Heartthrob

Esthrielle sighed into Esper James's now-messed mop of silken locks, the cornsilk colour fading to a desaturated pale amidst the moonlight and evening's shadowed embrace. They were quite the pair to look at, weren't they? A little ghoul so pale as to be a printer-paper effigy of a person, just as frail and as apt to leave papercuts, every feature as permanent and unchanging as an inked sketch. And then Esthrielle, organic and yet not, brought closer to Heaven by the scalpel of a surgeon and formed into a hateful angel, her body toned and lean yet with little true, blood-rich muscle to speak of. So very different... and yet, despite outward opposition, they were simply too similar on the inside.

EJ pulled Est closer, bodies flush and in such forced proximity that EJ, if she truly focused, could feel the faint pulse of Esthrielle's heartbeat in her own blood-hazed state. The feline feast was wearing off, but she was glad, in some unspoken way, that it had at least given her enough of a rush that she could relish the power and sensation it had brought, here in a quiet and calm place. It would have felt a waste to give in to her hunger only to be driven away and never get to luxuriate in those moments of delight that touch brought. She still scolded herself for such thoughts, though - this was far from a calm time, and delighting in decadence bought with blood could and should wait.

Esper James's mind's eye drifted towards her temporary home, back with Kell and Purity. They had to return as quickly as they could. Momentarily, she thought to check her pockets for her phone - and then further berated herself for even thinking to do so. It was back at Judas's manse, and frankly, it was probably for the best. She'd watched enough cop shows to know that they could triangulate calls and other mechanical magecraft as such, and if Judas called her? She wasn't sure she'd be strong enough to ignore or deny it.

That burnt her in the way acid burns flesh, eating away at it with vile, acrid chemicals and rendering it naught but particles and foam. Even after everything, even after the events of this and last evening, she knew she couldn't deny her abuser. For the first time, however, she felt herself acknowledging it actively - no longer a passive background thought, it was one that took precedence over any safety in Judas's regularity and predictability.

Judas was her abuser. She had been abusing Esper James all these years, physically and emotionally, mostly, and frankly? Their date? The date she had regarded so fondly, a night when she had finally felt wanted and accepted and even preferred by the vampiress? One where she had felt special to Judas, as if Judas actually liked her? It made bile reach viscous, stinging fingers up her throat from her garbage disposal stomach. She grit her teeth and fought back the urge to spit in disdain at the mere thought of Judas, at all she had done.

Not for the first time, she was glad that Purity had been her first. If they had met any later, Judas would have been the one to imprint herself so fiercely upon EJ, and then the blonde would never have escaped the power-hungry sanguinophile's clutches. She would have been forever condemned to whatever the blood-sucker would have wanted, and she would have forced herself to love it just to cope. Just to rationalize it to herself.

Even as Est's hot tears fell down upon EJ's skin, Esper James, too, found herself crying now - her own tears not so hot, not so borne from sorrow, but instead from bitter remorse and strangled fury trying to choke past the newly-built walls in her heart. She had never... She had never felt this way, she didn't think. Self-loathing wasn't unusual, but the addition of abhorrence for someone she had begrudgingly accepted as a fixture in her life shook her feelings into an unfamiliar, unidentified slurry.

She gave Esthrielle another squeeze, pushing a gentle 'gack!' sound from the other woman, before posturing to let Est know she wanted to end their embrace. As Esthrielle pulled away, EJ looked up to her crimson eyes, the LEDs flickering with emotion, and spoke in a tone that hopefully came across as caring and not overly stern. "Est? We've gotta get home. Come on. You... You know the way, right? You know how to get us back. I'll follow you, hold your hand... And then we'll rest when we get back. Please?"

It was the 'please' that drove the dagger into Esthrielle's heart, the railroad stake pounded in, nailing down her sorrow and grief to be brought up later. It was something that they could lament once they were out of the frying pan, and hopefully, they'd avoid the fire. Est nodded, steeling herself, gathering up her emotional clutter like dirty laundry and pushing it into the hamper of her heart. She'd do the wash when they got home, wherever and whatever home was. For now, they had to stay alive.

The two began to move after a brief stop to ensure their robes were tied. Barefoot on the slush-riddled sidewalks of Vitus, in the cold and the dark and the wet, it was both a blessing and a curse that the city itself was nocturnal. People certainly looked, and some stared, but in the pursuit of escapist pleasures in the city of the dead, such acts toeing the line of outright exhibitionism were just barely common enough that no one gave too much of a thought to it. To them, the women were just girlfriends engaging in a bit of risque fun, or perhaps escorts returning home from a client's address. Nothing harmful enough to make a fuss over.

In many ways, these two trails of thought were closer and further from the truth than any bystanders could ever have known. Yet, as they stumbled past waves of flesh both living and dead, hands held in a union of synthetic heat and organic chill, the eyes of the world felt dead and glazed to the truth of their own existence. No one could guess what they had been put through, and it was doubtful if anyone would even believe them if they confessed it all.

Fuck 'em, then. Fuck this whole city. Fuck everyone and everything who lived herein, EJ thought to herself as they pushed past a bulky mortal who was recording the pair with his phone, a dopey grin on his face. EJ bared her teeth at him, some of her distaste bubbling up in the form of outright aggression, but this only made him giggle with delight. Surely she wouldn't actually bite him, he must have thought; surely, the little slut was only playing it up for the camera.

Such were the reactions of more and more passers-by as the pair left the nicer part of town and drifted into the dregs and ghettos of Vitus, trying to avoid as many cameras and Tsang patrols as possible. None passed them at all, none that they could see, and after almost an hour of walking in the snow and ice and slush and cold, rough concrete, the pair began to let themselves calm. Their muscles relaxed, the rage in EJ's heart dulled to a flickering ember at best, and they let their hands clasp one another with less insistent desperation.

They turned a corner - and Esper James found herself running face-first into a black-clad operator in red-striped combat attire. He stumbled back a little, his face concealed and his head obscured by a helmet, but from his hesitation it took him a moment to look the pair over before he reacted. EJ, in turn, fell to the ground from the force of the impact. The security agent visibly tensed and drew his sidearm, a powerful-looking handgun of black polymer, the red dot alighting upon EJ's face as he raised his weapon.

The two women raised their hands in surrender, Est's face falling at how fucked they were, EJ's eyes remaining frantic and alert. The man stepped back a single pace, firearm now aimed squarely between Esper James's eyes. "Esper James Price-Wynnfield? An APB was issued for you and your little friend here. You have the right to remain silent. Hands behind your back." Est went to comply, though slowly - EJ, however, felt that earlier rage ripple up from some hidden place below her heart's floorboards. She wasn't going to let this stupid fucker just take them both in. What would happen to the pair of them?

Est would be lucky to have her limbs removed for study and her organic bits slain to be revived for indefinite imprisonment or worse. EJ? They'd cremate her most likely, or give her the same treatment as Est - cauterize her wounds where her limbs were removed and throw her in a cell forever. Maybe chain her to her desk at Tsang HQ, for Judas's benefit. In truth, these weren't very likely outcomes, but EJ's mind whipped itself up into a whirlwind of imagined cruelties and fates too horrific for words. Her life had been thrown into such disarray recently that anything resembling basic human decency was unimaginable - Vitus was sadistic, never fair.

"Ma'am. Hand behind your back. I won't say it again." He flicked the safety off on his pistol, re-readying his stance. Esthrielle nodded to EJ, the pain in her heart leading to a resignation too heavy to lift, a sorrow too imposing to budge. She couldn't will herself to escape her fate. EJ's mind was racing, though - she wasn't so much resigned as she was frantic, feeling some of that feral energy from the manse return, her blood-haze having ended but now some of the old strength returning anew. She pushed herself forwards onto all fours as if making to stand up, before pointing behind the officer, eyes snapping wide and mouth splitting to scream a command to no one in particular.

"Now! Get him! Kill th-this fucking pig!" She hoped it was convincing. Her trembling voice and tensed muscles made it just convincing enough to cause the officer to turn, the idea that he may be alone against a pack of dissidents forcing him to make a snap decision. Too bad for him, though, he chose wrong. As he turned, EJ burst forth like a bullet propelled from a rifle, tackling him at the knees and sending the pair of them to the ground. Esthrielle gasped, holding back a scream of her own as the events began to unfold.

Teeth more like fangs. Nails turned to claws. The desperation to survive outweighing anything the officer could muster. It was good, in its own way - the blood, fresh and hot from mortal veins, warmed her chilled exterior as it sprayed. The sidewalk was painted in a lustrous ruby shade as his carotid was pierced, and it took only seconds for his hand to release the firearm to clatter to the sidewalk. For the second time this evening, Esper James's mouth was filled with the flesh of another, the blood of another, the bone of living kin. It was just as good as every time previous.

She couldn't prevent herself from swallowing what she bit, chewing what she took, drinking what sprayed forth. It wasn't as uncontrolled as it had been with Purity, that first time she had slipped... It wasn't as much of an all-consuming euphoria that stripped away all agency as it was a steady, nearly-overwhelming overflow of ecstasy. The contraction of her musculature was orgasmic as she glutted herself, the man's adrenaline filling her own deadened veins as she gulped down every drop of red her maw could retain. It took a shocked Esthrielle grabbing her hard by the shoulders to yank her off of his corpse.

"EJ?! We'll talk about this l-later. Let's... Get the fuck out of here." From the shiver in her voice, her quivering tone belied a renewed sense of fear towards the ghoul, seeing her consume the meat of another human raw and with such gusto. Cannibalism was taboo to all, of course, but for the Easterner who had been raised to see all undead as blood-feasting gluttons who rejected the natural order? Seeing a girl who she had come to care about take chunks so freely and so eagerly from the still-warm corpse of a man who would likely remember every dying moment when he awoke in the morgue? It sat poorly with the Wayward.

EJ made a sloppy attempt to wipe her mouth with one arm, her opposite hand reaching out to grab at the discarded firearm. It was snatched without a second thought, the action more instinctual than deliberate - guns meant safety, at least to a degree, and it was better for them to have any kind of gun just in case. She doubted she'd be able to pull this all off again, and frankly, Est might just leave her out to dry or worse if she slipped even one more time. Esthrielle didn't say anything about the gun, thankfully, and instead just helped usher the ghoulette along the sidewalk ever further.

The adrenaline of the blood heightened her high even further this time, and helped it linger in her, clinging to her veins like an oily meal clings to the tongue. She briefly thought upon herself, upon her actions and how they made her feel, her mind having nothing else to focus on as they walked. She didn't feel the guilt now that she had when she had killed that officer back in her housing complex. Why not? Why was this time different? What had changed? The only answer that came was the copper aftertaste that lingered on her saliva, and the warmth of a full gut.

Of course. Like a junkie, getting her fix blurred any moral qualms that came in the process of it. There was a reason that FixAte was unofficially government mandated, and she knew she should be disgusted with herself for what she had done, though she couldn't feel the emotions forming in her core. The closest thing to regret she felt was that she was getting more blood all over Esthrielle from contact alone. Their stolen robes were probably ruined, but knowing their original owner, they were probably proofed against bloodstains.

Eventually they arrived back in the industrial district, the still of the moonlit night and the serenity of evening air somewhat sullied by the perpetual smog which marred Vitus's sky - even worse now, in the throes of nocturnal activity. That was to say, it was exceedingly dark - Esper James could see just as well as always, her second-living cornea adapted to near utter darkness, and Esthrielle's own ocular implants were fitted with low-light vision, the same as she had used at the manse. The darkness was less of an obstruction, and more of a comforting blanket which blotted out the pain of the city itself.

The gravel and debris of the abandoned sections of the industrial district stung and sliced upon EJ's soles, Esthrielle's synthskin more resistant than the ghoul's natural flesh, but the pain was forgotten as the old factory they called home came into view. The pair made what rush they could, that being a slight hustle, in their hurry to get back inside. They got within fifteen feet of the door, give or take, before it was thrown open.

There stood a figure in time-worn clothes that came from a thrift store's discount section, a pair of red and black plaid sweatpants with a t-shirt depicting a cat attracting various metal objects with the words 'PUSSY MAGNET' emblazoned above and below the fictitious feline. Her hair was bubblegum pink, her physique was buxom, and her eyes were reddened and puffy from countless tears shed in isolation. Purity Aloise Francharde. As soon as EJ saw her, she was torn - torn between rushing forth to her lover, and continuing at a pace that Est seemed comfortable at. Thankfully she didn't need to choose.

Purity stomped forwards, feet clad in pink fuzzy house-slippers, and Est in turn began to drag a surprised but enthusiastic EJ onwards to meet up more quickly with the familiar face. Purity was comfort - she was safety. Purity was one of the few people in the city left that both women felt they could trust, and surely she would be happy to see them home safe and sound, especially after their unexpected, unplanned absence.

EJ smiled up at her girlfriend moments before a full-force slap was delivered to her cheek, leaving a stinging hand-print that quickly began to bruise. Purity collapsed to follow EJ as the meat-eater fell to the ground, Est's initial instinct to try and stop Purity from whatever assault she was planning being defused as the pinkette took Esper James in her arms and swaddled her up in warm, desperate flesh. Purity's entire body shook with every fresh sob, but it was good. EJ was home. Est was home, too, and Purity was glad for that, but it wasn't quite the same. Not yet.

"Esper J-J-James...! Where the f-fuck were you two!? It's been an entire day and th-then some! I thought you died!" The pinkette leaned down even further into her lover, the pair of them pressed tightly, as if Purity was trying to squeeze all of their shared pain and grief from the both of them like fruit set to be juiced. EJ held her tongue, though she desperately wished she could find the strength to retort by saying something about wishing that she had died. It was too bitter, too catty... and here in Purity's arms, home again, with Esthrielle by her side? With the three of them safe and sound, for this very moment at least?

She could have died right here and now, and at least then, she would have died happily.