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Geoffrey’s alive and the leeches are dead. He collapses, though, legs suddenly too weak to carry any weight, and can’t get up. He forgets, for a minute, where he is; the pain doesn’t seem so bad, but then he comes to, sitting against a filthy wall in a dark tunnel, his only company the corpses and the slowly expanding pools of dark leech blood. They look black, only visible by the way the ground reflects the faintest light coming from... somewhere. Not Geoffrey’s torch, because that’s been out for a while now.
After another minute he remembers the blood and what it means that he’s sitting here, almost on top of it while injured. He hasn’t moved in – some time – he doesn’t know how long exactly, but the blood, that’s the thing that makes him feel again, and what he feels is fear that spreads over him like a splash of cold water. The leeches he killed here tonight are certainly not the only ones to be found in these tunnels. The blood will lure more of them soon enough, and Geoffrey’s in no state to fight them off when they find him here.
Maybe he’ll recover enough to… No, he knows he’s been sitting here longer than he could guess. Everything feels muted and shifts before his eyes, like he’s jumped into the river and now can’t find his way out of the water. He can’t trust his own senses now, nor his aim. He doesn’t even know where his gun is– how could he have lost sight of the gun? Fuck.
He looks down and sees all dark red, his chest covered in blood. Is all of it his own? Is he, will he change? He needs to find that gun, he can’t trust he’ll do what needs to be done when changed into a beast.
He doesn’t have the strength to look for it, though. All of his senses feel as if he's plunged into water, submerged, and it gets deeper, murkier. He drifts.
“–will take care of it. Thank you for sending for me.”
The sound of someone talking brings Geoffrey back to himself. Slowly he shifts his head and is surprised when it turns out to be the right direction. It’s not as dark anymore, but Geoffrey still has to squint to make his eyes focus well enough, or maybe it’s his mind that’s slow on letting him know what he’s looking at.
Reid.
Of course it would be him to find Geoffrey here. He thought he’d have more time before another leech showed up.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll make sure to keep you entirely out of it,” Reid says, and Geoffrey after another minute realizes that Reid is talking to someone. Someone Geoffrey can’t see, hidden in a doorway. Geoffrey could have sworn that stretch of the tunnel used to be a solid wall before. He almost wants to laugh. He’s started seeing things, and his mind has chosen Reid of all people to hallucinate. By God, he really must be badly wounded.
His imaginary leech turns away from whoever he’s been speaking to and comes close. Geoffrey tries to watch his approach, but his head lolls to the side and he doesn’t have the strength to lift it up.
He can’t decide if it’s a mercy or a punishment that he can’t look at Reid as his time is running out. He should be able to, if it’s a figment of his own mind.
Reid on the other hand, doesn’t seem too concerned with Geoffrey’s thoughts on the state of his existence – he crouches down, Geoffrey can almost see the shape of him through the corner of his eye, and puts his hand on Geoffrey’s neck.
Reid’s hand almost feels warm against his skin.
“Come to finish what you started?” Geoffrey slurs. He’s not sure the words come out clear enough for Reid to understand him at all.
“I don’t remember being the one to start anything,” Reid retorts almost sharply. Geoffrey can’t remember Reid ever having sounded anything but mild and earnest to the point of annoyance before. Maybe this is part of a hallucination too – Reid, acting at least somewhat the way he should. “Nor am I here to finish it, no. Though it appears someone might have accomplished it already.”
“I’m not dead, leech.” He isn’t. He would know. He still feels like himself, even if his body refuses to obey him.
“Your pulse is weak,” Reid says, and oh, his fingers are pressed to Geoffrey’s veins, of course they are. Straight for the blood, like the beast he is. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Didn’t lose it. A leech ripped it out of me.”
“I don’t think the method makes much difference to the result, in this case.”
Reid turns Geoffrey’s head easily, barely using any pressure at all, until Geoffrey can look him in the eye. The leech looks concerned. Concerned and like he’s studying Geoffrey, deciding what to do with him. Geoffrey feels his lips twitch in some attempt at a smile. This is all almost familiar. Only the concern on Reid’s face is far more prominent than before, so Geoffrey must really have one foot in the grave. He still feels too numb, but Reid’s a damned doctor on top of a bloodthirsty beast, if anyone would know, it would be him.
Reid slides a hand around Geoffrey’s shoulders in some mockery of a hug and leans closer, and––
Geoffrey’s mind suddenly races through all the ways he could fight this, if he were only a little better, if he still had his gun. If Reid wasn’t stronger than a damn vulkod. He leans closer and even through the panic Geoffrey can’t look away from those pale eyes, still calm, like he isn’t moments away from ripping Geoffrey’s throat open. More than anything else about Reid Geoffrey hates this – that he pretends so well. That it only takes him a moment to go from kindly doctor to monster. That Geoffrey is left constantly wondering which moment will be the one where Reid sheds his kindness, grows tired of the deception. Now, it seems.
Or does Reid tell himself he’s only putting Geoffrey out of his misery? Maybe that’s how he keeps to this ruse – by deceiving himself as well.
In what feels like a moment of weakness, Geoffrey lets his eyes close. He’d rather keep Reid’s concerned, almost human face as his last sight, even if it’s riled him up every time he’s seen it. Better that, than the truth that comes after.
Only a moment and his eyes snap open, and he can’t see through the agony – he’s been bitten before, he knows how it feels, and it’s not this – he wants to scream but there’s no air in his lungs. He can feel every inch of his body on fire.
Then the world moves.
Reid is – Reid is lifting him up, other hand under Geoffrey’s knees. And being moved is hell. Being lifted makes Geoffrey feel every bruise and cut and every time he was too slow to avoid a punch or a set of claws, all of it melding together into pain so severe and insistent. It pulses through him without any start or end. He might pray for the numbness to return, if he could think enough to remember the words.
Geoffrey drifts away, and then has a moment of clarity every once in a while. Just long enough to worry where Reid is taking him. The tunnels look different every time he opens his eyes, and then there are no tunnels but the night sky instead.
“What–,” what are you going to do with me, Geoffrey tries to ask, but the sharp band of pain across his chest doesn’t let him. Or maybe the more expected question would be, where are you taking me, but it hardly matters in light of the first one.
A kaleidoscope of all the nightmares Geoffrey’s had of Reid choosing some other ending to that night in the hospital – he remembers all of those dreams now, red and soaked through with his blood. But no, he knows what Reid did to him then. Something worse than any violence. The very worst thing he ever could have done – he made Geoffrey want to trust him. Made him walk on the edge of believing that deception. It’s a worse sickness than any physical ailment and Geoffrey will never be fully rid of it. Even now he feels some sliver of hope take root in his chest, a suspicion that mercy is Reid’s aim once again, and not the mercy of a quick death as he believed back in the tunnels.
Reid has been silently, steadily carrying Geoffrey like he weighs nothing at all long enough that the pain has subsided into a blunt all-encompassing ache. Against his every instinct Geoffrey feels almost safe in Reid’s arms, and so very tired he wonders for a moment if there’s any point to him being awake for this part, if he can’t see where they’re going anyway.
Then, with his eyes still open, Geoffrey sees the world turn black and after a weightless moment of nothingness he is blinded by a bright light right above his head.
He has to blink too many times until he can see again, and by the time he can, they’re inside a building. Not the hospital, judging by the stale air and bare wooden walls.
Geoffrey swallows to ease the dryness of his throat enough to make another attempt at talking. It doesn’t feel like it helps much.
“Where?” he asks. Keeps it short to not wake that burning pain again.
“Somewhere safe. Don’t worry, no one will be able to find this place. There is no way to gain entrance from the street at all.” Reid sounds soothing, like he thinks he’s alleviating some concern of Geoffrey’s, when he does the exact opposite.
Before Geoffrey can think of some other question for Reid to give vague and threatening answers to, he feels Reid lower him, adjust the hold on him most likely as gently as possible, but it still makes Geoffrey gasp. Reid offers no apology and finally lays Geoffrey down on a – bed.
Geoffrey’s mind feels blank. He can see Reid now, gathering something from a cabinet on the other side of the room and then coming back, looming above Geoffrey. There are questions he should demand the answers to, but he doesn’t know where to start. So instead he watches Reid as he takes off his coat. Then his jacket. Rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. It’s a bit hypnotic, how neatly Reid does it.
The moment shatters when Reid sits down on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t have any pain medicine here strong enough to make much difference, I’m afraid,” Reid offers. Then he reaches for Geoffrey’s chest and––
Pain.
Through the haze of encroaching darkness at the edges of his vision he can see Reid remove blood-soaked strips of Geoffrey’s clothes, and can feel the pull at all the places where the blood has glued cloth to skin. He’s never been squeamish, even before the sight of blood and death became commonplace, but there’s something alarming in how little tearing Reid has to do for Geoffrey’s clothes to come off in pieces. He tries to look up at the ceiling, at Reid’s focused and still concerned face.
Reid takes his time, and the longer it goes on, the more obvious Reid’s fangs become. He doesn’t lose his focus, though, as if the lust for blood is just some inconvenience he can shove aside when he’s not of a mind to indulge and not the very meaning of his monstrous existence.
Still Reid wouldn’t be doing any of this, if he had some cruelty planned, Geoffrey thinks. The thought is followed by an immediate wave of disgust at himself, at his own gullibility.
He loses consciousness soon after.
--
Geoffrey comes to still on the dusty bed in the same dusty house. It’s still dark. He feels much better than before, which is to say awful, but not at death’s door. His head is clearer now, at least, even if his body feels like a pulsing ball of pain.
The moment he sits up, something moves in the shadows. Geoffrey curses, then curses more at the pain slicing through his chest and thigh. Somewhere safe, Reid said.
“Ah, apologies.” Reid’s smooth voice calms Geoffrey more than he’d like to admit. He breathes slowly and waits. Reid doesn’t say anything else, but he does light a lamp, first on the desk and then another one on by the bed.
In the soft light the room looks slightly less derelict.
“You’re still here,” Geoffrey says, and what he really means is I’m still here.
“Again, I’m afraid. You’ve been unconscious since the early hours. It’s been almost a full day.”
That explains the change to Geoffrey’s state. Whatever Reid did to him while he slept – and oh, does he hate that it’s something he has to consider – must have been impressive to get him back on his feet. Speaking of, he must get up, if he is to leave. He doesn’t want to think how worried his men must be.
His chest still feels tight, though, and he’s wary of testing what will happen if he tries to move too quickly.
When he does sit up properly and tries to shift closer to the edge of the bed, his body feels as if it’s made entirely out of aches, pains and soreness. Then he realizes Reid has relieved him of more than just his bloody shirt. The only thing he still has on is underwear. That, and an ungodly amount of bandages around his chest, arm and thigh. Geoffrey slides his legs over the edge of the bed and when that doesn’t send him into burning agony, carefully and rubs his face, feels the bristles on his jaw, longer than he usually allows.
“Reid,” he says with some exasperation, “where are my clothes?” He has a suspicion the answer won’t be something he likes, from what he remembers of last night.
Reid, done with rolling his sleeves up the same way he did the previous night, looks at Geoffrey and frowns.
“Don’t get up yet. I’ll change the bandages.”
“Reid.”
The leech doesn’t answer. Instead he steps closer and his eyes gleam red in the lamplight, fangs visible behind a faint smile. Geoffrey doesn’t think, his reaction is instinct above all, and as he has no weapon on hand his heart speeds up in panic. His eyes dart to the side, searching for–
“Oh, honestly? I thought we were past this.”
It’s the annoyed tone of Reid’s voice that snaps him out of it. Geoffrey closes his eyes, breathes in, counts the seconds. Exhales slowly and the rush of fear dissipates almost as fast as it came over him. When he opens his eyes, the smile is gone from Reid’s face, replaced by what looks like impatience. A quiet voice at the back of Geoffrey’s mind whispers that he’s disappointed Reid. He ignores that voice. If the leech has been expecting Geoffrey to suddenly forget what he is, that’s his mistake.
Reid waits silently and after a minute Geoffrey nods, not really sure why except that it feels like Reid is waiting for his permission. At that Reid closes the remaining distance between them and starts neatly unwinding the bandages around Geoffrey’s chest. Every touch sends a twinge of hurt under Geoffrey’s skin, despite Reid being far too slow and careful.
Geoffrey sighs and asks again, “So, where are my clothes.” Even if it is Reid’s fault, the silence feels sharper than he’s willing to bear right now.
“Hmm. I had to put in quite a few stitches on the claw marks your chest. That’s the worst of it, and will most definitely scar. How much depends on how much you’ll rest and how well you’ll follow the doctor’s instructions.”
“My clothes, Reid.”
“If any of the cuts gets infected, do see a doctor immediately, I’m sure you have some experience with this.”
“By God, are you at all capable of answering a question?” There’s some amusement leaking through his incredulity, smothering his anger somewhat. Is Reid ignoring him?
“When I want to, yes.” Reid smirks, the bastard, and Geoffrey does laugh then. He regrets it almost instantly when his chest feels like it’s suddenly on fire. Somehow the absurdity of Reid being so childishly petty finally puts Geoffrey at ease. After another minute, now in a more comfortable silence, it comes to him, that Reid might have done it with just that in mind, and he chuckles again.
“So, what were you doing in the sewers?”
“Looking for you, in fact. The better question would be, what were you doing down there on your own. It’s unlike you to underestimate the danger of vampires.” Reid pauses, glances at Geoffrey briefly. “Or perhaps it isn’t?”
Geoffrey scoffs at that and tries to recall what he can from the tunnel. There was Reid… talking to someone.
“Someone told you where to find me.”
“Indeed. Some of the more sane sewer inhabitants recognized you. They very wisely wanted nothing to do with the trouble that would follow, if you were to be found dead on their doorstep.” Reid spends some time inspecting the wounds and then starts wrapping clean bandages around Geoffrey’s chest.
Geoffrey watches Reid’s face as he talks. He can’t quite look away from how alive Reid seems, despite the deathly paleness and the red in his eyes. Then Geoffrey’s eyes narrow at Reid’s words.
“Whose doorstep would that be?” He wouldn’t have expected to find any Ekons down there; no, the beasts that can pass for humans never give up the chance to be a wolf living amidst a herd of sheep.
“Geoffrey. Please don’t go down there looking. You are still alive because of them.”
Geoffrey makes an unhappy sound, but doesn’t disagree. He’s definitely not about to tell Reid it’s because of him and not some faceless beasts from the sewers, even if it is the truth.
When Reid is done with his chest – and Geoffrey can already tell any strenuous activity such as running or breathing will be near impossible for a long while – he puts away the used bandages and then sits down on the edge of the bed next to Geoffrey. He’s close, one knee touching Geoffrey’s thigh lightly, hands touching it far more firmly over the bandages.
It startles Geoffrey in a very different way. He can tell his heart starts beating faster again, no matter how adamantly he wills it not to, not in fear this time. Not the same kind of fear, at least. Reid’s hands are careful, almost tender in how he touches Geoffrey and tends his wounds. The most tender medic to ever treat Geoffrey, certainly, and the thought doesn’t help.
“So you brought me here,” Geoffrey says, purely to distract himself and hopefully Reid as well from the alarming path his mind has strayed to.
“And so I brought you here. I, ah,” Reid grimaces slightly before continuing. “I thought it prudent not to risk meeting any of your men. And your condition was rather urgent. I didn’t want to take you to Pembroke if–– Well.”
For a moment Geoffrey imagines the hell that would follow, if his men had come upon Reid, carrying through the city what would look like and possibly be his bloody corpse.
“If you had to dispose of a body without raising suspicion,” Geoffrey finishes for Reid, a great deal of scorn in his voice. It wouldn’t even be Reid’s fault, this other path that things could have gone and didn’t, but he still feels bitterness at the practicality. It washes away all his ill-timed musings like ice cold water.
“Something… like that, yes,” Reid agrees reluctantly, but he doesn’t look at Geoffrey, and the sudden tension in his shoulders makes Geoffrey almost certain Reid is – lying? What could he possibly be lying about, unless… It’s not Geoffrey’s death that he was concerned with, but the manner of it. Had Reid still been considering killing Geoffrey himself?
At that Geoffrey growls and considers pushing Reid away, bandages or no bandages, and leaving. Then he remembers his state of undress and the very high possibility that there’s no safe way for him to leave without Reid’s help. Of course there isn’t, he thinks with hollow amusement.
Reid says nothing else, and the silence between them is tense again. Geoffrey silently curses himself every time a brush of Reid’s cool hands against his thigh make him want to shiver despite the occasional slice of pain.
To avoid looking at Reid, Geoffrey examines the room. There’s nothing useful lying around – definitely nothing that looks like Geoffrey’s clothes or his weapons. Some suspicious stains on the floor, too old to tell him anything. Nothing that particularly looks like it belongs to Reid, either, until Geoffrey notices the row of empty bottles on the desk, stained, looking like–
“Really, leech? Stealing from the hospital?”
Reid looks up for a moment, follows his gaze to the bottles. “You did lose too much blood last night. It needed to be replaced, and I assumed, rather correctly, I think, that you would not have appreciated me using the kind I had on hand.”
Geoffrey looks at his bandaged arm. A blood transfusion. Then his mind catches up to the rest of it and he stares at Reid, part in horror and part in astonishment. Mostly horror. Reid has, to the best of Priwen’s knowledge, made no progeny so far, unless he has managed to do it secretly. But he would have turned Geoffrey if – what? – he had thought Geoffrey would appreciate it?
Reid ignores Geoffrey’s very justified confusion in favor of finally finishing whatever he’s doing with the bandages on Geoffrey’s thigh.
“This isn’t as deep as the wounds on your chest, but you’ll need to take very good care not to tear out the stitches,” Reid says, and leans back.
“I, yes,” Geoffrey murmurs, distracted. He’s lost most of his previous anger and bitterness. In place of those he has a desperate need to understand what it means, exactly, that Reid was willing to turn Geoffrey last night.
He watches Reid wipe his hands on a clean rag. Lets too much time pass staring at those hands – Reid, when Geoffrey finally looks up, is looking back, expression inscrutable.
When Geoffrey says nothing, Reid gets up and walks to a dusty chest by the far wall and opens it. He retrieves a neat pile of clothes and sets it down where he was sitting on the bed less than a minute ago.
“You should spend as much time as possible resting, but there’s no need for you to do it here.” Without any other explanation Reid turns away and starts putting away the left-over bandages.
Geoffrey takes it as his cue to finally get dressed, though he doesn’t expect the difficulty of doing it without causing himself too much pain – it’s torture just getting his shirt over his head, and it only gets worse from there. Reid keeps glancing at him with a look of suffering, as if he’s dying to offer help, so Geoffrey looks away, grits his teeth and very pointedly does it on his own.
He’s already buttoning the trousers when he realizes these are his own clothes, although not the ones he had on last night. Reid has somehow managed to retrieve them from Geoffrey’s room in the Priwen headquarters, the supposedly secret headquarters. Geoffrey opens his mouth to ask, but then thinks better on it and finishes dressing in silence.
By the time he’s done, Reid has his coat back on as well and is standing by one of the doors. The one they came in through, if Geoffrey’s memory can be trusted.
Geoffrey follows him through it – walking is exactly as taxing as he’d feared – when Reid opens the door, and immediately stops.
“Reid. Are you sure you’re a doctor? Because I am not, and even I very strongly suspect a jump from this height will make me tear out my stitches. At the very least.”
“It had crossed my mind, yes,” Reid answers, closer than Geoffrey expects, and when he turns to look at him, Reid wraps a hand around Geoffrey’s waist.
Geoffrey inhales sharply. They’re almost of a height and Reid’s embrace has put them close enough that Geoffrey can feel Reid’s cool breath on his face, and for once it doesn’t alarm him as much as it should. There’s a faint smile on Reid’s lips. He leans closer, puts his other hand on the center of Geoffrey’s back. And Geoffrey – doesn’t want to close his eyes, but he does anyway when he feels the shadowy void envelop them.
When he blinks away the blackness, Reid is already letting go, stepping back from him. And for a moment, before he can smother it, Geoffrey wants him to stay close. Maybe that’s what makes him do what he does next.
He catches Reid’s hand, holds on to his wrist to stop him from leaving. They both look at that point of contact for a long moment. Geoffrey knows he’s at least as surprised by his own action than Reid appears to be.
“Weren’t you going to instruct me?” he asks. When Reid’s eyebrows raise in surprise, he adds, “How to take care of my wounds. I might have forgotten since the last time I had to do it.”
“Ah, of course. How careless of me.” Reid glances down to where Geoffrey is still holding him by the wrist. “Let me remind you about it while I – accompany you on your way home? I should make certain you get there in one piece regardless.”
“Very well,” Geoffrey agrees, and after another moment, when Reid stays silent, lets go of his hand. Then turns and starts walking down the street. Reid follows him.
Geoffrey's body is a mess of all manner of aches and pains, but he ignores it in favor of cursing his own impulsiveness. He has no earthly idea what he’s doing, other than something extremely stupid, but he’s doing it anyway.