As She Fades

"You know I love it when you talk like that.
Just when I think that we're through, you make me come right back.
You're like a drug and I can't relax.
I need more, more, more… Yeah!

Got my hands all over you,
There's nothing I can do.
Feels like were having déjà, déjà vu.
Got my hands all over you,
There's nothing I can do .
It's like we're having déjà, déjà vu!"
- Sleeping With Sirens

Gravel crunched beneath the tires of Antony's car as he eased into the driveway, as close to Torryn's bumper as he could get. She parked her sad little Sunfire and slipped out the door, and he parked the Jaguar right where it was and hurried out after her. Vaguely, he noticed Skylar standing on the doorstep, waiting for them, but he had eyes only for Torryn at the moment.

"You need to go see Raphael," he said, his voice filled with the anger that still boiled in him from the beginning of this fight minutes ago, when they'd stepped out of the Arena together.

"No, I don't," she said tightly but calmly, and he half chased her down the walkway toward the house. She shot Skylar a brief smile as she stopped beside him.

"You're hurt," Antony persisted, glaring at her like an overprotective father. "You're always hurt. You need to go see Raphael."

"No," she said with that same infuriating calm.

Frustrated, Antony turned to Skylar. "Tell her that she needs to go to a damn healer."

Skylar frowned, glancing at Torryn. "Why? What happened?"

"She's been out acting like an idiot again," Antony snapped, and she rolled her eyes. "This time, she decided to go after the vampires who hunt on the street, tearing into them in back freaking alleys where no one could come to her rescue. She's been trying to find and kill Emmeline's men. You know, the master vampire who already has too much of an interest in her? Yeah, she's been drawing her attention just a little bit more than usual. She showed up at the Arena tonight, sending one of her —" He stopped abruptly when he noticed the faint coloring of the human's cheeks that accompanied the surprised glance he cast her way. "What?" Antony asked, suspicious.

"I, uh, I saw the injuries from last night," Skylar stammered, "but she told me that she'd just started a fight on campus, and I believed her."

Antony felt his mouth fall open in surprise, anger spiking to replace his shock as he realized just what the human was implying. He knew he shouldn't ask, but… "And just how, may I ask, did you see the injuries she had hidden underneath her clothes?"

"The same way he's about to see them tonight," Torryn said with another roll of her eyes as she took Skylar's hand and led him through the door.

"Oh, no. You don't get to just walk away," Antony said, slamming the front door behind himself and following them up the stairs. The moment he passed through her bedroom door, the stench of sex and Skylar, of sweat and skin and raw ecstasy, bombarded his nostrils, and he forced himself to stop sniffing the air before he lost it.

"Your pupils have dilated," Torryn noted with a hint of curiosity to her tone as she pushed the door shut behind him.

He nodded. "Yeah, well, that's kind of what happens when you're a vampire and somebody touches your shit. I want to tear Skylar's head off and then fuck you while licking up the mess."

She glared at him, but a quick sniff brought the scent of arousal to his nose, even beneath the disgusting scents that already permeated the air. He smirked. "You really shouldn't even be considering it," she snapped, only to add after a brief pause and one look at his sultry stare, "I mean, it doesn't turn me on that much. Just a little bit. It's not even that hot of a prospect." He chuckled knowingly, but Skylar scoffed.

"Hey! I thought you liked having me alive!"

She grinned. "I meant that it would only turn me on if it was, you know, anyone but you, obviously." She crossed her arms and forced the smile from her face to leave her wearing a cool stare. "Regardless, I'm not your property, I'm not Skylar's property, I'm not anyone's damn property, and no more fights will be fought over me. You've both been doing a really good job of not acting like children lately. Don't screw it up now."

Antony's good cheer left him in a rush, and he forced an aggravated sigh at the risk of a small ache in his underused windpipe. "We need to come to a final decision on this relationship matter, then, because I'm done with all of this back-and-forth bullshit."

"Fine," she snapped, glaring. "I'm leaning toward Skylar at the moment, if you haven't noticed."

He felt the expression leave his face, shock sparking through him to leave him momentarily numb, and he could only stare at her for a moment, wondering if she could see the terror in his eyes, the surprise behind his carefully empty mask, wondering if she meant what she said. Suddenly, he felt his fangs extending, pulling at his gums with a tingle of warning to dig their tips into his lower lip, and blind rage tore through him as he looked toward Skylar's smugly smirking face. His fingers twitched as he imagined the deluge of blood that would accompany the act of tearing the human's throat out, the pained and gurgling cry as he took his final breath, and before he could do something that he knew he would regret, he spun and stalked toward the door.

He couldn't bring himself to hurt Torryn, even if it did feel like that would solve all of his problems in that moment.

-?-

Without thinking, Torryn caught Antony by the wrist and whirled him around, pressing her forearm into his chest as she rammed his back against the closed door. She held him there, pinned with one arm, and her momentary anger left her the second she looked into his eyes.

"You don't really mean that, do you?" he whispered sadly, pathetically, and she could see pain dancing in his fully dilated pupils where there had only ever been hunger and rage and instinct.

"You know I don't." She pulled her arm away and leaned back slowly, somewhat reluctant to leave the lukewarm feel of his muscled chest behind, and he straightened from where he'd been forced to lean against the door. "But what other choice do I have here? Skylar is willing to share, willing to sacrifice a bit of comfort for my sake, but your nature won't even allow you to try. And believe me, I understand that. I'll never fault you for it, and I'll never, ever try to force the issue. Can't have your cake and eat it, too, right? Bad things happen when you get everything you want."

"So you're officially leaving me for him?" he asked in a murmur.

She shook her head. "I'm remaining unattached — for the both of you."

"What does that solve?" Skylar snapped, and she turned to look back at his pursed lips and angry eyes. "Don't get me wrong. It's nice being with you in the way we've been…being together. But what does it solve? If it's not fair to Antony to be with other men when he has trouble sharing, how is it fair to me for us to never be together when I'm willing to do anything for you, even this?"

"If you're willing to do anything," she started solemnly, "then you're willing to do this."

He nodded obediently, his expression easing into a stoic mask nearly identical to the one Antony always wore, and said, "You're right, but it still solves nothing to be with neither of us. If you have to make a choice, so be it, but you need to make the choice. I don't want to be jerked around anymore, and Antony's already said that he doesn't want to be, either. It's just…It's not fair, not unless you intend to move beyond us and find someone else, which you don't seem very open to, anyway."

They fell silent for a moment, until Skylar commented jokingly, "I'd like to recommend myself for the position of boyfriend, if that's not too arrogant of me to do. I believe I meet all of the necessary qualifications, including the washboard abs."

"I'll consider it," she said, laughter adding a gentle lilt to her words, but inside, panic was beginning to set in. She was truly free — and it was truly required of her — to make a final decision, to decide whether the sweet but sexy human or the sexy but ultimately nonhuman vampire would suit her needs the best.

God damn it. Why couldn't she just have them both? Threesomes every night, and cake for all!

"I'll leave you two to talk, I guess," Skylar said after another brief pause, looking from her face — oh, God. How terrified did she look?! — to Antony's, "since I've already submitted my very well-thought-out nomination and all. Would it be okay if I call you tomorrow? See if you're up for some company?"

"Of course," she said with a gentle smile.

"Good." He gave her a sweet smile of his own and leaned down to place a gentle kiss upon her lips, a tacit goodbye, before he left the room and quietly closed the door behind himself.

With a sigh, she turned to face Antony. He was bristling after watching the kiss, his arms crossed and his muscles pulled taut by unspoken anger, though not a hint of emotion showed on his pale, perfect face.

"You know, it's kind of ironic that you're the one who's so against the idea of polyamory," she pointed out, "considering you're, you know, the one who brought it up in the first place."

The tightness ebbed from his muscles, and he nodded glumly. "I know. I'm sorry. I thought I'd be able to handle it if I really tried, and I really wanted to try for your sake, but…" He trailed off with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

Her shoulders shifted in a shrug of her own, and he came to stand before her, the uneasiness behind his every movement glaringly obvious to her. "I don't like you like this," she said, looking him over. "Out of your element. Not being arrogant and cocky. Not being…you."

He shrugged again, his awkward answer to her question. "It's hard to act like a prick when the only good part of your life is going all to hell."

Surprise brought her eyebrows high on her forehead. "Really? You consider me…all of that?"

"I do," he said softly.

She buried her face in her hands and sighed. "Why does life have to be so Goddamn hard?"

"I'm sorry," he murmured, then fell silent.

She joined him in silence for a moment, more thoughts racing through her mind, more endless debates, than she could possibly process at once. Suddenly, she lifted her head and said, "You should really consider feeding only from me, whether we go back to being together or not. I'd rather you drain me dry than kill another innocent woman." She watched as he studied her for a moment, not speaking, and she shifted uncomfortably beneath his observant stare. "What are you doing? What is it?"

"You've changed," he said simply, his voice a thoughtful murmur. "You were, for lack of a better word, selfish before. You always have been. If it wasn't for me, Skylar, or any of your loved ones or objectives, you never seemed interested in taking any action at all. But now…"

"Is it really that hard to believe?" she asked with a frown, offended. "I thought it was obvious that I'd decided to fight for more than myself when I started searching for Progeny, when I nearly lost myself to the Lord again for the sake of his slaves." Ashamed, she averted her gaze, finding her fingernails infinitely interesting. "Of course, I still seem to be fighting for myself a lot, too, just because I'm angry and hurting things makes me feel better. I need to work on that."

She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye, crossing his arms over his chest coolly, and she raised her gaze to watch as he returned to his normal self right before her very eyes. "There's nothing wrong with that," he said wisely. "You should never feel bad for making yourself happy. Not everyone has to have some far-reaching purpose in life. Not everything has to be a sacrifice."

"Says the man who's forcing me to choose between the two things that make me happiest," she said, half bitter and half joking, and he forced one of his eerie, raspy sighs, looking toward the window.

"You know I can't feed only from you, but I promise to be careful when I feed from anyone else, and I promise to stop feeding so much." He looked toward her, suddenly grave. "Are you sure you want to let me back into your life that way, though? You know how intimate it can get. And you know what could happen if I smell him on you and can't get a hold of myself."

She shuddered at the thought, the vivid vision of Antony's bloody fangs ripping through her throat time and time again, more and more violently, flitting through her mind and vanishing. She met his gaze, though, and nodded decisively. "I trust you," she said resolutely. "And I want to be of use to you." She looked away from him for a moment, hesitant, and pushed the tangled strands of hair from the side of her neck. "Do you…need any now?" she whispered. He swallowed audibly, and when she turned to him, she found that his pupils had once again dilated to overcome the blue of his irises and their gray-green rim.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" he asked softly. "You still need to see Raphael."

"Feed, then I might go."

He hesitated for a moment longer, his eyes darting from her bared throat to her eyes and back again; then, carefully, he sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. As he gently brushed back a few stray slips of hair that she'd missed, as she shuddered and savored his light touch, he asked softly, "How far do you want this to go?"

She met his eyes. "What do you want?"

He chuckled lowly, his attention on her neck as his fingers trailed over her skin, featherlight. "A nice alternative to tearing Skylar's throat out would be sleeping with the woman he's stolen from me. I've been thinking about it for the past couple of weeks, craving it, even when I had no reason to spite him."

"Is that all you guys want from me?" she asked jokingly. "My body?"

"Well, we obviously don't have a problem sharing your personality," he said as his eyes flicked to hers and back to her throat, his tone both light and deathly serious at once. "I wouldn't mind letting the whole world have a taste of that. It's the emotions, the intimacy, the love, that I don't like having to share, and I think it's safe to say that both Skylar and I feel the most closeness when with you physically, sexually." He chuckled lowly, his eyes half-lidded and his lips quirked in a sultry smirk. "And the vampire in me views you as my food source, of course," he murmured, and she abruptly jerked her eyes to stare straight ahead, her heart racing, as his breath washed over her neck. "It thinks that your body belongs to me." His lips brushed against her skin as he spoke, and she bit her lip, about to burst with anticipation. "But there's more to this than your body," he went on in a murmur, placing a gentle kiss on her throat to set goosebumps rising along her arms. "More than the heat of the moment." Another soft kiss, and his hand rested lightly on her side. "There's the talking before and after…" Kiss. "The openness…" Kiss. "Getting to bask in the afterglow…" Another kiss, and he leaned back, his other hand on her chin as he turned her face toward him, gentle emotion overflowing from his eyes. "With you." His lips met hers, gently at first, then hungrily when she responded, her hands tangling in his hair, her body suddenly over his as she shoved him back onto the bed and crawled to her knees beside him.

She knew she had a tendency to miss the man she wasn't with at the time — but damn, had she missed him.