Vices and Maces

Chapter 26: Roman and Remus Switched Personalities Real Fast

CW: blood, burns

"Are you okay?" Sal asked Roman as they made it back to the car.

"I'll be fine, but you're going to have to drive." Roman finally showed her his hands.

She gasped at the burns and the blisters that covered them. "Dude what the hell?! What did you do, dunk your hands in lava?"

"If I did, I doubt even that would be enough to do this much damage." Roman let Sal take his hands, pulling him to the side of the car. There was a first aid in the glove box, and she quickly grabbed it, disinfecting and wrapping up his hands.

"What happened? How were you able to be burned?!"

"Do you remember that weredragon? Well, he had a silver staff and we ended up fighting again."

"He fought with only a staff?" Sal looked up at him.

"Well, it had ice crystals. He also had more than a staff, he had a tranquilizer gun. I did get hit, which slowed me down for a bit. But... I still won the fight."

"Did you kill him?"

Roman shook his head. "No, he got trapped under a shelf. But he was still alive."

Sal finished wrapping up his hands. "I'm surprised you didn't kill him."

Roman didn't know how to respond to that. "I'm not a ruthless killer. I had won the fight, and I didn't have any grudges against him. He was only defending his home."

Sal put the first aid away. "I guess that is true." She bit her lip as she walked over to the otherside of the car. Roman must have talked with the dragon about something, and the dragon must have said something because the halfling was now lost in thought.

She closed the door and buckled up, trying to find the words to ask her question. Roman buckled up himself as she turned the car around and started to drive back towards town.

The vampire sighed, "Alright, what is it?"

"Why are we retreating? We were so close to finally blowing that place sky high! We would have stopped the production of thousands of dangerous weapons. It would have been a huge blow to Wolfsbane. So why are we leaving?"

"I... don't have the answer to that. But we shouldn't attack there anymore. It's too risky. We'll find another way."

"Is there another way?"

"We'll just attack everywhere else. Though, I want to find out what the leader of Wolfsbane looks like. All we know is he goes by "Black," whether that's his real name or not I don't know."

Sal leaned her head against the headrest, keeping her eyes on the road. When they got far enough, she turned on the headlights. "Guess we'll need to get our hackers on that tomorrow. This has turned into an all out gang war..."

"Let's keep it the shortest one in history." Roman wrapped his arms around his stomach. The smell of blood was starting to cover the car, and he turned the AC on higher. "Are you okay?"

"I just have a few scratches, I'll be fine." Sal glanced over at him. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah, we're going to have to stop by the blood bank later. Just stay in the car when we do, okay?"

"Alright, whatever makes you more comfortable."

Roman grimace. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with people watching. It was just... well he was uncomfortable drinking blood at all. It's the life essence of all living creatures, and the only way he can survive is by drinking it. Well... it was this or being dead, and he wasn't about to leave Remus alone. Especially at that time in their lives.

~~~

Roman woke up to Remus poking his cheek the next day. He growled at his brother and turned his head the other way, hearing an offended gasp from the giant green asshole.

"Somebody's grumpy today," he commented.

"M wanna sleep," Roman mumbled into his pillow, making it almost indecipherable.

"You slept through your alarm that went off three times, I came to make sure you were alive. What kinda mission did you do last night?"

Roman pushed himself up and blinked tiredly. He hissed slightly at the pressure he put on his hands, sitting up and looking at them. The memories flooded back and he tried to hide his hands, but it was too late, Remus saw.

"What happened to your hands? Why are they covered in bandages?" Remus asked, grabbing his brother's hands and looking at them.

"Sal wrapped them up." Roman said, pulling his hands away.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

The vampire got up and walked towards his closet. "I just burned them."

"You don't get burns, Roman. I don't get them either! What did you do last night? What was this mission you went on? In fact, what about the last late night mission too?"

"You don't need to worry about that."

Remus grabbed Roman's arm. "No, you don't get to do that shit to me you fucking hypocrite. What have you been doing?"

Roman sighed and pulled his arm out of his brother's grip. "We've been trying to blow up Wolfbane's weapons factory. Last night was our last attempt, however I ran into a bit of trouble. The person fought with a silver weapon. I'll be fine, Sal took care of it."

"Did you blow the place up?"

The vampire sighed. He wanted to lie, but there would be no news reportage of a giant explosion nearby. Remus would find out eventually. "No, but we're not going to risk another attack. Neither Sal nor I were seriously hurt, but I did give her today off to catch up on sleep."

"Is that what you've been doing? I should have realized when the first attack didn't work!"

"We're not going to attack again. We need to find a new place to attack, since all three attacks failed. The security gets tighter every time, next time it'll be impossible to succeed."

Remus huffed. "Then next time I'm in charge of the attack. After all, it was my son who found the address."

"Still my nephew." Roman grabbed a dress shirt from his closet.

"You stay home too. Catch up on sleep."

"I have too much paperwork, I can't stay home."

Remus crossed his arms. "Stay. Sleep. You slept through three of your alarms already. Either you sleep, or I will go to that factory and destroy it myself."

Roman glared at him. "You're not going to do that."

"Try me."

The two of them stared at each other for a moment before Roman sighed. "Fine. But you have to work with Patton today on all the stuff I was going to work on. Patton has to help you."

"Oh please, I can handle it. You just get some sleep."

Roman put his shirt back. "Don't do anything that looks confusing, I don't want you to fuck anything up."

"Hey, this whole gang was my idea!"

"And yet I do most of the work."

"Not fair, I work too!"

"Alright, I do most of the boring work then."

Remus shrugged. "Boring work for a boring guy."

"You're just rude, aren't you?"

"Well that took you 26 years to figure out, didn't it?"