Chapter Text
Her insides burned.
The walls spun, her head ached, and she couldn’t quite seem to get a handle on which way was up.
Rio had been hungry before, but never like this.
It tore its way up her throat and clawed at her skin, making the flesh feel too tight to contain the bones that lurked beneath. Sharp canines dug into her lower lip as she staggered forwards, drawing her own dark blood— but it wasn’t nearly enough to smother the fire within her.
All of Rio’s senses were on overdrive, the cars too loud and the cracked alley lights too bright. The familiar scent of amber and jasmine was getting closer, she was getting closer— but damn it, she was still too far from Rio. The thought spurred the vampire on, hands clawing at brick walls to keep her steady as she moved.
There was only one thing that would fix this, only one person that could cure the endless pit of hunger that had opened like a chasm at the bottom of her stomach.
Agatha.
A shiver ran down Agatha’s spine as she clutched her coat tighter, navigating her way to a friend’s party through the streets, almost like on autopilot. Almost.
The cool night’s air made her skin bristle and kept her senses on high alert. Up ahead, the narrow road was empty, just as the last couple blocks had been. A flickering yellow street light— extremely unhelpful despite the warmth it seemed to emit against the unforgiving wind— illuminated her path. Its buzzing wormed into Agatha’s brain, irritating her to the point of picking up her pace. The price of taking a shortcut.
There was a small, shuddering sound that left the killer’s lips; the kind born from desperation and relief. With the younger woman finally in view, Rio moved with a newfound vigor. Thirst was threatening to take over completely, to blind her and make her do things that she wouldn’t be able to take back— and at the moment, Rio wasn’t sure she’d want to stop it.
The streets were silent aside from the clacking of Agatha’s heels, striking against the cobblestone with every step. The sound of a voice stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Agatha.”
She froze, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at the way her name rolled off that voice’s tongue. Blue eyes fluttered closed with a huff. Part of her wanted to brush it off as the wind, another wisp of air that happened to whistle a tune as it blew past her. Another part turned her body towards the shadows cast behind her, eyes landing on a narrow alleyway, no more than three people wide.
“Rio.” Agatha’s voice came off frostier than intended, but she made no effort to soften her edges. A crouched, staggering figure clawed out through the alley, and she subconsciously took a step back. Raven black hair and tanned skin confirmed Agatha’s suspicions. “What are you doing here?”
The sound of Agatha’s voice almost drove her into a frenzy, and it took all of Rio’s remaining energy not to pounce without saying another word. Agatha looked delicious— all pale skin and smooth, circulating blood. She could practically taste it on her tongue, the memory of their last encounter clawing its way to the forefront of her mind;
It had been late, on a night not so different from this one. Their roles had been reversed, Agatha had found her… as hard as Rio had tried to resist, the young woman’s offer had been too sweet to pass up. She’d allowed her fangs to pierce the flesh on the inside of Agatha’s wrist, had tasted her until she’d had her fill, had allowed her control to slip.
A short lived accident, but from that moment forward there had been only one person on her mind— Agatha.
The consequences of her actions weren’t something that Rio usually considered, but in this case they exacted their revenge in cruel ways. Her encounter with Agatha had left her with a newfound hunger, one that she couldn’t seem to escape, no matter what she did. A trail of bodies had followed her in the past weeks; women drained and left behind, nothing to tie them together except for the set of marks that remained on their necks long past their expirations… marks left by Rio, in a desperate attempt to cure the burning in her throat. If she looked closely now, the vampire was sure she’d find her mark lingering on Agatha’s wrist, a reminder of what had occurred and how it had ruined her.
A small, feral thing inside of her wanted to grab Agatha by the hand and look, to push the sleeve of her jacket up without warning. Rio knew what she’d find, knew that the marks left by overly sharp teeth wouldn’t fade unless she wished them to. Nothing about this was normal, much less natural, but Rio now needed Agatha in ways that she hadn’t known before.
“Agatha.”
Her voice, the sound she made caught Agatha off guard. It resembled more of a growl than anything, deep and primal. Needy. She should’ve left, she shouldn’t have stayed to entertain Rio, not again. But as always, the universe found a way to draw her back to her vices.
Against all rationale, Agatha dared to take another step forward— she wanted to see the woman under the dim yellow light.
“What did you do to me??”
Strangled, choked, and out of breath. Those were the only ways to describe how Rio sounded, desperation creeping into her tone as she dug her nails into her hands to keep herself from reaching for Agatha. Being an undead killer was one thing, but she would not attack this woman— not until she knew what was happening.
This was not the Rio that Agatha recognized.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but her olive skin looked a shade paler. Her hands trembled by her sides, nails digging into her own flesh till her knuckles turned white. The way her pearly whites worried her bottom lip, allowing her partially out fangs to peek out. No, this Rio was very different from the vampire she met that fateful night.
This one seemed… unhinged. A pang of concern hit Agatha before her brain caught up with her heart. The vaguely confused expression was all that she allowed Rio to see.
“Rio, what—”
Blue eyes searched dark brown that she unknowingly missed, looking for any kind of answer. What had Agatha done to her? The younger woman wanted to scoff, she could’ve asked the exact same question in return.
It seemed possible that their fated night had left an indelible mark on more than just Agatha.
One month ago, with their first encounter, Agatha’s life had changed. What was meant to be a one-time offer soon ruined every moment of her waking existence. Countless nights of tossing and turning, unable to put out the fire that Rio left blazing through her veins. The vampire consumed what felt to be every second of Agatha’s life— glimpses of her wide brown eyes and silky black hair in crowds of strangers had Agatha picking at the scabbing bite mark till it bled once more.
Worst of all? She didn’t regret any of it. She couldn’t.
“I didn’t do anything. What’s going on?”
Considering her current state, the idea that Agatha hadn’t done anything was genuinely laughable. Her entire body ached, the fire that sang within her threatening to take over the closer that Agatha got. Rio was practically shaking where she stood— rooted to the ground and praying that the woman would simply take a step back and come closer all at the same time. Could Agatha not see what she’d done? Could she not see that with one small action, she had somehow ruined Rio for anyone else?
“You have to fix this.”
It sounded like she had swallowed a fist full of gravel. Her throat worked overtime to try to clear the unnatural dryness that lurked within it, but there was nothing that Rio herself could do to cure anything. It felt as if she was withering away, decaying on the spot in a way that shouldn’t have been possible at all. Physically, the vampire looked fine— if a little pale, almost like she’d caught some sort of virus. On the inside, though? Rio could’ve sworn that the darkened blood in her veins had turned to molten lava.
And the worst part? It hurt.
It hurt in ways that Rio hadn’t felt in centuries, ways that made her feel minuscule and helpless. It hurt like Agatha’s blood had corrupted her very being, like somehow she was rotting while still being painfully alive and present.
She staggered slightly at the very thought of Agatha’s blood, her body traitorous as it carried her towards the mortal woman. Everything in her wanted to fall forwards, to leap at Agatha without thinking and just take what she wanted… but her mind protested. This was Agatha.
Fangs fully slipping— pushing their way past her lips and into full view— Rio’s next words were desperate and airy, nothing short of utterly hopeless. Her chest heaved as she tried to take in more air, to do anything to get a proper handle on her thirst.
“Help me…”
“I don’t… What did I…?”
Of course Agatha knew of Rio’s true nature. If you had asked her merely two months ago, the supernatural wasn’t possible. Clearly a lot had changed for her the past four weeks, both physically and ideologically.
And she was sure her encounter with Rio was barely the tip of the iceberg.
Acknowledging the supernatural existed, whether she liked it or not, was one thing. Understanding it was an entirely different matter, one that Agatha still struggled with. She’d been constantly torn between wanting to avoid Rio— to pretend that night hadn’t happened and that the dark red spots on her wrist would fade with time— and the need to know more, to figure out what was changing within her. However, of the literature that had taken a painstaking amount of time to find, none of it spoke of what she was witnessing right now.
Rio stumbled towards her, and that was all it took for Agatha to come rushing forward, catching her by her forearms. The skin to skin contact burned Agatha, the heat spreading throughout her body and rising to her face. Watching Rio heave in her arms, seeing her up close like this made her notice her tired eyes, slightly sunken.
Everything lurched. Agatha’s touch turned the vampire’s brain to a pathetic mess of incoherent thoughts and urges, the loudest of all demanding carnage. There was no good reason for Rio’s skin to burn the way it did upon contact, no good reason for the searing in her throat, and certainly no good reason for her to be practically incapacitated from the lack of Agatha. Rio was sure that she had done the impossible and died, but then the young woman’s voice startled her out of her stupor.
“How can I help?”
“Please…”
Was this truly Agatha’s fault? And if it was, how did she fix it? Her mind flitted to one option, the only one that she knew.
She shuddered at the thought, but not out of fear. Something else coursed through her as the woman that hadn’t left her mind for the past four weeks was now left shaking beneath her, something Agatha didn’t want to name. With a deep exhale, shakier than she hoped, she finally dared to speak.
“Let me help you.”
It was all Rio could do not to sink her teeth into the skin of Agatha’s neck without her permission. Broken and panting, the plea was all that she could truly manage. The beating of her own mechanical heart pounded in her ears, but Agatha’s was louder. She could hear every movement— the blood rushing through her veins, so close but not close enough, made Rio feel like she was drowning. It would be so easy… so simple to just lean forward and dig in, to take what was clearly needed and think about the consequences later.
But that was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place; the damned consequences.
Agatha had somehow managed to lock her down, with one bite she had tethered the vampire to her in ways that were proving catastrophic. Rio couldn’t solve this on her own— she had tried, and all it had done was lead to the deaths of a few (dozen) innocent people. The fire within her raged on, inextinguishable and violent as a hurricane threatening to tear apart a town. It was going to consume her, that was the one thing that Rio was sure of.
“Agatha, please…”
Rio’s begging wasn’t as elaborate of an answer as Agatha was hoping for, but it made one thing glaringly obvious; restraint.
Some unnamed force was holding Rio back, which based on the research Agatha had tried to do, should’ve been near impossible, especially in the state that she seemed to be in. Yet here she was, challenging everything Agatha thought she knew once again.
The mortal’s skin burned. It shouldn’t burn like this, if she remembered their last encounter accurately— as if it hadn’t been the only memory plaguing her thoughts for the past month. Unknowingly, the pair seemed to have drifted closer and closer to each other, like some gravitational pull was forcing them together. The rush of blood was loud between Agatha’s ears, clogging her thoughts with primal urges, the same dangerous wants that had landed her in this position in the first place.
Though this time, she didn’t have the excuse of ignorance… Agatha knew exactly what she was signing herself up for. The cogs continued to turn in her head as she considered the situation at hand, but at the end of the day the answer was plain and simple.
The woman whose ghost she’d been yearning for was standing right in front of her, and Agatha didn’t have the control to deny giving Rio what she wanted. How could she?
With a shaky breath, she released her grip on Rio's arms, the loss of contact already leaving her with a dull ache. God, what was this woman doing to her? Her hand reached for her coat sleeve— trembling from the cold, she told herself— and pulled it back while flipping her arm so her wrist faced the night sky.
There it was, Agatha’s constant reminder of Rio.
The pain from the bite had reduced to nothing more than nagging pain at times, but it still looked just as red as the day she was bitten. The skin was rough, exposing her tendency for scab-picking, never allowing the mark to fully heal.
“Is this what you need?”
The control that Rio had been desperately trying to maintain finally slipped.
Seeing Agatha’s wrist— the very same one that she had fed from mere weeks ago— dangled before her like a gift was simply too much. The young woman’s pale skin was still red, scabbed over with blood so close to the surface that Rio could practically taste it. Her mouth opened to say something, anything, to Agatha at the same moment that the thin little thread of self-control remaining in her body decided to snap.
Rio lunged.