lazy_but_loyal | OOM

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OOM - Pam's room

Pam would've objected to being carried.

But, ah, what the hell. She'd earned it.

And she wouldn't have been able to do anything about it anyway, because the moment Eric wrapped his arms around her, her body just gave out. It didn't want to be upright anymore. It didn't want to move on its own. It didn't want to lift a thing.

Besides, Eric is comfortable.

She didn't care where he was carrying her, just as long as it was away.

And then, even though Pam's eyes were closed and her senses were nearly shutting down from sheer exhaustion, she knew that they'd stepped into Milliways. Somewhere at the back of her foggy mind, she thought, Perfect. She'd never wanted to be here more than right now.

She smells Jemma, and she hears her voice. She would say hello, but, meh, too tired.

They arrive in her room.

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Jemma shuts the door behind them, giving them time to settle and herself time to make sure her composure isn't about to falter. Nothing in SHIELD training quite covered this, after all.

"Right, I imagine there's a plan, for... what did happen?" She asks, unconsciously falling into 'I am an official SHIELD scientist with a right to be here' pose, something she learned quickly when dealing with agents usually much older than herself.

Eric settles Pam on the bed. Very, very gently.
Removing her jacket with his big hands, revealing the angry burns. Fading but still far too visible.

"She's been held captive," he answers, without looking at Jemma. "Tortured."
He may be striving for detached and calm, but he is not succeeding.

He is angry. Angry and upset.

He strokes Pam's hair and turns too face Jemma.
There is - quite a lot of blood spatters on his sweater. And his chin.

"With silver. And she is not healing the way she ought to. It's too slow. And she's in pain."
Darting another quick look at Pam, cupping her face.

Then he looks back at Jemma. "She needs blood."

Pam drifts in and out of consciousness. Most of her wants to stay unconscious. The rest of her is in too much pain.

She feels herself being laid down, not on a hard slab, but on a soft, downy bed. She stirs when Eric takes off her jacket, the fabric irritating her semi-healed burns: they run in horizontal stripes across her throat, chest, and stomach, and around her wrists, still bloody and oozing, starkly red on her white skin.

Exhaling a groan, she turns her head against the hand cupping her face, her eyelashes fluttering.

"That's..." Horrible. Inhumane.

Loki-esque, which is about as high as her rating goes at the moment.

"What do you need me to do?" She has the overarching concept down, yes, she figured that one out the moment she saw the pair of them. But how does a vampire that injured feed?

...

This is going to hurt, isn't it?

Eric settles down on the bed, next to Pam.
"I will bite your wrist," he says. "To make sure your tendons aren't damaged. She'll feed from you and I will stay right here."

He doesn't give two flying fucks about Jemma of course. But he doesn't want Pam to get in trouble,

Edited 2014-10-15 19:57 (UTC)

"Much appreciated." Though she does get the vibe that it's not exactly her well being that's the key here. ... Just like any other day she's dealing with Operations, then. That's perhaps a bit unfair, but she's definitely run across this attitude before. She rolls up her left sleeve in a long-practiced motion - hey, she's biochem. Gross stuff happens, and no glove has yet been invented that's entirely tear-proof and lab practical.

(They're working on it.)

"Somehow when you were mentioning comparison studies I gather this isn't what was in mind. She... will be alright?"

Pam smells...warm skin.

Warm blood.

It's enough to draw her out of her haze. Her nostrils flare, and she moans softly, turning her head again. And she opens her eyes, blinking blearily.

"Eric..."

Jemma barely knows Pam. Honestly, she barely knows Eric, other than what he's chosen to share.

But this is wrong.

Eric is presented with a bare wrist by one researcher made brave by compassion and righteous anger.

Eric takes Jemma's wrist. His grip is firm but gentle as he turns it a little. Saying, "It'll be all right, Pam."

Then he lets his fangs drop. The click is startlingly loud.

He lifts Jemma's wrist to his mouth and bites down. Carefully. It hurts when the skin is pierced but he has done this for a very long time. He knows how to hold his fingers, how to press against the bones of the hand, how to stroke the skin, to shift the focus away from pain, toward pleasure.

And then he removes his mouth and slides one arm under Pam's shoulders, lifting her a little while moving Jemma's wrist close to her mouth. Utterly focused on Pam's wan face.

She can pretty much definitively state at this point that Stoker was an idiot - being bit just doesn't feel good. She can also put in a pretty strong hypothesis that experience does help - the pain is... easier, this time, and heavens knows her pain threshold hasn't changed any since last time.

Jemma finds herself perched on the edge of the bed, ignoring that bit of hindbrain that's just a bit alarmed about the idea of bleeding freely around two predators.

And she kind of wishes she had a stopwatch.

Oh shush, she can't be the only one to wonder about healing rates.

The smell and the sight of blood makes Pam's fangs come down.

She is hungry. So hungry.

That primal hunger supersedes the instinct to sleep, even the feeling of pain, as she sits upright with Eric's help. And without hesitation she presses her lips to the bleeding puncture wounds on Jemma's smooth, slender wrist, and begins to drink.

The warm blood filling her mouth as she swallows almost at once seems to revive her. She's alert enough to want to hold Jemma's arm up herself, her fingers cold and firm, as they brush against Eric's. But not much else goes through her mind except the sweet, sweet taste on her tongue, counteracting the sharp, prickling sensation of her skin slowly regenerating, which at this point hurts almost as much as the burns themselves. And the process will take a little time, given that the chains had dug into her flesh and remained there for almost two days.

Fortunately Eric can pay attention to Jemma's heartbeat so Pam doesn't have to.

Both of them are cold, but Pam is positively icy, wrapped solidly around her arm as thoroughly as any manacle. She shivers in reflexive cold. She'd ask if it's helping (maybe a stopwatch was optimistic. A regular watch with a minute hand would do just fine), but honestly, she's trying not to flinch against the hungry pull on her arm.

Thoughts about a study she read by Temple Grandin in relation to how Eric was the one to bite her, not Pam... really don't help. She tries to knock that off.

Slowly but surely, the reddened, burned flesh across Pam's throat and chest, healing from the inside out, visibly knits itself. The edges of torn and charred skin seem to fuse together and then regrow over the exposed muscle.

Pam groans (or growls) a little, her lip curling against Jemma's wrist, as it's not a comfortable feeling, especially when it's happening on several areas of her body at once.

She doesn't slow her feeding, but she does loosen her grip a bit. She even slides one hand over, wrapping her long, cold fingers around Jemma's hand, her thumb sweeping over the backs of her knuckles.

Jemma grips her hand back in return, grinning in relief when Pam begins to respond. She was beginning to worry that it wasn't going to work - after all, Stoker was wrong about the biting, he's probably wrong about quite a lot of other things too.

(Dratted inaccurate authors, should be ashamed of themselves.)

"Hey there, that's better, isn't it?" What? She's allowed to be concerned. It's what makes her human.

Pam purrs in reply, licking at the wounds as if to soothe them for a moment before she sucks at them again, but slower and not as deeply. However, she's not done healing yet (and she's still hungry), so she doesn't show any indication of stopping.

Jemma will have to trust Eric to stop her.

That's alright - Jemma feels fine, really. She's more interested in how the wounds are healing - honestly, her opinion of the scientists that live in a world with vampires drops every time she thinks about it. Work out an equitable deal, and she imagines there could be major breakthroughs in just about every aspect of major trauma.

Of course, the first trick would be trying to figure out how it's happening, and what the factors are behind it - it can't be something that varies by blood type, or it wouldn't be so much who one trusts, it'd be who has the right antibody/antigen mix... though, now that she thinks about it, maybe she should ask Jay what type he is.

Though what if it's some other thing - lord knows they find another blood factor every time they turn around, and they don't know what half of them are for, other than to make transfusions tricky. What if they're some sort of co-evolved defense system (or attractant system) first developed in a world with vampires, and then it spread. Of course, in order to test her theory she'd have to convince both the vampires and a bunch of people to agree to it and...

Jemma blinks heavily as suddenly the edge of the bed feels about as safe as the edge of a cliff. She wonders, distractedly, when the hands around her arm stopped feeling so cold.

Eric is watching them intently as Pam feeds.
At first, his only thought is concern for Pam's well being (and thus, relatedly, Jemma's).
But as Pam's skin begins to knit and her movements become more sure, he allows himself to enjoy the scene as well.

They do look very pretty together.

And all the while, he is listening to Jemma.

Just a little more, just -
"Pam."

It's said gently and with more emotion than he probably intended, now that they have company.
It still means stop though.

Edited 2014-10-16 04:59 (UTC)

Oh, that's so sweet... and her opinion shows plain and clear in her expression. We'd say it's because of blood loss and impending shock, but honestly Jemma can't lie to save her life.

"I think she's going to be alright." She assures Eric, patting his shoulder.

...

Aiming for his shoulder, anyway. Everything feels so heavy and slow.

Pam's body heat may never even reach room temperature, but she's definitely not as ice cold to the touch as she was when she began to feed. And she is feeling a lot better, her senses clearer again, the pain of healing dwindling and eventually fading altogether.

But Jemma just tastes so damned sweet.

And it almost seems as if Pam might be ignoring Eric, since she doesn't stop right away. It's like telling a child she can't have any more candy.

But with a soft moan that's almost a petulant whimper, she does stop. She pulls her mouth away from Jemma's wrist and licks her lips, previously pale without her usual lipstick, now stained red with blood.

Eric cups her cheek, looking at her.
Relieved.

And then he takes Jemma's wrist, as he bites down on his own tongue (his fangs are still down) and dips his head to lick her puncture wounds clean. And closed.

She does taste sweet.

He is also putting one arm around her shoulders and as he retracts his fangs, he says, "Maybe you should lay down for a little bit, Jemma."

Edited 2014-10-16 06:20 (UTC)

She frowns, vaguely, but it's hard to work up much consternation over being licked when she's just too tired.

"That's..." She blinks slowly, sighing and nearly losing track of her train of thought.

The correct answer is probably 'a bad idea', or 'something I'll do when I get home', but instead she nods. "That's probably a good thought."

Pam retracts her fangs.

Was it really necessary for Eric to lick Jemma's wounds closed? No. No, it was not. And this is the look that Pam is giving him that conveys such a sentiment without her having to say anything.

She shoos Eric off the bed so that she herself can get up.

"C'mere, sugar," she murmurs at Jemma, urging her to lie down.

She ought not. She really ought not. But the bed is so soft, and really, she just needs a catnap.

"Just a moment or two, that's all..." She agrees, curling into the empty space at Pam's side like a drowsy kitten.

Eric gets off the bed, holding his hands out and giving Pam a look in return.
What?
He was just being practical.

That's all.

He goes into the bathroom and returns with a glass of water for Jemma.
He's also wiped his face clean.

His in-control exterior is beginning to wear a little thin.

He'll have to go back. Sit in the car with the two of them, the Queen and the King.
Smile at Edginton. When all he wants to do is kill him.

"I'm sorry it took so long," he says to Pam.
Eric never apologizes.

While Eric is in the bathroom, Pam sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, absently stroking Jemma's hair. Her skin feels a little cold. She might need a bit of blood in return, but she can rest first.

Pam takes the glass of water from Eric and sets it on the nightstand.

And then looks up at him at his apology, her brows knitted.

"Don't be. I'm sure you did what you had to."

She gets to her feet, taking a few steps toward him, reaching up to touch his shoulders, his face. Goddamn, how she missed that face. It was all she wanted to see these past two nights, and finally she has it back again. She chuckles softly to herself.

They're not alone. But Jemma is out of it, so she doesn't matter.

With a sigh, she runs her hands down Eric's arms to cling at his fingers.

"But you still can't wear light colors."

She arches an eyebrow at him.

Edited 2014-10-16 13:11 (UTC)

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