Looking up from the floor to Kait’s face Victoria listened to her friend. She could see in Kait’s eyes and expression that the girl was serious about wanting to help. Offering herself so that others won’t get hurt, and trying to reassure Victoria that Kait would be ok pulled at the blonde’s heart strings. Her friend really was being a good friend right now.

Nodding to the offer of assistance to the showers Victoria made her way with her dear friend’s help.

Once in the shower area Victoria sat leaning against one of the walls. “Kait…I…” She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever done this for her before and she was filled with emotions that swirled around inside her. Yet, her friend seemed to have all this thought out. So for now she thought it best to let Kait continue to lead what was becoming a bonding moment.

In spite of all the expenses un-spared in re-(re-re-re-)building the Mansion, its locker rooms had those awkward communal showers, so that the awkward teenagers within its walls needed to choose between a) continuing to be sweaty and smelly after P.E. or b) showering, completely naked, in full view of their equally-naked peers. Any kind of shower design allowing for more privacy would be incompatible with some of the more unusually-shaped mutant bodies.

Besides, they were all girls, so it wouldn’t be weird. Right?

“Uh… we might want to take our clothes off for this.” She looked away from Victoria, blushing. “If we get them dirty, people could ask questions.” It was a practical matter, you see. “So… yeah.”

The girl turned away from Victoria and undressed quickly, getting it over with as fast as possible. Then she threw her wad of clothes into the corner of the room, along with the towels, where they would all be safe from the showers. Wet clothes could prompt almost as many questions as bloodied ones.

This whole situation felt really weird.

Red eyes widened at the mention of removing their clothes. At least that was Victoria’s initial response, but as she listened more Kait had some good points. Bloody clothes would warrant questions for sure. Something Victoria wanted to avoid at all costs.

What would the rest of the people in the mansion think it they found out she was feeding on other students? The thought sent a shiver down her spine. She was sure nothing good would come of that.

Seeing Kait turn away when she mentioned taking their clothes off hinted that the other girl was also feeling strange about it. Nonetheless, it was the best they could do to keep Victoria’s secret. So…following suit Victoria undressed and placed her clothes on a bench away from the shower area then moved back into the showers.

Her hunger took hold again making her cringe and wrap her arms around her stomach. This time Victoria let out a very audible groan. She couldn’t hold out any longer.

Not wanting to scare her dear friend Victoria moved slowly to Kait ignoring the awkwardness as she was doing her best to fight off the pain. Wrapping her arms around Kait’s slender frame she held the red-haired girl close and…as gently as she could…sank her fangs into her friend’s neck and began to feed.

Kait’s blood was very sweet and Victoria was happy her friend was willing to share it. With her hunger being sated the little vampire’s red eyes began to glow as if being a sign of satisfaction. There was now a very special bond between the two girls. Victoria would never forget this act of kindness.

Kaitlyn’s heart was beating so hard she thought her chest would explode.

It was actually happening. Thinking about this as some kind of moral dilemma was one thing; it made Kaitlyn feel like it was an easy decision, when she looked at it that way. Details like I am going to let her bite off part of my neck and drink my blood got lost in the fog of abstract thought she’d navigated to get there.

The situation didn’t actually feel real until she was naked in the shower room, with Victoria, also naked, walking right towards her, making the un-killable child feel more vulnerable than she could have imagined.

And then Victoria’s arms were wrapped around her, and the taller girl pulled her close and --

Kaitlyn whimpered. Blood poured from the wound in flowing red rivulets running all the way down to her feet. But after the initial pain, it didn’t feel so bad. Still uncomfortable and awkward, but at least not painful. She felt cold, but Victoria’s embrace was warm. Her strength left her; she went limp in the vampire’s arms. If Victoria didn’t keep holding Kaitlyn upright, she would collapse.

Blood…so warm, blood…so sweet. Victoria felt differently than all her past times of feeding. She used to always feel rushed, scared or being caught and hated having to hurt others. This time those feelings didn’t exist. This time there were feelings of calmness and enjoyment. Were these new feelings the reason Kait’s blood tasted so much better?

Victoria could feel Kait’s legs giving out and carefully lowered them both to the floor while still embracing her friend. Using her own strength, Victoria kept the red-hared girl upright until she could position them so Kait could lean against her.

Licking the wound to savor Kait’s blood one last time Victoria stroked her friend’s hair. Both of them were covered in liquid red velvet. Red eyes still glowing the vampire girl checked on her dearest friend. “Kait? Are you ok? Please be ok…”

All in all, this really should have been an unpleasant experience. She did just get part of her neck bitten off, after all, and she’d lost so much blood that she would be very close to death, if not for Sebastian’s ‘blessing.’ Not to mention that she was covered in her own blood, which was kinda gross.

But at the same time, there was something strangely relaxing about it. Something about leaning against Victoria, wrapped up in her arms at the end of it all, made the whole experience seem a little less painful.

Kaitlyn tilted her head back to look at Victoria. The flesh on the side of her neck was already knitting itself together. She was smiling. “I’m fine. I’ll feel tired and crappy for a while, but it’s cool.” With that said, she spent the next few seconds starting at Victoria’s eyes, smiling like a doofus.

Her eyes were glowing. Kaitlyn didn’t think it was possible for someone’s eyes to get any more fascinating than Victoria’s already were, then they went and started glowing.

The hunger had been satisfied by Kait’s sweet blood, and so the pains caused by the hunger were now fading away quickly. She felt oooh sooo much better now. All thanks to her dear friend Kait.

Who was…looking up at Victoria…oddly. She had never seen anyone give such a strange look before.

“Are you sure you’re ok? You don’t look ok.” Victoria turned her head a bit to get a better look at her friend. "Maybe you’ll feel better after we shower?"

Kaitlyn snapped out of it.

“Nah. I prolly just look bad ‘cause of the blood.” She chuckled, still smiling. The dark red of her blood contrasted sharply with her paler-than-usual skin, the off-white tiles in the shower room, and the faint shade of pink in her cheeks.

“A shower’d be nice, though. This is kinda gross.” She rested her head against Victoria and made no indication that she was going to get up and help make that shower happen. Too much effort. She was comfortable enough where she was.

A nod acknowledged Kait’s response even though it still didn’t give meaning to the question Victoria had really meant. She might have to be more direct if she wanted to know what was behind the look Kait had given here just moments ago.

Looking down at their naked blood covered bodies Victoria agreed that it wasn’t a pretty sight. Feeling no movement from Kait to get up the blonde stretched her right arm up and turned the nozzle to start the shower.

A burst of cold water rained down on them as Victoria quickly turned the nozzle in search of a more comfortable temperature. Once a nice relaxing warm shower had been created the blonde blood drinker looked down to her friend again and started to help wipe off the blood. “I’m sorry about that.”

You have to understand that Kaitlyn had just lost a lot of blood, and blood loss makes it hard to think straight. She was a little bit disoriented, and she wasn’t entirely herself at the time. There was this little thing called impulse control, and Kaitlyn normally had enough of it to stop herself from doing this kind of thing. But her filter wasn’t really working at the moment. And she didn’t really have any idea what was going through her head at the time.

When Victoria was done apologizing for the little shower temperature thing… well, it bears repeating that Kaitlyn wasn’t in her right mind at the time. And Victoria was just acting so darn guilty about the whole thing, and Kaitlyn just thought that was silly, and telling Victoria not to worry about it hadn’t really fixed anything, and Kaitlyn wasn’t really thinking straight.

So she kissed Victoria.

It was a quick kiss, right on the lips. The whole thing lasted a fraction of a second, then she went back to her regularly scheduled using-Victoria-like-a-naked-human-pillow while the shower washed the blood off of them.

A few seconds later, she furrowed her eyebrows. She had the distinct feeling that she just did something weird, but she couldn’t figure out why she felt that way.

Everything was feeling better. The hunger had gone away now; the blood was washing away as the warm water rained down. Only Victoria’s guilt remained. She had just fed from someone she considered a very dear friend. It was something she nev…

Eyes widened with innocent confusion. Did she…? Was that a….? It was! It was a kiss!

Victoria was accustomed to seeing people kissing for various reasons from her time in Europe. However, this kiss felt like something more than a simple hello. Kait couldn’t have been thanking the blonde as that should be the other way around. Was it because Victoria had turned on the shower to wash the blood and was holding Kait so she wouldn’t just fall over onto the tiles? What was it? Something more than that? It was confusing, but at the same time it didn’t cause any ill feelings in response.

When Kait resumed her position of leaning against Victoria the red-eyed girl smiled and gave a gentle squeeze.

Kaitlyn spent the next few minutes pretending that she was still too weak to stand, and needed to stay right where she was.

It eventually became clear that lying around in the shower had long since stopped doing anything to clean them up. Although Kaitlyn hated to admit it by now, cleaning up was the whole point of being in the shower. She forced herself to stand up and rinse the rest of the blood off of herself.

There was something running off in the back of her head about ulterior motives she wouldn’t admit to herself she had, but she didn’t pay attention to it. She had a feeling that talking or thinking too hard about it might ruin the moment. Whatever had just happened between them, Victoria didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Kaitlyn didn’t have a problem with it, either, and she didn’t try as hard to stop herself from looking at Victoria while they were still naked.

By the time she was drying herself off, she had to sit down again, propping herself up against the shower wall. There was only so much standing she was ready to do at one time.

The warm water and the gentleness of Kait made Victoria feel even better after quelling her hunger. However, as Kait’s motion to get up proved, they still needed to wash off completely. The warm water helped loosen up any blood that was trying to clot on the undersides of Victoria’s legs and her rear.

Drying off Victoria noticed Kait’s still weakened looking state. Still drying her hair she checked on her friend. “You sure you’re going to be ok Kait? Does it take you very long to heal?”

Kaitlyn felt her neck. The place where Victoria had bitten her was already healed; completely smooth, not any different from the rest of her neck. This was a good sign.

“Eh,” she shrugged, “It’ll prolly be an hour until I’m back to normal, but I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about it.”

She went back to drying herself off.

“How about you, though? How often do you need blood?” Kaitlyn would certainly be willing to do this again, but it might not be the healthiest thing for her if she had to do it every other day, unicorn blood or no.

Getting dressed Victoria listened to her dearest friend while also watching her. She still felt bad no matter how many times Kait said everything was ok. Still, she was very happy her friend was going to be fine.

Kait’s question regarding how often Victoria needed to feed made the blonde girl’s heart sink more. She wished she could say something like once a year or something like that, but that was hardly the situation. Her head lowered as did her voice. “Every two days if I want to stay healthy. Otherwise things get very bad for me.”

Victoria raised her red gaze up to Kait once more with a look that only said I’m so sorry.