From far away, he might hear it — some soft clack of movement before things go still and quiet again. But he's too dazed to register anything beyond the thick padding of his own illness and hunger, it's just another bump, creak, groan in the old Milton church, wood settling, shifting. If this were nighttime, his senses would be attuned to everything around him. In the day, he's struggling just to breathe.
And the direct contact of Kate's hand against his forehead is even more direct now, the back of her fingers swapped for her palm, cool and safe and inviting and— prickling right through him with awareness, like her touch's sparked every nerve-ending to fire.
Then her hand is off of him and grasping for his shoulders instead, and he wants it back, nostrils flaring like an animal. His head lolls, he's so tired he wants to close his eyes and never open them, but he's too hungry to do that.
It terrifies him for a moment. When Kate says his name, he realises how terrified he is. Her words barely register, he can only find glimpses of them — go home, rest, something to eat — and his voice is a hoarse croak as he tries to catch himself against her and look up and find her eyes.
"You need to leave me," he hears himself saying, and part of him means it and the other part doesn't, that animalistic dark hunger stretching open so wide. He'd rather die than do what it takes to survive the way so many other man have, but he's not the same as he used to be, anymore. He overestimated his own heart. Perhaps that's always been what leads to his downfall.
Anyway, all it took was one touch, and now he knows what he wants.
The shape of it's still strange to understand, however. This hunger. He still doesn't quite know what to do with it, goes by instinct, or something worse. His hands are moving up to slip around Kate's wrists, nudging up into the material of her sleeves a little, enough that he feels skin. He holds onto her fast and firm, and pulls the girl to him, flush. His mouth is near the side of her neck, and he doesn't know how to work this hunger, how to feed what screams to be fed in him; his mouth's opening wide in some imitation of the only way he knows how to eat. It doesn't make contact with her skin but it almost might, head dipped low towards one of his most precious people. He'd never hurt her.
Then he's sucking her in. Somehow, inexplicably, he feels it happening. His eyes are shut, he doesn't know if it's real and literal or only something felt, but he's swallowing her up whole like the Darkwalker swallowed him in his nightmare and he's ravenous like a starved animal, and it isn't just his belly howling for food but his spirit itself, something deep and dark.
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And the direct contact of Kate's hand against his forehead is even more direct now, the back of her fingers swapped for her palm, cool and safe and inviting and— prickling right through him with awareness, like her touch's sparked every nerve-ending to fire.
Then her hand is off of him and grasping for his shoulders instead, and he wants it back, nostrils flaring like an animal. His head lolls, he's so tired he wants to close his eyes and never open them, but he's too hungry to do that.
It terrifies him for a moment. When Kate says his name, he realises how terrified he is. Her words barely register, he can only find glimpses of them — go home, rest, something to eat — and his voice is a hoarse croak as he tries to catch himself against her and look up and find her eyes.
"You need to leave me," he hears himself saying, and part of him means it and the other part doesn't, that animalistic dark hunger stretching open so wide. He'd rather die than do what it takes to survive the way so many other man have, but he's not the same as he used to be, anymore. He overestimated his own heart. Perhaps that's always been what leads to his downfall.
Anyway, all it took was one touch, and now he knows what he wants.
The shape of it's still strange to understand, however. This hunger. He still doesn't quite know what to do with it, goes by instinct, or something worse. His hands are moving up to slip around Kate's wrists, nudging up into the material of her sleeves a little, enough that he feels skin. He holds onto her fast and firm, and pulls the girl to him, flush. His mouth is near the side of her neck, and he doesn't know how to work this hunger, how to feed what screams to be fed in him; his mouth's opening wide in some imitation of the only way he knows how to eat. It doesn't make contact with her skin but it almost might, head dipped low towards one of his most precious people. He'd never hurt her.
Then he's sucking her in. Somehow, inexplicably, he feels it happening. His eyes are shut, he doesn't know if it's real and literal or only something felt, but he's swallowing her up whole like the Darkwalker swallowed him in his nightmare and he's ravenous like a starved animal, and it isn't just his belly howling for food but his spirit itself, something deep and dark.