[oom] A cellar, reprised

[vojvode]

[ 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.

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[vojvode]

"Do you feel unsafe when you're alone with me?"

His tone is quiet, pitched low.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Not nearly as much as I did when we first met," she says, holding the pan under the running water until the suds are washed away, "which possibly speaks to the growing probability that I am insane, or am a bad-blood-cross and will eventually go insane." (See her attack that next pan.)

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.

[vojvode]

Her ferocity amuses him no end. One finger draws her hair back behind her ear, and he places a soft, chaste kiss at the side of her neck.

"Thank you again, my lady. As before, I find myself in your debt."

[sunbaked_baker]

She stiffens, her hands pausing in their task. More comfortable (what a horrible thought) around him she might be, but having a vampire's mouth against her neck is a little too much.

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.

[vojvode]

"You need merely to ask, and I shall not impose on you again."

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."

[sunbaked_baker]

The awareness of that artificial calm, the possibility of it, may scare her more than he does.

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."

[vojvode]

There's a sigh next to her ear, and then the coolness of the air behind her. He steps away, towards the door to the lower cellars again.

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."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae can hear it. It makes her turn, and look at him over her shoulder.

"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.

[vojvode]

He is already fading into darkness as the shadows embrace him. Somewhere in the gloaming, she sees both visages, the ancient withered face, and the youthful, vital one, overlaid one upon the other, until it's impossible to tell which is real and which is a memory. And then the shadows swallow him, leaving only his eyes visible, burning with that same unholy fire.

"Perhaps someday, you will do me the honour of -- allowing me to reciprocate."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae's gaze follows his eyes, seeing the rest of him fade into the unnatural shadows that even her Dark Sight couldn't pierce. What could she ask of a vampire? This vampire, in particular.

"How about we keep it simple," she says, hesitating slightly. "You owe me dinner some time."

[vojvode]

She gets the impression that he dips his chin, and his eyes close for a long moment.

"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.

[sunbaked_baker]

"All right," she says, hesitantly, her voice barely more than a whisper. All she can see of him are his eyes, burning in the darkness he has wrapped around himself, before even they fade.

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.