#well that's kind of untrue i did also start it for 'what if vampire whumper using claws instead of teeth'

[whimperwoods]

Vampire Labyrinth 5

Hey look! Vampire caretaker!

Follows part 1, part 2,  part 3, and part 4.

tw:  nonsexual nudity (temporary),

tag list: @waywardwhump @justwhumpitwhumpitgood @insanitywishes @taboolynx

*****

Lianna saw the light well before she was actually aware of it, the darkness easing away until she could see her own arms, her own skinned knee, the smooth, cold floor.

She stared at her limbs, watching them begin to shake harder as she looked.

“Oh!”

The moment the voice spoke, she moved on instinct, uncurling and trying to scramble backward, her head shooting up to look toward the sound.

It was a man with dark hair and thin, pointed features, carrying a lit torch. He wore a long black coat, exquisitely tailored to him, but the clothes underneath it looked just nicer than average, of the sort a merchant might wear while traveling through her small town, away from his home in the city.

He held his free hand out in front of him and she noticed the claws and squeaked, forcing herself backward again.

“Shhh,” he said gently, “Shh, you’re alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She backed up farther, her whole body numb with the cold, or perhaps with the fear.

“No, no, it’s alright.” He took a step forward.

“Stay away!” she managed, her voice hoarse and weak.

“I need to get a look at you.” He sounded calm, but there was something under it, some edge, and she moved quickly to cover herself, blushing.

The man stepped forward and all she could do with her hands in front of where she didn’t want him to look was wriggle backward like a worm.

He hummed sympathetically. “Shhh, it’s alright, sweeting. You’re going to be alright.”

“No,” she answered, panicked, her breath coming so hard and fast it made her head spin.

The man grunted, displeased, and she shivered, wriggling backward again.

He put the torch down gently, and removed his coat, throwing it over one arm before picking up the torch again.

“It’s alright,” he said again, stepping closer. “Put your arms through the sleeves, and pull this on backward. Your back looked the worst of it.”

She couldn’t puzzle out the meaning of that until he squatted down a little bit, sinking into his knees, and tossed the coat onto the floor in front of her. It landed a few inches away, sliding another inch and then coming to a halt, barely crumpled at all, and ready to be put on.

She didn’t move, half expecting the coat to reach over and bite her, to swamp her in darkness and eat her up into itself.

“It’s alright,” the man said again, “Nothing to fear.”

An hour ago, two, five, whenever it was she’d been outside waiting for the sunset, she might have laughed at that. Now, her disbelief came out only as a twisted sob she had no control over.

“Shhh,” he said again, “Shhh, You’re alright. You’ve got to be cold. Humans always are, outside of the center. Go ahead and put the coat on so I can get a look at you.”

She didn’t want to be looked at, but she did want the coat, and after a moment of his strange bronze eyes gazing into her own, unblinking, she scrambled to grab the coat. If he was going to look either way, she wanted to be covered.

As soon as she touched the coat, she knew it was expensive, the heavy silk brocade richly textured under the fingers of her bad hand. The front edges were trimmed in a rich lace, so dark a wine color it was nearly black, too. As she pulled it on backward, shoving her hands through the sleeves and pulling the inside of the coat up against her chest, she found more of the same lace decorating the cuffs, standing out only a little from the black-on-black texture of the rest.

She lifted her hands up, staring at the lace, and caught the vampire’s movement only as a swift change in the light.

Before she could look up, he was beside her, crouching down on one knee halfway behind her.

His hand touched the back of her shoulder and she flinched away, hard.

“Shhh.” His voice was deep and soothing, richer from this close to her, and he was holding the torch well away from her with one hand, leaving only the one free.

She scrambled away again, but had nowhere to go but sideways, where she huddled up against the wall and was trapped.

The man growled, a dangerous, animal noise, and her entire body shuddered.

“These young vampires never listen,” he said, “Heaven help that boy if I find him before you’re all patched up, or I’ll be sending him to hell myself.”

He came closer again, and she squeezed her eyes shut, pressing harder into the wall and turning her face away from him.

His fingers touched her shoulder again, gently, and she flinched. “Shh,” he whispered, “It’s alright.” He probed gently at the edges of one of the scratches, and even with him careful to keep his claws out of the way, it split open. She whimpered, a strangled little noise, and his hand pulled away quickly, only to return with no claw at all. He ran the back of his knuckles gently down her back, staying carefully between the claw marks, and she shivered under the caress.

“Can you stand?” he asked, lifting his hand up and then straightening, the angle of the light shifting as he stood.

The coat was cool, like it hadn’t been worn before, only just now starting to catch and hold her body heat. She turned to look at him, uncoiling slightly. “I have to, don’t I?” she asked hoarsely, meeting his eyes even as they terrified her. “I - I signed the contract.”

“The contract,” he repeated, both face and voice unreadable as he glanced away, suddenly distant from her, like there was a chasm between them. “Yes, I suppose you would have. The things they’ve made of the contract over all these years-” he trailed off.

When he looked back down at her again, he was back with her, bronze eyes warming as they met hers. “Give me your hand,” he said softly. “I’ll help you up.”

Her hand shook violently as she held it out toward him, half unsure of herself even as she did it.

He hummed softly, thoughtfully, then leaned down and wrapped his hand around her elbow, instead, where she was protected from his claws by the coat sleeve. “Hold on to me,” he said, “Hold onto my arm.”

She did, and then he was pulling to her feet with a quiet but unexpected grunt of effort.

Once she was on her feet, she felt weak and wobbly, her legs shaking like a baby deer’s.

Another displeased grunt, but when she looked at his face, it was turned away, like he wasn’t thinking about her.

She took one tentative step forward and had to squeeze hard on his arm to keep from falling down. His head snapped back toward her too fast, moving with supernatural speed, and her instinctive flinch away was too much for her left leg. As it crumpled, he swung around to catch her other elbow, the two of them ending up face to face and the torch falling to the ground between them, lighting everything at a strange angle and making stranger, more frightening shadows dance across his face, emphasizing its thinness, its hollows, even, now that she was closer to it, the odd, almost powdery texture of his skin.

She found herself breathing heavily again, panting with fear as her eyes filled with tears that blurred the dancing of the flames into something even more unpredictable.

“Alright,” he said gently, some edge that had been in his voice before disappearing so that he just sounded tired. “Let’s sit you back down.”

She sank down to sit, and he came with her, kneeling as he eased her to the floor and then rearranging to sit beside her with another unexpected old-man grunt. He didn’t look old, the dark hair he wore tied up at the back of his neck greying only slightly and only at the temples.

He reached over, his claws still bent carefully away from her, and brushed the tears gently from her eyes with the back of his knuckles.

She held still, trembling and waiting, but his touch was gentle, and then he pulled away again and reached for her hand, instead. She nearly snatched it away, but something felt - different, and she stayed still, instead, looking sideways at him in curiosity, even as her heart pounded in her chest.

He lifted her hand from her thigh, brought it to his lips, and as her breath stopped in terror, kissed the back of it and then let it drop back down again, away from his fangs.

He twisted her hand sideways, revealing the inside of her wrist and she knew for certain that she should pull away, but this time she felt frozen, no more able to yank her hand away than she was to breathe.

He pressed the pads of the fingers of his other hand against her pulse, concentrating, but she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Her head started to get lighter and lighter and then the instinct to breathe was finally, finally stronger than the terror locking her in place, and she found herself sobbing, gasping for air and letting it back out in broken, desperate noises part of her was ashamed to make in front of him.

When Lorenzo pulled her sideways, tugging her halfway into his lap and wrapping his arms around her, she let him, burying her face in his shirt in spite of every instinct, every thought she’d ever had. Her throat was shattering apart, her whole body heaving and shuddering, every fiber of her being stretched beyond its limits.

His body was cold but soft, and his arms were strong but didn’t crush her, and when one of his clawed hands started carding gently through her hair, it was a reassurance, not a threat.

She didn’t realize until he spoke, and she felt the vibrations of his voice against her cheek, that he had no heartbeat.

“You’re alright,” he said quietly, his deep voice rumbling through both of them, “You’re alright. I’ve got you. I’m going to skin that boy alive before I send him back to the counsel. Then we’ll see if they send me another one like that next time.”

Her hands tightened in the front of his shirt, and the arm he’d wrapped around her held her just a little tighter in response, and she stayed in his arms until she fell asleep in his lap, right there on the floor, her ragged, childlike sobs only stopping when she slid away into unconsciousness.