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Legs closed the door, and leaned against it with a heavy sigh. It had been nice to see Sausage and talk to him briefly, to see that he was doing alright. Unfortunately he hadn’t been able to convince the new vampire to come back to the humans. He supposed it couldn’t be helped. Sausage didn’t feel safe to go against the other vampires after what happened to Avid.
Legundo continued to search the house that belonged to both Sausage and Owen, trying to find anything of use. Something that would tell him what to do about Owen. What he ought to say to him. How he was supposed to help someone who was so clearly against accepting help.
Legs was tired. He felt hurt. He was ready for all of this to be over, but he still had a duty to perform. Protect as many as possible. If Owen didn’t want his help, then fine. He wouldn’t waste his energy on him when there were plenty of others who were actually willing to accept it.
He paused to listen, a faint sound carried to him through the house. It sounded like the frantic fluttering of wings against the windows wooden shutters. Legs approached the window and could just make out the faint squeaks of a bat cursing under its breath.
“Who’s there?” He called.
Just as soon as the sounds had started, it stopped, and the house became eerily quiet once again.
“Sausage, is that you?” Legs reached for the shutter latch, “Did you run into trouble on the way out?”
He swung it open and peered out into the darkness. He couldn’t see anything except a thin splatter of blood dripping down the window shutters.
“Or Apo? Perhaps another vampire?” He asked and leaned out. He looked up into the sky, searching for the visitor. If he hadn’t heard the voice he would have been tempted to believe it had simply been an errant bat or bird in the night. However…
Something didn’t feel right. Legundo hadn’t quite been able to make out the words, but the squeaks had sounded distressed, and the blood slowly traveling down the wood slats was proof that someone needed help.
“I’m coming out.” He called and stepped out, walking along the outside of the house. He searched the sky and the sides of the house for any signs of an injured bat or person.
“Hello? Is somebody there?”
When there was no reply, he sighed. Maybe whoever it was hadn’t needed his help after all.
Just as he was about to return to his previous task, he heard it: a nearly silent pained wheezing. He leaned down under the window, listening harder for the sound. It sounded like it was coming from just below him, where a bush blocked his view.
With one hand braced against the wall, he bent his knees down, one at at time, to the dirt. He winced at the cracking sound his bones made in protest to the movement.
“I’m getting too old for this.” He muttered. Louder he said. “If you’re down there, you can come out. I won’t hurt you. Whoever it is, I promise to help.”
When the only thing he heard was the continued wheezing, he placed his hands on the ground and leaned forward to peek beneath the bush. Through the leaves he saw dark eyes burning back at him.
“Hello? Who is that?”
Legundo and the bat stared at each other for a long moment.
“Why don’t you say anything?” He asked. The bat hissed in response, curling tighter into itself.
“You’re hurt. Let me help.” Legs tentatively reached forward, palm outstretched.
Legundo screamed as the creature bit him. He snatched his hand away, dragging with it the bat still attached to his finger.
“Augh! Let go!” He yelled. He grabbed the bat around its tiny body, and tried to pull it off of him. The creature squeaked loudly and bit down even harder, refusing to let go. His own curses tumbled out of his mouth as blood dripped down onto the ground, coating both his hand and the bat still biting him.
“I said let go!” The pain was like little knives lodged in his skin, trying to tear his skin off. He released it.
His harsh breathing formed clouds around his head in the cool night air. He needed to calm down and focus. Yelling at it clearly wasn’t helping, and trying to pull it off just hurt worse. After taking a moment to get his breathing under control, he inspected the situation.
A bat was biting his finger. This was bad because it hurt. There was blood everywhere. Actually, that was a lot of blood for just one tiny bite. An awful lot of blood. Legs leaned closer, seeing for the first time the giant gashes in the bats wing and body. A stream of blood flowed from the wounds, obviously not slowing down. The blood that was all over his unbitten hand wasn’t his own blood, it was from the bat. Legundo’s stomach sank. This didn’t look good.
“Oh geeze… Let’s get you inside, quickly.”
Legundo cradled the small body in his hands, and slowly stood back up. He made his way to his own house, where all of his supplies were ready for surgery.
“Come inside.” He said to it, stepping through the threshold. He wasn’t sure if just carrying it inside was enough to construe permission, but he didn’t want to test the possibilities today. He sat down at his desk and pulled out a medical pack, sorting through what he would need.
“Will you please let go?” He asked, “And if you transform back, I’ll be able to help you better in your other form.” It didn’t reply and continued to greedily swallow down any blood it could get into its mouth.
“Right, well. I’m not a vet, I’m a doctor.” The bat glared up at him.
Legundo pulled out gauze and started to staunch the blood flowing from the worst wound on its back. Regardless of whether or not they would cooperate with him, this was a person who needed immediate care. The creature winced and finally let go of his finger. Legs breathed a momentary sigh of relief, before realizing that it was trying to struggle to the edge of the desk.
“Not so fast.” He put his hand down in front if its face to block its escape. It flinched, hissing up at him again, “Just let me help you.”
It bit him again.
Legs inhaled sharply, and leaned back, willing himself to not start screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Ah.” He breathed out in pain. A laugh escaped him, “I know who you are. You must be Owen, right?”
Legs tried again, “Stop ignoring me, Owen. I’m talking to you. And it would be REALLY helpful if you talked back.”
“Sure, I can back talk you.” Owen finally spoke. Legundo took the opportunity to yank his hand away from the hungry mouth.
“Okay, good, you’re finally talking. Now transform back, and I can treat your wounds.”
Owen crouched even lower, looking like he was contemplating another bite.
Legs was getting tired of this. “You’re bleeding. If you don’t accept my help then you’ll die. Is that what you want?”
“Who cares.”
“I do. Like I’ve said. Repeatedly.” Legs reached out with the gauze.
“Don’t touch me!” Owen hissed and tried to back away, leaving a scarlet trail behind him.
“What am I supposed to do? Just let you bleed to death?!”
“Yes! It’s what everyone else wants!”
Legundo threw the gauze on the table, “I’m not everyone!”
“Clearly not! You should’ve heard them cheering when Ren hit me with his axe. But you’re worse than them, aren’t you? I know you’ve done something, I just don’t know what yet. But I’m going to find out what.” Owen’s voice was losing strength. His body shivered even as his unfocused eyes still scowled up in Legs direction. The concerning pool of blood below his body was steadily growing.
Legundo’s throat tightened and he fought to swallow down the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. He wanted to help Owen. Owen did not want his help.
“Please. Transform back. I’ll help you.”
Owen was silent for a long time, only punctuated by his labored breathing before finally saying, “…I can’t.”
Legundo sighed, “Why not?”
“I don’t know. If I could, I wouldn’t have even come here. I just wanted someplace to go by myself to die in peace.”
“And you thought the middle of town would be a good place to do that?”
“I didn’t expect YOU to be in my house. Which is very rude…” Owen’s eyes fluttered closed.
Legs caught his breath, and bent forward. To his relief he could still make out the slight rise and fall of breath.
“I don’t know how to treat your wounds like this.”
“Then don’t. Just leave me here.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want, then.”
Legundo sensed that Owen had given up. Or at least wasn’t going to fight back anymore. Or at least hopefully would no longer be biting. He gently repositioned the bat on the table so that he could clearly see and deal with the wounds. Owen only gave one pained squeak.
Legs picked up the gauze and began to pack it into the cut on Owen’s back. This area should be easy enough to deal with. The wings on the other hand…
The leathery wings splayed across the desk were in bad shape. One had a large tear through the thin skin that reached almost all the way from top to bottom, and Legundo wasn’t sure how to approach stitching anything like that back up. For now he focused on packing gauze around the front and back of the wing. He would come back to it after dealing with the more pressing damage. He washed Owen’s back, gently wiping away the blood, before setting out a needle and thread.
“I’m going to have to give you stitches. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give you an anesthetic, since I don’t know how it’ll interact with your bat form.”
“I don’t care. Just get on with it.” With how much pain he must’ve been in, Owen still managed to growl at him.
Legs sterilized the needle and made the first stitch.
For what it was worth, Owen made very little noise. He held still and grit his fangs together.
“I’m sorry.” Legs said, more just to fill the silence than anything else. Owen merely hissed in response.
Legundo pulled thread through the tiny body over and over, until he had seven neat little stitches. He cleaned off residual blood and judged his work as well done. He moved on to the wing, doing his best to keep the edges lined up neatly. At last everything was in it's proper place, cleaned, wrapped, and secured.
When he had finished, Legundo sagged back in the chair in relief. He was exhausted. It seemed like he had been up all night. Judging by the beginning creep of light outside his window, that may very well be the case. His eyes felt dry and scratchy from lack of sleep.
Owen spoke up, “Can I drink more blood?”
“So now you ask?” Legundo quirked and eyebrow as him.
“Just say no if you don’t want to.”
Legundo hesitated. Owen wasn’t doing well, that much was clear by his weakened voice, barely making any scathing remarks.
“Fine. Just be more gentle.” He held his wrist out for the bat.
“Dunno how I’ll manage that when I’m literally biting you.”
The bite this time didn’t hurt so bad. It still did, of course, but it seemed like Owen wasn’t aiming for maximum damage. Legundo wanted to reach out and pet the furry head as Owen fed from him. He looked pretty cute right now, with his tongue tickling Leg’s skin, eagerly lapping up blood. Legundo leaned his head on his free hand, and allowed himself a small drop of warm affection. He dumped it into the lake that he was continuing to ignore.
Owen hummed in satisfaction. He disengaged with a big yawn, the sharp little teeth glittering in the soft flickering candlelight.
“Feeling better?” Legundo asked dryly.
“Mmm. Better.”
“You should probably stay as a bat for a while longer. I have no idea how those stitches will fair when you transform back.”
The bat did it's best imitation of a shrug. “I still can’t anyways.”
“You should rest. Let’s move you to somewhere more comfortable.”
“Vampires can’t sleep.” Owen protested, but he could hardly combat being brushed onto Legundo’s palms like some sort of helpless creature. Which he was, but Legundo wasn’t going to tell him that.
“You still need sleep. And so do I.” Legundo yawned. He was exhausted and just needed to lay down.
He glanced around the room, trying to find some place safe and comfortable to lay Owen. This house had been built with human patients in mind, rather than small bat patients. The only comfortable place was the bed, which seemed far too large. And there was always the possibility of someone else coming in needing medical assistance, laying down in the bed without looking first, and potentially hurting Owen more.
Legundo yawned again, trying to get his brain to work. The only idea he had, he wasn’t sure Owen would be happy with, but he was too tired to care anymore.
Legs crawled onto the bed, careful to keep Owen snug against his chest while he moved to minimize the pain. When at last he was flat against the bed, Legs let the tension in his body drain out. The pain in his stiff shoulders wouldn’t be going away anytime soon, but this was already worlds better.
“What is this?” Owen’s voice was muffled against Legundo’s chest.
“Shhh. I’m trying to sleep.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Legundo looked down at the little bat, still pressed to his chest beneath his hand. Owen blearily looked back at him, a drop of blood smudged at the edge of his mouth.
“You’re so…” Legs failed to come up with an appropriate word. His mind skirted around everything he wanted to say but couldn’t. Instead he brushed one thumb over the furry body. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat inside, but he could feel the steady rise and fall of Owen’s breath. He wondered why Owen breathed at all when it was clear that he didn’t need to. Perhaps just force of habit.
The bat closed its eyes, and shifted so one ear was over Legundo’s heart, “You are too.”
Maybe this was okay. Maybe Owen was actually capable of accepting help after all. Maybe everything was going to be alright.
Through the haze of half-sleep he could feel the beginnings of an unsure purr rumbling. Legundo drifted to sleep, a slight smile on his face.
When Legundo awoke, the sun was shining brightly through the windows, making his head hurt. Owen had disappeared. All that was left was a couple of small bite marks scattered over his hands and wrist.
He hoped that next time he saw Owen, they would be able to talk more.