Arran was hot. Not hot in the figurative sense, that had been earlier, but hot in the trapped-under-the-covers-between-a-napping-werewolf-and-sleeping-human sort of sense. Quite how the two women had managed to find sleep was beyond him when it was clearly hotter than hell itself under the duvet but he was certain that he wouldn't be able to join them. He also didn't want to risk waking either of them so he was pretty much trapped.

He did try to shift slightly to free himself from the few of Naomi's braids that had managed to snake their way around his throat and threatened to add strangulation to the list of ways he was uncomfortable.

This was the difference between reality and fantasy. Arran couldn't remember ever watching porn that dealt with who had to sleep in the middle of the bed afterwards. Or for that matter, the ramifications that having a threesome with your girlfriend and your ex might have on your current relationship. Another reason why Arran didn't want to wake Naomi up.

His efforts to untwist himself seemed to have disturbed Cree who started to stretch in her sleep. Arran froze, hoping to lull her back to sleep but he was unsuccessful and she turned her face to his and opened her eyes.

She gave him a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. Even if it had he would have known she was still sad; years of close friendship and Cree's werewolf ability to broadcast her general thoughts made it almost impossible for Arran to not be in her head in some small way. He felt her anxiety settle in next to his own. He didn't know what the future would hold for Cree if her father had a son.

"How are you doing?" she asked, her voice low from sleep.

"I am literally turning into vampire confit," he replied in a whisper. "And I'm kinda in shock."

Cree let out a laugh under her breath and rolled onto her back to give him a little more space. She lay there with her hands on her chest and looked straight up at the ceiling.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Not even a little," she replied as she turned her head back to him. "I really think he's gearing up to replace me and I don't know who I am or what I'll do if I'm disinherited. I know that I could make life easier for myself if I just sat down and shut up more but I just can't do that. I feel like I'm stood at the top of a cliff that's starting to crumble underneath me and I don't know what's solid enough to grab on to."

"Come here," he said, opening his arms and gesturing for her to come closer.

"I thought you were too hot," she responded, but she still edged herself into his arms and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Yes, I might well get heatstroke but that doesn't mean I don't want to comfort my best friend. You know you'll always have me, right? Maybe not in the way we planned but I'll always be here for you."

"Forever?"

"Forever," he agreed as he rubbed her arm, trying to ignore the sticky feeling of their bare skin touching.

"You guys are cute," interjected Naomi, apparently just waking up.

"Oh my god, if you're awake then I need to get out from these sheets," complained Arran.

He sat up and ripped the duvet off of the three of them, revelling in finally getting some air on his body. Naomi yelped and grabbed the covers back to ward against the non-existent cold in the room. Arran, on the other hand, was still too warm and resolved to have a short, cold shower.

It was a little easier to think in the small, stark and white bathroom, away from the bright red blood stains on the bed next door and the smell of sex.

The shower water took on a subtle red tinge as it ran over his body and found the bloody handprints on his torso. If he focused he could see actual streams of blood forming under the water, sticking together and branching out like trees or rivers. Or like they were still finding their way through invisible capillaries.

It was uncomfortable to see with that much clarity. Arran hadn't drank fresh blood for over two months now and with Naomi's working its way into his system he could feel his senses respond in turn. He made an effort not to shut it out as he normally would and found that if he focused instead of resisted he could push past the initial wave of dizziness.

Once he had a handle on the seeing the sharp details in everything he worked very carefully on shutting it out again and calling it back, it felt easier to do now than it ever had before.

A little pleased with himself he turned off the shower and reached for a towel, staining the brilliant white flannel with a spot of blood that he had missed. Everywhere he went something got tainted in some way or another.

That's what thinking with his fangs got him; stained sheets, smeared towels, a sense of impending dread from the inevitable fallout. Thanks to the extendable appendages in his mouth and the one between his legs his conscious mind had had very little time to figure out the consequences.

Talking to Naomi could hopefully wait until tomorrow. For now he pulled on the hotel-like dressing down that had been supplied with the cottage and slipped down the stairs. If he was going to be cleaning blood off of things all morning he may as well add the gown to the list.

He found the take-away boxes that Cree had left by the door, now cold and set about reheating the contents. He himself was satiated but Naomi hadn't eaten much today and Cree had to eat a substantial amount every day and it was pretty late.

By the time he returned with food in hand he found the two girls cuddled up to each other, Cree's long limbs wrapped around his girlfriend's shorter body. At least they seemed to be getting on, though this wasn't exactly what Arran had had in mind.

The previously forgotten pizza was gratefully received by both women and so the three of them sat on the bed and ate in silence for a while.

As they ate, Arran turned his attention to his human girlfriend, pulling her braids back over her shoulders to look at the marks his teeth had left on her skin. The two deepest ones were still slowly leaking blood. He could tell by the speed of the dripping that it was starting to clot but it was still far later than it should.

Yet another reason why he hadn't wanted to bite her. Or at the very least why he hadn't ever brought the concept up despite how much he had actually wanted to.

It had still been in the back of his mind even as he'd punctured her skin. The very faint feeling that Naomi wasn't necessarily in the right health to be playing this game. But all sound of that train of thought had been shouted over by the way she had asked him to do it.

All the guilt was back now though. It sat in his stomach like a rock, jagged sides cutting into his guts. He couldn't eat any more.

"It's fine, it'll stop eventually," said Naomi as she batted away his hand from her neck.

"Not quickly enough," he replied. "You should drink a little of mine to help it heal."

She nodded uncertainly and he reached for the knife that he had brought up from the kitchen for this very purpose.

He opened a small cut into the skin on his own throat, mirroring the wounds he'd opened on her neck. She kissed the score and held her lips there, swallowing the small flow of vampire blood. As she pulled away she wiped a drip from her lips with her thumb and licked it.

"I feel like I'm infringing on something really intimate," piped up Cree, who was still happily devouring her pizza.

"Cree, we literally just had a threesome," he replied.

The bluntness in his words made Naomi bristle slightly. With his heightened senses he could see a slight pink set across her dark brown cheeks. It occurred to him that this was the first time he'd actually seen her blush. This must be one of the few upsides to being a vampire; seeing exactly how beautiful his girlfriend was with supernatural precision.

Cree, ever watchful, appeared to have also noticed.

"You are honestly the cutest thing I've ever seen," she said while lifting Naomi's chin with one hand. "Look at you blush! You can drop the innocent act. You're the one who kissed me, remember?"

"Yeah but- I was-" Naomi stammered.

"Where did you find her?" Cree asked Arran, mischief radiating from her. "I want one."

"This one's mine," he said firmly, placing an arm protectively around Naomi's waist.

"Alright, fine," Cree teased. "But like I said, I only came back to watch a movie. I didn't start this."

"We could still watch a movie," offered Naomi.

She got up to find Arran's laptop, ostensibly packed to do some revision, and pull on a t-shit to sleep in. As she set up the computer where they could all see it Arran felt the temptation to take a look into Naomi's mind build. He needed desperately to know that they were okay after this. But he could ask her in the morning.

As Naomi set up an innocuous comedy and climbed back through the dark room to get in between him and Cree things almost seemed normal.

He fell asleep with the light from the laptop flickering in the room, his arm around Naomi's waist and the skin of Cree's back pressed into his forearm.

---

Cree left early in the morning, not long after birds in the trees outside the cottage began their near constant chatter. Arran was equal parts worried about his friend being alone and glad to see the back of her. She had a real talent for making everything more dramatic.

He supposed that had she not forced her company on them then Arran wouldn't have had his vision and been able to warn his older brother of impending danger. But then the snippets of anything intelligible he had been able to piece together were tangled enough that he wasn't sure it was actually useful to Alexis. Nor was he worried at all. Alexis had been alive a very long time and gotten himself out of plenty of scrapes.

He had seemed embarrassed by Arran's call, however. Presumably, the eldest Redfern child had been caught out in some scheme or another. Arran hardly cared.

He watched Naomi very carefully after Cree left, trying to pick up any lingering awkwardness or uncertainty. But it never seemed to surface and so she made coffee while he fried bacon as if they hadn't had a threesome with his ex-girlfriend the night before. But what started as a comfortable silence as they sat and ate soon gave Arran far too much unoccupied time to over-think.

Blood and sex and, to a lesser degree, booze.

Three things that never failed to bring him out of himself. To help him let loose and have fun without the usual second-guessing that accompanied his every action. After the unending tension of the last month being able to succumb to natural urges and base instincts had been better than ever before. It had been rapture.

It was part of who he was.

It was what he hated most about himself.

And try as he might he couldn't deny it had felt great to be with Cree again.

But that was a one-time circumstance; a product of his own need for catharsis and the inevitable leeching of Cree's need for distraction into his own psyche. With all of that swirling around his head, his reservations had no hope by the time he had bitten Naomi.

It had been so, so easy to let go.

Stupid, fucking, blood-drunk, cunt-struck-

"Arran, you okay?" Naomi asked, stopping his train of thought dead.

"Yeah," he lied, "totally fine."

"Well that doesn't sound like you," she said. "My boyfriend would be overthinking things by now and internalising guilt even when he hasn't done anything wrong."

He sighed, she did know him well. 

"Come on Arran, be reasonable. Did you have fun?" 

"Of course I did," he said, he didn't want her to feel insecure. "You feel things really intensely, you know. It's kind of easy to get sucked into the riptied of your thoughts."

She settled into his lap and buried her forehead against his neck. The weight of her was reassuring. If he shrank his perspective down to this small room the world felt a lot nicer.

"Did you have fun with, you know, the rest?" Naomi asked shyly, her voice slightly muffled against his shoulder.

"The rest?" he teased. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She leant back so that she was facing him and hit him playfully in the chest.

"Come on."

"Of course I did," he said. "Did you? Because I'm not complaining but it was a little out of character."

"I don't know what came over me," she admitted. "I was so caught up in the moment and she's kind of stunning, right? Like when they make a bio-pic of Serena Williams they'd cast her she'd be the exact level of muscular to be convincing but pretty enough for Hollywood."

"Yeah, I could see that," Arran said through laughter. "I love the way your mind works sometimes."

"But we're okay, right?" she asked. "It was just a crazy, spur of the moment bit of fun."

"Yeah, as long as you're not gonna up and leave me for Cree and play out your apparent weird tennis fetish."

Naomi laughed and went to smack him again but this time he caught her by the wrist.

"Why, do you think she'd indulge me?" Naomi asked, a teasing challenge in her voice.

Having been privy to the gist of Cree's thoughts the night before, Arran was fairly certain Cree would be more than happy to oblige anything Naomi asked of her. But he decided against sharing this information and kissed her instead.

"We should get dressed," he said. "It's going to take forever to sign into Pendle Proper and ostensibly you wanted to come out here to see that. So far I'm pretty sure we've spent more time in bed than out of it."

"Like you mind that," she said with a wink.

He had to admit that his idea of a fun holiday definitely included more of that and less time with witches, but nonetheless he got changed. With his relationship back on more stable ground he felt suitably prepared to be sneered at for the rest of the day.