Goodnight, Dr. Death

[Victor Batten]

Prompt List

• Headache
  
• Secret
  
• Pain
  
• Underground
  
• Thief
  
• Halloween
  
• Triangle
  
• Identity
  
• Corpse
  
• Keys

[Victor Batten]

Secret
This post takes place in the past.

Naturally, it happened in front of plenty of witnesses, when nobody was expecting a damn thing.  It was the closest that their 'clan' came to a family reunion, a gathering of the local family for a barbeque and pool party that everyone showed up for, sans Capricia, which seemed a little odd despite the fact that she and Connor had been rather shaky over the vampire bond.  Especially since that was the day Connor went down.

Victor remembered it clearly because he'd been given the task of grilling, as much as he didn't prefer it, but his sister had put a bottle of beer in his hand and shoved him in that direction, so he'd gone.  Chase had been holding and watching Anya all day, almost like she knew something (she always did, which should have clued Victor in sooner), but Connor had gladly accepted the break from babysitting while his family fawned over the little girl and he got to enjoy a drink and some time to relax.  Between Anya, Capricia, Val and the stress of running a guild, Victor didn't really blame him for being happy to let his sister manage his child for the afternoon.  Later, Victor realized that Chase hadn't wanted Anya to be in Connor's arms when he dropped, or for her to see her father fall.  It was bad enough that the rest of them did.

Victor was talking to him beside the grill, close enough that when it happened, his quick reflexes saved Connor some cuts and bruises, perhaps even burns.  He didn't save the hunter's pride, since it sure as hell looked like he fainted, but Victor had seen the way he'd gone rigid, eyes widening and some kind of horror dawning on his face before he'd made some move like he was going to leave.  He'd said one word, just a name, and then he simply collapsed.  If Victor hadn't caught him and been there from that first instant, he wouldn't have known that Connor's pulse fluttered along like a frightened bird, too fast and then too slow, like it had forgotten its rhythm and couldn't find a new one.  Without a hospital, there was nothing he could do about his nephew's heartbeat, but the breathing was something he had to fix.

He settled the younger man on the cement patio as other family members hovered, performing rescue breathing while someone nearby called not for a regular ambulance, but the guild emergency vehicle.  That was the nice thing about being from a family of hunters; they understood when something fucking weird was going on, and knew that a guild infirmary was the place for one of their own.  Victor would have more control over the situation in the guildhouse and he could call for a healer, if necessary.  Connor was breathing shallowly, though his uncle was concerned as to how long that would last with his heart still dancing around like it was, by the time the emergency vehicle arrived.

He couldn't corner Chase until hours later.

Connor was stable, his vitals strong despite how unreliable that seemed just a few hours before, and his sister hesitated at the door before coming in.  She didn't need to be a seer to know that Victor was going to grill her about the situation, so the fact that she entered the room while he was there suggested good things for him -- he'd get the information he wanted without much of a fight.

"You knew this was going to happen."

"Yes."

"It's the vampire, isn't it?  Is he dead?"

"Yes, and yes," she told him, her darker eyes rising to meet his cold blue ones.  She was the one who weathered his harsh gaze best, so he was unsurprised that she could hold his eyes.  

"Did you just fail to stop it, or were you involved in his death?"

Here, she hesitated again, glancing back to her brother.  She felt guilty, he could tell, but she was obviously certain about her actions.  "Both.  I was asked if he would survive and even if I didn't help with anything else, I wasn't going to stop it as long as he'd be okay.  I made sure that Anya wasn't near him on purpose so that she didn't get hurt, and I tried to steer him in your direction when things started to look familiar.  I knew you'd take care of him."

Victor snorted, not liking that he was used like a pawn in this grand scheme, but he had to face the fact that Chase could do that, and had been on small scales all her life.  She'd kept Connor and his moron friends out of trouble like some secret weapon for a bunch of little geniuses.  "You were right, of course.  Who did it?"

Another pause, but if there was one thing that she knew about Victor, it was that he was to be trusted.  "It was Capricia's plan."

"Explaining her absence today."

"And Sitara helped."

"Not surprised.  How?  I'm sure you thought about the mental connection?"

"Of course.  There was a strong chance that he wouldn't forgive someone for killing Val if he knew who it was.  Sitara took him out from a distance and Capricia rushed in close to take the head and what remained of the heart, just to be sure," his niece explained, offering those details like they were nothing to her.  He didn't regret the capable woman that she was in the least, respected it more than anything, but it made his lips turn just a little into a wry smile that she didn't falter over the idea of one of her friends cutting off a vampire's head and out his heart.  

"I'm sure not much remained of the heart with the rounds she likes to use."

"You're probably right."

"Chase, the three of you realize that you can never tell him?  I suggest you deny even foreseeing it, understand?"

"Yes.  We already decided that, just to be safe."

"Good."

The two of them remained in a comfortable silence after that, both quite alright with what Connor wouldn't have been -- Val's life had returned Connor's to something resembling normal.  He had his sight, he would keep his guild, and he would have a human life with a woman and children.  The three women who loved him most had done what he needed, even if he wouldn't have done it for himself.  Victor would keep their secret, only unhappy that he hadn't been invited along.

[Victor Batten]

Keys
This post takes place in the present.

Having gotten home at nearly three in the morning, Victor had gotten a solid three hours of sleep before he was woken up by an almost hesitant knock at his door.  He ignored the first one just because he thought he damn well deserved a chance to actually sleep after the number of hours he put in at the hospital before he'd gone and put nearly as many into the guilds.  The second set of knocks were a little louder, followed by a soft clearing of a throat and an uncertain voice.

"Dad?"

Shit.  He'd promised himself, and her late mother, that he would take care of Nina to the best of his ability.  That meant not ignoring her, even when he wanted nothing more than to sleep for the rest of the day.  It meant rolling over and looking at her, even when his eyes didn't want to open up more than little slits to prove she had his attention.

"Yes?"

"Daphne said she can't drive me to school today.  Can you?"

"Why can't she?"

"She left her keys here when you dropped her off last night.  They're on the counter.  She broke into her apartment through a window so you didn't have to turn around and bring them to her last night.  She wanted to know if you could drop them off this morning so she could drive into work," Nina explained, and he didn't answer her for just long enough that she started to wonder if he'd fallen asleep again.  Just as she was about to ask, he released a long sigh and started getting up.  It was probably a good thing she'd woken him up before she had to actually leave, or she was thinking she'd have been late. 

After dropping Nina off at school, he immediately started for Daphne's, intending to get everything he might need to do finished as quickly as possible so that he could sleep uninterrupted.  Fortunately for him, Daphne recognized sleep deprivation when she saw it, so she didn't do anything more than thank him and let him go on his way; that, or she was just in a hurry to get to work herself and wasn't wasting time with him.  Either way, he was glad to be out of her hair and on his way home.  While he was driving, Connor called to ask him to drop by and see if Anya was coming down with something (like he was a pediatrician, really?), and he'd barely gotten off the phone with his nephew before Jessica Markova's call came through.  An emergency in Frost.

Did his phone ever stop ringing?