The movement was sudden, and incredibly unexpected. He had no idea where sheād found the strength, but all at once she tugged and he, entirely unprepared, bowed over like a reed in a rainstorm, the gossamer strands of his hair trailing over her shoulders, veiling the sudden contact of their lips from outside sight. The effect enclosed them, in that surreal burning-world where she didnāt know what she was doing and he didnāt know how he should react, and for a frozen moment, his indecision rendered him immobile, and there was only sensation, andā¦ scent.
She still bled, and her actions only stoked the banked burning of his hunger. The part of him that was always and irrevocably famished demanded he reinterpret the situation, see this act as an offering, and shift just a little, to the porcelain skin of her throat, still bandaged from the last time someone had thought to do the same. It screamed at him to eat, to take, to consume, and care nothing for what was left behind. Two minute pricks upon his lower lips, and he knew his fangs had extended for precisely this purpose. It was so close, the act would be so simple, and what did consequences matter for one such as him? That side of him was near-giddy with the victory it was slowly winning, shoving his annoying humanity into a little corner of his mind, intent on locking it up and throwing away the key forever.
Burn it all. Let them all be ashes. Take what you desire, and think not of what you leave. Be free.
Her strength failed, and he had the presence of mind still to ease her collapse, blinking with hazy vision for the war waging right then in his very soul. He wasnāt sure what brought him backāperhaps it was simply the fact that she had spoken, and her voice had reminded him that she was a person of value, not something to be simply drained and left for nothing. Perhaps it was the vicious burning about his neck and back, insistent in its reminder of just what lay chained within his being. Perhaps, just perhaps, the part of him that was human was strong enough to quell the temptation on its own, but regardless, he conjured a smile from the ether and wore it for her sake, leaning slightly into the hand at his face, if only to remind them both that the other was more real than the phantoms that flitted over their respective consciousnesses.
āI should thank you just as much,ā he replied simply, with unadorned honesty. He had been so closeā¦ he shouldnāt be like this. But it was the way that he was made, encoded into the fibres of his very being, hardwired in his DNA.
The nurses and doctors stormed in, then, and she was taken from his hands, bandaged about her head and placed back in the hospital bed, and he rose to his feet, taking up the vase of daffodils, placing them on the end table beside her and quietly taking his leave. Truth be told, the entire situation had rattled him, and the smile heād worn to reassure her disappeared as soon as heād left the room. Just a little more, and heād haveā¦ no. Surely that was what the seal was for. It wasnāt just anyone that had placed it, after allāIvan had sought the worldās strongest known curse-master for it. She was safe, they were safe, around him, for at least a little longer. They had to be.
Retrieving his coat from the rack in the waiting room, he slung it over his shoulders and stepped outside, intent on finding a spot somewhat removed from the eyes of wandering students. He sought the refuge of a tree, noting the rain but not particularly paying it any mind. Reaching into the coat pocket, Sergei retrieved two familiar items and did something he hadnāt needed to do in decades: he lit a cigarette, dropping the lighter again into a pocket and leaning back against the great oak tree under which he stood. Drawing in a breath, he exhaled a clod of smoke, bringing a hand to his temple. It was a disgusting habit, and he hated it, but it certainly wasnāt the worst thing heād ever done, and sometimes it helped take the edge off, something he needed.
For the next half-hour or so, he sorted things through in his mind. The kiss itself, he placed to the sideāAmaya had been delirious and could not be held accountable in any fashion for the act. Chances were good she would not even remember it afterwards, and it would be for the best if he treated it as though it had never happened. This, he could manage. It would save her undue embarrassment and awkward apologies, neither of which he really wanted to undergo, either. Sergei did his level best to be a friend and a mentor to his students and in some cases, his peers, but there were just some things he didnāt know how to handle. Better that the incident go ignored than they both dance around it like teenagers. It was unintentional, an accident, and that was fine.
Of more concern was his end of the predicament. He would have to watch himselfāit was careless of him to lose track of his consumption like that. He should never have walked into the hospital anything less than fully sated. At that, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses; he was never fully sated, but at the very least he should have fed in the last day. That was reckless and stupid of him, even if he hadnāt realized it at the time. Hopefully, attention to his eating habits would be all that was required to rectify the situation. If he was becoming a danger to his studentsā¦ he shook his head. A bridge to cross when it was before him, not merely possible. For now, he would simply have to be more careful.