Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.
The snore was light, soft and grating.
Antonio lifted his head carefully; he had slept with his neck at just the wrong angle. Gently raising it off of the pillow, he stared at the earlobe in front of him. The convoluted skin was brown, with light fine hair, the occasional whisker peeking out from the darkened depths. Her neck was slender and firm, the skin pulsing almost imperceptibly with each heartbeat.
spread it around
That's what they'd said. It might just as well be what UNIT had told him, when they'd released him without so much as a thank you, after drawing endless samples. He hadn't seen anything more of Sahara or that odd gringo.
Antonio fought the urge to nuzzle the back of her neck. She was Dominican; dark brown irises skittered through with black flecks. He remembered that. But he didn't draw closer. What was the point?
Antonio tried to shift, but his legs were pinned. The snoring paused. He felt a hand slide across his waist, pulling him closer, tighter. He felt coarse stubble brush the back of his neck, a scraping tingle. Antonio sighed.
Perhaps he was doing too good a job.
Antonio gently eased himself out from between the two slumbering forms, his hand finding a damp oval of drool on the pillow. The room was faintly lit with the soft touch of early grays and pinks from the morning sun that hovered and floated inside the bedroom, resting on the rich browns and creams of the wooden floor and ornate shelves.
Antonio sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers kneading the crumpled cotton sheets. Three hundred-thread count, was his first thought. Wallet, was his second thought.
Antonio pushed himself off of the bed and made for the dresser, scanning for keys or money clips, his bare feet soundless on the boards, sticking slightly as they pulled away, moist with humidity, yet quiet, almost inaudible. There were dusty obelisks of framed photographs, precisely lined up, an obsessive compulsive signature. But no cash.
Antonio spied a pair of gray Kenneth Cole slacks slumped at the foot of a chair by the bed, a suspicious wallet-sized lump heavy in the bottom. He knelt down beside them and plucked it out, leafing through the contents, green and thick.
Which, of course, was when he heard a sound.
Antonio grimaced and grabbed his underwear, slowly standing up as if he had been searching for them on the floor all along.
The man was a gringo, stocky and muscled, red hair smooth and furry against the pale white skin.
At first Antonio thought the man was stretching, and Antonio forced his best sexy/not guilty smile across his face.
The man was flexing. No, not flexing. The muscles, white and solid, twitched, fast and quick, faster and faster, beneath the freckled skin.
Antonio found himself backing away, the fake expression falling from his face.
The woman began to twitch as well now, her skin pulling and kicking from within as something, somethings inside struggled to get out.
Antonio backed against the chair and fell awkwardly to the floor, grabbing for his clothes and skidding backwards as he pushed with his feet, coins and keys clattering loudly onto the floor as he thrashed about for his sandals.
It was here. Again.
Antonio knew something that the Doctor didn't; or at least hadn't shared. Antonio had seen it happen. The Bloom fed upon its host as it was born, digesting its womb, but it also fed on something else: fear. As it birthed, its hive body, made up of billions of tiny separate independent entities, coalesced into a superstructure, built from the deepest fears of the host's mind.
Three days, the Doctor had said. The Bloom will feed for three days before sinking into the Earth to hibernate once more.
Antonio could see it now, a faint mist that drifted upwards from the writhing man's pores, hovering over the bloodied body as it swirled and coagulated, gaining shape and depth.
Shirtless and trouser-less, Antonio ran for the door, his sandals clutched in his hands, even as he heard the woman's flesh tear and shred as the mist poured forth.
He flew down the stairs of the brownstone and out into the street, trying not to think, to forget forever the sight of the black and red dragon that shuddered upwards from the bed, sloughing off the pink hide with the fine red hair, its yellow teeth dripping as they stabbed into the handsome skull of its host or the hideous black nothing that had slid out of the woman's body and stared straight into Antonio, daring, triumphant.
He was running now, the pavement cold and wet beneath his feet as he dashed through the deserted streets. From within windows and echoing alleys, he heard the screams and cries as the city woke- and began to feed.