Richard gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled as he sat staring at the scene in front of him. It just had to happen on a night like this, but if it had been any other night then he wouldn't have been anywhere near the scene of the accident. He was already fighting against the swell inside of him, pushing down the needs and urges, straining to hold onto himself until he reached his usual parking spot much deeper in the national forest. It was a terrible choice to have to make, and a terrible time to have to make such a choice, but he did have to make it. Even making no choice was a choice in this case, because someone's life was on the line other than just his own. He had to choose between keeping his own life intact, keeping the secret that he'd hidden for so long, and letting someone else die, or give up his anonymity and possibly, not even certainly but only possibly, save someone who was in serious trouble.

It was laid out very plainly in the stark beams of his headlights: a young deer, maybe a year or two old, its neck broken and ribs shattered; the remains of a motorcycle or maybe a dirt bike, scattered and sprayed across the road for several hundred feet, bits of reflective metal and paint showing in the ditch at the side of the trail; a body, a human, a person, lying with limbs twisted and blood pooling beneath them, but... they were moving. They were still alive. For now. It wasn't much in the way of movement, little twitches of the fingers, but there was also the occasional loud groan. If they were trying to speak, he couldn't really tell what the words were, but he knew what they meant. They needed help. He could see their eyes through the visor of the helmet, see the pain and pleading as clearly as any other time he'd seen someone in need. They were lucky that they'd been wearing full leathers and a good helmet, because he could see the scrapes of blood along the asphalt where they'd tumbled and rolled and skidded to where they were lying now, and even that hadn't been enough to save them.

But he might be able to. Might. It was his job, his calling, his profession to save people. He was an EMT, after all. It was literally the thing that he'd dedicated his life to, but now he had to choose. He had to choose between his own life, continuing to go unnoticed in human society, or possibly saving a life, someone who would almost certainly be very dead if it hadn't been this particular night in this particular place. The road was very infrequently used. It led back into the forest to a camping/visitor center area where all of the walking and hiking trails began. It could get a little crowded in the fall when families were out for a last vacation before school started, but in early spring it was usually too cold for much of anyone to bother. It was one of the reasons that he used this area, with the other being that it was a lot less suspicious to see a red-tailed hawk flying over a forest than through the skyscrapers of a city. It wasn't unheard of, but it was something to be noted, and he tried his best to be unnoticed. If he drew attention to himself, if someone tried to capture or track the mysterious city-dwelling raptor, then he'd be done for. He'd have to move, pick up his life and vanish, take on a new identity somewhere else, and he really didn't want to have to do that again.

On the flip side, you had this either extremely stupid or extremely unlucky individual lying in the road before him. From the debris of the crash, they'd been going a lot faster than the 30mph that was the posted speed limit. Still, hitting a deer on a motorcycle was a one-in-a-million kind of accident, even on backroads like this. The park rangers that manned the visitor center had to use it on a daily basis, and the sound of the engine should have scared it away. But it had been very young, maybe born and raised further back in the forest where the rangers travelled on foot instead of using vehicles. It might have come down this far south in search of a mate or just to get away from its mother or... Well, that didn't matter much. The deer was very dead, its head twisted awkwardly, side crushed in, eyes glassy, and blood all over the place. It was a mess, and very dead. But the human wasn't. Not quite yet. He could see one hand stretching in his direction, flapping towards him, trying to get his attention. They couldn't tell that he could see them, blinded by his headlights, but he could. He could see the desperation and tears in their eyes, see the little glimmer of hope through the agony and fear. He was right there, right in front of them, if only they could get his attention. If only they could let him know that they were still alive, could still be saved, then maybe... maybe...

Richard slowly lowered his head so that his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, gripping the leather-wrapped metal even tighter, wishing that he could beat his head against it but not wanting to alert the injured human that he knew they were there and in need. Because even if they were knocking on death's door, he could still save them. At this time, in this place, he could save them from just about anything if he wanted to do so badly enough. Because the change had power, and that power was shared through the blood. It wouldn't do much else besides heal them, maybe give them slightly sharper vision and a craving for rare steak, but it would heal them for sure. Except if he did that, he'd be blown for absolute certain, and there was nothing to be done after that except run and hide and hope that no one tried to come after him. There were government agencies, he knew, that would love to get their hands on someone like him, and others besides. All it took was one slip to find yourself locked up in some empty, white room somewhere that no one would ever find you again, poked and prodded and vivisected and experimented on until you died.

But there was a life besides his own to consider. Who were they? Why were they here? What crazy desire or need had gripped them to have them speeding down a back road in the middle of a forest so late at night towards a camping ground that should be vacant and a visitor center that should be closed down for the night? They were someone's son or daughter, certainly. Were they someone's brother or sister? Were they someone's mother or father? Husband or wife? Did they have family that would miss them? Hell, did they have a dog or cat or something else that would miss them? And who was he to choose to let them die when he had the power to save them, or at least to keep them from dying in the very near future?

He knew that if he left the car right now, he wouldn't be able to hold onto the change much longer. He knew that the trauma kit he always had in the trunk would be able to stabilize the injured human, at least temporarily. He knew that it would take at least thirty minutes for any kind of emergency services, even the rangers, to reach this spot if he called them right this second. He knew that they'd probably never find the right road, the turns to take to reach this spot, if he just called and left to take care of his own needs. No, if he was going to do this, he'd have to stick around. He'd have to hold out for as long as he could. He'd have to hold it through the change, halt it before it went too far if he could, definitely before it went all the way. He'd need to be able to talk, so that the ambulance or fire rescue or rangers or whoever it was would get there, so that he could make sure they got there. Because if he was going to do this, he was going to make sure that it was worth it. He was going to make sure that they lived.

Slowly, Richard lifted his gaze again, staring out through his windshield, seeing the twitching fingers, the reaching arm, the tear-filled gaze behind the visor. He had to make a choice, because if he continued to sit here not making one, they were probably going to die on him anyways. And then he would have made his decision just the same. Sitting here was probably a worse decision than leaving or helping, because if he left then he could at least pretend that someone else might come along and save them. If he left, then all he had to do was avoid flying over this stretch of road, and take one of the dirt trails to get back out of the forest. He knew every last path, trail, and road in the forest, at least from above, and he'd walked or driven on most of them when human just to make sure that he could find his way out if something happened to him. After all, even hawks had things that tried to eat them. If he helped, well, he'd have to deal with the fallout of that afterwards, but just sitting here... just sitting here was absolutely going to leave him with a mental scar that would never heal over, sitting here watching someone die when he knew that he could do something...

Slowly, he reached for the gear shift and slid it from drive through neutral and into park, but he kept his foot on the brake. Was he going to do this? The crank of the emergency brake being pulled into place answered that for him. He shut off the engine but left the key in, kept the lights on, and flung open the door. He rushed out and back, popped the trunk, and grabbed the duffel containing the trauma kit. There wasn't much time left. No matter which thing he was thinking about, there wasn't much time either way. He dropped into a skid that skinned his knees as he neared the body, speaking before he'd even come to a stop.

"It's okay," he assured them. "I'm an EMT, and my name's Michael. I'm gonna try and get you stabilized first, and then I'll call an ambulance, but I need to know if your neck's hurt. I'm gonna need to get that helmet off to see if your head's bleeding."

There came a soft grunt, the helmet rocking slightly from side to side. He slid a hand beneath and onto the person's neck, undoing the chin strap and slowly, gently sliding the helmet free. There weren't any obvious fractures to the spine that he could feel, and the skull was intact, a bit of bleeding from the brow, probably from impact. He slid a roll of gauze beneath the head to keep it cushioned, then pulled out his phone and began dialing with one hand as he started cutting free the riding jacket.

"It's okay. We're gonna get through this. I'm gonna save you, I promise. Can you talk? What's your name?"

"Shan... telle," came the soft, groggy reply.

"Well, okay, Shantelle. Trust me. This is what I do. You'll be fine."



Tags: human, male, ambiguous gender, deer, no sex

Summary: Richard finds himself in need of making an extremely difficult decision. It's that time of month, and he needs to change, but there's an injured motorcyclist on the way to his usual spot. Does he risk exposing himself to the human world to save this stranger or does he ignore his instincts and training, leaving them to die? It's a choice he'll have to live with either way.