Chapter Text
Grian was walking home from a tremendous shift at the hospital. As much as Grian adored his job—he loved the idea of being able to heal the broken and make them good as new he was seriously tired. He wanted nothing more than to plop down on his bed and sleep for 14 hours but he had to continue his trek home.
it was pretty dark out, Grian was returning from a late shift and the street lights weren’t all that great. In fact, they barely worked. It didn’t help that Grian had the worst vision ever. As Grian was walking home he tripped over a rock.
“Thats what being sleep deprived does to you…” He grumbled to himself. But to his surprise someone reached out their hand and helped him up. Grian took it clumsy, shaking from the fall.
“Wow, thank you man.”
The mysterious person didn’t respond. Grian assumed they didn’t hear him and looked up. “Uhm, thank you—“ Grian stopped midsentence when he saw his savior. The man was tall, and had dark hair. His teeth were oddly sharp and despite Grian’s poor eyesight he could see a line of blood running down the mystifying man's face.
“A-are you um okay?!” Grian blurted out. “You’re bleeding.”
A devious smile ran down the man’s face and he wiped his mouth. “Its not my blood,” he said calmly.
“W-what?!” Grian choked out. “Huh?”
The man rolled his eyes as if it was the easiest subject in the world. “Are you ever gonna get up?”
Grian scrambled to his feet and grabbed on to his bag as if it held the secrets of the universe. “W-what are you?!”
In Grian’s town there were lots of legends told of vampires roaming the city. Until this point Grian just scoffed at the stories. He knew that vampires and ghouls were definitely
not real. But now, he started to second guess himself. Could this man possibly be a vampire?
He looked down at Grian. “A vampire,” he said calmly. “But since now you know, I don't think you can live to see another day.”
Grian took a step back. “I..I.. Vampires are not real!”
The vampire took a step closer to compensate for the space between them. He got close, too close. Grian sneered. “So what are you going to do now? Steal my soul? Drink my blood?”
He shook his head.
Suddenly contempt overtook his face.
The vampire took another step forward and whispered into Grian’s ear. “This is not over.” And he disappeared.
“W-why did he leave?” Grian said quietly. He looked up and saw the sun slowly rising. “Oh.”
Vampires can’t stand sunlight.
He silently walked back home. “I must be going crazy,” he thought to himself. “vampires are not real.” He was about to unlock the door until he noticed the undead figure beside him.
“Y-you?!”
“Hello,” the vampire said.
Grian fumbled back pathetically. “Why are you here? The sun is rising, you are a vampire aren't you?”
“Well I am a vampire. I can’t come in unless you invite me, you know? So invite me in.”
The vampire took a step closer to the scared doctor. “But, I'm sort of special, you could say. I'm not like the average vampire you see in the theaters.”
“T-then what are you?” Grian was starting to fear the mysterious figure that loomed in front of his house.
With each word the creepy man—or rather not man, whatever he was—took many steps closer. With every step Grian could feel the atmosphere tensifying, as if something bad was gonna happen to one of them sooner or later. It was probably him.
The vampire took Grian’s chin in his hand and quietly muttered to himself. In defense Grian jumped back and the tall figure continuously chased after him.
When Grian hit the door he knew it was over. He was gonna die a slow painful death with a creepy monster.
For some reason, the vampire didn’t hurt him or anything
“You see…” The vampire started. “I never felt like I belonged. I guess you could call me a vampire, but I'm not quite there. I don’t really know what I am actually.”
Grian tilted his head in surprise. “What do you mean by that?” He said quietly.
The other one chuckled and stepped closer. “They never told ya? With everyone in this town running their mouths I thought they would've told your sorry ass by now.”
How rude. It wasn’t Grian’s fault if he was socially incapable. That doesn’t mean the vampire should be bullying him. And the profanity! People these days! His mother must’ve not taught him right.
Grian instinctively held on to the door knob. He stayed dead silent. He didn’t know what he was going to hear.
The monster smiled devilishly. “I'm a human, but also a vampire. Half and half. I'm immune to sunlight, but I can’t stand it. I guess it’s just the vampire in me. I can go out like a normal person but I do have some of the vampire abilities and weaknesses. Like the invite thing.” He tilted his head. “It's kinda weird actually, I wish I was one or the other… I'm kind of stuck in between.”
The other man laughed nervously, sweating bullets. “Half and half? Like milk? That's all? I thought it was gonna be worse, like you were a demon monster hybrid thing. I'm glad you’re a weakling.”
Oh no no no no. Why did I say that?! Grian thought internally. If he wasn’t planning on killing me before he definitely will now. He clearly has a big ego so this might’ve hurted his feelings. And he's half vampire, half human so I don't really know his powers, he could barely have any of the vampire weaknesses for all I know. Or none of the many human weaknesses.
To his surprise, the half vampire-half human laughed. He didn’t seem offended at all! Shockingly, he seemed pleased. “I didn’t know you would have a sense of humour!” He leaned in just a little bit more but it made all the difference to Grian. “You know why I latched on to you specifically?”
The human shaked his head.
“I don't really know why, but you smell of blood.” He leaned in more. Grian leaned back. “Why is that?”
“Well cause I'm a doctor of course! I just came back from a grueling shift.”
“I see… I guess I underestimated you. I thought you were a foolish man. I guess not.”
And he disappeared.
“And you’re still the weakling…” Grian mumbled pathetically.
Grian was highly confused by this. He didn’t understand the man’s intentions. He barely even knew him.
Grian gave up. He was done thinking for the day.
Despite his arduous shift Grian couldn’t get a wink of sleep. He sat in his bed with his cats curled up by his side and with the lights on. He tightly gripped a baseball bat he somehow found in the back of his closet and instead of using his precious hours for rest, he deliriously searched the room for any sign of the vampire. Fortunately he never turned up and when the sun was fully out he decided to catch even the smallest fragment of sleep. Keyword, tried.
When he finally drifted off into peaceful slumber the strange man haunted his subconscious. No matter what he did he just couldn't get the monster out of his head. It was like he was taunting him. Grian wasn’t surprised if he actually was controlling his dreams, what else could this man possibly do?
“He probably will get caught. Eventually if it’s the last thing…I..do…” He mumbled sleepily.
———————-
Beep! Beep!
Grian heard the alarm ringing but he just couldn’t get out of bed. He sighed and grabbed his phone. It was 9:30, a couple of hours before his shift at the hospital. Normally Grian liked going to work. He liked fixing people up as good as new. It made him feel like he had a purpose in this world. But now, after hearing the vampire's words he didn’t know if he could go to the hospital like normal ever again.
He sucked it up and stood up. He immediately got hit with the dizziness he was used to by now. Despite being a doctor, Grian didn’t have the best health. He knew that he had low iron and that he could get it fixed easily. Drink water or whatever. But to be honest, he didn’t really care. So what if he felt dizzy sometimes and got a slight headache when he stood up too quickly? These were just minor nuisances that bothered Grian every once in a while. He barely paid any attention to them. But today he felt extra weak.
He shrugged it off and scratched his neck. Wait a minute. When did he get a scar on his neck? He slowly walked to the mirror due to his dizziness. There was something different about his neck. There was a bite mark.
It was identical to a vampire's bite. Lots of seniors used to come to the hospital Grian worked at and complain that vampires had bit them. Grian just calmed them down and checked them off for being delusional. They were delusional, right..?
Now he understood them. What else could it be? That thing had bit him. The audacity!
Grian just shook his head and made a mental note to hide his neck from his coworkers. Especially Jimmy.
Grian liked Jimmy, he really did but sometimes he could be…persistent with his questions. He was a friendly guy, him, Grian and Joel all worked at the same hospital and made a good team. His other coworkers called them the bad boys. It was an old joke but still popular among Grian’s colleagues. Jimmy was really good at reading people so Grian knew it was going to be hard to hide his new scar, especially from a licensed doctor with good people skills. Something Grian clearly didn’t have.
“Hey Grian—woah. What happened there?” Jimmy asked as Grian sluggishly walked into the hospital.
Grian quickly slapped his hand over his neck. “Nothing Jimmy!”
Jimmy raised an eyebrow and got an evil smirk on his face. “Okay… Is there something or someone you wanna tell me about?”
It took him a second to process the meaning of that comment but when he did his face flushed red and he shoved Jimmy, not caring if he seriously got hurt or something. You’d think a doctor would be more careful than that, but no. This is Grian.
“Jimmy!! S-shut up, others will hear! Don’t you have sickly patients to look after? Especially Tango.”
Jimmy’s face flushed red all at once. “I’ll get you back for that y’know? When you least expect it…” Without giving his companion a proper goodbye he speed walked over to Tango’s room. Even though Grian could swear Joel already checked his vitals that morning. In fact, he saw Joel walk out of Tango’s room
Grian chucked and went back to his work. Right now his job was to do his daily check in with the patients—check their mental state and all that jazz.
This was Grian’s favorite part of the day. Even though he had absolutely zero social skills he felt like he didn’t have to put on a mask around his patients. Well he did technically have to, but you know what he meant. If he slipped up and something wrong, that's okay because he’s the one with a medical degree.
Grian was walking out of a patients room not paying attention to his surroundings and hurryingly scribbling something down about how his patient was getting better and trying to write down all the details before he forgot, until he crashed into someone.
“Sorry. My bad I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Grian said as he quickly picked up his stuff he looked up to see he bumped into Joel.
“Yeah your bad,” Joel said, rolling his eyes but offering a hand to Grian. “So… What happened?”
“What?” Grian said still trying to organize his array of papers—he was never a neat person to begin with. But today he seemed extra frazzled.
“Jimmy said something was up with you, he said it seemed you got bit by a vampire or something.”
Grian shot his head up and gave Joel the most mean look ever.
Joel chuckled nervously. “N-not that I believe it or anything. You know Jimmy, he's kind of stupid. God knows how he got his degree.”
He started laughing but it was obviously forced. “Haha yeah Joel, he's the real bad boy here. Because hes real um…bad,” he said pitifully.
Joel just gave him a nod and walked off.
Oh no.
Oh no no no no!
He was in big trouble now!
The vampire carefully told him that if anyone found out about him he would have no choice but to kill Grian. But Grian still couldn’t understand why he was so merciful, I mean he could kill him right there, but he didn’t. But he’ll take anything he can get.
What was he gonna do now?
He raced to Jimmy who was still in Tango’s room and he didn’t really know what they were doing but it didn’t seem like something a patient and his doctor would do.
“Jimmy!”
Jimmy jumped to face Grian and looked like he’d got caught committing the worst crime ever. Tango just looked confused. “Grian? I can explain—“
Grian shook his head. “No, I don't care about that. But did you tell everyone?”
“About?”
He whispered in Jimmy’s ear. “The scar, like on my neck? Did you tell anyone besides Joel?”
Jimmy suddenly got a smug look on his face. “Ohhh, that. Right. The ‘scar’ you told me about. I didn’t tell anyone, not a soul what it was really about. I'm a good friend, I would never tell anyone your secrets.”
Grian let out a sigh of relief. Thank God.
“Except… maybe… accidentally, let it slip to Joel…”
“Jimmy! I trusted you.”
“Cmon, we’re the bad boys, you’re obligated to tell us everything.”
“No I'm not,” Grian said dryly. “Dont think I forgot about this.”
He started to walk off, but peeked his head through the door. “I never forget.”
Jimmy was kind of scared.
_________
The doctor was walking home again like any other day. By now most people would get a car especially if their house was a 15 minute walk, but Grian was absolutely hopeless when it came to technology. He didn’t know how to drive a car, he barely knew how to use his TV, and even though he actually does have a phone he doesn’t use it unless it's to contact someone. And even at that he is still helpless. So that's why he’d rather walk for 15 minutes than probably run someone over. Even though there was the risk of the vampire showing up Grian assumed that he wouldn’t because its day and sunlight must affect him in some way.
Grian stopped at the grocery store to pick up some groceries, his house was absolutely barren. He refused to buy groceries unless there was only ketchup waiting for him in the fridge. And while he was waiting in line he overheard someone’s conversation. He didn’t mean to overhear but sometimes people’s conversations are so interesting you just have to listen in. Or sometimes they’re repulsive but you still listen in.
“Yeah there’s been a real uprise in zombies lately.”
“Ya I've been hearing about people getting bit lately.”
“Is it fatal?”
“Not unless the vampire really wants you dead, y’know? I think some of them can fall in love with humans. I swear my coworker is half vampire. Man, that guy is wild—“
Grian stopped listening after that. It was obviously a stupid idea. Vampires couldn’t love humans. I mean they’re vampires. Cold heartless creatures with no purpose on this planet. Right..? But then again, how was the vampire guy made?
Grian paid for his groceries and left. This must be one big joke. Probably Martyn trying to prank him—he’d do anything, anything for a joke. Even if that meant paying for an actor to prank his friend for absolutely no benefit.
Yeah that’s right. Martyn is just trying to pull a stunt and Grian being the smart guy he is figured it out.
Right?