[ Derek reaches for her when she starts to crawl, wanting to help her, but also not wanting to cross any more boundaries than he already has by bringing her out here to begin with. Not that he thinks she'll be upset about the former, since she could have died out there and the whole point was to prevent that, but all the same. Now he's not sure if she'd still be amenable to him touching her unsolicited.
Shaking his head as she speaks, Derek finally does reach for her, pulling her closer to him so that she doesn't have to reach. ]
I'm not going to hate you, I promise.
[ And he won't. Even if she damn near bleeds him dry, he can only blame himself, so he'd never hate her for needing to survive and taking the only available option to do so. Especially since he'd proactively offered it.
A grunt of discomfort escapes him when her fangs initially puncture his skin, but it feels no different than having claws pushed into the back of his neck, so while it's been a long time since he's experienced that, it's not a completely foreign sensation. What is a little foreign is the way that his body seems to relax for her, his eyes going half-lidded as he strokes her hair with one hand. Her hand moves up his leg and Derek fidgets slightly beneath the touch until it moves away to take his hand. Derek squeezes hers in return, enough to let her know that he's there, but not so much that it'll hurt.
When she finally pulls off, pressing her forehead against his, Derek disentangles his fingers from hers to hold her head, one hand cupping either side of her jaw. They're both trying to catch their breath, although he's trying more because his body is already stitching up the bite wound while trying to quickly replace the lost blood and that's a lot more exhausting than it looks.
His eyes are closed and he wets his lips because they feel cracked and dry in the moment. Derek nods against her forehead. ]
[ He means for those words to come out at normal volume, but instead, it comes out practically a whisper.
Derek has never been this close to Caroline and while he's coming down off whatever that feeling from when she'd been feeding is, he's entirely aware of just how close they actually are right now and just how intimate what he just let her do actually is.
He moves, pulling his head away enough to press his lips to her forehead instead, and only because the urge to kiss her is entirely too strong for his liking when he knows he'll taste his own blood on her mouth if he indulges it. ]
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Shaking his head as she speaks, Derek finally does reach for her, pulling her closer to him so that she doesn't have to reach. ]
I'm not going to hate you, I promise.
[ And he won't. Even if she damn near bleeds him dry, he can only blame himself, so he'd never hate her for needing to survive and taking the only available option to do so. Especially since he'd proactively offered it.
A grunt of discomfort escapes him when her fangs initially puncture his skin, but it feels no different than having claws pushed into the back of his neck, so while it's been a long time since he's experienced that, it's not a completely foreign sensation. What is a little foreign is the way that his body seems to relax for her, his eyes going half-lidded as he strokes her hair with one hand. Her hand moves up his leg and Derek fidgets slightly beneath the touch until it moves away to take his hand. Derek squeezes hers in return, enough to let her know that he's there, but not so much that it'll hurt.
When she finally pulls off, pressing her forehead against his, Derek disentangles his fingers from hers to hold her head, one hand cupping either side of her jaw. They're both trying to catch their breath, although he's trying more because his body is already stitching up the bite wound while trying to quickly replace the lost blood and that's a lot more exhausting than it looks.
His eyes are closed and he wets his lips because they feel cracked and dry in the moment. Derek nods against her forehead. ]
You're okay. It's okay. I'm good. You're okay, Caroline.
[ He means for those words to come out at normal volume, but instead, it comes out practically a whisper.
Derek has never been this close to Caroline and while he's coming down off whatever that feeling from when she'd been feeding is, he's entirely aware of just how close they actually are right now and just how intimate what he just let her do actually is.
He moves, pulling his head away enough to press his lips to her forehead instead, and only because the urge to kiss her is entirely too strong for his liking when he knows he'll taste his own blood on her mouth if he indulges it. ]