[color=darkgray] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/WSq0AyH.gif[/img][/center] [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center] [color=yellow][b]Location:[/b][/color] Vex’s Apartment [color=yellow][b]Time:[/b][/color] Night [color=yellow][b]Interactions:[/b][/color] None [color=yellow][b]Mentions:[/b][/color] None [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center] The light had vanished from the apartment. What remained was a suffocating blackness, thick and creeping as it swallowed the light whole.Crawling in with slow, patient claws, devouring the last traces of warmth. The new moon outside offered no mercy, casting its hollow shadow through the cracked blinds, tinting everything in a dull glow. Vex hadn’t moved. She lay flat on the cold floor, limbs slack, eyes wide and vacant, fixed on the cracked ceiling above. Moonlight—or what little of it the night dared to offer—washed over her skin like frost. Still, she didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch.She just stared. Beneath the hastily wrapped bandage on her wrist, black veins had begun to bloom like ink in water. They stretched outward in delicate, deadly designs, curling up her arm, each strand of what now festered beneath. The venom had taken root. She had forgotten. Or maybe she just hadn’t cared. In the chaos, the violence, the blind momentum of the last few hours—this was her misstep. Not a brutal miscalculation. Not a noble sacrifice. Just… foolishness. The kind born of exhaustion and arrogance, the kind that didn’t leave room for second chances. The black lines beneath her skin deepened, webbing further across her arm like cracks in old porcelain. Her body burned with fever, hotter even than a Lycan’s usual fire—this was something else entirely. Something wrong. Her skin was clammy, her lips dry, and her face had begun to hollow, shadows settling into places they didn’t belong. Beside her, the phone buzzed. Its screen lit up the room in a flash of false hope—bright and blue and distant—but Vex didn’t reach for it, she couldn’t. Her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, eyes glassy and unseeing. Her mind wasn’t here anymore. It dragged her under in waves—memories, voices, half-formed regrets. Flashes of silver and blood. The heat of Bear’s hand gripping hers. The shriek of vampires. The cold snap of bone. Her thoughts looped like broken film, flickering and jumping as the venom gnawed at her nerves. The darkness inside her was no longer just in the room. It had found its way in… Vex dropped onto the rooftop first, back hitting the cracked concrete with a grunt. Her jacket was torn at the sleeve, one blade still strapped to her thigh, and her boots were wet with something too dark to be water. She hadn’t been bitten. She hadn’t let them close enough. But Bear— She turned her head toward him. He was standing near the edge of the rooftop, shirt bloodstained, breathing heavy. His jaw clenched as he stared out over the city, the tendons in his neck tight like a bowstring. “You gonna keep brooding over there,” Vex muttered, “or actually sit the hell down before you pass out?” Bear didn’t answer right away. He just reached up and wiped at a smear of blood near his neck. It wasn’t his, but it was close enough. Too close. One of those leeches had lunged out of the dark and sunk its fangs into his shoulder—almost. He’d killed it before it broke skin, but “almost” didn’t sit well with him. Especially not after what happened to Jaro last month. Finally, he came over and sat down beside Vex with a grunt. Bears legs stretched out, arms resting on his knees as he took a deep breath. Then, without ceremony, he leaned back and laid down beside her. They stared at the sky together. “You still mad at me?” Bear asked, voice low and rough. Like gravel underfoot. Vex didn’t answer immediately. She flexed her fingers, still stiff from the fight. “No,” she finally said. “Just didn’t want to watch you bleed out because you decided to play hero.” “I had it handled.” She snorted. “You almost got bit” “I didn’t.” Vex’s looked over at him “But you almost did.” Her voice cracked. He turned his head to look at her, moonlight catching in the bruises along his jaw. “I knew you’d cover me.” He grinned with a cheeky smile. Vex met his gaze, her own eyes harder than steel. “Don’t put me in that position again, Bear. Don’t make me choose between finishing the mission and dragging your half-dead ass out of a vampire nest.” His mouth opened, closed. He looked away. There was something like shame in his silence. Vex’s voice softened, barely. “You think I don’t care? You think I wouldn’t tear the world open if something happened to you?” Bear didn’t speak. He just laid there, the space between them like a second heartbeat. Then, carefully, like it hurt to say it, he murmured, “You shouldn’t have to care.” There was a silence between them before Vex’s voice broke it. “I already do.” The words lingered between the two as they laid on the rooftop. For a moment, the city disappeared. There was only the rooftop, the stars, the press of night air between them. Bear reached out, calloused fingers brushing against hers. Not gripping. Not claiming. Just a touch to say I’m here. I’m alive. I’m listening. Vex let him. After a long pause, he said, voice nearly inaudible, “If I had gotten bit…” She rolled toward him, eyes sharp. “You didn’t.” “But if I had.” “I would’ve stopped the venom as quickly as I could” she said, firm. “And then I would’ve buried you myself if you had succumbed to it.” A long beat. Then he gave a small, humorless huff. “Romantic.” Vex smirked, leaning closer, their faces inches apart. “You’d haunt me for eternity if I let anyone else do it.” “Damn right.” Their foreheads touched as Vex’s eyes shut,it said more than either of them could. [/color]