Someone knocked on the door. It was good thing Matt hadn't been able to sleep that night or he might have missed the light sound of knuckles against wood, tucked away in bed and far from the front door. Next to him, his husband was still sleeping soundly, unaware and blissful, and there was no movement from the kid's rooms that he could hear. For a moment everything was silent and he convinced himself he'd imagined it, somewhere in the exhaustion-induced haze that veiled his mind. It had been a long shift at the hospital and all he wanted to do was get some sleep. Rolling over slowly, he pulled the blanket back over his shoulder and flipped his pillow over to the cool side, closing his eyes once more to resume forcing himself to lie perfectly still in the hopes that sleep would claim him.

The knocking came again, louder and faster this time. Beside him, Chris stirred and nudged his foot against Matt's calf, his toes ice cold from sticking out of the covers. Laughing quietly, he forced himself to sit up and cast a glance over at his phone. The screen lit up, showing 3:07am. Something settled deep in the pit of his stomach, a little hole of apprehension as he realized how late it was. Nothing good ever came of visitors at this time of night.

One hand curled around the baseball bat he kept under their bed, and he hefted it over his shoulder as he walked down the hall towards their family room. A quick glance to the right showed him that the kid's rooms were still dark, with the doors firmly shut. He blinked several times, trying to ease the ache of his eyes that were screaming to be closed again.

"Who's there?" Matt called out once he was at the door, trying to strike the perfect balance of whispering the words so the kids wouldn't hear him and being loud enough so that the person on the other side of the door would. His hand tightened around the bat, the wood cool beneath his fingers.

"Its Henry."

The voice sounded ragged and out of breath, as if its owner had just run a marathon and was fighting to even out their breathing. It certainly sounded like Henry, though there was an edge to his voice that Matt had never heard before. It turned the pit of apprehension in his gut to something deeper and darker. His eyes suddenly ached all the more and he had to fight to remain conscious while standing up, a huge wave of exhaustion rolling over his body and threatening to sap the strength from his limbs. Only a few seconds passed before he regained control of himself, but those seconds felt like they stretched on for hours.

"Sorry." Henry muttered from the other side of the door. The familiar weight of the bat was missing and he realized he'd dropped it in the struggle for control of his body. Behind him, he heard Chris stumbling out into the living room.

"Can you let us in?"

Matt frowned at hearing Theo was also there behind the door. It was strange enough for Henry to be there in the middle of the night, alone, but the fact that Theo hadn't said a word yet was weirder. He turned to look over his shoulder at Chris, and whispered just loud enough for his husband to hear.

"Go make sure the kids don't leave their rooms, okay?"

The other man's eyes widened, but there must have been something in Matt's voice that convinced him to listen without question because he turned on his heel and headed down the hallway.

Opening the door was one of the worst mistakes he'd ever made.

Henry was leaning against a porch beam, still panting hard as he stared at the human in front of him. Four awful claw marks travelled down one side of his face, deep enough that Matt could see the bone of his cheek when the porch light caught his face just right. His right eye socket had been completely destroyed, collapsed around an empty space where his eye should have sat, and the other side of his face was completely covered in blood that trickled down from his hairline. Henry was wearing a military-style vest, a snug black garment that appeared to have been reinforced somehow, perhaps supposed to be bulletproof. It had offered little protection against whatever creature had done this: A crescent bite mark was clearly outlined in the material, blood pouring out of the holes the teeth had made in his body. Bone shone in the dim light as it pierced through the skin of his leg and it was clear it was threatening to collapse underneath him at any moment- Matt was surprised he'd managed to stand upright at all, never mind walk while bearing someone else's weight. But Theo…

His twin had one arm wrapped around his waist, pressing him tight against his side to keep the other boy from slumping to the ground. It was clear that Theo had gotten the worse of whatever had attacked them. His face was a mass of pulped meat where stringy muscle and shards of bone mixed together with bloody foam that trailed from his lips as Theo fought for breath. He had no left arm, missing it from the shoulder, and the right seemed to be hanging on only by small threads of flesh. Matt could hear a hiss as his chest rose and fell, a sure sign of punctured lungs. Theo might have once been wearing the same clothes as Henry, but all that remained of the fabric was soaked with blood and in tatters. Somehow, brown eyes blinked open and looked at him, glassy and unfocused.

Matt had never thrown up when faced with a patient before, but all he could do was turn his head and wretch up what they'd had for dinner. There was something so inherently wrong about the twins being in such a state: as if seeing them like this was throwing his worldview, his entire being, slightly off. He felt dizzy and nauseous, not registering Chris' panicked questions as he ran back into the living room. The doctor had the sense of mind to half-close the front door so his husband wouldn't see the sight on the porch and he blocked the rest with his body, forcing his gaze from the ruin of Theo's face to stare at Henry again.

"Can we come in?" The other asked, a few of his teeth missing and mouth full of blood.

"You…" Matt struggled to speak for a moment, fighting to find his voice in the new alignment of the world. "No, you need a hospital! You need to- Chris, grab the phone, call 911-"

Did he still have medical supplies at home? They had band-aids and Neosporin, everything they needed to treat the kid's scrapes and bruises, but he couldn't remember if he had a suture kit in the medicine cabinet. His mind raced and he turned to go look as Chris raced to grab his cellphone from the bedroom.

"No! No, you can't!" Henry cried, and took a few staggering steps forward, leaving the relative stability of the post to reach for Matt. Instinctively the doctor turned back to catch him, arm settling over his shoulders to help keep him upright the broken leg finally gave out. Theo slumped against him as well, warm blood smearing over his pajama shirt, and he stumbled back into the house supporting the twins until he could drag them inside and lay them out on the floor.

Henry sat up as soon as he was let go and he stared in the direction of the bedroom Chris had disappeared in before whipping his head around to stare at Matt with a ferocity he'd never seen. He gestured between himself and his brother.

"Stop him, we can't go there! Fucking stop him!"

In the same breath, he rolled onto his side and shoved at Matt's leg with surprising strength, urging him towards the bedroom.

"Stop him!" Henry's voice cracked with notes of hysteria and despite his better judgment, Matt found himself running full-tilt into the bedroom to snatch the phone from Chris' hand. His husband whirled around to face him with angry words, but Matt only shook his head and rushed into the bathroom, throwing open the medicine cabinet for anything that might be useful.

He'd never been so glad to see a first-aid kit.

He grabbed it and turned to see Chris standing in the doorway, staring down the hall at their guests lying on the floor. Mentally he cursed and pushed past the other man to try and block his view, grabbing his husband's shoulder with his free hand. The other man had gone white, never fond of blood or gore-filled movies, and Matt had to refocus his eyes on him. Somewhere, his training was kicking in, the part of himself that had learned how to remain calm when he felt like the world was ending.

"Get the kids and keep them in their rooms. Make sure they don't come out." He muttered emphatically, and repeated himself until Chris nodded his head yes. His husband had met the twins before- even had some inkling of Matt's suspicions about them, though Chris had always thought he was overthinking it. Theo had met their kids before, as babies, had even shown up to a few birthday parties Matt had invited him to. He always stood awkwardly in the corner while six-year olds sprinted around the living room, but nevertheless he came. Chris probably remembered Henry singing to Abbie as a baby when she was teething and cranky, and his wink when the baby seemed to quiet down almost immediately in his arms.

Seeing family friends practically eviscerated in his house was doing god knew what to his head.

"Okay. Okay." Chris whispered, and he stumbled past Matt to make his way down the hall to the kid's rooms. They were no doubt awake after Henry's shouting, but by some miracle they hadn't yet sprinted into the room to see what was going on.

Matt turned back to the twins, mentally cataloging injuries and trying to assess what he could do with the limited tools he had available. Theo was the first priority- Henry was aware enough to talk and argue, but Theo just laid there with his eyes half-open, foam collecting at the corners of his mouth.

The first thing the doctor noticed when he walked into the living room was Henry biting on a torn piece of his vest, pulling at the end of his broken leg with grim determination.

"Hey, hey, whoa, stop! You'll make it worse!" Matt exclaimed, and he was met with an intense stare.

"You do it then." Henry hissed, spitting out the piece of cloth he'd been using as a mouthpiece.

"Gotta look at Theo first." Matt replied brusquely, sinking to his knees beside the still body to rummage in the first aid kit.

"No, he's-" The other sounded frustrated and Henry's arm flashed out to catch the doctor's wrist, stopping him as he pulled out the suture kit, antiseptic, and other supplies. "He's fine, he's just gotta lie there. Put my leg back and I can help you with him."

"You need to lie still Henry, you're badly hurt-"

"No shit!"

"You're badly hurt and you shouldn't move, really."

Making a noise of exasperation, Henry released his wrist and went back to tugging at his leg again, foregoing the piece of cloth in favor of just biting down hard on his lip. Matt settled his fingers against Theo's throat, feeling for a pulse as he laid his head on his friend's chest, searching for the sound of his heart.

He didn't find it.

Again, he fumbled his fingers at the other's throat, wishing that his friend still had a fucking wrist for him to feel. Still nothing.

Cold settled in the pit of his stomach. He glanced at Theo's mouth and noticed there was no more bloody spittle collecting at the corners.

Henry was still pulling at his ankle, letting out grunts of pain with each motion. Matt methodically grabbed the kit and shoved it next to Henry instead, shifting so that he could brush away the other's hands from his ankle. His mind raced but he took several deep breaths, trying not to think about the body lying mere inches away. There was time for that when Henry was stable.

This wasn't the most pressing injury, but if it would get the guy to lie still for a moment, Matt would help him set his leg. Henry wordlessly grabbed the reinforced cloth and placed it back between his teeth, tilting his head back so that he was looking up at the ceiling.

Matt felt along the limb, making sure there were no surprises- no other shards of bone he'd be disturbing, no jagged edges that would sever a vein. In a hospital setting this would take surgery to fix, and probably a few metal screws to hold the bone together. Luckily for Henry, it seemed like a pretty clean break- at least as clean as compound fractures ever got. The kid had the right idea on how to fix it; though Matt wasn't surprised he hadn't been able to get enough leverage on his own. Briefly he considered counting down but decided against it.

He pulled and Henry screamed into the gag, a raw anguished sound that lasted after Matt had let go of the limb. The white of bone had disappeared back into the gash on his leg, and immediately Matt covered the wound with a few of the bandages, pressing down hard to stem the blood flow. While he did so, he glanced over Henry's chest, surveying the damage that he could see beneath the protective vest.

There were no shards of ribs pushed up through his skin, which was good, though purple and blue mottling dotted the skin around the bite marks. Whatever had bitten him must have somehow avoided every single major organ in Henry's torso, or he'd have already bled out trying to get to Matt's house. There were undoubtedly pieces of fabric and other debris stuck in the puncture holes, but he didn't dare try and go digging for any of them without a fluoroscopy machine.

Finally, Matt turned his attention to Henry's missing eye, glancing up at his face to assess the damage that had been done to the socket. Automatically his hands began to shred strips of bandages into smaller pieces so that he could pack them into the wound and keep the socket from collapsing in on itself.

But instead of the empty, bloody hole he'd seen earlier, Matt was greeted with a piece of flesh. There was skin covering where Henry's left eye should be, a smooth interrupted patch that was indistinguishable from the rest of his face, save for its presence where it shouldn't have been. Henry's remaining eye blinked up at him and the strange boy rolled it at seeing Matt's reaction, one hand coming up to cover the strange patch of skin as if he was self-conscious about it.

"Don't stare." He mumbled, glaring at the doctor as best as he could with his remaining eye.

Matt reached out to try and brush his fingers away, catching another glimpse of the smooth patch of skin, before he frowned in confusion, searching Henry's face for answers.

Theo never said anything about the fact that he and his brother hadn't aged a day since Matt met them, despite Matt gaining a few new creases on his face and some aches that definitely hadn't been there when he was 18. Matt never asked. He was sure that once he mentioned anything about the weird non-aging, or the almost-magic-but-probably-still-scientifically-possible things Theo and Henry could do, he would find out a lot more about them than he ever wanted to know. Of course he had his suspicions, since the two didn't exactly go out of their way to hide their nature from him, but the fewer specifics he had the happier Matt was.

This was staring him in the face, though. It was like Henry had grown his own goddamn band-aid for his missing eye, in the span of 10 minutes, while Matt had been fussing over his brother and his leg.

"You- You have a-"

"Yes, I do, stop staring at it! It feels weird enough without you fucking watching!"

"How… did you…?"

"I dunno, just happens. Give it another ten minutes and I'll have my eye back."

Matt stared. Henry squirmed himself upright into a sitting position and the doctor forgot to try and stop him, too transfixed by whatever was underneath his fingers.

He wasn't quite sure how to process this. He'd call it a miracle, but he'd never been that religious, and he wasn't sure if doing so would somehow offend Henry. Vampires supposedly didn't like religious things and while Theo had been very clear on that front, he wasn't sure if that applied to all… Possibilities or not. He wanted to get a closer look and vomit again, all at the same time. There wasn't anything for him to focus on in terms of work and so he was forced to think about the fact that Henry said he was literally able to regrow his eye. He had to assume this was why he didn't want to go to the hospital.

Matt caught a glimpse of Theo in the corner of his eye and felt a surge of hope rise in his chest. If his brother could do something so incredible, then…

But there was no rise and fall of his chest, no indication that breath had returned to the lifeless body laid out on the floor. Henry caught his look and reached out with his free hand to turn the doctor's head away from Theo and back towards him.

"He'll be fine. He just needs more time than I do, don't worry."

Something that had been coiled tight within his stomach released.

"O-Okay."

Henry studied his face for a moment before he let him go again, shifting so that he could lean up against the back of the couch and not have to support his own weight. Matt's gaze shifted between the two of them, wondering what exactly to do- he'd thought they'd come to him because they needed medical attention, but from what Henry was implying, Theo would be fine even if he did nothing.

Somehow the other read his find from the glances alone and sighed, still resolutely covering his healing eye with one hand.

"Goes faster if everything's in the right place. Bones where they're supposed to be, cuts stitched up." He offered in explanation, shrugging.

"Oh. I can-" Matt gestured at the puncture wounds on Henry's shoulder but he shook his head, nodding it instead at Theo's prone form.

"Start putting him back together, he needs more help than me."

Stitches. Stitches to close the gashes across his chest and to maybe begin to put some semblance of a face back together. He could do that.

Breathing deep, he began to pull out his suturing kit, trying to decide where on the ruin of Theo's chest he could start. Medically speaking, staples would work better for this job- there was so much that needed to be fixed that he wasn't sure he had enough thread, or that the stitches wouldn't start pulling on each other and rip open. But this was all he had.

Pulling new gloves on and ripping open the packaging of a sterile needle, Matt got to work.

This was mindless, repetitive work, but it helped him to calm down and begin to process exactly what was going on in his living room. Something had obviously attacked Theo and Henry- or maybe they'd gone out intending to fight it? The protective gear they wore would certainly point in that direction. It must have gone badly, and they'd been seriously injured. They were close enough that Henry could drag them both to Matt's house and use it as a place to recuperate before… what? They went out to fight whatever it was again?

If they'd been close enough that Henry could get there on a broken leg, that meant…

His hands stilled on his work and he looked up sharply to see Henry staring at the front door.

"Is it going to follow you?"

"What?"

"Is whatever did this going to chase you?" Matt was consumed by fear at the thought of a creature huge enough to take a chunk out of Henry's torso and rip Theo's fucking arms off chasing them to his house. His kids were down the hall.

"Did you, you… lead it to my house?!"

His voice rose in pitch and Henry seemed to shrink away from it, not meeting the challenge head on for the first time since Matt had known him. He threw his hands up defensively, quickly shaking his head.

"No, no, honest! Pho-" He made a choking noise and restarted. "Pax and Damien are still fighting it, they wouldn't let it follow us like that."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive, they're much better than we are at fighting and shit. They wouldn't let it get away."

The doctor continued to glare at him, but Henry avoided his gaze, still watching the front door as if someone was going to come through at any moment. His voice had been sincere enough, but inwardly Matt still raged, switching from worried about the pair of them to being furious over the thought that Henry might have put his family in danger.

"If that thing comes near my house-" "I'd go back out and take it down, chill! Its not going to though, Theo would kill me if I put you in danger."

Somehow he doubted that- Theo loved Henry more than life itself- but he eventually returned to stitching pieces of skin together, unsure what else he could do. It wasn't like he could really threaten Henry; obviously things much stronger than Matt weren't enough to scare him, why would a human doctor with a practiced glare? He trusted Pax and Damien even less than he trusted Henry: he'd only met them a few times over the years. Once, when Damien walked Theo to the coffee shop they were meeting at and looked at Matt exactly one time before turning on his heel and walking away. Once when the other twins came to pick Henry and Theo up from his apartment, before he and Chris moved into their house. Once when Pax saw him on the street by chance and had slung an arm around his shoulders to walk with him the rest of the way home in an uncomfortable silence Pax was obviously delighting in.

Henry was looking at him through two eyes again. Matt had difficulty getting the image of him first standing on the porch out of his head, face covered in blood and dark hole where an eye once was. He saw things like that in the trauma department all the time, but it was different when it was a face you recognized, could put a name and mannerisms to. He was mildly glad Theo was completely unrecognizable, though the awfulness of that thought quickly occurred to him and he did his best to brush it away.

"Do you… get in… fights… often?" Matt struggled to pick the right words to use, still completely unsure what they had been doing with Pax and Damien. Was this a regular thing? The equivalent of a date night for whatever they were?

"No. Every once in a while, I guess?" Henry stopped and tilted his head, regarding Matt with a guarded expression. "I don't really… I'm not sure how much you want to know."

"Nothing! I want to know nothing at all, thanks. I just wanted to- I was wondering if this was going to be a regular thing."

"Fuck no. Usually goes much better than this. Usually we're all going out for drinks about now."

He couldn't help but snort slightly.

"You get Theo to go drinking?"

"Kind of. He sits in the booth furthest from the dance floor and drinks exactly two beers before he cuts himself off. He's the fucking worst at relaxing."

Just the suggestion of Theo drinking beer was almost too much for Matt to handle- he'd never once succeeded in getting the other to go drinking with him, or even to get a drink while they were out for dinner.

Before he could say so, there was another knock on the door. This time it was a banging, the sound of someone pounding their fist on the door urgently. The door shuddered in its frame, practically shaking off its hinges, and Matt's anxiety instantly spiked as he contemplated having an injured Pax and Damien to deal with as well. There was no one else it could be but them and his suspicion was confirmed when Henry shot up like a rocket, wincing when he placed weight on his previously broken leg. He had to resort to limping over to the door, balancing precariously with the edge of the couch as his crutch, waving away Matt's offer of help. The doorknob was only just within reach of his fingers but he managed to jiggle it open anyway, revealing the two huge shapes on the porch.

Pax's hair was pink today, a hot electric shade that practically glowed in the low lighting. He and Damien were wearing the same kinds of vests that Henry and Theo had, only theirs seemed to have survived the night much better. Smears of blood covered what pieces of skin Matt could see, but they were walking without trouble, Pax briskly striding inside the house without being invited, Damien on his heels.

Henry gave a long, exaggerated groan and let go of the couch to fall dramatically into his boyfriend's arms, smearing him with even more blood in the process. Pax made a delighted cooing noise, easily holding the smaller man upright as he looked over the damage.

"You got fucked!" He said, in a tone that was far too cheery for someone dripping blood on the floor. Damien looked around the living room like he was checking for hidden assassins in every corner before he seemed to deem it an adequate enough safe house.

"Not in the fun way." Henry moaned as he batted his long eyelashes at Pax, who laughed and wrapped his arm around his waist. All three of them glanced down at Theo on the floor and Damien was over to them in a flash, kneeling beside Matt who'd stopped his needlework to greet his new guests. A long whistle came from above him as Pax inspected Theo's injuries.

"Henry said he'd be okay." Matt hurried to say, unused to having to rely on information from outside sources for that kind of determination and afraid Damien would somehow blame him for Theo's condition. It was always unsettling to be around the other twins, something that always made him feel off-balance and struggling to keep up. Anxiety he hadn't struggled with for years rushed to the surface when he thought about Damien or Pax looking at him for longer than necessary.

"Mhm." Henry confirmed from above. "He's just sleepy. We're going to have to give him a while to recover."

"Why'd you take him to his pet human's house? Why not just meet us at home?"

The doctor bristled at the term given him, but it didn't seem like anyone was paying attention.

"Wasn't thinking straight." Henry mumbled, giggling lightly under his breath. "Needed someone to set my leg." His mood seemed to have been completely transformed by Pax and Damien's presence- one moment he was sulking in front of Matt, glaring at him for daring to ask questions or be concerned, and the next he was smiling and laughing while discussing his motionless, badly injured brother. Somehow Theo was the most normal one out of the bunch.

Damien seemed to be inspecting the stitch-work that he'd done so far on Theo's chest, and Matt was at the same time resentful and glad to see him. Now that he had a moment to catch his breath again, the night's events were threatening to overwhelm him like a tidal wave. Mechanically he finished the last stitch on the cut he'd been working on, and cut the thread so that Damien could slide his arms under Theo's body and lift him off the ground. His head lolled and his legs hung limply, but Matt could almost have sworn he saw the other's chest move slightly. Stepping much closer to the bigger man than he'd have liked to be, he pressed his fingers to Theo's throat again and was relieved to feel a weak, fluttering heartbeat beneath the skin.

As one, Damien, Pax, and Henry turned to go, and Matt moved forward to catch Henry's arm before he could limp through the door. Those miraculous two eyes turned on him, and he was graced with a weak smile. Matt spoke quietly, like he was afraid to wake Theo.

"Let me know if he's okay."

Henry nodded.

"Sure, sure. You all should go back to bed, we'll get someone to deal with the clean-up."

He glanced pointedly at the large pool of blood on the floor, as well as the smears of it across Matt's couch and on his pajamas.

"I promise you'll all sleep like fucking babies. Kids too, scout's honor. Off you go."

The group crossed the threshold and was gone before Matt had a chance to blink. The sudden silence in the room meant his own heartbeat was the loudest thing he could hear, and it was still beating several miles a minute, pumping him full of adrenaline for the emergency that had ended just as suddenly as it had started. Behind him, he heard Chris tentatively opening the door from the kid's rooms, and wondered what he could possibly say to him.