A long time ago, Forty happened upon Jane's notebook when the monitor left it open on her desk.

Illustrations of different animals with their mouths opened wide, teeth projecting slobber from their mouths, decorated every free space on the page. Each creature's fangs were highlighted, sticky tabs marked with microscopic penmanship attached to the ends of the page. Despite knowing Jane didn't like it when Forty snooped, the girl, who could not have been more than twelve at that point, asked, "Jane, what is this?"

Jane, not yet hardened against Forty and lacking the blue streaks in her hair, turned to her from where she'd been preparing an adrenaline injection. She frowned at the notebook. "It's my journal," she said, but Forty shook her head.

"What is it for?" little Forty pressed, this time pointing at the vaguely feline animal in the upper left corner of the page.

"It's to observe you," Jane said simply, going back to the inoculation. Then, "to find out which teeth you have."

Forty looked at the journal, twisting her head this way and that to examine every angle of the creatures. When she was younger, the older monitor had taught her about species, how to recognize what an animal was. On the paper, Forty could see sharks, bobcats, pumas, gators, badgers, snakes, wolves, cats, and bears. Each was drawn in slightly differing shades of ink, telling Forty Jane often returned to the page and penned something new down. Eyes lingering on the open mouth of the shark, Forty asked, "What am I?"

Jane dropped the shot onto the tray with a clatter, taking a deep breath. "It's none of your concern," she gritted out. "Sit in your chair."

Forty sat down in the little plastic chair Jane brought from the cafeteria, clenching her fists on her thighs. She tried desperately to make the tiny claws poking out of her cuticles recede, hiding them by piercing her palms. She didn't like shots but knew they were necessary. Not because they made her feel better but because Jane said so. The blue tray Jane put on the desk near her shoulder set her teeth chattering, but she stayed dutifully still. Rolling up the sleeve on Forty's right arm, Jane ran a cold disinfectant wipe on the meat of her tricep, her eyes focused and hard. Jane always looked annoyed, though she barely ever lost her cool around Forty.

As Jane uncapped the needle and pressed it to Forty's arm, the girl felt a few tears slip from her eyes. They were warm, salty, and when they landed on Forty's blue scrub top they stained it purple. "Don't cry," Jane said. "I can't take it when you cry."

"I'm sorry," Forty whispered, voice watery. She raked her left arm across her eyes, fist coming back crimson.

Jane was quiet for a second, the needle poised to pierce Forty's skin. Then, as she pushed and sent the plunger downward, she said, "They resemble a snake's, both in shape and size."

With her mouth wrapped around the warm body of the chicken, feathers tickling the back of her throat, Forty thinks about rattlesnakes. Truly there isn't much else keeping her from vomiting up the blood she had earlier besides her poor attempts to distract herself.

Cold-blooded, you can tell they're venomous because their eyes are on top of their heads.

The chicken has long since stopped thrashing, now laying limp in her mouth. Forty can taste its blood, warm and salty. It doesn't trigger her appetite like a warmed up cup of it would. She's always hated the fight, the moment right when she looks in the animal's eyes and sees that it knows its death is near. She tried to avoid looking at the chicken, but its beady yellow eyes seemed to hypnotize her, the cocking to-and-fro of its head emphasizing its neck. She'd made it quick, or at least tried to, but there was always something to be said about feeling the thing's lungs still.

Every minute, Dr. Daas holds a collection cup under her nose. Forty unlatches from the chicken to pierce the thin lining of the cup, listens to the drip of her venom hitting the bottom. This is the third cup, she thinks distantly, her jaw sore and eyes drooping. She doesn't even hold onto the chicken anymore. Instead, Dr. Zapata cradles its broken body on two flat palms, eyes avoiding Forty's hazy ones.

Even Dr. Daas looks uncomfortable as she screws the lid onto the sample. "We can– we can stop for today," she mumbles, setting the venom on a tray where the other two full cups wait.

Forty gives her mouth one more stretch to unlock her fangs from the chicken's neck, then Dr. Zapata places it gently in the bucket on the desk where the other two bodies wait. "You did good today, Forty," he compliments, holding his arms up to avoid the blood dripping onto the floor. "That was two more than last time."

Forty doesn't even hum to acknowledge the praise, the tendons in her neck screaming at the thought of doing anything with her head. Though she had complained about it before, there is no other method of collection where Forty won't strain her neck and jaw muscles. At least I'm better off than the bird, she thinks bitterly, watching with half-transformed eyes as Dr. Zapata moves the bucket of chickens towards the biohazard bin.

"How many more do we need?" Dr. Zapata asks, his voice strained and tired. They'd been at this since early in the morning, wanting to avoid any foot traffic through the infirmary.

"Six more by next weekend," Dr. Daas says, seeming to shake off her earlier spell of sympathy. She dashes some boxes on her clipboard then moves the samples into the desktop refrigerator.

Dr. Zapata sighs, running his fingers through his hair. Lately he'd allowed it to grow out. The shadow around his jaw is more prominent as well. "We can do two every other day," he suggests. "It'll give her a break."

"That works for me," Daas mumbles, already distracted by jotting some notes down. She glances up once to look at Forty where she sits in the metal chair in front of a table, gaze far away and slightly rocking herself. "You can take her back now," she says quickly, tipping her chin towards the door. Dr. Zapata nods.

Forty stays quiet as he leads her back to the domiciles. She doesn't even jump when Thirty-Seven hits the wall of his, face an amalgamation of desperation and anger. Forty knows he can't see her. He can smell her, which is almost worse. Leading her into her room, Dr. Zapata shuts the door behind him, his gaze concerned. "Are you okay?" he asks, voice careful.

Perfunctory, Forty nods her head. She doesn't dare open her mouth, already feeling her muscle fibers groan as she grinds her teeth. She feels nothing and everything all at once, a product of her attempts to block out feeding on the chickens and the leftover heightened sensation of her predatory form. "Are you really?" Dr. Zapata presses. Forty grits her teeth, wishing he would shut up and leave. She wants to growl at him, scratch him, do anything to get him out of her space.

You're a full-blooded Chupa.

A dot of red lands on her gray scrubs, and it takes Forty a few beats to realize she's crying. Warm blood slips from her eyes, slightly stinging though cathartic, and she struggles to hold back the sound that wants to jump out of her chest. Dr. Zapata clicks his tongue, dropping down on his knees in front of the bed where she sits, her back the only part of her body not limp. He fishes a pair of cold compresses from his pocket, the portable kind he cracks down the middle. Immediately a rush of freezing air fills the cloth. Somewhat nostalgically, Forty realizes the color is blue.

He holds the packs up against her jawline and neck, his large hands encompassing her face. The cold is a balm against the aching muscles, and Forty doesn't even bristle when she feels his thumb knock away a tear. "You have to tell us if this is too much," he tells her, curling down to meet her lowered eyes. "You've been very good. You don't have to do everything they want."

Forty wants to laugh at him, wants to ask him cruelly if that's really the truth. She and him both know it's just a comfort, a fantasy to act like him or Forty have a choice in this matter. Forty averts her eyes from his gentle ones, tired of seeing monitor faces. Just looking at them up close reminds her that they are everything she has ever hoped for, everything she will never be. Out of all the specimens in this place, it had to be her. Not even a drop of human blood remains in her. Forty closes her eyes and leans into the cold packs, too tired and empty to keep up with Zapata's attempt at conversation.

Across the room, Forty can see the edge of Forty-Five's face where she peers through the window, brows drawn. Before it had been somewhat hard for her to emote, but with her secondary and tertiary teeth gone Forty can see the worried line of her mouth, the working of her jaw as she grits her teeth. She nods at her and Forty tips her chin back, a minute gesture which seems to get her point across. Forty-Five slinks away, waiting for Dr. Zapata to leave.

Across the hall, Forty hears the voices of the gray squad, their grunts and grumbles as they anticipate the whir of Thirty-Seven's door parting. It was his feeding time about an hour ago, though his aggressive behavior must have deterred even Ben from going into the room. He's quiet now. The sweet smell of sedative wafts in from the vents.

After finding out what she really is, Forty looks at the man in a new light. Where she is tame, he is feral. Where she hates killing, he does it indiscriminately. While she stays obedient and still, he's sedated and moved from location to location. What scares her is that now that she knows she is a full Chupa, she dreads finding out what he is. Sure, many others displayed traits that could point one way or another, but no two specimens show such a drastic deformity as Thirty-Seven and her. They were two ends of the same spectrum, both drawn and repelled by something evolutionarily deeper than hatred. It terrifies her even more to think that he is probably more human than her.

"Thirty-Seven," she croaks out, barely opening her mouth. Her jaw still pops, though the pain isn't as bad with the cold packs on.

"He's been getting worse," Dr. Zapata says. Her heart picks up a bit, anxiety tightening her chest, but soon the focus on her breathing eases the pounding of her neck tendons. "He can't go a couple hours without blood, but he almost always throws it up afterwards."

"Hmm," Forty mumbles, thinking of his contorted face when he scratched the gray squad leader.

"We... have a theory, Karin, er, Dr. Daas and I," he continues, a little hesitant. "But I would hate to put more pressure on you."

Across the room, something hits the window. Forty recognizes the object as Forty-Five's shoe. "Just tell her!" she screeches. Forty silently thanks her.

"The bite you gave him... are you familiar with rattlesnakes?"

Forty nods, transported back to Jane's journal page. The triangular jaw unhinged, its curved fangs like eyes staring her down. Dr. Zapata continues. "When they're younger, their venom is more deadly because they don't know how to control it. We think the bite you gave Thirty-Seven is like that, and the dose he had has thrown his body off."

Forty feels her gut clench, then lurches to the side and vomits up bile. Her jaw crackles when she opens it. Dr. Zapata pulls a walkie-talkie from his coat pocket and mumbles for a janitor to come to the cell. Forty flops back on the bed, spent but feeling slightly better. "Don't take it wrong," Dr. Zapata says. Forty hears Forty-Five's guffaw from the other room. "He'll get rid of it eventually. With how much he's been acting out, he'll burn through it in no time."

Forty doesn't believe him, but she's in no mood to argue. Dr. Zapata leaves the cold packs against her neck, cradled by the pillow. "It's not your fault," he says. "You just did what you were supposed to do: defend yourself."

He gets up from the floor when a knock sounds on the door, opening it to allow a gray squad member to come in and handle the vomit. He's quick about it and leaves in no time, leaving Dr. Zapata and Forty alone again. When the door shuts behind him, Forty can smell that Thirty-Seven is long gone, his natural scent and the sedative faded in the air. She tries to picture his face when she talked to him, the expressions he made before he got angry. She's disheartened to find it is much easier to imagine the demonic one, the rageful, gnashing teeth.

"Do you want to talk to him again?" Dr. Zapata suddenly asks, his voice yanking Forty from her thoughts.

You know, besides making me pass out, your bite was okay. It made everything less loud and annoying, made me feel less angry.

Some dumb, hopeful part of her still longs for an actual conversation with him. Especially now, after knowing what she is. Who better to talk about being a Chupa than with the most aggressive of them all? But, deep down, she knows that's just a cover. The truth is much more morbid, an inkling of thought which she has tried mightily to deny but finds herself unable to. Thirty-Seven, despite all of his shortcomings, is the type of person Forty can't help but be drawn to. His very presence is magnetic, teeming with ferocity and a reminder that despite currently living in a compound, Thirty-Seven is the grass underneath her feet, the sun over her head. He's everything a Chupa is supposed to experience, an untamable wildness. She longs to see him in her space, the gray and blue walls and windows she knows so well. She wants the two of them on even ground, an opportunity to see him through the glass of the double room again. Where he is everything natural, all she has left is fabricated, a pitiful attempt at appeasing everyone while ignoring her own pain. Forty-Five had seen through her very quickly, and Forty wonders if Thirty-Seven can as well.

"Yes," she tells Dr. Zapata, voice coming out strangled. He pats her hand, and she's surprised to find it comforting.

"I'll try and work it out with Ben, but I can't make any promises."

Forty nods, eyes drooping now that the chicken blood isn't making her guts stew uncomfortably. She's more tired than she's been in a while. Dr. Zapata picks up on this quickly, settling the cold packs again before whispering a soft goodbye and leaving the domicile. Forty-Five gets up once to check on Forty, but upon seeing the other woman passed out in her bed, she resumes her silent vigil on the other side of the room.

"You should listen to him, Forty," she says to the open air, unaware that Forty is still somewhat awake. "If this is too much for you, you have to call it quits. You're... it's like watching a ghost when I see you now. I miss how bright you were before. I... I want you to be happy again."

"'M not a quitter," Forty mumbles, the haze of sleep blurring out the midday LED lights. "It's not too much." She turns over onto her stomach, letting the cold packs rest against the back muscles of her neck. She ignores the second half of Forty-Five's words. They're too painful to think about. "Yet."

Forty-Five turns and places her head against their shared wall, sighing. Despite worrying for her friend, she knows that trying to convince Forty to think of herself is a waste of breath. Affection blooms in her chest, pride that her friend who feels like a sister is so selfless and devoted to the betterment of others. But most of all, she's saddened to think that will be Forty's undoing. Kind people like her don't last long in this world. Smiling with a now comfortable mouth, Forty-Five says, "Don't tempt fate like that, Forty."

☠☠☠

It is early in the morning when Forty wakes to the sound of blood curdling screams. At first she thinks there is someone in her room and she desperately scrambles from her bed, ignoring the pull of her neck muscles as she strains to protect her jugular.

"Forty-Five?" she calls, trying to crawl over to the window in the grass enclosure. When she gets no answer, her heartbeat picks up and she tries knocking on the thinner glass of the sound space. Still nothing, but this time Forty is able to hear hearty snoring coming from within the dusky room. When she presses herself to the wall in order to see around the corner, she finds Forty-Five happily snoozing with her mouth pitched wide like her old teeth are still there. Breathing a sigh of relief, Forty leans against the wall, senses honing in on the ruckus outside.

"Where's Dr. Jansky?!" The voice belongs to the red headed gray squad leader, and Forty can pick out her grunts among the sound of bone on flesh. A series of gunshots ring out, though they don't seem to meet with anything besides the concrete walls. "Why did you leave the door so wide?" the woman snarls, then a cut off groan sounds and another flurry of bullets.

The screaming seems to come from one source, and immediately Forty recognizes it as Thirty-Seven. No other specimen she's aware of can replicate the bone-chilling, bestial screech that emerges from his lungs. He seems beyond words, nothing more than a creature whose sole purpose is to run and eat. Though the sounds bring to mind the incident many months ago, Forty can't help but feel excited at the clamor. Her blood feels electric, eyes sharpened and ears tuned to the struggle, and though the mirror blocks her view she feels like she's watching it unfold in front of her.

"I'm here!" a male voice calls, the dull sound of slippers thudding against the ground following in its wake. It's Ben, surely no more prepared for what is going on than Forty-Five who still sleeps peacefully in her bed. Forty gets up from the corner and walks closer to her door, pressing two flat palms against the blackened glass. The sounds become much richer when she does this, so close to her that she feels she can reach out and touch the scrambling bodies.

"I don't know if he can have another sedative so soon," a female voice warns, one that Forty doesn't know. She seems to be somewhat apart from the chaos as her voice is distant and even.

Thirty-Seven, as if on cue, thuds against something and a shrill sound like nails on glass pierces the air. "I don't fucking care if he can, stab him!" Ben yells. A couple of grunts and an angry snarl rip through the orange dusk.

It takes a few minutes for Thirty-Seven to go down. The tense waiting period is filled with what sounds like men wrestling, and Forty can imagine the two giant gray squad officers trying to force Thirty-Seven to the ground. Then, silence, only cut by the rushed breathing of the humans and the low, tired growls of Thirty-Seven. Forty wants to phase through the glass. She wants to see what is happening, smell the scent of anger and fear in the air, taste the sweetness of the sedative. Her nose thuds against the mirror, and when she clamps down her jaw and lip scream with pain. She's astonished to feel the shift of her teeth in her lip, taste the bitterness of her venom. She spits it out onto the floor quickly, the saliva a noxious orange-brown color.

The shifting of clothes and footsteps tell Forty the group is leaving the specimen room, then an uneasy quiet fills the area. Forty can faintly hear the rustling of other specimens trying to get comfortable, perhaps used to Thirty-Seven's outbursts. Forty-Five is still snoring on the other side of the wall. Forty stays pressed to the mirror, her arms glued to the glass. Her face is damp where her breath condenses on the panel, making her heartbeat momentarily skitter. She's just about to pull herself away when she hears a door slam, then the brisk pace of footsteps.

They stop in front of her door, then the beep of the ID scanner gives Forty just enough warning to back up and avoid falling flat on the floor. A tall, broad brunette woman waits for her on the other side, her face young but serious. Forty has to tip her chin a little to meet her eyes, and when she does the woman's pupils constrict ever so slightly. Forty hears her heart quicken in her chest. "Four-Zero," she says, and Forty recognizes her as the female voice from earlier. "I need you to come with me."

Forty doesn't hesitate before falling into step beside her, trying to match her long strides as she nearly jogs out of the specimen room. After taking the hallway from the monitor area, the woman beelines for the infirmary. Forty's pulse spikes at seeing the large, white room again, memories of warm blood and white feathers in her mouth. However, they go just past the infirmary to Testing Room D, the door locked from inside. A quick scan of the woman's ID allows them in, and immediately Forty's senses are overwhelmed.

There must be ten different people in the room, all crowded around the singular hospital cot in the middle. An overhead LED light beams down on the motionless figure lying atop it, his normally olive skin turned a sickly greenish-yellow under the bulb. The gray squad each have a limb in hand. The largest man, Officer Brown, holds both ankles in meaty palms. The figure's head thrashes this way and that, and had his pheromones not been attempting to drown everyone in the room, Forty would not recognize Thirty-Seven as the man on the cot.

"Heartbeat is reaching a dangerous speed," another female monitor says, this time a dark, petite woman. Strings of curls poke out from a satin bonnet, her brown eyes tired and heavily bagged. Forty can sense Ben before she sees him, his anger and nervous energy a dark cloud hanging over his head. He still has a smatter of facial hair on his jawline, though the other side is clean-shaven. Forty's nose twitches at a minty bite in the air.

"Why would you sedate him right now?" Dr. Zapata groans, his voice more frustrated than Forty has ever heard it. He's desperately writing some notes on a half-torn notepad, pausing every now and then to quickly flip through a thick manilla file folder.

"Well, Josie, we really didn't have much of an option now did we?" Ben snaps bitterly, nearly getting a nasty scratch when Thirty-Seven breaks the hold of the male officer. Ben spits at Thirty-Seven, only serving to anger the man more.

"His adrenaline levels are spiking more than we've ever seen before," a young male monitor yells from the other side of the room, his eyes glued to a laptop screen.

"That's because his body is trying to counteract the sedative," Dr. Zapata says, furrowing his brow and quickening his dash through the folder.

The woman beside Forty puts a large but gentle hand on her back, pushing her slightly into the room. Thirty-Seven's head immediately cuts to her, a guttural scream ripping from his chest. Forty would like to think this terrifies her, but in all honesty it does the opposite. Some primal hind brain seems to activate, and all she sees when she looks at Thirty-Seven's mad fight is prey. Remembering herself, hot guilt crawls up her throat and she struggles to swallow down bile. The brunette monitor jogs up to Dr. Zapata and points to Forty, whispering something in the man's ear. He looks up quickly, eyes meeting Forty's, and relief takes over his features.

"She's here!" he yells to the frantic humans, dropping his work by the file folder and loping over to Forty's side. He positions himself between Forty and the hospital cot, blocking her view of Thirty-Seven. She has to fight the urge to peer around his shoulder, instead focusing on meeting Dr. Zapata's eyes.

"Forty, can you hear me?" She nods. "Thirty-Seven's adrenaline levels are too high right now, and the sedative is taking a while to make him tired. We think his body is fighting it and producing too much cortisol since he's so worked up."

Forty thinks of the adrenaline shots Jane would give her, the tiny scar in the crook of her elbow. She remembers how frantic she used to feel after the shot, how every little noise triggered paranoia. "I understand," Forty says, her voice even but quiet under the cacophony of the struggle.

"Your venom will lower those levels. They did last time for him, and now you have a firmer grasp on it. This may even cure his addiction to it," he rubs the back of his head anxiously. "Hopefully."

"You want me to bite him," Forty says, then she adds, "again?"

"It's the only thing we can think of right now. I'm sorry," Dr. Zapata apologizes, his eyes bleary and hair mussed. He too must have just woken up.

Forty fights down the nausea that threatens to make its way up her throat. Disturbingly, a rush of excitement enters her veins not long after, and her sensory memory becomes so much sharper as she thinks of the flex of tissue in her mouth, the rabbit of his pulse. How easy it would be, she thinks, if he could just not look at me afterwards. Despite her apprehension, Forty knows this is inescapable. If she bites him, he will hate her. If she doesn't, he will die. She'd rather all that life be marked by a sincere disgust of her than snuffing it out.

"I will do it," Forty says, voice quiet but final. Dr. Zapata looks relieved, patting the side of her face with a gentle palm.

"She'll do it!" he calls to the room, and everyone seems to let out a held sigh.

"Four-Zero," the tall woman from earlier says, tapping on Forty's shoulder. "This room is not equipped with restraints. As soon as we let go of him, we are running out of this room. You will have to distract him."

Forty nods, rushing to flex the muscles in her arms and legs. By distracting him the woman means to fight him. Last time Forty had gotten lucky when she was able to restrain him. Now, she not only needs to think about herself but all the humans fleeing the room. If they rush out the side door, she'd maybe need to subdue Thirty-Seven for five seconds, and perhaps the sedative would make that task a little easier. "Let me get close, then I'll tell you to run," she says, sending a swipe of tongue over her lip to soothe the bite marks and prepare for the stretching skin of her predatory form.

Forty positions herself between the male officer and Thirty-Seven's side, squatting down and poised to launch herself at him. He seems to sense the impending plan, the tendons in his wrist stiffening under the other man's hand. Forty tries to catch his eyes, but they remain on a constant swivel in which he looks any way but her's. She lets herself feel each muscle fiber tighten, listens to the nervous breath of the humans in the room, hears the squeeze of grips tightening on Thirty-Seven in preparation to spring away. "Okay," Forty says to the silent room, taking a steady inhale. "Let go. Now!"

Just as the gray squad stops holding Thirty-Seven down, Forty bowls him over and sends him sprawling on the floor. He huffs when his back hits the tile, and Forty just barely has a mind to catch his head before he beams himself on the ground. His eyes can't focus for a second, but when they do they seem to stab through Forty's face with pure rage.

"Let me fucking go!" Thirty-Seven snarls, attempting to get his legs underneath Forty to kick her off. Her hold stays firm, knee pressed over his thighs and a half transformed hand gripping his wrists together. He starts up a frantic wiggle, kicking at the hospital cot and almost sending it into the crowd of monitors running out of the side door. Forty tightens her hold to an almost painful degree, only letting off when she hears the door shut and automatically lock.

As soon as he has an opening, Thirty-Seven is on her. His movements are a little sluggish, but he still has an unnatural strength and speed to his attack and pins Forty easily. Slobber drops from his fangs, his eyes fuchsia as blood fights to remain in them. "Do you have a death wish?" he slurs, grabbing Forty's jaw with a tight hand. He presses right into the pesky joint bothering her, making it light up with pain . Forty spits at him, more enraged by the injury than his anger, and rakes the three claws on her left hand down his forearm.

"Don't you ever fucking clip those things?" he screeches, his arm shaking with the urge to grab onto the lazily bleeding wound.

He presses her face further into the ground and it takes Forty a couple seconds to remember why she was in the testing room with a half naked, half drugged, murderous specimen. "Bite," she says, not meaning to make it an out loud thought, but it seems to do some sort of good as Thirty-Seven's hand lets up.

"The venom?" he asks, voice light and curious. It's almost disturbing to see the flip in his personality, the immediate relaxation of his body. Then, he shakes his head violently, returning back to the aggressive posturing.

Pinned like this, Forty knows she can't get out of the hold without doing some mild damage to Thirty-Seven again, something she isn't eager to make a habit of. She tries to take a page from Forty-Five's book, her never-ending slew of words and reasoning. "Thirty-Seven," Forty whispers, lightly trying to press his hand away with her chin. He looks between where her lips press into his palm and the flexing of her jugular as she swallows an anxious lump in her throat. "What's wrong?"

Thirty-Seven blinks dumbly a few times, his mouth slightly open. By now, his hold is lax and Forty can easily break it, but something in her, despite being excited at the prospect of a fight, wants this interaction to go the opposite of the way it had before. His mouth, still slightly agape and now letting out a steady stream of drool around those almost sickle-like fangs, works a couple times like he's struggling to answer. He furrows his brow. "Came in to feed too early, didn't like that. I... ran out, then someone stuck me with something. Bastards gave me another sedative. I think– I think I might puke!" He lurches to the side, just barely missing Forty with a stream of sanguine vomit.

Forty takes the opportunity to sit up and scoot away from the sick, leaning her spine against the hard metal leg of the cot. When Thirty-Seven finishes, his bare back trembles like a rabbit's nose. When he turns to Forty she can see just how far gone he is. "You... I feel so many things right now," he huffs, struggling to catch his breath.

"Nervous, overwhelmed?" Forty presses, reaching an experimental hand out for his elbow. He flinches back violently, but still nods along to her question.

"You heard them, right? You have too much cortisol right now." She tries her best to keep her voice soothing though she has a feeling it comes out detached.

"Cortisol?" Thirty-Seven mumbles, dragging himself to put all his weight against the side wall of the desk facing Forty. His head pitches to the side, cheek resting on his shoulder.

"It's what is making you so scared right now."

"'M not scared," he slurs, though his shaking hands and frantic heartbeat tell a different story.

Though she doesn't think she really wants the answer, Forty asks, "Is it because of me?"

Thirty-Seven is quiet for a second, and Forty is momentarily concerned that he's passed out. Then, he hums, forcing his slitted eyes open. Only a tinge of pink remains in the sclera. "I'm not scared of you. You're small, meek, and too much of a pleaser. You'd smell like shit again if you hurt me because you can't do anything bad without feeling guilty." He lets out a bitter laugh, trying to tuck his trembling fingers under his legs. "But honestly, right now, I can't smell you at all."

"I'm sorry," Forty says, and though it sounds awkward in the middle of the toppled testing room and bloodied flesh on both their bodies, she means it for everything that's led them up to this point. She's sorry for biting him, sorry for starting some sort of addiction within him, sorry for trying to make amends if only to satiate her morbid curiosity.

Thirty-Seven doesn't acknowledge the apology, but he does bare his throat, opening up his broad, drooping shoulders and spreading his legs to accommodate space. "If it will make this stop," he begins, pausing midway through the last word to spit a foamy pink loogie, "Then do what you have to do."

Forty knows it's not an invitation, nor is it acceptance. It's a last ditch effort to end his suffering, whether it be through the calming venom in Forty's bite or the piercing of her teeth in his throat. It's disturbing to see him so spread out, so accepting of his fate. All the fight that makes him glow seems to seep out like the wound on his forearm, leaving just an ashen corpse behind. Regardless of her misgivings, Forty has a job, so she quickly fills the space made by his legs.

Careful to keep her claws away, she presses his shoulders back against the desk. His breath hitches, a little half hearted growl slipping from his lips where his fangs just barely poke out. Thirty-Seven's head lolls to the side, his dark, grown-out hair fanning around his face like an ink-filled cloud. He's pretty, Forty thinks when she looks at his half-lidded eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. The trait is uncharacteristically dainty, a shock of gentleness on his otherwise brutal features. It makes something in Forty's chest stir.

"Are you going to do it, or just stare at me like a pinned frog," Thirty-Seven grunts, though a grin remains on his face afterwards. Forty feels blood rush to her face and she quickly ducks her head against his deltoid, aiming for the meat of his trapezius.

"I'm trying to be gentle," she whispers, unhinging her jaw. No matter how she flexes the muscles in her mouth her fangs refuse to slide out. "Press here," she says, guiding one of Thirty-Seven's limp hands to her cervical vertebra. He pushes on the gap with barely any strength, but it does the trick. Her fangs slide out with the wet schlikkk sound and she just barely misses piercing his skin.

"I don't think there's a way to be fucking gentle about thi– Ah!"

Forty tries not to feel the give of skin in her mouth when she bites down, instead listening to the staccato of his heartbeat. Thirty-Seven shifts uncomfortably at first, the fangs putting him on edge but the sedative leaving him unable to do anything. His hands scramble weakly at her back, clutching the bottom of her scrub top.

Forty shifts to the side a little, wrists aching from bracing herself against the desk, and when she does it must take pressure off of a nerve because Thirty-Seven's hands drop like a cut flower. The bitter sensation on her tongue tells her the venom is pumping, and as she clenches her jaw and stays locked against his shoulder, she feels his heartbeat settle under her chest. When she feels his breathing calm and smells the sweetness of the sedative, she unlocks her teeth from his trap. A lazy bead of blood crowns at the fang marks in the puncture wounds. Otherwise the bite is nowhere near as deep or savage as the previous one. When Forty presses her hands on his chest to push off of him, she's shocked to feel his other arm reach out from his side and grip the back of her neck. He presses her head back into the crook of his jaw and shoulder.

"Thirty-Seven?" she questions, trying to see his eyes over the curve of his jaw. All she sees instead is the pink keloid scar wrapping around the back of his neck, but this time guilt doesn't stir in her chest. Instead, something uncomfortable but intuitive weasels its way into her guts.

"Don't stop talking," he says, but the voice sounds far too soft to be his. The flutter of his lashes tell Forty his eyes are closed. Sitting to the side of him, head pressed near the oozing wound and the bitter odor of the venom, Forty finds herself incapable of fulfilling his request. How can she speak, when the matching of their heartbeats, the stillness of their bones, the gentling of their breaths fill the silence all on their own? Though she likes touching Forty-Five, the sensation of Thirty-Seven's skin against her own, the coolness of his shoulder against her cheek, and the slight clench of his fist in her hair set her nerves on edge. The anxiety that blooms from it is not unwelcome.

Forty can't quite call herself content where she braces her weak wrists in the space between Thirty-Seven's legs in a bid to keep her sweaty weight off of him. She does feel a certain satisfaction in the steadiness of Thirty-Seven's inhales and exhales, the freshness of his scent now that it's free of rage. Specimens are supposed to hate physical contact, so why did Thirty-Seven, the most territorial and aggressive specimen of them all, just decide to use Forty as a stuffed toy? All of this is completely unheard of from their species, but then again there has never been a time when Thirty-Seven or Forty have been anything but abnormal.