Dannika. Miss Richardson. Desmond chewed on his lip lightly at the thought of it. Was it really possible that cohabitation had become something that was normal for people without being indecent? As time had gone on there were few things that Desmond had learned to accept as constants. Politicians would always be, to a vast majority, corrupt. Men would always seek out a way to escape death. Creatures that were smart enough to realize what it was they were would always find a way to hate themselves and others, but most of all anything that they viewed as 'different'. And though it was to a much lesser degree, the idea that people did not share a house unless they were related or soon to be so was one of the things that he had taken for granted as being something that would wear the test of time.
Not to say that adultry did not happen, for any fool knew that it did. Hell, he himself had partaken in it... but... it was something that was punishable, certainly not something that was endorsed. And because it was not endorsed, one did not publically share a house with a member of the opposite sex because, well, people would talk. Having been the heart of many discussions by people, he didn't truly care what public opinion of him was beyond blending in, but blending in was a natural part of what he did. One did not survive through the spanish inquisition, after all, by standing out in a crowd. Even blending in as well as he did, he'd had some close calls when it came to the inquisition...
And now... now he had no idea how to blend in. The laughter that he'd recieved in the registration room had proved that beyond any shadow of doubt, as had the woman who had keenly pointed out what century it was, as if he should know as much without being told. How was it that men courted women in these times? Even now he could see people offering each other displays of their affection that would have been pubically indecent in the last years that he had remembered. There was even a time, when such a thing might be punishable by death, depending on what area of the world you lived in. It was all so deliriously, horrifically confusing and it made him lightly punch the fountain in a small display of anger that he normally would not have given.
His aching knuckles reminded him that while the sun was in the sky, he was as good as human, even if the razor sharp fangs in his mouth served to remind what would happen when the sun went down. Taking a slow breath, he tried to console himself with the fact that he was here to learn, that was the whole point of this. He did not need to learn any 'life skills' like the pamphlets said, he knew how to live on his own well enough, but it was the ways of society that he needed to study, and having been a student of many languages he knew that any real study of a society had to be done immersed in it, even if it was unpleasant or distasteful.
A soft voice stirred him from his thoughts... and shattered his peace.
He was covered in blood.
It clung to his clothes like a tropical rain, sticky and soiling everything that it touched. And though the sky was pitch above him, he did not hunger for that sweet coppery liquid that he could smell in the air. If anything it turned his stomach and made lurch angrily, threatening to spill it's contents if he opened his mouth for anything more than to suck in a quick, heated, heaving breath of foul air.
Blonde curls stuck to the blood on his face and had half dried there, so as he tried to move himself to look into her eyes he could feel it stretching his skin as crimson webs of coagulated blood connected her hair to him. Even the perfect blue sky of her eyes seemed darkened by the night around them, not shining the way that he knew it could, the way that he knew that it should. A shaky hand reached up to touch her cheek, the contact of it intoxicating, such silky smooth flesh tantalizing the tip of his fingertips. He cupped her cheek firmly and felt the coolness of it there, and winced visibly, felt a hot tear sear it's way across his cheek.