the flesh failures || sam and eric
-- and from within him, the heat of the sun burns...
The fire ignites from his flesh, from the fire within his own heart and it renders the offender useless. The fire used to scare him... it used to control him, it used to be created from the angriest, ugliest parts of himself before the sun h e a l e d him from the inside out, made him new again, re-bore his flesh into new flesh, better flesh, dignified flesh... the fire used to be a "why me" and now the fire is "I am the only one deserving of this."
[ he's the only one that could handle it, the only one that's strong enough and just tainted enough, or perhaps pure enough, to let something so deadly soar through his veins, latch onto his soul... ]
So the thing dies, a fiery death, deserving of what it was. Perhaps it had had a life before this, before someone took it away and turned it into this monster, but sometimes these croats were smart, sometimes they snuck past gates and through traps meant for these things. Wrong place wrong time. A crispy death fit for a zombie.
Eric extinguishes the fire and looks back toward Sam, who had made busy work of packing the car -- they didn't need much, but what was in the trunk of the jeep was necessary, packed with things like gasoline and blankets, extra bags to carry books if there was anything worth retrieving, firewood -- and had long since gotten over the commodity of Eric possessing such a gift. Same shit, different day? It wasn't exciting anymore. Wasn't scary anymore. It was safety, maybe.
Eric comes up behind Sam and stops his hand from reaching out, laces the too-warm fingers of his hand through Sam's fingers and just lets his body cool down against his progeny. He buries his face in the cook of Sam's neck, breathes in his scent and does not ask permission before sinking his teeth in carefully and pulling a sip of blood from the wound. It closes beneath his tongue as he licks away the spill.
"You have always tasted of ambrosia and honeysuckle and I envy for you that..." He presses his lips reverently against Sam's neck, before enveloping him fully in his arms.
"Are you ready to go? Do we have everything? It will be dawn, soon, and with that you're eyesight will be gone... I'd prefer it if you sleep on the drive down there, but... I won't force you."
Because forcing Sam to do anything has always worked so well. He doesn't want Sam to sleep. He wants Sam to be with him all the time, awake and always ready to give 100% of his attention to Eric, because Eric is greedy and there's not a single moment in time when he has ever felt that he's had enough of Sam...