For the Dead Travel Fast
—-xxx—-
Was it stupid to wish she could pull over and have him between her legs once more? His mouth, his body, his cock—she wasn't picky, any of it would work for her right now. She needed certainty, she needed the solidness of them, and the need was spiraling tighter inside her, wound tight by anxiety and the unknown and fear and likely also a good healthy bit of vampire lust. She was afraid the need would harden to craving if she didn't pay attention. Or assuage it, somehow.
And craving meant taking blood from him again, and she just couldn't do that.
She broke only a few hours from the reservation border. She was driving south on 550 after zig-zagging across the western half of the state for hours, and she was clutching the wheel and breathing shallowly through her mouth, almost a hiss, barely able to block tears from her eyes.
"Castle," she croaked.
He stirred, obviously startled. "Need me to drive?" he husked. He sounded bad, but she felt worse.
She nodded. Fatigue was making her lustful; lust was making her anxious. The smell of him, that was the problem, this damn vampire pheromone thing which had built and built inside the car so that she was out of her mind with craving. And craving would hurt him. And so she gripped the wheel harder because she would not hurt him again.
"Hey, just pull over, Kate. All you gotta do. We're maybe an hour from the reservation, and Towaoc is right there at the border. Hey. There we go, that's it, onto the shoulder."
Her hands were shaking when she cut the engine. The sound of the traffic on the highway, so regular and steady, and the harshness of her own breathing in counterpoint was almost embarrassing.
"Is this… a panic attack?" he asked softly.
A rush of breath. "Oh."
"Oh? Is it?"
"May-maybe so," she choked out. A panic attack? Now? She hadn't lost it like this, this badly, in so long; not even when they had been shot, not even when she'd dragged his body down to the car and fled for their lives, not even when she'd woken up to see Dr Harris standing above her with the blood-soaked scalpel.
Castle reached across her and she flinched so violently she nearly smashed an elbow into his jaw, but he guarded himself and pressed the lever to make the seat push back on its electric motor. When he straightened, and the seat came away from the steering wheel, she began to gulp her breaths at first. And then she pressed her head back to the seat and forced the air into her lungs more slowly, counting.
"Here we go," he said. "Now put your head down between your knees."
There wasn't that much room even with the seat pushed back, but she could contort her body just enough to get there. Her lungs were compressed for a moment, but then that helped to regulate her panic-soaked breaths.
"Can I touch you?"
"Yes," she said into her knees.
He laid a heavy hand on her back and her body resisted for an instant before beginning to tremble, which was a good sign she was nearing the end. Wasn't always the case, and she was deliriously grateful it worked now.
"That's good," he murmured in the darkness. Their vehicle was rocked by the speed of the cars on the highway, close to the shoulder, but Castle's hand ran up her back and settled at the nape of her neck, squeezing. "Good, keep breathing."
"I'm okay," she rasped, pushing up against his hold. He gripped the base of her neck as she sat up, digging his thumb perfectly into that knot which always ached, and she flinched again but some of the painful clutch of muscle was eased. "I'm okay now."
"What was that, you think? Or just free-floating."
"I got worked up," she admitted. "In my head."
"A lot riding on this decision to go south," he said quietly. "I get it."
She gave him a rueful look in the darkness. "Not worked up like that."
He was quiet, and she couldn't read his face at first; a passing car's headlights made his features flare white in relief and she saw his surprise, the shock of instant lust.
She laughed. "Yeah. Like that."
"You never told me that arousal makes you panic!"
"It's not the arousal so much as the way my body associates—" She broke off, chewed on the inside of her cheek, blew out a breath, but he was already there.
"I love you," he croaked. "I said that when you'd been shot, and so of course, of course trauma is attached to us. Oh God, Kate. I never thought of it like that. I mean, you said, but that the act of love itself might—"
"I don't think of it like that," she insisted quietly. "It's just that trauma was also my impetus to come to you that night, to push my way past my own fears, and your hurt, and force the issue. In some ways, you could say I've rewarded my panic with orgasms, and so no wonder the lust makes me more than a little breathless."
He was slack-jawed in the passenger seat, and the harsh lines of his face due to that phase-hungry leanness were all the more painful to her. She reached out and ran her fingers against the rasp on his jaw, curved back around his ear.
He caught her hand, closed his eyes. "I'm so very sorry."
"No, that's so long ago now, Rick. It hasn't struck me like this since then. I think it's just the build up of pheromones in the car, and of course how very much I love and want you."
He gave her a ghost of a smile and opened his eyes, still trapping her hand against his face. "It's not that long ago, is it though? Both of us are obviously trapped there by the transitioning, because of how it confuses me when I'm unconscious, and then I bring those feelings back into consciousness with me, and make it hard on you, putting us both right back there. I keep thinking we're separated."
She opened her mouth to speak against him, but she found nothing to say. Yes, she had sensed he was upset with her, or hurt by her, but she wasn't sure she didn't deserve it, for having to bite him to begin with. For biting him without his consent, or even a real knowledge of what lurked in her blood.
She finally settled on: "I also get very aroused during thunderstorms, and lightning is mmm, quite nice, so—" She shrugged, smirking at him. "Win some, lose some."
He did laugh, the chuckle clearing the grief from his throat. "Yes, I had noticed."
She twisted her hand around to clutch his, brought it down to the center console. "I can drive, if you're—"
"No, I'll drive; this phase isn't happening yet," he said. "You've gotten us this far, and I'll take us the rest of the way in."
She nodded, because she knew he wanted to take on the mantle of responsibility for this decision to change course and head for the Ute Mountain Reservation. Or at least share the responsibility. She glanced past the driver's window. "I'll crawl into the back and you can slide over. I don't think I left enough room to open the door."
He agreed, and they performed their switch with some tangled limbs and rough breathing, bumping heads when she crawled back up and into the passenger seat and he was reaching down for his water bottle underneath. She laughed, he grunted and chuckled her name in admonishment, and they finally were switched, Castle putting his hands on the wheel.
But he didn't start the car. She hesitated in putting on her seatbelt, sensing that he wanted to know more. He deserved whatever answers she had, because transition was traumatic enough without some of their past being dragged into it as well.
She braced herself for whatever it was, arms crossed over her stomach.
"Should we, ah," he started fumblingly, "address some of the tension?"
"Yes, I think so." A sharp breath as she thought of just how many times she'd hurt him, and recently, in an effort to spare his life through separating herself from him. There was quite a lot of tension to address.
"What do you think?" he asked. A quick chuckle, nervous-sounding. "Mutual? Might be all we can pull off on the side of the highway. Not easy to get over this center console, and there isn't a lot of room, as we've discovered."
She was not slow to catch up; she was immediately right there with him, the deep unhappiness burning away like dew in the morning of her answering lust. "Mutual would be messy for you."
"And you, if we do it right."
"Mm, I don't mind sitting in mine," she smiled.
He chuckled. "My hot dirty vampire."
"A vampire, mm, yes." She had to make an effort not to laugh, to merely press her lips together as the pleasure made lovely eddies in her belly. "There are other things I could suck."
"Wow," he gasped. "That was… wow."
"Hot?"
"Yes, but also lame, which makes it even hotter? Somehow? I did not see that coming."
She ran her hand down his arm with light, tripping fingers. "I meant it. And yeah, my ribs are a bit bruised from before, so how about you get into the back, big boy?"
He didn't need to answer; he was already pouring himself between the seats and into the back, and she heard his zipper yanking down even over her own soft laughter.
—-xxx—-