serendipity @migratorybirdie - Tumblr Blog

Aug 12

Puncture wounds on skin: By god it bleeds through.

Part 2 of Puncture Wounds.

Word count: 7.1k

AN: Thank you to everyone who’s liked and interacted with my fics! It’s honestly so amazing to have anyone read these! Thank you for letting me indulge in my interests :)

Melissa King x Frank Langdon | Vampire Au

Her hands were numb, a prickling sensation in the tips of her fingers. He’s watching her, Mel can feel his stare on the crown of her head, burning through the layers of fat, muscle and bone, he’d seeped into her blood, poured his very essence into the fabric of her soul. There was a sour taste in her mouth, burning the flesh of her throat. Her hands were slamming into the chest of the man on the gurney, she could feel the shape of his ribs under her palms. The edge of her vision was blurring, she couldn’t really see the monitors, the intubation tube, the trauma room curtain. It was as if she’d taken her glasses off, she was almost blind. As clear as crystal Mel could see her hands in the blue latex gloves, pushing up and down on this man’s chest. If she raised her head, if she even chanced a glance up she knew she’d see Frank. As clear as day she’d see him. There was a heat in the gaze that was penetrating through her whole body, it was as if he were in her. The incision mark on the left of her neck was pulsing, it was singing to her, it was as if he were repeating her name but from inside her. His voice was reverberating through the marrow of her bones, entwined in her blood. Her ears were ringing with his voice, over and over, she could hear him. ‘Mel, Melissa. Mel, Melissa’ an endless mantra of her.

The last ones louder than the rest.

“Mel” It almost shakes her. The force in which she hears it. Her eyes snap back to focus, she can see the emergency room again, now there’s blood on the floor, and donor bags, the copperish smell of blood and salty saline floods her nose. She blinks hard, her eyes fluttering under the harsh hospital lights, white streaks filling her vision.

“Mel?” There it is again. It’s closer this time right at the side of her head. She turns to the noise. It’s Robby who fills her vision. She stops. Her hands ceasing her insistent compressions on the chest in front of her. “Dr King? I’ve just called it. You can stop.”

She stares at her blood tinged hands, they’re trembling more than she remembered they were. The blue latex squeaking as she pulls them from her jittering hands. “Oh Okay” she mumbles, the words seeping together to a quiet whisper. She nods a few times, more to herself than to anyone around her. Mel still can’t look up, her eyes stay on the man on the gurney. Gunshot wound. Upper abdomen, through the diaphragm and the bottom of the left lung, his lung had collapsed, he’d coded on the table, not that he was stable when the EMTs brought him in. Tension pneumothorax, they’d tried to puncture a bore needle and chest tube through the cavity, it hadn’t worked. There wasn’t anything they could do. His blood pressure had gone before they’d caught it, completely systolic, he’d coded. They’d administered cpr for thirty minutes. Well, Mel had administered cpr for thirty minutes, no matter what they did they couldn’t save him.

As she moves, stepping to the back of the room she feels him there. She can’t hear his footsteps anymore, but he’s there. Right beside her. She can’t look at him.

“Mel?” Frank's voice is there, low and slow, how you’d talk to an injured animal on the side of the road, the way you’d coerce and coax it to you. “You need a minute”

She can’t speak. The words can’t come to her. They’re dying on her tongue, as her breathing quickens. It takes her a second longer, she turns her head and for the first time that day she looks at Frank.

‘You’re okay, you’re doing good. You’re gonna be fine, just breathe for me Mel’ it fills her ears, a warmth seeping through her blood at the sound. His lips didn’t move an inch. No, she thinks, they must have, he’d said that to her. As her breathing slows to her normal rate, she blinks hard again, willing her brain to catch up to her body. She hasn’t taken her eyes off him, though again his words flood to her ears, ‘That’s it. You’re okay. In and out, slowly’ again his lips didn’t move. Ripping her eyes from him, she looks around the room, it had to be someone else. It sounded so much like him, she’d know his voice anywhere.

There’s no one there, they're all gone. It was her and him alone with the body. Mel was certain the dead weren’t coming back to life, so it had to be Frank's word in her ears.

“How? How’d you do that?” Her eyes widened as she turned back to him. Her hands are still shaking. “You’re in my head” her lower lip, coming between her teeth to nibble at the skin there.

“Mel.”

“No. Stop that!” Her hand comes to push at him attempting to push him back to the wall, when her hand meets a solid mass that cannot move she feels tears well in her eyes.

“Mel, come on, it’s okay, you’re okay” Frank keeps his voice soft, his eyes trying to find hers as she desperately turns away. The bruising on her neck thrums under his words, as if the blood there in her carotid was answering him. Her brows crease at his words, she could feel her own annoyance blistering through her skin.

“Stop, you’re- you’re- oh god, you don’t know how I feel! You’re making assumptions! Stop it, I need you to stop.” There was bile rising in her throat, it was consuming her whole.

“Okay.” He finally catches her eyes; he’s leaning down toward her body. “I’ll stop” his hand finds her shoulder. She feels his thumb smoothing soft circles along the fabric of her scrubs. Mel pulls the stained trauma gown from her body, moving stiffly away from Frank's touch. She shouldered her way from the room.

He’s following her. She knows it. Doesn’t even have to hear his footsteps anymore, she can’t hear his breathing behind her any longer. A strange version of Orpheus and Eurydice they made, would he vanish before her if she turned around? He would follow, that she knew. A fact which Mel had become certain in. If she turned he would be there. To turn around is to love him, would she not still love her Eurydice if she knew he’d follow her no matter what? The doors to the ER swing open in front of her as she steps toward the ambulance bay, toward the low sun of the evening. Before both her feet break through the threshold of the hospital, she turns. There he was, as she knew he would be.

Her eyes find his, as blue as they’d ever been, they’d become bluer in the weeks since the bite, an intense version of the shade they had once been. The sun warms the skin of her back, heating her through the fabric of her scrub top. She stands in the warm light of the morning, Frank instead stands beneath the shade of the awning. Mel takes another step back, her form fully drenched in the light, she knows this is cruel. Before she can say anything, he moves slowly the toes of his sneakers, brushing against the light that shadows the floor.

“Stop” she can’t help it. Mel clamps her mouth shut.

“I’m not gonna” he hums, his hand comes to reach for her arm, then it falls flat by his side. “You doing okay?”

“You’d know wouldn’t you? You’re in my head!” Mel can’t help but whisper the last half of the sentence, she hopes her anger comes through to him.

“Jesus Mel, come on!” He takes a hand through his hair, “where’s this coming from? What happened to, we’re gonna get through this Frank, we can work it out?” There’s no real venom to his words.

“I-I- I don’t know” her voice shaking with the words.

“Mel, come ‘ere” it’s warm when the sound reaches her.

“You’re doing it again” she sighs. Her whole body was a light with the warmth of him.

There’s a chuckle from him, as a soft smile forms on his face. “I’m just asking you to come here, I’m not doing anything, I promise.” There’s a shine in his eyes that half reflects the sun in them. She sighs, her own gaze softening under his attention, she doesn’t want it to; no matter what she’d melt into him. Her steps draw her to the shadow of the entrance, a dark grey square on the stone floor below her, as she gets closer Frank steps back toward the wall, letting her stand before him in the cool shaded corner. “I’m not in your head, I thought you needed to hear that earlier, and uh well I didn’t know if you’d want the whole trauma room hearing me talk you through breathing exercises” the warmth doesn’t leave his words, and still it fills her blood, her veins, her lungs.

“I’m just- I don’t know- I I’m-I can’t…” her breathing was picking up, shuddering in her lungs. Her words are jumbling, they’re choking her, as if she were swallowing rocks.

“Hey, hey, come on” his hands come to her arms, as she twists her fingers together, the pressure of his hands pushing into her body relaxes her under the touch. “What’s going on? Hm?” Frank's hands smooth up and down her arms, pulling her a little closer to his body.

“I- I can’t- I don’t know” the words still evade her.

“Mel” he sighs, he knows. He would always know, he could read her like a book. Any little change in her, Frank knew before she did. “You can tell me”

“What if- I can’t- what if we can’t fix- it’s silly, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing” his eyes were still on hers, he’d pulled her closer, their feet touching toe to toe. There was still a warmth emanating from him even if the first touch of his skin was like sticking your hand in a freezer. “Mel if it’s making you like this, then something’s wrong”

“Making me like what?” She was being combative, there was no real need for it, but god she wanted to be angry, she was hurting. Every inch of her was hurting.

“You’re not yourself.” He’s getting exasperated, the tone in his voice was changing. “You can tell me, okay? Anything, whatever it is”

For a second she thinks, really thinks, he was right she could tell him anything, it still didn’t matter. How could she tell him how scared she was? How whatever had been going on with him was scaring her beyond belief, she thought she could handle it. Her whole body feels like it’s shaking, as if her bones were crumbling to dust inside of her, fragmenting and chipping through the vibration.

“Frank, I’m scared-“ her sentence is severed from her lips by the screeching sound of ambulance sirens, they tear into the hushed conversation. Frank's head jerks to the sound in the distance. There’s a strange action that happens each time he tunes to a sound, his whole body moves to it. Like a wolf locking onto prey his posture goes stiff, there are waves of tension that reverberate from him, Mel can feel it. As if changing the air around them. She turns with him then to see the EMTs pulling into the back entrance. The doors of the ambulance fly open, a gurney is wheeled out onto the concrete. Frank twitches slightly, if she hadn't been so close she wouldn’t have known. It’s the scent of the blood. He’d done it all day. Every drop of blood had elicited a shiver. He was hungry. He’d sworn he was fine, had told over and over he was fine that nothing would go wrong. What if he couldn’t hold back? How far could he go without it? What happens if he can’t feed? They hadn’t gotten that far, he hadn’t needed much more than what Mel had been willing to give in the two weeks since the incident.

“You guys gonna help?” She hears the rushed call of the paramedic.

“Yes” she nods, running to the side of the gurney. Confronted with the scene before her, a young woman lay shaking on the bed, blood seeping through her dress, a c spine collar on to limit her head movement, Mel tried her best to evaluate the image before her. Her hands came to check over the woman’s head and neck. As she drops her arm slightly she hears the fabric of her under shirt rip, a snagging sensation permeating through her forearm. There’s no time to check her shirt. Franks opposite her as they wheel in the woman through the doors. The gurney wheel squeaking on the waxed floors, the intense scent of the iodine, and blood was back in her senses. Frank had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time.

“What do we got?” Robby’s voice calls over the noise of the emergency room.

“Thirty two year old female, head trauma, Impalement injury to left upper thigh, RTA on the highway, slammed into a crash barrier, possible concern for seizures” as they're wheeling her through to the trauma bay, she can feel Frank's eyes on her. There was almost a comfort in the routine now, as much as it burned into her very core, she knew if she looked he’d be there. Even still she has a job to do.

“Alright, trauma two’s free, Dr King? Dr Langdon? You good to lead this?” Robby asks across the floor, his voice carrying over the constant conversation.

“Yes” Mel answers, her voice trembling, she has to concentrate to make it sound authoritative. Frank usually took over these things, she was good at her job, she knew the procedures, knew how to handle the complex traumas, but leading wasn’t her strong suit.

Trauma bay two in its white clinical image was alive with people, Mel moves with the gurney to the centre of the room, her whole body going through the motions of an emergency trauma. Breathing, vitals, responses, all of it in a quick succession. There’s two units of o-neg on the rapid infuser to stabilize the blood loss, the impaled metal bar had to stay. If they removed it there was greater risk of internal bleeding than there was if they left it.

“Pulse ox is ninety eight” she hears to the side of her.

“BP is ninety systolic” it was Princess's voice that was calling the stats. The stats were good, they had to keep her systolic, permissive hypertension, yeah that was right, keep the oxygen in the areas needed while staving enough not to shoot potential blood clots to the lungs. Out of sheer habit Mel looks around for Frank. She finds him at the far end of the room, the trauma gown barely on his body, he was paler that she'd seen him all day the slight tint of colour was gone. He was a marble statue of despair in the far off corner of her vision. As Mel’s eyes reach his there’s a shift in the room, specifically a shift around her. His eyes are black, dark endless pools devoid of light, as if his soul was leaving him from the inside.

“Dr Langdon?” she calls to him, her voice shaking in her haste, she needed him. Mel needed him in this moment, her body was moving in auto pilot. Packing the protruding object with gauze to hold its position before they could ferry her to the operating room, thick wads of white gauze turning a blotched mottle red with the oozing of the thick crimson blood. Still there’s no movement from Frank no matter her plea he stays stuck to the floor, when Mel chances a glance up to his face again his eyes aren't on hers, his stare is stuck on her forearm. Placing the final balled up bundle of gauze to the entrance wound, her fingers tinted in the blood of this woman; Mel follows Frank’s gaze to her own arm. A stark red river of trickling blood cascades its way down the pale expanse of her forearm. When did that happen? The pale pink cotton of her long sleeve undershirt had turned a faded shade of brown around the wound, the pain that had seemingly been there the whole time was pulsing through her forearm now. She takes a shaky breath, stilling her body slightly, telling herself over and over, that she was okay, nothing was wrong.

Frank was shaking, almost vibrating from the floor. His jaw clenched so hard it was as if he could snap the bone there with little force. She could almost picture it, the image of his jaw snapping, as if she could hear the sickening crunch of his bone tearing in two. Her hands still move as they should, finalising what she could in the trauma room before they had to go to the OR. His eyes were burning through her all day. When she looks up again, he’s gone. There’s no figure standing at the far end of the bed holding her hostage under his unrelenting stare. That scares her more than anything else.

“I need to go” she mutters to no one in particular. The patient was stable, surgery was on their way to assess. There was a four inch gash on her arm that needed to be fixed. There’s a faint acknowledgment reverberating in her ears, as she walks through the trauma door. Her mind reeling as the lights of the emergency room blind her, streaks of white blistering her vision, her hearing ringing over the cacophony of noise that almost shakes the walls of the building. Her grip tightens on the wound on her arm, pulling her left arm to her chest cradling her injury like a bird folds its wing.

The sound of her own blood pumping in ears accompanies her on her journey. And through it all, she thinks about Frank. What if there wasn’t anything they could do? Would he be this rabid creature for the rest of his life? Was it a life? Will he get old? Could he die? That made her sick. It was swimming in her head, the possibility that this could kill him. Then what if it didn’t kill him? What If the stories she’d heard as a kid were true? What if he was now immortal, and whatever was inhabiting his body was who he was now? What if he got lonely? He’d be alone. For the rest of eternity he’d be alone. Would he want her? Would he ever want her? Even if he was this now immortal being? Could she be his immortal companion? No this is stupid. There was no way any of this was real. No. This was insane. Was it? If she thought about it, not even particularly hard, he’d drunk her blood. And he couldn’t stand in the sun. He was cold, and she didn’t think he had a heartbeat. Well Mel hadn’t exactly tried to find out. No matter who he was now, he was still Frank. The very same man who had taken care of Becca, who had sat with her on the floor of this very ER and had made her want to come back, made her believe that she could.

The second floor of the ER was a quieter affair, the old hospital lighting still a softer yellow tone, she blinked a few times adjusting to the change in brightness. The silence was yet another adjustment that had been unprecedented. Mel can feel the tightness in her chest easing as she walks, the soft sounds of her own footsteps leading her path through the endless corridor of the second floor. There’s an old, outdated on call room at the far end of the corridor. Ellis had told her once that she’d used it to take cat naps on her double shifts. Mel presses the handle, pushing the creaking door open, the wooden door catching on the lip of the linoleum. The small sink in the corner splutters out a trickling stream of warm water, the hard paper towels piled on the sink, scraping against the soft surface of her skin. Angry red markings spurring along the wound site. She chokes down a deep breath, gritting her teeth as she cleans around the cut. The first aid box that had been thrown into the cabinet, provided a particularly dire affair. Holding her forearm under the lukewarm water Mel watches as her blood swirls from the scrape, soft dancing patterns appear in the porcelain. They twist and turn, dancing around each other til they fall to the abyss. There’s something beautiful about the way it forms. She dabs the area with a clean gauze pad, she'll have to get it checked out soon. Probably have to file a workplace accident report too. Now her limbs feel heavy, her head like a block of lead.

Even in the bright morning light the room takes on a softened glow, the crisp unused white bedding taught against the frame of the twin bed. Her whole form is trembling as she sits, as if she can feel her organs vibrating within her skin. She lets her head fall back to the pillows, dabbing at the blood seeping from the wound, it wasn't too deep, from what she could tell it had scraped into the dermis. The papillary dermis, the capillaries of her veins mottling the skin with a red tinge. Tugging her scrub top from her torso, Mel pulls the sleeve of her shirt up her forearm, peeling the sticky cotton from the wound. Sucking in a whimper as the fabric tears from the sticky wound.

The door of the on call room scrapes across the floor, she leaps from the bed, her body hitting the brick behind her. Plaster flaking as she hits the pale cream paint. She knew who it was before they'd even entered the room, it were as if she was attuned to him. Whatever he’d done to her that night had tied their souls to one another. The very fabric of her being had been wrapped around his; wound so tightly as one no matter how she tried to distance they would remain so tethered it became impossible to untwine the ropes that had bound them. Her blood was within him, she had become a part of him that night. Even when she looks to his image now there is no discerning fear that palpates from her, because it's him. Despite it all, it's Frank. They don’t say a word, neither of them. What fills the room is the ragged sound of her breathing. His eyes are still lingering on the broken skin of her arm, his gaze blisters her skin.

“Frank” she sighs, it barely breaks the silence. “Are you okay?”

“Mel…you need to clean it, please, it's hurting” his voice was hoarse, the sound of sandpaper running on wood. It grates through the silence, rippling through the endless expanse of nothing. It's hurting him that what he won't say, she knows the words are stuck in his throat she can read it on his face, picking apart the fragments of pain that are staining his expression.

“I-I tried, there's not a lot here” the adrenaline that had flown through her body mere moments before was pouring from her at an alarming rate, the exhaustion was catching up to her.

“It's getting too hard to hold myself back” it reverberates in his chest, she can hear the sound move through him, it sends a shiver down her spine. “I won't, if you don’t want me too” There's a warmth that flows through her, it trickles down her spine, across her lungs to her arms, along her legs, the tips of her fingers and the souls of her feet.

“Frank, I’m sorry” she watches the dried blood flake on her left arm.

“I’ll go” he states, moving to the doorframe. She feels his presence, it bleeds to her soul, the mere notion he’d leave her empty of such fullness she had come to desperately crave almost broke her in two.

“Stay” it tumbles from her lips so easily it shocks her, the ease of such transparency. Her eyes wide as she stares up at him from her place on the bed. As a fawn does when it stares in the eyes of its predator she folds, freezing under the gaze of her hunter. There are times, times when he looks at her like he wants to devour her whole. Now as she stares into the dark colourless pits of his once blue eyes she sees that same desperate hunger is reflecting back at her. That one singular word is all it takes.

Frank moves into the room, his form taking up the doorframe, a dark shadow casting along the floor. Her breathing speeds up, her mouth runs dry. There’s a scent in the air, one so prominent it almost burns her nostrils. She wants to choke on it. To let it consume her whole, guts and all. It’s an earthy clean scent. She hears the latch of the lock clink in the heavy silence. The curtains on the windows were drawn, a small thread of sunlight severed the room down the middle, when Frank reached the edge of the bed, that thin line separated them. His hand reaches for her, it ghosts through the light, a small hissing sound coming from the action, as the skin on his hand begins to turn red. Mel can’t help but think of the time she and Becca had gone with their parents to Disney world as kids, she’d hated it. It was so loud, the swarm of people every which way you turned, made her sick. Then she got sunburnt because every time her mom would try getting her to put sun block on she’d run. Mel hated the thought of someone trying to touch her when she was already overwhelmed, everything was too much and not enough at the same time.

Right now, as she feels frank move closer to her, it’s not enough. There’s an almost indecency to the way he strips her fears from her, as if he could peel her back later by layer. He unburdened her of all that consumes her.

“Melissa” it’s warm as it washes over her, she’d gotten used to the sound of her name on his lips, like a healing balm that pours through her all at once. He’d gotten less rabid through the feeding than he had been the initial night, he was still a dog, still howling and whining at her feet, pleading with her to let him have what he needs. She was still that deer in the headlights. “Mel I don’t want to hurt you” the deep darkness of his eyes didn’t stray from the cut on her forearm, they traced the line of the dark red blood that still lingered on her skin. Her whole body was on fire under his eyes. She knows what he wants, knows deep within her she needs this too. Mel doesn’t speak, doesn’t need to, he’s in her head already, he’s the fabric of her body. So she bares her neck to him. Leaning back further against the pillows, her form relaxing into the sheets. They scratch against her skin, a crisp irritating sensation covering her body. It doesn’t matter because in a moment he’d take it all away.

There’s a low growl that vibrates in his throat, it floods through her. The blood in her was calling to him, humming under the surface, over and over like a siren song she didn’t know the words of. The scent was in the air, a warm clean smell, one she wanted to bury her face in. Mel watches through her half lidded eyes as his nostrils flared slightly as he inhaled the scent of her. When Frank leans over her, cupping the back of her head, he’s all she sees. It’s only him. Her vision condensed to one single point, his face, the curve of his nose, the sharp edges of his jaw. His head flicks down, sharp and focused, his eyes latch onto her arm. For a second Mel doesn’t feel anything, then it’s a white hot burning through her whole left side. She can’t scream, that's what hits her. Opening her mouth to try to let out the sound greets her with silence, a cold, sickening silence. When she looks down Frank has attached his mouth to the cut on her arm, she can see the two canines prying closed the wound. Shuddering, Mel slams her hand to his shoulder shoving him desperately away from her body.

As much as she wills it no words come from her mouth. She wants to tell him to stop, that it hurts, that it’s too much. Then pain constricts the muscle in her arm, it pulls taught, she tries to let out another cry. This was different, this wasn’t how it usually was. Her breathing is speeding up, it’s hard to get a full breath in. She’s gonna die. This was it. They’d gone too far. Her tendons flexing, snapping, flickering toward his open mouth.

‘You’re fine’ it’s low in the base of her skull. ‘Gotta get the bacteria out. Okay? Stopping an infection. Only a little longer’ there it is, like a lighthouse in a storm, his voice. Above it all, below it all, amidst it all. Only him. It’s only ever him. That’s when it stops, the pain doesn’t last, it softens. A warm hot sensation through her forearm, she can feel the flesh knitting itself together under his pressure. Flesh tangling with one and other. Her dermis weaving its way closed, the capillaries tightening and rejoining, it hadn’t gotten to the brachial artery but none the less it drummed under the skin. Then it’s cold, she shivers at the loss of contact. Like cold liquid being poured down her spine, she can’t stop herself as she reaches for him, her hand cupping the side of his face as he leans over her slumped form. For now they wore matching scars, his pin point holes, and her fine line scar.

“Why?” It’s all she can handle. It’s all that comes out.

“Could smell it in you.” There’s still a rough timbre to his voice, “Needed you to be okay. I had to fix it, it’s you Mel.”

“Hmm? Me?” Her eyes were on his once more, they were dark, not black now but grey. Swirling with something that laid beneath the surface, something she couldn’t quite reach.

“Yeah” the words are strained as he speaks, they reverberate through her ribs caressing the bones settling somewhere deep within her body. He’s still hungry. He’d been twitching all day. Frank's eyes are focused on her carotid.

All she can do is nod, it’s a short gesture, it’s all she needs. His hands come to rest on her neck and waist as he pulls her half up toward his chest. Mel lets her head fall back slightly, baring the skin of her neck to him. His nose tucks under the curve of her jaw. As his lips press to the right of her neck, placed at her artery, it’s almost a kiss. The phantom feeling of him pressing his lips to her skin, it’s barely there, she wasn't even sure if he’d actually done it.

“Thank you” his whisper etched into her skin, the words coursing through her veins staining the flesh beneath them. She shivers, her nerve endings alight with anticipation. Then it happens. Sharp plunging canines delves into the side of her neck, it burns at first, hot white scorching pain. It shocks her system, for five seconds all she can feel is heat. She counts down, one, she breathes in, two, sighing, moving herself closer to him, three, her eyes flutter shut, four, there are gasps catching in her throat, five. Then it’s gone, and everything is numb. All she can feel is his weight pressing onto her, their bones slotting together to become one. It’s as if her bones were filled with cotton; the marrow had been scraped out leaving the numbness in its place, everything was softened and hazy. Thoughts could not form in her mind, he took it all from her. All her fears, pain, frustration, each ounce of hurt dissipated like smoke in the wind. There are times she wonders what it would be like to kiss him, would it be as intimate as this? To feel it all and nothing at once. Would making love to him feel like this? Could it feel like this? Would the very fabric of their souls tie together as it does now?.

His hand slides upward from her waist to press between her shoulder blades as he brings her toward him, she’s half dangling in the air, her only tether to the real world was him. The only solid sensation Mel could feel was his hands on her, his mouth on her neck, it was all him. Consuming her inside and out. Her blood in her veins moving and swirling through the artery, across the veins into the capillaries. Frank's teeth in her neck sucking the blood of her into his waiting mouth. Mel moves her own now scared left arm from the bed to tangle in the dark locks of his hair, gripping so tightly her knuckles turn white with the action. She can’t stifle the breathy sigh that rips from her throat at the feeling of him holding her so tightly, the warmth of him pressing to her. Mel opens her eyes to look at the ceiling above her, the white square tiles distorted, she can’t see the ceiling above her but she sees her memories of Frank.

The way his hand cradled her head, the fireworks on the Fourth of July, the first day they met, the first day he came back from rehab, they’re first trauma. Then it was that night, the sight of him pale and shaking, images of him feeding from her the first time, then him on his knees looking up at her, wide eyed and blissed. She wonders if he saw the same look on her face that day, or if he sees it now.

“Mmm” she hums, as his hand flexes on the left side of her neck. “Mmm Fr-Frank” it’s hiccuping as it bubbles from her vocal chords. It had gone on longer than the last few times. She couldn’t beg, she could feel the muscles in her legs cramp, kicking them feebly against the metal frame of the bed. Her limbs were falling lax under the sensations. The heat of her blood seeping from her as she shivers, at the loss of the warmth. Her eyes roll back into her head, she tries to focus. All of a sudden she can’t. Her hand drops from his head, her other arm twitches on the bed by her side. With all her might she tries, she can’t move a muscle.

“Please” she whispers, there’s a ringing in her ears, Mel can’t even discern whether she’d spoken aloud. Had he even heard it? This was it. He’d drained her dry. All the while she hears her blood swishing and running through her body, whispering his name, over and over in her ears, her mind, her heart; ‘Frank, Frank, Frank’ over and over an unrelenting stream of his name. She was dying in the bed of an unused on-call room in Pittsburgh trauma medical centre. When the light fades from her eyes, and she’s consumed by darkness, she thinks of Frank, first whether he’d be okay, then had he meant to do it. She also thinks of Becca, would she be safe, who would take care of her, could Frank take care of her?. Then it all goes silent. There’s nothing. No noise. No light. No sound. For a while it’s just her and her own thoughts, for a while there’s silence, peace even. Then it’s gone.

A white scalding light bursts behind her eyes. Shuddering a gasp that tears from her chest, the sensation of her breathing hurts, it’s like needles stabbing through the tissues of her lungs. Her breath can’t come quick enough, she opens her mouth to drink in the air, the cold gust that hurtles into her throat claws along the side of her windpipe.

“Shit. Mel, come on” there’s a tapping on the side of her face. “Come on baby. Come back to me, oh Jesus, shit- fuck- oh god, Mel- I’m sorry” she feels a hand on neck pressing over her pulse. It’s Frank. It would always be Frank. “Mel. You’ve gotta come back. You’re not going anywhere okay? I’m not letting you. You hear me in there?”

Her eyes flicker under the lights, adjusting to the harsh brightness. Blinking a few times as she tries to draw her breath back to her body. Her limbs were on fire, there’s a pain in her neck, a pulsing pain spread through her chest and arms.

“That’s it, come on” his voice was solid in her head now. The dreamlike quality to the tone had disappeared. It was as if she was crawling back to him, feeling the rough rocks and gravel under her knees, scraping the soft flesh of her skin. “I’m sorry. Shit, I didn’t know- you okay? Can you hear me?” His left hand was making soft soothing motions down her spine, she could feel the pad of his fingers tracing the notches of her spine. Even after it all, when her eyes adjust fully to the light and sounds, he’s still there. This wasn’t a strange fantasy she conjured up in her nightmares.

“Frank?” Her voice feels far away from her, a thousand miles across the country echoing in the mind.

“Yeah, I’m here” the relief in his voice stills her. “Thought I’d- fuck I really thought…”

“I’m okay” it’s a mumbled slurred mess as she attempts to bring herself back round. Her mouth feels dry, as if she’d eaten sand. She used to hate when kids did that on the playground when she was a child.

“Oh god, you scared me Mel. I- I scared myself- I really thought- I thought…” She’d never heard him so scared, the fear in his voice had coated the walls of the room. She knew what he thought, she’d thought it too.

“You didn’t mean to” her breathing is still laboured in her chest, the air pressing against her rib cage, she can feel the pressure of her lungs inflating.

“I did. It did” he’s shaking as he holds her closer. “Whatever is in there. What I am now…Mel- I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“We can fix it, it’s okay” she hums, her own finger reaching up to soothe along his cheek bone. “What if…” No. She can’t ask that of him. The words slip from her throat back down into the pit of her stomach. She’d regret it, he’d refuse and she’d make a fool of herself.

“What?” His once again blue eyes gaze through her to the innermost corner of her soul, she can feel him there, inside of her searching for what she won’t say.

“Nothing” Mel smiles, hoping there’s at least a shred of convincing behaviour in the gesture. The blood in her is no longer singing to him. She can’t hear the distant whisper of his name in her head, or in her veins themselves. There’d be time enough to tell him. Not now.

“I’m so sorry” he mumbles to her as he cups her jaw turning her head to inspect the bite. “Really did a number on you this time” he winces as he looks. Mel can feel the incision site, it’s pulsing slightly, another heartbeat under her skin melding with her own, becoming one sound. She’s sits up, her back cramping in her half laid position. When his hands fall from her there’s a coldness that purges her body. It takes all her willpower not to latch onto him again.

“It’s okay-“

“Stop. It’s not, I’m never gonna be okay hurting you” the gravely hurt tone of his voice stills her again. She twists her fingers against each other, knotting her knuckles as she flexes the tendons. Even after it all, all the blood, the hunger, the need. He was still the same Frank that sat with her on the break room floor on her first shift. Whatever version of him that came out in those moments had to fight tooth and nail against the real Frank that was still there in his body. Mel can’t help but love him.

“Let’s get back” he sighs, he’s still shaking. She wants to reach out and claps his hand in her, press it it her heart and tell ‘I’m here, I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere’ but she doesn’t. She lets the moment pass. The quiet stretches on between them, the moment surrenders to her and the silence. Frank stands, the sun casting a red tint to his skin. His eyes shine blue in the afternoon light. They were always so pretty, Mel loved his eyes.

Mel stretches, she feels her spine uncramping, each vertebrae popping back into place. They make their way from the room, he lets her go first. She can still feel his eyes on her head, there’s less of a hunger in his gaze. It’s still warm. It heats her from her scalp to her toes, a warm soft feeling that passes through her in waves. The silence is thick but comfortable, they’d said all they needed too. Until Mel breaks it, the question laying on the tip of her tongue.

“Your self control’s really something” she smiles up at him.

For a while he’s silent. His steps match hers as they make their way back to the ER. “It’s not” it’s a rougher sound that escapes his lips than she’d expected, like he was physically restraining himself. She turns to face him, his eyes aren’t on hers, they're watching her face, then they land on her lips. For a second. A split second. She can let herself believe that he desires her in the way she wants him. There’s blush forming across her cheeks, as she feels her skin get hotter. Such a naive thought she held, he wouldn’t want her. This was transactional, he’d get food and she would get the imagination of closeness with him. That was it. When Mel looks back again he’s still looking. As he always is.

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