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A drop: To live and to lie
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Or : CassCainWeek Day 2
Blood | Wolves | Ghosts
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Takes place in the same universe as this fic! Vampire AU, in which we get into Cass's complex relation toward blood, and toward being a vampire even if just partially (she is a dhampir ! half human and half vampire), and about harming others.
@casscainweek @the-nerdy-libra
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One of the first times Cass remembers feeling pain isn't too drastic. It was light, even. She had just scratched some of the skin of her knee off of it. Not even enough to turn into a noticeable scar. But pain came with something else, and it was dripping from her knee, down to the ground. It stung, and she was looking at it. Curiosity.
She wondered why the liquid that hurt was the one escaping her skin, and not the liquid there on her hand after she touched her knee. It made sense, a little. But also not, to her maybe-4-years-old mind.
That was the first time Cass ever saw blood.
The first time she saw someone else's blood directly dripping from their skin, she was... Older. Around 6. Holding a knife to a man's throat, and her blade dug in a little. A bead followed the line of the blade onto her sleeve. The man was both terrified and something like impressed. And then her father started clapping, and she left both the man and the knife alone.
The last time a man was that terrified of her as a child, and she didn't stop, she ran as fast as she could after. It was intentional, running. Far, far away from the lack of relief, and far from the liquid spread across her fingers.
She tried avoiding it, after. She couldn't much.
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After really turning, she quickly figured out she needs to keep on feeding herself. If she manages to eat multiple times a day, she feels more replenished than she usually is. When she doesn't, the tips of her fingers tint blue, her gaze grows colder, and she gets more... distanced from the people around her.
Willingly.
It scares her, then, because then at some point, she starts looking at them in a way she hates. Her gaze trails on exposed skin and wrists. She finds herself almost stuck, and when dragging her head away from the direction, she's upset it feels more difficult than it should be.
When she starts going on too long without giving in to her thirst, she starts feeling more and more like a rabid dog. Or like. A wild wolf, sometimes domesticated, still one that'd do anything to give in to its deeper instinct. Just because of blood.
She hates how her head starts to falter. How she almost loses all her mind with the difference in the shapes of her thoughts. It's upsetting. Frustrating. Oh, her heart starts to falter, too.
She used to hang around the stands of food vendors, to dig into the discarded food of restaurants, but it wasn't enough. She needed more, always. People looked at her in a way she didn't want to decipher, and she stared right back. At least it's different now.
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The first time Steph offers her her blood, Cass snarls and goes to disappear into the shadows before the girl can start offering skin. She had shared her nature before, simply because she wanted to, but. She should have known Steph would do this.
She saw her caring nature in action. She should have know Steph would offer. She didn't think she'd be that dumb.
"No", Cass says. Half-shouts towards Steph's direction. The blonde's expression stays as firm and resolute. There is a little confusion in it too. She doesn't understand. Cass hates that.
"Why? I'm offering, it's not like I'd mind", she says, and she is even thrusting her wrist in front of her, the blood pulsating underneath the sleeve, the veins not showing but still present and visible if...
"No", Cass repeats again. She isn't sure her voice comes as resolute or as a quiet shout. It must not be powerful enough, because Steph insists.
She refuses again. Steph doesn't turn her wrist away. "Come on! You need it, don't lie to me. I can literally see you turning whiter than Barbara is."
She hesitates. This is what she hates the most, out of all of this: she almost considers it. And then, "I don't want your blood", she is hissing, coming to her senses, pushing the arm away.
Hurt flashes across Steph's face.
She doesn't bother explaining things to her so the hurt will fade. Cass could tell her, that drinking from people's very veins might make her be thing she doesn't want to be. She doesn't tell anything. She turns, and then she is gone from the room.
That's the first time. The other aren't any easier. It's still easy to leave it unexplained, though. More than explaining.
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It's a good thing vampires don't need permissions to leave a room. That'd be unpractical. She leaves a lots of rooms. It happens when she leaves Barbara's tower for day and night patrols, but also very often when she leaves Steph in her room after the first ones.
It happens when she is acting-out her civilian life, too. If she had to ask coffee-shops owners to leave their store, it could be really annoying sometimes.
Maybe she wouldn't be affected by that law, though. Like she is with some others. Sun doesn't burn her skin off, for example. She wouldn't be having those thoughts while waiting in the line to buy her groceries, if she was. She'd be away. In her windowless safe-place.
It'd suck. She wouldn't be able to hear the laughs of children when they go out of school and back to their home, for example.
This is maybe luck, then. She doubts it.
The line to checkout advances again, and it's her turn. The a-little-high employee judges her silently when she puts down her four packs of pre-heated nuggets. She doesn't say hello back, since there wasn't a first hello. Just nods. Pay for her things.
It's a slow process, her thirst. At first, her throat is just a little uncomfortable. Steph calls it her "vampirism colds phase". She starts to get more sensible. Swallowing things like water and carrots and slices of cake gets uncomfortable. Meat is the last of the thing she can eat without gagging. It's okay. She likes meat. It gets more annoying when that goes, too.
At least it doesn't take over her like it does for vampires. Not really. It takes over her every senses, but not her every thoughts. Not all of them. She can focus on other things. Have conversations. Be close to humans, even bleeding ones. She can ignore it. When veins hums their songs, she just has to shrug it off of her mind, usually.
It gets more difficult when her body starts to protest with more than just her throat. She usually ignores that, too.
The employee doesn't say goodbye when she leaves, so she doesn't say it either. She waves to the little girl that was looking at her all wait-time long, though. Doesn't ignore her staring like her mind is whispering her to.
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"I'm going back to work", Barbara puts her plate away. "You're not done with your nuggets?"
"I'm eating them", Cass answers. Pushes her fork around.
The woman cocks a eyebrow, but that's pretty much it. Her body stay relaxed. No argument to come. Cass wants it to stay like that.
It does, because Barbara turns away without pressing. "Okay, I'm taking mine for my shift then. Feel free to come grab some later if you want."
"Okay. I'll see. Good shift", she stands up with her plate in hand.
"You're leaving for patrol already?"
"Yeah", she says.
"Wear your earpiece this time, then."
"...Always do."
"Wear it, Cass. I don't have super hearing. And go speak to Steph, will you? I can't believe I'm saying that, but her silence is actually slowly killing me."
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The second time Steph offers again isn't too different. They're in her bedroom. They're back from a patrol that was a bit tiring. But not exhausting. Cass' thirty, but it's a thirst that's manageable.
It's just, days later from their last (one-sided) conversation, and this time Steph is even less discreet with her glances. She keeps looking up at her face. Steph lasts for not even a minute before she offers her veins, or her 'personal stock'. Her words. Not Cass's.
"No" is Cass's only answer. Steph frowns, at that.
"Won't you wither away and shrivel up and die if you don't drink blood at some point?"
"It doesn't work like that."
"Not like I would know. You've never explained what it means to be a vampire, Cass! And you except me to know what being half of a vampire is? You do need blood, right? I read some of Barb's books and they say you do, so are they wrong or..."
That's a lot of questions. Cass doesn't bother answering them all. She goes. "No. Not like a vampire do."
"Yeah, well, you still need blood, then. And I can- Are you leaving again? Seriously?"
Cass stops near the window. "I'm not. I'm..."
"You look even paler than last time, and that was already bad enough. Seriously. You're looking like Tim. Or like, the moon, which i guess does fit your aesthetic but, seriously. Do you really hate the idea of me helping you that much, or?"
"No. You're being... dramatic. I just. Don't need your blood. Okay?"
Steph doesn't answers okay. Her face gets all somber, and Cass makes her decision before she can say anything else. Something that isn't going to be a grumbled okay. "Goodbye", she leaves. See you tomorrow, she doesn't think of adding. Even if they're supposed to see each other tomorrow again. Even if it's been an habit of their for a long time now, seeing each other almost each day.
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She takes care of her wound on her own, later. Her cheeks gain some colors back. They gain a bit of warmth. That's good enough.
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It's a daily part of her life now. Still is. The screams, people, and her thirst. Even after. After all these years and the first and only time. After she learnt how to hide fangs and the gleam in her eyes. Usually, it's only vampires and the humans she fight that looks at her with anger in their eyes. Or fear, near the end. She doesn't care about that: sometimes, it even contempt her, their feelings.
But some times, when the fear is in other eyes, she minds it more. A lot. When it's in the eyes of normal, not badly intentioned humans, she minds a lot.
Today, a man stares back at her with something more than just fear in his eye, and her hear-rate that was being slowing down recently suddenly picks up. Harshly.
Like the terror, primal, everything, in the man eyes probably is to him. (Harsh.) He is not supposed to look at her like this. And not when she is wearing her mask that hides the sharpness of her eyes and teeth, too. He's not supposed to see anything that hint at what she is. He still does.
She freezes, during a moment, and it's enough time for the Barbara in her ear to ask what's going on. The man goes to speak, he starts to probably beg and she rips off the earpiece without thinking about it.
The man moves back, and the ugly emotion is in every part of his body. It's in his trembling fingers, and it's in his eyes.
It's in hers, too. A worst one, maybe even. She tries to tell the man, young and yet older than her, that it's okay. She can't.
She rips off the part of her that is metaphorically stuck to the man's jugular, and then she is moving away from him, and from it. She can't. She can't do it again. She won't.
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The following day, she remembers her teeth sinking into flesh even when she knows she didn't. She went away, and she even took to the roofs to avoid being tempted. She excluded herself away from people on purpose, from anyone. And she forced herself to sleep to escape giving in. And. She succeeded.
She's okay now. She still feels bad. The feeling is still there. It's. Guilt, maybe. The familiar walls of the room around her remind her that here, she is in control of everything. It's not really enough to make the feeling in her chest goes away.
She'll go out again tonight, when there'll be less humans outside and maybe vampires out and about. There will be. If she's lucky.
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The third time Steph is offering, Cass still refuses. She doesn't even know why. She is hungry enough that even unhealthy, good fast-food food isn't enough to quench her any longer. Steph is offering, and she sounds so very comfortable with it, too.
She should say yes. She could. But, also, she doesn't. Something inside of her, that isn't the part of her like the hungry wolf she sometimes thinks she might turn into, refuses.
Instead of a yes, she switches the subject to the last time Steph watched her favorite show of the moment. Steph lets it go this time, maybe because they are having a movie afternoon and it is important to them.
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Kids out during the nights of Gotham are pretty rare. Homeless kids too. They try to stay away from its shadows. Maybe it is instinctual: on some level, maybe they are aware what moves in those same shadows, like how Cass instinctually knows to fight.
She is happy about it, really. It's nice vampires have less of a chance to bleed them dry, since they have the extra step to get in houses and shelters.
She does miss it a little, seeing children turn the streets of Gotham lively, though. She misses those periods she goes out during the day and get to see the life they bring to Gotham. She likes it, observing what games they create, for example.
Tonight, the streets are bleak. Sad. Empty.
Cass's actually not too upset about that last thing.
"Cass? What are you doing?", Barbara says after calling her for the second time. She picks up the line this time.
"Observing", she omits. Doesn't technically lie.
"When do you think you're coming back?"
"Three hours. Maybe."
"You're not coming back before the morning?"
Barbara's eyebrow probably raised up, there.
"Yes. Still sleeping soon. Don't worry", Cass answers, not explaining more. She just has a place to goes before she gets some sleep in. It's becoming more urgent to now now. She doesn't explain, though, because Barbara is alright with her going where she wants.
"Oh, I'm not worried, you can do whatever you want.", the woman says, voice 'earnest' in her own way . "Just don't stay up longer than 72 hours again. Trust me, that's really useless in the long run."
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Her teeth sink a little into her mouth. They graze at the skin there, the part of it that's inside. Steph keeps on looking at her, and she doesn't go anywhere this time. They're having a normal conversation, and Steph isn't talking about their issue. She hasn't made any offers today. Not even any of her less than discreet suggestions. She hasn't been, for a while. That's good. They are alright.
"That's bad", she says in between two of Steph's complaints.
" I know. It's like, can't they be more careful? Yes they have a lot to do but still, they could be a little more cautious. It probably could literally grow mold, maybe even create a whole new creature if nobody find it back. My mom won't stop complaining."
"She's still tired?"
"Well, duh. And that's not really helping."
"She still has exams, too?"
And just like that, the subject of the conversation shift to exams and the hell they apparently are. Cass doesn't understand all the intricacies of medicine school and internships and hospitals, but Steph's a good explainer, and an even better story-teller. It's pretty easy, following along. It's a pretty good distraction, too.
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The sun is up today. It's a nice change of things. The streets looks different, like that.
Cass finds herself wanting to go walk in them. Just as someone would be seen by a similar person, just going on about their lives.
Some minutes later, she is walking amongst people, only thing she brought being her cap.
It's great. She didn't lock her door when she left, but this is okay. Even if she is going to stay out a while, she's not worried about being robbed. She is more busy enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin, and the underlying joy in people's movement. Some are worried, some are hurrying, but mostly they are happy, currently. It's nice.
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She is a natural at fighting. It's in her nature to be. It's one of the things in life she is perfect at doing, and here, she is 100 percent perfect. Not slow. Not hesitant. Not disoriented, or weak, or anything.
She is just confident today, and it is enough. She gets the gun out of the hand of the man easily enough. The woman trying to sneak up on her, she easily disarms as well with a fast movement. Jumps back when she tries to punch her. Avoid the coming-up punch from the second one, then. Swirls, and hit back. Avoid again. Takes a second to grab the stolen bag when they turn around and tense to run away. Pursues.
She missed this, the feeling in her chest, beating, beating, beating, of action, of its thrill.
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"I don't know. I thought this was just an accident, but two time isn't a coincidence. I'm honestly thinking it could be a vampire that stole them", Cass overhears Steph talking to Barbara through her headphones.
She pauses. Steps back a little before Barbara can see her. Not that she would, since she's busy answering Steph and Cass is more discreet than regular humans are, but she does anyway.
"A vampire? No, they would have taken more than just a single one. I don't think they would have left any, in fact. I'm not seeing anything in the recordings, though, so maybe..."
She sounds puzzled. Troubled, too.
Cass goes to prepare Barbara some coffee before she can see her. She's gonna need it, she thinks. Coffee doesn't do anything for her, but it helps Barbara, apparently.
The woman drinks a lot of it. She tells her to go buy some for her each time Cass asks to go on groceries-shopping.
It's been a while since Cass last went. She'll go soon. She can do that again, now. Moving and energy doesn't have to be saved for fights anymore. It's practical. And she missed going out when it wasn't night, too.
Coffee prepared now, she leaves it on the kitchen table and stretch, even if she isn't feeling tired.
Blood rushes through her veins when she does that. The feeling's not that disturbing. She is getting used back to this, the blood rushing freely through her, not slowed by anything, not .
It's not too much later that Barbara joins her in the piece they call living-room, barely avoiding rolling over the plate left there on the ground.
"Oooo, that place's becoming a mess", she announces herself, bit of false cheer in her mouth. "Just another thing to worry about added to the list"
Cass doesn't offer her the coffee, because Barbara already has a cup in one hand. She presents her a slice of crusted over pizza, though. The last one of the box. She saved it on purpose, even if the pizza was delicious. "You need help with the things?", Cass asks.
"Already took care of that plate", Barbara shrugs, putting it down on the table. "Thanks, but I already ate. You can have it."
Cass doesn't jump at the food. Really. She just takes it very quickly, and very enthusiastically.
" I wouldn't mind you looking into other problems, though", Barbara notes, amusement in her voice.
"Started cleaning the kitchen", she says, adding it to her list of things to continue doing. Cleaning the kitchen, buying ginger and maybe fresh carrots to make soup,
"Oh, no, I didn't mean that. Would you mind looking into a problem we've been having? Steph and I. She just told me about it, there was another intrusion at Gotham's Central hospital. We think it might be a rogue vampire, they only have been stealing packs of blood, but they're not showing on any cameras. We're worried about the patients and the nurses. It'd be nice if you could keep an eye out, just in case.
"Oh. That. No need. I took them", she says, half focusing on finishing the pizza.
"What."
Barbara's voice is so cold, and so suddenly, that Cass instantly looks up. Barbara's voice never is like that with her. Not now that she knows Cass is partially a vampire, and that explained things she didn't get before, at least. Her voice isn't supposed to be freezing anymore.
"Yeah?", she says, a bit of hesitance in the way she finishes her pizza. "I was running low. On blood. Couldn't fight, also . So. I went again."
"You went again-? So you've been doing that "
"Only when I really need to."
"Cass. What? Are you seriously saying you're the one breaking into the hospital? You can't be serious. Those blood packs are donations."
"Yes., she says, and her confusion is likely more than noticeable in her voice. This is exactly why she took them. Why she chose the hospital.
"Those were meant for people in need, Cass. They're meant to save people. Why did you..."
"I'm saving people too", she says, just short of defensive. She's more confused than anything.
"Cass! Those packs of blood are what keeps some patients alive, do you realize that? They need them more than you do. This is more than just feeding for some of them, it's what keep them breathing."
Oh. Oh.
"I... I thought they. Weren't that important. I didn't want to harm anyone, so I just..."
You thought wrong, Barbara might have said. Cass doesn't know. She feels nauseous, suddenly, even if she drank blood recently enough that real food is still fine for her again.
She thought wrong. She didn't even think about that possibility. She thought it was alright. It isn't.
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If doing great with her curse isn't enough to overtake the inherent bad it does, then. What is she supposed to be doing? Blood flows easily in everyone's veins but hers. Sometimes, it doesn't. Fixing it isn't fixing things. At all. It's the opposite.
She is persistent, she figures things out, but that solution was her last one. For the past decade of her life.
It's hard to imagine something that doesn't exist. That'd be magic, and magic doesn't exist, or it doesn't in the way she could just ask a spell to fix this. It exists when it creates creatures that aren't supposed to exist, but it doesn't exist anymore when it'd be impractical. Cruel.
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The place she is renting as her safe-house isn't perfect. She still likes it, because it does its jobs, but she never really had to, live in it. Usually, it's only a few nights every few months, until she fixes her problem and drink blood again.
She isn't used to living in it for longer, though. There isn't a bed, because at those points when she comes here, bed and floor feels pretty much the same. So she just sits on the floor. It's not too annoying. It's just a different organization than the room that is hers in the clocktower.
There's more surface to lay things around, instead. Like. Food. Food wrappings. Papers. Newspapers.
But no lights for her to be able to read. Except maybe for the stream reaching underneath the lowest part of the door, that's refusing to be concealed.
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She goes on patrol before the sun goes down for a while, but at the strategical times. When the city is busier. Agitated. Too busy to have time to laze around. The movements everywhere, all around her, is what she focuses on.
She goes out during the night too, but more in the streets and in places she usually doesn't go to. They're usually pretty calm, but. It can always change. So she checks more than she usually does.
The nights go quickly when she is doing that. She ends them when they start to become mornings, and sometimes after the sun is up. Today, the moon is there and the sun isn't out yet.
Cass stops blocks before she gets close to her safehouse. Safe-apartment. Whatever. She stops and she doesn't turn immediately. She is reached very quickly. Steph doesn't look that unhappy, but there is a tenseness in her that's more telling than her words.
"It's harder to get an hold on you than even Bruce, seriously." Light. Not angry. Yet.
"So.. are you on a case? It's been a while", she says, undeterred by her silence. Like nothing changed.
She must takes it as a negation. Her tone is a little accusatory, next. "You haven't been on your regular patrol route."
A street light shine on Steph's face, half hidden by the cloth.
"Hello? Anyone there? Did you get hit by any gas? Is anything up?"
"No," Cass finally says. Like a coward.
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Cass is doing more observing than living with the people she is supposed to protect, recently. She still is. Protecting. Just. From a little further away than usual. Cass is sticking to the shadows more.
Steph doesn't run back into her again.
The city is still sunny.
The rays of sunshine aren't something she really feels, in the shadows she's keeping herself in.
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For the first time, ever, there's a bottle of blood in front of her door. She blinks. Multiple times. On purpose.
Hallucinations aren't part of her loss of blood. That only happens when she has near-death experiences, not when her heart stops beating because no blood is pumping it anymore.
This.. is not a hallucination. It's not some weird offering from a weirdly-intentionned vampire, either. (This isn't a peace-offering. Can't be. Vampires avoid her, usually.) Cass knows because the bottle is surrounded by a gift wrapper that screams the identity of who it belongs to. There's sparkles. There's never sparkles in this part of Gotham Cass chose for her hideous.
A bit wary, Cass picks the bottle up. It's sloshes around. The sound is odd in the silence. She tears at the wrapping, and the red in the bottle moves around. There's no messages. She still knows who it's from.
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She can't go out during the day, now. Or. Not as easily. She still does, but then she'll sleeps through the night instead of helping people and stopping other badly-intentioned ones. She hasn't been doing enough helping recently.
It's weird, not having Barbara in her ear checking in or telling her where to go for trouble. She isn't used to it anymore.
But. She doesn't regret leaving the earpiece back at the Tower. It's. Well. Barbara can't come to her easily. Like for Steph. It's been two weeks, and she was only reached out to twice. Once by Steph. For the second, she is counting all the times Barbara sent her messages before her phone stopped having battery.
Cass isn't ready to go back and talk yet. Can't. Until she find a solution to her problem.
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She stops herself just before punching the man unconscious. Or dead. She didn't think she would go this far again. Fuck.
She doesn't know what to do now. Taking the blood from the hospital was supposed to let her not hurt anyone, but now. It doesn't.
And she has to drink blood, because that's part of her, and because ignoring it doesn't work, but what solutions are there now? Her blood's not her's, and it's not human. Vampire blood doesn't work. Not animals' too.
There was only one option left before. It worked just well. The blood from the transparent packets isn't an option anymore.
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The next bottles have bows wrapped around them, instead of the sparkly wrapping. Cass has no clue why the change. She also has no clue why Steph keeps making her gifts. It is. Weird. She never asked for it. Never even told her anything about blood, or how she needs it, or what amount. Didn't tell her about how she was feeding previously, too.
Barbara did, maybe. Cass doesn't understand why Steph didn't confront her about it. She would have, if she was Steph. She would have been so upset. Feeling so betrayed. Horrified.
By the fourth bottle, Cass finally gives in to Steph's silent insistence. It's been maybe around a month, and last nights were harder and harder. Last morning, she hissed at the stream of light underneath the door. The morning was also close to 5PM, because she's been sleeping more and more. Like her heart is saving up her energy to last her longer. It might be what's happening.
Probably is. She's a little more than sure about it.
She drinks it. Fully. The bottle, that still has the Fanta wrapping around it, ends up empty. Not a drop left. She sets it down. Empty, and she isn't feeling guilty for it. For how she drained it empty. She feels satisfied, even. Only a bit. Her throat feels relieved, itching almost fully gone.
She hesitates. A little. It hasn't been 42 days yet. Not even half. The last bottles didn't turn bad. She shouldn't, but.
Then, again, this is the first time in long that her thirst was almost entirely satisfied. She gives up. Draws her head back, and that first bottle of blood is almost empty entirely. And, for maybe the first time, she doesn't feel hungry. At all.
She almost cries.
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When she tackles Steph into a hug, the tears do drop this time. Kind of. No drops of blood ended on the floor or even the side of her lips, not even a single one, but there's lot of tears escaping her eyes.
The girl says something, pitch high with surprise, probably at the door being thrown open and then almost thrown to the floor, but. Cass honestly didn't hear. She is more busy with the fact she gets to be close to Steph without being bad about the smell of her veins. Or feeling bad about anything, too. This is. She-
"Yes, yes, I'm glad you're not hibernating anymore too?", the girl says, voice pulsating underneath where Cass's ear ended up.
"Where?", she says, question meant to be obvious.
"uh. In what I assume is your house?", Steph says, pushing herself away from Cass to make eye contact temporarily .
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When she lets go of her arms around Steph, they finally speak. She lets her in inside what she calls her apartment before, though.
"Where did you get them?", Cass asks, clarifies, later.
"Oh, that. ...Volunteers. That I made sure were alright with giving you their blood, don't worry. Well, I didn't tell them exactly everything, but they knew enough. To not care. Are you gonna..."
Cass doesn't get teary-eyed that often. When she does, though, it's hard to stop. She cries in Barbara's arms a while, the really rare times it happens. Here, she wipes at her eyes again and again until they stay dried up. It's easy to stop, even if it's been months since last time. Maybe because there isn't that much water in vampires bodies. Not enough to. Or maybe because she hasn't really been drinking often.
Steph helps, too, because she is joking around and judging the decorations in her flat. They don't talk more about blood. She doesn't bring up the mold on the food that Cass didn't have the appetite to eat, either. Just glances and quips about it until Cass throws it out.
They should talk, probably. Really talk. In the profound way. About everything that comes with Cass being what she is. (The thirst, the sometime-slowing of her heart, the occasional slowing of her body, all of that.)
But they don't, even if Steph probably really wants to, and Cass doesn't feel selfish for it in the moment. Or at all, really.
If Steph asks, maybe she'll answer this time.
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