Customary Preamble : Ten drabbles, exactly 100 words each. Keeping things that short is shockingly difficult!

There was a sense of camaraderie in being newly blooded and all relatively the same age—and though Gavner could say honestly that he liked Arra and Larten, he couldn't say that they didn't each get on his nerves.

They were clearly too similar. It was just so obvious.

"You are so fucking arrogant," Arra spat at the red-head over the table as Gavner quietly observed, smirking at their interlude. He was often the third wheel, but he minded little.

"Pot, kettle, black," the eldest of them responded, and, though Gavner hadn't seen it, squeezed her hand under the table.

"You're going to be alright," Arra said, though she drummed her fingers on one of the floor tiles nervously. It wasn't that's he didn't think him capable, just—

"I know," he responded, and though she pretended to sneer at him again for his arrogance, she knew the doubts he had. "I'm talented, remember? Obviously I'm going to be alright."

"Yeah, well, if Seba hears you talking like that you won't be," she chuckled. "And talented my arse, Crepsley. You beat Mika once, and he was drunk."

"Jealous," he branded, and spun away when her shoe headed, airborne, towards him.

It hurts, and Arra chokes back her pained gasp. She forces herself not to break the contact, even when the new blood in her veins races pain up and down her arm. Larten's head dips and he kisses her fingers, and then he breaks their contact.

There is no longer the sharp sting of blood flowing in and out, but now there's the sensation of the numbness. It doesn't last; before he heals his own, Larten presses an open-mouthed kiss to her palm and stops the blood flowing. There is a long, crescent shaped scar along her lifeline.

It's perfect.

"Arra," he chokes out desperately. When she doesn't immediately respond, the fear that strikes him is so strong that he forces himself to surge forward, limping until he is able to look into the next room. The pain in his leg is so intense he feels he might have to drop to his knees, but he carries on standing determinedly. "Arra!"

He staggers until he finds her and then collapses, turning up her face to him. Her left cheek is bloody and there's a bruise that's going to develop over that eye, but her pulse thumps thankfully against his fingers.

"Not exactly your best choice of hotel yet," she facetiously jokes from across their room, as the old hag that owns it batters her hand against their door. Sent from the devil! You deserve to die! Arra knows that if she somehow makes her way in that one of them is going to snap her fragile neck before she can shoot at them, and so she finds a way out that won't involve that. It only hurts momentarily that there's no-one in the world who understands that vampires aren't out to kill. A human part of them aches for acceptance.

After a questionably friendly welcome involving someone offering to "show you both the lions sometime!"(which, though it had been voiced in a friendly tone, had been inescapably threatening), the two vampires settled down for the day in their latest living area.

"Again," Arra hissed. "Not your best choice of hotel, Larten. A circus?"

The red-haired vampire shrugged. "At least they are not chasing after us with holy water again."

She rolled her eyes. "But how are we going to earn our keep? I know I won't make a good clown."

Larten lopsidedly grinned. "Not scared of spiders, are you?"

"This is what you've worked for," she told him, as if he hadn't already known that. "Larten, this is what you want. What you've always wanted."

Forty years; maybe it was only natural he was starting to irritate him more than ever. This wasn't what he'd wanted at all.

"No," he answered, and brushed her hands away. She had forced him back into confinement at the mountain, and he was tired of it.

All of it.

"This is not what I wanted," he told her, glaring down angrily and grabbing for his customary red cloak. The beginning of the end.

He had never longed more for her spats of fury or her suffocating pride. Though they argued, it felt very wrong to have purposefully hurt her. She had no words left for him, and something began to gnaw at his conscience.

"Arra," he began, and hands that yesterday reached elsewhere reached back for her. "Arra, I—"

She turned to face him, and he could see wetness at the corners of her eyes.

"No more," she said, though her voice cracked halfway, and then turned back.

He'd broken her. He'd finally hurt her so much that she'd shattered.

Evil bastard.

"An assistant?" she chuckled, the first words spoken to him in perhaps six decades. He masked his delight at her amused lilt. "Almost comical, isn't it?"

He couldn't help but still admire her. She had changed, of course, as they all had—she seemed stronger and harder than ever, but she was still inescapably the same.

The scar reached the smile towards his eye. "No almost about it," he chimed in.

"You said you'd never have one," she reminded.

For a moment no response seemed appropriate. Then he shrugged and turned a green eye up towards her. "I have changed."

She has been injured before; there are scars to prove that. He knows that this time is no different, so when her eyes slide shut he does not feel himself begin to panic.

The medics aren't paying enough attention—she is still in pain, and he can't do anything about it. Before he can catch their attention he feels something holding him back, and he looks down to see her hand grasping his sleeve.

It's both the beginning and, undeniably, the end, and perhaps that's what hurts the most.

"I love—" he starts, but she's not around to hear.

About time I wrote again, although for some reason I fail at writing anything of any length, and so this little 10x100 arrangement (inspired by livejournal, and a little bit by mandrakes) suited me perfectly. Not my best work, but at least I've finally written something!

Thanks for reading

chiba

xx