Work Text:
Avid was alone in the hideout. Marm was off on a hunt, and he was back here, repairing some gear that had gotten damaged a few weeks ago, carefully sewing up the leather of the glove that had almost gotten torn by the last vampire she had fought.
He heard the door of the hideout pushed open behind him. “Marm, you’re back! How was-”
He cut off as he saw her. His eyes widened, and his heart dropped.
He had never seen her this unsteady on her feet. Even worse was the clearly injured hand she was cradling as she stepped in, blood dripping through her fingertips and onto the ground.
His mind started racing as he felt the panic rising in his chest. “Oh no. No no no. Please don’t tell me- here. I’ll get you a chair, sit down, I-” He moved around the room in a panic. It didn’t have to be a vampire bite. They went for the neck, not the hand, it was just a scratch, or the swipe of a claw, or - he didn’t know what to think. He had to rationalize it. It couldn’t be a bite.
He couldn’t lose her.
He pulled a chair nearby, guiding Marm over to sit in it. She looked up at him. He refused to look her in the eye. He already knew what he would see. Sadness. Regret. Acceptance.
He wasn’t ready for acceptance yet. He could still fight this.
He grabbed a nearby flask. “Here. Let a little bit of the blood drip into this, I can test it or- or something. It’ll be fine, everything will be ok. Here.” He set the flask back down and reached up, pulling the scarf from around his neck to wrap it around her bleeding hand.
He turned, grabbing the flask and the blood within, carrying it across the room to his alchemy equipment. He could test it, make sure it wasn’t…infected, or however vampires worked. Or if nothing else, he probably had time, he could find a way to fix this! He set the vial and its scarlet contents on a nearby stand. He started rummaging in a nearby drawer. He could do a few different tests, garlic or silver shavings or holy water. If the blood reacted, it was vampiric, but that didn’t mean anything, it didn’t have to mean that-
“Avid.” Her voice was quiet, but the hideout was small enough that it didn’t matter. He kept working. “Avid. Avid, look at me.”
He turned to look at her across the room, and finally met her eyes. He felt the tears start to prickle at his own. She smiled sadly at him. “You know what has to happen.”
“No. No, absolutely not. We can…I can keep you alive somehow. Cure you, or, or, keep you from hurting anyone, or-”
“Avid. Use that brain of yours. There’s only one cure for vampirism and you know it.” She stood to walk across the room. She drew a stake, one of the ones he had made for her, cross-shaped and jagged, from the sheath on her thigh. She held it out to him.
“No, I- I can’t. I can’t do that, Marm, I-”
“You have to.” She grabbed his hand and pressed the stake into it. “I need you to do it. You’re the only person I can trust to do it correctly.”
“Marm, I can’t kill you.” Avid whispered it. “What will I do without you?”
“You’ll do the same thing you’ve always done. You’ll find a way forward.”
Suddenly, she bent over, groaning in pain. Avid grabbed her arm, holding her up. “Marm? Marm. Marm what’s wrong.”
She looked up at him, panic and determination in equal measures flashing across her face. “Avid, you have to promise me. Whatever happens, you have to stake me. You have to make sure I don’t hurt anyone. You have to make sure I don’t hurt you.”
“Marm, I-”
“Promise me!”
Tears started rolling down his face. “Ok. I promise.”
Marm smiled at him. “Good.” She straightened up, pulling off the armor plate that usually protected her heart, and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “You were the best partner I could have asked for. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
Avid could barely speak. Tears were running down his face freely, at this point, and he could barely see the tears rolling across hers. He positioned the stake over her heart.
“I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes and pushed the stake forward to plunge into her heart. He felt the resistance of cloth and flesh for just a moment, but both of them were practiced. They both knew where he needed to stab. He felt the blood flow out of her heart and coat his hands, and he let go of the stake. He heard the sound of her body hitting the floor.
He finally, slowly, opened his eyes back up to see the corpse lying on the floor before him. Marm was dead. And he had been the one to kill her.
He sank to his knees, hands held helplessly before him, still drenched in her blood. He could feel another streak of blood on his cheekbone, where she had placed her hand against his face.
That was all there was now. Blood. It all came back to blood. The target of a vampire’s hunt. The thing that kept a human body alive. The substance that now coated his hands, the floor, Marm’s coat, his face, the stake still buried in her chest-
He felt hollow. He pushed himself up to his feet. Marm was gone. What could he do now?
He steeled his resolve. He knew what he had to do. A vampire had taken her away from him. A vampire had forced him to kill the most important person in his life.
So he’d do the thing she had been best at. He’d hunt vampires.
After all.
He had nothing left to lose.