Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first few nights were grueling.

Shortly after they made it to the closest bunker, wing in broken wing and high off adrenaline, Byron was already rendered an incoherent leaden weight- something Alphonse had chalked up to the numerous injuries dealt by his hand. He barely flinched at the needle tugging coarsely through his flesh as Alphonse threaded the deepest of his wounds shut. His words pooled over one another like slow molasses, murmuring feverishly of split trees bound by metal and a hunger so deep it ached.

The scent of iron was thick and tantalizing in the air and although he was already long sated, Alphonse stilled the tremor in his hands and swallowed thickly. 

By the time he finished bandaging the wounds left by the wreckage of his helicopter, they were already half mended, layers of skin knitting clumsily back together like learning to walk again. Byron continued mumbling to himself even as Alphonse tucked his body into the cot and smoothed the duvet over his trembling form. Perhaps it was fatigue that blurred the line between sense and reality and compelled his hand to card through his locks, damp with sweat. Perhaps it was something else. 

Once he was sure Byron had fallen into an unsteady sleep, Alphonse took the time to catalogue his own injuries. They were far less critical than Byron’s, inhuman speed and strength serving to outmaneuver any battalion Burkin threw at him and even the hellfire from above. Foreign blood in his system stirred in his bloodstream, unwinding the hands of time marred upon his skin. All he had to do was to wipe the grime from his hands and he almost seemed unscathed. 

The next few hours were uneventful, the ringing fallout after the grenade. Byron twisted and turned in his sleep but never roused so Alphonse busied himself with cleaning up the aftermath of their duel and the neglected bunker so that Byron could wake up to something resembling a home. There were moments, brief and fleeting, where the creases in Byron's brow would smoothen out, and he’d breathe easy. In those moments, Alphonse would fix his blanket with no fear of Byron waking to see the shadow of a monster. A part of him should have known that it was always the calm before the storm that shook the quietest. 

The first of his fits had Alphonse remembering what fear felt like, ice spiraling down his chest and skidding across the tiles in a cold sweat as a garbled cry rang from halfway across the bunker. The sound was neither human nor animal in nature, but pain was a companion Alphonse was deeply familiar with. He knelt down to Byron’s body, fingers gripping the medical kit he grabbed in a rush. Byron was sweating up a storm, eyes screwed shut, and his chest was heaving like it had forgotten how to beat. Alphonse moved a hand to sweep at his bangs and nearly recoiled from the scorching heat of his skin.

“Byron?” Alphonse prayed his tone did not betray his heart pounding in his sternum. Panic would not draw an answer out of Byron and he could only do so much with what little information he had to work with. “Byron, can you hear me?”

“Let his mind be changed from a man's,” Byron mumbled in return between pained gasps.  “Let a beast's mind be given to him-”

His hands clutched to the mattress like a lifeline, a grip so tight it had to hurt. Alphonse moved to coax his fingers loose and froze. Claws. 

Then all at once, the realization hit him. Alphonse stiffened as if drenched in ice water. Every cadet had the biotracker implanted upon enlisting into the COI and Byron’s lycanthrope-suppression chip would have been no exception. He’d gone decades with it quietly smothering parts of his DNA, fooling his brain into submission. The absence of the chip must have triggered a series of immune responses, almost in a strange reversal of a counterattack to an antigen- as if Byron's body was flushing the human out of him.

“Shit-” He cursed to himself, feeling for once unsteady in his footing- like the snow-laden branches he called his home would give out beneath his feet. He knew superstitions that survived the boundaries of folklore, how to best overcome a beast twice your size. Nothing in his training taught him how to nurture one back to life- much less one clawing out of the confines of his own body. 

Swallowing his doubt, Alphonse moved swiftly to retrieve a wet cloth, something to bring relief to Byron’s sweltering head. He may not be able to stop the changes to his body but he could at least try to reduce the fever. Byron’s features laxened the moment he set the cool fabric to his forehead, though his ramblings have yet to cease. 

“By the decree of the watchers…” He continued to dig his nails into the cot, talons growing and receding like his body didn’t know what to do. Alphonse wordlessly wiped the sweat off his jaw, another hand featherlight at his brow as if anchoring him through the storm. Soon his writhing abated and Alphonse finally allowed himself to breathe. His head was still pounding from the sudden turn of events- the safety of his bunker shattered. Like he’d dug something he shouldn’t have out of the snow, of Byron’s blood soaked skin, and brought it back with him. 

He cast a glance at Byron's twitching figure. He'd been doing him a favor, removing those chips, two birds with one stone. Hadn't he?

“I’m gonna get some food ready for you, something to keep the meds down later.” He muttered instead to a silent room. As he reluctantly drew from his friend, his mind clouded with thoughts, even as he busied himself with stashed rations. It was just his injuries, a part of him argued. The body tearing itself apart to piece it back together. The chip could have nothing to do with it. Would it matter?  The other voice bit back. The dealer's hand remained the same, chip or no chip.  

Alphonse's hand twitched as his ear caught a rustle of motion from the other room, no doubt Byron's body unconscious searching for relief where it could not find it. He looked down at the scavenged rations and wondered if it would even be enough to satiate Byron. 

Fortunately, Byron woke up without much complication for a meal to replenish his strength, although he was just as delirious as before. He was quieter, as if he had run out of stories to cling onto. Instead, his eyes remained an unfocused sheen on Alphonse's still expression as he guided a flask of water to his lips and grasped the rations around his hands. Alphonse watched him carefully as he ate in a stupor, drifting in and out like he could fall back asleep any minute. 

He devoured everything in a matter of minutes. As Byron licked his lips clean, his hazy eyes glinted with a hunger Alphonse grew to know from a young age. Alphonse wordlessly handed him his dosage of pills which he swallowed with the same voracity. 

“How’re you holding up?” He croaked as Byron laid back in the futon, half-expecting him to not even process the question at all.

Byron blinked blearily to him. Then, his expression melted and a smile so soft it hurt curled upon his lips. His eyes crinkled at the corners, not from distress but from the gentleness behind them. 

Then, as if it never happened, he was out like a light, still sweating profusely with his chest heaving from fever. Alphonse sat wide-eyed and unbreathing at the mercy warm in his gaze even amidst all the carnage. Whether it was a blessing or curse, the faces of his foes were always obscured by their goggles and masks, but Alphonse had no doubt their final moments were engraved with expressions of fear. How could Byron, who had witnessed the massacre from the heavens, whose body was being ravaged by a pain like no other, smile like there was something in the world still worth smiling for? 

Byron’s resting figure offered no answers even as Alphonse continued to watch the brief moment of respite from a distance. 

They said it got worse before it got better. Alphonse was quickly becoming no stranger to this sentiment, jerking awake to the gruesome sound of a strangled cry like the teeth of a snare snapping shut. He was already clambering to Byron's side, a path well known at this point. Byron had groaned and mumbled feverishly in his sleep before, but nothing was like this- not like a high-pitched keen stuck in his lungs, bubbling over in pained moans. 

His body was writhing and the moment Alphonse entered the room, he nearly stumbled from the thick wave of rust that hit his nose. For a split second, his mind blanked. All he could focus on was the sweetness of the scent, of the undercurrent of something primordial akin to the dirt that clung beneath his fingernails, of something deeply home and appetizing. His mouth watered and suddenly he snapped to attention as sick washed over him. Blood, Byron’s blood- his knees met the ground with a bang and he flung the covers off the shaking figure. 

“Jesus fucking-”

Byron’s frame was wracked with tremors and he had his arms clasped tightly around his arms in a locked embrace. Alphonse’s eyes widened in horror as he saw twin lacerations marring his biceps where his nails had a death grip on. His skin glimmered with pale sweet and blood, staining the cot beneath a deep maroon. The scent was overwhelming, one that once promised a full meal was now nauseating. Alphonse snatched Byron’s wrists and wrenched them away from his arms. Byron gasped and convulsed as if the motion burned him.

“It hurts, it hurts-” Byron chanted over and over again, his voice hoarse from screaming. His fingers were curled in rigid arches, twitching as gore dripped from his sharpened nails as if driven by a need to carve. Alphonse was strong, thanks to his enhanced strength from his vampirism and decades of rigorous training under the COI. But as he pried Byron’s hands away from him, the sheer force of his resistance stunned him. Either from panic or instinct, he jerked his arms away from Alphonse, causing him to nearly lose his hold. They were locked in a moment of struggle, with Alphonse’s grip so tight on his blood-slick wrists it was bound to leave bruises. Byron’s latent lycanthropic strength threatened to overpower him as he continued to fight and Alphonse moved without thinking.

He pulled him into his chest, burying his choking guilt as Byron’s head landed onto the crook of his shoulder, howling in agony. His arm snaked around Alphonse’s midsection immediately and a stabbing pain burst on his back. He felt his claws plunge into his flesh, blood blooming into the fabric of his shirt. Alphonse bit down his instincts to yell out, to put distance between him and the threat. Instead he simply tugged Byron closer, curling his palm flush against his bed of matted hair and pressing his lips to the crown. His shirt darkened from both of their blood. 

“It hurts,” Byron hiccuped into his neck. His claws dug further down his back, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “Make it stop- make it-”

Alphonse shushed him, his gravity dipping towards Byron until he was all but holding him in his arms. The wounds were deep, splitting down layers of skin, but Alphonse remained fixed in place. Better him than Byron, he thought to himself. It was his responsibility to take in the first place. He stayed knelt on the cold tiles, carding his fingers through Byron’s hair through his whimpers and senseless rambles. The pain was easy to ignore when all he could hear was Byron's muffled cries.

Only when Byron ran out of tears and fatigue claimed his body did he release his hold on Alphonse. His body sagged from his weight and Alphonse carefully gathered him in his arms and lifted him up, pushing through the screaming protest from his dripping back. He carried him to his room, tracking a dark mess across the floor, and set him softly onto the mattress. Byron’s wounds were already slowly filling in the gaps, an uneven and nauseating sight.

Woozy from exhaustion and blood loss, Alphonse shedded his shirt, catching a glimpse of Byron’s handiwork in the mirror. Deep lacerations glinted in the glass possible only from the desperation of a man without an anchor. He took his fingers and swept across the reddened skin, staining his fingers. His injuries were closing as well. All that remained was blood that had seeped out. Alphonse took his fingers to his mouth, tasting a flat and bitter iron.