Chapter Text
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours.
- Jonathan Edwards
Jesse had left him there, body bent in motionless prayer to a man who wouldn’t acknowledge that he’d made him in a way - made a willing believer in something, at least for a little while. Just another Roman in a silent temple, kneeling before a god who never pressed his ear to the ground for fear of what he might hear.
Tulip had spent hours poring over photos of the dead curled in the ruins of Pompeii - her eighth-grade history textbook had spent most of its short life propped open to those dog-eared pages, their fiery ends rendered serene by a thick encasing of plaster of paris, contortions frozen in place forever and jaws slightly agape in one long silent scream. Ironically, that textbook had met its end on her front stoop the only day in Annville it had ever rained for more than twenty minutes while Tulip fished her uncle out of the drunk tank. Warped beyond recognition by the time she managed to haul his ass home. Death by water was probably worse than death by fire, or so Jesse always told her when they played Would you rather?
Could’ve used some rain earlier. This body was warped too - twisted and blistered down to the bone, pink where the flesh had bent back to reveal muscle and sinew and a creeping yellow ooze.
Death by fire scared her most because it had always seemed all too near in the flats of West Texas, packed into miles of sunbleached sod baked hard as stone. “There’s no law west of Dodge, and no God west of the Pecos.” Jesse had told her that too, quoting John Wayne’s Chisum out of earshot of his father. Might as well abandon all hope, ye who enter in. No matter how far she ran from this town, Tulip O’Hare knew that the desert would keep her bones.
But Cassidy wasn’t Texan. Hell, he wasn’t even American, so he owed the desert nothing.
“Cassidy.” Her voice came out a whisper but had seemed very loud in her throat, suddenly gone dry. She swallowed and gagged and reached for him with a measured, careful grasp to touch the nape of his neck with the tips of her fingers. He recoiled and a rattling moan issued from somewhere deep within his ribcage, as if the whole of his insides had been hollowed out. He was alive, and she had to act fast.
Tulip always kept a large, soft blanket in her trunk - a habit from a youth spent wrapping up her uncle and carting him home. You never knew when you or someone you knew would need something warm around their shoulders. She tucked it around his prostrate form and pressed against the nape of his neck again, as gently as she could. He bit back a groan. “Lean on me and we’ll head for my car. I’m taking you home.”
Cassidy couldn’t open his eyes. He knew they were at Walter’s place by the smell - stale beer and Flavor Station chicken n’ biscuits. She’d led him to a dark, cool room and he could hear her pulling all the sheets off the bed so they wouldn’t stick to what was left of his skin. He leaned into her the way she’d leaned into him at Toadvine a few nights back and if he had functional vocal chords he’d have chuckled at how they could never do things proper. Either she was inebriated or he was covered in fourth-degree burns.
She lifted the blanket from his shoulders and lowered him onto the mattress and he couldn’t help attempting a joke. “We’ve gotta stop meetin’ like this, luv,” he managed to croak.
“I told you Jesse was a self-righteous, God-fearin sonuvabitch! And you went right out there and fuckin’ cremated yourself for his ungrateful ass! Why would you do that? No - don’t answer that. Don’t push yourself. Just drink up.” She was holding her wrist to his lips; he could tell by the faint, narrow pulse and the metallic smell of the blood that pooled, delicate and tapering, down the length of her arm.
“No,” he rasped, pushing her wrist from his mouth. Words weren’t coming easily but he had to make her understand. “I might be tempted...to take too much...”
“C’mon, Cassidy, you’ve at least gotta be able to see. Just enough that you can open your eyes. Eyelid skin ain’t very complicated so it’ll probably heal first, right?” She probably was right. She was right about most things. And he wanted to believe she was right about him.
“Alright, lassie, if you insist...but it’ll hurt. It’s not like...in the movies...with the dainty little pinpricks and all.”
“Figured as much. Just don’t get carried away. I ain’t ready to join the legions of the undead just yet.” There was a smile in her voice he wished he could see.
“You’re saving my life...for real this time....I can’t tell yeh how grateful I am.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to. Let’s just get you on your feet again.”
He got down on his hands and knees and he bit her, as gently as he could. It was a new sensation for both of them. A sharp little intake of breath was the only indication she gave of the pain, and he heard her fingers wrap tight around the edge of the mattress, and then it was over. He sucked quietly at the wound and the silence stretched out between them.
He’d never bitten anyone who asked for it. There hadn’t been many, because most never knew what he was, but there had been a few over the years. Friend of his found out he had terminal cancer and asked to be turned, a girl had pleaded with him to let her live out her dark fantasies with him for a hundred centuries and he’d jokingly told her he could hardly imagine even one more night with her, which effectively ended their relationship. When it came down to it, this wasn’t something he’d wish on anyone.
Never had someone offered him the flesh of their body just for his own benefit. And he should’ve said no, he really should, because in a way this was extremely intimate - more intimate than that kiss he stole, more intimate even than making love. Not for her, maybe - no, it didn’t surprise him that she was the sort to bleed for a stranger if she felt like they deserved it. But for him, this was the first time he’d fed on a bite without force or malice. He had never bled anyone without tearing into their neck and bleeding them dry, and he knew that if he survived this, he’d look back on this moment with no small amount of yearning. Because how could he ever replicate such a feeling without her?
He pulled back from her arm and wiped the blood from his chin, blinking slowly. She looked at him, dark eyes reflecting a sun he couldn’t see beneath knitted brows. The golden light of the afternoon filtered through the bedroom curtains and shone behind the crown of dark curls on her head.
“You were right. I can see just fine now.”