Chapter Text
Wade stared down at the lump of a body that was now curled up on his bed. The walk home had been pretty uneventful, save for the police car zooming past him towards the Denny’s. He had tried to act inconspicuous and wound up turning down a different street just in case they decided to backtrack this area. Nope, totally not stealing the body you guys were gonna pick up, ha ha, who even does that, seriously?
He’d debated which squathouse to take this kid to, and then they (mostly Wade) decided on the one that was the one-bedroom on the seventh floor in the slums. No one was going to think twice about That One Weird Guy bringing home a possibly-dead body.
So here he was. Here they were.
The vampire hadn’t really been too good a conversationalist on the trip back, mostly just letting out the occasional whine or groan, and having muscle spasms. He’d gotten a touch warmer on one side from Wade’s body heat (and in turn, Wade got uncomfortably cold), and so there was a lone silver lining. He really looked like he was having a shitty day. Week. Month. Or even a year.
[Far less cute under proper lighting.]
“Yeah, well, no one asked you.”
[[And we didn’t ask you to bring this thing home.]]
Wade huffed. “He did!” he defended, throwing his thumb up and over at Screwball codename ‘Yellow’.
[[He doesn’t count.]]
[Why don’t I count?]
[[I didn’t ask you to take this thing home. In fact, I told you not to do it.]]
[Why the fuck don’t I count??]
Wade sighed and thumped his head pretty hard on the wall. “Fuck off,” he hissed, and he waved his hands at the text boxes, pushing them out of place and out of his line of vision. “I need some ‘me’ time right now. Go find something else to do.”
[[We’re part of your ‘me’ time, buddy.]]
[WHY DON’T I COUNT?]
A low growl formed in Wade’s throat, and he slammed his head harder against the wall, and some of the plaster fell off and crumbled to the carpet. His thoughts swam a bit, and he felt dizzy for a few seconds. “Fuck. Off.” With that rule set and his mild concussion healed over, he turned to focus on the supernatural being dirtying up his sheets. He didn’t make a habit of bringing home strays that would like to eat him--
[That’s not true! You gave several dozen hamsters rabies that one time when you wanted to make a rabid hamster gun!]
-- “I didn’t bring those home rabid, now did I?” he shot back.
[[Normal hamsters would eat you anyway, given the chance. And you never patented that gun, by the way.]]
[Yeah, it’s just sitting next to the closet, collecting dust. You could’ve changed the world with that thing.]
“I’m trying to decide what to do with this kid, so could you guys at least stay on topic?”
That was when it occurred to him that vampires didn’t sleep, nor did they really have the ability to lose consciousness. ...Welp. He watched the brunet, and saw that he was clearly either too weak or trying to fake not being present. “Hey, uh, kid? You awake?”
Definitely faking, because Wade could see his eyes move under the lids as he debated with himself as to whether or not he should pretend to wake up. “Yeah,” he heard the guy rasp.
[He’s been dropping some eaves!]
[[If I were him, I’d be worried about being the main character in a B-rated horror flick.]]
[Really, shouldn’t it be the other way around, though? We’re the humans in this one.]
[[Point.]]
So at least the fact that he was absolutely apeshit insane was already laying out on the table between them. “Okay, this puts me in a weird spot. So I’ll be blunt. I have no idea what the hell to do with you. You’re clearly starving and you look young -- but I didn’t nab you because of that, I’m not some fucking pervert -- well, I am, but not like that--” He waved his hands in front of himself in a stop motion. “Look, I fucked up and you swayed me with your pleading, and now you’re here, and I want to know what you need in order for me to kick you out so you can go about your daily--”
[[Nightly.]]
“--business.”
The vampire didn’t even blink at him. He had really dark, sad eyes, that were layered with violet, sickly bruises. His skin was grodey as hell and he really needed a bath and a change of clothes.
“I don’t know,” the kid surprised him by cutting off his train of thought with an actual answer. He seemed to only breathe when he needed the air to talk, and otherwise stayed looking like a real corpse. It was kinda freaky.
“Well, you said you didn’t wanna die, so let’s just start with that,” Wade said awkwardly, running a hand along the back of his neck. Giving him a bath would require him being naked, and he wasn’t about to let himself even have the ability to look at some underage junk, because it was just something people's’ gazes were naturally drawn to, and fuck.
“How old are you?” he asked, and his voice was very serious.
[Dude, get some popcorn for us, this is some dramatic gold.]
[[Shut up, I want to see if this’ll end with us blowing our brains out.]]
The vampire frowned, and his eyes slid off to the corner as he thought. “I don’t know,” he repeated. His voice was scratchy and wavered at random points.
Wade rolled his eyes. “Look, okay, are you a teenager, or not?”
The vampire frowned more. “I think… I’m twenty.”
The Merc let out the biggest sigh of relief and he slid down the wall onto the floor and gripped the fabric over his heart like he’d just suffered a minor attack. “Oh thank black baby Jesus,” he gasped. Twenty, to him, was still not a proper adult-adult, because everything under twenty-five just felt like someone putting on business clothes and pretending to understand taxes. He knew he did a lot of immature, stupid shit leading up to twenty-five.
[[You still do a lot of immature, stupid shit. Look at what’s happening right now.]]
[Sh!]
[[Also, you’re not that many years older than him.]]
[Sssh!]
The vampire was staring at him again. If he didn’t look so close to death’s doorknocker, he would have looked just extremely perturbed. Wade felt like he had to explain himself. “I felt bad for you because you’ve got this Bambi-looking face and you begged for help, and I don’t want anyone to get it in their head that I’ve got fucked up ulterior motives.”
[[Even though you do.]]
[Yeah, seriously, you took a half-dead natural predator home with you. Are you gonna try to nurse him back to health and then train him to fight off other vamps for you?]
Wade pursed his lips. “I can fight them off just fine myself, but thanks for your vote of confidence.” He flipped off Yellow’s box. “And this is a new situation for me, too. Can’t you at least commit to a plan of action?”
[[Well, you’re sure as hell not getting any.]]
Wade rubbed his hand over his face. Then he smiled at the vampire, realized his mask was still on so it may not have translated too well, and stood up. “Can you excuse us for a second?” and then slammed the door shut behind him. He leaned up against the bedroom door and pulled out his phone and started Googling 'what do you do if you find a vampire'. All of the results were how to fend for yourself and what you should always carry on your person to be able to keep them at bay. That wasn’t exactly the answer he was looking for, and he tried rephrasing it. ‘What do you do if you want to help a vampire?’
Reddit seemed to be his most useful result, so he clicked on one of the links.
There was a lot of debate of the morality of it, and a lot of deleted posts, and even more troll posts, and he spent the better part of an hour glancing over possibly helpful comment threads. The biggest issues seemed to be what was wrong with the vampire, where to get blood (and how many of the sites were illegal and what browsers you should use to access the black market and the deep web in general), what to do if you fuck up, and how to hide a body.
He made his way into the kitchen, rolled up his sleeve, and got out an extra large mug while he lifted his right leg, pulled the knife he hid there back out, and then split his wrist open right over the artery. Blood spurted out and onto the wall just above the sink, but he ignored it, and turned the dripping over and into the mug. He had to press several times to keep the flow going strong, like squeazing all the juice he could out of a lemon's pulp. Give the damn thing sustenance, and prepare yourself for a night of feral behavior. He could do that. Try not to panic. Too late for that, but he was good at masking that with manic upswing behavior. Basically the whole thing wound up boiling down to, ‘Do This At Your Own Risk’ and possibly get arrested afterward, depending on what part of the world you live in, or what state in the U.S.. Apparently helping one of these things without the city or state’s permission could lead you to some nasty fines or jail time. Huh. Wade never really paid much attention to that shit, but the same went for Mutants, too. He should have figured.
With the mug full, he grabbed a towel to wrap around his wrist so it would stop leaking while it finished healing back up, and then knocked on the bedroom door before opening it.
“Room service,” he declared, and immediately spotted an empty bed with the sheets pulled off and onto the floor leading towards the window. And on the windowsill was the vampire who looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the metaphorical cookiejar, clearly trying to unlatch the window.
[The fuck? Wasn’t he too weak to even sit up?]
[[Look, even that thing doesn’t want to be near you.]]
[That’s really depressing. But really, is he about to jump?]
[[Probably trying to end it all. Don’t blame him.]]
[Maybe we should have put on a sexy nurse costume to keep him around.]
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” Wade demanded, not moving from his spot in the doorway.
The vampire gave him a strained attempt at a smile and it just looked like a wince instead. “Uh, I was… leaving?” His tone lifted up at the end, like he was trying to make a statement, but wound up asking a question instead. He’d started trembling, too.
[Don’t do it! It’ll leave a nasty spot on the pavement! Think of the cleaning crew who’s gonna have to deal with that!]
Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. “You want something to eat before you jump to your death, or not? I mean, I can totally just keep this and reheat it for the next vampire I wind up finding on the street and taking home.” Jesus Christ did this just sound dumber and dumber every time he described it.
The vampire didn’t stop shaking like a leaf. He looked so torn, between desperately wanting the blood, but also… holding himself back.
Wade felt pity bubble up in him again.
“Get your ass back in this bed and drink this, and tell me what the fuck even happened to you to get you in that alley.”