Of all of the things in this jackshit world that piss me off, one of the bigger ones is this. Stupidity.

Now I'm not going to call Michael an idiot, a fool, or a barbarous monster of any kind; but I will stay this. The obvious human thickness that was embedded in him for so long has yet to stop completely. Why, I do not know, and I don't really care to know either. I just know that it pisses me the hell off; and that tends to be enough.

And here he is, just lying here. Eyes shut, breathing heavier than usual. I can see his blood trailing from his wound in the upper chest and seeping down his dark blue shirt soaking into the fabric. I can hear him moan softly from the shock, can see his hands fidget a bit, just willing me to help him.

As I trail my finger tips across his chest, undoing the small, perfectly round white buttons, part his shirt so I can properly see his wound, I'm somewhat disturbed to find an aching in my own heart; a pain I hadn't felt in so long. Seeing this man; lycon, vampyre, whatever he was, lying there in front of me, bleeding his blood for me, feeling physical pain for me, I began to feel the lightest flutter of a certain emotion that I had pushed away; since the day I was sixteen years old.

I grabbed a tool to clear the bullets from his flesh, and began to pick each one out; each blood stained silver bullet; each perfectly alike, not one apart. Once, years ago; long before I had ever met Michael, I had tried to compare these bullets with us; the Vampyres. I knew it was wrong, knew I would be punished for comparing such elegant, brilliant, and classical creatures; hah, such as ourselves to an inanimate object, but yet I knew the similarities the moment I had held one in my hand. We must act in the same way, must have the same pose; the same tactics, the same rulings. We must have the same job and the same destination; to kill and not be killed.

I slowly began to toss the plucked bullets into a small tin that was lying near us, and I frowned a bit, suddenly feeling awkward leaning over him; staring at his dappled flesh. I finished the rest of the job quickly, and tried to clean up before he was fully awake again; I knew I didn't have long, he was already beginning to stir.

I didn't want him to know that I had helped him; or did I? Perhaps in some sense, I did. But in an obvious other, I didn't; after all it was I who had harmed him; although it wasn't intentionally, it was truly accidental.

I had been practicing my shooting, standing in an empty room, shooting off my gun at large, broken down pieces of equipment, shutting my crystal blue tightly; trying to throw myself back in the memory of being in the shooting room at the old manor; "Viktor's manor" as I had used to so pitifully naively call it. I didn't hear anyone climb up the stairs; I didn't hear anyone stand at the door.

He didn't see that my eyes were shut, he didn't think I couldn't see him. So being the imbecile, I mean, adventurer that he has proven to be multiple times, he decided to test me and jump in my range of fire; and of course I didn't realize he was doing this, till I heard the bullets hit something other than dense machinery; flesh.

My eyes had snapped open; heart paused for only a moment. I saw him; I saw him drop back to the ground, saw the expression of shock and pain etched into his face. My hands loosened, I heard the snap of the gun smacking down hard against the cheaply tiled floor. My bare feet made no noise as I covered the short distance between us, and bent to my knees beside him.

My blood was pumping alarmingly fast, and I laid a hand out onto his chest, then ran it up to his neck, to feel his pulse beating under the soft cushion of my fingertip. Why I did that, I don't think I'll ever know, I knew very well then and still know now, that a silver bullet wasn't going to kill him, as long as I got it out in time.

And now, as he begins to stir and I make my way back across the room, trying not to let a pastel blush rise into the arches of my cheek bones, I can't seem to remind myself of the things I'm not allowed, of my own rules that I've bestowed upon myself. I can't love, can't give my heart to another, can't let it be in seemingly tender hands again. It hurts too much, the risk is just to great. I can't allow another to have that power over my emotions, my life.

But as I look back across the room at him, watch as he sits up and looks down at his now bare chest, his blood stained shirt tossed onto the floor next to him, and his burning eyes flicker into my iced over ones, I can't help but feel a bit short of breath, I bit resentful at myself for those promises I had made, those things that I had whispered to myself late into the night, when silent tears had stained my ivory cheeks.

As he rose and hesitantly lifted his shirt, looking back over at me in confusion, I tried to shake those feelings away, tried to convince myself that looking into the past was never the right thing to do...

I opened my eyes again, saw him coming cautiously closer to me, and as he neared me, holding the distance between us now only a few short feet, and said in low voice, "You were taught not to listen to the past, but to surge forward into the future.. Perhaps now you act upon that, move on Selene, let the word love you again, let yourself love."

My eyes shifted a bit, feeling a soft blush begin to rise in my chest, knowing the pink skin exposed from my scoop neck shirt would contradict any denying statement I made back, so I merely looked back into his eyes, and when he leaned closer to me, his eyes partially shut and his moist lips barely inches from mine, I allowed myself to not resist, and didn't find any complaints about that afterwords, either.