Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 6, this fills my attacked by a creature square.

SCUTTLED

It started out like so many other horror stories. "One minute I was doing such-and-such, and then this thing came out of nowhere and the next moment ..." Yeah, well, OK, maybe not exactly like other stories, but it came pretty close. Closer than he would've liked, and definitely closer than he ever expected. Too close, actually.

Because in keeping with the popular story lines, "one minute" he'd been Lieutenant-Commander Steven J. McGarrett, United States Navy SEAL - awarded with so many been-there-done-that-and-survived badges that he was hung like a fucking Christmas tree whenever he was wearing his dress uniform - chasing down an insurgent through ever narrowing alleyways and winding streetlets.

Chasing the suspect but never really quite gaining on him, breath coming in harsh gasps as he was giving it his all, nearly puking out his guts with the sheer effort of it, becoming increasingly frustrated by the fact that, no matter how hard he pumped his leg muscles, the distance between them remained the same.

Then there had been a quiet, taunting laughter, a flash of a face looking back at him, actually smiling and Hey! there had been something seriously wrong with that smile, all teeth and bloodless lips, and just as he was about to just give up and head back to his team, somebody - something? - had suddenly rushed at him and quicker than you could say Hello? there had been a sharp pain and he had been enveloped by darkness.

And just like the stories went, "the next moment" he regained consciousness crawling through a dark, filthy alley in a classified location somewhere in the Middle East. And the way he was feeling, well ... let's say the old familiar term FUBAR wasn't even coming close. Not even in its vicinity, hell, not even in the same universe!

Which all basically ceased to be important the minute he started evaluating himself for injuries and tried checking his pulse. Tried. Because it wasn't there. And when he desperately tried checking again and again he noticed something else, something which would normally take his breath away, except, yeah, that too seemed to be missing somehow.

So, no pulse, no breath, and that one other thing he noticed was that his finger nails were no longer up to par with military regulations. No Sir. To be honest, he was pretty sure some superior officer would only need to take one look at what was sprouting from the end of his finger tips and yell for a Flexcut power tool. Either that, or run away screaming.

He was pretty sure the latter would prove to be the smarter move.

Because the worst thing about the whole situation was that all of the above paled to a whimpering insignificance when compared to the hunger he was feeling. And it wasn't a shit-I-could-eat-a-burger-or-two kinda hunger, no, he was HUNGRY. Capital stuff. Like, the-first-cow-comes-near-me-is-dead kinda hunger. Which, considering his location, would probably equate to eating a whole camel. Easily.

The thought about the camel involuntarily made him lick his lips, which was the moment he cut his tongue on his teeth. His incisors, to be more specific, which seemed to have elongated. Grown quite large, actually. When he swiped a finger over his mouth, pulling it away to stare at the red smear from his bleeding tongue, the image of eating a camel suddenly transformed into something else. Shifted from devouring the animal's flesh to drinking it dry like a bottle of Longboard.

Which was the exact same moment Lieutenant-Commander Steven J. McGarrett realized that his Navy SEAL career in all likelihood had just been scuttled. Forever. And, if he analyzed the situation correctly, that would be exactly how long he had to reminisce about his years as a frog man.

Forever. Meaning, all of Eternity.

Which then suddenly gave a whole new meaning to that famous SEAL motto, The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday. Yeah, yesterday, and the day before that, and every fucking day before he found himself stuck in that Middle Eastern alley without a pulse, without some sort of heart beat going on, was definitely going to be ranked as the easiest part of his life.

Getting shot, getting beat up, suffering from heat or cold or painful oh-sheesh-I-need-to-change-my-underwear cramps resulting from drinking bad jungle water ... all of that would be considered easy from now on, just a stroll in the park.

Because somebody, or rather something, had turned him into a vampire.

Crap!