[P] DO THE HUNGRY EVER SLEEP?

[Acton]

Acton whatever you feed me I'll feed you right back   He should have expected it, but then, he’d never been quite brains or brawn in any outfit. Closer and closer she came, and faster and faster his heart raced, anticipation a drug running him ragged. The world smelled like ash; shouldn’t he be running? Instead he kept waiting, wanting to see how far he could push before she broke, each step giving him a clearer picture of his reflection in her shining eyes. And then pain exploded like a new star, vicious as the slash of a knife. There was a sound (the sound of his jaws snapping together, teeth meeting not-so-neatly) but he wasn’t in any shape to pinpoint the cause; his head was ringing like an old bell, his vision was clichéd static. He’s only finding his voice to cry out when her teeth sink into his neck. Acton squealed with rage and pain as her teeth scraped down, taking hair, taking skin, freeing blood. He burned brighter than the dying flames, now, every nerve protesting, until the pain, too, turned to blessed static and his vision swam back just in time to find her wheeling away, pretty mouth all red. Acton spit blood. “Come again, sweetheart,” he told her – or tried; the words were thick, muffled with the way his teeth wouldn’t quite close, his jaw wouldn’t quite work. His mouth hung open now because it didn’t have a choice; his tongue circled his teeth and was coated in blood, though he couldn’t pinpoint where, exactly, it was coming from. Maybe he was lucky he didn’t bite through it. He couldn’t see the tears in her eyes, because his own were stinging with them too, summoned by pain and by smoke. He could only see her coming back toward him, and he flattens his ears and snakes out his head, feeling the blood wet his neck in a thick rivulet. Now little illusions flickered in his own vision, his brain tricking itself with new magic gone haywire; her face flickered from a grimace to a laugh to a come-hither grin, his surroundings swam from the familiar night market to sun-beaten canyon walls to a prison to a theater and back again. He shook his head and the world swam. Surely someone was coming to see what the noise, the fire was about – But he didn’t want anyone to come. This wasn’t Night Court business, this wasn’t Crow business, this wasn’t even Raum’s business. This was his. She was his. He made no move, only stood with his legs slightly splayed, showing her his bloody teeth and wondering why every inhale was suddenly so thick. “Felt good, didn’t it?” The words were a pant; he thought he could hear his blood sizzling when it hit the pavement but that was madness, like the images that flickered in and out at the corners of his vision. “But not good enough. Try me again, Goldilocks. Got a long way still to go for that bet, so hit me, Bexley Briar.” @Bexley