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pull the blackout curtains down
Miles in Sunnydale
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Okay, the immediate aftermath of a mission is frequently a bit of a blur, particularly when he's been badly injured. But Miles could've sworn that the last time he was conscious, he was with his fleet.

He is not currently with his fleet.

He is currently lying in a puddle in some nameless dirtside alley, squinting up at a reasonable facsimile of Earth's most famous tourist attraction. This seems unlikely to actually be Earth - they were more than a few days' travel away from it, last he checked - but that silver half-circle sure does look like Luna.

Can he move? He tries moving. Nope. No, he cannot move.

"Fuck," he mutters.

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Footsteps. A pale face appears in his field of view, smirking down at him from a vantage behind/above his head.

"What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?"

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He considers this question fairly for a few seconds, then answers, "Bleeding."

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The stranger laughs. "I noticed."

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"Any chance of a little help?"

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"Well, depends what kind of help you want."

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"I was thinking maybe medical attention. You know, if it's not too much trouble."

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"I could do that, I guess. Pretty sure you'd lose the hand, though."

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"Believe me, I'm familiar with the state of the art in bone replacements. It's totally more repairable than it looks."

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"Oh boy," says the stranger. "Hate to break it to you, but there is no state of the art in bone replacements. That's not a thing."

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"I... what?"

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"So, welcome to Sunnydale! Weird stuff happens here. Dunno where you're from where people dress like that and carry freaky ray guns, but in this reality, the state of the art in human medical care doesn't involve replacing anybody's bones."

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Miles processes this statement.

"...Are you about to offer me nonhuman medical care?" he inquires.

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"I was thinking about it! You're pretty cute."

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"Thank you," he says dryly. "Okay, I'll hear your pitch. I'm hardly about to stumble on better options down here."

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"So, I'm a vampire."

His forehead hardens into a ridged snarl. He grins, displaying fangs that weren't there a second ago.

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"...Yesterday I would've told you vampires didn't exist."

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"Maybe they didn't in Ray Gun Land."

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"Okay, you're a vampire. How does this help me?"

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"I can turn you into a vampire," he explains. "It's kind of inconvenient, some ways - you catch fire in sunlight - but you don't age and you heal really well and you can only be killed by fire, beheading, or a wooden stake through the heart. And you drink blood, obviously, but like not necessarily human blood if you don't want. And it'd fix your arms right up good as new."

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"I'm... moderately tempted. But I have only your word to go on, here. What's your name?"

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"Zeke."

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"Pleased to meet you, Zeke. I'm Miles. What's your interest in turning me into a vampire?"

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"You're unbelievably cute and I don't want you to, like, die, and if I leave you lying in an alley with both your arms broken you'll probably die, this isn't the world's safest town."

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"I've talked my way out of worse situations, trust me, but fair enough," he says. "What's the procedure for turning into a vampire?"

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"Oh, we drink each other's blood and then I haul you back to my crypt and wait for you to wake up good as new."

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"You live in a crypt?" He starts snickering. This proves to be a poor strategic choice. "Ow. Fuck. Taking the aesthetic a little far, aren't you?"

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"All the cool kids live in crypts these days."

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"If you say so. Okay then," he says. "So what are my options besides vampirism?"

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"I can call you a shitty Sunnydale ambulance and you can go to the shitty Sunnydale hospital and definitely never get back full use of that hand, and maybe not the other arm either depending how bad it is - what the fuck did you do to yourself, anyway? - or I can turn you and you can be a vampire whose arms both work. I mean, or I could leave you here and the next person who comes along might have a better offer, but they also might think you look like a great midnight snack."

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"What a charming selection."

He contemplates this decision. He sighs.

"Is there some kind of hidden catch to vampirism?"

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"I dunno, do you have strong feelings about losing your soul? A lot of vampires turn out to be assholes, but I totally kept my charming personality, I bet you would too. You have a very charming personality."

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He laughs softly, wincing when the movement jars his shattered hand. "Thanks. I'm, uh, not much of a theist, personally. Souls as an abstract concept aren't a point of major concern."

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"Sounds like we're in business, then! My good deed for the day."

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Miles smiles at him.

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"God you're cute. Point that thing somewhere else, I feel like I'm gonna catch fire."

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He utters a choked-off giggle. "Ow! Dammit!"

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"Sorry," he says, not sounding terribly sorry. "So are we doing this or what?"

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"...The blood drinking part, is that going to hurt?"

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"Well, it could," says Zeke. "Or it could, like, not hurt."

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Miles observes that smile.

"...Let's go with 'not hurt'," he says. Why the hell not.

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"Good choice!" says Zeke.

He crouches down by Miles and nips his wrist and offers it.

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This is supremely weird, but - Miles has a good sense of people. This person is not lying to him, and not crazy. There might be a better option available but it's not one he can find lying on his back in an alley with both arms broken.

And it's... not the worst thing in the world. Awfully unsanitary, of course, but then so is this puddle he's bleeding in.

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And then Zeke leans down further, and bites him.

It doesn't hurt.

It kind of the opposite of hurts, in fact.

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Yes, Miles caught that implication, but he wasn't quite expecting it to be so - intense about it.

Wow.

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What a good midnight snack.

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He just barely retains the presence of mind to be slightly alarmed when he notices consciousness slipping away from him, but there's not much he can do about it from here. He relaxes, and then he's out.

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And a minute later when Miles's heart stops, Zeke scoops him up and carries him off. He's light as a feather. Like, okay, he's short and a little on the skinny side and kind of low on body fluids right now, but is he literally a bird or what?

There is a snapping sound. Zeke stops. He looks down at Miles. He resettles Miles in his arms, much more carefully, and starts walking again, slower. Because holy shit he just broke this guy's ribs by accident. At least he's too dead to complain, and by the time he wakes up it'll all be fixed anyway. Right? Right.

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Nobody bothers them on the way.

Miles spends three nights as a corpse, tucked cozily into Zeke's bed.

On the third night, he wakes.

He opens his eyes, and he's in no pain at all. His senses are inhumanly sharp. When he moves, he moves with unprecedented strength and precision.

"Cool," he says, grinning.

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"I know, right? Wanna make out?"

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"Sure, why not."

Miles kisses him and wow what a good decision that was, vampire senses are the actual best.

"You know," he remarks between kisses, "before today, I thought I wasn't interested in men." Kiss. "Is bisexuality a common side effect of vampirism," kiss, "or was I just an idiot?"

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"I dunno, you seemed pretty into me even before you turned."

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"Magical sex fangs don't count."

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Okay now he's laughing too hard to kiss anyone, Miles, what have you done.

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"Say, do I have magical sex fangs too, now?"

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"Yes! Yes you do!"

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"Cool."

So, that happens.

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They have made such good decisions together.

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After a number of other good decisions, they curl up together under Zeke's blanket for a nice post-good-decisions nap. Then Miles yawns and sits up.

"I'm hungry. Did you say something about animal blood?"

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"Yeah, we can go raid the butcher."

They get dressed. Zeke leads Miles to a butcher's shop, which they break into and steal a couple of plastic tubs of pig's blood from.

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"Much better," Miles declares. "Are there any sights to see in this town?"

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"Maybe not so much," laughs Zeke. "It's a pretty small town. We have, like, one club. I could show you our one club!"

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"I'm not really the clubbing type. What do you have in the way of libraries?"

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"Nerd."

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"But a cute nerd, am I right?"

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"Adorable."

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"And don't you forget it."

Okay, so apparently they're going to make out in the alley behind the butcher's. That's a thing that's happening. Miles is so pleased with the turn his life has taken. God knows what the Dendarii are going to do without him, but whatever, he's having fun.

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Wait.

What?

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"...You okay?" says Zeke, disengaging. "You, like, super froze up just now."

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"I'm - I - clearly I should've asked more questions about the soul thing, or something, what the hell happened to my, my..." He shakes his head, utterly at a loss for words.

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"Uh, sorry? Most people don't take it this hard," says Zeke.

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"I'm not completely sure what I lost, but whatever it was, I needed it," he says. "I want it back. How do I get it back?"

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"...You serious?"

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"Extremely."

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"...I know where to start looking, anyway," he says. "Like, I can't promise anything, but magic does all kinds of weird shit, who knows. Do you, uh - yes, okay, obviously you want to go there right now."

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"How perceptive of you," he mutters. "No - sorry - thank you, really, I mean it."

He tries a smile. It doesn't quite make it to his previous standard.

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... Yeah. Sunnydale High library it is.