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Final Part – The Blood
There was a man sitting across from Alfie, bleeding. Not the rarest sight in his altogether unreasonably long existence, granted, however what was new about this one, was that this particular man had not been brought to his current condition by Alfie. Now, that was something, that... rarely happened these days; people just wasting their precious blood in his presence, while he did nothing at all to stop them.
“You gonna get that, mate?” Alfie gestured towards Tommy’s nose, trying not to sound impatient. But Alfie could feel it, all right. The hunger. The hunger stirring in him, but also something else. Something that had been dormant for nearly two centuries, now stretching, yawning awake somewhere at the pit of Alfie’s stomach, gnawing at his insides, begging to be unleashed.
Alfie looked at Tommy Shelby and could swear that the man had thoroughly seen him with those big eyes of blue , which was obviously impossible — Alfie was old and learned how to conceal his true nature exceptionally well. In fact, as far as Alfie knew, he was the oldest one around; he had never met any of his kind that was older than him, and he had been searching. He never found one, or maybe they have all learned how to hide themselves better than him. He had heard, though, that at one point or another, their unnaturally prolonged existence and its particular fucking diet, right, it drove them all mad; one point or another, fancy that, they would all succumb. Alfie always felt that he had personally crossed the threshold to that particular state back when he was alive, so he deemed his chances rather favorable, all things considered.
Tommy took out a handkerchief then, easy as you please, right, and held it against his nose with an annoyed huff, as if his own blood had disobeyed him in that moment of weakness. Alfie licked his lips; entirely unnecessarily, but he couldn’t help it either way. He could smell the blood all the way over here, practically taste it already. He had an exceptional nose, Alfie knew that. He never developed any special abilities, but the smells… They were his personal servants.
For the past half hour, Alfie had done nothing but smell and stare at the man, learned everything there was to know about him within the first fifteen minutes, and yet... here he still was, indulging the tiny gangster from Birmingham; searching, testing, but most importantly wanting so goddamn much. Now, Alfie had stopped desiring things, people, blood, even, a very long time ago. Probably longer than this man, the bleeding fucking statue, had been alive on this Earth. Then why, Alfie wondered still, beating himself up about it, why did he still feel like this? The hunger was back and he didn’t know why, but he knew if he got even a taste, it would be over for them both. He would’ve killed this man here, no hesitation. So Alfie waited and Tommy bled, completely unnecessarily. Before, however, Alfie could even determine if perhaps killing the man wouldn’t help his predicament and silence his goddamn feelings for the next couple of centuries, give or take, Tommy’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the floor with a thud.
Alfie was at him in seconds, at first just standing over him, then kneeling before the man and checking his pulse. Faint. Weak. Fading. There was more blood now, out of Tommy’s nose and out of his ears, trickling down his neck and staining his shirt. His lips were parted and teeth clenched, he tried to speak but couldn’t, Alfie noticed, but leaned towards him anyway, as close as he could, listening.
“K-Kill…” was all Tommy managed to say before his whole body stiffened in another spasm. He grabbed Alfie’s arm and Alfie let him, still just watching. The wanting grew stronger at this point. None of them had very long before one way or another there would be more blood on the floor. Despite all his restraint, Alfie dragged his fingers through Tommy’s hair, determining that indeed, it was soft, right, but also, he could feel all the old scars now, all the cracks, all the injuries underneath his fingertips. So many factors tried to contribute to Tommy Shelby’s final demise, in fact his very last words confirmed that, and yet… And yet, Alfie determined he wanted him to live. After all, he was nothing if not the greatest abomination and defilement of life’s natural order himself. What was one more disruption, in the grand scheme of things?
He bit into Tommy’s neck and finally got his taste. There was no describing the sheer pleasure and simultaneous lack of satisfaction he got from that couple of mouthfuls. Turns out, the creature who thought knew it all already, had been very, very wrong about his own nature. Alfie could stop himself, in fact — he wanted nothing more than to stop himself and so he did, to his utter astonishment. He bit his own forearm then, frantically so, leaving a large gash that he brought to Tommy’s parted lips.
“Nothing’s gonna kill you,” Alfie promised him solemnly, stroking Tommy’s hair gently with his other hand. “Nah. Come, boy, eh? Let me put you back together, Thomas Shelby… Nothing’s gonna kill you.”
He felt Tommy’s lips move against his skin and then the man started to drink. Alfie watched that, hypnotized, and decided to give him plenty. All, if need be. Much more than the others he had created before him. He didn’t know why, exactly, which turned out to be yet another enigma about one Tommy Shelby. Didn’t matter though, Alfie decided. He let Tommy drink as long as he wanted, and they parted only after the young man had been thoroughly satisfied. They were still there on the floor together, Alfie feeling so weak and lightheaded that he was almost human, but never having stopped stroking Tommy’s hair softly as the man changed, squirmed, died, and finally, after the longest time, opened his eyes to his new reality.
“I still think you could’ve killed me if you really wanted to,” Tommy said, as him and Alfie roamed the dark streets of Camden. Camden was Alfie’s favorite, after all, and Tommy knew that well. After their late-night coffee, they walked for hours, Alfie talking and Tommy taking pictures. He let Alfie lead them towards where the bakery warehouses used to be, knowing well that all in all, this has always been the place where they’d end up together. Tommy asked Alfie questions, and some of them were answered. Not all of them, since Alfie had figured, with all the time in the world between them, he could never answer all and let Tommy lose interest.
“Nah, I couldn’t ‘ve, no,” Alfie had his hands in his pockets and it would take a while before he would reach for Tommy’s hand in public again. For now, they were hungry.
Alfie could smell the blood through the skin of each person that passed them, and he was slowly growing impatient. Finally, they reached a dark, gloomy park outstretching over the canal and found an unsuspecting pair of teenage delinquents. The two vampires said nothing to each other beforehand, decided nothing, but still came at the boys from both sides and attacked at the same time. Tommy has always been gentle, Alfie thought to himself, looking at the bloody remains at both their feet and licking the blood off his palms. Tommy’s kills were cleaner, quicker. His had always been messy; he had nearly ripped the boy’s head clean off as he ate.
Tommy looked at him now, in absolute darkness that made no difference to them either way. Alfie knew Tommy was still hungry; he could feel it through their shared bond, thumping between them like a third heart. Tommy was by his side in seconds, reaching for him, kissing him ferociously. Alfie grabbed him by the waist and held him close, kissing back and chasing the taste of blood that was still there on Tommy’s tongue. Tommy put his hands around Alfie’s neck like he wanted to choke him, but Alfie knew very well that Tommy was feeling his pulse, like he always did after they fed. It would come, with fresh blood quicker than other kinds, and it fascinated Tommy every time. He smiled into Alfie’s lips and Alfie felt Tommy’s hands getting warmer.
“More,” Tommy groaned into Alfie’s mouth and kissed him again. Alfie nodded, determined to get him anything he wanted. Perhaps, he had created Tommy insatiable, or perhaps Tommy has always been this way. Alfie didn’t care. To him, Tommy was perfect. Alfie’s own hunger and want never subsided when Tommy was around, and wasn’t that just very fucking human of them both?
Close to sunrise, they broke into the basement of the only remaining warehouse of what used to be Alfie’s rum distillery. It was a club now, or it would be, after all the renovations. It smelled like paint, wall plaster, and dust. There were sheets of protective plastic hanging all around the basement, and it rustled between them as both vampires walked through the abandoned space. Despite the living reclaiming his lair, however, Alfie still kept its secrets. He led Tommy by the hand through the long, brickwall corridors until they encountered a large, metal door.
“Locked,” Tommy said, even before any of them tried the handle.
“Aye, but it doesn’t need the key, now does it...” Alfie crouched and counted the bricks next to the door, directly on the right. Finally, he pulled one of them from the wall, still with some effort even for a vampire, and pulled a latch that opened the hidden mechanism. The door opened with an infernal sound of metal scraping against metal.
“Holy shit, Alfie,” Tommy said with some amusement and went through the door first. Alfie put the brick back in place and entered after him, closing the door behind them.
It was completely dark inside but, all in all, it didn’t matter to the two vampires, as they made their way through the dusty room that had once been Alfie’s secret storage. It was full of crates and metal shelves, filled to the brim with rum, books, papers, and altogether incredible amounts of Alfie’s favorite kind of junk. Tommy laughed to himself as he took a bottle of rum from one of the shelves and opened it swiftly, then took a large swig.
“Aye, that… Might’ve gone bad, sweetie,” Alfie chuckled softly at the sight.
“Actually, it tastes the same,” Tommy said and passed him the bottle. Alfie took a tentative sip, but determined that the rum was still very much drinkable after… How long has it been, even?
“How long has it been?” Tommy asked out loud what the other vampire was thinking, gently stroking the spines of Alfie’s old books, stacked up on one of the lower shelves.
“Sixty years, give or take,” Alfie murmured, walking behind Tommy with something akin to reverence.
“Will you leave all of that here, for them to find?” Tommy asked and Alfie shrugged, honestly uncertain of his answer.
“Makes no difference to me, I’ve had plenty of stashes like these, yeah.”
“Where else?” Tommy stopped as they reached the end of the room. In the corner, he saw a couple of old blankets and quickly moved towards it to prepare a makeshift bed for them both.
“Ah, Chicago. And, believe it or not, Venice. It was easy to find catacombs in Venice, yeah.” Alfie saw what Tommy was doing, and he quickly removed his jacket and shoes to join the other vampire.
“Where else?” Tommy asked quietly, his voice nearly a whisper now, as he laid down so close to Alfie they were practically kissing whenever their lips moved to talk.
“Vienna.” Alfie pulled Tommy even closer. “One abandoned castle in Scotland. And Paris, the cemeteries were best in Paris, hm, can tell you that.”
Tommy laughed softly into Alfie’s mouth and kissed him again. “You’re still warm,” he murmured. “I can hear your heart again.” He pressed his palm to Alfie’s chest, under his shirt.
“Funny, that, I can always feel it.” Alfie closed his eyes and embraced Tommy even tighter.
“Alfie?”
“Yeah?”
“How long—”
“Five hundred and seventy-two years. I think.”
Tommy said nothing at that, not at first. Then, he shifted in Alfie’s tight embrace and slowly unbuttoned Alfie’s shirt, then his own. He pushed himself closer then, pressing his ear to Alfie’s chest. “I was gonna ask, how long will we stay together, this time?”
“Ah,” Alfie smiled to himself, stroking Tommy’s hair gently. He closed his eyes again. “I was thinkin’ forever. If you don’t mind.”