Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.
Warnings: This story is a Parrish/Lorne. Thus this fiction will contain allusions to pre-slash and an eventual slash relationship. This fiction also contains adult language and adult situations.
Author's note #1: This is a horrendously late response to a prompt for the Thing-a-Thon on the LJ community: Parrish_Lorne. The prompt goes as follows: "Lorne/Parrish - Parrish is a vampire."
Before the Blood Dries
Chapter Eight
He told him about 1891 and the slow, comfortable decades after his human birth. He told him about how gorgeous Lost Nation had been in high summer and of the farm he'd help build from the ground up. He told him about Chicago and his old dreams. - And about that night, camping on the forests edge. Nursing a belly full of roasted apples and half smoked venison, the ashes of his fire still red hot and smouldering as that first, vicious growl had him bolting out of his sleeping leathers.
He told Lorne about the chase, about what it felt like to be hunted. How his lungs had begun burning as his long legs had finally failed him. Sending him scrambling and tumbling into the loose dirt and piercing brush like some sort of animal. Desperation and old world fear only sending him deeper into the forest, running like the devil himself was nipping at his heels. He told him about the panic and fear. About the sharpness of the feral's bite as those vicious canines had pierced through his vulnerable human flesh.
- He'd stuttered over his own tongue as he tried to explain the pain, the change, unable to find the words as Lorne paused in mid pace. - Lips twisting with well meant anger and barely dampened horror as he came to sit beside him, brushing shoulders with him in a way that sent warmth flooding through him. Spreading across his skin like a pleasure ridden blush.
He told him about Gerald and Marie, about their kindness and love, and the trials of the intervening decades. He talked about watching the world change, about long lost loves and the family he was forced to leave behind. He told Lorne about how he'd eventually met his dreams head on, serving as a medical corpsman on the Western front. Navigating the sucking mud and fathomless sinkholes to treat the wounded. Braving explosive charges and fire fights in the trenches of Passchendeale during the third battle of Ypres. And then again in the second World War as a general surgeon aboard the USS Baltimore, and the USS Astoria throughout the conflicts in the Pacific.
Then he told the Major of how he'd tired of war. Of the blood, torn flesh, and death. He told him about lost friends and comrades, of men hardly out of their boyhoods that had bled out in his arms by the hundreds. – He told him of eventually returning home. And of the decades spent with Gerald and Marie as they moved across country, following the waning forests as the world changed around them.
And as the minutes passed into hours he told the man about discovering new passions and entertaining flighty, passing interests. Finding within him a knack for teaching, then science, and finally, with botany. - Discovering something intrinsically powerful in the existence of growing things. Of living things that's sole purpose on this earth was to cultivate and ensure the continuation of life itself. – Whatever the form.
He told him of decades spent elbows deep in potting soil and nutrient supplements. Of months spent both studying and working in foreign jungles all over the world. Expanding his intellectual horizons for the pure joy of it until the day he'd opened his door to find two army Lieutenants standing on his front porch. Men in full army uniform who had spouted words like 'top secret' and 'national security' before they'd whisked him off in the back of a black tinted limousine. - Taking him deep into the Cheyenne Mountain complex, where in the presence of more military brass then he'd seen since his own war days, he'd been briefed on the Stargate program. Hand picked from hundreds of thousands of affluent members of his profession to be a part of the Stargate program, studying alien plant life half a galaxy away.
- ...It had been like a dream come true.
It had only been a few years afterwards that he'd been offered a spot on Atlantis, courted by Doctor Weir herself. A woman so polished and accomplished in her own right, and quoting passages from his doctoral thesis to boot, that he'd been easy prey. – Bonding over their mutual experiences in the Amazon basin as their interview devolved into more of a discussion about the proper medicinal usage of the Chondrodendron Tomentosum then anything else. - Hell, when the question of his acceptance had finally been broached, he'd barely even hesitated.
By the time he'd finished, his throat was bone dry and parched. And he felt strangely drained when he looked up and met Lorne's gaze for the first time in what felt like hours. - Unable to ignore the fact that the man looked torn between outright disbelief and the same queasy fascination he himself had felt while reliving it.
"Holy. Shit." Lorne muttered finally, stretching in place beside him. Rolling his shoulders almost restlessly as he glanced at him from out of the corner of his eye.
He couldn't help but agree. Smiling slightly as his mind flipped back through the memories of his life. Embracing the black and white flickers as they reeled through in his minds eye like one of those rickety old movie reels they had in the cinema's back in the 40's. - Not bad for a green thumbed farm boy from Lost Nation, Iowa. - Not bad at all…
"Then coming to the Pegasus galaxy was a big risk?" Lorne eventually asked. Clearly struggling to organize his thoughts, and figure out what questions he wanted to ask first.
"Of course." He responded, throat loose from such a long period of discussion as he leaned back against the headboard of bed. Forcing his muscles to relax as he settled into the thin mattress.
"Then why?.. I mean why take the risk?" Lorne pressed. Brows furrowing as his eyes strayed down the length of his torso. Clearly thinking back to what had happened on the planet. Back to the blood and the moment where he'd chanced the gambit and risked it all. - Saving the man's life by nearly ruining his own in the process.
"Why not?" He returned easily. "Scientific knowledge. A once in a lifetime opportunity, you name it. My reasons were…are no different then anyone else's." He continued gently.
"I didn't say they were." The man cut in. Voice earnest, but distracted as Lorne's eyes perused the length of him. Gaze going inward as the Major clearly thought his next question through.
He said nothing to that, content to let it breathe. Taking in the man's settling scent as Lorne's emotions slowly leveled out. Feeling a measure of calm fall over him as the man's scent slowly began returning to normal. No longer over whelmed by the salty stink of uncertainty and fear.
"You should have told me." Lorne remarked after the long pause. Voice almost accusing as he fixed him with a sidelong look, fingers slipping from his lap to curl around the edge of the mattress, only inches from his right flank. The closeness making him shift in place as the sweetness of the man's scent only intensified.
… - What was that? It was that smell again.. The one that he couldn't suss out.. The one that he-
"Oh yes that would have gone over well." He snipped, trying to shake it off as he rolled his eyes. "Excuse me Major, but I am a one hundred forty five year old vampire, how do you do?" He snarked sarcastically.
Lorne only grinned. "You've been spending too much time with McKay." He chuckled, nudging him a bit with his shoulder as they shared an amused little snort, basking in the familiarity of the moment. - Almost as if nothing had changed between them at all.
"Look. I'll admit that the lying part was…uncool. But I kinda get it." Lorne said a few moments later, rolling some stiffness from his neck as he turned back towards him.
"You do?" He replied, honestly surprised this time. - At this point he'd expected some small semblance of acceptance from the man, but certainly not understanding. After all, having only forty eight hours to reconsider one's entire conception of the world was one hell of a learning curve…
"Yeah.. I mean you go to another galaxy and not six hours in people are already throwing around the words 'space vampire' and 'the second biggest threat to mankind'. - That wouldn't exactly instil confidence in coming clean, would it?" Lorne finished, sending him a tentative smile that went all the way up to his eyes. Genuine and heart felt as that enticing sweetness rose up in the air between them. – So thick he could practically taste it…
He nearly tripped over his own lips in his haste to return it.
"Look. I can't promise anything for the future. But for now, no one will hear it from me. Personally it's none of their business, and anyway you were right... Right for having your reasons." Lorne said, spine straightening as he met his gob smacked stare head on.
The relief and gratitude was so thick he almost lost it right then and there. – This understanding…this acceptance… He'd never dared to hope that it could be possible. - When that hunk of trunk had hit him, he'd thought that everything was over. And now he was beginning to think that something else might be growing anew in its stead.
...Something good…
The trials of the last few days seemed to descend on him all at once. Even hearing the words being spoken aloud was akin to a near physical sense of relief. - It was almost too much for him to take. With the emotion of the moment sending him hunching into himself, curling down until his chest was ghosting across the knobbly points of his knees. Wobbling in place, as Lorne's hands wrapped around his shoulders, sending the mattress lurching to one side as the man closed the distance between them. All but holding him up as events of the past few days sent him reeling.
"Whoa! Doc! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He wheezed, nearly laughing through a series of harsh, broken sounding breaths when it occurred to him that for the first time in very long time, he actually meant it too...
"You don't look fine." Lorne shot back. Sliding off the bed and sinking down on his haunches in front of him, trying to focus his gaze as he checked him over worriedly.
"..Major." He began, trying to forestall the inevitable as Lorne seized on exactly what he'd been hoping the man would miss.
"Look.. Is this because of what happened on the planet? I can-." Lorne started, only to be brought up short as he shook his head.
Sighing deeply he ran a hand through his hair. Serenely ignoring the way his long fingers trembled, still over come with the severity of what had happened as his mind struggled to process it. – Body still slowly working to heal his jumbled up insides as the power of the man's blood wore thin. - Pretending not to notice when Lorne's keen eyes caught the movement, his frown only deepening the longer the silence stretched.
"I'll need a trip to the mainland within the next few days. But I'll be fine." He finally admitted. Unwilling to broach the subject as the slow burn of his growing hunger rose quickly to the forefront. - It was true, he was still hungry. It was the kind of hunger that hit like an empty belly before dinner time, one that only grew worse with time. But wasn't desperate. Not yet.
He nearly hissed in frustration at the situation. At the itching burn and the lilting blood song, as heated crimson hushed through the man's veins only inches from his skin. - Not at all liking the way the man's expression had gone thoughtful. Like he was thinking something through…
- Desperate to change the subject he seized on to the first thing that came to mind, something which ironically enough, wasn't much better.
"And you?" He asked, shuttering his eyes on impulse as he flicked his fingers in the direction of the man's wrist. "Did I hurt you when I…" He tried, words falling short as he realized how useless they really were. Because he knew he hadn't hurt him, he knew it and Lorne knew it. – …He had tasted it.
The man drew a slow breath at that. Straightening from his crouch as the fingers of his free hand circled around his wrist. Rubbing slow, oblivious circles into the lightly bruised skin, the movement growing lazy and down right deliberate when the man noticed the raptness of his gaze.
Son of a.. - Was Lorne doing that on purpose?
– It was a sight that by itself had him hardening in his slacks. BDU's pulling just a fraction too tight as the man's fingers skated across the surface of those two, barely noticeable puncture marks. - Pressing, and sliding against them in a way that seemed all but perverse.
Oh god..
He closed his eyes against it, trying to put the outright sensuality of the sight out of his mind. - But it didn't work. Not this time. Because even now he could smell the man's arousal, thick and musky as it rose up and expanded outwards from the very depth of his sense memory. - So strong, and so present that it made him do a double take.
- Senses confused and over whelmed as the scent only grew, exciting his canines until they slid down from his gums, grating against his clenched teeth until he forced them back. - Working his gums with the flat of his tongue as he fought to keep them sheathed.
Because if he didn't know any better… He could have sworn that the scent now rising up between them was no longer solely from that of his memory.. - Wafting through the air, all bitter fresh and tangy sweet in a way that only the present can right express…
…Christ. Sometimes life really wasn't fair.
A/N: Please let me know what you think? Or indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!
"It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow." - Benjamin Franklin