to two-hundred-and-forty-seven more (together)

Crouched in front of the cell the latest experiment was corralled in, Mal poked his finger through the bars like a sap at one of those animal shelters. Like the woman who’d had her life changing procedure done the night before was going to nuzzle his fingers and lick his knuckles, all squirmy with joy. She snapped instead, snarling as her eyes flashed yellow at him, fangs a hair’s breadth from his skin. Mal cackled, his other hand darting in to raffle the snarled tangle of black curls. ”Look at you, still all spicy. I guess it weren’t exactly a personality transplant, was it?” That might be worth some examination for later, behaviour correction fully built in to the treatment. It’d make this a little more pleasant for him at least.

Mal sighed, pushing to his feet. He wiped his hands off against the front of his shirt, eyeing her as she scrambled back from the bars. It’d still be a couple of days before they let this one out. She’d wake up in her pit in the woods, disoriented, completely blank as to what had happened to her and how she’d got there. She probably wouldn’t even realise that she’d been changed until days later. Maybe one of this town’s little do-gooders would pick her up and try to explain but there was no pulling a Pygmalion on this to make it all better.

He toed the paper bag of food through the bars, poking it just far enough for her to grab. There was nothing stronger than a cardboard juice box in there, nothing she could pick her way out with. ”You be a good girl and eat all that down, you wanna be big and strong dontcha?” There was another of those feral growls as he turned and went to stroll away, a cackle rolling out of him when she threw herself at the bars. Unconcerned about the miniscule chances of her breaking out through them, Mal strolled away.

There’d be another visit in the morning, a quick pit stop on the way to the hospital, but for tonight he was off duty so to speak. Wasn’t like they had a prison full of experiments anymore and the failure rate had dropped so bloody low that there was no point in sitting there watching them twenty-four seven, wringing their hands over whether or not that foul mercury mix would start pouring out of every orifice (leaving him to sodding clean it up).

Lips pursed, Mal locked up behind him and strolled the short distance through the scrub at the edge of the woods to reach his car. Dinner, a drink or two, maybe he’d even call Krista over for a nightcap, she still had to make up for what she’d did with his blood bags after all. She owed him a round so to speak and he was feeling benevolent enough to return the favour another way. It was enough to put a smile on a bloke’s mug as he drifted back through town. Maybe there was something to this semi-permanence, even if the Doc would just see it as a possible weak spot. Wasn’t like he was gonna pack Krista up with his bags when they did go strolling out of town in the end. She’d get a pat on the bum and the order to toddle back to her family, with a little extra whammy if she argued too much.

The stroll had become a swagger by the time he was back at the motel. Hands in his pockets, smirk lighting up that grizzled face as he got out the car and strolled across the lot. He wouldn’t be a complete arsehole, she’d get her fill first, long as she didn’t do anything equally stupid between then and now to leave him neck deep in the sort of trouble he couldn’t skate out of.

Letting a trilling whistle, Mal slipped the key into the lock on the door and stepped inside. The explosion of streamers and banners barely registered as gayly coloured ripples at the edges of his vision before Krista was throwing herself at him. Mal grabbed at her hips to stop her from driving him back into the closed door like a wrecking ball, his head thrown back to avoid the tip of a pointed party hat up a nostril. Jesus.

Fuck. That was practically what she’d called him, weren’t it? In that warm little pocket of after glow a couple of weeks ago she’d demanded he have a birthday, like Jesus’ birthday. Wisely he didn’t say the bloke’s name aloud or she might’ve rammed the spike of that hat right through an eyeball out of an inflated sense of protectiveness towards the big yin himself. ”You picked a date then, hey love?” he managed dubiously. And hadn’t said a word about it because she’d wanted to decorate his room like an explosion in a …

… bloody paper factory.

Eyes going wild, Mal let his head thud back against the door. He glanced around, his gaze trailing either side of her head to take it in. Not just the banners, it was set up like an honest to God kids party with balloons and a cake dripping in so many candles it’d have to be a fire hazard if she insisted on lighting it up. ”How did you get in ‘ere to do all this?” he asked dubiously. If it hadn’t been for the fact that his key had been in his pocket for him to get back in he’d have thought she’d lifted it, but since that first encounter in Campbell’s Krista got gotten downright devious. She was gonna sodding kill him in the end.

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 956

Trying to constrain Krista’s excitement was like trying to hold onto the wind with your bare hands – you had no sodding chance. Her moods flipped just as fast as the wind’s direction could, the sails of her emotions filling and emptying at an astonishing rate. With one wrong word as he walked in the door she could’ve flown at him to rake his eyes out instead – which, of course would’ve been followed by a bout of sobbing as she apologised. Mal caught her as she barrelled into him, out of self-preservation as much as joy at not having to give her a call to get her over here.

This wasn’t a case of reading his mind or feeling the pangs of his own hunger in the pit of her stomach. Krista had followed through on her threat. He guessed she wouldn’t call that. This was all for his sake, even if she was the one getting the biggest kick out of it. Bouncing around, squirming, hanging off of him like he was nothing but rigging. Taking in all the hard work to turn his room into a kaleidoscopic nightmare. He was gonna be picking confetti out of his crack for the next month.

Mal stared, his mouth hanging open slightly as he tried to take it all in. Krista had warned him about calling himself God but she could hardly have picked a poor religious day for it. ”Well,” Mal crooned. ”I guess rising from the dead comes with some perks. You gonna start callin’ me Lazarus now?” It’d be an improvement on the way she trilled Mal-ee at him when she got really affectionate. That was probably coming later, after all the poppers and the singing and the cake – there’d better be cake after all of this.

Somehow she’d got the door unlocked and the place set up and he wasn’t laying money on her suddenly being able to pick locks. Krista was craft but not that crafty. She’d done something more devious. Heavy brows drew together as she looked back at him, blood rushing to her cheeks in a rush of warmth that had his hunger peaking. ”What did you do?” he asked again as she trailed out an extended ‘uh’. Giggling, shrugging it off like he didn’t need to know how she might end up showing up here whenever she felt like it. He’d find her crawling up the bed in the middle of the night, that determined look in her eye, or duct taped to the ceiling just to make sure he wasn’t up to anything when she wasn’t there.

Hazel eyes narrowed faintly. ”Uh huh,” he crooned lightly. ”Not entirely sure that’s the way it works.” Especially not when she wasn’t a girlfriend, even before you brought the really great part into it. Krista’s special power seemed to be getting him in over his head through her attempts to be the bestest blood bag, slash, imaginary girlfriend, possible. Mall cops, the sheriff’s people, probably the motel manager too if he got a look at this. ”Oh no. You didn’t have to …” Jesus. Mal’s shoulders slumped as the hat was deposited in his hand. He turned it around, looking at its pointy top, the elastic to go under his chin. He’d have taken canvas trousers and pigtails over this.

There was a thin whine rising in Mal’s throat as he shoved it on his head. The things he did for a peaceful life. He rocked his head side to side, grimacing at the wail the elastic caught at his beard hairs. Candles, she’d gotten candles too, and had tried to talk the store clerk out of a lighter. ”Least you didn’t try and steal one instead,” Mal muttered under his breath. ”You ain’t got ID except your student one?” Of course not, her parents probably wouldn’t have trusted her behind the wheel of a car or not to flee on a damn plane given the chance.


The quiet mumbling continued, wondering if the Doc had a countdown running in his head of how quick they’d be out of there. He pulled the zippo from his pocket, demonstrating it. It sparked up and he had it inches from the candles before Krista dropped on the end of the bed and patted the spot beside her. There was a bag set there, packaged up all neat. She’d not just gone mad on the room and the cake, she’d got him a gift too. ”You didn’t have to love,” he told her honestly, although some little bit of him lit up inside like he’d touched the lighter to it. It didn’t stop the fear from rolling up to join it as he slipped his finger in the top of the bag to pull it close to him.

Black tissue frothed up out of the top of the red bag – was the colour scheme meant to mean something? He huffed out a breath, his eyes ticking from the bag to Krista and back again. ”You been back to that shop in the mall?” That definitely would’ve been a gift for him – if she’d paid for it this time. The bag was heavier than that though, resisting the tug a little. He dipped his hand in, his fingers closing around a familiar weight. Liquid shifted inside of it, the plastic IV bag crinkling slightly beneath his fingers. ”You got me blood….” Now, was that an apology for the other week or was this a gift that came with the sort of weight he hadn’t figured out yet.

Mal frowned, looking back in. More tissue. Another blood bag that he set down with the first between them. Krista To-Go, like she was the bloody version of Starbucks. If that was it then she needn’t have bothered, he could’ve got what she wanted to give straight from the source tonight … and made it a little extra, with it being a special occasion at all. Nope. There was something else. ”Blood and a ring?” Hazel eyes blew wide as he stared at her. Was she planning on proposing? A bit modern for someone who clung to the church. He opened it like it was about to blow up in his hands. Not a ring. A necklace … a pair of them. Two chains, two pieces of a heart, cracked down the middle like they were broken. Best friends. Mal’s mouth fell open as he pulled them out. His lips moved wordlessly. What on God’s green earth had possessed her?

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 1087

It was practically a physical impossibility, but Mal was sure the hat was giving him hives. Or something in the room was. He wanted to squirm under the sheet wattage of Krista’s smile. It shone on him, revealing the mistake he’d made in engaging with all of this since he’d stepped into the festooned room. He resisted the urge to stick his finger under his collar and start scratching. Once he started he probably wouldn’t stop, not until Krista wrapped his hands around his in concern and started nursing him.

God, that was worse. It was all building up with layers of cringiness, the same way it had at the Mall when she’d slipped those panties into her pocket and had tried to leg it … straight to him. This time he wasn’t the saviour, he was the sole focus of all that was Krista. The girl he’d hooked up with. Ah, there was his mistake.

Nobody cared what age your blood bag was – not unless you went super weird with it – but the bloody prudes (and everybody thought the Victorians were bad) had a field day when there was more than a handful of years between you and the woman crawling willingly into your bed. It wasn’t like Krista was a fifteen year old, not yet old enough to get her leaner’s permit, let alone a full license. She was just child-like, enough that he squirmed as she glanced back at him. She was a good handful of years past the creep line, but was a couple of centuries off his own age. The founding families could choke on that, he’d seen plenty of them going around, locking lips with kids supposedly their own age, kids whose grest-great grandparents they’d probably babysat back when they’d been human instead of whatever this town had turned ‘em into.

Had he been the one to do this to Krista? The thought struck like an axe between his brows as Mal grunted in acknowledgement of Krista’s words. Wait … Oh God. Mal made another low sound, his lips curving slowly in response to her words. ”Right, love. You wouldn’t have to cadge a lift over to the hospital when you wanted to see me though, ‘ey? You get your own set of wheels and there’s a whole world out there for ya.” One that Krista wouldn’t pay an ounce of attention to if he wasn’t in it. Forget Pavlov and his bloody dogs, Krista practically drooled at just the mention of his name.

He supposed he should’ve been glad that there were levels to Krista’s sort of madness and this was mild in relation. Stealing would’ve meant a trip to the station to try and talk her out of it again, either that or her brother showing up again with that constipated expression on him. Mal’s lips twitched faintly, wondering if lighting them up would mean that this was over and done with faster. ”No one does at first, but it grows on you.” Like fungus. Like Krista.

The presents shouldn’t have come as any sort of surprise. She’d done all this after all. Bit by bit she’d worked her way into his life, into his room, until there were those sticky fingerprints everywhere. He could tell her she didn’t need to do any of this, but Krista only ever heard what she wanted to hear and that wasn’t ‘there’s no need love’. In fact she seemed to blank right through that little comment as he dipped into the bag. Mal snorted through her nose, the amusement becoming a frown as he felt the blood bags instead of the froth of lace. ”You did?” Alright, so it was his mind stopping dead at that thought now, just for a split second. ”Oh, love, you’ve got no idea,” he purred. That wasn’t gonna derail Krista for now though. She’d probably slap his hands and tell him there was some particular order to this that he wasn’t following.

Her expected pout didn’t break in, she was too bubbled up on the idea of making up for what’d happened when she’d overstepped yet another line. Pressing his tongue to his top lip, Mal studied the bags. She hadn’t gotten them drawn at the hospital when he’d been there, or he’d likely have been the one turning up with the needle. ”If I need them it’ll be from you,” he echoed. ”Look at you bein’ all clever about it.” Trying to make sure not a drop of anybody else’s blood crossed his lips. Another act of control he’d obviously side slip the moment Krista’s hawk like gaze wasn’t on him.

It wasn’t the blood that seemed to have the nerves rattling beside him though. Some people might’ve looked at her and thought there wasn’t much going on upstairs, but the speed those cogs could go spinning behind Krista’s wide eyes was genuinely scary. If they ever did tinker around with her she’d probably be unstoppable. Mal wrapped his fingers around the box, staring at Krista, who was obviously biting down on something. If she pulled out a marriage license he was going to brick it.

Were the necklaces better or worse? At least with the rings there was a chance of divorce. With these he’d probably be locked in for life, like some sort of explosive would go off if he tried to take it off. Astonishment had his mouth hanging open like a beached fish’s. That didn’t seem to bother her though. Krista bounced up, yelping in his face before she threw her arms around it. ”Oof.” He caught her with his mouth apparently, getting two seconds of silence and pleasure before Krista was scrambling around. ”I’ve never seen anythin’ like it,” he managed. ”Where did you find it?” So he could go and drain whichever idiot had come up with the idea.

Hazel eyes dropped between them as Krista took the first half of the necklace out. He caught something engraved on the back as she wrapped it around his neck. ”I can see. Little bits of one another hanging around our necks.” Like yokes, unescapable. He was gonna have to bury this thing under his clothes, Krista probably had some sixth sense about it being removed and she’d pop up, eyes flashing, temper a slap to the face. Mal drew in a breath and held it, his cheeks puffed out as he glanced down at the one around his neck. Not just cheesy but magnetic too, tying them together. ”Then we should do the cake, eh? Can’t have it spoiling while we wait, ‘specially since you went to so much trouble with it. All of this.” The thank you stuck in his throat though.

Mal’s chin dropped as he lifted the other half of the necklace out the bag. He slid it around Krista’s throat, pausing as she bounced right on him. Maybe that cake was gonna go out the window after all. ”You’re never takin’ it off, are ya?” There weren’t much of a question to it. He clipped it carefully, sighing into Krista’s throat as she obviously dropped her head to the side. Temptation right there, warm and sweet under her skin, soft against his skin as he skimmed a knuckle over that border between shoulder and lacy strap. ”You as hungry as I am?” Krista would probably squeal again, hauling his head down immediately, but it was only polite to make the offer wasn’t it?

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 1244

Old was subjective, although Mal felt somewhere about Methuselah’s nine hundred and sixty nine (he wasn’t saying that to Krista after the little education he’d given her about some of that – although maybe she’d have sputtered over him claiming to be just like one of those blokes in the bible again) when Krista threw herself at him. She’d peppered him with questions about ’what it had been like’ when he’d been younger after he’d given her a clue as to how long he’d been knocking about. Ridiculous things that he couldn’t have possibly witnesses or experienced, not without taking an extra digit on his age, something he couldn’t have done with any sort of certainty.

Two hundred and forty and a bit – or there abouts, that was all he could manage and it was close enough for Krista to be able to label him an old man. Maybe he was. Mal puffed out a breath at Krista’s giggle, dragging his gaze up from the bag to those twinkling hazel eyes. He mighta been turned at twenty nine, probably not that much older than her in actuality, but even those years had been rough ones, leaving him in a very different spot to her. He was older than his years, and Krista was much younger than them, still going through those terrible teens.

His teeth clamped on his tongue at the mention of the mall, leaving him glad her mouth wasn’t still plastered to his – he might’ve had hers off. Asking if she’d paid for them at the mall would bring all this … cheer to a screaming halt, literally. ”Just to make ‘em extra special.” Mal breathed. And impossible to give away, one glimpse of half a heart around some kid’s neck around town would have Krista throttling them with it as she tried to prove he’d done the dirty and given the physical manifestation of their love away. The betrayal would be met with a screaming banshee flying at him for a different reason to the one she’d just had. Luckily for him Krista probably had no idea a simple lump of wood would take him out – that woulda been an instant whoopsy right there.

Like he was in a perpetual minefield, Mal tried to avoid stepping on the claymores, so to speak, these days. He didn’t need to lose a leg, or a heart, for not doing the right thing – whatever that mighta been in Krista’s relatively empty little head. Had he been grateful enough? Hmm. Mal lifted a hand, tapping his necklace with his finger, not daring to flip it over. ”Well, it was all your idea, weren’tit? Got you to thank, love.” And if the cops came knocking at the door later to get back all the stolen goods, he was gonna pretend he had no idea what was going on. ’Sorry officer, she’s well … you know … not quite all there…’ That’d be bullshit though. Krista might not’ve been entirely sane, but what was going on behind those twinkling eyes was practically Machiavellian.

What was going on with her mouth was … loud. Yelping, giggling, if she started bouncing again she’d end up strangled with the damn necklace (entirely accidentally, of course). How long did humans live again? Sixty, seventy years? A bit more if you were lucky. If you weren’t then the ball of unstoppable energy you were tied to by an engraved best friends forever necklace would end up living forever – the first natural, non-blood drinking vampire. He couldn’t have come up with anything worse, even in the lab.

Could he? Bloody hell.

Krista had known exactly what would get him all sorts of grateful. Scraps of lace to trace with a blunt finger, that big fat artery in her neck presented as pretty as the gift. That sort of thing got a bloke hungry for stuff other than cake – it was just meant to rot your fangs anyway, weren’t it? His question had rumbled out low – worded simply enough – but Krista was taking her time thinking about it. That probably meant it had entered her head to grab anything to eat while she’d nabbed the gifts and scattered a metric ton of glitter in here. Mal knew he shoulda said nope, called a pause it all until he’d coaxed a chunk of the cake down Krista, but what he knew and what he did were two very different things. Why put all the rest of this to waste …. ”You little minx,” Mal purred with amusement. He sucked in a breath and puffed it out right against her skin. Well, it was his birthday after all



Did it count as going with a bang if there weren’t any actual party poppers going off? The thought slipped through Mal’s head, almost Krista style as he took his added birthday gift, everything drifting as he lost himself in the twin rhythms of Krista’s body, one thudding at either end of him. He skimmed his lips against her throat as he swallowed again. The rhythm had risen and fallen since he’d tumbled back with her, always like waves with her, a torment or a blessing (depending on his patience), always coming good in the end.

His hands drifted to Krista’s hips as her hands found his biceps, thumbs disappearing beneath the yellow lace she still wore down there, dipping to press into all that warm skin, ready to put the real bang in it all. He was gonna be lucky if he could walk after this – he’d just flop back on the bed, sated and practically glowing with it all while Krista dragged that cake onto the bed for them both. She might not’ve liked the idea of orange juice, but surely a top up with birthday cake was gonna be just as good, and more likely to have Krista beaming about his appreciation.

Pulling Krista in closer, his mouth sealing tighter against her throat as he chased the pop, Mal groaned lightly against her skin. Every shift left him feeling the sway of their joined necklaces and should’ve had his appetite dimming, but there was something to having her anchored right there. They tugged. A little pull, not enough to break the hold, but closer to it than before. Mal frowned, laving his tongue against her skin. Almost. A minute more and ….

Krista didn’t just plunge towards him as the almost ended up all the way there and she tapped out, she dropped like a stone into him. His head was driven back into the pillows, the weight of her anchoring his mouth (luckily), so he didn’t rip her throat out as she wrenched away from him. Gently, his fangs snicked out of her skin, his breath puffing against her neck. ”That good, eh? I’m not even done yet, love …” Fingers curled into the yellow lace as he shook her. Rag doll limp, not even in that boneless way he often had her at the end, when she’d flop on him and somehow cling at the same time, a koala you couldn’t pry off even if you tried. ”Krista…oi! He curled his hand around the side of her neck, trying to drag the rock of her head up off his chest. Now that pause was coming back to bugger him, weren’t it.

With her head even partially lifted, Mal could see that her eyes were closed, her expression lax and not just in that blissed out way he was familiar with now. Fuck. He gave her another shake, like that would make up for the lack of blood pumping round her system. "Don't need me feedin' on anybody else now, eh? Bloody hell, Krista." There was a faint whine of desperation to his voice. Cursing again, Mal shoved his other wrist into his own mouth, tearing at the skin. She'd probably squeal again at the idea of his blood being in her system after this. If she had a clue of how this whole thing worked she'd be running out into the nearest road. "Drink for me, love, just a lil bit." He pressed his wrist to her lips, the scarlet slipperiness his now, hopefully trickling between her lips to magically bring her around.

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 1383