David stands, rooted to the spot. His body cannot shiver any more, that involuntary response dead with his humanity. But he feels the night air eating away at him. He's empty.

"I- I'm sorry-" David mumbles.

"I didn't ask you to apologize," Max cuts him off, still the same low, level voice. "I said-"

He reaches out, a finger curling into a long claw. Hooking into David's mind. His blood.

"Come. Here."

David's body is moving out from under him. His legs move as automata, the muscles and bones and ligaments pumping under someone else's pull, David alone in his head, suspended in his body. He staggers forward at Max's beckon, until he reaches an unspecified few feet from his sire.

The dead deer lies at his feet. Bloated from days of decay, half frozen in the new winter.

David looks from it to Max.

His face is just as blank as before. There is no light in his eyes as he looks down at David though spectacles he doesn't need. His gaze is as flat as the deer's.

"What did you do, David?" He asks.

David breathes. "I killed."

Max raises an eyebrow.

"...without your permission," he finishes.

Max nods.

"And what did you do after you killed?"

David searches Max's face. Looking for something that isn't there. An answer. A hope.

He swallows. "I drank."

Max moves. He reaches a hand out, a single finger, the same that he had drawn David to him with, tracing a line down David's face. From his fore head, to the shell of his ear, down the curve of his jaw to his lips. The finger lingers there, feeling their shape. It presses, once, at the seam, and David opens. Enough to let it rest just past, to feel his breath.

Max leans in. "Did I say you could?"

"No."

The word is barely more than a whisper.

Max closes his eyes. He removes the finger, drawing his hand back to fold into each other.

"Well. It seems by my estimation, I have been a very poor sire to you. Letting you go so hungry as to resort to such dire straits as going against our rules, and endangering everything we're building, here. How careless of me."

David stands as still as he can. His mind races, but. Goes nowhere all the same. He can only wait. Wait and wait.

Max rubs the finger he'd held to David against his thumb.

"I'm amending that now. You may have your fill."

He gestures down at the deer.

David blinks. The carcass is small, likely bore late in the season. Half the fur on it's legs are gone, it's belly set to split if the weather would only warm a little. A white and brown crust fills its eyes and mouth, and David knows that if someone were to lift it, none of the bones would bend. Complete rigor.

He licks his lips. "I can't-"

"You can," Max says, still in that light, unconcerned voice. He tilts his head. "You are hungry. Aren't you, David?"

He is. It had been a month. Max had made sure of it. And Max sees that in his eyes.

He points to the deer a third time. "So drink."

On numbing knees, David kneels. The ground is hard and cold under him, rocks and earth and cut stems of plants digging into his skin through the thin pants. He comes close, and the deer's scrawny neck comes closer. He opens his mouth, willing his fangs to come forward. He tastes his own blood before anything else. Maybe it will numb this.

The first breech of teeth through the flesh is like a dull needle through hard leather. Old, still fur fills David's mouth, itching under his tongue. The old skin bends, flaking off. But he bites down.

The first wash of blood into his mouth is rot.

Rot and mold and the leavings of putrifier's leavings. It's barely blood, so thick David can't swallow, instead painting the inside of his mouth in a pasty smear. It's worse than empty.

It's dead blood.

David makes a noise and tries to pull away.

"No, David," Max says above him. "I said drink."

His jaw locks in place as though sewn together with steel. His throat convulses as it works, around a bitter mouthful of old, dead blood. David's scream is muffled by the carcass's flesh in his teeth.

He can already feel it rotting his own gut.

A hand comes down to the top of his head. Gentle and petting back the stray strands of hair that work free as he writhes.