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[oom] A cellar, reprised
[ cont'd from here and here ]
He waits, motionless, listening to the conversation she's having with the female doctor.
He's become a master of waiting.
His breath stills, his heart stills, his entire body grows still. He tries not to think about the host of bodies thrumming through this place. Tries not to think about the anguish he has caused her, merely by existing.
Elizabeta, my sweet Elizabeta. If only there had been another way.
Time is meaningless in the moments like this. Pain and hunger and the sorrow of his human heart, all meaningless.
When she returns, he has settled in one of the few chairs here, straight backed as if he is sitting in a throne. His hands are tucked into his sleeves, and his eyes fix on her face the moment she crosses the threshold.
"Will she keep her word?"
He cannot keep the edge from his voice, though whether it is fear or rage, it is difficult to tell.
He waits, motionless, listening to the conversation she's having with the female doctor.
He's become a master of waiting.
His breath stills, his heart stills, his entire body grows still. He tries not to think about the host of bodies thrumming through this place. Tries not to think about the anguish he has caused her, merely by existing.
Elizabeta, my sweet Elizabeta. If only there had been another way.
Time is meaningless in the moments like this. Pain and hunger and the sorrow of his human heart, all meaningless.
When she returns, he has settled in one of the few chairs here, straight backed as if he is sitting in a throne. His hands are tucked into his sleeves, and his eyes fix on her face the moment she crosses the threshold.
"Will she keep her word?"
He cannot keep the edge from his voice, though whether it is fear or rage, it is difficult to tell.
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"We rage, we fight, we fear, we struggle. Anything to keep from giving in. And those that fall, we grieve, for we know one day we'll fall, too."
To know that what you are eating struggled, raged against the death that was waiting for it, and yet succumbed as everything eventually does... it turns her stomach. The wheat of the field does not fight the reaper; it does not fear; it does not grieve. Indeed, it has modified itself over the eons to produce more grain, for those strains are likeliest to continue being planted. Cocoa trees do not fear the harvesting of their beans. Cattle are made healthier by milking. Eggs of chickens that are laid unfertilized will not bear young, yet are nutritious and good.
Sunshine could not eat something that was aware enough to see and want to defy its fate.
(Her doe stands at the edge of the wood, half-in and half-out of the dappled leaf-shadows, on the brink of the wide, golden field, fragrant with summer grasses. She lifts her head, her liquid brown eyes acknowledging her oncoming death-)
Not willingly, at least.
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That much has not changed.
"You are far too pretty to grieve, my dear Sunshine. Save your tears for another day. One long hence."
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"Not too long," she modifies.
She can't stay in Milliways forever; she knows what she will eventually have to face.
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Of course, that doesn't count for much when destiny believes in you.
"Do you have to believe in something to defy it?"
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"I believe that question is an answer in itself."
He glances back at the strange metal vessel, the rim now coated with a thin layer of coagulated blood.
"What will you tell her? The woman who berated you for assisting me."
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"I don't know."
She can't... really imagine her next conversation with Thirteen.
"I guess it depends on you, though, wouldn't it? What you... do," another glance at the thermos, and away, "in the future."
Whether he chooses to seek his meals from patrons, or seeks his meals from the Bar.
A thought strikes Rae, though, and she looks up at him. Damn, he's tall. "Has anyone mentioned the rules of this place to you?"
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"Rae. You are the only one I have spoken to at such length. And you are the only one to whom I have revealed so much."
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"The only reason Security is" hunting "trying to find you is that you've broken the bar's rules. There're only three, but they're supposedly enough to keep things peaceful here, since there're so many different kinds of people. No violence against other patrons, no business - but, 'business' meaning outside rivalries and such. If your arch-enemy came here, he mustn't do anything to you, and vice-versa. I've been told it's okay for selling things."
Or else she'd not be able to afford to stay here.
"And the last rule is that neither sex nor nudity is allowed in the bar proper."
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"I suppose that they consider what I have done -- an act of violence."
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La. Dishes. She turns on the water, reaching for the scrubber sponge and the dishwashing soap.
"...Yeah." She says, attacking the baked-on bits of chocolate cake on the first pan she comes to. "There were signs up, warning people of a rash of attacks on patrons by a vampire."
Attacks. Violence, yes.
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"No one was injured," he murmurs.
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His tone is quiet, pitched low.
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Or, as she can't quite keep the possibility from occurring to her, he really doesn't mean her any harm.
Despite being a vampire. Two situations that the culture in which Sunshine was raised tells her are mutually exclusive. Sunshine's experience in the last few months, however, have done much to make her doubt a lot of what she's been taught.
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"Thank you again, my lady. As before, I find myself in your debt."
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Intending her no harm or not.
"Yes," she says, after a moment, and maybe there is something akin to wryness tinting her tone of voice, along with the stiffness. "I'll admit it's rather amazing of me that despite you doing stuff like that, I agree to get you food."
Maybe she is insane. Helping vampires takes care of quite a bit of a psychopath's quota for antisocial behavior, after all. And she doesn't want to think about his lips against her neck.
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His breath his soft against her pulse, his mind a comforting warmth just beyond the realm of sensation. If she were only to reach for it, it would enfold her, swathe her in calm and soothe away all her fears. But he will not force it upon her.
"Much as it would pain me, I would stay away, if you asked me to."
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But she would not ask him to leave, simply because he hasn't forced that calm upon her.
"Do you know what you'll do?" she asks, wiping the scrubber across the pan to make sure it's clean. "For food, I mean."
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His back is to her, or else she would see the hard look that comes over his face. Perhaps she can hear a hint of it in his voice.
"Best that you look to your own needs, before you lose sleep worrying over mine."
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"My needs are easily met," she says. And they don't carry the risk of incensing Security.
She can't really bring herself to say it, but she is quite aware that if he came to her again, needing food, she would offer to go to the bar for him again.
She feeds the hungry. It's what she does.
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"Perhaps someday, you will do me the honour of -- allowing me to reciprocate."
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"How about we keep it simple," she says, hesitating slightly. "You owe me dinner some time."
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"Call for me. And I shall endeavour to repay your kindness."
Even as he recedes into darkness, it feels as if he is speaking right against her ear.
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Why the hell is she doing this? Bad-blood-cross or whatever, she must be insane.
She can feel his absence, like the feeling of the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. She is alone in the kitchen.
The thermos is still there on the counter, coagulated blood on the rim. It'll need to be washed.