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Garnet drags her feet as she makes her way home, eyes blinking in an attempt to stay awake. She’d been roped into a late shift at work and was exhausted, unable to think of anything but collapsing into her bed, which she would mercifully be able to do if she could just keep herself moving for a few more minutes.

She’s so concerned with not falling asleep on her feet that she’s barely paying attention to where she’s going. She’s paying so little attention that she fails to notice anything blocking her path until suddenly she’s falling forward. Adrenaline kicks in just in time for her to awkwardly stay on her feet, stumbling forward but not hitting the ground. She wheels around, ready to glare at whatever object was blocking her path… until she gets a good focus on it and realizes it’s a person.

Panic sets in as she scrambles forward, rushing to get a better look at them. She’s even more horrified when she realizes it’s a young woman, looking incredibly out of place lying by the side of the road. “Oh shit,” she breathes, suddenly very awake as she falls to her knees down next to her. “Are you okay?”

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Garnet blinks, unsure how to even proceed here. Why is this woman so upset? Just a few minutes ago they’d been fighting, and now she’s just a sobbing mess on her living room floor. Weren’t vampires supposed to be… glad to be vampires? The sight invokes enough empathy, however, that she removes her foot from the woman’s back. She’s fairly certain now that she won’t try anything, or at least that she wouldn’t be able to be sneaky about it.

She doesn’t fail to notice that her first demand was glossed over, but it’s not like she can’t come back to it. If this woman will readily admit to being a vampire, maybe it will be easier to get her to talk about that, if she can manage to talk anymore at all. And if she’s honest with herself, Garnet really does want to know more. Maybe further questioning along these lines will also help her decide what to do, because at the moment she isn’t sure what her plans are for when this is over. Let her go, to allow her to attack someone else? Find a way to kill her, despite how uneasy the thought is starting to make her feel? Keep her as some sort of weird prisoner to avoid having to actually choose between the two?

“Are you actually starved?" is Garnet's next question, hoping the answer to that will lead to something.

Edited 2015-07-25 15:19 (UTC)

Pearl can barely register the weight removed from her back, face pressed into the dampened floor tiles as if she were still pinned to them.

"Yes," she sniffs near-inaudibly, a black surge of self-hate coiling within her at the admission. She's so weak, so helpless before this hunger, even as her mind is screaming that she doesn't want to feed. Useless, useless, monster.

Feeling less and less like she’s in any immediate danger, Garnet lowers her guard further. She brings her hand up to press against the wound at her neck, hoping to stop any more flow of blood. Despite herself, she feels more and more like she might want to help this woman, though she isn’t sure if it’s for her sake or for the sake of possible future victims.

“Can you only drink human blood?” Maybe animal blood would work, though Garnet’s not sure where you could even find that.

Edited 2015-07-25 16:00 (UTC)

"N-no, any," she answers too readily, a far cry from someone who two weeks ago refused to even feed from a street rat. Only the next moment does it occur to Pearl how strange the question is. It might be nothing more than her own frenetic delusions, but it's almost as though this stranger is thinking of... feeding her?

Blinking rapidly to try and clear her vision, Pearl tilts her head to try and catch sight of the woman's face. Between her vertigo and the insistent flow of tears, the endeavor's rendered meaningless -- but even in her current state, Pearl can't miss the twin rivers of red in their steady trickle down. She feels the savage heat spike up from the back of her skull once more, and her sobbing is silenced by a burst sheer panic. No no no no not again--

Her arms fly up to cover her face, body jerking into a tight, trembling ball. "Your neck," she howls, "cover your neck--"

Her one hand is already near the wound, but Garnet wastes no time bringing the other up, too, and clamping them both down as hard as she can. It really seems as though this woman doesn’t really want to eat her… Or at least this less horrific part of her doesn’t. What if this human-like side of her starts losing?

She looks down at herself to find that she’s not really covering up much, at least as far as vampire temptations may be concerned. The source of new blood is out of sight, but it’s already run down and ruined her shirt, and there are spots and smears elsewhere that must have come from their fight. She’s covered in it, or at least more covered in blood than she’s ever been in her life. The sight makes her feel incredibly ill, and if this woman starts going on a biting rampage again, she’s not certain she’ll have the strength to stop her a second time. Not if she’s lost as much as she thinks she might have.

“If I can find you animal blood, will that help you not try to kill me?” Garnet knows she doesn’t have many options there, but at the very least there’s a cat that hangs around her building she feels like she could likely catch. She likes the cat, but she likes being alive a hell of a lot more.

Edited 2015-07-25 16:52 (UTC)

The offer makes Pearl go quiet and still, the quaking in her shoulders easing at last. She doesn't dare to straighten out her body or try and look at the woman again, but she does give a quiet, raspy "yes, please", mumbled into the barricade of her crossed arms.

Garnet nearly says something more but decides against it, instead turning around and exiting the apartment again. She’s hoping the ridiculous hour will keep her from being spotted by anyone, because god knows what would happen if she tried to explain the situation. She can barely explain it to herself: what the hell is she doing, leaving her own home covered in blood, seeking out a stray cat as some sort of sacrifice to a vampire that just attacked her?

Keeping herself alive is the only rationalization she can manage at the moment, so it has to be enough. She looks around and thankfully sees no one, no lights on in any apartments but her own. She sneaks around the building, making her way to where she normally spots the stray. It takes a few minutes of searching and what probably sounds like insane coaxing on her part, but soon she spots a flash of eyes near the bushes.

The cat knows her, she’s left canned food for him a couple times, and it makes her gut wrench when he comes right up to her, interested in what she may have to offer and not at all aware of the fate she’s condemning him to. “I’m sorry,” she whispers as she grabs him, though she knows it’s meaningless.

She clutches him to her chest as she makes her way into her apartment, ignoring his angry struggling, heartbeat picking up again as she closes the door. She’s scared of what she’s about to do, of what she could be unleashing in giving this vampire a food source… But she can’t see that she has any other choice.

“I brought a cat,” she says, voice audibly cracking in a way she wishes it wouldn’t, hovering above the crumpled body on the floor. A cat is a small creature, and she really hopes this will be enough.

Pearl barely moves a muscle in the time the woman's gone. It occurs to her, dimly, that there's no real reason why she would go and search for animal blood for the monster that assailed her -- God knows when she'll return, and God knows what she'll bring with her, be it backup or weapons. Perhaps the safest thing for her to be getting up and escaping while she's able.

Yet the thought doesn't inspire enough fear in her to propel her limp, aching muscles.

Pearl is so, so tired. She can't go through another day of this. Being killed here and now might be the best thing that could happen -- to her, and to the rest of humanity. She's a parasite, a mistake, she should've died a month back lying on that road.

She's crying again, but her tears are quieter this time, slipping from her cheeks and splattering onto the floor.

Imagine her surprise when the woman really does return a few minutes later with a cat bundled in her arms.

Pearl shifts to look up at her, blinking the wetness from her eyelids. The cat has frizzled fur and no collar -- a stray, to be missed by no one -- and her stomach lurches with equal parts hunger and nausea. The cat meowls in distress at the sight of her, struggling to escape the woman's arms. As if it already knows.

Pearl would throw up, were there anything in her stomach. She can't, she can't, this isn't right, she's so hungry--

For a split-second her face contorts into that beastly visage again, but she forces it back with a labored groan. "C-can you," she croaks, stopping to swallow against the bile rising in her throat, "can you kill it?"

For a few long seconds Garnet just stands there, staring down at the woman lying on her floor. It takes a long time to process: this vampire, who readily attacked her earlier, is now requesting she kill this cat herself before she’ll eat it? She can’t be serious. No wonder she’s starving, if she can't even eat a cat alive... But she must also be completely out of her mind. Garnet’s stomach lurches again at the thought. How would she even kill a cat? Why would she kill the cat?

“I’m not doing that,” she says, arms shaking as she holds the still-struggling cat tight to her chest. She can’t do that. She feels terrible enough that she’s brought him here to die anyway. She can't be the one to take him out. “Just… just eat him.” Eat him and get it over with.

"I can't," Pearl screeches back, voice strained with panic, fingers raking down the sides of her face. "Look at him," she says, "he's scared," if this woman's reasoning would be any different.

She could kill him. In her rational mind, Pearl knows that as soon she holds the live animal between her hands, with its pulse beating beneath her palms, every drop of empathy and morality would leave her in an instant and only return once its body is lifeless and cold.

The thought leaves her numb with fear.

"Please," she whispers, nails digging into her cheeks. "I've never had to kill before."

Garnet had certainly never had to kill before either, and she’s definitely not the one that needs to eat here. She almost begins to argue further, but deep down she knows that it would be hopeless. Which does she prefer, this sobbing mess of a woman or the monster she shifts into to kill? Which one would she rather appease? Part of her does want to help this woman, but the other part of her is still scared she’s going to change again.

She tries to mentally detach herself from the situation as she turns to head to the kitchen, and after everything that’s happened so far, it’s sort of working. She tells herself she has no choice, tells herself she’ll be the one to die if she doesn’t do as this vampire asks. She doesn’t feel like that’s a lie, as she’s becoming more and more certain that the longer the vampire goes without food, the more likely she is to shift back into a monster again to get what she needs.

She’s barely able to keep it together as she grabs a small knife, hand shaking violently. She tries to focus on steadying her hand, on just getting this over with, tries to focus on anything but the reality of what she’s doing. It works just barely long enough, her detachment serving her until the knife hits resistance. But by that point, the deed is done. Garnet pulls back and the knife drops clattering to the floor as she lurches over to the sink to vomit violently into it.

She’s significantly more of a mess when she returns to the living room, now shaking so much from the cumulation of blood loss, nausea, and fear that she’s not certain how she’s walking. She deposits the dead cat in front of the vampire, hastily taking a few steps back and crossing her trembling arms once she does so. “Please eat it now,” she begs, the threat of tears evident in her voice. She doesn’t want what she’s done to be for nothing. The cat's sacrifice needs to help the both of them.

The corpse hits the floor with a dull thud, and Pearl pushes herself onto her hands and knees with whatever strength she's able to summon. She looks down at the cat, yellow eyes open still, limbs splayed motionlessly on the floor, and a wave of terror and guilt washes over her features before the smell of blood hits her nostrils and she's gone.

There is nothing but instinct, nothing but the physical -- flesh caving beneath her frantic fingertips, fur scratching her lips and nose and blood, warm, wonderful blood flooding her mouth and spilling down her parched throat. It's not the same dizzying, near-electric taste of human blood, but she gratefully gulps it down all the same, feeling it surge through her veins, stirring her heart back to life. She drinks and drinks until there's nothing left and she's sucking at dry flesh and clumpy fur. With a snarl of disappointment she tears her mouth away, letting the useless sack of bones fall back to the floor.

The beast is not sated, but it has been quelled for now, and Pearl's consciousness seeps back in as her features reassume human shape and her eyes regain focus. Knowing this would happen makes her no more equipped for stomaching it, and she sharply turns away from the sight the moment she's processed it, burying her face in the crook of one bony arm.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs into the silence of the room, and swallows thickly through a shudder.

Even as she turns her head away, Garnet is sick with horror at what she knows is going on. She swallows down the urge to vomit again, feeling certain there isn’t anything left in her stomach anyway. She tries to ignore any noises coming from behind her, tries hard not to imagine what the sight must look like.

She doesn’t dare turn back again until she hears the woman’s quiet apology, not wanting to remind the hungry side of her that she’s still in the room, still covered in blood. Her eyes dart to avoid the cat’s body, and she slowly moves forward to get a closer look at the vampire herself.

“Was that… enough?” She’s not certain how to proceed from here. Is she safe now? If so, what does she do with this disaster of a vampire curled on her floor?

Pearl slowly pulls her arm away, grimacing at the smear of red now adorning it. She drags the back of her hand over her mouth, and it comes away bloodied. Her eyes flicker across its surface for a moment, conflicted, before she caves in to the urge and covers it with her mouth to lick it clean. Then, with a bow of her head, Pearl runs her tongue down to the inside of her elbow, where she stops to suck the smeared drops of blood off her skin.

Such a shameful sight, but by this point-- does it matter?

She's a bit slow in responding, breaking her mouth away a couple seconds later with a soft, wet pop. She doesn't try to lie. Even if she wanted to reassure the woman, it'd be difficult after this little display.

"Um," Pearl begins weakly, wiping the back of her hand on her dirty jeans. "It's... better."

Her eyes drop to her lap and linger there for a moment, before flittering up to look at the woman's face. It's the first time tonight she's able to see her clearly, and despite her striking features and sturdy build, she looks every bit the trembling wreck Pearl feels.

But then, wouldn't anyone, being subjected to something like this?

That gut-wrenching guilt immediately resurfaces in Pearl, strong enough to drown out any leftover pangs of hunger at the blood that stains the woman's clothes and skin. But she looks down again still.

"... You saved me."

Edited 2015-07-26 16:05 (UTC)

Supposing she’s probably not in any immediate danger, Garnet moves to take a seat on the couch. The exhaustion that she felt earlier is coming back with a vengeance. She can’t bring herself to relax fully, however, and stays positioned at the edge of the cushion, arms crossed tightly at her stomach, eyes trained on the woman on her floor.

…Saved her? It’s true, in a way. She’s not certain she would have done so had she known what this woman was, had she not been in grave danger herself. Still, she can’t deny some part of her had felt sorry for her, that some part of her had wanted to ease her suffering. Aside from the twisted feeding face and the horror that accompanied it, this woman still seemed pathetically human. And watching a person suffer wasn’t something Garnet had ever been able to bear.

“I saved me, too." For now, anyway.

Pearl shifts from her place on the floor, her upper half twisting so she can follow the woman with her eyes. Away from the corpse on the floor.

"You could've killed me," she says, blinking weary eyes. "I'm weaker than you."

Garnet swallows thickly. Could she have? Maybe, if she’d had no other choice. She was able to kill the cat, though she pushes that thought out of her mind as quickly as possible. But this is different. This is… a person. Sort of. She seems to be trying to be a person still, no matter how badly it’s going for her. How could she manage to kill someone who was so torn up over what they'd done?

“You still have humanity in you,” she finally says, biting into her lower lip. “At least I think you do.”

Edited 2015-07-26 18:08 (UTC)

"You do?" Pearl's mouth falls open in astonishment. The kindness behind those words, to her, is too deep to be measured in words -- and so her attempt at a response comes out a jumbled, stammered mess.

"That's not... I, ah... y-you're really..."

She trails off for a moment, staring down at her hands. What could she possibly say to someone who finds humanity in her when she herself can barely grasp it? After seeing exactly what she is, and nearly falling victim to it?

"... That's... really nice of you," Pearl concludes with a meek, feeble murmur. Quite possibly the most worthless string of words she could've hoped to produce, but that's what ends up falling from her mouth, and there's little she can do about it after.

Garnet blinks, then brings a hand up to rub her eyes. “Well, yeah… You seemed pretty upset about trying to kill me. So you can’t be too bad, deep down.” She feels like she's trying to convince herself as much as the woman in front of her. She's making the right decision here, right?

She must be, she tells herself, if this woman is falling all over herself like this. She knows she's being nicer than would really make sense. But nothing about the evening has made any in the first place, and it’s making even less the more tired she gets. How did her night even end up like this? She’d certainly be long asleep now if she hadn’t run into this woman, this… vampire… this--

She blinks again, a curious look suddenly on her exhausted face. “Do you have a name?”

And Pearl can only blink back in response for a few seconds, stunned that she would even ask.

If she's asking for her name, then she really must mean it -- she really must see her as a person. To think a gesture as simple as this could instantly make her feel so that much more real.

She wants to know her name...

With an unsubtle sniffle, Pearl touches a hand to her cheek. "I-it's Pearl."

“Pearl,” Garnet repeats, experimentally. It doesn’t really seem a fitting name for a vampire, but it does seem to suit the frail woman sitting in front of her, nearly crying over being asked about herself. Is this what all vampires were like? Because television didn’t really prepare her for how to handle all the weeping.

“I’m Garnet,” she offers in return, managing a weak smile.

"Garnet," she echoes in turn, pushing at the corners of her eyes with the heel of her palm. While Pearl's basic manners would normally call forth the response of 'nice to meet you', considering the circumstances, well-- that doesn't feel quite right.

"It's, ah, a lovely name," she offers instead, one edge of her mouth twitching weakly upwards.

She's not sure what comes next.

The silence is somewhat awkward, and in retrospect Garnet will probably find it laughable that the most awkward part of the evening could possibly have been not having anything to say. She looks down at her blood-soaked clothing and then around the room, trying to avoid looking too closely at the cat’s body. She remembers the mess she made in the kitchen, too, and sighs.

“I guess I should start cleaning up,” she says, not certain where else to go from here.

"Oh," Pearl says, and spends a moment just sitting there in silence before it occurs to her to push herself onto her feet. She wobbles a little, but at least there's enough strength in her legs to hold her up now.

"Can I-- can I help?" she asks sheepishly, eyes squinting with the strain of her smile. It feels like an awfully strange offer to be making, but then, it's only fair. Pearl's the only one to blame for this mess. Besides, if she were to just up and leave now-- well...

She doesn't know where she'd go.

“...Sure.”

Garnet is a bit glad for the offer of help, honestly, both not certain what to tackle first and not certain what to do with Pearl otherwise. She doesn’t feel good about sending her off into the world again, both for her own sake and for the sake of anyone who happened to cross her at the wrong time, but it also feels strange at this juncture to offer to let her stay. At least this will give her some time to think about it.

She pulls her dirty shirt off as she stands up, then uses it to try to wipe what blood she can off of herself. The sensation of it drying on her skin is not a pleasant one, but she doesn’t want to bother with a shower until the apartment is clean again. She’s not certain if she’ll be able to get the staining out of the shirt, but that’s not exactly her first priority.

Sighing again, she does a second survey of the room, trying to assess exactly how much needs to be cleaned up in here. There are a few things out of place from their struggle, as well as random drips and smears of blood all over the floor. Plus, there’s the cat. She has no idea what to do with a cat corpse, and it’s probably too much to hope that Pearl has any idea either. But the alternative is having her clean up the kitchen, and although it’s less messy, it feels wrong to ask her to go clean up a vomit-filled sink.

“Would you mind starting in here?” Garnet asks, looking back to Pearl, hoping she won’t mind being told what to do. “I’ll get you supplies.”