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The damn room isn’t even a real cell – Geoffrey could get out of it without overly much effort, if it wasn’t being guarded by the fucking leeches. He tries twice and is thrown back inside almost instantly. Figures that they’re not too worried about an escape when there are so many of them around. He’s counted six different Ekons at least, and some of the voices he’s heard don’t match those, so probably more.
None of them look like the ancient, powerful kind, but the lowliest leech is still stronger and faster than a human by far. And if they’re all newly changed, someone had to make them. That someone might end up being ancient and smarter than the lot guarding him.
So far he’s almost certain they have no idea who it is they’ve captured. Outside the room there’s been some boasting back and forth about sending a message to Priwen, and it would have quite a different slant, if they knew they had Priwen’s current leader in their grasp. Could be that they’re trying to deceive him. No, he’s certain they don’t know.
Yet.
The moment they try messing with his mind, that could easily change. They haven’t tried yet, but whatever they are keeping him alive for, he hopes it isn’t that. It’s nothing good either way, but he’s far better at dealing with pain than with leeches having a go at his brain.
Even if all he’s here for is some creative murder to instill fear in the hearts of those who hunt them – and that’s a stupid plan if he ever saw one; seeing those kinds of atrocities is what drives men to take up arms in the first place – Geoffrey would really rather fucking not get murdered. He’s been here for a day at least, maybe getting closer to two. It’s hard to tell with no daylight and jailers that don’t need rest. But whatever they’re planning to do with him, he has the feeling it’s not going to be long now.
Geoffrey’s contemplating trying another go at simple escape and cursing silently, because he already knows how that will end. And then the door opens and something, no, someone is thrown into the room with him.
The door slams shut and whoever the man on the floor is, he seems to be in a bad shape. After a minute Geoffrey crouches down and with some caution touches the mystery prisoner’s shoulder. As if startled out of sleep, the man starts moving and Geoffrey pulls back his hand. The man pushes himself up on his arms, a little shaky, but not dying apparently, and rolls over to his back.
And Geoffrey scrambles back and curses out loud.
The light in the room is dim, but not dim enough that he can’t tell what’s in front of his face.
“Reid.”
The leech stays on the floor and breathes deeply, doesn’t answer for a while. He doesn’t look well; all paler than his usual deathly pallor, dark veins prominent on his neck, so washed out he looks almost like a ghost. Then his pale red eyes blink open and land straight on Geoffrey. Not his face, he notes. About the height where his heart is beating double time in his chest.
“Well, this was going too nicely for my tastes, wasn’t it?” Geoffrey says under his breath, dripping with bitter sarcasm. He has no weapons on him, nothing in the room that would work in a pinch, and he’s not only trapped – he’s trapped with a starved leech. With Reid, who Geoffrey already knows is at least as dangerous as any ancient.
But of course Reid hears him. His gaze moves up to Geoffrey’s face, and it’s decidedly not an improvement. Reid’s stare is uncomfortably intense, and somehow it’s not just hunger lurking in there.
“Geoffrey,” Reid says, so quietly Geoffrey only half hears him, half reads it from the shape of his lips. After another deep breath Reid goes on, now half a notch above barely audible. “I wasn’t sure I would find you in time. There were— complications.”
“You were looking for me?” Geoffrey doesn’t hide how much he doubts that.
“Of course – I wouldn’t leave you to die, you know this,” Reid says it with so much conviction that Geoffrey doesn’t bring attention to the fact he absolutely does not know this. Reid not killing him when given the chance is one thing, and a thing he already struggles with every time he thinks back to it; Reid actively stopping someone else, one of his own kind from doing it isn’t in the realm of things Geoffrey has ever considered likely.
“Well,” he says and pauses for a long few moments while he looks Reid over again. “Whatever your plan is, I would love to hear it.” Because Reid looks about ready to pass out, but only if he doesn’t have to move to do it.
Against all odds, with great effort he pushes himself up on his elbows, then hands, and then sits up against the wall.
Geoffrey watches him do it and doesn’t help. He’s only half convinced this isn’t all Reid’s doing in the first place. Except then there would be no reason for Reid to look as awful as he does now – he could have just killed him here and been done with it.
“Ah, that will not endear me to you, I’m afraid.” Reid looks apologetic when he says it. Almost amiable, like he thinks that pretense will make Geoffrey less cautious.
When Geoffrey doesn’t say anything, Reid sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. Then looks at him again, expression no longer a mask of harmlessness.
“Come here, Geoffrey,” Reid says, tiredly.
Geoffrey feels the line of his own mouth get more grim. Those pale eyes make his hands itch for a weapon. But Reid isn’t trying to mesmerize him, weak as he is; Reid is just asking.
“No.” Over my dead body, Geoffrey wants to say, but isn’t that the point?
“It will work. I’ll get you out of here, alive.” It sounds so disgustingly reasonable, and Geoffrey has no idea why Reid is trying to convince him instead of just getting on with it. That same play pretend of Geoffrey having any choice in this.
“Please,” Reid says. Geoffrey barks out a harsh laugh.
Then he knee-walks closer to Reid, close enough that Reid could reach out and touch him. When he doesn’t get snatched and drained right away, Geoffrey leans down, face to face with Reid. Reid reaches out slowly and puts his hand on the side of Geoffrey’s neck, the cold tips of his fingers brushing against his nape. It makes Geoffrey shudder with revulsion. With something.
“Will it take away the guilt, pretending I agreed to it of my own free will?” he asks quietly, viciously. He has a moment to watch the expression on Reid’s face, the way it almost but not quite falls into dismay. It’s the eyes – the hunger in them never goes away.
Then Reid pulls him down. Barely more than a flash and there are fangs at his throat, cutting him open, pulling his senses wide open. First with pain, but then the pain twists into something worse, makes Geoffrey press closer instead of fighting to get away. His mind feels like it’s made of cotton, soft around the edges already. Warm.
He wonders almost idly if Reid likes to pretend this too is a choice. That Geoffrey would choose this, if he had a way to not. To not feel like this, as his life is drained out of him slowly by something that pretends to be a man.
Dimly he’s aware he’s gripping Reid’s shoulders, pulling him closer with what little strength he has compared to a starving leech. After all the years he’s spent learning, training to fight the monsters, here he is, wordlessly begging to be devoured by one. He can’t stop the low moan that spills from his lips.
With a growl Reid breaks away, jumps sideways several steps so fast Geoffrey only sees a dark blur.
And Geoffrey stays on the floor, gasping in fast shallow breaths, holding himself up on arms shaking with exertion. Alive.
Reid is breathing hard, staring at him with crimson red eyes. Still hungry, but no longer looking twice as dead as he is. After a minute he composes himself. Even with his clothes still askew and splattered with blood and dirt he suddenly looks as poised as it’s possible to get. As if nothing here can touch him.
“Now,” he says in his usual smooth timbre, “About that escape.” Reid looks at the door with a focus that probably means he’s listening for the leeches outside. Then with a single sharp move he tears the door off the hinges and steps outside.
By the time Geoffrey staggers up and to the now empty doorway, the leeches have heard the commotion and are surrounding Reid, who still looks unconcerned and untouchable. Geoffrey was right – there are two more here that he hadn’t seen before.
With the morbid fascination of a man watching a natural disaster Geoffrey looks at the leeches get closer to Reid. When the first of them darts in for an attack, everything freezes. Geoffrey feels his own blood slow in his veins for a second, two, three, before he sways against the doorway. The leeches fare much worse – before they can recover, the very ground under their feet moves, overflows with black shadows that wrap around them and then with a sickening crunch impale the leeches all as one.
The aftermath is rather anticlimactic – the tendrils rapidly fade away into nothingness and the leeches all collapse on the ground, very dead.
Reid looks back at him, his expression far too concerned for a man that just killed ten leeches with his mind and a bit of blood. The image of the monster overlaid with the image of the kindly doctor. It’s jarring. And the hunger is still there, lurking behind his eyes, the one part of Reid that doesn’t lie.
Geoffrey walks towards him.