TITLE: Extempore
RATING: M for mature themes, scenes of intimacy, language and graphic violence
PAIRING: Pam/Tara
SYNOPSIS: Post season 5. Separated from the others, Pam and Tara have to navigate the labyrinth of tunnels that run under The Authority's headquarters. Sacrifices and split-second decisions force their hand as they overcome obstacles and battle their way to freedom. Question is, will they make it out "alive"?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own True Blood, nor do I have a substantial amount of funds so don't sue me. I'm just taking some of my favorite television characters for a spin.
A/N: In lieu of the upcoming sixth season, I thought I'd get y'all motivated for the season opener with this story because clearly, I am as good as staying away from this pairing as I am with chocolate chip cookies. For those who were less than pleased with the amount of angst I made them endure in my previous stories *cough* The Rift *cough*, you'll be happy to know that this one is angst light. Angst light but a little more gory. Enjoy and if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Part I
Blood. It was everywhere. It slicked the walls in vicious slashes of crimson, coagulated and bubbled on the grimy floors and dripped like macabre stalactites from the ceilings.
And yet, despite being in a narrow, subterranean environment amidst all the undead biohazard, Pamela Sywnford de Beaufort still managed to find one unbloodied part of the wall to lean on.
The blonde's lanky body rested at a comfortable slant, her entire posture a study in nonchalance as she studied her nails with an air of feigned interest. Azure blue eyes raked over her now less than perfect manicure with a critical eye, Pam acting as though she didn't have a care in the world even as death and blood surrounded her.
A pained grunt made her raise her previously bowed head. The proud smirk that followed manifested unbidden on scarlet painted lips as Pam's electric blue gaze ran smack dab into the source of her pride.
Tara.
The vampire in question was currently engaged in brutal tussle with one of the Authority's henchmen. Pam watched as Tara faked a left then darted to the right, one arm whipping out to deliver a vicious uppercut to the guard's jaw. The sound of bones cracking echoed off the curved tunnel walls as Tara's knuckles hit home, causing the guard to spit with rage as his teeth slammed together and the bones in her jaw shattered.
The injury didn't deter the guard for long. As a vampire, such inflictions healed rapidly and the guard was already lunging after Tara before the blood on his lips had begun to cake. He swung a retaliating fist in turn, catching Tara neatly on the temple and sending her crashing into the nearby wall.
Tara winced as her head formed an impressive dent into the concrete, her brain feeling like it had been scrambled seven ways from Sunday. Stars fandangoed in front of her obsidian gaze but she shook it off and ducked the roundhouse kick to her chest, tucking and rolling off to the side.
"Come here, bitch," the guard snarled. He vamp sped to where Tara had rolled, picked her up by her hair and swung her bodily up to hit the ceiling. Bits of plaster and concrete rained down on the brawling pair as Tara smacked into the ceiling before falling back down into the guard's waiting arms. She managed a somersault midair as she descended, her booted feet connecting squarely with the guard's snarling face. The impact of her boots meeting the guard's face offset her balance and she landed less than gracefully on her hip, jarring her bones but a grim smile crawled across her face as the guard stumbled back, one hand reaching up to cup his concaved and rapidly bleeding nose.
"Fuckin' cunt!" the guard spat out, snapping his healing nose back into alignment and swiping away the trickle of blood that still oozed from his left nostril. "You'll pay for that."
"Oh, yeah?" Tara taunted as she sprung back onto her feet and began bouncing on the balls of them lightly. "Come and get me, big boy," she mocked, making a come hither motion.
The guard charged and Tara used his heavier weight and momentum to send him careening into the dark of the tunnel. There was a sickening crack as the guard's head connected with an overhead pipe but he recovered instantly, whirled around and was back in front of Tara in a flash.
Pam's eyes narrowed as Tara sidestepped a fraction too late and the guard managed to get the dark-skinned vampire into a deadly headlock. Tara was tucked none too gently under the guard's trunk of an arm, his bicep muscles bulging almost alarmingly against his black sweater as he set about tearing the younger vampire's head from her shoulders.
Tara suppressed the urge to scream in agony as she felt the muscles in her neck begin to shred. In her current position, there was only one way to play: fight dirty. She went slack in the guard's arms, cocked an elbow then slammed it home into the guard's groin. The resounding howl of fury that erupted from the guard's lips sent a satisfied smile to tug at Tara's lips. She wrenched herself away from the guard, stuck out a leg and kicked at the back of the still howling guard's knees. He fell, still cupping his damaged goods and Tara swooped down to snag the last, lone stake tucked to the guard's thigh. She was about to drive it home when the guard tucked and rolled, spinning around to lash out with a booted feet of his own. The tip of his boot caught Tara's hand, effectively knocking the stake out of her grip and sending a slew of expletives streaming out of Tara's mouth.
The guard leapt to his feet and Tara pounced on him, raining punches as she went and forcing him onto the defensive. So concentrated was Tara on her current opponent that she failed to sense a second threat that was slowly emerging from the shadows.
Pam did though and the glint of something silver whizzing through the darkness straight for Tara's heart was all the incentive Pam needed to drop her nonchalant act. She vamp speed forward, intercepting the spinning silver throwing knife by catching the object between her fingertips. Ignoring the fact that she caught it blade first and that the silver was now licking a scorching path across her skin, she sent it whizzing noisily back into the dark.
A dark smile crossed her lips as her superior hearing heard it slice into soft, vulnerable flesh. The pained gasp and choked gurgle that followed only served to fuel her bloodlust and Pam blurred forward into the shadows only to find a human guard clawing at his ruined throat.
"My, my, what a mess," Pam stated casually, slowing her pace to a languid crawl. She could hear the guard's heartbeat grow sluggish, felt the way his pulse worked overtime as adrenaline and fear poisoned his veins and reeked out from his pores. He backed away clumsily, blood loss and pain making him dizzy and upsetting his equilibrium. But from the predatory way Pam was eyeing him, the way those eyes burned with the promise of death, backing away seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Pam didn't let him go far. When the guard's back hit the wall, he whimpered, knowing he was cornered and trapped before a vampire who was currently oozing a dangerous aura of power and hatred.
Pam came to a stop in front of the slowly dying guard. Her eyes were hard as chips of ice, her expression incensed as she closed long fingers around the protruding handle of the knife. "You just tried to kill my progeny." Poisonous rage retched from every syllable and despite himself, the guard's knees knocked together even as he pressed himself flat against the wall. "For that, you will pay." Without further preamble, Pam yanked the knife sideways, tearing open a gaping wound in the guard's throat and sending an arterial spray of blood to explode outwards.
Pam blurred off to the side to avoid the vomit of crimson but some still anointed her face in misshapen flecks. Using her free hand, she swiped away the blood that stained her cheek, pulled out the knife from the ugly wound she had made across the guard's neck then kicked his cooling body off into a corner. She spared the crumpled body a disgusted glance, cleaned the knife on the side of her pants and tucked it into her boot.
Then she returned back to the melee that was Tara and the guard. Pam arrived in time to see the guard pick Tara up and throw her in the blonde's direction. A pale eyebrow arched as Tara skidded to a stop by her boots, her face bloodied and lips split.
"Having fun?" Pam drawled dryly as she stared down at her slightly worse for wear child.
Tara growled murderously as she scrambled back to her feet. "You could help, ya know," was what she managed to grit out before blurring back up to the guard and sinking her fists into the soft expanse of his belly. Pained grunts followed the thuds that were Tara's fists hitting home as she once again got the upper hand.
"Oh, I think you're doin' juuust fine, darlin'" Pam murmured as she returned to leaning against the wall, now uncaring of the unknown slimy substance her shoulder was resting on. Blue eyes locked onto Tara's beautiful fighting form, a small smile playing about her lips as Tara kicked the guard's feet out from under him, forcing him back-first onto the blood-stained floor. "Just fine," she repeated, her voice an octave lower than it had been seconds ago as she observed Tara straddle the guard and punch him square in the face.
Tara, busy rendering the guard's face into something that resembled ground up hamburger meat, barely registered what her maker had murmured in that husky, low drawl of hers. However, she didn't need audial confirmation, the bond answered her unspoken question by assaulting her with a frisson of lust so powerful and potent that the inner muscles between her legs instinctively clenched.
Tara looked over her shoulder, her fists never stopping even as she threw Pam an incredulous look. The dark-skinned vampire barely managed to catch Pam's unapologetic shrug and slight smirk before the guard performed a half sit-up and slammed his forehead into Tara's with such force that it not only snapped her head back but also forced her off his person.
Tara cursed as she was unseated from the guard's prone body, falling onto her haunches. She scrambled to her knees, in time to meet the guard's meaty fist as it collided with her face.
"Motherfucker!" was what Tara hissed out vehemently as her lips split open once again and blood burst forth from the open wounds.
The scent of more of Tara's blood saturating the air caused Pam's body to uncoil from its casual slant against the wall. Blue eyes were once again smoldering with wrath and vengeance as they locked onto the unfortunate soul that had dared spilled her progeny's blood in such a careless fashion. The blonde bent, fingers reaching for the handle of the knife she had procured from the other guard but before she could jump in to lend a helping hand, Tara was back on her feet.
The dark-skinned vampire ducked the swinging fist coming at her and blurred over to where the wooden stake lay forgotten in a puddle of goo and gristle. Her speedy gait caused her to slip and slide on the blood-slicked floor and she tumbled to the ground, skidding the rest of the way on her back. Her outstretched lithe fingers only barely managed to close around the rough object before the guard was towering over her. He lunged forward, fangs elongated over his snarling lips but Tara twisted beneath his imposing body, didn't bother to duck the next ruthless punch to her cheek that fractured her cheekbone and made her teeth rattle inside her head as she drove the stake home in his chest.
The guard froze mid-lunge as the stake's wooden tip pierced clean through his heart. Mouth agape, he tossed Tara a disbelieving glance before he combusted, raining blood, gristle and other undead biohazard parts onto the younger vampire.
"Oh, fuck me!" Tara's voice was all shades of disgusted as her arms became coated with leftover vampire, her front painted with crimson. Scowling angrily, she propped herself up against the wall and began shaking off as much of the guard as she could.
"What, here? Now?" Pam's dry drawl was in full force as she sauntered over to her blood-soaked progeny. She held out a chivalrous hand and simply grinned when Tara slapped it away before bracing herself against the wall to pull herself up. The grin turned into a full-blown smirk when Tara audibly growled at her, clearly displeased at her maker's amusement of her poor choice of words.
Pointedly ignoring her child's deadly glower, Pam reached out and picked a line of gristle from Tara's hair. "Now is neither the time nor place," she murmured throatily as she carelessly tossed away the piece of leftover vampire from her fingertips. At Tara's second threatening growl, she flashed her progeny another cocky grin. "However, if we manage to make it out of here alive, I'll be more than happy to oblige." A salacious leer followed her bold statement as sapphire blue eyes raked down Tara's body in a manner that was decidedly suggestive.
"Go fuck yourself," Tara muttered darkly stepping away from Pam's close proximity. She swiped an infuriated hand over her face, hoping to dispel the slime of blood she could feel coating her cheeks. She winced slightly when her rough touch jolted her still healing cheekbone and she ran the back of her hand more carefully across her face.
"Hot and horny becomes you, Tara Mae." Pam's voice had dropped registers, her naturally husky cadence reduced to a seductive rasp. She stared at Tara then, cerulean blue eyes seeking out orbs of onyx and locking onto them with steely intent.
When Pam was sure she had all of Tara's undivided attention, she took a purposeful step forward, then another, forcing Tara to back up until her back was flush against the wall. Pam smiled, a smile that was all kinds of wicked and just a tad sinful. She leaned in until her lips almost brushed Tara's ear, a ripple of satisfaction coursing through her end of the bond when she heard Tara's breath hitch.
"I'll be more than happy to give you a show," she purred quietly, a smirk crawling across her lips as Tara shuddered beneath her. She dropped a proprietary hand onto Tara's shoulder, brushed a thumb across her clavicle then trailed deliberately slow fingers down Tara's arm before coming to rest on Tara's hip. Eyes never leaving Tara's, Pam gave a possessive squeeze at the flesh she found there, eyes darkening with desire as she caught the way Tara visibly gulped. "But as I said, now is not the time for me to fuck you into oblivion."
Tara's entire lithe frame trembled in wake of Pam's promise and she allowed herself a moment to indulge in the white-hot streaks of want and need pulsating through the bond before reaching up to push her maker away. "You're cocky as fuck, is what you are," Tara retorted derisively over a raggedly exhaled breath. She couldn't deny that Pam's words were fanning the embers of lust within her into hot tongues of fire but she was damned if she was going to go all starry-eyed and weak-kneed given their current dangerous situation.
Therefore, instead of continuing to engage in a verbal battle with her maker, Tara widened the distance between their bodies in a pitiful attempt to cool the incendiary inferno between her legs. She blatantly ignored the triumphant smirk on Pam's face as she scanned her surroundings with a critical eye. Seeing only one viable exit route, she took off down the shadowy tunnel, intentionally disregarding the way Pam's heated blue stare came to rest on her behind.
Maker and progeny were silent as they followed the poorly lit and sometimes completely dark winding underground tunnel, their boots making no noise against the ground. When they came to a stop in front of what looked like a crossroads of sorts, they took a moment to assess this new development in their escape route.
Before them lay three options: they could go in three directions, straight, left or right.
Tara cocked her head, her mahogany gaze flitting from one option to another. She was also sniffing the air for any potential threats; stepping out from their tunnel path would put them directly in the middle of the space where all four tunnel mouths met, making them instant targets. The bright overhead light would also only serve to make them more visible.
Behind Tara, Pam had grown incredibly tense, her playful and shameless flirting disintegrating into nothingness in wake of alarm bells ringing noisily in the back of her mind. She made a move to order her progeny not to do anything rash but Tara, not sensing any immediate danger, shrugged and stepped out into the harshly lit space.
Tara only had time to wince slightly as the harsh, bright overhead light assaulted her eyes and lit up her lithe frame like red on a target board before her presence set off a cacophony of bullets that spat with deadly precision at her from the left…
TBC
