deercountry | you can keep on getting better [open]

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you can keep on getting better [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: May catchall
When: May
Where: A bar in Cellar Door, other locations to come

Content Warnings: Light alcohol use, conversations about humanity and murder, blood, vampirism

a. if you want, you can buy yourself a drink [at the bar]

[anna's made plans with a couple people to hang out this month. it's not a tense environment at all, and sometimes she can even be seen on the tiny little stage playing some chilled out bass grooves for the patrons. no concrete songs, really, mostly just improv for vibes. when she's not on stage, and most of the time she's not, she's nestled herself down into a booth down near the end. it's quiet, well-lit but not obtrusively so. people around here know her and know that that's basically her seat, so any conversations that happen there are as private as they're gonna get.]

[she's expecting a few people to show up as she nurses a beer that's so weak she might as well not be drinking anything at all. probably for the best that she's sober for these talks, whatever they end up bringing with them.]

Hey. Glad you could make it. [she tilts her drink at her guest.]

b. no you'll never drink like me [for kainé]

[there's always been a few problems with going out and hunting beasts, no matter how confident and comfortable it makes anna feel. no matter how many lives she saves, she's always putting herself at risk of corruption or injury or beasthood or all three, and one of these days it's gonna sneak up on her. all at once, extremely loudly and incredibly close.]

[anyway, when she comes back home this time, it's clear that she's been in better shape. she limps her way into the house, and she's at least cognizant enough to fix her roommate/girlfriend with a sheepish little look as she holds her side. the cloth there isn't dripping yet, but it's clear that it didn't start as red as it is now.]

Motherfucker out there got the best of me. [she's talking like she's not in pain, or like she's trying very hard to pretend she isn't.] I think I stopped most of the bleeding myself. Don't suppose we've got anything here that can help seal it up before I go to the doctor?

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[it starts as a wince as the brain chemicals start to burn off and she's coming back to the dark reality of their world. by the time kainé has cleaned and dressed the wound and the only blood left around it is what had seeped through the cloth and onto anna's hand, it's a little better—but it also hurts much more clearly. she tries to sit up and barely gets an inch before she can feel her muscles contract and spasm and she rests her head back down on the couch. her eye closes; she swears.]

You're good at this. [yeah, no shit. usually those words would be full of gratitude, but everything sounds so strained right now. like it's a struggle. her fingers gently touch kainé's handiwork just to feel what she'd done, but it takes maybe half a second for her to recoil at the slightest additional pressure.] Still hurts like a motherfucker, though. Christ.

[she tries to relax her body, and it's definitely not a complete or clean motion when she does. her arms are tense, her shoulders drawn up, and there's still that grimace on her face as she looks towards where she expects her girlfriend to be.]

I never got the thing that did this to me. I can't just sit here and wait for this to heal up, K. Not while people are in danger.

[ Kainé was swift and efficient, and this wouldn't have been the first time Anna has seen her practiced hand at first aid. Gently, belying the razor sharpness of her expression, she rolls Anna onto her back, then pushes her back down when she futilely tries to get up. None of this shit. God, and she's touching the bandage too. Fucking typical.

When Anna declares her foolhardy intention to get back in the fight, though, Kainé damn near explodes. Is this what it was like for her companions, having to deal with her relentless self-loathing martyrdom? All the times she got hurt for the stupidest fucking reasons? It's like looking into a mirror, and she only prays that she's been better lately. (She has. Barely.) ]

God, shut up! Would you have fucking let me get back up to fight the Leviathan after it speared me through the goddamn gut? Would you have just left me in that shack in the woods, just because I was hunting monsters too?

[ Why can't she see? Why can't she see that she's everything? Why can't she see that Kainé is lower than dirt without her to fight for? ]

You of all fucking people should understand, Anna, and I'm sick of this "oh, my only worth is in what I can do for others" crap, precisely because I've buried my head down that fucking hole for so many years!

I'll... [ Ah, there she goes, just like she says. Kainé is just as bad, just more prone to reflecting on these feelings. She doesn't have to fight alone. Neither of them do. ] No. After you rest, we'll handle it together.

[ As if in explanation, she unsheathes a knife from a belt holster (in case she finds herself without a weapon, needing to defend herself with only the power in her blood), and slashes the palm of her hand. Dull green Vileblood oozes from the wound, the scent of flowers abruptly filling the air. She puts her palm to Anna's mouth. ]

Drink, it's safe. It heals this month. [ Her voice is stern, but with a note of gentleness returning after the sudden anger. ]

[she's in too much pain to be taken by surprise by this utter outpouring of vitriol, all directed at her and for damn good reason. she stays there and takes it, and god help her there's a flash of memory in the back of her head. of being yelled at like this by someone else, another person who held herself responsible for destroying the world. another person she'd, at the time, been madly attracted to.]

[now isn't the time to be imprinting anyone else on kainé, you dumb bitch.]

[before she can think of the words to apologize, kainé has cut herself open, and the scent of her girlfriend's blood spikes anna's anxiety, opens her eye involuntarily before her brain catches up that she's not back on the deck of the ship and that they're both safe here. the whirring sensation in her chest slows. her breathing normalizes, or at least gets back down to the level she was at before the scent of new blood filled her nostrils. she glances up, fear burning out of her eye as it's replaced with trust. she knows what vileblood will do to someone who drinks it. she knows that kainé must know something else, something different. and she chooses to place her life once again in the hands of someone greater than herself.]

[she doesn't speak. her hand comes up carefully to grasp kainé's wrist, to hold her in place while this bizarre ritual of trust begins. she closes her eye and runs her tongue along the wound to see if that's going to be the best way to handle it. it's slow at first, like she's unsure, but the taste of flowers fills her mouth in equal measure to the metal she's more familiar with. and the reality of what she's doing sets in, and she presses her lips to kainé's palm instead and drinks that way.]

[she can't deny that it feels strange. but underneath that... unheimlich sensation, this feels more deeply intimate than any night they've had together. drinking something that would ordinarily kill her directly from her lover's hand. in some way, making kainé—the actual one, not simply the shaky memory or the imprint—a more permanent part of anna. she will drink until kainé pulls away, or until the blood stops flowing, but either way there is an indescribable warmth inside her.]

[ Kainé feels a cold tendril of guilt slither through her as it becomes clear that her words struck home, joined by grim satisfaction. If those words hurt, maybe they should, until they both can accept that they are truly loved and that there's nothing wrong with that.

That guilt turns into an outright flinch when she registers Anna's panic at her cutting herself. Of course. She's so stupid. It's not like she likes to see Anna bleed, but here she goes, indelicately slicing herself open, as if to meet blood and fear with its like. Not everybody thinks that a body so strange and broken must be treated with such callous indifference, the way Kainé feels about hers.

And of course she would hesitate to drink toxic blood. She brushes Anna's hair away from her forehead, simple comforting touch to confirm that it's safe, that despite her harsh words she would never ever hurt her. She feels honored by the trust that they've built in such a short time. ]

I don't know how long it will take. I'm not letting you out there until you're back in fighting form, so don't even think about it.

[ It's a lovely thought, that this cursed toxic blood from a warped body of a woman stained with sin could heal her beloved. That Anna trusts her so completely as to do this without questioning it, that her body is part of Anna's in a way that makes her whole, regenerates her in the most literal way. A reminder that her existence is needed, that it can bring life, and with it happiness and hope. Kainé would agree- it's as close as making love, body within body fitting perfectly.

Eventually the wound seals itself, but she kept it going longer than she needed to. ]

How do you feel?

[anna waits only a couple seconds longer. she hangs on to the sensation of warmth down her throat and surrounding her head from all sides for as long as she can, and when kainé asks her how she feels, she's not sure she has an answer.]

That... I can feel your blood inside me.

[it's stupid. obviously she can. she just drank it. but she's still a little dumbstruck by the realization of what she's just done. her body doesn't even know what to do with her own blood, it feels like, and she's so readily taking kainé's into her and it feels in some bizarre, inexplicable way that it belongs there. her pain still hasn't faded yet, which is what she's certain kainé is asking about, but that's not what she's talking about when she speaks next with an almost serene look on her face. even if her lips are tinted with the blood of another.]

I can't believe you let me do that. I don't know... what words to use. But I know I feel good. [at least she seems like she's not moving or trying to force herself back to her feet. kainé's point has been made, and anna isn't going anywhere for a while. and maybe she's a little woozy from blood loss, but she gives her girlfriend a smile in the same stupid way that she does when she's trying to be suggestive.] Would you ever wanna do that again?

[ Kainé can't say that she was expecting this reaction. She thought that it would be something more like giving a sick person some foul tasting medicine, having to reassure them that yes, it might be nasty, but you have to have it to get better.

She definitely wasn't expecting Anna to like it, let alone get apparently turned on. But she can't deny that it felt nice to heal her with something that came so intimately from herself. That part of her has become part of Anna, just as her memories linger in a corner of a corner of herself. ]

Uh... good. That's good.

[ She scratches her head, looking uncommonly flustered. The idea is strange but she... doesn't hate it? ]

My blood will be poisonous again next month. Unless... you want me drinking yours. [ The thought of that makes her heart pound, the thought of sustaining herself on Anna, taking her into herself. ] Yeah. We'll have to keep the pollution away. Burn a lot of incense.

[maybe it's a weird reaction, but it's just... it feels so. it feels like—not to fucking get poetic about it in her own head but it feels like she's crossed a threshold that she never knew was there, and on the other side of it is a pathway towards a deeper intimacy and a deeper love than she ever once thought possible.]

[and it is, on top of that, a decidedly monstrous thing to be doing, but she's not focusing on that part right now.]

We could. [she says it a little more weakly, now that the initial rush is over.] If you were really curious about it, too. But I'm not gonna go out and get myself as beat up as possible this month to try to get more from you while I can. [there's a smile on her face as she says it, one that all but says that she knew it was a worry on k's mind.]

Hey, maybe you can save it for those hot summer nights. Never know when you could use a nice shot of coldblood. And there was that girl on the network the other day asking how to make vileblood safe to drink. [the first sign that anna is starting to feel even a little better should be that she can make stupid little pop culture jokes.] Maybe we've got a little budding vampire den here in Trench.

[ Maybe the idea of this is somewhat less novel to a woman who had spent years having her body inhabited by another, entwined within her mind and body, until they had begun to bleed together, that even now she fears that there are parts of herself that are still Tyrann.

...Ah. That's what Anna is too, if in a different way, isn't it?

Perhaps she can understand the appeal of getting that experience in a more controlled way, something under their will, rather than forced upon them. ]

...I wouldn't mind trying it. I mean, it's not like I'll be drinking a lot, yeah?

[ The thought of them having some kind of basement blood club makes her stare and blink for a few moments, before she chuckles at the thought. ]

I was thinking. Maybe we could get some Paleblood, if you wanna talk to A2 again.

[that possibility... even just the chance at it. anna looks like it never even occurred to her, and her eye goes wide, and she breathes in sharply enough to feel like a wince. but there's no pain in it. just... god, once she's over the surprise of it, there's almost tenderness in the look she gives her girlfriend.]

It'd be safer than what I wanted Teacher to do to me. [there's almost shame on her face.] We haven't even talked about him together. Ha. Man. It's weird the kind of stuff that I forget is probably really important. [she raises her hand up to her eye and points at it.] Guy with black eyes. You know him?

[ Kainé frowns, concerned. She knows who Anna's talking about, even went to a party at that guy's house. She owes him, even, when he healed her a few months ago. That might have kept her from turning into a Beast. It kept her stable enough that she was able to talk with Anna the way she did. In a roundabout way, he brought them together.

And she doesn't trust him, even for a moment. ]

The creepy wizard guy, with the skeletons? [ It occurs to her now, that Anna is a terrible judge of character. ] That's what you call him? Uh, I dunno if he's your friend or anything, but I don't fuckin' trust that guy. [ It reminds her that no matter how far they've come, they're a couple of cagey damaged bitches for whom the habit of loneliness is deeply ingrained. ] Try telling me in the future if you're going to have people do dubious magic bullshit to you.

Came up with the idea before I met you.

[she knows kainé is right. she figured it out on her own eventually, but there's no way she was gonna get out of this without being chastised. even as she is on her sickbed, recovering from her very bad monster wound.]

'S why I'm backing off. That and the whole idea of him is just... getting way worse, you know...? [her hand goes to her side like the blood is still flowing, but it's just an instinctive reaction at this point.] Thought that just 'cause we came from more or less the same world, he was a good guy. Pretty sure I'm wrong... just don't know how wrong yet.

Do I wanna know it is? Nah, fuck it, tell me anyway.

[ Is that a reason to trust somebody? Kainé's world was full of awful people. Anna had been hurt by people in her world, by her own parents. Is it just easy to cling to something you know? Not a bad assumption, given how she started off here living in a shack. ]

I'm a cagey asshole anyway, maybe he's fine. But I sure as hell got a weird vibe from him. Too smug, acted all nice but like he knew more than you. The kind of person that conceals shit, serious shit, and can't wait til the moment the other shoe drops and he can fuck you over.

No, you got it right. [she laughs weakly. of course kainé got the right read. anna had been desperate for familiarity at the time and, well, all the red flags just looked like flags.]

He acts like he's hurting from some big loss, but I can see it in his eyes. I know he's lying. If I can see what that emotion looks like in gods that don't even look like me, I can recognize it in anyone. And he's full of shit. [she inhales and it turns into a dry cough, which is at least an improvement from the alternative, though the way her body bends makes her ache sharply.]

Fuck. Anyway. He knows soul magic and shit, and he knows I have two souls. I was gonna ask him to try to merge me and A2 some more, but that ain't fuckin' happening anymore. He's not gonna learn a single other thing about me if I can stop it.

[ She wouldn't wish the source of her caginess on anybody. But she sort of gets it too. She'd always been desperate to find people that could understand her, accept her. People who wouldn't turn away in disgust of a hideous thing like her. It's not the same emotion, but... she can see what Anna saw in him. ]

It doesn’t matter if he’s faking it or not, or what he's hurting from. He can still be a lying bastard.

[ She strokes idly strokes Anna's hair, not hiding the gentle concern on her face. She's been better lately. She really has been. But whenever she sees that seed of self-destruction it makes her afraid.

It makes her want to make herself better too. ]

Goddamn, Anna. But, good, I guess. That you're not giving him another fucking inch.

Edited 2022-06-06 22:04 (UTC)

[this is. the right reaction. all of this is the right reaction. she's self-destructive when she's desperate. she makes bad choices when she's lonely. she spent so long doing it, having to do it that she never learned the right way to handle things. she's had people to care about her before but none like kainé in a long time. and that's what makes it so important to her that...]

I'm not telling him about you. About us. I don't want him to know that I have something that matters so much to me. [she reaches up and fixes kainé with a determined look, or as close to one as she can handle, while touching the side of her neck.] I don't know if I know anything for sure, but if I'm right, he's exactly the kind of person who knows how to use that against us.

I don't want my stupid ass to be the reason that anything bad happens to you.

[ Kainé grimaces. This isn't going to be some petty feud, and they're already at less of an advantage than Anna thinks. ]...He probably knows about us. He healed me that month, and I needed some relief from that Mother Mercy shit, so I told him I wanted to fuck my roommate. [ She scratches the back of her neck. ] But not... that I loved you.

[ She takes a deep breath. This is going to be the sort of thing Anna throws all of herself into, isn't it? When it's her music, or supporting her friends or adventure on the high seas, it's one thing. But this could really be dangerous. ]

But we went to that party in his damn house and had our, uh, moment. Talk spreads. He knows. But I'll keep my eye out too.

[ Which leads her to the point, her possibly futile attempt to defuse, or at least lower the temperature before Anna gets hurt. She knows both of their reckless and self destructive tendencies, knows they have to keep each other in check. She meets Anna's gaze with equal determination. ]

...You don't have to turn this into some war, Anna. In your position I would. But all I fucking knew was revenge. Fuck that shit.

[as much as anna would love to laugh at that, as much as she knows that teacher is aware that the two of them are an item because they couldn't keep their hands and lips off each other that whole night, she can't. it's too real, it's too much of a true risk... and, like. that's just even more of a reason to listen to what kainé is telling her. she breathes out slowly, and it doesn't feel like defeat, and she'll take that.]

I don't want it to be a war. We have more peace than we've ever had, me and you. [a slow, subdued smile.] Hell of a thing to say when I'm bleeding here. But I don't know enough about him yet to be sure he won't try to start a war. Just keeping my eye out for any bad signs.

[ What Kainé would give to take them away, into some world where danger and fear didn't menace them on a regular basis. Where they could rest together, if just for a moment. Did any such world truly exist, though?

As it stands, a powerful and untrustworthy man knows something that made them vulnerable. Love always does that, doesn't it? Kainé's expression remains stern, skeptical. ]

Do you... really think that? I... [ Does she trust Anna with this? ] Okay. But tell me if there's anything I can do. We fight together.

I will. I promise.

[she tries not to treat her promises loosely. she knows they're important, and that they're meant to be sincere, and she will try very, very hard to keep this one. because it doesn't just leave her or kainé vulnerable. it doesn't threaten to just hurt the people who still exist in this world, on this plane.]

I'm not doing a damn thing until I know I have to. If I go too soon, or if I'm wrong, and god I hope I'm fucking wrong... it'd be like offering up everyone I love to a meat grinder. I can't do that to you, and I can't put A2 through that again.

Good.

[ She believes her this time. She really does. Or at least, she believes the conviction in Anna's eyes, believes, though it still amazes her, in Anna's love for her. It astounds her anew that such a wonderful person could love her, could put such a wretched creature at the center of her world.

Funny how they mirror each other like that. She leans into Anna's hand on her face, kisses her wrist. ]

...I spent so many years trying to find the right time to die. Just doing what I had to do before I could rest, and see Grandma's face again.

[ There had been moments of light and those grim years, as a hunter, a lone monster raging against the world that forsook her, and at one time, it might have been enough to save her. But it wasn't enough. Fate took and took and hollowed her out until she was laid down in the rags to mourn. ]

...She didn't want that from me. And you don't want that from me. I've been learning to live, and I'm getting pretty good at it. I... like this life. We have it good, Anna. So good.

[ Unsaid: don't go starting a fight that could ruin it. ]

Edited 2022-06-17 01:43 (UTC)

[everything here is so tender. kainé is so warm and gentle with her. and so sincere, so honest, so open. it shouldn't surprise her anymore. she's seen this side of her girlfriend many times before and she knows it's not going anywhere. that's why anna can tell what isn't being said, too.]

We really do. Better than I thought I'd ever get to have it again.

[she doesn't even care that she's been hurt anymore. that she got to come home to this woman is enough to make her feel better, though she might just be thinking that because she's taken a drink of kainé's blood and her girlfriend is currently kissing her wrist.]

I'm lucky. And I don't want that to run out. Because you're doing a great job living, and I want to see you keep doing it.

[ Kainé is still hard and scarred, brusque in her manner and blunt even to Anna Anna— especially to Anna. But that's what makes her kindness that much more intense, never hiding itself behind subtleties. She can't always say what ought to be said, but there's no mistaking what she does say. ]

And I feel the same fucking way, alright!? So keep yourself alive. It's not just me that's counting on you.

[ Truth be told: she's pretty jealous of how many people care deeply about Anna, how easily she seems to navigate friendship and basic sociability. ]

I will.

[it comes out so easy. she can't keep that promise, she can't guarantee that nothing terrible will happen to her out there. but she smiles up at kainé and she's so, so grateful for the reminder that there are people here who need her. no matter how confident she is that they could all handle themselves just fine without her... maybe it's part of what makes her human, too. more than the blood staining her bandage, or the way the chemicals swim in her brain when her beloved does all manner of things to her. maybe it's just a human urge to be with others.]

[she breathes out and almost lets her wrist go limp.]

I think I should probably rest. Let your blood do the work and let my body recover. Not gonna go back out there until I'm feeling better... and I'm not going back out there alone.

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