Commitments

Who: Regan and Kurt
When: Night
Where: Out and about

It was wonderful being back home after the chaos had died down. The minute the shadows had begun appearing, Regan had taken off, enjoying the sights and tastes of a nearby city while Marquette struggled yet again for survival. Regan figured she was fairly smart - running before the real violence began, and then returning when it died away and people were left to pick up the pieces.

They were vulnerable then, trying to make sense of things. It was easy to find a victim too weak to really fight her off, or reject her advances. She always did what she needed to survive - which was why she was walking along the lakeshore in one piece, rather than hiding hideous wounds and scratches underneath bandages like the others. She was warm, after having just fed from an overeager teenage boy, and figured it was time to reclaim her town. And those who lived in it. She continued to walk, eyes searching through the darkness. She could hear the heartbeat somewhere nearby. She followed it, recognizing the rhythm and her tongue peaked out through her red lips, curving now into a smile. Fate had always been kind to her.

Kurt's leg was healing bit by bit, and getting around was gradually becoming easier. He was still compromised, but was trying to make up for it by taking several short walks a day. So what if some of them happened to be at night. He was fairly at ease at night, Big Iron at his side. The larger bouts of danger seemed to come all at once, and it seemed like the town was in a much-needed lull for the moment. He'd walked a pretty good distance from the house, using one crutch and limping with it as he scanned the area ahead of him. He didn't hear or notice that he had some familiar company right away, more focused on working out the pain in his knee.

She came up behind him, her footsteps nearly silent as she did so. She could see he was using a crutch, which meant he was hurt. She tsked softly under her breath. Stupid human. Probably tried to play hero at some point and came out of it hurt like all of the other idiots. Still, Regan licked her lips and shook her dark hair behind her shoulders as she approached him. "I'm glad to see you made it through the last few days alive," Regan told him once she was close enough. She loved hearing the beating of his heart. It pulsed through her. Made her want to sink her teeth into it.

That heart tripped a beat when he heard her voice, but he gave no outward sign of it, aside from a straightening of the shoulders. He stopped walking, and took a second and a quiet breath before he turned around to face her. He suddenly hated the crutch more than he'd ever hated it before. He wanted it gone, wanted his full mobility back. Because goddamn, there she was again. "Thank you, I'm glad to be able to say that I have," Kurt answered. He wanted to back away from her, put some distance between them, but didn't want to give the ground.

"You've got yourself hurt," Regan pointed out, walking until she stood mere feet from him. She placed her hands on her hips, allowing her eyes to wander over his body to take in his condition. "But you're healing well." The last time she had seen him she had called him to her, played with his mind for awhile, and sent him home aroused and wanting her. And before that, he had choked and threatened her. She was torn now, between being malicious and aroused. Her gaze lifted back to his face and she smiled, a hint of fang gleaming in the moonlight. And then she took one step toward him. "Have you missed me?"

There were two instincts that surfaced as she got so close. One was to draw his big revolver and put it right to her temple. The other was to grab her and pull her in against him. It was this second one that disturbed him more than anything, and the muscles around his eyes tightened ever so slightly. He remembered vague dreams about her, before the vampires had really settled in to wreak havoc. Intense, heated dreams. "I wasn't aware you'd been gone," he stated, tone still flat and even. He had a feeling that would bother her more than any other answer he could give, and he wanted to. He didn't elaborate on his injury.

Her lips twitched into an unamused smile and her eyes flashed with irritation. "I suppose you have a decent excuse for that, dealing with the Acherus. And the shroud eaters." Regan wanted to reach out and stroke her fingers along his cheek, but she knew that wouldn't please him at the moment. "But you thought about me. And dreamed about me. You missed me." She took another step toward him and dropped her eyes back to his leg and the crutch. The edge in her tone dulled away to something softer. "Does it hurt? The injury?"

Kurt was opening his mouth to deny such claims, even if they were -- creepily -- true, but the tone her voice shifted to threw him a little off guard. He looked at her downturned face and a very small frown crossed his expression before evening out again. She was probably asking to get a handle on how compromised he was. Which was difficult to hide when he was hobbling around on a crutch. "Not so much any longer," he answered, his own tone not changing much. "It was a bullet wound sustained during the Acherus attacks. It's healing well." Just far too slowly for his liking. He said nothing to the rest of it, though he had to wonder how she knew. Unless she was just stabbing in the dark, which was possible.

She tsked his carelessness, but said nothing in regards to it. Men and their egos. Regan took a moment to listen to his heartbeat, the pulsing of his blood. She tongued her fang for a moment, eyes lifting to his. She locked her gaze onto his, wanting to draw him in. Her face remained serene while her appetite grew. "I could make you feel better," she told him. "There would be zero pain in your body. Nothing but mind numbing pleasure and relief." But he knew that already. She decided to give him the option to decide first, before she took any further action. She was still slightly sore about his mistreatment of her, but she was feeling generous enough not to take it out on him just yet.

His torso stiffened a touch. He should be walking away now. Really, even if it was at a quick hobble with the muzzle of his gun trained on her, he should really be leaving. But he felt slightly rooted to the spot. "I appreciate the offer," he said, though he didn't sound at all like he meant it. "But I don't need you to make me feel better. Pain is a teacher." Something he was sure she knew nothing about, spoiled creature she so obviously was. But he still wasn't moving. There was just something about her eyes ... He tried to call up his night with Natalya and hold it in his mind, as a shining reminder of what he actually had, which was nothing like what this woman offered.

Regan eyed him, her face expressionless. There was just something about him. He oozed loyalty from every pore. He seemed like the type of man who would sacrifice for the ones he cared about, or loved. There weren't many men like him crawling the earth any more. There certainly hadn't been when she had been mortal. Regan blinked at the thought. So rarely did she think about when she had been living. The misery, abuse and heartache. She had stiffened against that - hardened against it - once she had been turned. Fighting off the memories, Regan refocused. "I would agree with you that pain is a teacher. And when it fades, you're a better man for suffering through it. It gives you strength. But there can be a fine line between pain and pleasure. When you mix the two together..." She licked her bottom lip briefly. "It's indescribable. It's intoxicating, and addicting." She moved until she stood directly in front of him. "Very few people can accept both at once. Awakening something so intense inside of you and releasing it. I know you crave that. I just don't understand why you find so much shame in it."

Kurt looked down at her, keeping his teeth clenched together to save any expression from leaking on to his face. Or in an attempt, anyway. He'd spotted the way she'd seemed somewhere else for a second or two, and filed it away. There was something slightly different about her tonight, somewhere. But he didn't know her well enough at all to place it yet. "Because I value that strength," he said quietly, not backing away from her. Not yet, anyway. "If you strip everything away, as has been done to me, that strength is all I have. And I have made a commitment to someone." Was that it? If he didn't have Natalya in his life, would he relent to Regan more easily? Indulge in that thing inside of him that she seemingly knew how to pluck out so perfectly? It was possible. "What one craves is not always the right thing," Kurt added in a low murmur, eyes ticking down to her lips very quickly.

She bristled at the word 'commitment'. More so at the revelation that apparently he had made one to someone else. The woman wasn't worthy and she certainly wasn't on par with what Regan was - and what she could give to him. It was that loyalty again. "Commitments bind you," Regan stately simply. She wasn't stupid, and she didn't miss the way he glanced at her mouth. That simple gesture was all she needed to bury the rising anger at this woman he'd pledged himself to. She was nothing, in Regan's eyes. Nothing but obligation. "They tie you up and lock you away from things that you truly desire. They restrict and suffocate. And because of that? Commitments always fail and crumble and leave nothing behind but pain and resentment." She softened her voice and looked up at him through her dark lashes. "What one craves may not always be the right thing, but it is not always wrong no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. The longer you deny yourself, the more you'll think about it. The more you'll want it. I could let you walk away from here tonight untouched and you'll walk away picturing my lips - my teeth - and how they would have felt sinking into your flesh. It'll drive you mad. But you're willing to suffer that because of obligation?"

He stared at her for what felt like a long time. The worst part about it all was, there was a part of him that did want to give in, that yearned for that heady release that he'd found with her. Or been forced into, however you wanted to put it. He wanted that wild abandon that she offered, that temptation of not holding back at all. He could be as rough with her as he wanted, as forceful ... it was tempting. Very. But his mind flashed back to having the delicate woman he lived with beneath him, the small sounds she made, how he felt he could defend her from every dark and evil thing in the world when her eyes were on him. The center of his universe, just as Doc had put it. It benefited him far more than lust could. "Yes, I'm willing. So be it," Kurt said quietly, though he sounded more sure of it than he felt. That was all right. His head was in the right place, even if body and emotions weren't quite. "You offer nothing of substance, it's all fleeting. I pity you, if you feel nothing deeper than lust." He took a step back from her and started to turn. "Be careful out tonight."

Regan's nose flared briefly with temper when he began to turn from her. You offer nothing of substance. She heard that phrase before. A long, long time ago. Everything ached for one split second before it thrust to the back of her mind and she allowed the demon to roar to the surface again. "Pity me?" The words came out of her mouth laced with fury. She reached out to snatch his arm and tug him back to face her. Men did not walk away from her. "Have I ever done anything to hurt you? Or your woman? Have I done anything more than what you wanted me to do? Don't you dare pity me. You don't know a thing about who I am or what I am other than what my body and teeth feels like. You don't know what I'm capable of feeling." Or doing. She wanted to take his crutch and kick it away from him. Or break it and beat him over the head with it. And maybe bleed him dry afterward. And just like that her temper broke and it was like she was never angry at all. "Do you love this woman?"

Kurt wrenched his arm out of her grip, his own fury flaring up in his eyes. Why could she not just find someone else to torment? It took a bit of willpower not to hit her, which was something that would likely disturb him later. "Yes, I do. I love her. Do you want to know why?" he snapped, losing a lot of that calm facade. She may have slipped back into placidity, but he hadn't. God the things this woman dragged out of him. "Because I do know who she is and what she is, and what she is capable of feeling. Because she's let me make my own decisions, and hasn't had to resort to mind tricks to get anything from me. You think such a thing can ever be genuine? You have taken from me what you wanted, and only seen in what I want the things you want to see. What you say I want is true, yes, but there are other, more important wants that overpower it. From the things you say, you have simplified me into a mindless rutting animal, and I assure you, fraulein, I am not."

"I've allowed you to make your own decisions. At the lake, you have plenty of willpower to decide what you wanted. And you wanted me to drink from you. And you wanted to fuck me. And I allowed both things," Regan spat. Sure, she had pulled him in, but she hadn't done so the furthest extent of her ability. She breathed in - though the gesture wasn't necessary - and released the breath slowly, her dark eyes locked onto his face. If she didn't calm down, she was going to end up attacking him, and that wouldn't bode well for either of them. "I see more in you than a rutting, mindless animal, but you have simplified me into nothing but a demon. Which is actually quite a shame." She shook her head. She was through giving him these kind of chances. "If you want her, have her. But the things that you truly want - the things you continue to hide from her? They're only going to hurt her in the end, I guarantee you that."

There was a wave of some unpleasant feeling that worked through him at her words, and he stared at her hard for a moment, nostrils flaring. Hadn't he worried about that selfsame thing? Hadn't that been a factor in the length of time it had taken him to even get intimate with her? His entire adult life, he'd been so controlled, so calculated, his hands firmly on his own reins. Because when he wasn't ... this happened. Kurt's jaw flexed, and he found that there was nothing else he could say. He moved to turn away again, wondering already if it wouldn't be the kind of night better spent elsewhere. Not that he really had an excuse for it now.

"I'll see you back in your dreams, lovely," Regan told him as he turned, crossing her arms against her chest with a small smirk. She still wanted to kick his crutch away. He had so many chances. And she had been far too good to him for far too long. That had to stop now. How unfortunate. "And you're going to suffer wanting me."

He didn't say anything, head down slightly, listening for movement as he hobbled away. Somehow he thought that if she was going to attack him, she would've done so already. But he couldn't help but be slightly creeped out by her reference to his dreams. He just wanted to get away from her, he'd deal with the rest of it as it came. It had just always been that way.