#And we gotta celebrate EVERY. SINGLE. INCREMENTAL. CHANGE.

[wearebloodhunter]

Briggs and Paisley, Or; Good Ale in Bad Cups on Peony Hill

“Looks like luck’s on our side for once, Paisley.” Briggs holds up his open journal. “We’re already in Peony Hill and the guide said we wouldn’t make it for three more days. If we keep this up we’ll be in Port Kerouac an entire week ahead of the package recipients.”

“That sounds like news worth celebrating. I say we toast!” Paisley ignores the half drunk pint in front of himself, glancing over his shoulder and swiping the full tankard of an inattentive man before holding it up to Briggs with a grin.

“You know, one of these days you’ll knock back the wrong cup and end up with your teeth knocked out, Paisley.” Briggs knocks his own half-empty pint against the tankard and drinks.

“It’s no worse than the gambles you take, Briggs, remember that time you won and lost two month’s pay in less than-?”

“Don’t even finish that sentence.” Briggs rolls his eyes and slowly tips Paisley’s stolen tankard over, prompting the other to down the entire thing in one go and slam it on the counter.

“I can already see your free week, Briggs,” Paisley spreads his hands in a dramatic gesture,“You’ll walk into a gambling den, you’ll win thousands, you’ll lose thousands, and you’ll walk out with the exact same fortunes you had going in down to the copper. It’s a goddamn superpower; you don’t get ahead when you gamble but you don’t fall behind, either.”

“It’s the lack of falling behind that’s the real superpower.” Briggs reaches over for Paisley’s abandoned pint and casually sips it. “Plenty of men lose everything at the tables, I can’t seem to lose anything at them.”

“I bet you could walk into The Rowdy Raven and become the first ever creature to walk out with your finances still intact.”

“I’m a betting man, not a brain-dead one. Everyone knows every table at The Raven’s as rigged as a loaded gallows. Mark my words, Paisley, if I ever took a single willing step into that place Lady Luck would rescind my old charms and let The Raven have at me with all the vigor of a starved man.”

“You seem damn sure of yourself, Briggs, why not try your luck at-” Paisley inhales sharply, expression turning sour as he looks down and presses a hand to his mouth.

“Paisley?” Briggs leans forward. “Are you alright?”

“Something I ate bit me in the ass.” He spits in a hurried, breathless tone.

“Tch, it’s karma biting you in the ass for stealing booze. You better- Paisley?” Briggs barely manages to catch a glimpse of the other rushing out the tavern door. He stares at the wide-open entryway for a few seconds before shrugging and finishing off Paisley’s pint from earlier. “Eh, he’ll be fine.”

Paisley is not fine.

He leans against the outer tavern wall, panting as a second wave of nausea balls up in his gut in time with the sharp pains prickling up and down his trunk.

“I... don’t remember eating anything that looked like th- HURK!” He digs his fingertips into the wood siding to stay upright, flowers jerking back and forth as more dark crimson splashes onto their petals and ooze down their stems. The sharp pains sizzle up his spine and begin pounding thorns into his skull as his stomach burns so intensely he feels like he’s swallowed live embers. The massive flower head have perked up by the time he wrenches his eyes open again, displaying his own darkly colored vomit to him like trinkets on silver platters.

“That’s gotta be- it’s a trick of the light. It has to be a- a... a trick of the light...” He plucks a peony from the bush -the soft fuzz of the stem feels like barbed wire to his over-sensitive nerves- and stumbles towards the light of a tavern window. Paisley can barely keep himself vertical by the time he holds the flower up to the buttery light, the dark red glittering as he slowly turns it over.

“...I’m fucked.” He collapses against the wall and dull pain radiates through his entire body as he slides down. “I’m...” He takes a deep breath, stomach and lungs roiling as he opens his mouth. Panic bubbles in his chest and he tries to shoves it away before leaning over and fertilizing another patch of peonies.

‘I have to take stock of the situation.’ He thought to himself. ‘I have to make a plan. Maybe if I act fast enough- No, if I act fast enough I won’t die. When I act fast enough, I won’t die. I won’t die. I won’t die tonight.’

Paisley muses to himself, laying out the facts one-by-one: He’s vomiting blood. Most likely because he’s been poisoned. Most likely after drinking that damn stolen ale. It’d been too long since the last stop for anything else to be the cause. At least that means he wasn’t singled out. At least no one wanted to stop the meeting in Port Kerouac that badly. At least if he dies, he’ll die ‘heroically’, saving an inattentive bastard from their fate. He didn’t even take a close enough look at the bloke to decide if they deserved it or not.

“Jackass...” He tries to take a deep breath and drag himself up the wall, only to end up leaning over and sputtering in the flora again. His limbs feel as heavy as wet rags and every muscle in his arms spasms in protest as he tries to avoid ending up face down in the mess.

‘Alright. Moving is a bad idea. Not moving is a worse idea. I need help and I can’t crawl to it. I can call for it, but breathing too deeply is a bad idea right now. Not calling for help is an even worse idea, though.’ Paisley inhales through his nose, the cold air stabbing deep into his core and mixing a new pain into his trunk to contrast the molten lava bubbling inside him.

“BRIGGS!” Shouting makes his throat burn even worse than the icy air and another wave of white-hot nausea balls up inside him at the exertion.

“BRIGGS!” Bile rises in his throat again and he spits in into the grass.

“BRIGGS!” His mouth tastes like copper and fire and heat and pain. “Briggs... please...” The wind picks up again, caressing the sheen of sweat on his body before a small body blocks the breeze.

“Holy shit,” Briggs whispers, the blood smeared on his fingertips transferring to Paisley's shoulders as he grabs them. “For the love of god, please still be alive.”

“You’re a really-,” Paisley wrinkles his nose at the new foul smells clinging to his friend. “-really bad listener.”

“Insult me later, I’ve got your life to save.” Briggs leaps to his feet, bursting into the tavern doorway and shouting for help.

Paisley ended up unconscious in the innkeeper’s bed. Everyone thought putting him on a stretcher and carrying away would be a simple task, but it soon became an arduous trial: every new sensation overwhelmed his senses until he felt like he was suffocating and the lightest touch had him screaming as if his nerves were sticking a foot out of his skin. The local healers worked their fingers to the bones at his bedside while Briggs pressed himself to the foot, asking dozens of questions and fidgeting like a spooked horse. They did all that could that night, then declared Paisley’s fate in the hands of the gods.

 Briggs keeps an uneasy vigil over Paisley from that moment forward, refusing to leave the room or the bedside for more than a few minutes. The days spend watching over Paisley’s prone form feel akin to the slow torture of starving to death: nothing changes but the position of the sun and yet the anxiety in Briggs’ gut gets more and more potent with every hour; growing into a pain that no food or drink or conversation can soothe. He looks like he’s ready to explode and constantly paces back and forth to stem off pent up energy.

The nights feel like the torture of being beaten to death: nearly every hour brings something new, whether it be terrifying, exhausting, both, or just plain annoying as sleep deprivation sets in. The first night it was sounds: Paisley would pant as his skin burned and sweat soaked the sheets, then he began to scream gibberish that woke everyone in the building before calming down and keeping Briggs up with growls, whispered cries for help and indecent moans. The second night it was fits. First, a seizure that terrified everyone who saw it, then nightmare-induced thrashing and cries for help that couldn’t come. The third night was calmer, though Briggs still got no sleep as his friend mumbled and groaned for hours on end.

 The fourth night never comes, as on the third day, something finally changes.

“...briggs...?” Paisley cracks his eyes open then squeezes them shut again, the sunlight already burning to the back of his skull. “Briggs...?” He inches his hand towards the sound of Briggs’ soft breathing, now as loud and clear as a wedding bell to his sensitive ears. (Pain prickles in his joints as he moves.) “Briggs, you whoreson, wake up.” Paisley’s fingers bump into greasy hair and he freezes, trying to puzzle out how Briggs’ head ended up on the mattress.

He tries to open his eyes again and the sudden deluge of information makes his head ache. After snapping his eyes shut again he peels them open in tiny increments, marveling at all the new things his eyes can pick up. It’s like a film has been rubbed off his eyes; every color is more vibrant and the subtle changes in hue and light stand out like never before. When he opens his eyes a little more he can see every crack in the walls and ceiling and every thread in the curtains.

Briggs has drapped himself over the side of the bed, resting his head on his arms and snoring softly. (Paisley wonders if he could count the hairs on his head from the other side of the room. It feels possible.) He cards a hand through Briggs’ greasy hair, savoring the simple sight of sunlight through the window and the sounds of Peony Hill slowly rousing itself around them. He can hear someone swearing outside as they drop something, the innkeeper frying eggs in the kitchen, and the soft swish of washrags on tavern tables.

A out-of-place sound appears and alarms bells ring in Paisley’s head. He grabs a handful of Briggs’ hair and the other wakes with a hiss, clapping one hand on his head and glaring at Paisley. “What the-?!”

“Someone's here.” Paisley whispers, looking at the door so intensely Briggs wonders if he can see through it.

The sound of heavy, steady footfalls comes closer as Briggs begins listening and he puts a hand on the dagger at his side, slowly leaning over Paisley.

The footsteps stop in front of the door. The two men tense up as the doorknob turns, every click of a tumblr sounding like a firework.

The door finally swings open and a grim looking man in grey nobleman’s clothes steps in, then freezes at the sight of Paisley. He visibly looks Paisley up and down, blinks, and finally notices Briggs. “You’re not dead.”

Paisley looks at Briggs, then back at the newcomer. “No, I’m not.”

“You should be.”

“I feel like death warmed over, if that satisfies your... requirements, sir?”

The nobleman looks behind him and gestures to a couple of waiting men, then looks back to the duo. “This is about to get very interesting.”

“What do you mean by that?” Briggs bristles, glaring at the newcomer.

“By that, I mean your friend gets to enjoy the status of ‘sole survivor’. Put your knife away, I have no plans to harm either of you.”

Briggs and Paisley look at the man as if he’s struck them. Their mouths hang open, Paisley unable to speak as Briggs begins to sputter. “Wh- what?! Sole- what?! Sole survivor of what?! You-”

The man raises a hand to silence him. “Listen, and I will speak. I am Alastair Grey, blood hunter and a member of the Order of the Lycan. A week ago, one of our own stole a few vials of Hunter’s Bane and decided to have a little fun at the expense of others’ lives. I was tasked with tracking the string of deaths to the source and I found it.”

“What happened to the... the turncoat?” Paisley asks.

“They have been dealt with.” Alistair says in a grim tone that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

“Serves ‘em right,” Briggs says. “How many other people did they nick before you nicked them?”

“I don’t see fit to disclose that information to the unindoctrinated.”

“At least tell Paisley. He drank the bloodhaunter juice and he’s still kicking.”

“Bloodhunter. And...” Alastair sighs, “Despite having survived, Paisley is still unindoctrinated as well. Most bloodhunters are folded into the order and trained long before they’re imbibed. This is... an oddity.”

“I think that was the turncoat’s point.” Paisley says.

“Say again?”

“Well, I don’t know much -at all, honestly- but it sounds like the turncoat was trying to break the rules and see what happened. If they wanted to poison people- why use something so secretive? If they wanted to kill people, they’d just use a sword like anyone else. They had a different plan. And... I guess I’m the result?”

“That’s quite astute for a letter carrier.” Alastair says.

“We have our moments.” Briggs shrugs. “You don’t survive on the backroads through sheer luck.”

“I’m alive. You can refill whatever plots you just dug up. What’s your plan now, Captain Grey?”

“I’m not a captain. And... This has never happened before. You know we can’t just let you go now, right?”

“I’ve been assuming so.”

“As soon as you’re fit to travel, I’ll take you to the Order. Further discussions can happen there.”

“Just me?” Paisley burrows his brow.

“You are the one who survived imbibement without any training.”

“...I...” Paisley looks at Briggs.

“We don’t - We’re a package deal, alright? I don’t care what I have to go through, Paisley and I don’t split up. Only fools and deathseekers go on the road alone.” Briggs says. He can feel Alistare try to pierce through him with a single look and holds his ground, steeling his gaze and surrendering nothing.

“Alright,” Alistare turns towards the door. “You can accompany him to the Order’s headquarters, but I can't guarantee you’ll be allowed entry inside. Good day, you two.” He leaves,the waiting men following him out the door.

“Briggs...?” Paisley says.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna make it to Port Kerouac on time.”

“Or at all... I already got another team on the package.”

“Good.” Paisley pauses, looking out the window and catching a glimpse of Alistair's tailcoats. “Hell, I don’t think we’ll ever make it to Port Kerouac.”

Briggs looks out the window as well, the deep set bags under his eyes slowly turning purple. He shrugs and starts rooting through through his pack.  “Eh, the tables there are rigged, anyway.”