It Starts With Desperation

Chapter One

I see

Hunter

He doesn't understand who the man is, doesn't understand why he suddenly feels wary and why the overwhelming, pressing, need to leap and attack is muted. Oh, he still wants to sink his unnaturally sharp teeth into that soft flesh and suck the blood from the bone, still wants to rip the tendons and gnaw on the nerve endings.

He just can't.

He hides in the shadows, watching. Golden eyes glazed and unfocused as he pants, claws digging into the cracked mortar of the concrete slab (the only thing left, really, of the building he's crouched on) beneath him. His skin prickles with uncertainty-eateatisitsafe?-and yet he refuses to move forward because-nonotsafenotsafe.

It's confusing to be at war with one's instincts. He's never felt it before and it leaves him scrambling for purchase, scared and irritated. In the end, he settles for slumping forward and following after the man, trembling and constantly sniffing the air, tasting the man's scent on his tongue. His arms and legs ache from being tensed for so long, yet he can't relax.

He can see the firestick strapped over the man's broad shoulders and clutched in his hands. He can see sharp daggers tucked in various states through his dusty clothes. They glint in the few remaining poles of light that line some of the streets. They hurt his eyes sometimes, but he doesn't look away for long.

Days go by sluggishly, as if moving through blood, and he stops wondering why he's following. He just does. He's been able to pick up words now and then, though he doesn't understand them. "Fuck" is one, and he's sounded it out to himself in that confusing human-tongue so different from a Hunter's harsh barking way of speech. The man screams it sometimes, mostly during the afternoons when the sun is at its highest peak, and he sounds angry.

"Lacey" is another of the words. The man is upset when he says it, and he thinks maybe the man will cry - but he doesn't. Not while he's awake, anyway. The man will fall asleep and repeat the word again and again, moaning like a dying animal, and then he will cry.

There are more words, but he can't remember them. They slip from his mind like water and he allows it, because there are more important things.

Like finding food. There's less and less food the further he follows him, as the buildings turn to broken shelters and the hard roads to grainy sand that trips him and burns his feet. He gets hungrier and hungrier, but still he cannot bring himself to eat the man.

Or rather, he will not let himself eat him. Something holds him back, makes him retreat, though he's sure that if the time ever came when the only means of surviving was feasting on the man, he wouldn't hesitate.

The attacks on the man have become less frequent (which he is both glad and resentful of). It had been difficult at first to fight off brothers while staying hidden. He thinks the man is suspicious though, because he glances over his shoulder more often than not, and he is tense.

His scent has a stronger tinge of fear than normal, of trepidation, which excites the predator in him only to die slowly after miles of crawling and staggering through the sand. Sometimes, while watching the man sleep, he wonders what he's looking for. Why does he keep going, when he knows sooner or later something is going to make him its meal?

Its night when he decides to venture closer. He doesn't know how long its been, only that he hasn't eaten for too long a time. His stomach is in constant pain and his throat...he whimpers brokenly to himself. There is no way to describe how his throat aches.

He can't help but wonder if he will die of hunger, of thirst.

The man is sleeping under the roof of an abandoned shelter, the walls crumbling and leaking sand back onto the ground. He can see him slumped against a wall, knees pressed against his chest and head resting against his raised arms.

He watches from a safe distance, body trembling with sudden apprehension and excitement. The man breathes softly, barely making a sound.

Time passes as he waits. The moon moves from one side of the sky to just past its zenith before he finally creeps forward, sniffing causiously, every muscle in his lean body tense and ready to flee.

The man's scent is sharp and strong the closer he gets, slinking through the shadows and pausing every few feet, hissing worriedly to himself and gnawing at his cracked lips in frustration. The firestick is propped against the wall next to him, looking dangerous and ominous in the soft light of the moon.

He crawls carefully over the half-wall that had once been a fully structured barrier, but over time had been reduced to rubble and dust. His feet and hands miss the loose bits of rock and drywall, his eyes pinned on the man as he moves with all the grace of a preying cat.

Sohungryfood...?

He licks his lips and stops a few yards from the man. When he makes no movement, he circles around to the wall furthest away and crouches into the shadows there, peering out from beneath his hood. He's watched the man long enough to know that the bag he carries holds things he can eat, and he thinks, maybe, if he's quiet enough, he'll be able to get it.

Just then a sharp lance of pain stabs through his stomach and he whines pitifully under his breath. Hungry...sohungry...

He swallows and leans forward, liquid gold eyes bright and glittering ferally as they lock on the sleeping man. The waiting is killing him, but he still does it, watching to see if the man will wake up, watching to see if he will suddenly reach for the firestick.

Finally, mercifully, he inches out of the shadows and into the pale light of the moon, eyes sliding from the slumped body to the bag barely a yard in front of him. He so quiet, so very quiet, he's not even all that sure he's breathing.

Movement.

He barely has time to yelp before his back is slammed into the rock-hard floor-and then the screaming starts.

He howls and shrieks so loud it hurts his own ears, but he doesn't stop. He jerks left and right, flips onto his stomach, tries to gather his feet under him, and gets shoved back down. The man is yelling harsh, grunting words that grate over his skin and he wishes he knew what he was saying so he could understand something for once instead of being so mixed up.

The man grips his shoulders and the instinct to killkillkill is so strong that he snarls and twists, unnaturally sharp canines bared and ready, claws reaching-but then that thing that always bars him from killing the man bowls into him and he reels back, smacking his head on the floor with a painful crack.

He starts to struggle again, though his movements are shaky and uncertain and crazily frantic. He screams out again, desperate.

The man roars back, "Why have you been following me? What do you want?" and grips him by the shoulders, slamming him back down again and again. Again and again, his head smacks the floor.

He doesn't understand.

He can't understand.

Painrunhidepain...pain...the pain.

He hisses and gathers his legs beneath the man's chest, and kicks. When the heavy weight is gone, he rolls to his stomach and lurches to his feet. The world spins.

He falls back to the floor in heap before pulling himself up on all fours, crawling, stumbling as his sight blurs in and out of focus; his stomach rolls.

Click. "Don't move."

He freezes. Firestick.

He growls fearfully to himself, terrified, because he knows he's too weak to do anything. He can't defend himself. When he turns, he's looking down a dark, gaping barrel that smells like metal and smoke.

The darkness stretches toward him, and he emits a sound so full of terror and pain and confusion it's scary, and the blackness just keeps reaching and reaching until it's all he can see.

His head thwacks against the floor one last time.

The dust is thick in the air and he struggles to breathe. When he opens his eyes, he hisses and swings his head away, immediatly scrambling back from the bright sunlight that had burned his sensitive eyes.

There isn't much shadow, but he crouches there anyway, squeezing into a tight ball and whimpering. The man is gone. He closes his eyes tightly and growls warily deep in his throat.

When he tries to sniff the air for some lingering sign of the man, a scent immediately claims his attention and he's on the other side of the structure in less than a second, not even aware of when the concsious decision to move seized him.

There's food.

The meat is rough and dry in his mouth, but he doesn't care. Sohungrysohungry. There isn't enough, and too soon it's gone. He whimpers brokenly and licks his fingers, eyes half-mast and glazed with hunger. Pain stabs through his stomach again and he doubles over with a gasp.

His head pounds and his stomach aches and his throat is so, so parched.

He doesn't know how long he stays like that, but the sound of rocks crunching under footsteps reaches his ears and he tenses. Swinging his head around, he stares out from under his hood at the man as he comes to a stop a safe distance away, his firestick clutched in his hands and aimed at the floor between them.

With a hiss he scoots back against the wall on all fours and huddles there, eyes wide and teeth bared.

The man mutters something.

He snarls.

The man drops his bag onto the floor and reaches into one of the pockets, drawing out something clear and plastic that makes swishy noises as it moves. He growls warningly and presses closesr against the wall. Blue eyes stare at him, scowling, and he stares back without blinking, wishing to just leap away and run - but the sun. It burns.

The man brings the bottle to his lips, and from his place against the wall, he can see the man's throat working. He's drinking from it. A bit of liquid slides from the corner of the man's mouth and drips off his chin, and the man is giving him this pointed look that is angry and untrusting.

And he finally understands. The smell of water blinds him for a moment, takes over his body and just for a second he's completely out of control.

He blinks.

The firestick is pressing against the fabric of his hood at his forhead and he's whimpering. With a start, he jerks back and hisses threateningly. He's confused, he doesn't remember moving from his place against the wall and coming so close to the man.

"What do you want?"

The man's voice is rough and callous. He growls low in his throat and slowly retreats, eyeing the firestick as he does. Butwater...water...drink?

He doesn't like water all that much, but when food would get low back where the buildings were, he'd have to drink from puddles or broken boxes that spewed water and dripped from their pipes. He misses hunting, he misses warm, fresh kills. Good...wantblood? Meat? Nothere.

The man lowers his firestick and is looking at him in what he knows is disgust. And fear. There is a lot of fear.

But he feels fear, too. He's still too weak, and the man has a firestick ready to cause so much painpainpain.

The man makes a noise of revulsion and chucks the bottle at him, and if he wasn't adapted to making abrupt movements, it would have knocked him right in the head. He snarls because he knows that's what the man had wanted to happen.

He hasn't touched the bottle. It remains where it landed just a few scant inches from him, yet he won't take it. The man is amused by this, he seems to find it funny and will laugh each time he turns his head to glance at the water.

He stays crouched against the wall, snarling and whimpering, unsure of what to do. He wants the water-drinkdrinksothirsty-but he doesn't trust the man. Doesn't want to accept it in front of him because somehow it just seems wrong. As if he is admitting something if he does, though he doesn't know what and it frustrates him.

So he doesn't move, and his throat becomes drier and his tongue swells and sticks to the roof of his mouth and he eventually collapses, completely exhausted and weak and losing the fight at staying awake.

It's only when the man scoffs at him and walks out of his sight that he pulls himself over the hard floor toward the bottle. It's capped, and he has to struggle with twisting the top before he can get at the water inside and drink.

It's stale and warm, but he doesn't care. He keeps swallowing as long as water hits his lips, and then bites the crackly plastic when there isn't anymore. He's still thirsty, but it's bearable now. He's not in danger of dying for the first time in days.

He leaves before the man returns.

The night comes and passes and still he does not get close to the man again. He stays well out of sight, hiding and hunting as best he can. Slithers are the only thing he can get; their scaly skin is peeled back easily enough by his claws, but they still don't taste as good as human flesh does. And they bite him if he's not quick.

He scrounges around in the brush for a little while, searching for something to eat, before he doubles back and stands to sniff the air. He smells brothers riding the slight breeze under the man's scent, cold and acrid to his sensitive nose. Familiar. Dangerous.

He bares his teeth and drops back into a crouch. The something in him pushes him to close in on the man, at least until he's within sight, and stay there. The man is still in the same shelter, slumped against the same wall and looking for all the world as if he's in a deep sleep.

He knows it's a lie. He learned his lesson before, he won't make the same mistake twice. If anything, the man is only dozing, because he isn't saying that word. Lacey. He isn't saying Lacey.

The man is listening for him, waiting for him to show up again. Maybe he's waiting to hurt him with his firestick. He trembles and slinks back a little, growling softly under his breath.

He won't venture closer. No, he'll stay away for a little while.

He curls into a tight ball under a prickly bush to sleep, his head throbbing.

A/N: Second story, up and running! /cheers/

This ENTIRE piece is heavily and shamelessly inspired by the wonderful Keenon, who's story Gratification drew me into Hunter/Human like a junkie looking for a fix. Which I am, because I'm addicted to her story, because it's amazing. I definately recommend it.

Hope you guys are liking this so far. If you want to see pictures of these two, you can go to my dA page. Link in profile.