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I didn’t think death would be like this. I suppose it’s not death, not really. It depends on your definition of life. Whether it is consciousness or a beating heart. I miss it. The constant drumming. You don’t realise how prominent it is, how it gives your life rhythm, until it is gone and there is just… silence. That’s what I noticed first when I came around. The absence. My chest didn’t rise and fall anymore. There was no familiar rushing of blood in my ears. And my heart? It refused to beat.
“Helen, it’s okay, don’t panic. You’re in the TARDIS medical bay.” Liv’s voice. The only thing to fill the silence. The most welcome sound I could have imagined. “You are alive.”
But I wasn’t. Not anymore. Not really. I’ve read so many books about vampires. I just never expected to become one of them.
---
“You have to drink it.” The Doctor’s voice was patient and understanding and there was an undercurrent of worry. I just couldn’t stomach it. Not the blood itself. That, my body ached for. But the idea of it. The many conflicting emotions and sensations. They ebbed and flowed, unpredictable and terrifying.
“What if I don’t?” I argued back, even as I felt weak from days without sustenance. Perhaps I would fall at the first hurdle.
“Then you will weaken and eventually die,” he said, pushing the vial into my hand again.
“But I’m already dead.”
I passed it back.
---
“If you don’t drink, I’m going to make you.” There was a hard edge to Liv’s voice and I knew she meant business. She sounded almost scared but not of me, strange as that was to believe. She was scared for me.
“Liv, please-” The biggest problem was that it was her blood. There were only three of us in the TARDIS, only two of us alive. And the Doctor’s blood was too potent, too powerful, it made me hallucinate the first time I braved it. It was horrible. But Liv’s blood- It smelled so good, as much as it sickened me to admit it. God, how I wanted it and how I wanted her. If I drank it, would I ever be able to stop? Would I become more dangerous to her than I already was?
“Please, Helen. For me.” She wrapped her fingers around mine to guide the vial to my lips. “Do it for me.”
If anything, I’d become more of a slave to her than I already was.
---
“Gosh you’re strong.” There was awe in Liv's voice and I felt her eyes burning into my back, running across my whole body as I lifted a collapsed bulkhead to clear our way. My senses were so much sharper than she realised. Every breath she took, every change in behaviour, I could tell. I could work her out better than she likely knew herself and I tried to bury the knowledge deep down alongside my own desires. “That’s gonna come in handy.” She sounded pleased, excited even, and I could hear her heart beating a little faster.
I smiled, shyly, hiding my teeth that shot out whenever my abilities did. Whenever I lose control. Or when I desire… But I worked hard to focus on the task at hand, control myself as I'd been practising to, and followed Liv across the rubble.
Perhaps, if I could be of use to my friends, there was a point to this existence after all.
—
I could see the pulsing of her heart on her neck and it was mesmerising. She acted as though nothing had changed but everything had. Still, she'd turn her back as she prepared a cup of tea and I sat at the kitchen table, clawing my nails into the wood, feeling it give way, just to distract myself from the ever present desire of sinking my teeth into her neck.
I couldn't even say if it was a desire to feed, to kill or to make her mine.
All emotions were heightened, terrifying and exhilarating in equal measures. All I knew was that I wanted her in every way I could have her. And it wasn't fair, on either one of us. Perhaps that was how I'd always felt about her and was only beginning to see clearly now.
How ironic that I could finally tell she wanted me to, now that it was too late.
—
Blood spilled from a long cut up Liv's arm, a blade narrowly missing its mark, but putting her in graver danger still. Her eyes found me because she must have known. How could she not?
“Helen-” She squeezed her hand across the cut, her voice calm and confident. “It's fine, don't worry. You're okay.”
But I wasn't. The sweet smell of her blood was too close, too tempting. Hunger. Desire. Instinct. I moved quicker than I could think. Her eyes flashed with fear. She faltered at last. I’d always known she would, eventually. But I couldn’t disappoint her. And I couldn’t hurt her. Not her.
All I could do to stop myself from hurting her was to kiss her. Giving in to the other, all-consuming temptation of my existence. It was all I could do to quell the thirst of desire. And for a moment, when she kissed me back, I forgot all about the blood.
—
“Helen-”
I used to dream about what it would be like to feel Liv's skin against mine. It was not as I had imagined and it couldn't be. I would never know what it was like for my skin to flush under her lips, or my heart to race with excitement, but I could feel fire. Her touch burned across my icy skin, her breath was hot against my lips and there was a flame inside me.
I almost felt alive again.
Liv liked it, even if I couldn't understand why. She gasped when I flung her around, looked up at me with drowsy devotion and moaned pleadingly when I dragged my teeth across her neck - the sweetest temptation.
I made her mine, but not in that way. I couldn’t put that on her. But I’d found a confidence that I’d never had before. Something had always held me back but now I had lost everything already.
Who would have thought that dying would set me free.
—
“Stay.”
I didn't dare. No matter how many times we repeated these lustful circles, I couldn't bring myself to stay with her afterwards.
“Please.”
I shook my head and pulled on a shirt, catching a glimpse of the monster in the mirror. I willed my fangs to retract and quickly turned to find my trousers.
“I'm not scared of you.” Liv pushed herself up on the bed. Naked. Vulnerable. Tempting.
“I'm scared of myself,” I told her and left.
—
“I love you.” Liv grabbed my arm and tried to stop me leaving. I could have thrown her off like she was nothing and maybe I should have, remind her of the dangerous game she was playing, but her words called to a place in me that I had long since locked away. My heart was no longer beating.
“You can't.” I didn’t look at her. I didn’t want to see the effect of my rejection. I didn’t say that I didn’t love her. That would have been a lie. I loved her more than anything else in existence but that didn’t mean we could cross that bridge. It had fallen to the tides of destiny the moment my life had ended.
“What?” She sounded heart-broken and I squeezed my eyes shut, dreading the mess of bloody tears.
“I'm not- You just can't-” I insisted more firmly and braved looking around. She looked small and fragile and I felt like the beast that had dashed her hopes and dreams. “Do you- do you want to stop this?”
“No. I want you to understand you're worthy of love.”
But I wasn’t.
—
“You have to drink.” It felt like deja-vu, only, we weren’t in the TARDIS and it wasn’t a vial Liv was offering. We were in the middle of a dark forest and it was her wrist.
“No.” I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my head against them. It was pounding. It hadn’t thought I could experience pain in this way anymore and yet I did. The longer I went without drinking, the worse it got. Nearly three days in, it was excruciating.
“I don't know when and if the Doctor will find us. Please! You have to drink!” she insisted, towering over me. “You'll die.”
“I'm already dead,” I mumbled, defeated, but she didn’t let up. She was a med-tech after all. She never gave up. She picked up my face and kissed me.
“Not to me,” she declared, and for a moment, looking into her eyes, I believed her. “Now, drink!”
I did. I had to. But I feared what would follow once I knew what it felt like to drink straight from her veins. Her pulse thundered against my lips. I knelt at her feet as I drank, I didn't look up. I didn't dare. I didn't want her to see the change in my eyes, the animal that clawed its way to the surface. But I managed to pull away.
Just.
—
“You can bite me.” Liv arched her back off the bed, halfway to ecstasy. She threw her head back, exposing her throat. “I know you want to.”
Of course I wanted to. I felt alive from the heat that radiated off her body, I could feel her pulse against my fingers inside her and every panted breath was a testament to blood rushing around her body.
“No, Liv, don't even say that.” I growled, fangs bared in a menacing snarl. The offer was enough to provoke the animal inside me.
“I want you to,” she groaned, pulling me close by my shoulders. “I love you.” The words whispered to my ear were like a mantra. She insisted on repeating it often, regardless of my disapproval. “And I know you love me too. Please-”
I pushed her down by her throat, a way to stop myself from putting my teeth just there.
“I do love you,” I admitted, as much as it hurt to say so. “And that's why I can't.”
—
“I want to be with you forever.”
It was a clear sky on an unnamed world, no light population, no interruptions, just the stars and us. Even the Doctor had taken himself off somewhere to allow us time to process another adventure
“Liv-” I felt it too. That desire to cement what we had. Make it eternal. She was my lifeline in this eternal death, the only thing that made me feel alive. I can't pretend I didn't know what she meant but that didn't take away from the shock of hearing her say it.
“I hate this… knowing we're so… unequal…” She continued, looking up at the stars. She sounded angry. “I wanted to grow old with you.” There was no pretence, we had no need of such things anymore. I could see through her and I think she could do the same.
“Me too…”
“You know there… there's a solution to that…” She took my hand and I pulled away.
“No. Please don't ask that of me.”
—
Life - or what passed as such - was no more safe now than it had ever been. Where I was stronger, more resilient in some ways, I was all the more vulnerable in others.
“That was too close for comfort. Please, Helen, please don't put yourself in danger like that.” Liv would scold me in between kisses, desperately reassert our connection that so nearly had broken.
“I’m fine. I'm made of stronger stuff, aren't I…” I tried to appease her. I was more calm. More settled. More in control of myself than I had ever been. My risks were more calculated too but that didn't matter to her. I suppose it wouldn't have mattered to me either had the roles been reversed.
“I can't lose you.” Liv's voice broke, just like her body, as she slumped against me, angry and spent. Her heart thundered with terrifying intensity but it wasn't tempting me, it was warning, of the fragility of it all. “You have no idea what it was like when you-”
“Oh Liv, I'm sorry…” We had never really spoken about the day it had happened. We had been too occupied with working it all out, getting used to the new normal and all the things that came after. “I- I'm not going anywhere.”
“No more doing stupid things, risking your neck because you think you're not worth it,” Liv demanded. “You're worth it to me. Your life is important to me!”
She was so angry and I folded, giving in and giving up. The only reason why I was still there was her, otherwise I would have given up long ago.
“I love this life. I won't risk it. I promise.”
—
But of course there came a time where it was all too much and too late.
I don’t remember the name of the planet now. Blood lust had settled around my mind like red mist. I remember the screaming. I remember the smell of burning and blood. And the fear. Fear of the people around me as they ran and the blinding fear I felt realising Liv wouldn’t make it.
I ripped them apart. The bandits that had ambushed us. I had my revenge but what was that worth without the person I loved most in the universe?
I wished for death but who would deliver such a strike? That was beyond me now.
—
“Helen-” Liv's voice was drowsy, her eyelids heavy, but she blinked them open.
“It’s okay, Liv. Don’t panic.” I said softly, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “You’re alive.”
Between us, we would fill the silence.