Chapter Text
Two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-nine. That’s how many humans Owen had slain. Yet… he was still hungry. He was always hungry, it clawed through him, as sharp as his axe had been when he had cut down those townsfolk before heading off into his long sleep.
The memory of their deaths brought little comfort to the fledgling, it didn’t bring back the only person who ever cared for him.
He had drank so much blood that his body couldn’t even handle it then, his throat protesting the warm liquid running through it, as his mouth deposited it back onto the burnt grass in front of him.
Owen felt a shiver run down his bones, which shouldn’t have been possible. He was undead, his body was forever cold, he should not be weak to the elements. Besides, even if he could be, Owen was under deep layers of thick dirt, where the cold air couldn’t touch him.
A thudding noise erupted in the distance, stampeding against the ground, the vibrations taunting the earth. Owen tried to ignore it. The sound was getting quieter, heading off in the distance, leaving Owen to only the sounds of his own thoughts and instincts to occupy him.
He missed Louis…
Louis would know what to do. Louis should be here, it was lonely underground. Owen was used to being alone, had been most his life, but that was before he had the smallest sliver of a chance at a family, of being loved. The silence had never felt so loud before.
He just needed Louis. If Louis was here everything would be fine. He would know what was wrong with Owen, would gather him in his arms, press gentle kisses to his forehead, and wrap him in the softest blankets Owen had ever felt in his life.
He just needed his Sire. Sire would fix everything. Sire was safety.
The fledgling yanked onto a bond that didn’t exist, one that never even got a chance to fully form. There was no one coming for him. Owen was just waiting for his time to run out. But in that moment fledgling slowly lost himself to his cries, as deep in the dirt Owen called out for a man that wasn’t there.
For a moment Owen swore he could hear a chirp in response. He cried louder after it, instincts raging, begging his sire to find him, begging him to lead them here. Soon enough the dirt surrounding him cleared, and a hand pulled him up, pressing him to the sturdy chest of another person. The other person was speaking to him, but he couldn’t register it as anything more than a wave of sounds against the otherwise ocean of silence. He could notice one thing though, this man’s voice was much deeper. This was not Louis.
Oh. Oh…
How could he forget? His sire was gone.
Owen just started to cry harder, panicked chirps flooding from his lips. The strange voice hushed him, and spoke gently with words Owen was still too tired to understand.
The man held onto Owen tightly, with no clear intention of letting him go, and no fear of touching his mangled skin. It had been so long since someone had held Owen. Before Louis, the last time would have been when he was still a young child, before his illness built a wall between him and the rest of the world, denying him from any form of physical affection or comfort. Owen couldn’t help but melt into the softness of the man.
This might not have been his sire, but for a moment Owen could pretend, as exhaustion forced him towards sleep’s grasp once more.