Prompt: the Preacherkinkmeme’s prompt “Cassidy gets tortured and Jesse needs to let the guy feed on him to recover.”
Things were dead silent in this part of Texas. Nothing but desert and a dusty road—which hadn’t seen another car in hours, if not days. It made the crying in the backseat quite loud, sort of ricocheting off the torn seats and seeping out the bullet holes in their roof. Jesse swallowed around the sound. Anyone passing might have thought they were hearing a ghost on this old, deserted stretch.
For all that though, Cass still cried like a human.
“Easy, easy,” Jesse murmured. He wasn’t much for comfort. Not unless you needed a free drink and an awkward pat on the back. This though… this was different. More. Cass was curled into a ball with his face pressed hard between his knees, the shiny surface of his back glinting in the twilight; raw strips of flesh casting shadows. It was bad. Holy fuck it was bad, yet Jesse couldn’t help but think that Cass had suffered worse, hadn’t he? What was a flaying to burning yourself alive just to prove a point?
Yeah. This was why he sucked at comfort.
Cass was shaking. No, he was rocking. With a curse Jesse realized that Tulip just wasn’t getting back in time. Funny thing about escape plans: no one ever thought about the gas, and there was no one in this empty hell hole for Jesse to command. Tulip had slipped off her heels and hoofed it straight ahead over ten minutes ago, shouting promises over her shoulder that she’d come back with gas and supplies and anything else that might need. It was a shaky promise, but it calmed Jesse a little. He pictured the gravel outside, Tulip’s bare feet, and he wondered just how torn up they’d be by the time she got back. They’d probably look a lot like Cass’ back.
“Alright,” Jesse said, mostly to himself. “Get your shit together, Custer. Alright.”
If Cass heard him he gave no indication. His cries, far from tapering off, seemed to be growing in intensity. Jesse watched as dirtied fingers dug hard into Cass’ jeans, knuckle-white from distress or outright pain. The hiccupping sobs were wet due to emotion or blood. Jesse just couldn’t tell anymore. He ran hands through his hair, gripping the strands, and forced himself to look at Cass because he wasn’t some fucking coward. No. Not with this. Because sure, men weren’t supposed to cry, or if they did they did it alone. They did it soft. And somehow the vamparism just made it worse because what guy tore men’s throats out and then sobbed like this, open and endless like a child? It felt wrong. It looked worse. But Jesse wouldn’t turn away. It…
His own hands were shaking as he clamored forward to the front of the car, snatching Tulip’s almost-empty slushy cup from three days back. Before the kidnapping and everything went to hell. Jesse cranked down the manual window and tossed the remnants out into the dirt, nose curling at the smell and dead flies. That done, he fished in his back pocket for his swiss army knife.
Here Jesse paused. He didn’t want to slice into his hand—he might need it later, in case those bastards caught up with them. Carving a chunk of his arm didn’t seem particularly useful either. With a curse Jesse pulled up his jeans and cut a thin slice along his calf, muttering about how the movies always made this look so damn easy. Gravity helped though and the pain meant shit all to him. Within a minute Jesse had a couple inches of blood pooled into the slushy cup. He tugged his jeans back down without bothering to bind the wound.
“Here,” he said. Fuck. Was that his voice shaking? Jesse ground his teeth and slid a little closer. He went to drape his arm around Cass’ shoulders and then realized what a fucking colossally bad idea that would be. Jesus. What was wrong with him?
You’re panicking, a little voice whispered and Jesse wanted to scream with laughter. He hadn’t panicked through any of the shit he’d been dealt over the years. He hadn’t even panicked when Tulip said, “My baby.”
Maybe that was because, throughout it all, Tulip had never cried.
Jesse pushed the cup against Cass’ knees, right between his shaking hands. “Drink,” he said, insistent. “C'mon, Cass. Haven’t you ever had Blue Raspberry Blood before?”
It didn’t get him a weak chuckle like Jesse had hoped. If anything the sob that sounded right after his joke was more heart rending than all the others, so much so that Jesse nearly dropped the precious blood as his whole body went nerveless.
His daddy had never taught him this, and Cass wasn’t Tulip, but for all that there was hardly any hesitation as Jesse closed the distance between them, pressing a hand into the back of Cass’ neck since he couldn’t touch any lower. He felt the exact moment Cass felt him: the way his entire body tightened and then loosened like Jello. Tenderly, Jesse dragged his hand up into Cass’ hair, petting him.
He’d thought about his child. How it would be to cradle and rock them, care in an abstract, all-encompassing way. Jesse felt like he had an infant under his hand now as Cass stirred—fragile and miraculous. Cass raised his head and Jesse helped him down the blood he’d collected. Steading the cup wasn’t necessary, though in another sense it absolutely was.
Cass was still crying lightly. Tiny, jittering breaths that made swallowing difficult. Jesse didn’t realize why until Cass finished and leaned his face into Jesse’s palm, shutting his eyes.
“I thought they had you,” he whispered, broken. “I thought they were doing this to you.”