Arrow (arrowroro) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-10-02 19:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | derek mitchell, ~ro clark |
Who: Ro and Derek
What: The lump on the couch is not Derek's wife
When: Late night the night of the rising after this
Where: Penny and Derek's apartment
Ratings: Brief language
Holy. Crap. What a night.
Derek entered the apartment he shared with Penny, rubbing his eyes. He was tired, hungry, and had pulled bits of glass and detritus out of his face. There were road rash and deep teeth marks in his forearm, blood on his clothes. The living room was dark, but even in the gloom he could make out the shape of the siren, sleeping on the couch.
She must have been waiting up for him, and he couldn’t text her because his phone had died. The vampire felt a surge of guilt as he softly approached her slumbering form, tucked underneath a blanket. Bleary-eyed, Derek knelt down and planted a kiss on the bit of shoulder peeking out. “I’m sorry, Pen,” he whispered.
Ro jerked awake at a sudden brief burning pain. She sat up and scrambled back until the small of her back pressed against the arm rest. Thankfully the pain was already fading but - "What the fuck?"
As promised, Ro had stayed to keep Penny company while Derek was out. Penny had gone to bed and Ro camped out on the couch. That cashmere throw blanket she'd sent in her care package had definitely come in handy. She hadn’t expected to wake up to pain and a person-sized shape unexpectedly in front of her. "Don't touch me," she added, spitting the words out.
Derek jumped backward, his back hitting the coffee table as he scrambled away from the couch in alarm. “What the fuck me? Who are you?” The vampire stood up slowly, rubbing his back and moving to switch on the living room light.
“Where’s Penny?” He tried to sniff out this stranger on his couch, but all he could sense was Penny’s scent, and the odor from the undead creature that he had been on top of.
The light revealed Ro, blanket still thrown over her lap and all of the hair on the back of her head sticking straight up. "She went to bed," she answered, rubbing away the last of the stinging. "I told her I'd stay until you, apparently, got back. I'm Ro."
Ro. The name clicked into recognition. Penny had told him that she had reconnected with an old friend with that name. “Oh. Hi.” He lowered his voice upon learning that Penny was asleep. The vampire sank exhaustedly into the armchair next to the couch.
“This isn’t really how I wanted us to meet,” Derek explained. “But, um, tonight was insane. And my phone died, and I know Penny was probably worried.”
"She was," Ro said honestly. "That's why I stayed. Keep her mind off it. We weren’t sure what's been happening." Ro scrubbed her hands through her hair. "Sorry for freaking at you."
“Oh. Thanks.” Derek made to scratch his arm, then winced, forgetting about the wounds there. “And yeah, thanks for that care package. It was dope. I’d never had blood sausage before.” The vampire could swear his stomach growled at the mention of food.
"Hey, no problem. Wish I could say I made it but I don't have a ton of sausage experience." She paused. "At least not the making kind. You can find the best stuff down at the butcher shop."
’At least not the making kind…’ In his tired state, it took a beat to recognize the joke, and he chuckled. “That’s funny.” Derek stood up and made his way to the fridge. “You want anything? I’m going to have a late night snack.” He opened up the appliance, removed one of the plastic pints of pig’s blood.
“It’s nice to meet one of Penny’s friends. She’s gotten to know my best friend, Ronnie, but I haven’t had the chance with her’s.”
"Thanks, I'm good. We had ice cream earlier." It seemed that there was a limit to Ro's prolific appetite and being woken unexpectedly after not expending much energy was one.
"I met Ronnie. Nice guy, I like him. Lost to me in a pie contest."
“Damn, you must make a mean pie, then.” He grabbed a coffee mug out of the cabinet and poured the blood into it, taking it to the microwave. The vampire had found the sweet spot using the appliance, 43 seconds. The mug started to revolve, and he turned to face Ro.
“So, I heard you’re like, kind of a vampire? But you don’t need blood.”
"Depends how you define vampire. Am I all," Ro made fangy claws with her index and middle fingers up near her mouth with both hands, "with the blood? No. Do I need to survive by feeding on something generated by someone else. Yup. And unlike you, baby I was born this way." Ro drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.
"I'm an etheric. I feed on the psychic energy of other people. Specifically energy generated by people experiencing lust. S'why you can't touch me. I don't do so good with people who are actually legitimately in love. So congrats for you and everything but that shit burns like a motherfucker."
“Huh. Weird. But I guess it's no weirder than me.” Derek held up the mug as if that proved his point. He drifted back into the living room, returned to his seat in the armchair. “But at least you don’t kill people. I think…” The vampire looked at her faux suspiciously.
“Unless...you do.” He took a slow sip of blood.
"Nah," Ro drawled. "No need. I'm not entirely sure I could if I tried. I mean in theory…? Maybe. Most people just lay there exhausted and blissed out.. I think I gave a guy a stroke once but I don't know if that was me or him."
Derek shrugged. “Fair point. It’s not like you have to be a vampire to kill people.”
Ro echoed Derek's shrug with one of her own. "I get what I need, they get to have a really good orgasm. If I take a lot of energy and they're interesting to be around, maybe I make breakfast."
The vampire laughed quietly, taking care not to wake Penny. She usually had a hard time falling asleep, especially when she was worried. “I don’t need the first thing, but I don’t say no to a good breakfast. I still enjoy human food. The taste, at least. I’ve heard you can relate.”
"Well, I hope you need the first thing, just not with me." Ro couldn’t resist the grin but then added, "assuming you're wired that way. Love food though. It's probably my favorite thing. Honestly, I've had sandwiches that almost felt better than the first thing."
“Yeah, I meant not with you. Though that wouldn’t be much fun for you anyway, with the burning and all.” Derek sat back in the chair, looking down at the mug contemplatively. The dark red liquid reflected the light. It occurred to him that he might have a blood mustache and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“So, have you known Penny a long time?” he asked.
Ro scrunched her face up. "Awhile? A couple decades, maybe? I was still July back then. Time kind of tends to run together. I'm not always great at doing the same thing so I take off sometimes. We hadn't been in touch in seven, eight, nine years before I moved to Vegas."
Derek nodded, setting the mug down on the coffee table. “July is a cool name. I think if I had to change my name, it would be something like...Quinton. Because my middle name sucks, I would never go by that.”
Ro laughed, trying to keep quiet. She didn't think Derek looked much like a Quinton but it wasn't up to her. "You'll have lots of names and lots of lives. When one ends and it's time to move on, you move on and you start something new." An identity to Ro was like a rock in a stream. It diverted the flow of water for a time until the next obstacle sent the water spinning off in a new direction. And once you were downstream, what happened two or three rocks ago was too hard to trace back and mattered less.
“I might. Or I might not,” Derek answered with a shrug. “Accidental decapitations happen more often than you think. Also, fire bad.”
"Fire bad," Ro agreed, though her mind went immediately to the easy way flames had danced around Noah's hand. "You'll figure it out. I've made it this far without being hit by a truck or something."
Derek grinned. “I don’t know if a truck would take me out. It would probably hurt, though.”
"Probably. I'm not sure it would me but I'm not volunteering to find out." She smiled and then yawned. "Hey, if you want to go see Penny, I can try and make my way home. It was nice meeting you finally." Ro paused for a moment and then grinned, unable to resist. "You know you look like if I was a man, right?"
He watched her yawn, realizing he had not only woken her up by literally burning her, but then had kept her up by talking her ear off. “Oh, I’m sorry. No, you can totally crash here. I was about to head to bed myself anyway.” Derek stood up, though the last thing she said made him pause in his tracks.
The vampire looked down at his tattooed frame, then at hers, squinting. “Hey, kinda.” He flashed her a grin.
"Cool. Apparently it's weird out there." Ro nodded her thanks. "Just do me a favor, brother from another mother, and don't touch me to wake me up tomorrow."
“You got it.” With that, Derek grabbed his mug and set it in the sink. He’d wash it later. The next step was bed, and lots of it.