Lucky You're a Bleeder

The Burrowgatory Hill Hospital wasn’t a place you expected - or at least, not a place you wanted - to be popping off at all hours of the night. Usually, when a hospital was crowded to capacity, that would signify that something very, very bad was going down. Ever since vampires had decided to come out of the woodwork as real, though, the hospital’s blood bank was apparently one of the most happening places in town. You couldn’t turn around without tripping over a vampire waiting in line for a snack, or an excited groupie hoping to be someone’s next meal.

Neither of those reasons were why Jet was at the blood bank, though. Jet was there because they had put out an ad offering compensation for donations of particular blood types that were in high demand, and Jet was fucking broke.

(Sidebar: people got so fucking weird about a greed bun being in need of money, like he was either making it up or somehow a disgrace to the species. Sue him for liking to have things more than carats, whatever.)

The waiting room was packed with buns, making the air uncomfortably warm with the press of bodies. Jet sat with the hospital flier announcing the special blood drive clutched firmly in one hand, just in case anyone tried to walk back the offer. He didn’t have anywhere else to be, but it was still hard not to be impatient sitting there, and he caught himself agitatedly bouncing his leg more than once. Even when he consciously made himself stop, he’d start up fidgeting again when his attention drifted.

Damn, he wanted a cigarette. Knowing you couldn’t smoke inside a hospital only made him want one more.

After an agonizingly long thirty minutes, it was finally Jet’s turn to be called. He made his way up to the counter and slapped the flier down with a bit more force than necessary in front of the exhausted-looking bun manning it.

“I’m here for my blood,” he announced. The tired bun, whose nametag identified him as Timothy, blinked slowly at him as though he wasn’t exactly sure what Jet had just said.

Okay, you know what, fair enough. “...I’m here to donate my blood,” he clarified after a moment. “Because of the promotion you’re doing.” (Was it called a promotion if it was a hospital and not a shop doing it? It wasn’t like they were giving out free samples… actually, maybe they were. Did vampires normally have to pay for the blood they came to drink?)

“Oh,” Timothy said after another moment. Small white fangs flashed in the light in the brief moment his mouth was open. Go figure the blood bank administrator was also a vampire. “Yes. That.” He looked down at the flier, squinting as though it was written in an indecipherable foreign language.

“So, like. How do we get started in doing that?” Jet prodded him.

Timothy shook himself out of his stupor and picked up a clipboard to slide it across the counter to Jet. “Fill this out, and then you can follow me down the hall when you’re all done.”

The paperwork was pretty basic, so it only took a few minutes. No blood-borne diseases, no transmissible conditions… huh, was vampirism considered a disease? Jet had never given it much thought, for obvious reasons, but wasn’t it technically more like a curse? There was no spot on the paperwork to list what sort of curses you might be under. Then again, vampires probably wouldn’t be donating blood.

…Did vampires even have blood that they could donate? Technically any blood inside their bodies had to be someone else’s blood, right? Was there such a thing as blood donation fraud?

Shaking his head to refocus, Jet finished checking the last box on the form and slid it back over to Timothy. “All set.”

Timothy accepted the clipboard, but barely seemed to glance over it before putting it aside and walking out from behind the counter, gesturing for Jet to follow. Jet thought about calling him out on it, then thought about how much he wanted to get this over with and get paid, and shrugged. He was going to assume that Timothy looked at that set of paperwork so many times every night that he could identify any problems at a glance, and that everything was fine.

Down the hall were several rooms containing a few chairs each, most holding a donor in the midst of being attended to by some harried-looking nurse or orderly. Timothy led Jet to the first free chair they passed and directed him to sit.

“Climb up there and make yourself comfortable - you did eat and hydrate before this, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Timothy nodded, seemingly more to himself than to Jet. “Okay, I’m going to put a tourniquet on your arm to make it easier to find a vein…” He seemed like he was going to say something else, but he trailed off, mouth flattening into a line of concentration as he fitted the tourniquet to Jet’s arm and tightened it.

“Are you, uh… doing okay?” Jet ventured after a couple minutes of awkward silence. “You look like you need a break.”

Timothy let out the kind of weary sigh that sounded like it came straight from the soul. “No time.” He picked up the IV waiting nearby and guided the needle to Jet’s arm; Jet had a moment to worry that he’d miss the vein, thanks to how tired he looked, but he got it in one try. Impressive muscle memory.

“Here, hold this and squeeze every few seconds. It’ll promote blood flow.” Timothy pressed a stress ball into Jet’s hand. Jet did as instructed; it wasn’t so bad, but Timothy just stood off to the side, staring into space or at the slowly filling bloodbag.

“Man, you’re gonna give me performance anxiety, standing there and not saying anything.”

“Huh? Oh.” Timothy blinked, seemingly coming back to reality again. “Sorry, I’m…” He cut himself off with a yawn. “...Maybe I do need a bit of a pick-me-up,” he mumbled.

“Can you drink coffee?”

“I can, but it doesn’t taste very good anymore. Not that the hospital break room coffee was ever very good…” Timothy trailed off again, frowning.

“Oh. That sucks.” Jet only realized the unintentional pun a moment later and winced, but Timothy didn’t seem to notice. The uncomfortable silence resumed, stretching on until Jet once again felt compelled to break it.

“So is there like, can vampires give blood? Is it considered stolen valor or something since it’s not their blood in the first place?”

“What?” Timothy asked, bewildered.

“You know what, never mind.” He resolved to just not say anything else until this was over and it was time to ask for his money.

It felt like it took as long to finish with the donation as it had for him to be called in the waiting room in the first place, but finally the IV bag was full. Timothy removed the needle from Jet’s arm and bandaged him, helping him up from the chair. “You should wait up front for about 15 more minutes, to make sure that there’s no sudden dizziness or side effects… if you feel faint, let someone know right away. We have complimentary juice boxes.”

“Oh, uh. Thanks. And the payment…?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Timothy paused for several seconds longer than necessary. Jet could practically hear the gears creaking as he tried to get his thoughts together. “Right, the payment. I’ll come up front and take care of that when I’m done putting this away.”

“Maybe you should just drink it,” Jet said impulsively. “Your pick-me-up, yeah?”

Timothy gave the IV a look far more longing than Jet really thought anyone ought to give a bag full of blood. “Maybe I will. If you don’t mind.”

“The blood’s not in my body anymore, so I don’t really care what you do with it as long as I get paid,” Jet told him frankly.

“Heh.” A soft wheeze that was more the ghost of a laugh than anything escaped Timothy’s lips. “Good point. I’ll take a few minutes then and meet you back up front for your payment. Don’t forget to grab a juice box.”

“Sure thing, man.” Jet turned and left the room swiftly, so as not to have to stand around and watch Timothy drink his donated blood like it too was a juice box.

He’d just have to be better with saving his money, because as he waded back into the (still overcrowded) waiting room, Jet resolved firmly that this was going to be a one-time thing only.