strangetrip | [GP] Shoot that poison arrow

[GP] Shoot that poison arrow

None of the guests noticed when the spiky-haired man-child in jeans and purple t-shirt, wrists wrapped in cheap leather and metal bracelets, arrived at the Madonna Inn a few hours before midnight on February 13. That, in itself, wasn't all that surprising. Eros, otherwise known as Danny Valentine, had millennia of experience doing his job without being spotted.

What was surprising was that the dude at the front desk did see him. Tall and Nondescript waved him over and then gave him a room number 'in case you wanted to rest'. But Danny didn't.

Want to, or rest. He spent the time before the clock struck midnight polishing his love gun. Not like that. He'd find a girl to spend his nameday with. He always did. No, this little beauty was made by Hephaestus himself. It shot love darts that disappeared on contact.

At midnight, kitted out with more love darts than there were people in this pink and gold monstrosity, Danny left his room and shot the first person he saw--and didn't wait to see what would happen.

No point getting a slow start. He had a lot of work to do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Caroline relaxed a little bit when she got to the stables. No one here but Lindsey - the Native American girl wasn't anywhere to be seen - and he wasn't exactly going to do anything. He treated her well, but it was clearly a relationship based one leverage, not attraction. Which Caroline was so okay with at this point.

Still, she figured it was better to give him a heads up. "Hey, it's Caroline. I brought coffee?"

Leverage was smarter than attraction, and less creepy – not that Caroline wasn't beautiful, but regardless of how old she actually was, she looked like jailbait, and teenagers weren't Lindsey's type. That pretty, blonde, and female vampires were... Lindsey wasn't going to look too closely at that. Caroline wasn't Darla. No worries about him getting attached.

"Coffee'd be good," he said, standing and brushing bits of hay off his jeans. "Getting away from the hormone-fest?"

"I have enough problems without watching other people take Valentine's Day way too far. I don't have anything against PDA but, we all literally have rooms here. Go to one." Caroline waved her hand and, deciding that acceptance of the coffee meant acceptance of her presence, closed the distance. "Don't mind me. I'm just extra cranky today. Being single on today of all days sucks so hard."

Lindsey shrugged one shoulder. Extra cranky for vampires usually involved a lot more dead bodies than Caroline looked ready to leave lying around. "We've only been here six weeks, and this ain't high school. It's more a surprise some people aren't single today." Surprising enough to be evidence there was something out of the ordinary going on.

"But if you wanna hide out here awhile and be cranky, nobody'll hold it against you." The horses might fidget some more, but she wasn't going to be feeding on any of them, so they'd be all right once she was gone. "Not that you came out here just for the solitude."

Caroline winced because he wasn't wrong but she wished he wasn't right. "No, not just for that. If...that's okay." They weren't friends, but she had to trust him. She didn't really have a choice unless she wanted to go around compelling people all the time.

"All of this will be easier to deal with if I'm not also thinking about how delicious everyone is."

"You gotta eat," Lindsey said simply, not for the first time. "And this place doesn't have a blood bank. It's okay."

Blue eyes flashed, the corners crinkling in a grin. "Besides, I'm always delicious." He unbuttoned one cuff and rolled it up partway. It showed part of his ink, but she'd seen it before by this point, and offering his wrist maintained some distance they could probably both appreciate.

"Don't you start. There's enough flirty nonsense going on." Caroline stepped in and gripped his wrist firmly. By now, she didn't expect him to pull away but some part of her nature insisted on seeing prey as a frightened thing, ready to run.

A moment of concentration brought her fangs down, made her vision go dark and red. Quickly, too quickly to be anything like human, she yanked his wrist up and sank her fangs into his wrist. Blood poured out, thick, hot and coppery across her tongue. Her throat worked feverishly as she drank deep.

Lindsey would've argued that playing to his roughneck with good ol' boy charm role wasn't the same as flirting, but that would've meant admitting the ruse and showing more of himself.

The flash of pain as her fangs pierced his wrist was ignorable, nothing compared to some things he had endured, and he could feel his heartbeat rise slightly in response to the pain and the draw of blood. The black eyed, veiny face had taken some getting used to, different from the vamp-face Lindsey knew of from his world, but at this point it was as normal as Lindsey not showing any fear. He could handle himself if Caroline got out of control, better than some she could feed on here, and she didn't have to wipe his memory afterwards.

After a relatively short time, compared to how long Caroline wanted to keep drinking, she pulled back and wiped her mouth. There was a stinging at her shoulder. She'd noticed it before, but had ignored it. Lindsey's blood had been more important.

She licked the last bit off her thumb and looked up to smile and thank him and...stopped. Hunger surged again but not for blood. Maybe it was gratitude. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was just that this was one of those things that was hard to unravel from the vampire hunger. But Caroline's hand tightened on Lindsey's wrist again and in the next moment, she'd shoved him back hard against the stable wall. Then her body was plastered against him and her mouth was greedy on his.

Lindsey's back slammed into the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs, and before he could take another, Caroline's mouth took his. The kiss was every bit as hungry as her feeding had been, and he gripped her arms to push her away if her fangs found his neck.

His mind was working through angles and leverage, identifying equipment in the stables he could use if he had to fight her off.

His body, on the other hand, was reminding him how long it had been since he'd had sex. Long enough he didn't immediately stop her the way he should've.

Caroline made a sound of approval when he didn't shove her away. It was impossible in this moment to ignore her own desire, to sublimate that need into something else the way she'd always done before. She wanted more than blood, she wanted the understanding, the connection from the only person here that she'd trusted with her secret. From the only person who gave her a chance in spite of what she was.

"Please," she breathed against his mouth, bringing his hand to her hip and drawing it up.

Definitely some hinky magic going on. The smart thing to do would be take a step back – figuratively, since there was a wall behind him – and figure this shit out. Unless the magic was the sort that would fuck you up worse if you tried to fight it. It wasn't hard rationalizing whatever choice Lindsey made here.

His hand rubbed over her hip, then cupped her ass through her jeans to rock her against him. But wanting to know just how far the magic would take her, combined with being kind of an asshole, he murmured, "Enough flirty nonsense going on, hm?"

"Who's flirting?" She let go of his wrist so she could drag her hands over his chest. "God, you feel so good." Her hips rolled against his, and she shuddered. Her mind kept offering rationalizations but it really didn't matter why she was doing this. Did she need a reason for something that felt this good? For something she wanted so much?

She wasn't wrong. This did feel fucking good. But.

Lindsey's head dropped back against the stable wall with a thud, trying to ignore the slide of her body along his. "All kindsa good, Caroline, but you do know you're basically roofied by some kinda magic right now, right?"

Damn it. It sucked realizing he still had lines.

Caroline pulled back slightly, her face full of confusion. "...are you rejecting me?" He was wrong. She felt fine and she knew exactly what she was doing. Abruptly, she shoved back, upset. "You could have just said you didn't want..."

"Not rejecting you," Lindsey growled. "Makin' sure you can say no before we agree on a yes, 'cause today it's hard to tell.

"I"m an asshole, but I'm not a rapist."

"No. No no no no." Caroline huffed and then slinked back in, wrapping her arms around Lindsey's neck. "See, no problem with no." She leaned in and kissed him again. "Now say yes."

Deliberately or not, she was missing the point. But Lindsey didn't know enough about the magics involved. For all he knew it would only fade when she got what she wanted. And Lindsey was not a good man.

Legally, if she couldn't consent, or if Lindsey had any doubts of her ability to do so, continuing was problematic. But the law didn't take lust magic into consideration, and Lindsey had tried. Rather than say anything, he kissed her again, one hand wrapping around her waist to draw her closer while the other slid into her hair.

The tension, the hurt at being rejected dissipated and relief flooded through Caroline in its place. She didn't know what she'd have done if Lindsey had kept pushing her away. She was so lonely and she needed him so much. His kiss was everything she'd been missing. Why she hadn't seen that before, she didn't know and didn't care.

Right now the only thing that mattered was his hands on her, and the taste of him on her tongue.

The magic currently influencing Caroline could fade at any time, Lindsey knew, but the thought didn't distract him from the soft skin he found as he rucked up her tank top, his hands warm and rough by comparison, or way her mouth met and molded to his. The faint metallic taste and the knowledge it was from his blood wasn't something Lindsey had experienced in awhile, but it didn't stop him from deepening the kiss until he was breathless, nipping at her lip as he slowed down to breathe.

Somewhere midway through undoing the buttons on Lindsey's shirt, with his hands under her top, it occurred to Caroline that she had no fucking idea what she was doing right now. She froze, her mind racing. His warning - and her demands - pounded in her head.

A moment later, Caroline was halfway across the stables, breathing hard. "Oh my god."

"Back to your senses, then?" Lindsey asked, a neutral tone to the drawl he didn't hide here. If he was bothered by the sudden shift or what had come before it, he wasn't going to let it show.

He didn't move from his lean against the wall, both because it might be a bit before walking was comfortable, and to give Caroline the space she looked to want.

"Oh. My. God," Caroline said again, more emphatically. It was still just about the only thing she could think of to say. There was just too much to process. What had she done? Why had she done it? What the hell was Lindsey thinking right now? Did she even want to know? Should she compell him to forget or would that make things worse?

And then there were the even less helpful thoughts like, he was a weirdly good kisser. And he'd been so nice about it, even though she was obviously insane. And was this sexual assault? Should she try to turn herself in? Was this what everyone else was going through today?

Eventually, after 30 straight seconds of hyperventilating, Caroline managed another sentence. "Lindsey, I'm SO SORRY."

Vampires didn't need to breathe except to talk, so hyperventilating like that was most likely habit – how young was she really?

Lindsey stood calmly, letting her have the time she needed. "In case you're thinking about it, fuck with my memory, ever, and you and I'll have a problem. As for today, there's not much you or I could do against whatever mojo's floating around here. We kissed. That's all. Nobody got hurt." And they could've. Things could've gotten bloody quickly with a lust-crazed vampire, and bloodier if Lindsey felt the need to defend himself.

"You might wanna avoid people 'til whatever's going on stops, though. Just a suggestion."

"No one got hurt but...you could have. I could have seriously hurt you." She started to pace, nervous energy taking over. "And it's not okay, people just going around kissing other people who probably don't even want to be kissed. I mean, I don't like it when people kiss me without...and that's not even the point. Because sometimes you make mistakes and kiss people that you do want to kiss and that's even worse!"

If he wasn't going to blame her, she'd just have to pick up the slack and berate herself.

[GP] Shoot that poison arrow

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