Perspective Shifts

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The ride to the hospital had been pretty much uneventful in regards to Joe's state. Faolan still kept his wits about him, and noticed a thin whining sound coming from her throat. Thankfully it was soft enough that the wrong ears wouldn't hear it because it didn't sound very human. He looked down and suspected that she was feeling the pain in her hand. As for Matt's antics, it made the old wolf smile. The lad wasn't so bad, and he thought that his granddaughter had made a good choice.

As luck would have it, when they entered the hospital Faolan recognised a 'shady character's' face - a doctor there who also recognised his. The doctor made his way to them and addressed the paramedics to find out what was going on. Once he did he reassured him that he and the nurse would take it from there seeing as Matt looked somewhat stable.

He ushered them to a private room and once they were inside he closed the door. Then he turned to them and took off his glasses, "Why hello there old friend, didn't expect to see you again so soon!"

"The same here..." Faolan answered him with surprise still in his voice. "I didn't know you worked here as a doctor."

"Oh it's a new hobby," he said as he tucked the glasses into a pocket, "Glad to see Joe is doing fine – seems I missed a lot." he referred to Matt.

"The name's Rami, old friend of Faolan." he said as he extended a hand to Rita.
 
Matt was somewhat relieved that they were ushered away from the normal stream of incoming emergencies, because despite Rita's presence he had been beginning to vaguely wonder if it was a good idea that they were going to a human hospital. The idea didn't worry him as such, though. Nothing really worried him at the moment. It was probably the drugs.

At least, nothing worried him until he looked up at the doctor who had rescued them, and immediately recognised Rami. He was off the gurney in an instant. "You." The last time he'd seen Rami's face, Joe had been dead, shot by the vampire. He might be drugged out of his mind and a physical wreck, but all of this suddenly seemed like a horrible conspiracy. They had incapacitated him and brought Joe back to the man who had killed her. A man Faolan was greeting as a friend.

He rounded on Faolan then, and Rita caught sight of the expression on his face. It reminded her horribly of Joe, in those moments when she'd thought the girl was about to kill her. The next time he spoke, the words hissed past his teeth and she noticed that they had grown longer, sharper. Something was wrong with that picture, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something was wrong with all of this, with the way he was standing and the look on his face and his smell. In spite of the obvious danger, Rita wasn't afraid. She was curious.

In Matt's mind, all of this was blurring into one long and elaborate trick to get him to let his guard down, drug him and Joe into submission and hand her over to this madman posing as a doctor. Faolan's complicity in the plan surprised him, but even if her grandfather was willing to see her hurt, there was no way Matt was going to stand by and let it happen. Not again. He advanced slowly on the old man.

"Give her to me," he snarled, the words both a hiss and a growl combined, "And get out."
 
"Yes, me?" Rami replied uncertain... and then a thought struck him: Mellissande had told the boy. Oh great, that makes things all the more easier. "Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt her."

The look on Matt's face didn't bother him, but it did bother Faolan. A feeling of guilt poked at his heart and he held Joe tighter to him. He gave a loaded sigh, "Matthew, please calm down. No one is taking my granddaughter away from you. That's a promise." he said in earnest. He then glanced at Rami, who in turn shrugged. There seemed to be an understanding between them. "He did it to save her from that Voice thing inside of her. It had grown too strong and if it was left unhindered any longer, it would have killed her anyway..." his voice cracked at the end, "I know, because I speak from experience."

He swallowed at a lump in his throat, "My eldest son had it as well and I lost him to it, and my" he paused to take a breath, "and my dear wife. My youngest son - her father - would have been next... That's what that thing does: it destroys everything and everyone you hold dear by controlling you to do it, until you give up because there is nothing left to live for and there is only so much torture a person can take." his hands were trembling slightly as he recalled old buried memories - memories he didn't want to have. "Rami didn't shoot to kill her. It was a special kind of bullet, and yes it was a risk, but I couldn't just do nothing and watch Joenie being torn apart inside."

The old wolf's eyes were shiny with extra moist, his voice sorrowful. He looked Matt in the eyes as proof that he wasn't lying, but if the lad wasn't going to believe him then so be it. He'd take being hated any day over losing his granddaughter in such a horrible way.
 
Matt's head was swimming, and his vision blurring as he stood, but somehow that only made him angrier. Faolan's words trickled through his head but he barely registered them. What he did notice was the way the old wolf tightened his grip on Joe. He wasn't going to give her up without a fight. Well, so be it, if it was a fight he wanted it was a fight he'd get...

Rita stood in the corner of the room and kept her eyes fixed on Matt. Yes, his teeth were changing and as she looked at his hands she could see his fingernails shifting as well, but there was still something funny about him. Maybe it was his posture? She'd seen plenty of werewolves change form before and that was nothing new to her. This was. And his smell was strange, getting stranger, nothing she'd ever smelt before and yet familiar at the same time. Werewolf smell was in there, but also... was it just her, or were his teeth all wrong?

Matt's snarl became one long undercurrent of menace as he squared up to Faolan. "I'm serious," he growled. "Give her to me and go. Otherwise I will take her from you."

Something finally clicked into place inside Rita's head, and she hissed to the others, "I'm beginning to really think we should do as he says..."
 
The hair on Faolan's neck were tingling, and if he could be in wolf form the hair on his neck would probably be raised. In front of him stood a young werewolf, obviously angered and wanted Joe. He flared his nostrils as he breathed and didn't blink as he stared at Matt. His posture changed to that of a stand-off and his face now showed it too.

Matt was smelling very dangerous, and Faolan's instinct was to protect Joe. She had been in and out of it and at the new smells and sensations she groggily opened her eyes and blinked. Everything was blurry... she heard Matt, but he sounded different and it stirred something within her. She finally focused on him, "Hrmm, mM't?" she tried to say, but her dialect sounded less human than it should.

The old wolf thought quickly, "Fine." he said calmly and stepped forward, but before letting her go his stare intensified, "You take care of her. Rita still needs to remove the smaller splinters in her hand. It still hurts, so if you leave let her at least get something for the pain." he made sure that the words were clear and the sentences simple. He knew how to talk to Joe in these circumstances so he hoped that it would work for Matt. He glanced at Rita and then let Matt take Joe.

Rami was already at the door and held it open for Faolan. Once they left Rami closed the door and patted Faolan on the shoulder and gave him a reassuring look. "They'll be alright."
 
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Matt took Joe from Faolan's arms and followed their exit from the room with another hiss. Then he turned, and laid Joe out gently on the gurney. "It's going to be all right, now," he said softly. "I'll take care of you." For that moment, it seemed as though all the anger that had been driving him was gone.

Rita made as if to quietly follow the others into the corridor, but he turned on her, too fast, and grabbed her wrist. "Not you." She stood absolutely still, staring at him. His breathing was laboured, and his pupils were practically obscuring his irises. The overall effect was that he looked completely demented, and very dangerous. There was something else, too: the hand that held her wrist was as cold as her own skin.

"I just need to get some supplies," she stammered, and he let go of her in another sudden movement. His hand moved too fast for even her eyes to follow. This was not looking good.

She stumbled out into the corridor and hurried over to Faolan and Rami. "Well, the good news is he's not having a heart attack," she said. Her tone of voice carried the message that this piece of good news was very much outweighed by the bad.
 
The something that had stirred in Joe, stirred a little more as Matt continued his phase. It told her to wake up and get up. To prepare her, her lungs took in more air and then she tried pushing herself up, accidentally with her hurt hand. The remaining splinters in her hand prevented healing, but her body kept trying and with the movement it sent a torrent of pain and she flinched and let out a groan.

Her memory made an attempt to come back but it was fractured. She did remember the part of Matt's heart attack and it sent a wave of cold through her. She tried getting up again, and it stung again and this only agitated her. Looking at her hand she saw where a few splinters were so she tried to get them out... with her teeth.

When Rita exited the room the two men turned to her, and Faolan was looking worried. "What's the bad news?" he tried to think of what it could be, but the only thing he could think of was that Matt was going through his first transformation.
 
"Uh... the bad news would be..." Rita looked uncomfortably down at her feet and her voice was quiet as she continued, "this morning I had a mostly dead part-transformed vampire-slash-werewolf on my operating table and I might have used an inadvisably high-voltage shock to reanimate it..." She was thinking this through as she spoke, to a degree, and some of the logic was a little bit uncertain even to her mind. "And this may have resulted in a werewolf with a good amount of residual vampiric heart tissue getting up and walking out of my clinic."


Matt tried to push Joe down so that she wouldn't hurt herself trying to get up, and this resulted in him having a vice-like grip on her shoulder as she struggled. He saw her biting into her own hand and a part of him wanted to stop her, help her get them out another way, but some other part... he drew in a long breath through his nose. Then he turned to sit on the gurney in front of her and pulled her hand across into his lap, firmly, transferring his grip on her shoulder from one hand to the other as he did so.

"Shh, hold still." His voice was very calm but very firm as he raised her hand and inspected the splinters still stuck in it. "You sure have got a lot of splinters in here," he said conversationally, turning her hand over to examine the palm. "Keep still. This might sting a bit," he warned, and then he brought her hand up to his mouth and bit into her wrist.
 
The news Rita was giving Faolan stuck in disbelief. He looked at Rami, who looked at him and them both looked back at her.
"So... what does this mean for him? Is there any way to, uh, fix it or something?" the old wolf asked.

Joe got more and more agitated ant Matt and she was very much determined to fix her hand, even if it meant tearing it apart. Her episode and the after effects of the sedative had a party in her body. She felt his strength, however and as a werewolf - that meant something. She ended up staring at him, but her expression was unclear, except for her eyes that had a wild look to them again. She sat quietly and took in his smell... he smelled interesting and she noticed that it was still changing. The reason might have been that his body was replacing the foreign blood with his own new blood. He was still getting his own scent.

Then he bit into her hand. Strangely all she felt was pressure but no pain. Still ,something in her didn't like it and she yanked her hand back with force, regardless of his teeth tearing it. At the same time she grabbed for his throat and planned to pull him forward and over and behind her. She snarled at him and her eyes were wide and crazy...
 
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Rita was not up to being asked technical questions about what was going on with Matt, and she shrugged animatedly in response to Faolan. "I have no idea! The whole procedure is still highly experimental... usually if organs don't convert properly, the patient just dies." And he would have died, if she hadn't stood there and thought 'what the heck, he's a werewolf, maybe he can take it' and turned the voltage up so high. "All I know is he's cold and has weird teeth and smells of vampire mixed with werewolf. Which, by the way, probably isn't a very stable combination."


The bite had been right over her radial artery and the blood flow was immediate, filling his mouth even in the brief moment before she yanked her hand away. It was the first human blood he'd tasted in five years and it lent strength to the vampire part of him, but what was more surprising was that the rest of him, the werewolf part, liked it too. He yelped when she pulled her wrist back, annoyed at having lost the flow of her blood. Her attempt to throw him over her partially succeeded, but he caught onto the gurney midway through. He was left on all fours kneeling over her, and he remembered the times she had pinned him like this... how the tables have turned. The smile that spread across his face was pure menace as he moved to have her pinned down, the exact same way she'd held him.

"Always wanted to try that," he said, his voice very low, his eyes bright. "Guess what? You taste good." He was considering where to bite next, as you might consider the best way to go about tackling a large meal. His eyes focussed on her neck. Best pulse in her body, by far. He bent forward, using one hand to reposition her head, giving clear access to her throat. "Don't hold out on me, Joe... you've still got so much left to give."
 
She watched the smile on Matt's face, and her teeth were still bared, but she was oddly not afraid. Her muscles twitched in her arms and legs, not because she was struggling to get out of the position, but because she was testing for weak spots. Adrenaline shot through her body and as she watched him a part of her werewolf mind dug through memories of him... this was a new side of Matt. A very new and powerful side, and it impressed her.

"Guess what? You taste good."

Oh, really... her mind thought.

"Don't hold out on me, Joe... you've still got so much left to give."

Joe fought against his grip, but not too hard - she was allowing him to bite her. She growled deeply just for show, and felt his teeth dig into her neck. You have no idea how much. something said in the back of her mind. Her heartbeat was slowing as she calmed down to make sure that the blood wouldn't flow too fast. She already had the wound on her wrist to deal with.

If he was acting like a vampire, then chances might be that he would receive memories from her blood. She had more than enough, and her mind was a dangerous place - especially with her imagination. More so for other people. She focused... Focused on the pain that she had felt while in the game - from the ball cage, to the vampires who had kicked her for what felt like forever. Focused on Bucky in the scrapyard and the things he had said to her, on the stings she received from the rocks that she was thrown with, on how hopeless she had felt. In a flash the situation changed and it was Bucky who lay incapacitated and he was screaming in gut-wrenching pained bursts. Flash again to her view, grinning.
Another flash took her to a darker memory of being alone in what seemed like endless dark, feeling lost. Her memory shifted to other thoughts of pain and a lingering fear that always seemed to be behind her. Randomly a memory popped up of Matt as he was sitting by a river, and how normal he looked from her point of view. Still a lingering darkness was felt from behind. Images of plague-eaten and rotten flesh showed up, flies buzzing loudly and scattered views of other dead bodies. The darkness was coming closer...
The view then shifted to her having Matt pinned down, asking him the question of whether he liked her - but her voice sounded wrong. Closer... A scene from a chase through a forest, screams and yells echoing throughout the trees and ringing like bells. A flash of an older vampire smelling like alchohol, red everywhere. Closer... More and more images came at a faster rate, everything thrown into chaos.
Lastly, and most intense, was her first memory of utter fear - when the Voice had overwhelmed and enveloped her. It was like a tidal wave of black claws washing over and drowning her, a sharp, loud sensation of dominant power crushing her under its weight. Huge twisted teeth and two slits of evil light looked at her, and she made sure to thrust the feeling of complete hopelessness and loss very, very clearly to the surface. An evil, chilling voice sounded:

Hello, Matthew...

And if that didn't work, she took the time of him being distracted with drinking her blood to shift violently and shoot her knees up with all her strength that she could muster.


Rami stroked his chin as he thought about this new information from Rita, "So, we don't know if... for example, his body might fight itself?" he asked. Then heard a commotion from inside the room and turned his attention to the door.
 
"We don't know anything. If he's walking around half-and-half, sooner or later his body's going to start breaking down on him. The vampire heart is failing already. If he's still part-werewolf when it gives out, it'll kill him." She cast around for something to suggest, but nothing seemed sensible. "We have to find a way to push him to one side or the other. He can't stay as both things. He won't survive it."


It didn't register with Matt that this was too easy to do. He didn't even consider the possibility that she could have fought him off and he sensed nothing untoward in her feeble attempts to dislodge him. He was frustrated by how slowly her heart was beating, though – he was having to suck the blood out of her rather than have it pumped out. That wasn't normal. Luckily the anticoagulants in vampire venom should mean she at least kept bleeding until he was finished…

Then he started seeing things that weren't in his mind before.
It started with pain, images from the game and pains he was sure he hadn't felt at the time. Lying on the ground, surrounded by vampires who were relentlessly kicking. A vampire he didn't even recognise, standing in a scrapyard… blood memories. Not his memories at all. He snarled, but didn't release his hold, didn't pause from his feed. Instead the werewolf part of his mind took charge and flattened the memories out until they were just pictures, like scenes from a movie, detached from himself. He still couldn't stop the images.

Letting the werewolf in him take centre stage had another effect, though, and he pulled away from her throat abruptly. He didn't want or need her blood. As he looked down at her the Voice's presence ghosted behind his consciousness, whispering in memories. What did he want from her? What was he going to do to her?

He felt a warning movement of her knees, and braced himself right before she shoved them up under him. It was a good shove, but not good enough. He was thrown forward but not shaken off, and as he settled his weight again he was careful to make sure her knees weren't free for another attempt.

Well, he was a werewolf. He hadn't finished feeding yet, she had interrupted that, and he was still so hungry. But the blood trickling from the wound in her neck held no interest for him any more. Werewolves ate meat. In his memories the darkness shifted, egging him on.

If she was going to stop him from enjoying her blood, he'd have to find something else to eat… He bent forward again, but not to suck blood from her throat this time. He was going for the kill.
 
Joe struggled as Matt shifted his weight again and agitation fired in her that the kick hadn't worked. Still, she wasn't scared. If she actually thought about it, she was enjoying this in an un-explainable way. His hand was still pinning her head, but it had shifted some when she had kicked. Some fingers were in range of her very sharp teeth. She took advantage of this and twisted her head quickly to bite down hard on those fingers. If all went well she could shove her upper body forward, as one corner of his offense was now unstable since his hand might lift.

She would then give him a head-butt to either knock him out or give him one hell of a headache. If she got loose, and there was an opening, a good punch to the stomach should wind him. Then, turn him around on the floor and pin him with his arm twisted behind his back so she could break it if necessary. This was her plan... how good it would work, was another matter.
 
Her teeth closed on his hand and he yelped with the pain of it, pulling the injured hand to him to get it out of her reach. In doing so he tore gashes through his flesh where her teeth dragged through it, and the pain knifed through his determination and his hunger. The darkness that had come in with the memories wanted him to make her pay, but a small part of him rebelled. The result was a moment's hesitation, and in that moment she headbutted him right in the face. He reeled backwards and had to shift his weight to avoid crashing off the gurney onto the floor, which meant she was free...

In a split-second decision he turned the backward momentum into a jump and landed on all fours on the floor, down by her feet. He couldn't see anything but stars, but whatever reflexes were working got him up on his feet and he found, bizarrely, that he could almost see where she was with his nose. Her outline was as plain as day to him and If that sense was all he had to rely on, he would still do his best to fend off whatever attack was coming next.
 
Joe had to admit, he was resilient... he was doing well, too. Thing was, if he was going to do too well then he'd definitely win. She'd lost quite a bit of blood and she was feeling it, despite the adrenalin and strange edge of energy that she had from the tranquilisers' side-effects. There was still fight left in her though, and she rushed to close the gap between them as fast as she could. Joe put all her effort into it, grabbing him around his waist to have him crash into the wall.

With her lowered posture she could grab a hold of his collar and throw him to the floor over her back and onto his. If he was still conscious after that though, she would definitely be in trouble. Little black spots were floating in her vision.
 
By the time Joe rushed at him, Matt's vision had half-returned, but it was still largely obscured by little sparking dots. His head was also spinning, so much so that he could barely even hold the idea of danger in his head, let alone consciously make a plan to fend it off. With all this the only thing he could rely on was instinct, and as she ran towards him, his natural instincts took full control.

He opened his arms wide and when she hit him, it was full in the stomach, barrelling him backward into the wall with great force. The breath was knocked out of him and he doubled up over her back. This had the advantage of tucking his head in and when she threw him, he flipped right over and landed on his back. More stars flashed behind his eyelids - he couldn't tell if his eyes were even open at this stage.

He lay still, listening for her, but all the anger had gone out of him and he didn't make any attempt to get up. Sure, if she tried to pin him then he would defend himself, but for the time being he wasn't going to bother. He couldn't even clearly recall why they were fighting...
 
The impact had affected Joe too, in the sense of her also feeling the force of the crash. It only made her more determined though, and as she threw Matt over onto his back she growled angrily. She shifted her hands during the act and followed the momentum through to focus it into her hands that held him by his throat and just below his sternum. Thus she was able to pull him down faster, and once he landed, get a hit in as well.

By the time he was on the floor she was breathing heavily and her arms and legs were shaking from the blood loss. She was still holding onto him, arched over his torso and glaring at him. At that time a migraine stab decided to flare up and she cringed and groaned. This seemed to worsen her condition and her breathing became more shallow. Then she collapsed, right on top of him with her head on his chest. Her left arm lay stretched out in front of her and her right arm was on his shoulder, with her injured hand and wrist next to his neck. She turned her face to his but she couldn't see much.

All she could do now was lay there and breathe... and listen to his breathing, and his heartbeat.
 
Matt heard the beginning of her fall onto him, but didn't bother to try to move or defend himself. He could tell just by the sound of her pulse and breathing that she was in no state to do him any more damage, and he was in no state to make unnecessary moves, so he let her collapse, her head coming to rest on his chest. He curled his arms around her and let her lay there, whilst his vision slowly returned to something approaching normal. He didn't feel any regret for any of this, at least not yet, and in fact it seemed perfectly normal to his mind. He buried his nose in her hair and breathed deeply. She was here. They were both safe. Sure, they had collapsed on the floor in the hospital, she was bleeding from the throat and his heart was slowly remembering it was supposed to be dead, but everything felt very peaceful.
He let his eyes close, still breathing in the smell of her.

Out in the corridor, Rita had heard the thump of them both hitting the wall and ran back towards the door. By the time she had it open and peered round they were already in a heap on the floor. If it hadn't been for the smell of Joe's blood and the now very mixed smells that characterised Matt, it might even have been cute.
 
Joe felt as Matt's arms folded around her, and realised how comforting it was. Her right hand moved closer to behind his neck, but she had no strength left to even hug him. A thought occurred to her, and her hand moved to the top of his head, and she ruffled his hair as she smiled. "T'ld you'd g't y'back..." and she smiled more.

She hardly heard Rita coming in, followed by Faolan and Rami. The old wolf looked at the mess with wide eyes, and scratched the back of his head.
"What happened here?"
Rami looked at the two young werewolves on the floor, both seemed exhausted... "Hmm, oh you know young wolves, they we're just testing each other and having a little romantic tumble." he chuckled. Faolan gave him an incredulous look - he did not find that funny.
 
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Matt chuckled softly at Joe's retaliation and made a mental note to get her back for it again... sometime. Not now. Now there were people here and he stiffened as he realised Rami had come back into the room.

Rita reacted to Faolan's question rather differently from Rami: putting out a hand to signal to them to stay put, she went over and squatted down beside Matt. She was careful not to touch him or even invade his personal space, but she could see quite clearly the marks on Joe's neck. "I don't think this was a romantic tumble." Matt's eyes flicked onto her face, and she froze. "She has a vampire bite on her neck, Matthew," she said, very quietly, being careful not to move. "Are you a vampire?"

He almost laughed at the ridiculous question, until he remembered kneeling over Joe, drinking out of her neck. He had done that - recently. That was what vampires did, but he wasn't a vampire any more... was he? "I don't know," was all the answer he could give. Rita moved onto her knees and he flinched away from the movement, tightening his arms around Joe. My Joe. Rita held up her hands, a gesture of peace, and he relaxed a little.

"I think something has gone a little wrong with your procedure, Matthew," she continued, her voice calm, level and slow. "I think your heart never changed properly, and it needs some help to join the rest of you in being properly alive. I'm going to give it that help." She smiled at him, as encouragingly as she could, and after a moment's hesitation he smiled back, guardedly. I just don't know how I'm going to do it yet.
 
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