Work Text:
Stephen pawed through book after book in the Sanctum library, a haphazard pile growing larger in the middle of the room as his agitation grew. Tears trickled down pale anguished cheeks and dripped to the floor where they fizzled like acid upon the hardwood floor. A pattern of smoking dots showed his frantic dash from shelf to shelf and book to book. Searching, searching for something, anything to help him in this time of need.
For he needed.
He needed that which his very soul loathed to draw.
He needed blood.
Fresh blood, for he was newly turned and already Wong was slack upon the floor, unconscious from blood loss. His newly improved hearing told him Wong yet lived. But with the fearsome lust growing in his bones Stephen could not say for how much longer. Books slammed irreverently to the ground in great booms that hardly blocked the soft thumps of the heart beating so close. He roared at the books, rage and anguish mixing in a heart wrenching sound that echoed about the tall chamber and reached for more.
In his haste a page tore at him in anger for his mistreatment and he shoved the wounded finger into his mouth as he threw the book down.
And he stopped.
His own blood coated his tongue and it was pale compared to Wong’s, if blood could be pastel that was how it compared to the richness of Wong’s on his taste buds. But even still, he could feel his body thrill at blood being spilled. It did not care that it was his own. The small wound stopped bleeding and Stephen pulled it out of his mouth to gaze upon his trembling hands until the clock struck in the hall and he jumped.
He turned, and read the clock, nearly dawn. His lack of pulse seemed shrill and his breath ceased. With the final strike of four he tore through the dark halls, bright as day to his new sight, and slid through the doorway of his room. He slammed the door shut and cast every lock and shield he could think upon the slab of oak. He sobbed an unneeded breath and walked back until his bed tapped his legs but did not sit.
Instead he turned and went to his attached bath and clumsily bat at the handles until the shower kicked on. He didn’t bother to check the temperature or to undress, the Cloak leaping from his shoulders as the first drops struck them. He sat beneath the spray, icy cold as his heart was becoming, and contemplated his hands. Undoing the complicated bracers on first one and then the other. He determined the left to be less scarred and brought his arm up, palm facing away, and sunk in his teeth. Blood trickled over his tongue and his eyes closed, tears again welling up in his eyes.
He drank slowly; his tears falling endlessly to burn away at his clothes and then his skin. On and on the blood circled through him, never quite enough to soothe the beast growing within him, but enough to keep him there with his thoughts.
His thoughts spiraled through the knowledge he was no longer human,
no longer pure of heart,
no longer worthy of his rank.
Of his title.
He was no doctor now.
Only a monster.