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It starts when Daniel casually mentions to the others that he's going out tonight, not on his usual hunting night. Kevin asks from his casual position on the chaise sofa,
"Oh, what's the occasion?"
Daniel shrugs on a long black coat and grabs his keys from the hook in the foyer,
"Nothing really, I just wanted to go around the forest for a bit."
On the sofa sitting next to Kevin is Seàn, who pipes up,
"Surely you've charted the whole thing by now?"
"That doesn't mean I can't still explore it, Seàn. Besides, anything could happen. Remember when Daithi found wolfsbane?" The werewolf seems to deflate a little at the memory; that was a long night,
"That wasn't the forest changing, that was just a hunter being bad at their job. You better not come back with any traces of wolfsbane."
Daniel glares at Seàn,
"Why do you think I would? If I found wolfsbane I wouldn't touch it-"
"You might stand on it by accident!" Kevin adds, unhelpfully. Some days Daniel really feels like he's a mother of four, and the disappointed sigh he lets out just proves it.
"I'm not gonna 'stand' anywhere, ya fool. I'm flying."
To Daniel's confusion, the other two just start laughing. He's getting irritated now,
"What's so funny about that?"
Seàn snorts,
"The fuck are you talking about, Dan?"
"I can turn into a bat whenever I want, y'know. It's not just a thing for emergencies," he rebuts. Maybe that's what they think is strange. But the looks they give him now are a little too strange.
"Wait, what?" Kevin says, possibly the most visibly confused Daniel has ever seen him.
"It takes a bit of effort, yeah, but I can do it when I want."
"You're fuckin' with us, Dan. There's no way you can turn into a bat and you haven't told us."
"...Yes, I can turn into a bat," Daniel sighs hopelessly, grabbing his phone and putting it in his pocket,
"I thought you guys knew."
Kevin scoffs,
"So I've been talking to all the bats without knowing one of them is you?"
"Oh my god. I'm going before it gets any colder out," the vampire says firmly, opening the door,
"You can pummel me with questions when I get back."
~
By the time Daniel returns to the mansion, the two lads are still in the lounge, eagerly awaiting his return so that they could ask their questions [Can you turn into different bats? No, I'm the same bat. Do your clothes transform with you like Seàn's? No, I had to enchant all my clothes. Can you talk as a bat? No. Can you communicate with other bats? Yes. What do they say? Nothing interesting. Do they have names? I name them.]
The next day at dawn, Kevin is about to head down to his fire room when he finds the basement hatch being guarded by a small, fluffy bat with pale fur. Before the events of yesterday, Kevin would think nothing of it and just gently shoo it away until it moves. Now, of course, he immediately wonders if it's Daniel.
He crouches and leans close to it, whispering,
"Hey, blink twice if you're Dan."
Then he realises that the bat's eyes are closed, and it's asleep. But still, it could be him. Kevin slowly gets up and backs out of the corridor, then jogs up the stairs to the master bedroom. To Kevin's disappointment, the completely humanoid Daniel is asleep in a cocoon of blankets, with just his hair poking out.
That evening, he asks Daniel if he can teleport as a bat (just to rule it out as a possibility), the latter rolls his eyes,
"You lads probably won't see me as a bat, at least for a while, so can you stop pestering me about it?"
"But I found a bat this morning and I thought it could be you, come see it!" Kevin asks, completely full of enthusiasm and not exactly reading the room. But alas, Daniel still follows him to the basement door and spots a bat he finds familiar.
"Oh, that's Jesse. I think she's a horseshoe bat," he remarks, casually crouching on the floor and holding his pinky finger out, which 'Jesse' snuggles up to immediately.
Kevin badly hides his snort of amusement,
"Jesse? That's such a boring name, I thought you'd be all for fantasy names like. I dunno, 'Magistrex' or something." He puts finger quotes around his own made-up name.
Daniel huffs,
"It's not a boring name, Kevin. They all have reasons behind their names, alright?"
~
The second time a bat is seen in the mansion, it's by Seàn a few days later. His bedroom gets frequent little visitors, since he keeps the window open most of the time, and he has the same sleep schedule as most of them.
But just like with Kevin, this cute little critter is now the main point of interest in Seàn's evening. This one is even smaller than Jesse, with darker fur and one damaged ear. Seàn finds it on his windowsill and holds out his hand by pure instinct. To his surprise, the tiny bat quickly crawls into his open palm.
With that, he parades around the mansion trying to find one of the lads, mostly just to show them his new bat friend, but partly to check if it could be Daniel.
He runs into Daithi and Brian in the kitchen, and quickly gets their attention,
"Lads! Look what I found!"
Brian raises his eyebrow and looks at the bundle of fur in Seàn's hand. He smirks,
"What, you can cough up hairballs now or somethin'?"
Daithi gasps and edges closer to Seàn though, inspecting his hand,
"Oh my god that's the tiniest fuckin' bat I've ever seen." Suddenly Brian's interest is piqued and he leans over too,
"Oh, it's a bat. What's wrong with its ear?"
"God fuckin' knows, it looks like an old wound though. I thought it could be Daniel until I noticed it."
Brian has an unreadable expression in the following silence, then he looks at the bat and suddenly says,
"That looks nothing like Dan. Do you even know what his bat form looks like?"
Seàn blinks.
"Do you? Why do you get to see him as a bat?"
Brian turns to Daithi and splutters, exasperated,
"You've seen him, right? Don't tell me I'm somehow the only fucker here observant enough to notice when a Dan is a bat."
"I, uh..." Daithi starts, and then sighs,
"No, no I don't- I didn't even know he could turn into a bat..."
He's met with a frustrated groan from Brian,
"So apparently you're all fools and I'm the only person who knew that Daniel could turn into a bat?"
Seàn finally cuts in,
"Alright, we get it. I'm gonna go find Dan. I wanna know this little guy's name."
The bat's name is John Bat. Seàn and Kevin are once again disappointed.
~
Over the next couple of weeks, many more bats are found by Kevin, Seàn and now Daithi, who has joined them in their investigation. Every time, the bat in question is quickly confirmed to not be Daniel, whether it be Daniel himself showing up, or Brian's scoffing and head shaking.
"Oh, Ben!" Daniel gasps one day, upon being presented with one of the many bats that the lads have brought to him. Usually they just ask if he knows the particular creature, and if so, grumble at its boring name, and today is no different.
Kevin splutters and looks down at the grumpy ball of brown fluff in his hand,
"What is this naming system? Do any of the bats have cool names?"
Daniel scoops the bat into his own hands and lectures him,
"Stop questioning me, Kevin. All of their names have their own meanings. Besides, in this case Ben is actually short for benevolent."
Kevin sighs,
"That's... still boring. Anyway, what's Ben's story?"
"He's a soprano pipistrelle, the only one in the area I think. I found him injured on my balcony one night so I nursed him back to health. He used to follow me all the time but I haven't seen him in years," Daniel looks genuinely on the verge of tears as he holds the bat up gently and admires him,
"I'm so glad you're okay Ben!"
Kevin, suddenly feeling like he's interrupting something, awkwardly steps away.
More bats come and go, and the lads slowly get tired of investigating if they're Daniel, because the answer is always no. Kevin is soon the only one who still tries. One day, he gets excited over a bat that seems to react to his presence like he's a friend, and he thinks that this might finally be Daniel showing him his bat form. But when he finds Seàn, the latter tells him that he's 'a feckin eejit' and that they've already seen John Bat before. Upon closer inspection, the bat does indeed have a clipped ear.
Weeks pass, and after that embarrassing discovery, Kevin finally gives up too.
~
There's a small commotion outside of Seàn's window. He ignores it at first; this mansion is old and makes a lot of unexplainable noises. But then there's an almost rhythmic clattering against the window, and he looks over. What he sees is... nothing, at first. It's 4AM, and over the last hour it has started to rain hard, but even in the dark he sees small movements.
He leaves his desk and slides the heavy window up. Suddenly a tiny, soaking wet creature flutters inside and lands on the windowsill. Seàn lets go of the window, accidentally letting it slam, and gasps. He quickly realises that it's a bat, and he crouches to get eye level with it,
"Aww no, you're all wet from the rain!"
The bat starts squeaking, wings folding as it curls up even smaller. Seàn almost cries,
"Oh my god, you're adorable... you must be cold, it's freezin' out!"
It starts to squeak again, as if in reply. Seàn panics for a second. He barely knows how to look after himself, let alone a bat. After a brief moment of thought, he gets up and grabs a random blanket from the bottom of his wardrobe and folds it into a square. Then he places it on the windowsill, and to his surprise, the bat shuffles onto it with no prompting.
Seàn folds over part of the blanket to cover the bat, to which it burrows into the material, only its head poking out. Only now does Seàn notice a quite prominent feature of his new little friend,
"Jesus, your ears are feckin' huge..."
The bat just squeaks. Seàn smiles.
"You're talkative, aren't you... uh. I don't know your name but I assume it's somethin' boring like... Walter. So I'll call you Walter until Dan gets back."
He's met with many squeaks in response. The werewolf looks over at the clock in his room. It's a few minutes past 4AM, so Daniel should in fact be home by now. He should go and find him.
"Alright Walter, I'm gonna be right back, alright?"
There's a lot more loud squeaks. Seàn frowns. None of the bats he's previously seen have been this noisy. Most of them have been completely silent. Maybe something is wrong. He gently takes the corner of the blanket back and crouches again, looking closely at 'Walter'. Almost immediately he notices a small bit of blood on the blanket, and it dawns on him that the creature is hurt. Now he really needs to find Daniel.
"Oh, you poor thing! That's why you wanted to come inside!" he says sadly. Immediately 'Walter' brandishes its left wing, and shows the plethora of gashes and tears across the entire appendage. Seàn gasps,
"Feckin' hell, I need to find Dan. I don't know how the hell you treat a bat."
Seàn slams open his bedroom door and jogs down the hallway, looking over the railing to see if anyone is in the lounge downstairs. Daniel is nowhere to be seen, but Daith, Kevin and Brian are sitting by the fireplace, playing Uno. Well, playing their modified, ghost-accessible version of Uno, with a glass table. (You figure out the rest.)
"Guys! Is Daniel back yet?"
Brian puts down a blue seven with a bored look and replies,
"We haven't seen him."
"I found a bat and I think it's hurt," Seàn says,
"Can someone else help? I don't really know what to do."
Brian straightens up,
"You found a bat?"
"It landed right outside my window, I think its wing is busted."
"A bat showed up at your window, right around the time Daniel was supposed to come home?"
It very suddenly clicks for Seàn.
"Fuck."
Brian is out of his seat and heading up the stairs in seconds, grumbling,
"You didn't even have a single thought that it could be Daniel?"
He grumbles all the way to Seàn's room, and once he walks through the doorway and looks at the windowsill, he throws his hands up in defeat,
"Yep, that's Daniel. You're a fucking moron-"
Seàn, following closely behind him, snaps back,
"Can you save the lecture for later, Brian?"
Without a reply, Brian crouches by the windowsill and inspects the bat further. Long ears, light brown fur, little black eyes, it's definitely Daniel. And there's definitely something wrong.
"What's going on? Can you turn back, Dan?" Brian asks softly.
Daniel cowers back into the blanket.
"You don't want to? You can't?" Brian suggests, and is met with a squeak at the second question.
"You can't turn back. Okay, I'll figure something out... Seàn said you're hurt, can you show-"
Daniel once again shows his damaged wing, and Brian sucks in a breath through his teeth,
"Jesus, that looks rough. Okay, um... I can get you some water? Oh, can you have sugar water? That'll give you some energy, right?" To Seàn's astonishment, Daniel nods. It looks strange, a creature doing human things, but Seàn supposes that's how Kevin sees him in wolf form, nodding and shaking his head.
Brian gets up and heads to the door,
"Alright, I'm getting you some. Seàn would you get a nicer blanket than that tatty thing for when he turns back? He's still gonna be cold."
With that, Brian closes the door behind him, leaving Seàn alone with the bat- Daniel. The first thing that comes to mind as he searches for a nicer blanket is his previous behaviour.
"Uh. Sorry I said your ears are massive. I mean, they are but... um."
Daniel looks up at him and squeaks softly, as if to say,
"It's alright."
"So you can't turn back into a human- well, vampire? Does it take a lot of energy?"
Another small squeak.
"Hm. Dan, I've gotta admit, I didn't think this is how I'd be seeing your bat form for the first time. Although, the first time I saw your blood room was just as chaotic-"
The door opens and Brian returns with a bottle cap full of sugar water. He places it gently onto the windowsill in front of Daniel, who slowly emerges from his little blanket fort and starts to lap up the water. Seàn has to refrain from audibly cooing at how cute it is, but he does have to admit,
"Dan why don't you wanna show us your bat form? It's adorable."
Brian nudges him. Seàn scoffs,
"What? I'm right!"
"No, I'm just nudging you out of the way,"
"Oh."
Daniel completely rids himself of the blanket and slowly shuffles towards the edge of the windowsill, then slides himself off. At the exact moment he starts to fall, there's a quick flurry of deep purple energy, wrapping around Daniel and then flashing out of existence. In its place is the regular vampire form that they know and love, but still just as injured. Only then does it occur to Seàn that an injured wing for a bat equals an injured arm for a humanoid.
Brian rushes forward as he notices Daniel stumbling. He catches him out of instinct but agitates his arm in the process, and Daniel cries out in pain, collapsing into Brian.
"Sorry! Here, let's get you comfortable-" he says hurriedly, as he scoops up Daniel and places him onto Seàn's bed. He's shivering and he's still wet from the rain, along with his suit, but that doesn't concern Brian as much as the blood seeping through the sleeve of his dress shirt.
"Fuck... what happened out there Dan?" he says, gently taking Daniel's good arm out of the jacket's sleeve and then starting to undo the buttons of his shirt.
As Brian carefully works away at his sopping wet clothes to access his injuries, Daniel manages to weakly get out,
"Hunters..."
Seàn perks up suddenly, glancing at the window,
"In the forest? How many?"
"Two, but... I-I killed them- fuck!" he cuts himself off with a shout as Brian tries to pull down his blood-soaked sleeve. The latter winces and apologises again,
"Sorry, sorry! It's off now, sorry-"
Brian quickly covers Daniel with the new blanket, only leaving his left arm exposed so that he can assess the damage. Without even looking up, he asks,
"Seàn, could you grab the first aid stuff? Oh, and let the others know what's going on while you're down there."
As soon as Seàn leaves, Brian uses his cybernetic eye to scan Daniel's arm. He can't quite hide his worried expression,
"Okay, you haven't lost too much blood, and they're not bleeding that fast. The cuts are pretty deep, though..."
Daniel exhales shakily,
"I don't need a robot eye to know that, Brian..."
Brian chuckles quietly,
"Y'know, it wouldn't kill you to be nice to me. I'm trying to help."
"Brian, this hurts so fuckin' bad, I think it will actually kill me to be nice to you."
"Alright, alright. Just be glad one of us has caught you in bat form before, or you'd still be on the windowsill."
Seàn returns, armed with a first aid box, some cloths, and... a wooden spoon. When he notices the look he's getting from Brian, he quickly explains,
"Daithi said he should bite down on somethin' while you clean the wounds."
Brian nods,
"Fair enough. He'd probably give himself angel bites with his fangs, won't he?"
"I'm right here. Stop talking about me."
Brian scoffs as he takes the first aid box and starts rummaging through it,
"Well, I dunno if you noticed but you're kinda the star of the show right now, Daniel. Anyway shut up and bite this feckin spoon."
Daniel bites down on the spoon, exposing his fangs, as Brian opens a small bottle of antiseptic and tilts it onto a cloth. As soon as he dabs the cloth around one of the cuts, Daniel flinches with a muffled shout. Brian makes quick work of the rest of his arm, cleaning around his wounds and also wiping off the blood. As soon as he's done he puts the bottle away and unwraps a few dressings, whilst Seàn takes the spoon and the cloth away.
"It could be worse..." Daniel suddenly admits,
"They thought they had a silver dagger, but it obviously wasn't real silver."
Seàn scoffs,
"Idiots. Hunters are getting worse these days, honestly."
Brian sighs as he sticks a dressing to the last cut and tapes it down,
"I just can't believe you might've bled out on Seàn's window because you're too stubborn to show anyone your bat form. If I hadn't seen you that one time, Dan-"
"Jeez, I'll be less stubborn, alright? Can I sleep now, dad?"
"No, you're still in Seàn's room."
Daniel sighs miserably, clearly not happy with the idea of standing up and walking to his own room.
"I don't wanna move."
Brian shakes his head,
"It took you less than three seconds to be stubborn again. It's a good thing we love you, ye miserable little bitch."
Daniel's eyes are already closed,
"Love you too, Brine."
Seàn chuckles at the sight, accepting the fact that he's either going to be the big spoon tonight, or carrying Daniel out of his bed. He somewhat prefers the former. He wants to protect Daniel for the night.
Who knows how many more secrets Daniel has that'll get him killed?
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