Chapter Text
The research was going nowhere.
Ford had three books open on the kitchen table, two of them contradicting each other on the matter of solar sensitivity, and a fourth he'd already dismissed as fiction masquerading as folklore. He'd marked a dozen pages. He had seventeen notes and no conclusions. Whatever his muse had directed him toward, the existing literature was proving frustratingly thin on substance and maddeningly dense on superstition.
He closed the top book and rubbed his eyes.
He was tired — more than usual, sleep having clung to him well past when it should have released him. He'd woken slow and cotton-headed, vaguely aware of a dream he couldn't quite hold onto. His muse had told him last night to expect a surprise soon, voice warm and conspiratorial in the way it got when it was pleased with itself. Ford couldn't remember much else. The events of the night sat behind gauze, impressionistic and scattered. He'd woken with the sheets twisted and a drying stain in his boxers — only to feel a low flush of anticipation move through him when he remembered what he'd been told.
A surprise.
Whatever it was, he found he was looking forward to it.
The coffee maker beeped. Ford got up, humming something half-remembered under his breath — an old tune, nothing he could name — and stood watching the last of it drip through.
The knock at the door was loud enough to make him jump.
Ford set down his mug and went to answer it, already frowning, trying to think of who it could possibly be at this hour. He pulled the door open.
A man stood on his doorstep. Lanky, dark-skinned, wearing a black and yellow suit that had no business existing outside of a fever dream. His hair was a cloud of black curls, medium-length, slightly disheveled, and his eyes —
His eyes were gold.
Lit from within, almost, in a way that Ford's brain stumbled over trying to figure out. The man grinned at him, wide and sharp, and Ford's gaze caught on the teeth — on the canines specifically, which tapered to fine, unmistakable points.
"Heya, Sixer!"
Ford stared.
The voice. The cadence of it. The flavor of delight sitting in that greeting like it had always lived there.
"My muse," Ford breathed. Then, louder, stepping forward: "How are you here? This is — this is extraordinary, I thought your influence was limited to the mindscape, the theoretical framework alone suggested that a full physical manifestation would require an enormous expenditure of—"
"You gonna let me in, Fordsy?"
Ford blinked. "Oh — yes! Yes, of course, come in, come in." He stepped back, holding the door wide. "Can I get you anything? I've just made coffee, or — I could put on tea, I think I have tea somewhere, or — let me get my journal, I have so many questions—"
"Muse," Ford said, already halfway to the bookshelf, "how long have you been capable of this? Is this a new development, or have you always had the ability to cross over and simply chosen not to? What are the energetic requirements? Is this sustainable, or is there a — a time limit of some kind—"
"Mm."
"—because if there's a time limit I want to make sure I'm asking the most essential questions first, in which case let me find my notes from last Tuesday, I had a theoretical framework I wanted to run by you—"
"Mm-hm."
Ford found his journal. He turned, opening it to a fresh page, pen already uncapped. "Right. So. First question—"
"Fordsy."
"—regarding the nature of physical manifestation—"
"Fordsy."
Ford looked up. Bill was staring at him. The golden eyes had gone flat in a way that Ford recognized, distantly, as a warning.
"Your muse," Bill said, with clear restraint, "is standing right in front of you." He gestured to himself. "In the flesh. And all you want to do—" he pointed at the journal, "—is write in your book."
"I'm not — I mean, I was going to ask you the questions verbally, and then write down the—"
"Fine," Bill said, turning toward the door. "Fine! I'll leave, then! Clearly you don't need me here in person! I'll go back to being a voice in your head, shall I? Bye-bye, Stanford."
"Wait—" Ford was across the room before he'd consciously decided to move, hand catching Bill's sleeve. "Wait, please, I — I'm sorry. I didn't mean — please don't go." The words came out in a tumble, undignified and earnest and he couldn't quite make himself care. "Please. Stay. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, I just — you're here, and I got excited, and I defaulted to — please."
Bill looked down at the hand on his sleeve. Then up at Ford.
Then he laughed — bright and sudden, head tipping back — and reached up to ruffle Ford's hair with enough force to dislodge his glasses.
"Aw, Sixer." He was grinning again, the irritation gone as quickly as it had arrived. "You're just too cute! I can't stay mad at you." He straightened Ford's glasses with two fingers, almost gentle. "Now. Weren't you wanting to do some research? On vampires, I think it was?"
Ford brightened immediately. "Yes! Actually, yes — your timing is perfect, I've been hitting walls all morning, the existing literature is almost entirely useless, do you happen to know any vampires personally? Given the breadth of your—"
"What do you think I am?"
Ford paused.
Bill was grinning at him. Slowly, deliberately, he ran his tongue along the length of one canine. The tooth caught the light. It was very sharp. It was, Ford's brain supplied, not a cosmetic affectation.
The blood drained from Ford's face.
"You're—" he started.
"There it is," Bill said cheerfully.
"You're a vampire."
"Smart as ever."
"You've been — all this time — my muse is a—" Ford sat down heavily on the arm of the sofa. The room felt slightly tilted. "I think I need a moment."
Bill tilted his head. "All your blood rushing elsewhere, IQ?"
Ford went crimson. "That is not—"
"Relax, Sixer, it was a compliment." Bill waved a hand. "Mostly." He let the silence sit for a moment, golden eyes bright with something that wasn't quite patience but was adjacent to it. "So. You wanted first-hand experience with a vampire."
Ford's mouth opened. Closed. "I — yes."
"Well?" Bill spread his hands.
Ford looked at him. At the teeth. At the easy, predatory looseness of how he was standing, like gravity had slightly different opinions about him than it did about everyone else.
"Yes," Ford said. "Alright. Yes."
Bill smiled slowly. "Kneel down."
It wasn't phrased as a question. Ford's knees hit the floor before he'd quite decided to move, and he looked up at Bill with an expression he couldn't fully account for — open, attentive, waiting — hands folded carefully over his lap.
Bill's gaze dropped to them. One corner of his mouth pulled up. He rolled his eyes with a fond exasperation.
Then he knelt too, unhurried, folding himself down to Ford's level with the easy grace of someone who had never once moved quickly out of necessity. He brought one hand up to cup the back of Ford's head, fingers spreading through his hair, and the other settled at his jaw — not gripping, just resting, thumb pressing lightly against the hinge of it, tilting his face sideways by degrees until the full line of his throat was exposed.
Ford's breath went shallow. He could feel his own pulse in his neck.
Then Bill leaned in, and his mouth brushed the curve of Ford's shoulder first, barely contact at all, more warmth than pressure. Ford's hands tightened in his lap. Bill dragged his lips upward slowly, tracing the line of the tendon, pausing at the pulse point long enough that Ford felt it — felt Bill feel it, the give of attention there, deliberate and unhurried. His breath was warm and even against the skin.
The sound that started to come out of Ford’s throat caught him off guard. Breathy and low and not quiet enough — he got his jaw shut in time to cut most of it off, but not all of it, and the silence afterward felt very loud.
Bill huffed a quiet laugh against his throat. "Cmon, Fordsy," he murmured. “Don’t be shy.”
The hand in Ford's hair tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, just enough to keep him still, and then his tongue pressed flat against the skin — a single long drag upward, slow, from the base of his neck to just below his ear — and Ford's whole body shuddered with it, a fine tremor he couldn't suppress.
"Hold still," Bill murmured against his ear.
Bill's mouth found the junction of his neck and shoulder and stayed there, and Ford felt him open against the skin — felt the specific, unmistakable pressure of teeth, the points of them, dragging lightly first in something that was almost a warning — and then he bit down, fast and clean and deep.
The sound Ford made came from somewhere he didn't have access to normally. High and long and unguarded, punched out of him, his whole body jerking forward against the hands holding him. Pain flared bright and immediate and then — tipped over into something else, something warm and radiating outward from the wound in slow pulses that matched his heartbeat exactly. His vision went soft at the edges. His hands had found Bill's sleeve at some point, knuckles white.
Bill didn't pull back. He stayed, mouth pressed to the wound, and Ford felt him — felt the specific sensation of being drawn from, rhythmic and insistent and intimate in a way that made his face burn even through the haze. Bill chuckled, low in his chest, and the vibration of it traveled through his teeth and into the wound and Ford whimpered at the ceiling.
Then, slowly, Bill released him.
Blood welled immediately, sluggish but steady, tracking down over Ford's collarbone. Ford swayed. The room had acquired a pleasant, distant quality. He was aware of Bill rising to his feet, of a hand leaving the back of his skull, of the specific sensation of his own blood cooling against his skin.
Then Bill's fingers touched his cheek — two of them, pressed to his jaw, tilting his face upward.
Ford blinked up at him. Bill was looking down with an expression that sat somewhere between delighted and unhinged, flushed with something that had nothing to do with embarrassment, and his fingers — the ones resting against Ford's lips — were dark and wet.
Ford's lips parted before Bill had fully pressed his fingers forward, and Bill felt the first tentative touch of his tongue, Ford's mouth closing around his knuckles with a soft, desperate sound that Bill felt in his sternum.
The taste landed all at once. Iron and salt and something darker underneath, something that sat at the back of the throat and radiated outward, copper-warm and strange and his. Ford made a noise against Bill's fingers that he clearly hadn't meant to make. His brow furrowed slightly, not in distress but in concentration, like he was trying to hold onto something slipping away from him.
Bill watched him work at it. The slow drag of his tongue between his fingers, methodical, chasing every trace of it. The way his throat moved when he swallowed. The slight desperation creeping into it when he found a spot he'd missed, pressing his mouth harder against Bill's knuckles to get at it.
Bill pressed deeper, unhurried, letting Ford take what he was given.
The hand not occupied in Ford's mouth settled on top of his head. Ford didn't flinch from it. If anything he tilted into it fractionally, seeking the pressure without seeming to realize he was doing it.
Bill looked down at Ford — at the dark smear of red spreading across his chin, the wet shine of it on his cheeks where he'd pressed too eagerly against Bill's hand, the blown-wide pupils that had eaten most of the grey from his eyes — and felt something sharp and proprietary move through him.
"Do you like it?" Bill asked, and pressed his fingers harder against Ford's tongue.
"Yes, muse," Ford mumbled around his fingers. His tongue moved thick and deliberate against Bill's knuckles, drool pooling at the corners of his mouth and dripping freely.
"Tell me what you like about it." Bill reached up with his free hand and tangled it in Ford's curls, gripping at the root. "The taste? The feeling? The depravity of it?"
"All of it," Ford nearly moaned. "More — please—"
Bill grinned and shoved his fingers back in, past Ford's teeth, deep enough to make him gag. Ford jerked backward against the hand fisted in his hair, body caught between the two points of pressure, nowhere to go.
"Coated in your own blood," Bill said, almost giggling. "You really are a freak, Sixer."
Ford whimpered. His eyes squeezed shut and he shuddered, shoulders curling inward like the word had struck something tender.
Bill's expression shifted. He pulled hard on Ford's scalp — a sharp yank — and drew his fingers free all at once. His other hand snapped up to grip Ford's jaw, wet fingers pressing into the hinge of it.
"Look at me."
Bill loomed over him, and Ford's eyes flew open, his whole body going very still, jaw creaking faintly under Bill's grip.
Ford's neck was a mess — the bite site sat high on the curve where neck met shoulder, ragged and still seeping, blood trailing in slow lines down over his collarbone, branching across his chest, soaking into the collar of his shirt where it clung. More of it tracked down his back, Bill knew, pooling at the waistband. His pulse throbbed visibly at the wound, a dull rhythmic push of blood with every heartbeat.
Bill was furious. He didn't know when that had happened, but it was sitting in his chest now, tight and hot, some ugly thing with teeth.
Ford looked at him — really looked at him, despite the glazed quality still clinging to the edges of his eyes — and he tilted his head. Bared the side of his throat. The wound stretched with the motion and wept a fresh line of red.
Bill's jaw tightened.
"Ha!" Bill brightened all at once, the fury dropping off him like a coat. He let his hand settle on top of Ford's head, almost fond. "You're lucky I like you, Fordsy. You and your blood."
"Thank you," Ford moaned, his whole body trembling.
The fury hadn't fully left. Ford could see the last trace of it still sitting in the set of Bill's jaw, in the quality of his attention — too focused, too still, the particular stillness of something that had recently decided not to bite. And then Bill dropped to his knees in front of him and Ford lost the thread of what he'd been observing entirely.
Bill's hand slid from the top of Ford's head down to cup his face, fingers curling under his jaw, tilting it up. He was close enough that Ford could see the smear of red at the corner of his mouth. His own blood, some distant part of him noted.
Bill learned forward and his mouth opened against his immediately, certain of its welcome, and Ford kissed back with the graceless desperation of someone operating entirely on instinct. Bill's tongue pressed against his and Ford tasted himself there, iron-dark and copper-warm, his own blood licked clean from Bill's teeth and fed back to him.
Ford could feel his own pulse everywhere — throat, face, the wound on his neck still pushing blood out in slow rhythmic increments. Bill leaned back and his thumb dragged across his lower lip, unhurried, pressing in slightly, and his eyes were very bright and not particularly kind.
"Hm," Bill said, like Ford had confirmed something.
Then he took the collar of Ford's shirt in both hands and tore it open.
Ford keened — the sound ripped out of him by the sheer shock of it, buttons scattering, the fabric hanging open — and Bill pushed it off his shoulders without looking at it, already looking elsewhere, gaze traveling down Ford's chest with the unhurried attention of someone taking inventory. The blood from the bite had tracked all the way down, branching across his collarbone, a thin dark line bisecting his sternum.
Bill traced it upward with one finger. Slowly. Following it back toward the wound like he was retracing his own work.
"So," Bill said. Conversational. Light. The finger reached the bite site and pressed, not hard, just enough, and Ford's whole body seized around the sensation. "Where else, do you think?" His gaze traveled down Ford's chest, across his ribs, back up with a deliberateness that made Ford's skin prickle. "Plenty of options. Lots of real estate!" He tilted his head. "Purely in the interest of thorough research, obviously."
Ford's mouth was open. His eyes had gone to half-mast, heavy-lidded, tracking Bill's face with slow focus. The question sat in the air between them. Ford's brow furrowed very slightly, the effortful crease of someone trying to locate language.
"Uh huh," he mumbled.
"Ha!" Bill grinned down at him. "Finally got that big brain of yours to shut up."
He got his hands in the waist of Ford's trousers and pulled.
Ford whimpered — high and startled, hips lifting helplessly with the motion — and then the fabric was gone and Ford was left blinking up at the ceiling with a dazed, undefended expression. His head lolled to the side. His throat stretched long and pale and still bleeding, pulse visible at the neck, steady and slow.
Ford made a small sound. Tilted his chin up further, deliberate, or as deliberate as he was capable of being, which was not very. An offering. Patient and glassy-eyed and completely gone.
"Don’t worry, Fordsy," he said, swinging a knee over him, settling his weight down with the easy certainty of something that had never once questioned its welcome. He looked down at Ford with that sharp bright attention, one hand braced beside his head. “I’ll give you more.”
Bill took Ford's wrists and pressed them into the floor above his head, and Ford let him — went with it with no resistance. Bill looked at his hands like that for a second — open and still and not going anywhere.
He tightened his grip anyway.
Ford made a low sound, not quite a moan, and his whole body settled — some tension releasing, shoulders dropping, head tipping back into the floor like he'd been waiting to be told to stop holding himself up.
Bill watched it for a moment. Then he lowered his head and put his mouth to the curve of Ford's shoulder, not at the wound, beside it — lips first, then the slow flat press of his tongue against unbroken skin, tasting salt and dried blood.
Ford's breath stuttered.
Bill worked slowly. He dragged his mouth in a long arc around the wound without touching it, mapping the edges of it, and Ford tracked every point of contact with small involuntary sounds that he was clearly past trying to suppress — little hitched exhales, the occasional soft noise that wasn't quite a word. His hips shifted once, restless, seeking, and Bill put his free hand flat on them and pressed down.
Bill nipped at the skin just beside the wound — soft, barely pressure, the graze of a canine — and Ford's whole body shuddered, wrists pulling once against Bill's grip before going still again. Bill rewarded him by rolling his hips down, slow and deliberate, and Ford's back came off the floor with a sound that bounced off every wall in the shack.
Bill did it again.
And again, settling into an unhurried rhythm, mouth still working at the skin around the wound — kissing, dragging his teeth lightly, breathing against it — while Ford came apart underneath him. He nosed at the bite mark and felt Ford tense in anticipation and then bypassed it entirely, mouthing at the tendon below it, and Ford made a broken frustrated noise and turned his head to bare more throat.
"Please," Ford said. The word came out wrecked, scraped clean of everything except the wanting.
Bill lifted his head. Looked at Ford — flushed and glassy and pinned and asking, wrists still lying open in Bill's grip, not pulling, just there — and felt the full satisfaction of it move through him like something settling into place.
He pressed his mouth to the wound.
Ford's moan was long and ragged and his fingers finally curled, gripping at nothing, holding onto the feeling of being held down because there was nothing else to hold onto.
Bill pulled back.
He looked down at Ford for a moment — chest heaving, wrists still lying where Bill had left them, not moving, not thinking about moving — and then sat up and got his jacket by the lapels and shrugged it off in one motion, dropping it somewhere. His shirt and pants followed.
"Still with me, Sixer?"
Ford's gaze traveled up to his face, glassy and unfocused but burning with a desperate, adoring heat. "Yes, my muse," he said, the words slurred and thick with need.
Bill's fingers found the waistband of Ford's boxers—the last thing left, already ruined, damp and dark at the hip where blood had tracked this far down—and tore them off in one brutal pull. The fabric gave way with a sharp rip, and Ford made a choked sound, his hips lifting helplessly off the floor, his cock slapping wetly against his stomach with the motion. The precum smeared across his bloody skin in a sticky, glistening trail, and Ford's breath hitched, a broken sob escaping his lips as the cold air hit his overheated flesh.
"Look at you," Bill murmured, his voice a low, rough purr that vibrated through Ford's bones. "Already leaking like a faucet!" He ran a single finger through the slick mess on Ford's stomach, gathering the precum and blood and smearing it up the length of his cock. Ford's hips bucked up into the touch, a ragged moan tearing from his throat.
Blood smeared between them where their skin met, Ford's blood, and now it was on Bill's chest too, his hands, his forearms, the inside of his wrists where he'd braced himself. Dark and cooling at the edges and still sluggishly wet near the source.
Ford's cock pressed insistently against Bill's stomach, the precum now slicking the space between them, a wet, sticky heat that made every shift of their bodies a new torment.
Bill grinned down at him, his eyes bright with cruel amusement, and began to sink down, slow and deliberate, taking Ford's cock inside him inch by inch. Ford's head fell back against the floorboards with a thud, his mouth open in a silent moan as the tight, wet heat of Bill's cunt enveloped him, the pressure and the friction and the sheer, overwhelming sensation of it all driving him to the edge in seconds.
Bill's grin widened into something feral, his pupils dilating until his eyes were nearly black pools of predatory hunger. He leaned down, his breath hot against Ford's ear, and his voice dropped to a whisper that sent shivers down Ford's spine. "You know what I am, Sixer. You know what I need."
Bill's teeth grazed the shell of Ford's ear, then dragged down his jawline, leaving a trail of sharp, stinging bites that made Ford's hips buck up involuntarily. "Please," Ford gasped, the word torn from his throat, raw and desperate.
"Please what?" Bill murmured, his lips brushing against the pulse point in Ford's neck, where the blood beat a frantic rhythm beneath thin skin. "Please bite me? Please mark me? Please make me yours?"
"Yes," Ford whimpered, his hands coming up to clutch at Bill's shoulders, his fingers digging into the cold, unyielding muscle. "Please, Muse, I need—"
Bill didn't make him finish. His jaw unhinged slightly, his canines elongating with a soft, wet pop, and then he sank his teeth into the soft flesh of Ford's neck, right over the earlier wound. Ford screamed, a ragged, ecstatic sound that tore through the shack, his back arching off the floor as pleasure and pain collided. Bill drank deeply, his throat working in rhythmic swallows.
The tight, wet heat of his cunt was a vice, clamping down around Ford's length with a slick, sucking grip that made Ford's hips jerk up helplessly, a choked, ragged moan tearing from his throat.
"Fuck—Bill—please—" Ford babbled, his words slurred and broken, his head thrashing against the floorboards. Bill just chuckled, a low, dark sound that vibrated through their joined bodies, and rode him hard and fast, his hips snapping down in a punishing rhythm that had Ford's cock slamming deep into him with every thrust.
Ford's moans were constant, a ragged litany of whimpers and whines, his body arching off the floor, his hands scrabbling uselessly against the wood planks. Bill leaned down, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of Ford's shoulder, then dragging down his chest, leaving a trail of angry red marks and shallow bites across his skin. Ford cried out with each one, his body shuddering, his cock twitching inside Bill's cunt.
Bill's hips never stopped moving, using Ford as a toy with each thrust, his teeth still buried in Ford's neck. Bill cackled against his skin, the vibration sending fresh waves of sensation through Ford's oversensitive nerves, and he kept riding him, his movements becoming more frantic, more desperate.
"So desperate for me, aren't you?," Bill growled against Ford's skin, his voice rough with pleasure. "So pathetic for your muse." He bit down hard on Ford's nipple, and Ford's back bowed off the floor, a ragged, wordless scream tearing from his lungs. His orgasm hit him like a freight train, sudden and violent, his body seizing as he came, spilling hot inside Bill with a choked, sobbing cry.
Bill cackled, a wild, unhinged sound, and kept riding him through it, his movements relentless, drawing out Ford's pleasure into agony. Ford's cock was oversensitive, twitching and leaking, but Bill didn't stop, his hips slamming down in a brutal, punishing rhythm that had Ford's moans devolving into continuous, high-pitched keenings. His eyes were rolled back, only the whites showing, his mouth open in a silent, endless moan.
Then Bill's tongue lapped at the blood on Ford's chest, a long, flat stripe that sent Ford's body arching again, a fresh, desperate moan tearing from his throat. That was enough. Bill's own orgasm hit him like a tidal wave, a guttural yell ripping from his chest as he came hard, his body seizing as he squeezed Ford tight, his teeth sinking deeper into Ford's neck, drawing another gush of blood.
He collapsed forward, his weight crushing Ford into the floor, his breath hot and ragged against Ford's neck. Ford's moans didn't stop, soft and continuous, a broken litany of overstimulated pleasure that seemed like it would go on forever. Bill's own body trembled with the aftershocks, his heart hammering against his ribs, and he let out a final, shuddering breath, his cackle reduced to a weak, breathless chuckle against Ford's skin.
Bill stayed where he was for a moment, weight still pressed against Ford's chest, breath coming down slowly from ragged. Ford's sounds hadn't stopped — soft and continuous and helpless, his body still working through the last of it in small shudders that moved through them both. Bill could feel Ford's pulse under his mouth where it rested against his neck.
He lifted his head.
Ford looked — comprehensively ruined. Eyes half-open and unseeing, lips parted, chest heaving in unsteady waves. The bite on his neck was still sluggishly weeping. Blood had dried everywhere else, cracked and dark at the edges, still tacky near the source, smeared across both of them in overlapping evidence of the last however-long.
Bill looked at him for a long moment. Something moved through his expression that wasn't quite readable — warm and sharp-edged and proprietary all at once — and then he pressed one last kiss to the side of Ford's throat, deliberate, almost gentle, right over the pulse.
Ford whimpered softly. His fingers twitched.
Bill climbed off him.
He stood, unhurried, and looked down at Ford for a moment — sprawled and twitching and thoroughly wrecked, chest still moving in unsteady increments, eyes half-open and glassy and pointed at nothing in particular. Blood had dried in dark branching lines across most of his torso. More of it was still moving, sluggish, from the bite.
Bill disappeared down the hall, bare feet on the floorboards, unhurried. Ford heard the bathroom light click on. The cabinet open.
Bill reappeared in the doorway. Looked at Ford, still exactly where he'd left him, still making those soft continuous sounds, one hand now resting palm-up on the floor beside his head like it had simply given up.
The first aid kit sailed across the room and landed squarely on Ford's stomach.
Ford made a soft, startled sound, his breath punching out of him. His eyes found the ceiling, but he didn't move.
The towel hit him in the face a second later.
"That sure was fun!" Bill's voice was bright and entirely too cheerful for someone who had just — Ford's brain skipped over the inventory. "Hope you were coherent enough to take some mental notes, Sixer! Wouldn't want all that first-hand research experience to go to waste."
Ford let out a pained whimper.
"I'll take that as a maybe." He cackled. "See you in your dreams, Fordsy!"
And then he was gone, and the room was quiet.
Ford lay on the floor of his own living room, naked and blood-soaked, towel over his face, first aid kit on his stomach. His body was still making small involuntary sounds that he didn't have the presence of mind to suppress. The floorboards were cold against his back. The wound on his neck throbbed in slow, warm pulses.
He reached up and pulled the towel off his face.
His neck throbbed in slow warm pulses. He was going to need to deal with the first aid kit at some point. He was going to need to deal with quite a lot of things, probably.
He was going to need considerably more pages in his journal.
He smiled, slow and helpless and stupid with it, and let his eyes fall shut.
-
Ford woke up in his bed.
His throat throbbed. His boxers were damp and stiff against his thighs, and he lay very still for a moment with his eyes on the ceiling, blinking away his confusion. The slow pulse of heat at his neck that faded, gradually, into nothing.
He let out a long breath through his nose.
Then he pulled the pillow over his face and groaned into it, low and mortified.