#hannarpsecretsanta

People all around her, at school, at the clinic, with heartbeats as loud as day

It wasn't a nightmare, since vampires rarely dreamt, but it was more like an involuntary daydream. Something that sat on top of her head and poked her brain every now and then. It didn't always bother her. Sometimes it was dulled and felt like a simple ache in her joints. But today it poked and poked and poked.

Visions of herself but not herself, tearing into faceless, nameless people with her mouth and her hands

After about a half hour, Millie ran a brush through her hair, adept at getting it into a manageable state without a mirror by now. Appearances were everything, after all.

Hearing those heartbeats quicken in panic and then slow in death, feeling warm blood run down her throat and moaning into their bodies like a person dying of thirst

She pulled on a nice dress. She matched her shoes. 

Because that's what it was she was dying simply dying water all her around her and not a drop to drink nothing but warmed up sludge that did nothing but tease her she was dying this is what she was meant to be she had no other purpose she was nothing but a walking corpse

She sat quietly till it was time to leave. 

---

Millie decided to walk, to the big house on the hill that she new so well by now, the one in the previously affluent part of town with the overgrown weeds like a jungle out front. The one with faded shutters closed to keep things out, or in. She imagined sometimes it was a castle, caught under some spell like in Sleeping Beauty. She could have flown, it would have been faster, but she found the night air invigorating and a bit distracting, and chose roads that she knew would be mostly empty at this hour. 

She strode up the walk leading to the front of the house, past the thorny vines and unkept bushes, and knocked on the door. It didn't open to reveal an evil wizard or a kindly old godmother, but it settled on somewhere in between and there stood Ples Tibenoch. As soon as he saw her, his eyes widened in surprise as if he hadn't been expecting her. "E-Emily!" There was a pregnant pause as he stood looking down at her, and she assumed that he noticed she was in a bit of an off mood today, so she offered him the best smile she could muster. They'd been planning to get together for almost a week now, and whatever problems she was having, she wasn't going to trouble him with them. 

Ples brought up his hand and tapped a finger against his chin rapidly, blinking a few moments before mirroring the smile. "Well. Ah. C-come in, come in. Let's get you inside then. You must be freezing without a coat." She hadn't realized she wasn't wearing one. She must have forgotten it. 

She sat down in the kitchen as he made tea. She laid her hands palm up in her lap and looked down at them, taking some comfort in not only the familiarity of the surroundings -the whistle of the tea kettle, the shuffle of Ples' shoes, the old victorian furniture with it's well worn wood- but also in the sound of the ticking that always accompanied the older man. That was one thing Millie could always count on; never having to hear a heartbeat around him.

They were both silent as Ples went about his motions behind her, and it was a bit unnerving. The usually closed off and aloof man seemed to open up a bit around her, she'd noticed, and she'd gotten used to him making what would seem like small talk to anyone else but was actually precious conversation between the two introverts. This time though, he was silent. She couldn't find anything to say either, so she remained so as well until he brought her a little cup of tea with a blood candy dissolved in it and sat down beside her. 

"Th-thank you." She couldn't help the little bit of shake in her voice, and cursed herself silently for not being able to keep it together. Ples was never all together empathic, but this time he seemed to hone in on her distress.

"S-so. I'm sure you h-have a lot to tell me." This was Ples-speak for 'What's wrong?', or at least as far as Millie understood it, and she responded by glancing quickly away and ducking her head. She really didn't want to trouble him. 

"No… No, nothing at all. You know me, my life is awfully boring."

"Oh now." Ples' mouth quirked up at the side, regarding her with a shrewd gaze. "I w-wouldn't say that."

A moment more and she couldn't hold the guise any longer. Here was someone who she trusted, who she practically looked up to as a father figure of some sorts, and if she couldn't confine in him when he asked then she had no hope at all. She set down her tea cup and wrung her hands together, mouth working silently for a beat or two before the words finally tumbled out. "I can't concentrate!" It was a loud declarative statement that felt good on her tongue. "I can't concentrate on my schoolwork, on…" She trailed off, realizing she didn't have much else to fill her time but not wanting to admit it. "On anything! All I can think about is…" She looked down at her hands again, no longer writhing together but still and open in her lap. 

Ples cleared his throat and said in a small voice, "Well, now that you bring it up… Th-the blood, I mean."

"What?" Millie glanced up, raising an eyebrow. "What blood?"

Ples tapped his face a few times again with the hand that wasn't holding his tea and raised both eyebrows, jutting out his chin a little and blinking rapidly. "U-uhm…"

"If you're talking about everyone else's blood, about everyone else's hot… rushing… deafeningly loud blood?" Her voice gained a tinge of hysteria as she talked and then quickly calmed again as she checked herself. Something kept trying to come to the surface and she refused to let it. "…Then yes. I'm bringing up that blood."

"Hm, ah, well, no. Actually. I- I meant th-the blood on your hands."

The silence that followed that statement formed into an almost solid ball and dropped right into the pit of Millie's stomach. She tilted her head, eyes slowly widening as she stared at him. 

"A-and your mouth."

Millie looked down at her open hands again. 

"And I believe, f-forgive me for not p-pointing it out sooner if you were not aware, b-but you seem to have a tad bit in your hair as well." 

Whatever had been trying to come up to the surface of her mind had come, had snuck up on her and seized her entirely, but it wasn't volatile and violent as she'd feared it would be. It was… calm. Somewhere between the clinic and Ples' house, somewhere between pulling her hair up and realizing there was someone else's blood in it, she had been violent. But the time for that had passed now. She breathed a little deeper, feeling as if she could breathe correctly for the first time in a long time. Her shoulders relaxed. A few of the worry lines on her face smoothed out and disappeared. "What am I going to do?" These words were not panicked, just a little confused. A little lost.

And, just as she'd hoped, Ples had the answer. "Well, I believe we need to go out and get you a new dress. You seemed to have, uh, gotten that one dirty." 

Yes, of course. "Yes, of course." She blinked a few times, as if waking up in a strange place. "How silly of me."

Ples gave a little shrug, seemingly more at ease now that things had been settled and they were on the same page. "Not to worry, dear. These things tend to happen. It is easily remedied; we'll simply make a little trip to the mall. Of course I'll lend you my coat to cover you. It's freezing out there."

Millie looked at him placidly for what seemed like a long time, then a slow smile began to spread across her face. "We should finish our tea first."

"Oh yes," Ples hastily agreed, "Of course."