To Bleed for Him

"Counting all the assholes in the room,
Well, I'm definitely not alone; well, I'm not alone.
You're a liar, you're a cheater, you're a fool.
Well, that's just like me, yoohoo, and I know you, too.
Mr. Perfect don't exist, my little friend,
And I tell you that again, and I do it again.
Counting all the assholes in the room,
Well, I'm definitely not alone; well, I'm not alone."
- Volbeat

Becca's hips swayed in the over-the-top style of a very bad runway model as she swept into the room, kicking the door shut behind her with the six-inch heel of a blood-red pump. "It looks like you're happy to see me," she purred as she bent at the waist to put her face much too close to Skylar's – for Torryn's liking, anyway. The boy was indeed happy to see her, and his mind didn't seem willing to stray from that. And Torryn had thought that men had just a teensy bit more control over their erections than this. Pah.

"What exactly are you doing, Becca?" she asked, eyeing the girl suspiciously. She'd never tried to pull this sort of stunt even with Antony, and she seemed to be dead set on getting him in bed with her. What reason did she have to toy with a human like this? A human that she didn't actually know, no less?

She's trying to mess with me, Torryn thought as the woman's smug yet sultry eyes slid to hers. She has to be.

"Oh, I just thought I'd come offer the poor boy a bit of fun," she answered, straightening unnecessarily slowly and running her hands along her legs as she went. From bad runway model to bad stripper – such talent! "I heard the two of you talking, and it sounded like you were about to bore him to death."

Torryn glanced at Skylar, who was now trying to inconspicuously take a peek up the skirt of the tight nightgown the vampire wore. She vaguely wondered whether Becca was wearing underwear or not but quickly decided that she didn't want to know. "That was actually a private and rather important conversation, which I think we'd both like to continue – you know, in private." Most of it was the truth. Sort of. "Would you leave, please?" She didn't know why she was trying to be polite. Someone so rude didn't deserve such treatment.

She smirked, throwing her hair over her shoulder with what Torryn assumed was supposed to be a sexy toss of her head. Really, it kind of just reminded her of an aggravated horse. "You afraid I'm gonna take your other boyfriend, too?" She chuckled lowly, the sound seductive to match her eyes. "You can't have all the good men, Torry. It's not fair to the rest of us, and it's most certainly not fair to Antony."

Torryn rolled her eyes. "Skylar's not my boyfriend, Becky." The woman's eye twitched at the name, one Torryn knew for a fact drove her crazy, but other than that, she kept her composure incredibly well. "If he wants to run off and hump your leg, he can. Just don't assume he's that easy."

She laughed again and turned her gaze to the boy, already batting her eyelashes. "Well, then, I guess it's all up to you, stud." Torryn nearly gagged, but Becca didn't notice, bending down to place a single finger under his chin. "Do you want to join me for a bit of fun down the hall, or would you rather stay here and continue your boring chat with Antony's whore?" The name made Torryn bristle inside, but she kept her expression carefully empty as she watched Skylar's face, waiting for an answer.

His junk was still standing at attention, obviously interested in that trip down the hall, so Torryn was surprised when he said, "I think I'll stay here, thanks. We still have some things to talk about, even if they're not exciting to someone like you."

Becca rose to her full height immediately, her jaw clenched, but she somehow managed to keep a sultry smile on her face. "Well, I'll be two doors down if you change your mind." Her eyes flicked to Torryn, a soreness to them that promised a pair of fangs to the face, and the girl just smiled sweetly in return. Becca spun on a too-tall heel and started for the door in a much less over-the-top walk than before, but she paused to look back at Torryn with her hand on the knob, a smirk on her lips that didn't bode well. "I know who arranged that hit on you, by the way. You'd be surprised by the answer." And with that little taunt as her parting gift, she slipped into the hall and shut the door quietly behind her.

Torryn and Skylar listened to the angry clicking of her heels in the hallway for a moment, the sound slowly fading away. Once it was gone, Skylar looked at Torryn and said flatly, "It was totally her."

Torryn grinned, the tension in her every muscle easing. She hadn't even realized she'd gone so rigid. "She's definitely got that femme fatale thing going on, huh? I don't think it could be her, though. Her lust for Antony runs too deep for that. She wouldn't have the balls to do anything that might possibly upset him, no matter how much she wants him." Her eyes slid downward, and she smirked. "So, I see you're still ready and rarin' to go. Why didn't you go with her?"

He shrugged and fell back on his pillow, shifting to get comfortable again. "Something about sleeping with a vampire creeps me out a bit." He looked at her and smirked, adding, "No offense."

She chuckled. "None taken. I have a bit of trouble with it, myself."

The genuineness dropped from his smile in an instant, leaving something closer to a grimace in its place. "I thought you liked doing it with vampires? That's what broke us up, after all." He wasn't trying to make her feel bad; she could tell from his tone. But that didn't stop the guilt from surging once more.

"Yeah," she began, carefully keeping her smile in place and hoping it was more realistic than his. "Living vampires aren't that much different from humans, but undead vamps..." She shook her head, her smile falling. "It's weird. Not totally unpleasant, but weird."

"Yeah, I guess I could see that," he said thoughtfully. "By the way, if you don't think it was the creepy vamp chick, who do you think it was?"

"The hit?" she asked, and he nodded. "Honestly, I have no idea," she said with a shrug. "She said it would surprise me, so that means it can't be Caleb. Maybe it's still Antony? I doubt it, though. He seemed pretty sincere earlier."

He nodded, smiling sheepishly up at her. "Yeah, uh...I'm really sorry I automatically jumped to that conclusion in the first place. I think part of me just kinda, you know...wished he'd gone and ruined your relationship."

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help smiling to herself just a bit. "You always were selfish."

"Says the girl who flips her shit whenever she doesn't get what she wants," he teased.

She laughed. "I refuse to address that remark. Now, do you want to share the bed with me or not?"

His look grew suspicious. "You're not angling for a threesome, now, are you?"

"No," she laughed. "I just feel bad forcing the man who saved my life to sleep on the floor."

"You saved mine, too, ya know," he said, but he was already on his feet, pillow in hand.

"And that's why we're sharing." He dropped the pillow on the bed beside her head, and she scooted over to give him room to lie down. "That thing had better stay flaccid, too, young man," she said sternly, jabbing at what his boxers now concealed.

He laughed lightly and flopped on the bed, rocking the bed so hard she nearly fell off the other side. "Don't flatter yourself, babe. Ain't nothin' gonna get me hard unless that vampire comes back in whipped-cream panties with no bra on."

"What if she's wearing a whipped-cream bra, though?"

"We'll see."

"I really hope we don't..."

"Whatever," he said, grinning. "Just turn the light off and let's go to sleep."

"Yes, sir," she said, obediently sliding out of bed just to flip the switch beside the doorway, plunging the room into total darkness but for the sliver of light that peeked under the door.

"Night," Skylar yawned as she crawled back into the massive bed beside him.

"Night," she whispered, then closed her eyes and waited for sleep.

-?-

The door opened and clicked shut, but Torryn didn't think the room had doors – what, with it being a spaceship and all. She was supposed to go up with a group of talking monkeys any minute now, monkeys who looked a lot like the flying ones from The Wizard of Oz, and she hadn't seen any doors. The bed shifted as a new weight fell upon it, and Torryn's dream slipped away as her body rolled just slightly toward Skylar. There was a figure on the other side of the boy, she realized when she opened her eyes, a looming and frightening but familiar figure.

"Who is it?" she mumbled sleepily, but a hand caught her wrist and jerked her from her comfortable position on the mattress, and all of her grogginess left her in a rush. It was Antony, she saw as she was pulled to her knees, her body arching awkwardly over Skylar's still form beside her – Antony, bloodied and bruised and solemn.

"I need it," he nearly whimpered, and his grip on her wrist was too tight.

"Take it," she whispered without hesitation, her head falling to the side to bare her throat to him.

The words had barely left her lips when she felt his teeth in her throat. He bit sloppily, his fangs entering her flesh at an odd angle and his pulls much too harsh for the beginning. The vampire saliva didn't take effect until she was biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain, and even then, it took a moment for her to release her lip and let go.

A whimper left her, then a sigh. An electric tingling began where he bit her, twinge after twinge of pleasure rolling through her body from the wounds. He released her wrist and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly to him across Skylar's body. She rested her hands on the human's upturned side to keep her balance and noticed the stickiness beneath the fingers of one hand – blood that had dripped onto the boy's stomach. Her eyes slid to his face though her bliss-addled mind told her not to look, and she wasn't surprised by the look of confused shock on his face. Yet she couldn't seem to care about his feelings, not right now, not with a vampire's teeth in her neck and saliva in her system. She settled for letting her sticky hand slide up to his shoulder and give it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze.

Her intent had failed, it seemed, as he blurted a moment later, "God, you guys are horrible hosts. Do you have blood sex over all of your guests while they're sleeping, or am I a special case?"

Antony slid his fangs from my neck with much more careful precision than he'd used to enter it, and Torryn let loose a soft sigh of pleasure. "If you think this is bad," he started in a low, pleased voice as he let go of the girl, "you should see what I do to her on the weekends." She fell to her side on the bed, an arm still resting on Skylar, and blinked rapidly to try to rid herself of the haze the vampire toxins had produced. She remembered when he had to suck on her neck for minutes to give her this kind of high; now it only took a few seconds. She was just glad he didn't use pheromones on her anymore.

"You're disgusting," Skylar all but hissed, and Torryn watched as Antony crawled over him to straddle her, bending down to lick the remaining blood from her neck the moment he was in place. "You remember that she's my girl-" But he caught himself and tried again. "My ex, right?"

"And you remember that you've been broken up for quite some time now, right?" Antony murmured, then returned to lapping up the blood that still pooled on her throat.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Torryn interjected, finally regaining her senses enough that she trusted herself to speak. "That was incredibly rude of him, but something happened, and he needed it." Her eyes flicked to Antony, and she asked, "What happened, anyway?"

With a forced sigh, Antony climbed off of her and off of the bed, already on his way across the room. "I've been betrayed," he said calmly, then the bathroom door snapped shut, and that was that.

Torryn and Skylar frowned at each other for a moment, both left in confusion by the vampire's laconic statement, but Torryn soon slipped from the bed and hurried toward the bathroom. She pushed the door open and stepped onto the cool tile, squinting into the darkness to find Antony. She could see him in the center of the room, naked but for the boxers which he now pushed down his legs. Even in the near-absolute blackness of the room, the bruises and deep gashes stood out sharply against his white skin, the red of blood a set of vibrant streaks across that pale canvas.

Her hand rested on the door frame, nails digging into the wood, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the frame tighter and tighter. The sight of those wounds infuriated her; the thought of betrayal set her blood boiling. She didn't want to believe it.

"Who betrayed you?" she asked softly, doing her best to keep the malice from her tone.

"I had a small rebellion on my hands," he answered calmly, making his way to the shower and turning the tap, testing the temperature with his hand. "The betrayal wasn't much of a betrayal, really. These vampires had never been very loyal to me to begin with."

"Who?" she asked, the word coming out in a sharp growl. The door frame suddenly cracked beneath the strain of her gradually tightening grip, and she jerked her hand away, whirling on the frame with a look of wide-eyed surprised on her face.

Antony chuckled, pulling the tab that made the water flow through the shower head instead of the faucet below. "You need to watch your own strength," he said lightly. "You have worse control than I did during my first few days as an undead." He disappeared behind the shower curtain, then, and she glared at it.

"Why are you avoiding the question?" she asked, annoyed.

"Because the situation has been taken care of, and you wouldn't recognize the names even if I told you," he answered in a conversational tone, as if she hadn't just snapped a wooden panel in half, as if he hadn't fought a minor war on his own tonight, as if he didn't even care that she was worried to death for his safety.

She crossed the expansive space and jerked the curtain aside, scowling at Antony's dark form beneath the stream of water. "You're not going out by yourself anymore," she told him firmly, ignoring the water that splashed across her face and torso as the boy turned to her.

"I took care of it, Torryn," he said, barely restrained anger obvious in his words, and she thought she could see him glaring right back at her in the darkness. "I don't need a babysitter. I can handle things like this perfectly fine on my own."

"Yeah, that's why you burst into the room begging for my blood at four o'clock in the morning," she snapped.

"Is everything all right?" Skylar asked hesitantly, and Torryn looked back to find him eyeing the cracked door frame.

"Perfectly fine," Antony snarled. "You can leave now, thanks."

"Oh, drop the attitude," Torryn said, rolling her eyes. "He didn't do a damn thing to deserve your shitty tone."

"Yeah, well, why were the two of you in bed together wearing nothing but your underwear, then?" he retorted, thrusting his arms out in some vague gesture and spattering her face with more water in the process.

She sighed harshly. "Because that's super relevant to the conversation, isn't it?"

"Just answer the Goddamn question."

"You just want me to say that I fucked him so you'll have a reason to keep talking to me like this," she said, her tone positively acidic. "Since, you know, freaking out on me when all I did was show honest concern kinda makes you look like a dick."

His eyes went wide in feigned surprise. "Concern? That was concern?" He stepped out of the shower and pushed past her, not even bothering to turn the water off, likely too fired up to remember. "You sure do have a funny way of showing that," he said bitterly, jerking a towel from the wrack beside the shower and taking the entire wrack with it. The metal bar clattered to the floor, but he didn't stop, just heading toward the door while drying his hair.

Torryn turned the water off, scowling at Antony's back all the while, then proceeded to follow him past Skylar and into the bedroom. "Are we just going to ignore the part of this argument where you almost got yourself killed tonight?"

"Can we talk about how I just saw another man's junk and now want to die?" Skylar asked, but his words went ignored.

Antony stopped in front of his dresser, glaring down at her as she stopped beside him. "I didn't almost get myself killed, thank you very much," he growled indignantly. He held the towel out to her, then, and with that same scowl on his face, he said, "Now, I would like to offer you this towel, as your neck is making me feel like an even bigger jackass. I didn't mean to do all of that, and I'm sorry."

She smiled in spite of herself as she took the damp towel. The change in attitude was abrupt, especially for Antony, but she wasn't about to complain. "I'm still not leaving you on your own anymore," she said in a mock-stern tone, dabbing at the bloody side of her throat. He opened his mouth to protest, but she quickly said, "I know you don't need a babysitter, but I'd feel much better if I could be around to help out if anything like this happens again."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Skylar chimed in, still standing in the bathroom doorway. "Someone just tried to have you killed, remember? Neither of you is particularly safe."

"Yeah, what he said," Antony agreed, but though his tone was light, Torryn could still see the tension in his shoulders – tension caused by her attack on his ability to take care of himself, just like the tension she'd caused in Skylar during their car ride earlier that night. She was a girl, the fair maiden to be protected, and they didn't even treat her with such disrespect.

Maybe I'm the jackass here, she paused to think, rubbing at her neck more slowly now, then she added stubbornly, But he's still one, too, damn it.

"All the more reason to stay with you, I think," she said after too long of a silence, shrugging and pulling the towel from her neck. She hadn't realized how much she'd been bleeding until she saw the dark stain on the light fabric. "We can protect each other."

Antony frowned, but she knew she'd won him over. "I suppose I would feel better if I were around to keep you safe."

"What about the daytime?" Skylar pointed out.

"I doubt anyone will be attacking me during the day," Torryn said, throwing the towel over her shoulder and making her way to the light switch. "It's vampires who are after us, after all, and I doubt many of them are eager for a sunburn." She flipped the switch, and the room was bathed in light bright enough to make them all cringe and squint their eyes against it. It illuminated Antony's slowly healing injuries, too, and part of her wished she'd left them in darkness.

"No, actually," Antony began as he pulled open one of his dresser drawers, still grimacing at the brightness. "It's vampires who are after me. You seem to have a peculiar tendency to have everyone and their mother after you at times, and they're not always vampires."

Torryn shrugged, crossing her arms. "If it's not a vampire, it's not a problem." Her eyes slid to Skylar, and she snickered. The boy had his eyes squeezed shut and his head turned as far away from Antony as it could get while his body still faced her. He was going to have nightmares about this night, she could tell.

"You can't forget living vampires," he said, unaware that she was mocking him. "They can get you whenever they want, too."

"But our main problem here is undead vamps," Antony pointed out, and she watched as he grinned in amusement at Skylar's reaction and began to slide on a pair of pale gray boxers. "There aren't many living vampires who associate with me anymore, so I have no idea why they would be after me or Torryn."

The human shrugged. "Just a thought. We don't know why any other creatures would be after her, either."

"The Arena, most likely," she said, crossing the room to flop on her bed. "I tend to piss people off there. But, like I said, I can hold my own against pretty much anything that's alive. You guys have no reason to worry about me."

"Actually, Torryn," Antony started softly, and she immediately dreaded what was to come, "I have every reason to worry about you as long as you're here. I don't think it's safe for you to live here anymore."

She sat bolt upright on the bed, unable to do much but gawk at him for the moment. Even Skylar opened his eyes and looked at the vampire, something hopeful to his expression that spoke of the boy's underlying selfishness. "I just moved in, Antony," she nearly growled, annoyed and, though she would never admit it, a bit hurt, "and you already want me to leave?"

"Someone made an attempt on your life tonight, Torryn," he argued in a near-fatherly tone, "and I don't think it's a coincidence that it happened on the exact day that you moved in."

"I thought that myself, honestly," Skylar said, his tone serious as he looked between Torryn and the vampire. "I mean, come on. There happens to be a meeting about how none of the vampires want you here, then you get attacked while Antony's distracted? Doesn't that seem a bit suspicious to you?"

"But that would imply that this was all Caleb's doing, and Becca made it sound like it wasn't him," Torryn argued, grasping at straws.

"What?" Antony asked sharply. "What did Becca say?"

"She said she knew who did it and that the answer would surprise me," Torryn answered, physically drawing back when ire burst to life in Antony's eyes even though she was nowhere near him.

"Why didn't you mention this sooner?" he asked through clenched teeth, then, still in only his boxers, he tore open the door and stalked out of the room with all the power of a raging tempest. Torryn and Skylar glanced at each other, eyes wide at the violence of his reaction, and they soon hurried after him.

Two doors down – to Becca's room.