A medical emergency

[fadingworld]

A deep navy cloak hides his features and the more ornate tunic the courtesan usually wears to greet his clients. Mal hunches his shoulders and slides through the crowds hoping to avoid notice. He keeps his head down until he reaches the home of the doctor and wraps smartly on the door. "Open up," he calls in a voice that expects to be listened to.

How much time did he have? He could not have a client bleeding out. Not this one. Not one who had come to him for help, to be treated privately.

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[mandragoraspiritus]

While Mal sleep, Regis has done some tasks in and around the cabin, only venturing to the stream briefly to fetch more water for drinking, cooking and cleaning up. Then surveying the immediate area he collected some plants and herbs that, along with some of the dried and salted meat from their brought supplies he used to cook up a decent broth that now sits in a lidded pot, kept warm just beside the fire.

Now when Mal wakes he immediately comes to Mal's bedside, bringing him water as well as more bitter willow bark tea to help dull the pain. "A few hours," he answers, moving to help Mal sit up just a bit. "The sun is setting." Indeed, the light coming in through the open doorway is much dimmer now, the interior of the cabin much darker.

[fadingworld]

Mal pales a little at the move and gratefully takes the tea, knowing it will help in time. He turns his head to the door. "It seems even cosier in here as the light fades outside." He tilts his head to smile at Regis.

"I hope you have not been bored."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis stays sitting by Mal, supporting him as he drinks. He smiles slightly, shaking his head. "I have kept myself busy enough." Even if all time had not gone to chores, he would not say he has been bored. He has been thinking, quite a lot.

[fadingworld]

"Good," Mal says with contentment. "Tonight we should talk a little before I ask for more old tales."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis cocks his head to the side. "I shall certainly entertain you with old tales if you wish, though in exchange for you getting some food in you. I have made you a broth." He nods to the pot sitting there waiting.

"Is there anything in particular you wish to talk about?"

[fadingworld]

"I will eat," Mal promises. "There is something I would like to ask you about. It may be a bit probing." But he was not going to shy away from it, he wants to understand that shame he had detected earlier.

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Then ask," Regis prompts him. He had decided early on that there needed to be honesty between them if this was to work. That isn't to say that all things are easy to talk about but they need to be able to at least attempt it.

[fadingworld]

"Earlier when you were talking you sounded ashamed," Mal begins softly. "I couldn't place it. I thought at first it was what had happened but it continued even when you were treating me."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis stiffens a bit. He's surprised at how preceptive Mal can be. But then, he would be, wouldn't he? It would have been a part of his training.

He draws a slow breath, letting it out in a sigh. Honesty. He had promised it. "I was ashamed," he admits. "I am ashamed."

He eases Mal back down, turning to the fireplace, putting on a couple of new logs as he continues to speak. It I easier of he doesn't have to meet Mal's eyes right now.

"I do not drink blood, you know this. You know that I do not need it and I have explained why I chose to abstain from it. But today... When I take on my more bestial forms, I am more ruled by instinct. My instincts, my nature is to drink blood. I did not only kill it, I fed. I suppose that awoke something in me. Even after I returned to this form, even through the stench of the chort, even with my mouth still full of its blood, I could smell yours. I smell it even now. And it... Calls to me." He sighs heavily, slumping like a heavy weight is on his shoulders.

"I love you and I never wish you harm. Yet even so, and with you so injured, there is a part of me that wants nothing more than to sink my teeth into you and drain you dry." The last words he hisses out with so much shame and so much disdain at himself.

[fadingworld]

"But you didn't do it," Mal says with so much strength and compassion in his voice. "And you won't." This he is sure of, unless the circumstances proved to be very extreme.

"It is part of your nature. You could not be ashamed unless you let it rule you again. Come here," he says with a soft command.

[mandragoraspiritus]

No, he won't harm Mal. He's bested addiction before and will do it again. But still it sickens him that the urge, the hunger for Mal's blood is even there at all.

There isn't often there is any command to Mal's tone but Regis responds to it, lowly turning back to take the two steps needed to bring him back to Mal's bedside.

[fadingworld]

Mal has to move carefully with his injuries but he touches a hand to Regis' cheek and slides an arm partially around him.

"I am sorry," he says softly, "That you have to fight the urge at all, but I am not ashamed of you. I am proud with how you handle urges you cannot always suppress."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"The shame is mine," Regis says with a shake to his head, still with such a heavy heart. If course Mal shouldn't feel any of his shame. But what would be more natural for him to feel, however...

"How is it that you feel no fear?" Regis knows he would never willingly harm Mal. But he also knows that, under certain circumstances, he can be driven to a point where reason might leave him and he is ruled only by base instincts.

[fadingworld]

"I wish I could ease how you felt," Mal says softly. It hangs heavy around Regis and the vampire already carries too many cares.

He looks up steadily, "I know you and your intentions. What do I have to fear? You did not hurt me when you were a bat."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"I very nearly did," Regis replies quietly. There had been a moment where he had felt his muscles starting to bunch up in preparation for leaping forward to bite into this prey in front of him. Only at the very last moment had he regained his senses and had thrown himself backwards instead, forcing himself back into this shape where he had a clearer head. Even then it had been hard to ignore the beckoning call of bloodlust.

[fadingworld]

Mal remembers the bat licking its lips. "But you didn't do it," he replies firmly. "That is what matters here. Not the might have beens but what you did. You were good, strong and wise like you always are."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"And what if it happens again?" He says more forcefully, raking his fingers through his hair in an unsettled gesture of frustration and unease. "I do not wish any harm upon you and I will do everything in my power to make sure you are safe. And this, this thirst for blood, it will ease. But right now, in this moment, I am finding it very difficult to fully trust myself."

[fadingworld]

"Do you trust me?" Mal says softly. "Trust me to try and bring you back to me?" He wonders if their connection was what had helped Regis come back from the bestial form.

[mandragoraspiritus]

"I trust you to try," Regis says, closing his eyes even as he takes Mal's hand to bring it to his lips, kissing the palm and murmuring his next words against it. He is still so clearly pained. "I trust you heart and your bravery, with every fiber of my being. But I am not as sure that I trust myself to listen."

[fadingworld]

"I will trust enough for the both of us," Mal says warmly. Tears fall from his eyes as the pain Regis' feels hits him. "You will listen because I and other people mean more to you than blood."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Oh, dear heart," Regis murmurs, still against Mal's palm. "So much more."

Yes, the thirst for blood is there. But there is also so much love for Mal, so much. Vampires do feel strongly and when they for an attachment to another person, that bond runs so deep.

[fadingworld]

"See," he says softly, "This is why I do not fear, you feel so deeply. You cannot harm someone you love like that. It's...it's almost overwhelming how you feel." And feel he could with such intensity that it almost blinded him.

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis doesn't think that Mal quite understands, that he can't. That it isn't as black and white as that, what it means to go against ones own nature the way Regis does, especially when he is still essentially physically damaged and could use he strength blood could give him to fuel his regeneration, yet knowing what a monster he would be if he fell into such a habit again.

He sighs heavily, tired, slipping down off the bed to sit on the floor, resting his arms and upper body on the bed, remaining close that way with his forehead resting on Mal's shoulder.

[fadingworld]

Mal strokes Regis' hair. "It will be alright I promise. I am sorry to have distressed you but it is better I think that I know and it doesn't continue to fester inside you and make you worry."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"I will worry, for some time," comes the mumbled and honest reply. Still, it will get better with time. Regis has pulled himself through times similar to this in the past, once even not many years ago at all, and he knows he can do it again.

He stays like that for a while, savoring the comforting petting of his hair before he pulls back slowly, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face. "You need to eat," he says, pushing himself up to get the broth and pour it into the mug previously used for tea. "You will need it to heal."