Work Text:
“I told you doctor, I don’t want your help.” Owen didn’t need to look to know that Legs was near. It was something he had become sensitive to, the presence of others, the feeling of being gaulked at. There was a difference in the sounds of the footsteps of those who would be repulsed by him silently, and those who came holding rocks.
Though Owen was still unsure as to which of the two the doctor was.
He was different, certainly, from the doctors Owen had known. A sense of strange uncertainty about him, like he didn’t belong in a way that Owen couldn’t quite place. And Owen had very deep and personal experience with things that didn’t belong.
He was similar in all the ways that mattered. That look in his eyes, that belief that he out of anyone else had the cure for Owen’s sickness. Staring Owen down like he was some experiment to be studied, just another specimen that needed convincing to be put under the knife. Because certainly this new cream, this new procedure, surely this time this will work. Legs thought he had all the answers too.
But the doctors Owen had had the misfortune of knowing, they had worn white.
This doctor wore black.
He had said it was because he was traveling, and white was so much harder to keep looking clean on the road. But something about that excuse didn’t sit right with Owen. Then again, very few things did.
Very few things besides him.
How long had it been? A month? Less? And still every time he closed his eyes he could see the fire… No. Owen couldn’t think about that. Not right now. He couldn’t cry in front of the doctor.
“I know you think you’ve tried everything, but I promise you, I have a cure.” Legs came into Owen’s field of view. There was a bittersweet smile on his face, compassion. Owen had always hated when people looked at him that way, like he was broken. And the one person who didn’t…
Owen tightened his grip on his axe. The pain was grounding at the very least, the screaming of his blistered skin. “The amount of times I’ve heard those very words…” He sighed, returning his focus back to the tree in front of him, an old pine, now half felled.
Legs came closer. Too close. He was a doctor, surely he knew better than to get too close, than to risk contagion. Because surely this pain must be contagious because if it wasn’t then… “Can you not at least give me a chance?”
There was something else in that expression now, something off settling between his brows. It wasn’t pitty, no, it was… certainty?
“At least let me take a look? Offer you some clean bandages? Those are looking more ragged by the day.” Legs reached for Owen’s wrist.
Owen snatched his hand away. “Don’t touch me.” His words writhed with venom. No one touched him. No one but Louis.
What had they done with his body? After they wrenched Owen from his ashen corpse? After they forced him away again? Their pitch forks and torches turned against he whom they had claimed to save? Owen could only hope they had the decency to bury him.
Decency. As if they had ever shown him any.
Don’t think about it. Don’t let the doctor see his pain.
“You can’t be cured if you don’t let me help.” Legs didn’t back off, he only stepped closer. Now they were less than an axe length away.
Owen took a step back and raised his axe, not quite preparing to swing but still the threat was there. Legs did not seem threatened. “I don’t want to be cured. I’m already fine.”
Ever since Owen happened upon these ruins the doctor had been adamant he could help him, but this was by far the most aggressive he had been with his attempts. That was the word for it, aggressive. Like this was a fight to win.
“No, you’re not.” Legs stepped closer again. “Let me help you.”
Somehow, the word help was starting to feel like a threat. Maybe it always had been. That concerned smile turned frightening.
Owen twisted. His grip on his axe was painfully tight, he could feel his skin peeling beneath the bandages. His breath quickened, hands shaking. It was from the pain, not fear. It wasn’t fear. Owen had long given up being afraid of the stones and he certainly wasn’t afraid of some delusional doctor.
But there was something in the way he moved. Something… unnatural.
“No.” Owen nearly growled. Now his axe was ready to swing, to slice into Legs’ side, fell him like all those trees.
“You don’t have to live in pain.” Legs didn’t even react to the weapon. “There is a better way to live, free from it all.”
Legs reached again for Owen’s wrist.
Owen swung.
The blade of his axe bit deep into Leg’s side, nearly slicing him in two. Legs froze for a moment, then stumbled. He looked down at the axe, his gaze following its handle to Owen’s hands and then upwards to meet Owen’s eyes.
Owen too had frozen. How had Legs not collapsed? How was he not crying out in pain? How was he not already dead? And the blood, the blood that was leaking from the wound, leaking, not gushing as it should have been, was a shade too dark and a little too thick.
“That was quite rude of you.” Legs spoke as though Owen had simply stepped on his foot and forgot to apologize. “Do you mind…?” His gaze drifted back to the axe blade, the near entirety of which was embedded in his side.
Owen couldn’t move. Owen couldn’t think. Everything in his mind was screaming that something was deeply, deeply wrong. A long, thick pause, and Owen managed to blink sense back into his limbs. “H-How are you…?”
Legs smiled. Truly smiled. And for the first time Owen could see his teeth. Fangs. “I told you, I am a very good doctor.” He pushed Owen’s axe out effortlessly, and only when Owen stumbled did he realize that support had been the thing keeping him standing. “And death itself is a kind of disease, wouldn’t you agree?” Blood leaked from the now open wound, but it quickly disappeared into the dark fabric of his clothing.
“One, true, cure.” Legs took a step forward, and Owen took a step back. The shock was fading into the background now, overtaken by crimson reality and the pounding of his own heartbeat and the part of him that had always known better screaming out danger. The forest around them was dense and night was already threatening to fall.
Legs must have noticed, somehow, in his eyes or the speed of his breath, Owen’s fear. His expression softened, but still Owen could see his teeth and still they were so sharp. “I’m not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to help you.” He extended an open hand towards him, an invitation.
Owen glanced behind him. If he ran, could he get back to town quickly enough? And if he got back, would the others believe him? Would they believe the doctor they all trusted was… was… What, exactly? One word forced itself to the forefront of Owen’s mind, but he refused to acknowledge it. It was all fantasy. That same false magic that was the reason that pyre had been lit. Just stupid stories that gave the wrong people too much power and…
A children’s fable stood here, in front of him, hand extended in offering.
“It can take away all your pain. Those rashes and lesions and boils and whatever else it is you hide beneath those dreadful bandages. It can cure you.” Legs stretched his hand out further and Owen was too far into his own mind to notice before Legs’ hand wrapped around Owen’s wrist. His grip tightened, Owen’s raw skin burning. He tried to pull away but Legs was stronger, each tug only rubbing against his skin more.
“I don’t want your help! I’m perfectly fine as I am.” Owen spoke those words with as much certainty as he could muster, but still something in the back of his mind wavered. Still, there was the question. Still there was the chance. Did he want it? Whatever this was? If it took away the pain?
And Legs was so close and Legs wasn’t afraid to touch him and Legs wasn’t afraid. And somehow that made it even worse. “No, you’re not. And you know it.” Owen’s gaze darted back to the axe wound in Legs’ side, already it was beginning to heal. Legs had a hold of his good hand but if Owen could slip the axe into his other hand and twist his body enough to give him room to swing…
Would it do anything? Even if he managed to slice Legs completely in two, unlikely given the awkward angle he would be working with, would he simply put himself back together? Moonlight crept through the leaves.
And though Owen already knew. And though Owen was thinking something that he never ever thought he would have to think, that Avid was right. “What are you?”
“I am a doctor.” There was a playful warmth to his voice, they both knew he was dancing around the question. “I help people, fix what is broken.”
Slowly, Owen moved the axe to his other hand. He was certain Legs must have noticed, but pretended not to. “What I am offering you, it is a gift. It would be awfully rude of you to refuse.”
Owen tugged against Legs’ hold again, harder this time, ignoring the blistering pain, but still he remained trapped. Owen’s years felling trees were nothing compared to what was becoming harder to deny as supernatural strength. And there was something in Legs’ eyes, a hunger.
“I don’t…” Owen started and then he stopped. It was tempting, to imagine a life without the pain. Without this curse that marred his skin. But to simply trade one curse for another? And how close to those stories? What was he truly being offered? The night?
“Don’t you fear death?” Legs’ voice had an intensity to it, a harsh realness.
Owen paused for a moment. No. He didn’t fear death, not his own. He feared the chance to lose again. A lone memory flashed before his eyes. The day after the pyre had been lit. He had been hiking through the woods and he had come to a cliff edge, a river far far below. He stared for a while, thinking, breathing, crying.
And Owen had taken a step forward.
And he had hit a tree on the way down and he had survived.
And here, now, Owen realized he was afraid of the exact opposite. Afraid of surviving. Afraid of never seeing Louis again, wherever it was that people went after.
Owen turned as much as he could and raised the axe, using his offhand to force the blade into Legs’ throat. But Legs was quicker, grabbing the axe by the blade halfway between them. “I had thought you would be smart enough to see the value of my offer, but I suppose I have not yet learned as much as I would like to about the human psyche." The blade sunk into the palm of Legs’ hand, but he didn’t even wince.
“Though all creatures deserve to not have to suffer, whether they believe so or not.” Legs slid his grip to the handle, smearing blood and deepening the cut in his palm. Then, he jerked the axe towards him, pulling Owen with it.
“Unlike death, I am benevolent.” Before Owen and the chance to pull away, Legs twisted the blade to face Owen and pressed it, lightly, to his throat, the edge barely touching. Just enough to threaten. Just enough to force Owen still.
Before Owen had the chance to think anything different, before he had the chance to be afraid, he pressed forward, forcing the blade of his own axe into his throat. The axe he had used to fell countless trees now felling him.
The pain was immediate, a sharp, burning sting. But Owen had become used to tuning out pain. It was the choking, his body beginning to convulse as blood made its way into his lungs and down into the forest’s soil.
“Dissapointing.” Legs’ voice was not worried, it did not even sound surprised, just disheartened. Owen’s vision blurred and blackened at the edges, his legs giving out from under him. Everything was red and leaving him and still this seemed like a much kinder way to die.
Owen was on the ground now, he must have been, something solid beneath. Everything was distant and numb. Was this it? An ending? An escape from cruelty?
A different pain, at the side of his neck, a flooding, a taking, a coldness. But it seemed so so far away. And Louis must be so so close. Please.
Everything was numb and cold now, and Owen could no longer feel his own heartbeat and his body was no longer fighting for air. Was this it? After? It was still so dark.
“See? Is that not so much better?” A voice came into focus. Owen blinked. Slowly the world around him felt real again, tangible, solid.
Something felt wrong.
Owen felt wrong.
Was he alive? No, he couldn’t be. This was not what it felt like to be alive. This was cold. Owen had spent nights in the woods in winter and still this was something deeper.
Owen felt empty.
Owen wasn’t in pain.
His skin, the constant burning, the aching, it was gone. It was like some part of him was missing, some piece of himself, the one thing that had always defined his life and now… Was this what relief felt like? No, it couldn’t be. Relief was supposed to be good, relief was supposed to be light and whole.
And Owen was broken.
Still there was an intensity, like in lew of the pain everything else had rushed in to fill the cracks. The sounds of the wind through the trees, of the distant birds, of the insects in the grass. The feeling of the cold forest floor against his back. The sharpness of the sky, of the craters in the moon and the twists of the branches above.
Owen raised a hand to his neck. Still he was soaked in his own blood but the wound was growing shallower beneath his fingers. A deep, uncanny nausea took root in Owen’s gut. Quickly he pulled his hand away, fingers jerking back as if they burned.
The world came into even sharper focus, and as Owen tried to steady himself he realized he was no longer breathing. His body did not want to breathe. His heart did not wish to beat. Life, as painful and cruel as it had been, had been taken from him.
“What did you do to me?” Anger bubbled and it felt so strange to speak without air. His words came out half whispered and half screamed, his body still too panicked to focus on clarity of sound.
Legs’ face above him. No, that couldn’t have been compassion in his expression, blood smeared on sharpened teeth, a crimson glint to his right eye as it stared down at him. Always staring down, something to be examined and picked apart.
“I cured you.” There was a warmth in his voice that did not belong there.
No. No. He didn’t… he couldn’t… Owen wasn’t…. Owen ran his tongue over his teeth and felt their sharpness. Blood still lingered in his mouth. It tasted metallic, but sickly sweet. So addictingly sweet and warm and Owen was so cold.
His mind was still hazy, still unsure of itself, still disbelieving even as that taste lingered and even as his stomach screamed for more. Those weren’t parts of him, it was someone else’s gut crying out surely. Check, again, the wound at his neck had completely healed, skin smooth over that thin line across his throat, unlike the scarred and marbled nature of the rest of him. Wrong. Wrong. So deeply wrong.
Owen shouldn’t be alive. He should be dead now, on the forest floor. He should have died that day at the cliff edge, and that day by the river, and all those other days, and Owen should have been the one on that pyre. He should be with Louis.
The axe was stained with blood and sitting still within reach. Owen scrambled for it. A stake through the heart, right? Surely a blade would do the same? Slice what had always been such a useless organ. But these new limbs were weak and Legs simply stood there watching as Owen tried and failed to get past his ribs, carving into himself and doing nothing at all, not able to damage the one thing that mattered.
Eventually, Legs had the mercy to take the axe from Owen’s shaking grip. A new kind of pain had come in to replace the old, a deeper ache, so much harder to ignore. Owen laid there, in the grass, in a pool of his own blood, old and new, warm and cold, breathlessly gasping. A taste so nauseatingly tempting.
Legs grabbed Owen’s bicep and helped him stand, Owen didn’t bother resisting. A numbness coursed through him, stifling the anger, the fear, the empty.
“Is it not so much better? Without the pain?” There was a care in his voice, almost like that of a parent concerned for their child.
Owen’s whole body was shaking, it was as if he could feel his mind rattling around in his skull, or perhaps it was something else inside that had snapped and let loose. He could feel his own blood beginning to dry on his skin, pulling at his flesh, trying to tear him apart. Already he was apart.
Louis.
Owen could still smell the smoke.
Legs stepped back a bit, giving Owen the chance to support his own weight. The moon was high in the sky now, midnight, crimson. “It takes a moment to adjust, I understand.”
Owen managed to find the strength to stand on his own. Slowly, he met the doctor’s eyes. Still, anger flashed in his own vision.
“But now, you no longer have to fear death. You are like me, above.” Legs smiled, showing off his teeth. “You’re free now. The polite thing to do would be to thank me.”
Owen screamed.