Every part of her feels gross. Icky. Like she fell asleep caked in the sweat and grime of the day, having neglected a shower, and went straight to her dirty sheets. Nothing makes sense. So she decides to get in the shower before turning on the lights, just to wake up and ease the burn of her body without having to look at it. She doesn’t want to see it. Feeling it is enough to make her feel sick some days with her skewed and fragile perceptions. 

Something isn’t quite right, she can tell, as she washes her hair and it feels angrily stiff. Her neck screams in agony at her washing touch. And all of her skin doesn’t feel the same anymore, as if she’s touching herself through a layer of plastic. The pressure is there. The sensation is not.

Her body does not feel wet when she reaches for a towel out of habit, rubs it over her skin to dry off anyway. Routine can be a powerful thing, especially where she is concerned. It’s only then that she reaches for the lights, and she sees in the mirror what she has become.

The flush in her cheeks is gone, replaced by an unhealthy pallor that would worry her, had she been a patient in the cardiac ward. Her lips have turned a deep violet-red. And on her throat is a long gash, more healed than it should be considering she doesn’t remember getting it. The deep indent is scabbed over. However, when she tips back her chin to consider it better, the scab splits and a bead of dark red-black blood leaks out.

A stray fingertip catches it. Her blood is cold. She holds it to her lips, waiting. Thinking. Trying to understand. Ava smears it across her lips in a failed imitation of lipstick. Her entire body is wrong. Out of place. Hesitantly, she presses digits to the side of her neck. Where her vein is. Feeling. She tries for nearly five minutes, but despite her efforts, she is unable to find a pulse. 

Like a ghost- which she well may be- she leaves the bathroom and stares at her room. Everything is the same, but there’s so much different within herself that it no longer feels like a sanctuary. Looking closer shatters its sanctity further, as she notices blood smears on her bedding and a dried handprint against the doorframe. Something happened to her, something that she may never be able to explain because of the gaps in her memory, and she’s close to just curling up in a ball to scream, cry, something for however long it takes for her mind to tell her what the fuck happened that she can’t remember.

Anger and pain, so much pain, fill her as she leaves the bedroom and its mess behind, only to come up with more questions. Spread out on her couch, head fallen back against the armrest, covered in blood, is Sarah. The entire lower half of her face, her neck, her stomach, and her hands are all caked, while smears trace on her chest and scratch among drips on her collarbones. She’s a mess like Ava’s room, and there’s a long, deep cut along her wrist. Splicing the vein. Still sluggishly bleeding. That should terrify her, or make her feel anything, but instead her feet carry her forward and she finds herself kneeling beside the couch.

She takes Sarah’s wrist in hers so gently, stroking her palm and cradling it close And then Ava closes her lips around the cut and sucks, filling her mouth with a taste not unlike the one she can remember, but has a sweetness to it that makes it pleasant. Sarah stirs beneath her, and she pulls back.

She doesn’t understand why she did that.

Ava looks up to see Sarah’s eyes fluttering open, a soft contrast to the stains on her unmarred skin. She can still taste the blood. It tasted like candy. Why did it? She might be going insane.

“You’re awake,” Sarah says softly, and uses her injured hand to cup Ava’s face as though she doesn’t mind what just happened. “How’re you feeling?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

Instead of answering, Sarah just smiles and sits up straighter, makes room on the couch for Ava to join her and ignoring the stains. The cut on Ava’s throat. The blood in her mouth. She swallows it instead of spitting it out, and stares at Sarah’s messy jeans.

“Nothing’s wrong with you, you’re safe now.”

When she kisses Ava’s forehead, her lips are ice cold. Immediately after, she kisses her on the mouth, pushes past her lips with her tongue in a way so many have demanded before her, and there’s something with the consistency of syrup now, coating her tastebuds in bitterness. It tastes ugly. She pulls away to cough. The substance drips down her chin, burning hot and smelling just as foul as it tasted.

“What was that?” she croaks.

“It’s venom. I’ve- you- you don’t remember?”

The tone of her voice makes her feel more ashamed, worried, than scared and overwhelmed. Ava studies her own hands. “The last thing I remember was walking into one of the ORs. There was no one in there.”

Sarah won’t meet her eyes anymore, instead electing to stand up and join her in observing Ava’s palms. The blood has settled into its lines. 

“It’s okay. But right now, you need- you need rest. I’m going to go get you something to eat, so just lay down and rest. Your body’s going through a lot right now, okay? Just rest, I’ll take care of everything else.”

He leaves it at that, and sets a lid over the pan with ease before coming closer, looking less and less like the trauma surgeon and more and more like the creature of the night. His eyes, this close up, are more gold than brown, and his fangs seem longer, sharper, where they now dig into his plush bottom lip. Jimmy has the strangest impulse to kiss him. It’s downright insane to think about, with the weight of what’s about to happen. Crockett leans close, effectively pinning him against the counter, and smiles with his mouth but not his eyes.

“You should take this off,” he says, a hand toying with the collar of Jimmy’s shirt, “if you don’t want it stained.”

Maybe it’s his imagination, but Jimmy swears his voice dipped lower than usual. The air around them feels different as he undoes each button, slow and cautious, before shrugging out of his shirt. His tie was gone before he even got to Crockett’s apartment. Without warning, Crockett’s hands are on his chest, and they’re cold, much colder than a human’s should be.

One palm stays flat against Jimmy’s chest, firm and steady, while the other grips his chin gently and tilts his head back. He feels exposed, like this. Maybe that’s the point. His chest and throat are bare, and Crockett’s looking at him like he’s prey which, Jimmy supposes, he is right now. He swallows on reflex and Crockett has the audacity to huff out a laugh at him.

“Last chance to back out.”

Jimmy isn’t doing that. Not when there’s so much on the line, and he’s already lightheaded with Crockett’s proximity. Lips skim his throat in search of his carotid, because it’s the easiest place to feed for things like Crockett. He doesn’t know why he does what he does next, but he cups one hand around Crockett’s skull, threads his fingers through surprisingly soft hair and holds him close. 

He’s about to say to get on with it, but then there’s a sharp pain in his neck, enough that he almost cries out. But before he can, his body seems to grow lazy on him, and the pain turns to warmth spreading out from his neck. His hand stays though, laced through Crockett’s hair. He watches him drink. Eyes shut, lips and tongue working against his neck to drain him, throat bobbing with each heavy swallow. He looks, in this moment, not like a monster, but like a man giving. Giving something. Affection. A hickey. Like he can hear Jimmy’s thoughts, Crockett tightens the seal of his lips enough that it just barely starts to hurt again.

As suddenly as he grew warm, Jimmy begins to feel cold. It starts in his fingers and toes, but quickly creeps up his limbs until it’s edging into his chest. He can’t move his hands. The fear strikes him that Crockett won’t stop, won’t be able to stop, and he’ll keep going until Jimmy collapses, drained, on the kitchen floor.

But then Crockett pulls back, and the instant his hands are gone, Jimmy nearly falls over. He’s dizzy, he realizes, and his body doesn’t feel like listening to his mind.

“You’re okay,” Crockett says, now holding a towel to his neck and cradling his face. Jimmy doesn’t remember him getting a towel. “It’s over. How’re you feeling?”

Jimmy means to answer, but he gets caught on the blood. Smeared on Crockett’s lips, caked onto his teeth. It’s dark and thick and, until recently, was in his body. He looks down at his own wrists and they seem like marble.

“Hey. Lanik. You with me?”

He tries to nod, but it hurts.

“Good enough. Hold this here-” Crockett grabs one of Jimmy’s arms and pushes his hand to his neck, “while I fix you a plate. You need to get something in you if you wanna recover.”

By some miracle, Jimmy holds the towel in his plate while Crockett fills a bowl with whatever was on the stove. It smells good, spicy. He knows what it’s called, but the name of the dish doesn’t come to him when he's out of it. The bowl thuds in front of him, but not quite on center, accompanied by a glass of apple juice. Before he can reach for it, there’s a forkful of food in front of his face. 

Jimmy’s about to protest, but Crockett speaks first. “It’s just easier. You’re shaking, and you’re dizzy. This is for the best.”

He wants to argue but he’s tired. So he allows Crockett to feed him, even if whatever was made tastes like nothing with his dulled senses. Knowing Crockett, it’s probably a good thing because whatever he cooked is probably spicy. He doesn’t think throwing up because his body hates spice is a good next move.

Surprisingly, Crockett is tender with him. He feeds Jimmy the whole bowl and holds the glass for him. Afterward, he wipes his face with a napkin and peels the towel from his neck. There’s still some blood though, sticky and half-dry on Jimmy’s neck and chest and shoulder, enough that he feels like he needs a shower.

Crockett seems to have thought of that, though, and produces an antiseptic wipe to clean him with, even if it stings when he starts at the bite. By the time he pulls away, the white has become rusty, and Jimmy’s skin feels cold. Next comes a little gauze pad with a smooth dollop of soothing ointment applied to it. Putting it on, Crockett is almost painfully gentle. Smoothing down each piece of medical tape carefully, and stroking any skin his hands must trail over. It’s a lover’s touch from a monster.

“Do you want me to drive you home? Or do you wanna stay here?”