Being alone for seven months had its perks.
First, Rowan learned how to be independent and knew that he could only rely on himself to take the necessary procedures to survive. He knew how to be cautious and how to avoid being too trusting of strangers. He knew how to keep himself sane amidst the loneliness.
However, being alone for seven months also had its downsides.
As he mentioned before, he was lonely. Just because he knew how to keep himself sane didn’t make the pain of loneliness hurt any less. But he couldn’t risk trusting someone only for them to stab him in the back. He didn’t want his progress to go to waste because he trusted someone too easily.
He was selectively ignoring the fact that this was exactly what he was doing to Alaric. Convincing him to trust Rowan enough so that Rowan could swoop in and rob him while he was asleep and leave him to die.
But, well, Alaric deserved it. He was an asshole and was beyond redemption. The endless back and forth between them started with him and ended with him. He was relentless and for no apparent reason. Rowan tried to be friends with him back at training. But Alaric just shoved him away and stabbed him in the heart with words until Rowan fought back.
The perks of being alone far outweighed the cons. Rowan didn’t need Alaric’s sword. Sure, it would have been nice, but he’d proven that he could live with his pocket knife. He could leave in the middle of the night and Alaric wouldn’t follow him.
So, with that in mind, why was he finding it so difficult to just get up and leave? All he had to do was take those first steps, and the rest would come naturally. Easy as that.
It had been a week since they teamed up, and Rowan’s emotions were a whirlwind of confusion and overlapping emotions, all conflicting with each other and fighting for dominance over Rowan’s overall mood. Rowan had never experienced so many emotions at once before.
Over the course of that week, he barely learned anything new about Alaric. Occasionally he’d let something slip out that left Rowan with more questions than answers, but other than that, he was a bundle of mystery wrapped in an intricately woven Vampire Hunter jacket and matching pants that showed off his ass a little… too well.
Seriously, they were there to slaughter Vampires, not get laid. Why did the pants have to complement their assets like that?! No, pun not intended.
Though, there was one huge overarching concern that frightened him above all else. Alaric seemed to escape into the woods multiple days this week while Rowan was asleep and then return before he awoke. Well, he tried to return before Rowan awoke, at least. Rowan often rose from his slumber multiple times a night due to how uncomfortable his sleeping conditions were; it was hard to find comfortable resting places in the middle of the wilderness. Plus, there was that constant anxiety of a Vampire sneaking up and feasting upon his vulnerable flesh. His body had become accustomed to waking up in the middle of the night to make sure Rowan wasn’t about to be faced with the Grim Reaper.
So, this meant that he knew when Alaric snuck off. The first night, he brushed it off as Alaric needing to use the bathroom. However, the second night, he returned looking dishevelled. Like he’d been in a fight. Rowan pretended to be asleep when Alaric settled down again, but he didn’t get any rest for the rest of the night. His brain was twisting with possibilities and theories. He acted odd and distant towards Alaric the next day, which Alaric undoubtedly picked up on because Rowan was a horrendous actor.
But tonight, he couldn’t remain silent. Rowan had been huddled up next to a bush with a blanket covering him– Alaric’s blanket that he gave Rowan because it supposedly masked humans’ scents and made it harder for Vampires to trace them– when he woke up to yet again another empty space where Alaric had initially laid down to sleep hours prior. He was about to close his eyes again when the sound of crunching leaves and twigs approached from behind, and Alaric’s boots entered his line of sight. Rowan’s eyes travelled further, and…
Alaric’s hands were bloody.
Alarics’s hands were covered in something’s– or someone’s blood. It was harder to see in the limited light since they always snuffed out their fires before sleeping, but even in the dim moonlight, blood was undeniably freshly splattered across Alaric’s skin.
“What the fuck?” Rowan shot up, startling Alaric. Alaric’s alarmed eyes darted to him, and in a moment of panic, even though he must have known Rowan already saw them, he hastily hid his hands behind his back. “Why?”
“Why what?” Alaric asked stubbornly.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
Alaric looked defiant like he was trying hard not to give in to Rowan’s demands. Guilt was painted all over his features, leaving nothing to the imagination. He knew that Rowan had caught him red-handed… literally. He sat down, crossing his legs and shoving his hands in between his thighs, not making eye contact.
“It’s… someone was going to attack us and steal our supplies,” he said timidly. “I killed them.”
All of their periods of silence were uncomfortable, and this one was no different. Rowan blinked, staring at Alaric blankly, and Alaric seemed to shrink under his intense gaze. He couldn’t tell if Alaric was lying or not. He couldn’t decipher if he was anxious because he was afraid of how Rowan would react to him killing someone, or because he was lying. He wanted to believe him, but that wouldn’t explain why he’d been running off multiple days this week.
“Okay,” he drawled dubiously. “So why have you been sneaking around other nights?”
“Bathroom,” he said without missing a beat.
Rowan squinted as if that would help him see Alaric more clearly in the dark. He was searching for something, anything to prove Alaric’s guilt, but he couldn’t. Even though Alaric was nervous and certainly looked guilty, there was no evidence to prove he did anything other than what he claimed.
“Why are you hiding your hands?” Rowan asked with a scrutinizing tilt of his head. He threw the blanket off of him and crawled closer, and Alaric seemed to tense up. “You think I haven’t seen bloody hands before? I’ve killed people. I’ve had blood on my hands before.”
Alaric’s expression turned doubtful, but he remained silent. Rowan scoffed.
“You think I’m not strong enough to kill people?” he asked. “How do you think I’ve survived this long? You greatly underestimate me.”
Slowly and hesitantly, Alaric gave in and lifted his hands from between his thighs, which Rowan was suddenly acutely aware were burly and thick and probably warm, and he had to avert his eyes to avoid staring too intensely. He banished any thoughts of burying his head between those thighs. Nope, there was no time for such lecherous thoughts at a time like this.
He instead opted to focus on Alaric’s hands as he flexed and curled his fingers repetitively, the dried blood cracking with each movement. Flakes of red drifted to the dead grass below. Alaric evaded eye contact, his eyes cast downwards at the blood.
“Can I clean you up?” Rowan’s words were foreign even to his own ears. He felt like he was watching himself from afar, in no control of his body.
Even Alaric looked confused. His head tilted up enough so he could arch a brow at Rowan, and, yeah, that was fair. Rowan didn’t know what possessed him to offer such a thing.
“Uh…” Alaric muttered. “Are you feeling okay Do you have a fever?”
Rowan had to stop himself from laughing at that. He couldn’t believe he found something Alaric said funny. “I don’t think so. Though, who knows? Living outside for months by yourself isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to do.”
Rowan presumed that the slight quirk of Alaric’s mouth and the sharp exhale was some sort of laugh. He continued flexing and curling his fingers before sighing.
“Sure. There are wet wipes in my bag. In the middle section.”
Rowan retrieved said wet wipes– resisting the urge to scavenge through Alaric’s backpack and find hidden treasures– and ripped one open, throwing the wrapper in some arbitrary direction before gently taking Alaric’s hand into his own, Alaric’s palm facing the sky, startled by how cold it was. He ignored the alarms pounding in the back of his head and brought the wipe to his skin and got to work. Alaric’s hand was tensed up when Rowan began, but as he made progress and more skin was revealed, his fingers gradually relaxed. They didn’t speak as Rowan cleaned Alaric up.
The blood spread to Alaric’s wrists, and Rowan pushed his sleeves up and cleaned that blood up as well. It took four wipes to fully cleanse both of his hands, but Alaric had plenty. Way more than Rowan was expecting someone in the apocalypse to have. Rowan only had six in his backpack right now. He only used them if he was hopeless to find a stream any time soon and he really needed to clean some grime off of himself.
Alaric pulled away quickly once Rowan was finished, and that hurt more than it should have. He shook his head, reminding himself that Alaric was his enemy. His eyes landed on the Vampire Hunter's sword, and all of his brief, bothersome thoughts about potentially befriending Alaric vanished.
“Thank you,” Alaric grumbled.
“Sure.”
There was that familiar unpleasant blanket of silence.
“Well,” Rowan said, standing up, “good night.”
“Good night.”
Alaric still wasn’t looking at him.
Rowan returned to his blanket and huddled up underneath it, too exhausted both physically and mentally to question why he didn’t spot the corpse of their supposed threat anywhere.
His dreams were filled with a shadowed but familiar figure.
And something was severely off about him.
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