Chapter Text
It’s been a while since Phil has had a proper feeding.
It hadn’t been a problem when he’d left the manor, citing the need for fresh air to Techno when he’d pulled on his travelling attire. The power ingrained in him from being a sire allows him to hold off on feeding every day, making him more tolerable of the hunger and prolonging his need to have blood. A trip to the nearby village had seemed adequate – he does love communicating with the humans. They amuse him in the way that little does for an immortal.
The thought of a hunt had floated across his mind but ultimately, Phil had decided to wait. Should hunger overwhelm him, he knew he could find a human on the way out of the village and drink until his veins turned red again. There was no need to be hasty.
Phil regrets that decision now.
The chains binding his hands in front of him are silver. Phil knows that even before he’s truly conscious. A headache pinches at his temples, ringing maliciously through his skull. It drags him up through the shroud of black plaguing him, pulling him to awakeness.
The pain triples once he’s awake. Blinking open his eyes, Phil is surprised by the sticky sensation of blood clinging to his eyelashes, his forehead. Even half-awake, he’s able to attribute the headache to perhaps more than being near silver – to perhaps being the strike to the temple that had got him taken.
“Ah,” he rasps aloud. “Shit.”
A small gasp rings out beside him, and Phil jerks his head to the side. The room wobbles dangerously in his vision as he goes, a tiny wince escaping him. But he’s able to get his gaze locked uneasily on his captor, and–
A child.
A child kneels in front of Phil, blue eyes wide and fearful pupils wider. Sharply-chiseled cheekbones carve out a hollow face, pale and youthful. Wheat blond hair falls in loose curls over his striking, cornflower eyes, seeming not very maintained.
None of this kid seems very maintained at all, actually. He must be starving, Phil can tell that much just from the harsh tautness of his pale skin over his bones. Dirt and bruises speckle his body in equal measure, only drawing out his youth further.
Most of all, the boy is human. Utterly, plainly human. Phil can hear his warm heartbeat pattering quickly between malnourished ribs. Fear consumes his entire being. Perhaps he hadn’t expected Phil to be awake so soon.
He’s crouched in front of him with a damp rag, arm extended toward Phil’s face, now frozen. Red spots the rag, and upon seeing it, Phil’s mind recalls the gritty sensation of a damp cloth being dragged over his face, just before he’d awoken. The boy had been wiping the blood away, but upon seeing him conscious, the boy retracts his hand with a feral sort of terror, cradling the rag against his chest.
Phil blinks slowly, total awareness still playing keep-away from him.
“Hello,” he manages to greet.
Thirst tugs at his throat, twisting. His eyes drift down to the pale valley of the boy’s throat, where life and terror pulse alike. Such fragile skin, humans have. So easily broken. It wouldn’t be hard at all to–
Phil shoves the flood of instincts down, a motion that doesn’t come as easily to him as normal. He can feel the earliest signs of blood starvation reaching long, insistent fingers into his stomach.
It won’t be long until the hunger turns to weakness, turns to pain, turns to…
“Hi,” croaks the boy, clearly confused. Then, jarring Phil, “Don’t– don’t fucking try anything.”
When Phil blinks – slow and drowsy – the boy’s face has changed. Every bit of that fear has been shuddered away, crumpled and replaced with a shaking mask of determination. Youthful features screw up into an attempt at bravery so frail that Phil feels pity, not fear, strike into his undead heart.
“I won’t,” Phil says, still confused.
Could this be the one who had taken him? A fledgling? Surely not–
“I’m not a fucking fledgling,” the boy spits, and if Phil were any less of a vampire, he’d jump. Rage simmers dangerously across the boy’s expression, blue fire. “I’m not one of you, I’m not, I’m not–”
Phil raises his hands in surrender, hardly wincing as his cuffs slip down his wrists, flaying at the yet-unscathed bits of skin. Pain rolls through him in a dull wave. How long has it been since he’s been touched with real, proper silver?
Too long. His skin weeps the contact.
“Okay,” he acquiesces instantly. “My apologies.”
The boy seems to appreciate his faux-pleasantries even less. But he loses the ragged indignation, trading it for a clenched jaw and tights fists. Still knelt, it only makes him look younger.
What in the world is going on? Phil wonders, too sapped to voice the total force of his disbelief. For a moment, silence falls tensely over them. Phil takes the opportunity to try to get his senses back into shape. The drowsiness of the creeping starvation doesn’t help.
Belatedly, Phil sweeps his gaze around the room. The hut he has been dragged to is nothing short of decrepit, worn down by time and decay. The floorboards beneath him are damp and hard and streaked with mud, no doubt dirtying his rich green robes. Boarded up windows keep most of the place shrouded in half-darkness, but even without his darkvision, a flickering lantern in the corner lets him make out a few hazy shapes of furniture.
A worn sofa, a bedroll, a large lump of dirty blankets, a crossbow sat next to a wooden stake.
“Hey,” the boy half-shouts, when Phil’s gaze lingers too long on the wooden stake. He’s shaking as he shuffles sideways – still on his knees – blocking Phil’s sight of the stake and the pile of blankets behind it. “Eyes on me, bloodsucker.”
Phil can’t help but cough out a breathy laugh. “You’re a demanding child.”
The boy’s jaw ticks, and he says nothing. Shoulders squared and chin tilted up, he is so tense he could be made out of matchsticks. Phil wonders how strong of a breeze it would take to knock him and all his jagged edges over.
Phil shifts, tries again. Something about the boy in front of him, the way his eyes keep trying to flicker behind him, as if Phil hasn’t already seen the stake, turns the air sharp. Something is weird here. Phil, even for all the power he is made of, does not understand it. Not yet.
“Where is your keeper?” he asks.
He needs to get to the bottom of this mess, and soon. Solve it before it gets worse for him. Skipping a few meals leaves him far weaker than he’d prefer, and the faster he can dissect the situation, the better. Hopefully Techno will have begun looking for him.
The presence of silver severing their mental link should be sign enough of danger – not that Phil is even sure that the boy who confronts him is particularly dangerous.
The boy’s face twists up. Phil studies him carefully, considering his own words. Do humans have keepers? Surely fledglings– children, especially as young as this one– do. And anyway, the child could not have taken him alone. He’s so small.
“Don’t have one,” the boy grunts out. A weight settles in Phil’s stomach. The boy sets his jaw again. “Just got my brother.”
He puffs up his chest as he says it, a combination of what might be pride and love flickering over him. It’s strong enough to break past his fear, then his facade of intimidation.
“Was he the one who captured me?”
He can’t help but ask it, and that’s partly because he can’t fathom another option. Besides the fact that the boy’s stature is so helpless it has dismantled Phil’s guards, the cuffs binding him to a steel hook in the floor are on par with hunters’ equipment.
Pure silver is anything but common, and it’s also expensive.
But–
“No,” the boy retorts immediately. “That was me, bitch.”
Phil blinks. Specks of dried, near-black blood flake off of his eyelashes, speckling his cheeks. It doesn't bother him. He can’t– he can’t have heard this right. Surely.
Phil thinks he’s doing a decent job at masking his expression until the boy laughs.
“Yeah, you guys think you’re all big and tough, huh? You think you can go around hurting people and breaking shit and– and eating people, but no, you’re– you’re not tough shit. I’m tough shit because I beat you. You hurt me but I beat you.”
The boy trails off into a breathy laugh as he finishes the rant. His shoulders shake, the motion tinged with what might be a splash of delirium, and it draws Phil’s eyes towards a leather cord strung around his neck, reeking of magic and arcana and things that make the monster in his chest want to scream.
Repressed memories flicker to the forefront of his brain. Flashes of an alley, tucked between two village cottages.
Blood had scented the air, fresh and sweet and delightful. He’d landed, wings tucked away, cradled by oblivion until he called on them again–
Pain had struck him before his feet had touched the ground. Metal stung his mouth, and burnt sugar scented the air. Magic. Charms. Some sort of ward. A trap.
Something silver glanced off his skull, pain like an avalanche descending over it, then– nothing. And now, this.
For the first time since he’d awakened, danger prods at him. It would do him good to not underestimate the boy in front of him, as malnourished as he may be. Fear bleeds off of him in waves, and with it, a feral sort of desperation. The type that turns a saint into a weapon.
You hurt me, the boy had said, but Phil hadn’t. He’s always had a soft spot for children, and he’d never lay a fang on them. Phil hadn’t even seen this child before he’d been taken down, yet he’d somehow incited a grudge? Could that be it?
The mess thickens. Phil is too tired for this.
Phil runs his tongue over dry lips, letting his fangs poke out of his sore mouth. Now that he’s remembered the magic, phantom traces of pain cling stubbornly to him.
“Well then,” he remarks dully, feeling his pupils dilate. He strings knives into his next words. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
It’s a much simpler question than what he wants to ask. Questions like, Do you have any idea of what you have done? The weight of your sin? Do you realize who I am? Ambassador of darkness, prince of Death?
(He doesn’t stop to address the embarrassment that tries to cling to that train of thought. Prince of Death he may be, but he’d managed to be subdued entirely by a fledgeling. A fledgeling with strange access to vampire hunting equipment, but a young one nonetheless.
And oh, Christ. Techno is never going to let him live this down. The thought almost makes Phil dread the inevitable rescue.)
The boy hesitates to answer, and frustration flares in Phil’s chest. He huffs out an exhausted breath, almost relishing in the way that the small noise sends the boy’s heart rate swooping up.
But, before the boy can answer him, or Phil can shoot him another impatient remark, a low groan sounds from behind him.
The boy stiffens, head jerking over his shoulder. Phil follows his frantic gaze, back towards the bedroll, the pile of blankets–
The pile of blankets that is now moving. The pile of blankets that is not just blankets.
Eyes widening, Phil can only watch as the dirty lump shifts, another weak groan sounding through the air. It ignites a chill across his already-icy skin, and he narrows his eyes shifting forward–
Phil hardly has a chance to get a good look before the boy is whipping to his feet, streaking towards the lump immediately. As he does, a pale arm snakes through the blankets, flopping onto the cool ground. The blanket shifts, rolls, and the boy drops to his bruised knees again, panic inscribed in every sharp angle of his posture.
“Wil,” the boy breathes, and Phil sinks back against the wall as a feverish face appears through the tangle of blankets. The boy hovers incessantly over it, chin trembling. “Wil, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
He leans down quickly, easing the new boy’s head onto his lap. A head of brown curls – like the boy’s, only much darker – cushion a hollow face. Dark circles turn his under eyes skeletal, shadowy and violet. His eyes are half-open, rolling hazily in their sockets.
Phil inhales sharply. This isn’t the first time he’s seen death like this, death like a fever, a sickness. He is beginning to understand the chains that bind him.
“Tommy,” mumbles the much-older boy through dry, cracked lips. He attempts to lift his face towards the boy, Tommy, but he loses energy just as quickly and sags against the ground and the knobbly knees cradling his head. Pain creases his expression, another jagged breath leaving him, slipping into a whimper. “Tommy.”
Wil’s hand crawls out, feeling around. His fingertips only find dirt before Tommy leans forward, scooping his hand up and squeezing it.
“I’m right here,” Tommy whispers, taking his other hand and stroking it over sweat-dampened curls. “Can you hear me, Wil?” A chilling silence. “Wilbur?”
If Phil thought he had been facing terror before, it’s nothing compared to now. In that second before Wilbur groans again, Tommy is ruination. He’s shaking, a self-contained earthquake, and he’s squeezing Wilbur’s hand like he’s trying to transfer his own life into it.
Phil, for the first time in centuries, feels strangely sick.
“I can hear you,” he eventually sighs out, as his eyes begin to roll up again. “You’re okay?”
Tommy sniffles. “I’m– I’m okay.” Face wavering, “You protected me, remember?”
Wilbur’s face smooths out, calm in everything but the fever that rages across his skin. “Mm, good. That’s good.”
Tommy hesitates, looking like he’s about to argue, but whatever fire that tries to spark up there is quickly extinguished. He just nods, and helps Wilbur’s head off his lap and back onto the mess of pillows. Wilbur doesn’t seem too happy about that, half-conscious as he is, but his eyes shut. He sinks back into sleep, and the tremors wracking Tommy never stop as he watches.
Phil waits for the silence to grow comfortable. Lips pursed, breaking this moment feels unfathomable. He bides his time, watching until he’s sure that the fever addling the older boy has put him soundly to sleep.
Only then does he speak.
“That seems like an awful sickness,” he remarks quietly from his forceful perch in the corner, and Tommy whips his head over to him.
Wetness shines under his eyes, pearlescent and angry. His tiny chests heaves, full of an unspeakable fury much bigger than it. He shakes his head vehemently, hair whipping wildly around his face
“Don’t– don’t say that. It’s not sickness, it’s– look. Look, it’s this.”
He shoves the blankets down away from Wilbur’s shoulders, instantly drawing a violent shiver out of the boy. But it shows Phil what he needs to see: bandages wrapping Wilbur’s shoulder, encompassing his collarbone, creeping towards his throat. Bandages that are yellowing on the edges and stained with thick, damning crimson in the middle.
His heart hasn’t finished dropping before Tommy is speaking again.
“He got hurt,” Tommy confesses brokenly, eyes shining. He angrily swipes the side of his hand across his cheek, but Phil has already seen the tears. “They hurt him, and– and I can’t fix it.”
Then, a wild spark lighting in his eyes, he lunges towards Phil. He is violent in how imploring he is, a plea shattered across his face, begging Phil, begging him to fix this.
“Your blood can heal, right?”
Oh, he thinks, all of the anger from before shattering in an instant. This is so much less than he’d thought – and because of that, it is so much more.
“You can fix him,” Tommy sniffles, not wiping the tears that streak down his face now. Phil wonders if he even feels them. “That’s what everyone says. Vampire blood is magic.”
“Little one,” Phil begins softly, straining forward in his chains. He doesn’t have a heartbeat, but pity pangs so strongly inside of him that it feels like one. “It doesn’t always work like that.”
Tommy’s expression shatters. Phil winces away from the glass shards it leaves behind.
“Please,” Tommy begs, getting as close as he dares, still terrified of him even as he needs him desperately. He curls and uncurls his hands into fists, like he’s stopping himself from reaching out, or pulling at the end of Phil’s cloak. “He’s my brother.” Impossibly more broken, “He’s all I have.”
Phil shifts close, as close as he can with the chains still binding him, and as close as he can without scaring the boy off. But even as Tommy’s breath hitches, he doesn’t shy away. His pupils are the size of olives, dark and blown between two celestial rings.
He stares Phil down with dread and power enough to make a weaker vampire cower. Phil finds that it only ignites something in his chest, something soft like velvet, something that wants to reach out and cradle the fledgling in his arms – both of them – and whisper away all the bad things carving through them.
But he can’t, because this human would never trust him, not as much as he trusts the usefulness of Phil’s blood, and Phil can’t ask for more than that, because Phil can’t even give as much back.
“I can try,” he finally offers, and Tommy’s face crumples.
It’s a graceful collapse this time. The barest pinpricks of hope, of relief. It cuts Phil open in a way that only silver and stakes can typically achieve.
“Thank you,” Tommy whispers, hanging his head. His hands, shaking, are tucked in his lap, like an imitation of prayer. “Thank you, thank you.”
Phil only nods, stiff and sore and still drowsy, but willing to try.
Phil never could have imagined holding so much pity for someone holding him captive. But it’s undoubtedly pity that threatens to push out of him now, flowing where his blood used to, beating where his heart doesn’t.
He thinks of a brother’s love, of love so strong like this, so strong it fills Tommy up and overflows out of him, and finds that it makes sense, now, that Tommy was able to level Death. This is his brother. Phil was merely a blink in Tommy’s eyes, a desperate bargain, a pawn to be moved.
There is a strand of pride in his chest, begging to be heard. A reputation of bloodlust developed over a millennia. A danger sharpened throughout all of his immortal life, pounded out like hot metal over a blacksmith’s forge.
This is a grave insult, a dehumanizing sin. This demands retribution, and Phil’s particular brand of retribution is typically colored red.
Phil gives all of it up thoughtlessly.
Take your time, Techno, he casts into the emptiness of his mind, where the silver has severed their immortal link. Give me a chance to fix this.
–
It takes a millenia to get Tommy to obey his gentle directions.
He’s clever, Phil knows that instantly. So clever for his age. He dances around Phil’s words, hedging and refusing to take or give too much.
But he’s sluggish, drifting between states of desperate concentration and total vacancy almost as much as the feverish pile of limbs he frets over. Phil, even a man with immortal impatience, finds himself growing short.
“Tommy,” he directs quickly, as blood flows down his arm in thick red rivulets, torn from the back of it by his own fangs. “The cup.”
Tommy blinks, swaying in place before pushing the cup into his hands. He retracts his fingers so fast that Phil almost drops the tin cup, but he manages to get an uneasy grip on it. It’s awkward, maneuvering the cup to catch the blood when his hands are bound, but he manages.
By the time his wounds are ushered shut by his undead body, the cup is half full. It should be enough to pull Wilbur away from the brink. It’s also enough to exhaust Phil further.
He sets the tin on the ground, then sags against the wall. Hunger pulses in his stomach, growing more insistent by the hour. He doesn’t know how long he can last like this. Blood starvation is as merciless as the rip of his fangs against warm skin.
Tommy is watching him, eyes two bright specks in the dark. The windows of the hut have been boarded up, but it’s clear that night has descended over the sky. Shadows cling more harshly to the corners of the room, fall like spills of ink across their dark silhouettes.
Even then, Phil can see how mesmerized Tommy is by the sight of this gory mercy. He won’t tear his eyes away from the crimson glimmering against Phil’s ivory skin, lips parted in something like disgust and reverence.
“Take it,” Phil murmurs, eyes half-lidded.
It’s clear the fledgeling has fallen back into his own head. But upon hearing Phil speak, Tommy jerks, eyeing him warily. He swipes his tongue across his dry lips, eyes lasered onto the cup.
“Push it over to me,” he demands.
Phil shifts. “What?”
“I don’t trust you not to fuckin’ grab me,” Tommy informs him curtly, and oh, Lord. “Move it closer.”
Phil narrows a slitted gaze at him, unimpressed. He’s too tired to keep the anger away this time. “My hands are bound. I can’t move it any closer.”
I’m helping you, he wants to snap. Haven’t I proven my grace?
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t.
Tommy crosses his arms, shifting on his knees. Phil knows, somehow before he’s even said a word, that the answer he gets will not be the one he wants.
“Push. It. Over.” A breath, “Bitch.”
Irritation squeezes a fist around his heart. It eases as Phil exhales.
“Little one,” Phil sighs, constraining his words, stretching them taut like a leash. “You’re not being rational.”
Tommy looks utterly affronted.
“Don’t use big words,” Tommy snipes at him, crawling forward a few cautious inches and stopping. “And stop fucking calling me that.”
Phil tilts his head, eyes glinting in the near dark. He wonders if Tommy can see the swirling crimson of his irises.
“What should I call you?”
He knows Tommy’s name, now, but it’s always polite to offer a choice. It’s respect that is probably inappropriate considering… everything, everything from the chains to Phil’s current status as hostage, but he’s nothing if not polite.
Tommy continues to deplore his courtesies.
“Big Man,” Tommy answers instantly, and Phil’s lips twitch. The fledgeling’s bravado is admirable. “Big Massive Man.” His eyes glint challengingly, and he shuffles forward. Phil’s eyebrows twitch up towards his hairline as he watches. “Supreme human.”
Another dig, then. It rolls right over Phil – too used to Techno’s antics. He vaguely wonders if the two of them would get along. He thinks, in an uncanny way, that they would.
“It’s alright,” Phil counters loftily. “No need to tell me. I can just refer to you as child.”
Tommy’s face screws up. He shuffles forward again.
“Don’t do that,” he protests, moving closer, closer. “Call me– just call me Tommy, or whatever. Not like it fuckin’ matters.”
It matters to Phil, but he doesn’t voice that. The game unspooling in his head, the one he is slowly sinking into, requires more caution than that. He needs to be careful if he wants to begin addressing all the wrong here.
“You can call me Phil,” he offers.
“I don’t care.”
Tommy is right in front of him now, knobbly knees almost brushing the tin, blood-filled cup. Phil glances down, drawing Tommy’s eyes with his own.
“Look,” he murmurs, a tiny smile slicing his lips, fangs poking through. “You made it.”
Tommy blinks, realizing himself, the distance he’d breach. It’s almost endearing, how the fledgeling can hold so much aggression and yet so much fear for the thing he’d detained. His throat bobs as he swallows hard, before snatching the cup and scampering back.
Phil snorts, sinking back against the wall.
Tommy makes it halfway to his brother before turning. “What do I do with this?”
He doesn’t offer Phil any sign of gratitude, and Phil doesn’t expect him to. Tommy at least seems somewhat aware of what he’d done, what it means. Or maybe he’s just too focused on his brother. That strikes another bolt of something warm into Phil’s chest.
“Help him drink it,” he instructs. “That should help.”
Tommy abandons his distrust for desperation. He sinks to his knees beside his brother, and gets the metal cup to his half-parted lips. Phil can’t see his face, can only see the sharp slope of his too-skinny back, but he imagines the expression he wears isn’t a pleasant one.
Tommy pulls the cup away, sets it aside. He looks over his shoulder, like he’s casting for approval. Phil nods once, face closed off. His blood should buy the older boy some time. At full strength, the healing properties might be stronger, but there is nothing to do about that now. Nothing but wait.
Tommy lets out a shuddering sigh when it’s done. He looks, once again, remarkably close to uttering a thanks before he remembers himself. He licks his lips awkwardly and looks down, still shaking.
Phil sighs and resolves to try and gather his strength, fend off the blood starvation as long as he can. The silver binding him doesn’t help guide him to any sort of peace, but if he ignores it long enough, it might. He’s been around for a millennia, which means he’s been through worse.
“Goodnight,” he murmurs, letting his eyes slip shut.
“Can vampires sleep?”
Phil opens his eyes once more.
Tommy, still huddled by his brother, is peering at him. Seeming to have almost forgotten the situation, he is made of childlike curiosity. Phil can’t help but indulge it.
“We can doze,” Phil answers after a moment. “It’s more of a reflex, than anything.” He hefts a tired laugh, lifting his chained hands as much as he is able. “Easier without these, I suppose.”
Tommy’s eyes slide down to his wrists, and he stiffens, throat bobbing. Guilt creeps like acid across his face, but Tommy says nothing, any lingering curiosity flattened by the weight of the emotion. He merely nods, looking just as tired as Phil, and stretches across the cold floorboards.
Wilbur is still asleep but perhaps more relaxed, breaths coming a fraction easier. Tommy carefully crawls into the blankets with him, curling up at his brother’s back.
Like this, he looks smaller than ever. Techno would certainly disapprove of how badly Phil wants to help them in this moment. The heart he doesn’t quite have anymore yearns. Patience soothes the cry of it.
Something will give soon, he’s sure. Once he’s outgrown his use, perhaps he can take a fledgeling so desperate to protect his brother that he’d capture a vampire for it and make sure he never has to again.
Or maybe that is wishful thinking. Immortality has made Phil quite prone to that.