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rn-zane · 2 years ago

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SETTING: the er TIMING: current SUMMARY: emilio is not quite ready to let the vampire nurse off the hook. zane just wants to do his job.

Though he’d never actually spent any significant amount of time in one before, it quickly became obvious to Emilio that he hated hospitals. The smell of them, the feeling in the air… It would have been a little too much even without enhanced senses intensifying it all.

But this was important enough to sacrifice his own comfort. He’d been meaning to get back to uncovering the motivations behind the vampire he’d run into outside the hospital since the day it happened, but other things kept getting in the way. The shit with Joy, the qutrub, the Teddy problem… It had been a whirlwind lately, and Emilio hadn’t had time to sleep, much less do this.

Things had finally calmed down a little now. He still ached more than he ought to, and the new stitches on his arm itched in a way that was making it hard to resist the urge to scratch at them or remove them himself with one of the knives in his coat pocket, but this was easy work. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, glaring at the wall and watching a certain nurse flitter around the different rooms… No one could say he wasn’t taking it easy.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t without irritation, of course. One of the other nurses (one with a heartbeat; he’d listened to make sure) kept approaching him, worried expression etched into her face. So far, she’d just hovered nearby, looking at him like she thought he might collapse at any moment. It was a little dramatic. Emilio didn’t look that bad. Sure, he hadn’t slept in a few days and the injuries from the qutrub attack were in that stage of healing where they looked a lot worse than they actually felt, but he was fine. Slayers needed little sleep and healed at a quicker rate than humans. Not that he could say that to the nurse.

“Sir, if you’d just let me —”

“Fuck off,” Emilio snapped without meaning to, feeling a little guilty the moment the words left his mouth. But they were effective, at least. The nurse quickly scurried off, and he settled back into the uncomfortable plastic chair. Finally. Without the distraction, he could focus on why he was actually here.

—

Evenings were always more hectic. Patients were more restless, some of them more drunk (even though daytime didn’t stop all of them for reaching for alcohol) and the staff was usually a bit more worn out. It was never a surprise when two or more nurses gathered at the workstation that there was tension needing to be released. Zane usually didn’t take part, at least not in complaining about his own patients, but he listened in and gave advice if appropriate. Sometimes it was helpful to switch patients, even, especially if some of the more tactless patients were being… uncomfortable to the younger girls. Zane’s appearance, 6 feet of toned muscle (and for some the color of his skin) was enough to get them behaving. Or for them to leave, which was sometimes a better option.

This time, he was frantically working on throwing words into the computer in order to get to the next patient when one of the nurses, Irma, approached him apologetically. “Is there any chance I can take over room 5 and you get the weird one who won’t even tell me why he’s here? He’s just been sat there for an hour now, looking like he’s definitely on something and now he told me to… F off.” Her puppy dog eyes weren’t really necessary, Zane would have helped her out anyway, but they warranted a pitying smile.

A quick look at the desktop showed that there was no patient waiting to be seen. Had this guy just walked in here somehow? The thought occurred to call security, just in case, head craning over the top of the counter to look into the open space beyond. Oh.

It had been dark and panicky but Zane definitely recognized that face. It was just as ragged as the first time he’d seen him only… well, the fluorescent lighting wasn’t doing him any favors. He definitely looked like he belonged in the ER, preferably on a hospital bed. It was tempting to just vanish but the thought was deemed stupid the second it arose. The guy knew where he worked, obviously, so running wasn’t going to help him. Would Zane get stabbed in the middle of the ER? Honestly, there was a small chance, judging by the lack of stability this guy was exuding. The only option, as unappealing as it sounded, was to talk to the guy -the slayer- before he berated more of the staff. Or worse, got tired of sitting around and decided to corner Zane off somewhere quiet. Public was probably better. Probably.

It felt incredibly silly, walking up to the confirmed murderer of vampires with nothing but a styrofoam glass of water in his hand, but Zane was going for it now. No turning back. “Hey,” came the hesitant greeting once he finally made his way over, having slowed his pace considerably down from ‘nurse in the ER’ setting, keeping a couple of feet between them still. Just enough to awkwardly hold out the glass. “It’s just water,” he added dumbly, part of him hoping he would take it so that Zane could see his hands, which were hopefully weapon free at the moment.

—

He felt him before he saw him. That familiar tingling on the back of his neck was almost a comfort, these days. With the undead, at least, Emilio usually knew what to expect. With some of the rest of Wicked’s Rest’s oddities… it was hard to know how to react.

He straightened in his seat, tension tightening his muscles as the vampire approached. This really wasn’t what he was hoping for. He should have staked the place out from the outside, really — much less chance of being caught that way — but his curiosity here lay in what the nurse was doing within the walls of the hospital. He could easily feed off a patient who was already dying and send them to the morgue a little ahead of time without arising too many suspicions, after all. Privately, Emilio had already added that to his list of potential reasons as to why the vampire had this particular job. People were at their most vulnerable in the hospital. It wasn’t hard to assume that this man might be taking advantage of that.

Eyes narrowing as the vampire entered his space, Emilio glared at the cup of water. “Pass,” he said flatly, shoving his hands into his pockets to avoid taking it. Like hell was he going to drink something offered to him by this guy. The nurse hadn’t killed him the last time they’d met, even when he’d had every chance to… but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind now. If he was up to something, and he realized Emilio was on to him? He’d probably off him just to keep him quiet. And while poisoning wasn’t a typical threat when it came to vampires, the slayer wasn’t about to risk it.

Though the odds of the vampire killing him in a public setting seemed low, especially in his own place of work. Emilio would wager that the vampire wanted to keep this particular job, especially if he was using it to steal blood. (He’d looked it up, after. The blood in bags. It still seemed so foreign to him, the idea of going that far to save someone who was bleeding out. Back home, with his family… He tried not to think of it.) Still, the nervousness remained. His eyes darted around the room, making note of the people surrounding him. The nurse he’d snapped at before was throwing him wary looks, the patient with the glass sticking out of his arm was trying to sneak a drink from a flask that the staff must have missed, the kid with the broken arm was sniffling in a way that made Emilio’s chest ache a little. It didn’t look like the vampire had any accomplices here. So what was the play?

“You put on a good show,” he commented, eyes darting back to the vampire’s face. They glanced down quickly to the name badge on his chest, making a note of that, too. Zane Rosario. Was that his real name, Emilio wondered, or an alias? “Anybody here know what you’re up to?” He left it vague. Let Zane think he knew more than he did. People were always more likely to slip up that way.

—

So this guy was still as unfriendly and tense as before, excellent. The water had been a long shot but Zane’s posture was still resigned as he placed it on a nearby counter. It was tempting to chug the whole thing just to prove to this guy that it was just water but some smarter part of his brain whispered not to escalate the situation. Shrugging it off, grasping desperately at his composure while feeling eyes on the back of his head. Probably Irma, wondering whether or not to call security or maybe just being curious. She probably had other things to do, he thought with some annoyance, at least thankful that she didn’t possess the skill of lip reading. A perk of the ER was that even in such an open setting, most of their conversation would go unheard due to the constant ringing of bells and chatter around.

“Suit yourself,” he said, a fake air of calm to his voice as he took a seat next to the man, leaving one chair empty between them. It was an advantage, standing in front of him but he didn’t want the man to look at him like a threat. Might mean he ended up getting stabbed but that seemed to be more than a 50/50 chance either way so why not go down swinging. Metaphorically, as in trying to talk to the guy and get him off his back. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, tired eyes flicking to the name badge hanging from his pocket, and Zane felt an even deeper urgency to make sure this guy didn’t feel a need to track him anymore. If that was even possible.

“It’s not a show,” Zane answered quietly, eyes trained on the man, prepped for any sudden movement. Not that the guy looked very capable of sudden movements, his posture off, eyes tired and face bruised. Zane didn’t particularly want to know the outcome of whoever - or whatever - had managed to bruise this guy so bad. “Fully qualified nurse. Been here two years, more if you count school hours. Definitely equipped to see why Irma over there wanted to get you into a hospital bed.” The last part mostly slipped out on accident, practiced mind taking note of everything that made the man look about ready to keel over. Zane had seen people in full on liver failure that somehow managed to look better.

“And no, no one knows about the bags. I make sure there’s always enough left in case of a big trauma and it just gets chalked up to a mistake in charting. Definitely not legal but it shouldn’t hurt anyone. It hasn’t hurt anyone.” It would be an easy way to lose his job, if this man slipped a hint that the emergency blood was disappearing and not just wrapped up in the confusion of shitty charting. For a moment, that almost felt like a worse thought than getting stabbed.

“Are you going to tell them? Or just follow me when I leave and turn me into dust?” It was straightforward, more direct than he usually found himself capable of in any conversation, but there wasn’t much to lose, really.

—

Every time Zane moved, Emilio tensed. Like a rubber band pulled taut, ready to snap at any moment and take someone’s eye out with very little hope of anything resembling actual aim. He’d been on edge for years now, and the presence of a vampire only ever made that worse. Sometimes, he could work through it. If he could puzzle out their motivations, if he could understand what made them tick. But Zane? He was a mystery. The hospital setting only added to Emilio’s nervousness, the unfamiliarity of it all leaving him feeling like he was trying to stand on a plastic raft in the middle of an ocean storm. The beeping of the machines, the wide open room full of people in various states of disrepair, the unfamiliar and overwhelming scent of antiseptic in the air… It all felt like an assault on his senses. The fact that he was still recovering from the qutrub incident certainly didn’t help, either. Maybe it had been a bad idea, coming here. Maybe a more active hunt would have served him better, something simple like a spawn that didn’t require any kind of thought.

He narrowed his eyes as Zane sat, but relaxed minutely when the action put them on more even footing. If you were sitting and your opponent was standing, you were at a disadvantage before the fight even began. Emilio could swing it, sure — his mother had made sure he was trained and ready for just about any scenario she could imagine, and she’d always had a vast imagination — but in his current state, it would have been a rough one.

“Everything’s a show,” he replied, waving a hand dismissively. Because it was. All anyone ever did was put on an act, trying to convince the outside world they were something they weren’t. Zane put on a pair of scrubs and went to work as a nurse and pretended to be human. Emilio put a paper sign on his apartment door and got out of bed in the mornings and pretended he still felt like he was alive. Zane, it seemed, put a little more effort into his act than Emilio had for his. He didn’t know what a person had to do to be ‘fully qualified’ as a nurse, but he assumed it was something a little more complicated than his process of opening up Axis. He tensed a little as the vampire spoke, eyes darting to the beds spread around the room. “I don’t need one of those,” he bit out, turning back to Zane to shoot him a glare. “I’m fine. So maybe you’re not a good nurse.” A petty dig, maybe, but he’d always had a habit of going low when he felt out of his depth.

Ah, there it was. So he did have something on Zane, something to hold over his head. But how much did the vampire actually care about legalities? Given the fact that he seemed very interested in knowing whether or not Emilio was going to spill the beans, he must have been at least a little concerned. The hunter relaxed a little more, confident that he had the upper hand now in spite of everything.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said, “if you tell me why you need so many. I know it isn’t all for you.” Not with how he’d reacted to the implication last time. And while one vampire could be fine on their own, Emilio had found that clans were always a threat. It was only a matter of time before they grew dissatisfied with whatever Zane was getting them, if they hadn’t already.

—

The only times Zane knew not to take a low dig at himself to heart was at the hospital, coming from a distraught patient. Or in this case, an angry slayer. Fighting back seemed to be ingrained in some people’s genes and nurses tended to take the brunt of it, especially if they were delivering news that the recipient didn’t agree with. It was a fact that this guy needed a long, long admission (maybe to the psych ward, jury was still out on that) and the clear denial in the man’s voice made it even more clear. “Don’t look fine,” was all he muttered as a response, dropping this particular fight because really, why did he want this killer better? He shouldn’t want to, at least…

It was almost palpable, the shift in the atmosphere once Zane had asked about the man’s intentions. There was more confidence now and Zane definitely found himself shrinking under the weight of it. Worry creeped into every corner at the generous deal the slayer made. “I’m… helping others out. Just a favor. Keeping people, y’know… not hungry.”

It wasn’t a real lie, probably how it slipped so easily off his tongue. The words were still chosen carefully because Zane knew his frazzled mind, especially in a panic. Things could escape when they weren’t meant to and he didn’t want this guy having any more information than he needed to (hopefully) decide Zane wasn’t a threat. At least, that’s what he assumed the slayer was after. If he just really hated all vampires and wanted every last one of them dead, why show up at the hospital to watch him? Maybe he was just keeping Zane alive to find the rest of his people, since Zane had so brilliantly revealed that information to him the last time.

“Look, just…” Zane blew out a breath, hands rubbing over his face in the hope for some composure. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’ll leave the emergency blood alone, keep doing my job and in the unlikely event that I feel like… I don’t know, tearing someone’s throat out or whatever it is you think I’m doing around here, I’ll come find you myself and let you have at it.” The sentence ran away from him, spiraling into God’s honest truth. If he ever hurt someone on purpose, let alone… yeah, he’d definitely want someone to get rid off him permanently. He met that man’s gaze, even though he felt like cowering under the weight of it, face earnest; desperate, even. “I’m not here to hurt people.”

—

A baseline human might not have picked up on Zane’s quiet mumbles, but slayer healing worked in Emilio’s favor. Or maybe against it, considering how irritated he felt by the nurse’s words. “Nobody asked you to look,” he snapped, anger burning in his chest. Being reminded of the weakness that came with injury was never a good feeling. He should have been better than this. Shouldn’t have needed help, shouldn’t have accepted it. You handled your shit on your own, or you died trying. That was what he’d been taught, how he’d been raised.

Of course, he wasn’t sure how much he was adhering to how he’d been raised these days, anyway. If he were really taking all his mother’s lessons to heart, he wouldn’t be having a conversation with a vampire now. He wouldn’t be sitting here trying to determine whether or not this was a monster who needed slaying. His mother would have been ashamed to see him now, would have been furious. Vampires were good for nothing but killing, she’d say, but Emilio was no longer sure he believed that. It was a vampire who had killed his daughter, but it was a slayer who’d given them the opportunity to do so.

“What others?” He pushed the subject, dissatisfied with the vague answer he was given. He might not believe everything his mother had pushed at him anymore, but some of it was hard to dispute. A vampire clan was far more dangerous than the same vampires would have been on their own. Mob mentality bred a certain level of arrogance, and when inhuman things grew arrogant, it was human beings who suffered. All a vampire needed in order to become a monster was to believe it was above the humanity it had once held. Emilio had seen that firsthand more times than he could possibly count.

But… this was kind of new. Not Zane’s insistence that he wasn’t what Emilio thought he might be — everyone claimed that, even when the proof was right in front of them all — but the offer to change. Emilio wasn’t sure stealing blood was much of a problem (it was certainly better than the alternative), but Zane offering to no longer do it? That was interesting. Almost as interesting as the offer to deliver himself to Emilio if he ever crossed that line. He sounded so damn earnest that the hunter almost believed him. “I just want to know who you’re working with. If you won’t tell me, I have to believe they’re bad. You wouldn’t need to protect them if they weren’t, no?”

—

This was getting way too real, the push for an answer coming faster and stronger now. This guy wasn’t going to let up, Zane could tell, even though he’d been childishly hoping otherwise just a few moments before. There was no telling what amount of information would satisfy; how many vampires, all of their names, where they lived? Even though this man didn’t seem very capable of team work, visible even from the brief interactions Zane had had with him, the thought of a group of slayers appearing on their doorsteps locked itself in a vice grip around Zane’s heart.

“I’m not trying to hide anything they’ve done, I just… I’m new.” It was almost definitely an overshare, even more ammo for this man to load up with if or when he finally decided he was tired of seeing Zane’s face around. Either way, it was out there. “And they’re family. Telling someone like… like you would put them at risk. I can’t.”

His head was starting to ache, the muscles in his jaw overworked from tension since the moment he spotted the slayer sitting here. The anxiety was starting to pull at his edges, whispering about a future where he lost yet another family because he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. Even just sitting here, talking to the man was starting to feel like betrayal - he should have told Alma about the first time they’d met immediately. Only… he hadn’t. It could have been the words this man had used about the vampire Zane had known only on the surface - now a pile of dust - or the fact that some nagging part of him had started to feel the secrets gathering up inside the house. With every meeting, held behind closed door, the thought that there was something he wasn’t allowed to know had started to scratch harder at him.

“Even if they were bad, I wouldn’t be the person to know.”

—

He was new? Christ. Emilio had been operating under the impression that this was an older vampire — one who’d gotten a job at a hospital in order to gain easy access to food, either through the blood bags or the patients — but he was beginning to realize that this wasn’t the case. Someone must have turned him recently, if this whole thing wasn’t an act. Was it because of his position here? Was he the pawn instead of the mastermind, a tool someone was using to fuel some clan that would almost certainly become a problem in the near future? It occurred to him, briefly, that taking this guy out might help slow that down. Cutting off their supply to the blood bags would almost definitely throw a wrench in things, after all. But he dismissed the thought quickly with a pit in his stomach. He wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t think the vampire deserved to die or because he knew they’d probably just turn another nurse for the same deal. He wasn’t sure which answer made him a worse person. Depended on who you asked, probably.

“They’d only be at risk if they deserved to be,” he insisted, though he knew Zane had little reason to believe him. Emilio knew his morality, but it wasn’t something most other people understood. The undead saw a slayer as a slayer more often than not, regardless of what kind of a ‘code’ he might follow. And hunters had a bad habit of seeing anyone who let something supernatural walk as a coward, no matter the reasoning. Emilio knew that, with his newfound exceptions, he could never be fully understood by either group.

Not that he particularly wanted to be understood. Right now, in this moment, sitting on this uncomfortable plastic chair with a million aches in his bones? He just wanted answers. He wanted to know what was coming, wanted a threat to make the noise in his head make sense, wanted something he could kill so his hands could stop shaking even if it was only for a moment. And he was beginning to realize that Zane wasn’t it. Not a big, bad monster, not something that needed killing. Just someone who might have gotten pulled into something bigger than him, just a naive nurse who thought he was helping people. Christ. Emilio grit his teeth, nostrils flaring in frustration. “If you don’t tell me,” he warned, “I’m going to find out some other way.”

—

There was annoyance filtering through the man’s exterior now, along with some resignation. The resolve seemed to be cracking at the edges, barely concealed pain starting to peek through with every barely noticeable shift in the man’s body, trying to find a comfortable spot on the chair. Despite the thinly veiled threats and general demeanor, Zane was still finding it hard to quell down the empathic worry for the man. The noticeable limp from their first meeting had been enough for any healthcare worker to raise an eyebrow at but the look of him now…

“I’m sure you will,” Zane agreed, long since onto the fact that this man didn’t seem to give up on things easy. “But I have nothing to tell you.” Maybe he wasn’t getting murdered tonight. It was still a faint possibility for the future, that much was sure, but something told him that the slayer wouldn’t be waiting outside the hospital with a stake. Zane could be wrong, instincts leading him to believe - or hope - in the best in people.

“I think… or I hope I know where you’re coming from. If you’re just trying to help, then I definitely understand. Not the murder part so much but…” he trailed off, the end of the sentence not even a fully formed thought but more so a feeling. Killing those that killed others was very biblical, not something Zane could agree with but if there was at least some moral code to it… “And I wasn’t just saying that to get you off my back before. About finding you if… Not that I would have any idea where to find you but I guess you would find me first.”

His attention snapped to the other side of the room where an alarm was going off, the fact that he was still at work finally sinking in again. He rose from the chair, hands fumbling in his pockets as he stood. “I need to get back there…” he started, fingers finally finding the film covered card of painkillers in his pockets, meant for the broken leg in room four. It was placed on the seat next to the slayer, experience teaching Zane that the man wouldn’t accept anything from his hand, and he shuffled on his feet for a moment before departing with an awkward nod of acknowledgement.

—

Nothing to tell. It was disappointing but, in a way… it also wasn’t. If Zane wasn’t lying — and it didn’t seem like he was — it meant he wasn’t involved in any of the potential ‘darker’ parts of what might be happening with whatever clan he’d landed himself with. And, for some reason, Emilio liked that. He didn’t think he actually wanted to kill the guy. It was kind of nice, knowing it probably wouldn’t come to that. Like a quiet relief, even if it shouldn’t have been.

“Don’t know if murder is the best word for it,” he replied with a shrug. Murder, to him, implied the loss of something. Murder seemed to speak of a tragedy, of something terrible. What Emilio did was more akin to… taking out the garbage. It was a chore, but it would start to stink if you kept putting it off. He clicked his tongue, nodding his head. “You cross that line, you don’t have to find me. I know exactly where to find you.” The warning was clear in his tone, and it was clear that he meant it.

The alarms broke whatever spell they’d been in, served as a reminder that they weren’t the only two people in this particular room. They were still in a hospital, and Zane was still on duty. The interrogation seemed to have ended, anyway; with Zane unable to offer him what he needed, Emilio would have to track down the information in some other way. He found himself hoping that the nurse wouldn’t get in his way. It’d be a shame to stake him.

He only remained in the chair a minute or two after Zane left. With what he’d come for finished, there wasn’t much that would have been able to convince Emilio to stay in the hospital and risk another worried nurse approaching him. And if the pills Zane had left behind made it home with him? That wasn’t really anyone else’s business.

#mortemoppetere #the devil you don't know #emilio.002 #writing #p:emilio

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