upstairs: for jemma

[lazy_but_loyal]

[Continued from here.]

Pam slips the key into the lock and pushes the door open, flicking a nearby light switch. Immediately the expansive room is illuminated warmly by a black chandelier in the center of the ceiling.

The decor has an old-fashioned, Victorian feel to it, but with modern sensibilities. And also lots of pink and black.

The walls are a very deep shade of pink; the thick carpet is black. Two chairs set at a round table with a black marble top have gilded arms and backs, with satiny pink cushions. Black velvet drapes are pulled closed and tight against the windows. The bed, at the far end of the room, is king-sized with an ornate padded headboard, the carvings matching the chairs. The sheets are black silk, and the pillows and duvet, of course are pink.

A black armoire stands in one corner by the bed, a matching dresser on the bed's opposite side. Both are empty, only because Pam hasn't had a chance to fill them yet.

Pam shuts the door and makes sure it locks behind Jemma.

"Go on and make yourself comfortable."

Comments

[protect_and_survey]

"Are they hollow? There's a design, well, similar, but not really, amongst the pit vipers and adders, but they all have hollow fangs, very fine, to inject venom - these look quite a bit more sturdy, more like a carnivorous mammal, but there's nothing there with a similar retractable design."

The babbling is back, but this one is full of 'the universe is awesome!' rather than nerves.

[lazy_but_loyal]

The girl really is amusing.

But she shakes her head, sweeping the pad of her thumb over the corner of Jemma's mouth.

"Not hollow. No venom. We're our own special kind of carnivore."

And she leans in to press her lips against hers. Maybe to keep her from babbling. Maybe to let her feel how dangerous it is to kiss someone with very sharp teeth.

[protect_and_survey]

There's a soft hum of appreciation, her heart rate picking up for a different reason than the fear she's neglected to remember again.

Perhaps she has so little luck back home because no one's tried to seduce her with a stack of technical journals.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam can smell the subtle shift in the scent of her blood as the fear begins to dissipate somewhat. She deepens the kiss a little, careful not to nick Jemma's lips and tongue, even as her fangs lightly bump and scrape against her teeth.

For Pam, it's an exercise in being gentle, as Eric showed her. It's simply a means to an end, not because she cares.

But Jemma is so sweet and so delicate...

Pam's cool hand slips down the side of her neck, thumb stroking her pulsepoint. She can feel the heat of her blood, hear it rushing through her arteries. And her appetite grows as a purring growl escapes her lips.

[protect_and_survey]

Another mark to put on 'things Jemma knows about vampires': living longer means their technique has time to improve markedly. The entry after that is a rather gleeful babbly note about purring but thankfully no one has to hear it right now. Right now, Jemma is the one who pulls away first for air.

"I think I'm beginning to see why Eric complains so much about groupies." She laughs, breathlessly. Jemma tilts her head away, exposing her neck to that gentle hand, watching Pam with unquenched curiosity.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Not breathing is definitely an advantage when making out.

Pam chuckles, low and sensually, as she reaches up with her other hand to rake her fingers through Jemma's hair, sweeping it away from her neck. She cups the back of her head to keep it steady, her other hand still caressing the side of her throat.

It's kind of like how someone adjusts their hold on a big sandwich before they begin to eat it.

"You ain't seen the half of it, sugar."

She dips her head, scenting along the exposed curve of Jemma's throat, the gesture almost animalistic. Her upper lip curls. The cold sharpness of her fangs scrape her skin.

And she bites her.

There's really nothing gentle about inflicting a flesh wound.

Blood immediately seeps from the double punctures, and Pam closes her lips over the broken skin. She utters a deep, sighing moan as the hot, thick sweetness fills her mouth, her long eyelashes fluttering closed.

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma jerks in Pam's hold, her hindbrain recognizing the pain of the bite and trying to get away from it without any further input from any higher-functioning parts of the brain. She has her hands on Pam's shoulders and a panicked whimper in her throat before the other sensations catch up, sweet and coiling and disarming, if she lets them.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam likes the feel of panic. It makes Jemma's blood flow faster, warmer.

But then she strokes Jemma's cheek with her thumb, slowly sweeping back and forth, in sync with the strokes of her tongue and the rhythmic pull of her mouth.

Her blood is so, so sweet. There's a certain pureness to it that Pam hasn't tasted in a long time. It takes every ounce of restraint to keep from sucking at the wound too hard. She growls a little, kittenish for a century-old vampire, but deep enough to be a bit disconcerting to a human.

A warm trickle of blood escapes the corner of her mouth and travels down along Jemma's collarbone.

[protect_and_survey]

The fear dies down again, slower this time, aided as it fails to hurt more and what pain there is matters less. It's hypnotic, the concerted movement of fingers and lips and tongue.

Idly she tries to reason out the rate of blood loss, but the numbers float away and she gives it up as a bad job. Then she tries to figure out what sort of morphology changes would need to happen to create such a low pitch from human-sized vocal chords, and that distracts her for longer.

Long enough that she's stopped leaning against that soothing hand for comfort, and is leaning against it because she's getting dizzy, a feeling like spending too long on a carnival ride.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Sometimes when you're feeding on someone, you get a little carried away. Baby vampires and undisciplined vampires with no control over their impulses usually end up with a dead human on their hands. Whoops.

Fortunately, Pam, despite her general attitude, can follow the rules, and plus she wouldn't want to deliberately do any lasting damage to Jemma. And also, there's Eric. He'd be disappointed if anything bad happened.

At some point, Pam can hear Jemma's heartbeat start to slow. Her pulse drags underneath her palm pressed to her neck. Her body begins to slump against hers.

It's enough.

She lifts her mouth from Jemma's neck, lips and teeth stained dark red with blood, before gently easing her down onto the mattress.

[protect_and_survey]

"Mmm... whzzt?" Jemma mumbles questioningly. She feels... heavy, slow, like the day after a bad lab bender, the sort where the caffeine and power were cut to force an end to the day (she says it's only happened the once, but... well. No.) The ache is still there, but dull, ignorable.

Actually, a lot is ignorable at the moment. Including the way Pam's lipstick has gotten darker (except it hasn't, except that isn't makeup, except she can't seem to work up a decent sense of worry about it). The world is more like molasses, the same slow slide of dark blood oozing from her wounds.

Maybe she'll worry about it later.

"Alright?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam leans over Jemma, sweeping her hair away from her face with cool fingers.

"I'm fine. How're you?"

She looks like she'll be out of it for a little while.

The wounds on the side of her throat are still oozing. And really, she has such a lovely throat, so it just won't do for her to bear any scars. So Pam pricks the pad of her own thumb on a fang, and very delicately and sparingly, rubs her blood into the open wounds. Jemma might feel a tingling or numbing sensation as the bleeding stops and the holes close up.

[protect_and_survey]

"M'good." She hums, tilting her head to chase that delicate touch. She sets about dragging her mental feet back underneath her, a task that feels more laborious than it ought. She will, however, be the first to admit that she hasn't been taking the best care of herself lately, with her current project of fixing someone else's disastrous study design.
"Stage... one, maybe almost stage two hypovolemia? Not enough to do anything drastic about." Jemma self-diagnoses, peering at the state of her nail beds.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam raises an eyebrow at her with a soft snort of wry amusement.

"Such a scientist."

And she retracts her fangs, the sharp click seemingly very loud in the quiet stillness of the room.

"Relax, sugar. I'm just going to freshen up and get you a glass of water."

Before moving off, she wipes off a streak of blood on Jemma's breast with her finger and licks it.

"You are so sweet."

And with that, she strides away and into the bathroom.

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma watches her go, wryly noting that she's heard that comment entirely too many times... but this is the first time it was probably meant literally.

...

It's going to be so terribly hard to not giggle the next time someone says that.

...

Meh, giggle at them anyway, they deserve it. Sweet.

Her thoughts then meander off to a new topic - whatever is a vampire doing with a bathroom in her apartment? Whatever she wants with it, Jemma supposes, but it seems a tad odd. Maybe vampires like showers? She can't imagine why, unless they're not as impervious to hot or cold as some mythology states (boo mythology, yay science) ... This of course leads to the drowsy contemplation of how many biological processes actually change or shut down with vampirism, and lord wouldn't that be embarrassing, being on the rag as a vampire? It'd be like shoving fresh popcorn down one's trousers and marching into a lab full of researchers who haven't eaten in the last twelve or more hours.

Aaaand that'd be what Jemma is snickering about when Pam comes back, yes.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Where do you think Pam puts on all her fabulousness? In the bathroom.

It's a spacious one, with the same pink and black color scheme and turn-of-the-century touches, like the lights with gaslamp fixtures and the clawfoot bathtub. The most modern thing in it is the shower stall, which is exactly like Eric's. Because it is an awesome shower.

There's even a toilet...for human guests, of course.

Pam washes the blood from her lips at the sink and takes her time reapplying her lipstick and fixing her hair in the mirror (the stories are wrong -- how do you think vampires make themselves so gorgeous if they can't see their reflection?). Then, filling a glass (again, for human guests) with cold water, she emerges from the bathroom, to find Jemma giggling like a drunk.

"Apparently something funny happened and I missed it."

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma smiles lazily, and shakes her head.

"Not terribly, the universe is just more funny when you're too tired to take it seriously." At least she's not actually drunk - she's much less likely to tell bad jokes (badly) in an attempt to spread the hilarity.

She does try to push herself up onto her elbows, but dizziness and fatigue (and that utterly dangerous mattress) conspire to flatten her again.
"Oof. Graceful."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam smirks. She's familiar with the post-feeding goofiness that happens to some people. Usually she sends them on their way before she gets annoyed, but she'll make an exception for Jemma.

She sets the glass of water on the nightstand and props the down-filled pillows up against the headboard. Then, holding Jemma under her armpits, she moves her into more of a lounging position against the pillows. Thing is, when she does move her, it's as if Jemma weighs only as much as one of those pillows.

Putting a hand on a hip, Pam offers the water to her.

"If you feel too tired, I can give you a little of my blood to perk you right up. Might make the universe seem downright hilarious in the process, too."

Eric said it would be okay in Milliways to let humans drink vampire blood. It can still heal but its hallucinogenic effects are harmless here, and no bond is created. Still, Pam's always been extremely stingy with it, and cautious, and for good reason. One doesn't just go handing out your blood to anybody.

[protect_and_survey]

And thus, two new items are added to Jemma's 'Things I'll Probably Never Know About Vampires' list.

(There's a list, don't even pretend to be surprised there's a list, and it's an ever-growing list)

First, she's ridiculously curious about why anyone's blood, never mind a vampire's, would act as a stimulant in low doses. If she didn't think that it'd be a move akin to suicide, she'd try to see if she could find out why.

Second, she'd love to know more about vampire strength potential... but somehow she thinks there's no way either of them would kindly go near a stress plate.

Alas.

She takes the offered glass with both hands to keep it from wobbling.
"No, but thank you, that's very kind." Jemma replies politely, "I should be fine with some rest."

[lazy_but_loyal]

She shrugs a shoulder.

"Suit yourself," she says, and she sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing out her skirt over her crossed legs and tossing her hair over her shoulder. Pam looks just as perfect as when Jemma first raised an eyebrow at her.

"So. What did you think?"

[protect_and_survey]

"It was... intense." She's pretty sure it's not something she would go for again any time soon, but it's not on her never-again list. "It's still fascinating though."

Surely at least one scientist must have become a vampire, somewhere along the way. Why oh why aren't there any skull radiographs? It's tragic.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Maybe next time you'll let me get to second base," she purrs with a slow smile.

Usually Pam wouldn't have to suggest it. A fangbanger expects it. Jemma is no fangbanger by a long shot, and Pam likes that.

[protect_and_survey]

That damnable, damnable blush manages to make a re-appearance as she ducks her head, though it is much less... dramatic fashion than before. Give it some time.

"Yeah?" Evidently no one's told this particular vampire that gorgeous women like her don't tend to go for the lab geeks, and Jemma is not going to enlighten her. At all. "I'd like that."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Oh, that blush.

So she's open to it. Good.

Because Pam doesn't care about what she is. She only cares about how she tastes.

"I'll show you what those groupies are really after when I reach third."

She brushes her fingertips over Jemma's knee, lightly sweeping down her shin.

[protect_and_survey]

Jemma is very clearly trying to figure out why the heck adding 'vampire' to the mix would make it markedly better, to be desperate enough and obvious enough to earn the scorn of those you supposedly want.

...

Well. This is what experimental trials were designed for.

Sort of.

Shut up.

"As long as I don't have to fill the type - I'm rather horrendous at teen love poetry and I don't believe I've ever been a groupie."