Work Text:
The moon shines through the trees, casting everything with a red glow as Abolish cuts down monster after monster. The hordes of zombies and skeletons are like nothing he’s ever seen before, and he’s narrowly dodged being stabbed one too many times for comfort. He was trained in combat from a young age, but none of his training ever compared to the sheer amount of creatures attacking him now.
He dodges another arrow and drives his sword into a zombie, who turns to dust at the blow. While backing up to duck past an arrow, he trips on a root and falls backwards, landing hard on his back. He gasps in as much air as he can, when a zombie appears above him, groaning and slicing at him with its sword. Abolish’s eyes widen and he rolls to the side, though he doesn’t fully escape the sword, the sharp weapon slashing a deep cut on his side.
Abolish quickly gets to his feet and tries to ignore the pain radiating from the wound, immediately stabbing another zombie and pulling his sword out as the zombie disintegrates. He cuts the head off of a nearby skeleton before it can shoot another arrow at him, wincing as the action pulls at his fresh, bleeding wound. He can already feel the fabric of his undershirt sticking to his side, soaked through with blood.
Luckily, he notices that only two zombies and one skeleton remain. Abolish quickly kills them, trying to pretend the blood loss isn’t starting to affect him. He pants as he stands over the body of the last zombie, watching as it turns to dust. He resists the urge to sink to his knees, instead turning to stumble back to town, where he can wrap and clean his wound properly.
Abolish’s eyes widen as he feels an arrow thunk into his shoulder, and he gasps in pain. His unseen attacker, a skeleton hiding well in the trees, fires another shot at him, though he manages to dodge it. He approaches the skeleton, cutting its head off like he did all the others. Abolish sheathes his sword then glances down at the arrow in his shoulder, grimacing in pain. Even with the arrow embedded in his shoulder, which should be stopping the blood, he is bleeding a concerning amount, especially with the wound on his side being taken into account.
Abolish furrows his eyebrows as he suddenly gets extremely lightheaded and woozy in a way he’s never felt before, even from extreme blood loss. He stumbles, grabbing onto a tree with his uninjured arm to steady himself. His body starts to shake uncontrollably, shivers wracking his body even in the relatively warm night air, and the answer suddenly dawns on him. The arrow must have been coated in some kind of poison.
He hears someone approaching him from behind, but he doesn’t bother turning, not trusting his body to stay upright. The steps are light and barely audible, meaning it’s almost certainly a vampire, likely one of the less impulsive ones.
“Ah, Abolish. I wasn’t expecting to see any humans walking about during the blood moon, though I suppose I should never be surprised when it comes to you,” the vampire, whose voice he recognises to be Scott says. Abolish shakily turns to look at him, his hand weakly moving to rest on the hilt of his sword. His vision swims from the movement, and he sways, letting go of his sword to grab back on to the tree.
“Abolish?” Scott asks, approaching the human with an eyebrow raised. “What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk?”
Before Abolish can answer, Scott pauses, his red eyes darkening as he smells Abolish’s blood, both of his wounds still gushing the crimson liquid. The vampire’s eyes focus on Abolish’s shoulder, where the blood is more visible, along with the arrow still sticking out of him. In a flash, Scott is directly in front of him, though Abolish doesn’t react, too focused on staying upright and conscious.
“Hey, Scott,” he says weakly, before his knees buckle and he collapses. Scott quickly reaches out and catches him, holding him up against his chest.
“What happened?” Scott asks, more intrigued than concerned.
“Lotta monsters. Sword. Arrow,” Abolish mumbles, shakily resting his forehead against Scott’s collarbone, having no choice but to trust the vampire to keep him upright. Scott lets out a small noise of what might be concern at Abolish’s words, though he doesn’t understand why the vampire would feel that way. “M’fine, I just need to get home ‘n’ deal with my wounds.”
“Abolish, you’d be bleeding out on the ground if I wasn’t here. You can’t deal with anything right now. You’re coming with me to the castle,” Scott decides, scooping Abolish up into a bridal carry, ignoring Abolish’s weak protests.
He starts the short walk back to the castle, walking slower than he normally would due to the injured human in his arms, but still faster than any mortal could. Abolish doesn’t bother struggling, knowing it would just make him weaker. The mix of blood loss and whatever poison the arrow was coated in makes it hard for him to stay conscious, and he has to fight to keep his eyes open.
“Almost there, darling,” Scott murmurs as he begins to cross the bridge. Abolish mumbles something unintelligible back, reluctantly letting his head rest against Scott’s shoulder.
Scott kicks open the door to the castle, being careful to not jostle Abolish around too much. He walks inside, heading straight for the crypt, where Shelby insisted they put their bedrooms. Abolish keeps weakly fighting to stay conscious as his body tries to shut itself down. Halfway down the castle crypt staircase, Abolish loses that fight, and he passes out in Scott’s arms.
<><><>
While Scott doesn’t necessarily like Abolish, he can’t help but feel concerned as he feels the human go limp in his arms. His pale complexion rivals Scott’s own, which is impressive yet worrying, and the man’s breathing is much too shallow and weak. The vampire sighs and makes it to the bottom of the staircase, stepping into the massive crypt and heading towards his bedroom. He hates the idea of the human bleeding out on his silk sheets, but he hasn’t had time to set up a guest bedroom yet.
“Oh, hi, Scott! Was your hunt successful? Did you get a lot of blood and raw meat? Ooh, did you bring some back for me?” Shelby asks as she practically bounces out of her room, before stopping in shock as she sees Abolish, unconscious in Scott’s arms. “Scott! What did you do? Oh gods, the humans are going to be so mad! Wow, that’s a lot of blood.”
“I didn’t do this, I found him like this,” Scott corrects, walking past her to continue towards his room.
“Oh, that’s good. Well, it’s not good that he’s injured, but at least you weren’t the cause of it!” Shelby says, following Scott into his room. Scott carefully places Abolish on top of his bed, walking over to his desk to find his small amount of medical supplies. He pulls out some bandages, a needle, and surgical thread before walking back to the bed.
“Knowing the humans, they’ll find a way to blame me,” Scott replies with a chuckle. Shelby nods in agreement, staring down at Abolish.
“Why didn’t you just drop him off at Legs’ house?” She asks, poking Abolish’s chest curiously. Scott lightly bats her hand away, and she giggles.
“I don’t trust that man to deal with a paper-cut. He’d probably amputate the whole hand,” Scott answers, sitting down and grabbing Abolish, propping the unconscious man up against the headboard to give himself access to the wound. He unbuttons Abolish’s shirt and pulls it to the side, carefully slicing the fabric around the arrow with his claws. “Can you grab a towel and hold it against the wound on his side?”
Shelby nods, leaving the room and coming back seconds later with a towel. She sits opposite Scott, moving Abolish’s arm out of the way to press the towel to the slash on his side. Scott very carefully breaks the arrow’s shaft in half, dropping it on the floor beside him. He pulls Abolish forward slightly and quickly pushes the arrowhead through the human’s shoulder, trying to ignore the way Abolish whimpers in pain, even while unconscious. Scott watches hungrily for a moment as blood pours out of the wound, though he curls his lip in disgust as he smells something unpleasant in the man’s blood. His eyes widen as he recognises the smell of poison.
“Shit. There was poison on the arrow,” Scott says, properly noticing the way Abolish’s forehead is coated in sweat. He had thought the human’s pale complexion was solely because of the blood loss, but he can tell now that the poison is a very big factor. Shelby’s eyes widen as well, and she carefully presses the back of her hand to Abolish’s forehead.
“He’s burning up. We really should bring him to Legs, Scott,” she says nervously, continuing to keep the towel tightly pressed against Abolish’s side.
“I don’t think he’d survive the trip over there. He probably wouldn’t even survive long enough for us to bring the doctor back here. I recognise this poison, and it’s a bad one. It’s ancient, and to my knowledge, it hasn’t been used much since I was a fledgling. The doc probably won’t even know how to treat it,” Scott replies, moving to wrap bandages around Abolish’s shoulder, realising he should probably try to stop the blood before the man bleeds out.
Shelby lets out a noise of concern and looks up at Scott, though his gaze remains on Abolish. He finishes wrapping the wound and wipes his blood-covered hands on his cape before lightly brushing his fingers over one of Abolish’s cheeks, tucking a lock of hair behind the human’s ear. He hears just how laboured Abolish’s breathing is, and he pulls the man against his chest, taking the towel from Shelby to keep it against Abolish’s other wound. Abolish’s head lolls slightly, his forehead resting against Scott’s neck.
“He doesn’t have much longer,” Scott murmurs.
“What do we do? Wait for him to die?” Shelby asks softly.
“We have three choices. We let him die, we turn him, or we feed him my blood. My blood will heal him, but it has a large chance of making him my thrall, and knowing him, he would rather die than be a thrall, especially mine,” Scott responds, laughing bitterly. He reminds himself that he doesn’t care about the human. He should’ve just left him to bleed out in the forest.
“Then turn him. He might be mad, but he’s been searching for a cure, hasn’t he?” Shelby says, determination in her voice.
Abolish lets out another weak, pained whimper, burying his burning forehead further against Scott’s neck as he curls slightly into the vampire, shivering slightly.
“Do we really want him to be a vampire? As much as I hate to admit it, he’s the only capable human, the only one I believe could kill me. He would be much stronger as a vampire, and would likely become fully unstoppable,” Scott reminds Shelby.
“It’s worth the risk. I think the rest of the humans would blame us if he died, and would stop at nothing to get revenge,” Shelby responds quietly.
Scott nods softly and sighs. He shifts Abolish, letting go of the blood-soaked towel and leaning in, hesitating for a moment before biting down, sinking his fangs into the man’s neck. He can hear the already weak flutter of Abolish’s heart as he starts to drink, not bothering with his numbing venom, instead using only his turning venom. Abolish is already very low on blood, so Scott doesn’t drink much. He pulls away, slitting his wrist with one of his claws and putting the already bleeding wound to Abolish’s mouth. He watches as the man’s lips part slightly, letting Scott’s blood drip into his mouth and down his throat. Scott pulls his wrist away after a long moment, leaning Abolish fully against his chest again.
He listens as Abolish’s laboured breathing slows more and more, until it stops entirely. His weak heartbeat follows soon after, until Abolish is completely still against Scott.
“Did it work?” Shelby asks quietly, biting her lip in worry.
Scott nods softly in response, his arms wrapping around Abolish’s waist, holding the man against him.
“It will take a day or two for him to wake up. I’ll be with him the whole time, so I trust that you, Owen, and Pyro can survive in my absence and keep the humans away from the castle,” Scott explains. “I also expect one of you to bring me blood bottles or raw meat, seeing as I won’t be able to hunt for myself while I am by Abolish’s side.”
Shelby nods enthusiastically, standing up and heading towards the door.
“Shall I get the nest ready? I think it’s a bit messy from our last coven cuddle session.” Shelby asks with a grin. Scott can tell she’s excited to have a new coven member from the way she bounces around even more than usual, practically skipping instead of walking.
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Scott says with a soft chuckle. Shelby nods and skips out of the room, closing the door behind her. Scott settles back against the headboard, keeping Abolish against his chest.
It’ll be nice to have a new fledgling.
<><><>
Abolish wakes up hungry. Hungry in a way he never knew was possible. He tries to sit up, but gentle arms pull him back down, a soft voice speaking in his ear. Something is placed against his lips, and he instinctively parts them, the taste of blood entering his mouth. He tries to pull back out of shock, but a hand keeps his head in place. He swallows the blood, then drinks some more. And more. And more. He doesn’t stop until his head is lightly pulled away, and even then he protests, a whining noise he didn’t know he could make leaving his throat. He hears a soft chuckle and coo, and he’s pulled against a body. He instinctively cuddles up to the person holding him, nuzzling against their neck affectionately before stopping himself.
What is he doing? Abolish has never been this affectionate with anyone before, let alone with someone unknown. And yet, he knows this person is safe, and all he wants is to be as close as possible to them.
Sire, a small voice in the back of his mind seems to say, and he nuzzles against them again. Abolish didn’t know it was possible to feel so safe and content, like he could stay exactly where he is for eternity, and he would be happy. He chirps happily, then freezes in shock.
That’s not a noise humans can make. Only vampires chirp like that.
For a moment, Abolish lets himself believe that he just heard the noise wrong, that he’s still human. But he can’t fool himself. He knows the signs when he sees them. His bottomless hunger, the fact that he drank blood, his unnatural urge to be affectionate, and this person, his sire, the reason he feels so safe.
As reality comes crashing down on him like a wave, he remembers his last waking moments. He had been fighting to stay conscious as poison pumped through his body, blood pouring out of him from two separate wounds. Scott had found him and brought him to the castle, and after that, everything goes blank. He feels an unfamiliar warmth in his chest as he thinks about Scott, then he opens his eyes, pushing away from the person holding him, ignoring how badly he wants to stay close to them.
No, no, no, no, no. It can’t be Scott. Morcant’s going to stake him when he finds out he was turned by the last original member of the Goldsmith coven. He hears Scott say something, but he doesn’t process the words, starting to panic. Scott puts a gentle hand on his shoulder, though he quickly shoves it off, scrambling backwards as his breathing, which he knows is unnecessary, quickens.
“-olish,” Scott’s voice breaks through the panic for a moment, and all Abolish wants is to curl up in his sire’s arms, to let himself be held like his parents would hold him before they were killed. A quiet sob leaves him, and this time he doesn’t protest when he’s pulled against Scott’s chest. He buries his face in Scott’s shoulder, already starting to calm down just from the comforting embrace of his sire. Scott rubs his back soothingly and starts to purr. Abolish practically melts against him, a purr of his own rumbling from his chest.
He’s going to have to do so much paperwork after this is over.