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David woke as the final trickles of twilight slipped away. He adjusted, pulling Star closer to him and nuzzling into her neck. He sighed, cozy from the warm blankets and relaxed from her presence.
His eyes shot open instinctively when he smelled the distinctly delicious scent of blood. He sat up, the fluffy white fur blanket falling from his bare chest. He sniffed the air and scanned the room. They were alone. David looked back to Star’s sleeping frame.
The blood was coming from her. This could only mean one thing.
He turned back to her and urgently began shaking her arm, “Star! Star!”
Star groaned and burrowed her head into the pillow, “Noooooooooo.”
“Star!” David repeated, insistent.
“What!” She snarled at him but she softened once she saw his panicked expression. “David?”
He pressed his hands together as though in prayer, looking into her deep brown eyes in earnest, “You are bleeding internally.”
Star blinked, unsure if she was just too exhausted to focus or if David was genuinely not making sense.
He hovered over her lower abdomen, “It’s right here.”
David watched in utter confusion as Star began to laugh, throwing herself back into the pillow. She started vibrating from her laughter, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
“Star, you aren’t treating this with the seriousness it merits,” David concluded she was in shock.
“I’m fine,” Star smiled, pulling herself into a sitting position and drawing David nearer to her, “Everything is fine.”
David was unconvinced.
Star felt a twisting pain in her lower abdomen that she had anticipated with dread, “I’m not bleeding internally, I mean I am, but it’s fine.”
She looked reassuringly at her partner who was anything but reassured. He continued staring at her.
She squeezed his hand, “I started my period.”
David shook his head, rejecting the notion. “That’s impossible…” his eyes traveled back to the appetizing scent’s origin and he slowly began to recognize that she spoke the truth. “…How?”
“I think it’s because I’m half?” David had turned her the final night of her last period. Star had just assumed that she would never have that phase of her cycle again. Maybe that wasn’t the case.
Her eyes widened once she realized she didn’t have any products or items to ease the horrendous pain that would be plaguing her within the hour.
David tried to mask his concern and on-setting panic. He remembered his mother vaguely alluding to her monthly cycle as a young child, but discussions of such happenings were rare and avoided in polite Edwardian society. He knew that Star was going to be hurting but as to how to help her, he was at a loss. David rarely felt inexperienced but knew he very much was.
“David?”
Anything, he wanted to say. “Yes?”
Star averted his gaze, “Can you go to the store for me? I… I didn’t think I would need to get anything because, well….”
David nodded before he even knew what he was agreeing to. He felt a pang in his throat. He might pick up a snack while he was out as well.
***
Star huddled in a ball in bed, not wanting to stand and let gravity do its job, but desperately wanting to stretch her aching back.
***
David sulked through the aisles of the drugstore, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. Star hadn’t given him any instructions and he was too panicked to ask at the time. He tried reaching out to her mind but couldn’t find her.
He found the hygiene aisle and stumbled upon a box labeled tampons and another entitled sanitary napkins. His eyes skirted between the two nervously.
“Girlfriend?” A girl near Star’s age asked as she fixed a broken shelf.
David stiffened at first before relaxing. As much as it went against all his instincts, he did need help. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.
The woman smiled comfortingly, “Go with both since you don’t know her preference.” She reached for two packages and placed them in his hands.
“Thank you,” he replied, unsure of how he felt at such kindhearted assistance. Most humans only looked at him out of fear or lust.
She smiled pleasantly, sympathetic to his embarrassment.
“Is there anything else that might help?” David asked after a moment. He didn’t want his Star to be hurting.
The woman cocked her head, surprised and impressed. “You’re a considerate one.” She guided him from the hygiene aisle to the snacks. She pulled chocolates, cookies, and salt & vinegar chips from the shelf. “You need to keep these well stocked,” she informed him.
David nodded, taking note of the items and filing the insight away for reference.
“Do you have a heating pad at home?” She asked.
“No,” David responded sheepishly, “I’m guessing she needs that.”
The girl chuckled, “Oh yeah, it’s a game changer.”
After a few minutes of searching, David found a basket to put the goodies, as well as a heating pad, a fuzzy purple blanket, and a black plush bear that had caught his eye.
“You’re a good boyfriend,” the girl stated once they made it to the register. She began scanning the items and placing them in a bag.
“One of the Marlboros,” David looked to the cigarettes behind the counter. The girl grabbed a gold one, not asking for his ID.
After he paid, he turned to leave, but then looked back. His eyes searched for the girl’s name tag, “Thank you, Lucy.”
“Anytime.”
***
“Darling!” David announced once he returned to the cave. He was met with unenthusiastic groans.
He approached the bed hesitantly, trying not to think of Star’s new alluring scent and his own growing desires. Instead he focused on relieving her evident pain.
“I brought you some stuff,” he murmured.
She groggily rolled over and grabbed the tampon box before scurrying to the cave’s makeshift bathroom.
***
“Wait, you get periods?” Michael was bewildered by the statement.
Star nodded, “It was a surprise but yeah. It’s because we’re not fully dead.”
“That must have been pretty awful with just David,” Michael remembered when Star mentioned that she was David’s first turn.
Star blushed, thinking back to the vampire. “He’s actually pretty incredible in that regard. He had no clue what to do initially but it was pretty cute. He figured out though.”
Michael chuckled, she was probably just saving face.
***
Star lay curled up in a ball, David wrapped around her protectively. He massaged her lower back methodically, pressing his thumbs into the small of her back and kneading. He placed delicate kisses along her neck.
She clutched the worn black teddy bear, the one David had brought her nearly twenty years earlier.
“I sent Marko to the store to get you some ice cream,” David whispered into her ear.
She sighed in satisfaction.
“Double fudge cherry,” he murmured roughly.
“I love you,” she groaned.
They had formed a routine over the years, a careful gentle routine of massages and chocolates. David wished he could take her pain away with a single bite.
He burrowed into her neck and she leaned into his touch. He inhaled the sweet smell of blood pulsing beneath her skin, kissing the spot carefully and teasingly. He knew the thirsty ache of his throat would dissipate soon, as would some of her cramps.
Star shuddered delightfully as he allowed her insight into his mind.
He bite his lip before kissing her tenderly.