Incubus Dreams - October 27th

[anita_blake]

As Anita wakes up, she makes several realizations.

She is on the floor.

She is on the floor of her kitchen.

She is on the floor of her kitchen, naked.

Slowly, she looks around and sees Nathaniel on the floor at her side, his cheek resting on her thigh. Memory comes back to her, of the hungers, of the ardeur, of the fucking and feeding and memories. Anita eyes dart around, looking for Damian, because Damian was with them, and they land on his form, bathed in sunlight.

Like his pale skin had been dipped in honey, and Anita has the distant thought of how beautiful the vampire looked with his blood-red hair, warm skin, and relaxed features. But the most overwhelming thought was that Damian was bathed in sunlight! She scrambles over to him, grabbing Damian by the ankles, and pulls him out of the sunlight, but then he's awake, screaming, struggling, and Anita panics.

Comments

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

Damian isn't sure what Micah is talking about. Something having to do with the lycanthrope coalition, he assumes.

He backs farther away from the door, inching away from the light with Nathaniel still in his arms. He knows from the blood caking his friend that he did some harm, and he tests out the connection he feels to the wereleopard by sending a wordless apology. It might even trickle down to Richard, as he knows he hurt the Ulfric as well.

He hadn't meant to hurt anyone, but he knows he wasn't in his right mind.

[anita_blake]

Anita frowns.

"Did he shift?"

[chartreuse_eyed]

"No, but only just," he says, pushing a hand over his head. "He's not used to it at all, and it'd make me feel more confident about the whole situation if she tried to see how dangerous that could turn..." he sighs.

"But she just didn't get it."

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard had pushed himself into a standing position while everyone was talking to Micah. His eyes land on Damian briefly at the feel of that apology, a push of faint forgiveness for the damage back at him through the marks. It's almost completely sincere too.

Though Micah's words have his attention back to the leopard. "She doesn't want to."

[chartreuse_eyed]

Micah turns for the first time since he's entered to look at Richard, almost quizzically. "So you've met Patrick's girlfriend."

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard starts to shake his head but pauses mid-motion, wincing. You never realize what muscles control what until you damage them. "No. But I've seen it before. The human spouse that doesn't want to understand what they're married to." The word monster was on the tip of his tongue, but he actually refrains from saying it. He doesn't quite hold the faintest hint of bitterness in his tone though. He's had human girlfriends both before and after Anita.

[anita_blake]

Anita turns to look at Richard. She certainly doesn't recall ever making him feel like that. In fact, she's pretty damned sure he did a good job of berating himself as a monster all on his own. However, here and now was not the place for that discussion.

She looks back at Micah. "The coalition is offering support meetings for family members of lycanthropes. Didn't the wolves get them?"

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard's gaze flickers over to Anita. It was never her. Though if she asked, she might find half of where all his thinking he's a monster stems from. After hearing it so many times, you start to believe it. "Just because the meetings are there doesn't mean they want to attend them."

His gaze goes back to Micah, cradling his arm in the hopes that lifting it, supporting it will ease some of the pain. “This is my Patrick, Patrick Cook?"

[chartreuse_eyed]

"Yes," he says neutrally, not sure where Richard's going with that, if anywhere. "I've been with him all night."

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

Richard's eyes settle on the floor a moment. He should be able to be there for his pack when they're in need of him. His gaze comes back up after a moment, his features not entirely happy though it's more at himself. "Thank you for looking after my wolf."

[chartreuse_eyed]

"Wolves are a part of the coalition," Micah says, as if that explained everything. "I'd do it for anyone's people."

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

"All the same," Richard counters, "thank you."

[anita_blake]

An awkward silence falls around those in the room, and Anita sighs. She's covered in blood, she has Damian's come smeared between her thighs, and all she wants is solitude and soap. A shower was on the agenda next, whether they all killed each other while she's gone or not.

"I'm taking a shower," she announces. "Everyone can just... behave themselves and I'll be back soon, but I just need to be clean. Now."

She doesn't wait for a response, heading for the bathroom at a quick walk before anyone can call her back.

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

Damian just watches her abrupt departure, sadness welling up inside him. The practical, reasonable side of him knows that he really did dirty Anita up, not just from the sex, but with all the blood as well. Anita always likes to be clean... The unreasonable part of him wants to take it as Anita simply wanting to forget what just happened.

Then again, the unreasonable part might have a point.

He clings to Nathaniel, knowing he should tend his friend and get cleaned up himself, but not wanting to move except to get closer to Nat and farther away from the sunlight.

[nathaniel_kitten]

Nathaniel takes a deep breath, trying to keep himself treading above the clawing need inside Damian, the sadness threatening to well up and drown them again. He looks to Micah, sighing.

"Can you get me a couple of wet wash cloths and a towel, Micah?" he asks. The downstairs bathroom was the only one without a window, and Nathaniel really wanted to clean himself and Damian up. "And maybe find Anita's first aid kit so we can patch Richard up for the time being?"

[chartreuse_eyed]

"Yeah, sure," he says, taking stock of the other three's injuries; or at least Richard's...

It doesn't take him long to come back from fetching the items, passing most of them to Nathaniel and holding on to the first aid kit, turning to Richard. "Need help?"

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

"Wouldn't hurt," Richard answers, eyes studying his own wound. There's a rather large hole where muscle and skin should be on his upper chest to shoulder on his left side. Cleaning it and patching it up would be difficult at best to do by himself.

[nathaniel_kitten]

Nathaniel begins mopping Damian down, speaking softly to his friend, trying to keep him here, with them, and calm. He pushes aside his own fright and confusion and jealousy, trying very hard to focus on the immediate.

"Everything will be fine," he murmurs. "Anita will make it fine."

He has every bit of faith in Anita, and he clings to it.

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

Damian is noticeably shaken, which is saying quite a lot for this particular vampire, who so values his control. He tries to distract himself by searching Nathaniel for wounds where the blood has spattered thickest. Taking the second wash cloth, he tries to clean Nat up.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs every so often, unable to ignore what he feels from himself and from Nathaniel's mind, in addition to the physical harm he can tell he did from the blood on Nathaniel's arm.

[chartreuse_eyed]

"Just hold still," Micah says. "Let me clean you up."

He does wonder what in the world happened, but he'll get an explanation later. For now, he's just going to clean Richard up, dabbing at the hole in his shoulder--the fact that it isn't just a graze is cause for a little concern. He didn't get a chance to check Anita over before she rushed off to the shower, and now he wonders if she's hurt.

[puppyeyedulfric.livejournal.com]

The very fact that she had hopped up to the shower on her own two feet quick as possible, should tell close to how she's doing. Though since Richard's been here, is tied to her, all Micah would have to do is ask and he could tell the other man.

Richard gives a small hiss of pain, trying not to flinch at something touching the wound. His mind is already going over how many days he may need to take off sick because with shifting it will heal faster but not fast enough for people to not notice.

[anita_blake]

In the shower, Anita tries very hard not to think. Very hard. As her hands move over her body with the soap, she catalogs the various hurts. Bruises, cuts, sore muscles. Thanks to the marks she shares with Jean-Claude, those would all be gone by the end of the day.

The bite, though, that would take at least a week to heal. Just what she wants to do, walk around for a week with the healing proof of Damian going batshit and fucking her on the living room floor in front of Richard.

"God," she groans, leaning against the tiles.

Not thinking wasn't working.

[mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com]

Back in the other room, Damian suddenly drops the wash cloth he had been using to clean up Nathaniel.

There is a spark of a presence in his mind, instantly identifiable. He doesn't want to feel it, doesn't want to be reached at such a distance. He had thought himself safe under Anita and Jean-Claude's protection, but with his own shields dysfunctional from the trauma of the last 24 hours, he can't push her away and shut himself down.

He goes completely rigid next to Nathaniel, his lungs gasping in a breath but not releasing it as he cradles his head and whispers, "No..."

[nathaniel_kitten]

"Damian?"

Nathaniel looks up at the vampire, feeling nothing but panic there. He does the only thing he can think to do. He rushes to the bathroom door, knocking several times before Anita answers him.

"Damian isn't doing so well," he calls to her, glancing over his shoulder. "If you'd concentrate, you'd feel it..."

[anita_blake]

Anita concentrates, following that line in her head to Damian. Fear hits her so hard that she's amazed she can still stand. It bears down on her like rocks crushing her chest. She quickly turns off the shower, wraps a towel around her hair, and starts drying off at least enough to throw on a robe.

Before she manages it, though, the door kicks open, and she sees Gregory, still half-shifted, supporting Damian on one side while Richard holds the other. She sits down on the floor and helps them get Damian into her lap. The contact only makes the fear that much more intense and real, and suddenly Anita can't even breathe, as though the fear were a black tar coating her throat.