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[ Naima wakes later than he does, dried blood smeared across her chin and flakes of it sticking to her palm. What she remembers is addled by sleep but what she does remember is in feeling -- a flash of magenta, a river of blood, bruises on hips. It's deliberate, on her part, the way she clears her throat to announce her arrival but stops just short of crossing the threshold, waiting in the doorway for his attention (feet half on cold tile, half on threadbare carpet).

Her voice is soft (careful) when she asks: ] Does it hurt?

[ The wound itself is surprisingly tidy -- in and out, two punctures right about where Deacon would go about checking his pulse if he had to, the skin puckered around thinly-formed clots threatening to scab. But the wound isn't the problem, it's something else, something in Deacon's blood not unlike an infection, making his veins burn down through his shoulder and to his chest, up along the line of his jaw and across the side of his face. He's heard stories about there being bad mojo in vamp spit, but shifters like to talk trash about anyone and everyone (a symptom of being at the bottom of the spooks foodchain, just barely a step above humans). It's like he can feel his blood moving around and past the mark at his throat; not fluid like usual, but thick and sluggish, a tangible thing where it's usually not. Deacon's muscles complain to make room for the sensation, so yes, it hurts.

Deacon's attention slides from his face to hers, catching it in the mirror over his shoulder. One of his hands is pressing and prodding experimentally at his jaw. ] S'nothing, Nai. Just growin' pains, aye? [ A beat. ] You a'right?

I asked about you, [ is her reply, quiet and in stark contrast from the night before. She pads around softly to reach for him, turning his head with a press of her palm to look at the wound herself. It makes her frown, those thin brows pulling together and she bites her lip. Emotions flick quickly across her face, ranging from worry to concern to apology (as if he had been an accidental victim -- as if nobody had asked for it).

Her cool hand cradles his jaw and she licks her lips (a physical tic; nervousness) before she finally answers him. ] Yeah, D. I'm alright.

[ Despite the blood Deacon knows he's got in her, Naima's skin carries its usual coolness. Dry and smooth, like a rock found on a thirsty riverbed; it somehow manages to dull the ache of his body (or maybe it's just her, maybe it's Naima). She looks different in the harsh neon light above the motel sink -- the hollows of her cheeks painted a mortuary white (tinged at the edges with suggestions of blue and green). Her expression makes her look smaller, more tentative; a far cry from the hungry animal who'd moved above him in the dark.

He watches her wet her mouth and then reaches with his hand to the pad of his thumb to her bottom lip. Deacon knows now what that lip tastes like, how it feels to break the skin just inside it with the deliberate use of his teeth. The inside of her mouth carries no blemish, no evidence of what he'd done the night before. He pulls some of the spit from her lip and then uses it to wipe at the dried blood on her chin.

A careful, mindful gesture. This changes nothing (this changes everything).

He smiles at her slightly. ] Takes hell of a lot more'n a love bite t'get me complainin'.

[ Naima's eyes flutter closed at the touch -- the ghost of something precious, of Deacon, of warmth. She turns her head to meet his palm, pressing a small kiss to the inside of his wrist; that sing-song hum of blood rushing in his veins still calls to her, but somehow it feels less urgent, now. Like an injection or a flu-shot, as if having some part of him in her dulled that aching pull his blood had over her. ] I hurt you, [ She says it like she once said: I trust you, the same way she had said it in the early days of her (re)birth, when he had said drink and she had asked what's wrong with me. ] I didn't want to hurt you.

[ But her voice goes quiet and that last part is a lie, something the last part of her humanity wants so desperately to believe as true; because she had wanted to hurt him more than anything (you make me want to tear you apart). ]

[ He stills when she kisses the inside of his wrist -- the fleeting sensation of mouth against pulsepoint familiar now, like the tap tap of three fingers searching for a junkie vein. If she wanted another taste, he would give it to her (and another, and another, and another); let her pull from the inside of his arm the way she pulls the last cinders from her cigarettes (hollowed-out cheeks, mouth full of bitter something, satisfaction seeping from whatever itch has finally gotten a scratch).

Deacon moves to crowd her a little in the doorway, sink and mirror forgotten, his bloodcaked reflection saved for another time. ] I asked, did'n I?

[ Asked. Begged. Goaded. (All of the above). Semantics.

He had asked and she had given it to him, had given to him by taking. Because Deacon is selfish but Naima is more so. Because they were made for one another that way, sick with hunger for the other. The hand against her face drops to her throat and then slides (a ghosting touch, surprisingly gentle) to the round of her shoulder. The possibility of kissing her on the mouth, of licking her lips clean, occurs to Deacon but it the thought doesn't make his head thick and fuzzy like it had the night before, when the heat was on him.

In the end, it doesn't make him want to do it any less. Just maybe a little differently, a new kind of negotiation. ]

I don't know, [ she says, her expression pulling into something unusual -- and if she's honest with herself (which she hardly ever is) -- a little bitter. ] Did you?

[ But Naima meets him halfway there (she's always been good at that, following Deacon; across state lines or into the unknown or into themselves, into that drive of hunger), in a way that makes her approach differently but fundamentally the same. That even though the price of what he's asking her comes at nothing, that she's more than willing to give (to take), this feels so much more permanent. That their night had started with her saying I'm not yours but ended with just the opposite, of her biting into him, mouth filling with his blood and smothered with his scent.

Something in her eyes softens. That usual, hard stare of Naima's doesn't feel that way anymore -- feels less like a target with Deacon in its crosshairs and more pleading. ] I think it might scar, you know.

[ Deacon has seen pleading in Naima's eyes before, though admittedly the look she's got on now is nothing compared to before's (oh god, oh fuck, how's there so much blood). Still, it kicks up something inside himself (instinct, animal, Pavlov, something) that makes him want to cover her physically with his body. Like a blanket used to smother a fire; like animals sharing bodyheat in the winter. This part of Naima (the part that is hanging by the very tips of her bloody fingernails to her humanity) speaks to a specific part of Deacon, the part of him that is capable of loving her as a woman rather than just an animal (a need).

The possibility of a scar makes the wound ache and in ways both good and bad. Kissing Naima occurs to him again and this time Deacon acts upon it, leaning forward to press his lips against hers. A chase covering of mouths (one on top of the other).

When he finally pulls back it's only far enough to be able to form the words (belabored slightly by their own earnestness): ] I want a scar. Y'hear me, Naima? I want you under m'skin. [ I want to feed you and fight you and fuck you and keep you. ] I want you t'do it again. And it's not going t'change.

[ She's not used to it, his warmth. Naima's not sure if she'll ever get used to it, the parts of him he's so willing to share; his touch makes her want to fidget and shuffle her feet, do something other than fixate on the beat of his pulse. It's a strange feeling. It's a new lesson in it's own right, too, maybe a lesson her twenty something years of living didn't prepare her for but her after-life did; how pain and violence and lust and wanting and love -- or something like it -- could get mixed up like this, heady and dark, into some final product that's near indistinguishable from what other people (not monsters, Naima thinks) feel.

The kiss makes her head swim. Not for the first time she feels a pull, a hum through her bones that makes her want to touch him and keep touching him, so she presses her forehead lightly against his. They're close enough for Naima to feel his breath on her skin, hot with every exhale, and her expression borders on something a little bit pained. ]

Deacon. [ She huffs out a laugh, low and flat. The realization here is that, finally, some long-dormant part of her wants to be selfless (or less selfish) for him and Deacon is asking the opposite from her. That he wants her to let go of anything precious and alive and human where she just wants to hold on. ] I don't think you understand. I think about you-- [ And killing you and your blood and how it tastes, pulsing warm and hot-- ] I could have killed you.

[ Perspective is something that Deacon's always had. He's older than his body implies (good genes can do that, shifter blood doubly so) and a life of travel means that he's seen a lot of shit (crazy and not) that most people haven't. But when it comes to Naima, that perspective thins down at the edges, becomes less expansive and wide, sharpens to a point of myopia that he can never hope (or really want) to escape. The truth is that he wants both: for her to let go and to hold on, to live on both sides of the line, to be binary. It's an existence Deacon can wrap his head about because that's the way a shifter ultimately sees himself: both human and not, both man and monster; one truth and then another (two halves of a whole).

He shakes his head -- slight, a barely-there motion -- and his forehead rocks against hers. A lulling gesture, indulgent in that point of contact. (He's never had so much, not in this body, not like this.) ] But you didn't. [ (I trust you) Naima the girl,not Naima the animal; in truth, he wants both and somewhere in between there's a delicate balance. One hand washing the other. ]

Deacon. [ A soft exhale but her voice is relenting this time, carries with it the same tone it does when she says, Deacon, can you roll up the window or Deacon, can you get me some gum or Deacon, come sit here, we both know I'll wind up with cat hair all-over, hurry up. For Naima, who's spent most of her existence beyond life trying so desperately to be one thing and not the other -- vampire or girl, hunter or prey -- what she thinks he's asking is hard for her. What it boils down to is embracing a part of her that she doesn't want to embrace, no matter which side it is, and that makes her antsy and nervous and distinctly uncomfortable.

But then-- Deacon makes her comfortable, has been the source of her comfort for however many months now, and she thinks that that probably means something even if she doesn't know what that is just yet.

(What it really means is: you mean the world to me.) ]

I think, [ she says softly, a smile tugging at those ruby lips. ] When they said 'buy the girl dinner', this is probably not what they had in mind.

[ A warm exhale against Naima's mouth and Deacon lets his eyes slide closed as he smiles this time, a half-hum grumbling in his throat. Like a purr (only not), like a sigh (but not quite); it's distinctly satisfied in tone. A there's my girl, only without words. He pulls back just far enough to watch that red bow of a mouth continue to shape itself into something more familiar. Bold, brash, selfish Naima -- the one that could go toe-to-toe with Deacon whenever she wanted to, the only one he'd ever given the time of day in the first place. That he can still recognize her now, despite unfamiliar territory is good -- hopeful even, despite neither of them being creatures predisposed to the sentiment. ]

Prob'ly not, [ he says, his voice lilting and his shoulder shrugging. ] But a fiver says they've never met a girl like you neither. [ Deacon flickers a smile. Too bad for them; bully for him. A beat and then he lifts his eyebrows at her, somewhat expectantly. Eventually: ]

That a yes? [ Despite there being no explicit question, Deacon knows that Naima will understand what he's asking. (One bed instead of two, one mouth to come home to; each name burned into the other's skin like branded cattle, like collared mongrels.) ]

[ A girl like you. Once upon a time it would have made Naima uncomfortable, made her say you never know because vampires were tough in the way cockroaches were tough; no bite in the day, hell of a punch at night, could survive almost anywhere. It's the kind of thought that would have driven her crazy before, made her seethe in diners and silent during long, quiet drives, culminating in a final so, how many vampire do you know, exactly? in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. It's not like a switch but it's easy to place, that feeling of before -- how now it feels distinctly after, like they've both decided on something distinct rather than just sharing a bed together. ]

Yeah, [ she says with a smile, teeth and all, a thin film of pink staining them (a mix of blood and spit and god knows what else). ] It's a yes. You can flaunt the cold, dead girl in your bed all you want to your kitty pals.