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He does not dream anymore. Nevertheless, the dreams are all the same when he closes his eyes. Flames, red and orange behind his eyelids, licking up bloodied wood. His own hands, covered in the same blood, tears pricking hot at the edges of his vision. It is a dream he never wants to wake up from. As terrible as it is, it is all he has left.
Owen sits alone, atop the roof of the castle, clawed fingers picking splinters out of the wood. He’s not brooding, whatever Scott or Shelby might say. There is a deep red crust underneath his nails. He has not bothered to wash it away. It is a reminder: he should not be so free with his trust. After all, humans do nothing but take and take and take, and he was a fool to have assumed anything different. To fall for comely words and empty hands–it is stupidly, unpleasantly vulnerable. He has spent so long building up layers of ridged scar tissue wrapped around his unbeating heart. To have someone reach in, wrench them apart–his stomach flips even now.
Far beneath him, Avid and Drift hurry through the courtyard, shoulders hunched around their ears. Whether they can feel his gaze, or are simply still uneasy surrounded by other vampires, they are certainly quick to glance up, stutter-stepping when they see him. Drift pauses, waves an uncertain hand. The twin scarred-over starbursts on her wrist glint with a still-healing sheen, visible even from his spot on the roof. He does not bother to wave back. Avid just stares at him for a long, searching moment that sets Owen’s teeth on edge. Then they duck inside, out of the sun’s glare.
The bite scars. The bite always scars. On Pyro it is a jagged lightning strike down his shoulder that he hides in the folds of a black cloak too large on him. Scott conceals his underneath his high collar, only giving Owen a quirked eyebrow or knowing smile when his gaze drifts downwards. Parallel lines down the nape of Shelby’s neck, caught like a fish on a line as she tried to run. Owen’s own is neat pinpricks, warm to the touch when he cups a hand over them. He remembers shuddering, lifting his chin to allow cool lips closer to his pulse. Remembers tangling his hands in curly, gray-streaked hair and thinking I could die just like this. Memories two hundred years old, still fresh and bleeding in his mind.
That must be why the doctor affects him so much. It’s just memories, overlaid over a face he doesn’t really care about.
When Legs had curled his hands around Owen’s wrists, drawing him a step closer, all he could imagine was another pair of hands. Different scars, different callouses, but that same pressure, not entrapping but promising. I can help you.
Owen stands abruptly, biting down on his tongue so hard cold, salty blood wells up. The good doctor cannot help him. Not in the way Owen needs–not the way he wants. He leaps down from the roof, landing silent–and startling Drift, who yelps from where she’s apparently been watching him from the shaded archway. He favors her with a cool look, and she grins sheepishly back at him. Peering inside the gloomy hall, he sees Avid and Shelby shoulder-to-shoulder, poring over an open book. Even from this distance, he recognizes Shelby’s frantic handwriting and the way she beams at Avid, clearly inviting feedback on her latest… work. Scott and Pyro are nowhere to be seen, likely out–hopefully somewhere Owen can’t inadvertently stumble upon them, it revolts him–and Apo… well. He thinks she has the good sense to stay out of his way.
He has the brief idea that family–no matter how bitter the word is–could help him break this… habit of turning his thoughts back to Legundo. But Scott only has eyes for his fledglings, drawing first Pyro, then Avid, away into the depths of the castle only for them to return bright-eyed and flushed, sometimes with hastily wiped away smears of blood peeking out of their collars. Even if that wasn’t the case, Owen does not believe Scott has ever loved anything in his long, long life, and he certainly isn’t about to start now.
(It is not that he loves the doctor. That would be–betrayal. It is a passing thing, spurred by the streaks of gray in Legundo’s hair and the softness of his voice when he speaks to Owen. The focus, as if he is the only person who matters in the world. Still. It cannot be love. He will not allow it to be.)
Shelby would flap her hands and mumble about doomed something-or-other, and Owen has no patience for her fantasies, frankly. Pyro seems to have no patience for anything related to Owen, and the feeling is mutual.
He would rather rip out Apo’s throat than show his underbelly to her. She believes he is incapable of love–more monster than person. She has never been more devastatingly incorrect. He has loved more deeply than she ever will. He is half a person–barely a person at all–without Louis, whereas she seems content to abandon her partner if it means keeping her humanity. She knows nothing of sacrifice.
Cleo is too untrustworthy, Drift too much the stranger, and Avid–
Avid meets his gaze over Shelby’s head, eyes cold with understanding. In his face Owen sees a mirror for the first time in centuries. It is a vile thing to look at. To think that this–this cowardly, spineless excuse for a vampire could look at him like he knows what Owen is. He knows nothing.
Owen tears his eyes away from him. He’ll go on a walk. To clear his head. Drift squeaks again when he brushes past her, striding through the meeting hall at a pace that is not quite a run. Shelby calls after him, but her voice fades out when she sees his face, and she–wisely–decides not to pursue him.
It’s the doctor’s fault, he thinks as he picks his way over the bridge. His fault, as he wanders, puffed sleeves catching on branches and nearly tearing as he rips them free, uncaring of–
Louis. This is his; it does not belong to Owen. He takes more care the next time fabric catches on thorns. This is the doctor’s fault too, distracting him beyond belief.
Because–okay, look, here’s the thing. Legs is being selfish. He has this chance–the very thing that Owen jumped at, so many years ago–to save people. Millennia of cures, or progress, an eternal savior. So what if there’s a price? Surely anything would be worth it to a true doctor.
It’s just hunger. That’s all.
Too late now, though. He will not speak to the doctor again after… what he said. Refuses to allow him to say Louis’ name again, to twist Owen back into knots of uncertainty. What does he know about Louis? He was–kind. Kind, and generous, and softer than he’d had any right to be. Softer than Owen had ever deserved.
And yet, here he is. Betraying him anyways. He still thinks of the moonlight red on Legundo’s bared neck, rivulets of black blood wending down the hollow of his throat. He’d wondered, for a fleeting moment: is this how Louis felt?
Foolish. Idiotic, to ever think that a mere human could be a replacement for him. The flutter in his stomach had just been the ache of hunger. The shadows of Legundo’s half-lidded lashes spider-like over his cheeks just a trick of the moonlight. The hand around his wrist, thumb digging into a quiet pulse point, just a doctor’s curiosity about the undead.
He wonders if any of the townsfolk had noticed the wounds on Legs’ neck. If they’d questioned him about who’d bitten him, if they’d sworn revenge on the vampire that dared to hurt their doctor. If he’d pressed a hand flat to the bite mark, too ashamed to say that he’d wanted it. That he’d asked Owen to take from him. If he’d touched the bruises, pretty blue-and-violet blooms, in the dead of night, and yearned. It is a thought he tries to banish as soon as it appears, hot with twisting embarrassment and rage. That he can still think about that when Legs has shown, once and for all, that what he wants is not Owen.
What if I could save you? The words rattle around in his mind, dice coming up snake eyes every time. He knows it isn’t true. The good doctor has never wanted to save Owen. He wants to blunt his fangs, declaw him and turn him into something docile. To take the first and last gift that Louis ever gave him. Owen won’t let him. He won’t.
Who would remember–if I wasn’t–I have to–I can’t–he would understand–if he was here–he would he would he would–
Louis would understand. Louis always understands. He would cradle Owen’s chin and smile at him like nothing else mattered, because it didn’t. When it was just the two of them–when Owen was whole.
It’s only the bright glare of sunlight through the rapidly thinning tree cover that alerts him to where he is, standing at the edge of–
Oakhurst.
He’s really not sure how he stomached living here, even if only for a short while. All he can see is bright blood painting the town walls. Being in the town square had always choked him with the scent of smoke and burning flesh, those memories of fire and unceasing anger.
Because fate enjoys toying with him, his gaze is drawn to a limping figure, just outside the town walls. He can smell blood, dried and new, from here; the doctor’s wounds have opened again. Seems he’s no good at caring for himself, a far cry from his seeming concern for the other townsfolk.
(He’d seemed so happy when Owen said he followed no sire, had tugged him closer with a smile. Like it was a gift, and not a clawing curse that curled many-legged in his heart and chewed through the flesh. For that alone Owen will smash every bottle of his so-called cure and make him beg for mercy.)
Legs moves slowly, the marks of Owen’s claws clearly still aching underneath layers of bandages. He grits his teeth, forcing himself to tear his eyes away, bubbling discomfort beneath his skin.
So what? So what if he had tried to turn him? It’s not like it had worked. The ugly bite of garlic stinging his gums, preventing him from biting any deeper. Legs had cried out–cried out, like he’d had any right to pain after what he’d said–and pressed a hand to his throat, right over those old bite marks. The blood he’d given Owen freely. He’d never tasted anything better in his life or death. He’d just wanted–he’d just wanted. It’s not a sin.
Legs, he knows, does not want. At the very least, he does not want Owen. He wants the human he thinks Owen is hiding in some deep, tucked-away corner of his soul. He wants someone who does not exist.
But Owen knows exactly what he wants, now.
What if I could save you?
“There’s nothing to save, doc,” he whispers to that distant silhouette.
But I can still help you.
Whether the doctor cares to be helped or not.