The feeling of blood letting was hot and cold in turns, whatever extremity being excised turning to prickles as nerves lost sensation. He was familiar with it from his time in the army— when he had given donation for the soldiers under his care, keeping only enough for himself to keep him from fainting as he worked. His assistants had performed the procedure under his guidance, and often enough where they became highly skilled in it in their own right.
This was nothing like that.
The power behind the carefully measured gulps Owen gave was immense, and Legundo couldn’t help but turn an academic interest in the flutter his heart gave, head swimming. As if his very body was fighting the intrusion, despite the way that errant hand came up to hold onto the back of Owen’s strangely pleated tunic. There was a chemical element at work as well— the saliva did something, but Legundo did not have the wits to evaluate what it was. It certainly helped with the pain, his skin tingling with something that wasn’t quite blood loss, wasn’t quite hurt.
The adult human mouth could hold perhaps on average twenty to thirty milliliters per swallow, and as far as Legundo could surmise from observation (and feeling, as those lips settled more firmly against the skin of his neck, warm now from blood) vampiric mouths were similar enough in volume. He counted each gulp, the hand on Owen’s back tapping a rhythm, when it wasn’t feeling the flex of Owen’s back as his muscles worked to swallow, to draw the blood down into himself. He thought he could feel a rumbling on his fingertips, almost imperceptible through the shirt. A… purring?
He felt something else odd, there. The spine was… not normal. Legundo wished he had his other hand free to make further examination, an exchange of sorts if it would not betray the trust being put into him. There were hard ridges, of bone or cartilage... or perhaps something different. The blades of Owen’s back were sharp and graceful, his build lanky like that of a bony cat. These protrusions were unrelated to a human skeletal structure, and the implications were… confounding.
Perhaps thinking him in distress, Owen’s hand on his wrist loosened, the grip becoming less bruising as one sharply clawed thumb rubbed… comforting circles there. Legundo felt no fear because he had tucked the fear away where it could not serve, but it would be a simple thing indeed for that thumb to slip deep into his wrist, finishing the bleeding that was making his vision blur and his knees grow weak. Perhaps Owen only wanted to ensure his meal did not change it’s mind and struggle, but he appreciated the gesture none the less.
Legundo was not touched often in his life.
He counted perhaps fifteen or sixteen swallows, each one careful and slow. He thought of how powerful the muscles he felt under his hand were, how easily that mouth could press and tear and he would no longer be able to breathe. With how heart his heart was pounding, he would be dead in moments. Nothing but another stain under the forest canopy, and another story for the town to tell.
Legundo felt guilty almost, at the exchange he was making. His own life in Owen’s hands, something he did not value in the least, in exchange for something as priceless and precious as the chance to help. He felt like stopping, like telling Owen no, this was not equal, Owen should be afforded something better. Legundo’s heart out of his chest, a limb cut from his body and served on a shining silver platter, his pain if that would help in any way to scour clean the failure trailing them both like ghosts.
But he didn’t. He allowed Owen to lift his mouth from his neck, eyes shining and bright in the dark, mouth smeared red with blood and his now warm breath gusting in pants across Legundo’s damp neck like that of a hungry dog. He thought for a moment with the detached aloofness of blood loss that perhaps Owen was not done, that he would dip his head down again and drink and drink and drink until there was nothing left in his narrow veins but regret that he could not give more.
But he didn’t. Legundo was still alive, and un-turned if the pain in his neck was to be believed.
“You’re fine,” Owen soothed, and Legundo blinked woozily at him, realizing he had been sat against the tree, the damp of the forest floor seeping into the seat of his trousers. His legs were loose in front of him, and he couldn’t seem to get the coordination to arrange them into a proper lounge.
Instead he sat like a broken doll, blinking slowly, moving one of his fingers to the opposite wrist to keep time of the thump there. He wished he has the coordination to fumble out his pocket watch, but at the moment it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.
“A bit woozy maybe, but no new gifts,” Owen said, stepping back after he had… Legundo wasn’t sure, made sure that he wasn’t going to faint? Start cursing him? Either way, Owen looked…
It was embarrassing to admit that the first thing Legundo noticed was the relaxed set of his face, the smooth corners of his eyes and mouth eased of tension. He had never seen Owen look quite so… young. The only way he had gotten away with telling everyone he was forty or fifty or— whatever age had served his story at the time, was the gauntness to his face. The wear under his deep brow that made him seem far older than he must have been when he was turned, the occasional sliver of gray in that thick hair.
But now he looked… fresh. Not happy, because Legundo couldn’t even imagine what that would look like on the vampire. But he looked well fed, a flush under his dark cheeks and a gleam in his eye that looked so close to madness in the red light of the moon.
That same unruly hair was now pale, the same color of the silver arrayed around town, or the gleam of bone. Where before there had been a certain… otherness to the more powerful vampires such as Scott or Owen, now Owen looked truly like the different species he claimed to be.
Legundo didn’t feel frightened. He felt as if he was looking again at a body, opened before him and the ribs peeled back, showing something he could fall in love with.
Owen licked his lips clean, one hand coming up to trace along the edges of it as if to make sure he was clean. Legundo couldn’t look away, even as Owen’s face grew smug, eyes lidding in contentment. As if he had finished a good meal— which he had, Legundo remembered, neck throbbing.
“Cover your neck, don’t let them see the bite, and you’ll be fine— at least now I can flex my wings a little,” and Legundo knew what the relief in his face was for now, because Owen finished the sentence with a long groan of pleasure that raised the hair on the back of his neck—
Before unfolding two wings from his back.
They were long, obviously. The logical part of Legundo’s brain knew that they must be to lift someone of Owen’s stature into the air, for all the man was built lean and thin. Brown fur so similar to that of Owen’s small bat form covered the silky arch of the wrist and radius, the phalanges coming down in graceful swooping arcs to form the bulk of the wing. The skin stretched between was only slightly paler than that on Owen’s mottled hands, or the skin of his face and throat, and looked as soft and thin as a silk sheet. Stretched before the night sky, they had a glow similar to someone wrapping their hand around a candle, and letting the light leak through the blood vessels within.
They stretched longer than Owen’s height each, trembling faintly in the luxurious stretch before folding back behind Owen, like the trail of a fur and velvet cloak. The thumbs folded down over the top edge as well, but not before Legundo caught sight of the dagger-like edge of each one, as long as his own hand.
Owen looked down at Legundo, who finally managed to find some feeling in his legs. Enough to stand, dragging himself up to lean against the tree as Owen watched. When he spoke even his voice sounded different— colder, somehow. Clearer. “I’ll stay true to my bargain, and rest assured. You’ve earned my trust— I will ensure that the other vampires give you a wide berth.”
Owen stepped forward, and despite the assurance of his safety Legundo still felt his heart kick, his pulse pick up just slightly. Judging by the flash of a smile on Owen’s face, he heard it as well. “But my patience won’t last forever. So if you’re going to come up with some new gimmick, or toy, or invention to bind me, or any of us, then you may. But when you get tired and realize it’s fruitless, my offer still stands.”
There was a pause. Legundo stared at Owen’s pale hair, the grace in his limbs and the fierce look in his eyes, and tried not to feel a sense of pride. His blood did that, he had done that. He had bargained for safety, for a chance at peace.
Now he just had to try to keep it.
“You should get going before they get suspicious,” Owen dismissed, unmoving. The forest was silent— no wolves, no crows, no villagers. Just the two of them, and the creak of trees and the hush of wind through dried leaves.
Legundo nodded, moving down the hill with careful, measured steps so he didn’t fall.
“What do you mean? I just got lost in the storm.”