Vices and Maces

Chapter 27: Motherly Melany

CW: really bad bruising

When Virgil woke up the next day, he really really didn't want to get out of bed. That was definitely the first thought that came to mind the next morning. But he did need to get up... part of him wished that the factory had blown up so he wouldn't have to deal with the pain.

He still forced himself to sit up, despite the pain in his back and legs. The dragon took a deep breath, trying to stretch without making the pain worse. Okay, maybe Janus was right, a shelf falling on him wasn't fine.

Said shifter was curled up as a snake on his desk chair. He was still asleep, his tongue slithering out every now and then. Cuts littered his pale yellow scales, but he didn't seem to be in pain. Virgil would have found it cute if waking up in pain didn't put him in such a bad mood.

However he still forced himself to stay awake, blinking blearly. Both his back and legs protested at any movement, but he knew that he needed to get moving. Black should be coming soon, Virgil barely remembered to shoot him an email about the attack the night before. No doubt he'll be arriving soon. On the bright side, Virgil will see Melany, she's always nice to talk to.

He tried to stretch his back, biting back a whimper. It was even worse when he stood up, his legs just wanted to fail on him but he forced himself to stay standing.

Janus blinked their eyes open and followed his movements, watching him painfully make his way to the wardrobe. The shifter changed back to their human form and stretched with a yawn, twisting their body in almost unnatural ways.

"Morning," they greeted. Virgil simply replied with a groan. "Well somebody's grumpy." Janus got up and bent backwards, popping coming from their back.

"At least you can stretch. It hurts to even raise my arm up." Virgil took off his shirt, still turned away from Janus.

"Yeesh, that's bad." They commented on the giant purple and black bruise on Virgil's back. "You should get one of the doctors to check that out."

Virgil shook his head, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over. "I'm fine. If my spine was even cracked, I doubt I would be able to move my legs if it was. I'm just lucky my wings weren't out when I was hit, they definitely would have snapped."

"You're going to die one day."

"You say that like I don't already know. But honestly, at this point, that's the only way I'll be able to escape this gang."

Janus sighed, sitting back against the chair. "Right..."

In the silence that followed as Virgil changed, he thought about the vampire. Well first he wanted to come up with what he should say to Black, but honestly he didn't understand why they just gave up like that. Was it something Virgil said?

"Hey Janus, I think it might be safe if you stay at your apartment for the night. I'm sure you miss sleeping in an actual bed, and having the privacy of your own home. Plus something tells me they're not going to attack again, at least not tonight."

"Trying to get rid of me?"

Virgil rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you're a pain in my ass."

"Better than having to deal with a whiny little dragon in my opinion."

"Plus you have an actual shower and not one that was badly installed in this factory."

"Yeah, how the hell do you live here? It's so sad."

"I die a little on the inside every day."

Janus nodded. "Sounds about right."

Virgil pulled on his coat. "Pronouns?"