Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Wednesday, January 4, 1995
Los Angeles, California

There is a vampire in the Los Angeles Police Department.

The words echo through Neil’s mind between the rhythmic clicks of his shoes on cracked gray pavement. He hears them in Nate’s perennially-even tone, accompanied by Nate’s usual bloodshot stare, spoken matter-of-factly in that harsh smoker’s rasp like Nate was just putting him onto a score. Those ten words have buzzed around his head like a gadfly since the day Nate delivered them; the knowledge of a vampire in his immediate proximity prickles uncomfortably at his temples like the beginnings of a headache. It ends tonight. He’s done the preparation work, taking small scores between the time spent dedicated to the hunt to cover surveillance equipment, the proper bullets, the doldrum necessities of being alive. He knows he is as ready as he ever will be. He’s waited more than a month for this kill. He will not let it elude him.

A few blocks behind him, a car alarm sounds. He does not turn. Instead, he increases his pace, blinking against the wind. His gun is a familiar weight on his belt, concealed by his suit jacket and overcoat. Not that it would matter— save for the occasional passing car, he hasn’t seen another person since he parked his own. He knows why. His coat billows behind him, each gust of icy air stinging his cheeks and making his ears ache. Unusually cold for L.A, even in the dead of winter, some kind of record-setting cold spell he’d probably find miserable even if he hadn’t spent the past few years avoiding heatstroke in the Southwest. The wind rushing through the empty streets stirs up small bits of detritus, scraps of paper and empty soda cans and the other discarded accoutrements common to every American city. He strides through it like the lone gunslinger at the end of a Western, only with black derby shoes instead of cowboys boots advancing over frigid concrete instead of desert dust. He clenches his hands in his pockets in a futile effort to get his blood flowing. He would’ve worn gloves, but they blunt his fingers past the point of skillful gun-handling, and the last thing he needs is to drop his weapon in front of a creature with the ability and desire to rip him to shreds. His eyes scan the street with practiced watchfulness. He knows the vampire comes to this neighborhood to feed, and there are a finite number of darkened alleyways within walking distance of the vampire’s Crown Victoria.

As with the first time he’d seen it, contemplating the Crown Vic almost makes Neil smile. Some fucking car, he remembers thinking as he examined it, before he’d grudgingly admitted it was the perfect vehicle for a nonhuman creature trying to blend in with every other asshole cop. He can also grudgingly admit that if Nate had not told him, he would not have found this vampire himself. Lieutenant Vincent Hanna blends well: regular job, regular appearance, careful enough about feeding that it took Neil two weeks to catch him in the act, and that was through an infrared camera positioned on the roof of a building three blocks away. But Nate did tell him, and now Neil’s on the prowl, striding deliberately down block after block as the cold seeps into his bones. At irregular intervals, the soft sounds of his footsteps are drowned out by the wind. The cold air is invigorating in its unpleasantness; the same chill that numbs his nose and cheeks is bracing in his lungs. It keeps him sharp, alert, on edge. All good things to be when hunting, because the only difference between a careless vampire hunter and a dead one is time.

Neil feels the wind intensify, whipping around him with a sound like some great beast’s roar before settling down once again. In the relative silence, he hears it before he sees it. His footsteps slow automatically, each breath measured, the rawness of his cold-stung skin suddenly easy to ignore. The sound is coming from his right and can’t be more than a few yards away. He approaches the alley with practiced patience, softening each footfall. His movements are swift and silent as he pulls back his coat and jacket and removes his gun from his belt. He is not afraid. He feels the same uncanny calm he always feels before finishing a hunt, his heartbeat made steady by the knowledge that weeks of preparation have brought him within one well-aimed bullet of the only outcome he deems acceptable. He adjusts his grip on his gun, inhales a lungful of icy air, and rounds the corner into the dark, narrow alleyway.

The end of the alley is shrouded in shadow, but the streetlamp behind him provides just enough light to take in the grisly tableau. The usual stab of revulsion strikes his gut, but he keeps his feet planted, his gun slowly rising, trying to observe every detail the way a big game hunter might note the glare of savanna sun before setting up his shot. The scene before him is grotesque, luridly graphic in the way of cheaply made slasher flicks, but he does not doubt that this is real. Even in L.A, no amount of movie magic could replicate the smell.

There are two figures on the ground next to a wall tagged with multiple layers of faded graffiti. One is supine and completely inert. The other is crouched over the body in such a way that an outside observer might think the scene some kind of bizarre CPR demonstration. The kneeling figure is clad in black, its face hidden from Neil. When it shifts its position to bend even lower over the still body on the ground, Neil catches a tiny flash of light reflecting off wrist jewelry. Gold, of course; the sight almost makes Neil’s lips twitch. Just barely audible over the wind is a faint slurping noise that reminds Neil of a dog lapping water from a street puddle. His brow furrows in distaste, an involuntary expression he quickly removes. His grip tightens on his gun. The only reason he hasn’t already fired is that he likes to see the look in the creatures’ eyes when they realize what he’s about to do. It's the one indulgence he allows himself, his sole selfishness in an otherwise more-or-less ascetic life. He doesn’t look for anything in particular in the creatures’ blank, animal gazes, but there is satisfaction in recognition. In staring down a beast and knowing it knows it’s been beaten.

Another blast of icy wind surges into the alley, momentarily drowning out the wet, sloppy sounds of feeding. The ache in Neil’s ears has become a dull throb. He squints to prevent tears before aiming his gun, calm settling over him at the sound of the safety releasing. He sees the creature still, then straighten up from the corpse, then slowly turn to face him. Neil’s stomach clenches in visceral disgust. The wind and the distant sounds of traffic seem to recede, like the elements and the city alike understand the gravity of the moment. Tension hangs thick in the air. Anticipation prickles over his cold-numb skin. His heart beats steadily in his chest, each thump heavy and purposeful. He waits.

“Hello,” the vampire says. “Cold out tonight, huh?”

Neil’s seen this vampire before— striding down the sidewalk orbited by his crew of suit-clad cops, sauntering out of a boxing gym with a large duffel bag hanging off his shoulder, weaving recklessly through rush-hour traffic in his absurd car— but never like this. The older, cleverer vampires get good at convincing others of their humanity. The illusion shatters the second they feed.

“Hanna,” Neil accuses.

The vampire inclines his head in acknowledgement, a few strands of dark hair falling over his forehead. He doesn’t look afraid. The lower half of his face is soaked in blood. It looks black in the darkness— glistening just enough to let Neil know it’s still wet— which makes his teeth shine even brighter. Neil watches as a few beads of blood gather on the underside of his chin, the droplets’ lazy descent almost hypnotic. The creature’s eyes are dark, too; their color is reminiscent of an oil spill, bottomless and completely without depth all at once, shrouded by an unnatural shadow. They move slowly over Neil’s face, drinking him in with unblinking, unfeeling precision. Seeing too much, Neil suspects, even at this distance, even in the dark. He tries not to let his skin crawl.

“The one and only,” the vampire replies, after a few moments’ wary silence. “This isn’t the first time you’re seeing me. It is the first time I’m seeing you. Why is that?”

His voice is raspy, old-school New York with an underlying musicality, the streetwise vaudevillian lilt shared by urban raconteurs and rakish hustlers of all persuasions. It feels false. False in the way that all speech patterns of especially old vampires tend to be, because their true accents died out decades or centuries ago and they could not blend into society, let alone a police department, if they were to speak like they spoke when they were turned. It’s easier for the foreign ones, Neil knows, foreigners and transplants. But even in Chicago— Hanna’s place of origin, if Nate’s information is correct— nobody’s sounded the way Hanna must really sound since before the First World War.

“I cannot keep letting you get away with this,” Neil says, then immediately wishes he hadn’t said anything.

A slow, Cheshire cat smile spreads over the vampire’s bloody face, languid and mocking. It does not reach those black eyes, cold and flat with the slightest colorless shine, like a layer of ice over parking lot concrete. Neil watches his tongue slowly lick over his teeth; even in the alley’s dim light, the fangs gleam. The tip of one fang presses into Hanna’s blood-soaked lower lip. Neil is suddenly reminded of how wild animals bare their teeth before sinking them into their prey. His eyes flick to the barrel of the gun he’s currently aiming at the vampire, which does not seem to concern the vampire in the slightest.

“I could say the same to you,” Hanna returns. “How many scores you gonna take in my city?”

Neil blinks. That, he hadn’t expected. No matter. He adjusts his grip on his gun. The vampire follows the movement, his black eyes sliding from Neil’s hands up to Neil’s face with a decidedly unimpressed look.

“What, you thought I wasn’t aware of you?” Hanna asks, taunting, almost sing-song. “You think I don’t know when I’m being followed? You think I can’t connect the dots of uptick in metal depository hits and new hunter on my trail? I got over a hundred and fifty years on this planet, Mr. McCauley. There is very fuckin’ little that still surprises me. And that’s what you were trying to do, right? Surprise me?”

Neil does not let his own surprise show. Nor does he let himself get lost in the rise and fall of the vampire’s voice, the effortlessly captivating cadence of the natural-born storyteller, so compelling Neil finds himself understanding the old stories about vampires and hypnosis even though he knows they’re bullshit. He wills himself to focus. It’s not good that a vampire knows his name and worse that a cop knows about the scores he’s been taking, but neither will matter once Neil’s riddled his body with bullets. More concerning is the piece of information the vampire had tossed off with a deliberate casualness that didn’t fool Neil for a second: he’s older than one-fifty. Which will make him the oldest vampire Neil’s ever tried to kill, and therefore the most dangerous.

“I am here to put you in the fucking ground,” Neil tells him, delivering each word with exacting precision. “Do not play games with me.”

A pause ensues, in which Hanna blinks a few times, then cocks his head to one side like a curious dog as he sizes Neil up. He is still on his knees. His posture is completely at ease. Whether that’s a performance, his natural state of being, or simply the contentment of a big meal, Neil does not know. He does know that the vampire has barely looked at his gun outside of a perfunctory glance and has made no attempt to draw his own weapon. When Hanna’s eyes lock on his, it feels like Hanna’s boring into him, slotting his bloody hands through Neil’s ribs and defiling his organs with his touch. Violated, Neil thinks automatically, forcing himself to remain still as a phantom wetness slides over his skin. Unclean. From the sardonic smirk that briefly twists Hanna’s lips, Neil understands he’s doing it on purpose.

“Oh, very good,” Hanna drawls, his voice slightly deeper than it was before. “Almost had me a little worried, for one split fucking second. Almost. Which isn’t to say you’re not doing a good job, or anything, ‘cause you are. It’s just that this ain’t my first rodeo, so to speak, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not shaking in my fucking boots. Tell me you at least got the right bullets. You don’t look like an amateur, but these days, you never know.”

Neil stares at him, his face stony. Dread unfurls in his gut at the thought that his control of the situation is not as ironclad as he’d previously assumed. He ignores it. He can feel his heart pounding; he knows the vampire can sense it. He wonders what that must be like, if there’s any parallel to something a human could feel. He knows he ought to have already shot and killed this thing, that the vampire’s apparent non-aggression is simply a clever strategy to set his prey at ease before he goes in for the kill. It’s a lesson every hunter confronting a vampire has to learn fast if they want to live to see a second one: It does not matter what weapons you have, what skills, what perfectly-engineered trap you have devised. When you come face to face with a vampire, you will always, always be the prey.

“Come on, tell me,” Hanna prompts. “It’s a yes or no question. You got ‘em or not?”

“I got ‘em.”

The vampire nods, his expression thoughtful. Neil watches him get to his feet and wipe his bloody face on the forearm of his suit jacket. A sloppy clean-up of a sloppy meal— the vampire’s face remains darkly smeared, matte now that the wind has dried most of it up. He stands with the loud sigh common to middle-aged men in every place and every epoch. It’s theater, Neil knows, a creature who could toss him around like a rag doll acting out the quirks and foibles of a group to which he has not belonged in a very, very long time. Neil is not sure if it’s for his benefit, the vampire’s, or something else entirely. He feels his heartbeat pick up as the vampire takes a single step towards him. His suit jacket is open, revealing a holster on his hip. Neil sees the ivory handle of his service weapon. He doesn’t wear a badge, but if he did, Neil knows it would bear the rank of lieutenant and the emblem of the LAPD. Vampire cop, he thinks, struggling to wrap his head around it even as he’s staring it in the face. What a fucking world.

“How many kills you got?” Hanna asks, like he’s inquiring about a weekend fishing trip.

“Twenty-six.”

Neil doesn’t know why he gives up the information so quickly. The lapse in professionalism is far more concerning than Hanna knowing the number. Couple it with the myriad other ways in which he knows he’s off his game but cannot seem to pull himself out of the nosedive… he can hear it in Nate’s voice: no fucking good. Hanna, for his part, whistles appreciatively.

“Twenty-fucking-six! An old pro! Not bad, not bad. I’m winning, but I got a pretty big head start, so it’s not a fair comparison. For argument’s sake, we can call it a tie. Guess that makes this overtime.”

Neil is no longer paying attention. He’s too distracted by the drop of blood trickling down Hanna’s jaw, steadily amassing enough weight to fall silently onto his tie. The tie, as well as his shirt and the front of his jacket, are all bloodstained past the point of redemption. Neil’s less struck by the mess than he is by the sheer volume. He doubts the unmoving body behind Hanna has even a pint left. Hanna’s ruined clothing evidences an amount of blood past what any vampire can consume in one sitting, which means Hanna forced it out of the dead body simply because he wanted to. Because, as Neil often has to remind himself when he gets this close, these creatures are not human.

“How’d you find me?” Hanna asks.

He sounds genuinely curious and disconcertingly friendly. Neil’s own ability to adapt is his greatest weakness right now; he can already feel himself adjusting to the blood, the teeth, the eyes, changing his construction of reality to accommodate the information traveling in an uninterrupted stream from his senses to his brain. He forces himself to look at the corpse on the ground, the vampire’s bled-dry victim, to remind himself what he’s dealing with. Against his will, he finds himself saying:

“I got a guy.”

He could kick himself for revealing that, vague as it is. Another stupid fucking mistake he’ll agonize over if he makes it out of this alive— an if that is growing increasingly, terrifyingly uncertain. He tells himself the vampire will soon be dead, and the knowledge of Neil’s error, as well as everything else he might know about him, will disappear along with him.

“Your guy must be good,” Hanna tells him, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial register. “Most of us get found in the first ten years. Once you hit seventy, seventy-five or so, it gets easier. You can wait longer between drinking. You can go out in the sun. You learn how to make yourself seem like a very strange human instead of a very humanlike thing.”

“You get a job with the police department.”

Hanna’s black eyes glint delightedly, which sends prickles of cold discomfort down Neil’s back. It occurs to him that Hanna is not wearing a coat over what looks like a regular wool suit yet seems completely unfazed by the cold currently numbing Neil’s extremities. Neil realizes he doesn’t know how vampires experience temperature. That for all his kills and all his research, he’s still at a disadvantage, because he has seven years of experience with vampires, and Hanna’s got more than twenty times that with humans.

“Exactly,” Hanna says, blithely ignoring Neil’s growing sense of unease. “Robbery-Homicide’s a good gig— more action than most of the shit I’ve done to pass the time over the years, and it’s a steady stream of fresh meat. Which sounds pretty fuckin’ callous, I know, but the alternative is a more, ah, extracurricular type of hunting. If you catch my drift. See, what you haven’t yet begun to appreciate is that I’m a regular fucking Samaritan. If you think I’m responsible for more death than this city’s dealers and traffickers… but then again, you don’t look anywhere near that naïve.”

“Is that what this is? ‘Extracurricular hunting?’”

Hanna’s bloody lips curve in a pleased little grin, like he’s thrilled by Neil’s curiosity no matter how reluctant that curiosity may be. Neil’s gun is still up, but that’s just instinct— it might as well be one of the shredded pieces of cardboard at his feet. His eyes are locked on Hanna’s; Hanna’s eyes are locked on his. A regular fucking Samaritan, Neil repeats to himself, more amazed at the sheer gall of this creature thana anything else. He decides to let Hanna keep talking, placating his own better judgment with knowledge that he can pull the trigger at any time and leave two bodies for the rest of Robbery-Homicide to find in the morning. He can call it recon, prep work for the next kill, waiting for the right moment. Anything more than that, he refuses to contemplate.

“This?” Hanna asks dismissively, his eyes flicking to the corpse at his feet. “No, this was an overdose. Already long dead when I came across him, the poor fuck. Cold kept him fresh. Somebody will report him to Narcotics tomorrow. In the meantime, I don’t pass up free meals. And the drugs in his system don’t affect me, anyway.”

The casual way he says it makes Neil’s skin crawl. It’s the careless contempt of a creature that has not been human in a long time, no more malicious than the apathy of the average person towards the cow dying for their burger. Neil believes him when he says he’s in Robbery-Homicide for the action and the fresh meat, though he figures the excuse to enmesh himself in society and the power trip also factor in. It could not be a sense of obligation, or desire to protect human beings from each other. He thinks Hanna would find that funny, the concept of the benevolent vampire, a guardian angel with bloody fangs. Neil can imagine him holding back a laugh as he swore his oath to protect and serve.

“Your turn, now,” Hanna says, the tip of his tongue now moving slowly along his bottom lip. “I don’t know anything about you outside of your name, your rap sheet, and the fact that you’ve been taking small scores for the past month or so. Nothing that explains how you got into this fucking business.”

Neil adjusts his grip on his gun. His biceps are starting to ache. He knows his fingers will be clumsy with cold when he tries to move them, but he thinks he has enough warmth left to put a few bullets in Hanna’s skull. He curls his toes in his shoes, unwilling to die as a result of numb feet at a critical moment. He doesn’t answer. That, he won’t give him.

“Let me guess,” Hanna drawls, “this is some kinda… quixotic revenge quest that started when a vampire killed your wife?”

The words slam into him like a lowered shoulder, sudden and blunt and jarring, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He forces himself to remain calm. Despite his clenched teeth, he can feel his jaw jump. He hates himself for it, then hates himself more when he sees Hanna notices. He is struck suddenly by the certainty that Hanna must be a very, very good detective. That those glossy, pitiless black eyes don’t miss a goddamn thing.

“Shut up,” Neil grunts.

“I’m close, huh? Hold on, don’t tell me. You don’t wear a wedding ring, and you don’t seem like the marrying type, so not your wife. Your girl, then. Yeah. The woman you loved. Murdered by a vampire, maybe it even got her in front of you. It’s okay, you can tell me. I’ve been on this sick merry-go-round long enough to get pretty good at putting two and two together.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

Hanna’s expression darkens. The shadow over his eyes is perpetual, not connected to any light sources, not a feature of any other part of his face— an impossible penumbra cast by a nonexistent object. When Hanna inclines his head, his eyes could pass for empty sockets.

“You watched it kill her and drain her,” Hanna states, his unnaturally flat voice taking on the slightest contours of an accent Neil has never heard before. “You tracked it down and killed it. You decided to devote your life to killing as many as possible, like that’ll somehow bring her back. Even though you know it won’t.”

Neil’s gun is still up. His finger is on the trigger. It should be the easiest thing in the world to pull it, to put a bullet in the creature’s head and end this, all of it, right now. But he doesn’t. He remains statue-still with his gaze locked on the vampire’s face, damningly entranced by his voice and his beautiful, terrible eyes and his bloody lips saying the same things Neil’s told himself a thousand times before. It’s a perversely intoxicating torture, like when he was a kid and he couldn’t help but dig his tongue into an infected molar until stars burst at the corners of his vision. Elisa used to tease him for that sort of thing, half-jokingly calling him a martyr and a masochist, her tone of voice amused but also rueful, full of the quiet sadness he was used to seeing in the mirror. He’d never really known what to say in response to that. He still doesn’t.

“What, you think you’re making the world a better place?” Hanna presses, taking a step towards him, his gaze hard and relentless. “You might as well go out and kill wolves for eating deer. And you know where this goes, don’t you? Dead in the street, no different from every other adrenaline junkie who didn’t know when to quit. Hate to tell you this, Neil, but she’s not coming back.”

Mind games, Neil thinks, though willing himself to snap out of whatever this is feels like trying to claw his way out of quicksand. That is all this is. The silver-tongued manipulations of a creature with decades and decades of practice disarming anyone who might pose a threat to him. The ache in Neil’s ears has begun to sink into his jaw. He can hear his own blood rushing through his head as his heartbeat picks up. A bead of cold sweat slides down his back. The wind sears his fingers, but he does not drop his gun. His last remaining shreds of rational thought are urging him to shoot. Instead, he says:

“I know.”

“There aren’t nearly as many of us out there as some people think,” Hanna adds, gentling his tone, his New York inflections back in place. “You could very easily never see a vampire ever again. You choose to do this, choose to put yourself and all that hot, red blood of yours so close to me I can smell it. Be careful, someone might think you want to get bitten.”

The silence that fills the alley is resounding, near palpable, raising the hair on Neil’s arms and the back of his neck. He feels the dynamic between himself and the creature shift as a physical blow, as disorienting as missing a step going down the stairs. The truth that has been steadily building from the moment he stepped into the alley has arrived in full force: without ever drawing a weapon, the vampire has taken full control of the situation. Was in control all along, Neil knows with a pang of despair, even though he let him think otherwise. Neil’s traitorous heart is pounding, now, loud enough he suspects Hanna would be able to hear it even if he were human. As it is, those horrible eyes of his glint again, sucking the light of the streetlamp into their endless depths. Hanna, seemingly confident he is in no danger of being shot, takes a few steps closer. Close enough for Neil to see the thin gold necklace chains that dip into his shirt; close enough for the wind to carry the reek of Hanna’s bloodied clothes into Neil’s airways. Neil breathes through his mouth, his breath forming tiny plumes in the frigid air, willing himself not to gag from the smell of Hanna’s cologne under the cloying stench of blood. He has not been this close to a vampire since the one who killed Elisa. He fights to get his breathing under control, trying to stop his chest from heaving as he pants softly, his tongue dry and cold. He cannot inhale through his nose.

“Is that it, Neil?” Hanna murmurs. “You want to know what it feels like?”

Neil mutely shakes his head. The smell of the blood all over Hanna is overwhelming, nauseating, filling his mouth and throat and lungs and choking him from the inside out. No, Neil thinks, the desperation flooding through him somehow insufficient to induce the action he knows he needs to take. Not like this. He takes an involuntary step backwards, then another, then a third. He stops only when his back bumps against brick, the collision making him accidentally inhale through his nose. That unmistakable metallic tang fills his sinuses, transporting him to Mexicali— Gabriella screaming, running, getting whisked away by Elisa’s uncle; Elisa on the ground, unmoving, the creature in a frenzy upon her; Neil immobilized by terror, the gun on his belt a useless trinket, watching helplessly with his back pressed against the wall as a danger completely foreign to him ripped apart his life with its teeth before disappearing into the desert night. He remembers the accusatory silence of the aftermath, in which he realized what a fool he was to have presumed he’d seen every kind of violence the world had to offer. He remembers sliding down the wall as his knees gave out, his own breathing loud and erratic as he stared in shell-shocked disbelief at Elisa’s body, at the blood pooling around her, at her torn clothing and the unnatural angles of her limbs. It's an image he still sees when he closes his eyes. It’s what he sees when he closes his eyes now, a last-ditch attempt to work up the will to pull the trigger, the way he should’ve pulled it seven years ago when he saw that enormous shadow descend upon her, the way he should’ve pulled it the second Hanna stood up. He opens his eyes to see Hanna staring at him with a pitying smirk. Humiliation rises like bile in his throat.

“Come on,” Hanna coaxes. “You can think of it as research, if you want to. If that makes it easier. It’s just you and me here. Nobody’s gotta know.”

Neil just stares at him, breathing far too quickly, heart thundering in his ears. His powerlessness sickens him; the catastrophic loss of his own self-discipline is more terrifying than the threat of Hanna’s fangs. Hanna closes the remaining space between them with the casual, assured grace of an apex predator who has known all along that he was never in danger. Neil feels himself lowering his gun as if an enormous invisible hand is moving his arm into place. It’s not Hanna’s doing; he wishes he could say it was. Hanna is close enough that Neil can see the slight indentations where his fangs have been pressing into his bottom lip. He sees the fangs flash as Hanna licks over that lip with the tip of his blood-red tongue. Neil digs his heels into the wall, forcing himself to remain upright as Hanna examines him like a piece of meat. Neil can’t help but notice the sharp jaw and sharper cheekbones, the fullness of the bloody lips, the tailored fit of his dark suit on his shoulders. Strikingly handsome, despite everything. Hanna’s shorter than he is, slimmer in the shoulder, his build wiry in a way that would belie even the strength he must’ve had when he was human. His impossibly dark eyes are framed by similarly dark eyelashes— long eyelashes, Neil notices, pretty like a woman’s. And then, before he can stop himself: Like hers. But Elisa’s eyes were warm and full of life, not like Hanna’s abyssal pits, because she was human and Hanna isn’t. Hanna is nothing like her, could never be like her, nobody could be like her, but she’s gone, gone forever, and he can never kill enough of them to bring her back, and he is so very tired, and Hanna is, Hanna is—

“Neil,” Hanna says, achingly gentle, “let me in.”

The moment elongates into timelessness, buffeted by intermittent gusts of wind, and then Neil leans his head towards his right shoulder, away from the safety of his shirt collar. Cold immediately rushes in, raising goosebumps on the exposed flesh. In his right hand, he holds his gun loosely, no more dangerous than a prop in a play. He closes his eyes as Hanna’s body settles against his left side, his blood-soaked suit pressed into the fabric over Neil’s hammering heart, one of his palms flat against the wall on the other side of Neil’s head. Keeping him in place, even though Neil has not tried to run. He knows he should have. Too late now. He tries to imagine her on the ground in some futile, forgone attempt to spur himself into the action he’s failed to take over and over again. Instead, he sees her as she was— tossing her wet hair over her shoulder after stepping out of the shower, laughing at the corny joke Gabi read off a candy wrapper, resting her hands on his shoulders as they danced on her kitchen’s hexagonal terracotta. He was a lousy dancer; she swore up and down she didn’t mind. I’m sorry, Neil thinks helplessly as he feels the vampire lean into his neck, his hair faintly tickling Neil’s ear. Neil swallows hard as something warm and wet— his tongue, Neil realizes, both the recognition and the accompanying revulsion delayed— slides up his neck to his jaw. Exploring just for the hell of it, the perversely intimate prologue to the grotesque main event.

A particularly strong current of air causes Hanna’s suit jacket to flap against Neil’s stomach. Hanna drags one fingertip along the inside of Neil’s wrist, and the next thing Neil is dimly aware of is his gun clattering to the concrete below. His now-empty hand clenches in a fist, the sweat on his palm immediately going cold and clammy. Hanna’s fingers curl around his wrist, his grip firm but not crushing, and lifts Neil’s hand to his hip. Head swimming, Neil releases his fist and settles his hand on the mercifully dry fabric over Hanna’s flank. Hanna shifts slightly, his cheek on Neil’s shoulder as he breathes against his neck— deliberately, Neil knows, because he doesn’t have to breathe at all. One of his shoes slides between Neil’s. His body is a welcome barrier against the cold. Neil doesn’t mind nearly as much as he should when he feels Hanna press close enough for him to feel Neil’s heart pounding, his mouth hovering dangerously close to Neil’s neck, his clean-shaven cheek brushing the underside of Neil’s jaw. I’m sorry, Neil thinks again, unable to stop himself from melting into Hanna’s touch nor the quiet gasp that escapes him as Hanna licks his neck again, this time sucking gently at the spot where Neil knows his fangs will soon pierce the skin. His left hand rises to find purchase on Hanna’s waist.

“I can hear it,” Hanna mutters, sounding a little wild, like he’s teetering precariously on the edge of losing control. “Moving so fucking fast. Fuck. And the smell—”

He cuts himself off with a quick nip at Neil’s neck— just his front teeth, not unlike how Elisa would playfully bite him when she got frisky. Neil squeezes his eyes tight against the howling wind, letting himself be crushed between rough brick and Hanna’s insistent presence. Hanna slides the hand on the wall down to Neil’s shoulder, his bloody hands no doubt leaving streaks on the gray fabric. Neil feels the defilement as a pang in his stomach. His eyes are still closed as Hanna’s other hand runs a knuckle up and down the column of Neil’s neck, like he’s trying— Neil realizes with a start— to raise a vein. It should not be something he allows to happen. It certainly should not be something that sends a heat coiling down his spine, a heat that has nothing to do with how close Hanna’s body is to his own. Without thinking, Neil tips his head further to the side, offering Hanna his bare neck, letting him in. Total surrender, and Hanna didn’t even have to work for it. Bastard, Neil thinks despairingly. Lattices of guilty electricity dance over his skin as Hanna lifts a hand to cup his face. The skin of Hanna’s palm is warm on Neil’s cheek, his fingers blunt and solid, cold metal from several rings gently digging into Neil’s skin. Neil doesn’t mind. He’s much more focused on Hanna’s mouth descending on his neck once again, because he knows in his gut that this time, this time—

A blinding flash of white-hot, instantaneous pain rings in his ears and sinuses, his brain wiped blank as his entire body is shocked immobile by an agony that kills the scream rising in his throat long before it reaches his lips. It’s an otherworldly pain, impossible in its searing immensity, blistering needles and bone-deep frostbite all at once. He knows this is it; this kind of pain can only be his entire body coming apart at the seams on the atomic level. He waits to lose consciousness, certain that he is going to die. And then, a fraction of a second later, the pain is gone. In its place is a sensation unlike anything Neil has ever felt before. Mind still reeling, his first thought is that there must be some kind of numbing agent, or perhaps something like the toxins snakes use to paralyze their prey. Hanna’s body is the only thing keeping him upright. Neil clings to his waist as Hanna uses one hand to hold his head in place and the other to explore his torso with slow, roaming caresses that seem designed to calm him down. Neil is not too proud to admit it’s working. Though the pain itself has vanished as quickly as it came, every cell in his body still quivers in its aftermath. He can feel his pounding heart slowing from its panicked gallop every time Hanna’s hand brushes over it. The sudden absence of pain is nearly as jarring as the pain itself, leaving him a frayed wire— sleek order reduced to haphazard chaos, his insides humiliatingly exposed, a barrage of overwhelming sensation sparking uselessly in every nerve receptor. He knows that if it were not for Hanna pinning him to the wall, he would’ve collapsed the moment the fangs pierced his skin.

“I got you,” Hanna mumbles, the words muffled by how tightly he’s pressing his mouth to Neil’s neck. “Shh. Hard part’s over.”

Neil does not know if that’s true and lacks the capacity to believe in such vague reassurances. He takes comfort in Hanna’s words anyway. He can feel his blood leaving his body. The wet sounds of Hanna drinking it are occasionally punctuated by a wordless sound of satisfaction. The hand holding Neil’s neck in place shifts slightly so that Hanna’s thumb can rub the skin under Neil’s ear. It’s an unexpectedly tender gesture; Neil doesn’t know what to do with it. Instinct has him leaning into it, chasing the warmth of Hanna’s hand with a shamelessness that seems to startle both of them, judging by the pleased little hum Hanna sends vibrating over Neil’s neck. Neil’s mind floats as he drowns in the sensations of Hanna’s other hand stroking his bicep through his coat and Hanna’s fangs in his neck. It should have never come to this, he knows. It is far, far too late to stop now. The alley is quiet save for Neil’s breathing, Hanna drinking, and the quiet rustle of their clothing brushing against each other. Again operating on pure instinct, Neil tugs Hanna closer to him. Hanna comes willingly.

“So good,” Hanna slurs softly, allowing several droplets of blood to run down Neil’s neck. “Taste so fucking good.”

Trying to corral a single thought feels like target practice through a child’s kaleidoscope toy— everything shifts and whirls, the colors are all wrong, the proportions expand and contract with dizzying alacrity. Neil feels it more than he thinks it: this is nothing like the beast that killed Elisa. It’s not even like how Hanna was feeding when Neil saw him not too long ago. This is slow, sensual, almost sweet. It’s closer to a lover’s caress than the violent tearing asunder that Neil knows, even in this state, is what he deserves. He shivers every time he feels Hanna’s tongue dart out to catch runaway droplets of blood. He is not sure what to make of this wild animal now so careful, so precise. He tips his head backwards against the cold brick without thinking. Any and all alarm bells have sunk to the deepest recesses of his brain, their warning murky and muddled, easily ignored. He shifts slightly but can’t hear his shoes over the rush of blood in his ears and the soft, wet sounds of Hanna feeding. He knows this should worry him. It doesn’t.

He finds himself thinking of Elisa again, her full lips flattened in disapproval, her deep brown eyes flashing disappointedly. The guilt is getting muddled, too, lost in the maelstrom rush of everything else. And everything else really does seem to be everything: he’s unmoored, vertiginous, completely overwhelmed by the onslaught of more simultaneous emotions than he’s ever felt before. His body is similarly lost— he realizes, far too late to do anything about it, that his neck is not the only place where blood is flowing. Hanna realizes it, too, his thigh shoved between Neil’s able to feel every twitch as it occurs. A brief moment of charged silence passes between them, and then the hand not holding Neil’s neck in place begins to snake downwards. Neil squeezes his eyes shut. Burning shame seeps outwards from the core of his being; searing desire warms every cold-numb cell. Hanna leaves his palm against Neil’s stomach for a few seconds, feeling him breathe, before sliding it to the front of Neil’s slacks. Neil can’t help the way his hips twitch, nor the way his fingers clench around handfuls of Hanna’s shirt. Hanna makes a triumphant sound, a short exhalation with the hint of a growl underneath. Neil lets him have it. He did win, after all. He won, Neil lost, and now Neil can’t think of anything past Hanna’s body against his own and how he wants more, wants him even deeper inside him, wants him to swallow him whole.

Hanna doesn’t seem like he’s trying to swallow him, though. His mouth is doing something strange on Neil’s neck, something that feels closer to eager kissing than blood drinking. It takes him a few moments to figure it out, to distinguish the sensation from Hanna licking up escaped blood droplets, but the second the thought occurs to him, he’s certain of its truth: Hanna is drawing this out, using his tongue to slow the flow of blood but not allowing the incision to close. Neil, suddenly dizzy, tries and fails to ignore the stirring in his groin at the realization. He lets out a quiet sigh, the exhalation swept away by a sudden, fierce gust of wind. The wind chills his sweat, which is when he registers that he is sweating, and breathing shakily, humiliatingly human consequences of the immense desire welling up within him. His hands slide around Hanna’s waist to his lower back. He feels the muscles beneath Hanna’s shirt as he pulls him in, grinding against him without any intent beyond getting as close to him as he possibly can. Hanna is doing the same, shoving Neil against the cold brick with strength that would not be possible for a human without breaking a sweat, caressing him in a way that feels more like manhandling. Neil, trying to work his hands inside Hanna’s shirt, only melts further into his embrace.

“Yeah,” Hanna breathes. “Yeah.”

Neil nods in full agreement even though he could not name what he’s agreeing with. He inhales sharply as Hanna slides a hand down his back and grabs his ass. He’s grinding against him in earnest, now, the friction sending undulating waves of warmth through his core. Hanna is hard, too; Neil can feel his bulge straining against his wool slacks. But Hanna isn’t doing anything about it besides the occasional buck of his hips. Neil knows he’s focused only on the thin stream of crimson trickling steadily from the puncture wounds in the side of his neck. He groans softly when Hanna squeezes his ass with unmistakable strength. Hanna’s hand is warm, his grip possessive. Neil feels himself throb in his too-tight pants. He knows Hanna feels it, too. He’s surprised by how easily his body accommodates Hanna’s presence, shifting every so often to invite him closer, responding to every touch like he’s forgotten this kind of intimacy. And it has been a while, he knows that, but he can’t pretend that’s why Hanna’s having such an effect on him. He buries one hand in Hanna’s thick, dark hair, savoring the way Hanna’s teeth graze his neck in return. The cold stings his cheeks, sweat pastes his clothes to his skin, and Hanna has made no move to reach down and get him off. Neil doesn’t care. He isn’t chasing his climax. His mind is radio static. All he knows is the exquisite bliss of Hanna all over him, strong and solid and real, shielding him from the night with a body warmed by his own blood.

He has no idea how long he stands there, lust-fogged and useless, willing prey in the vampire’s hands. He does know that when he finally tries to open his eyes, the world swims, and that’s when he realizes that he’s let Hanna drink from him for too long. The ensuing rush of panic coincides with awareness of his rapidly-beating heart; the thudding is deafening in his ears, a dull bell clanging too late, too late, too late. When he tries to move, his shoes seem bolted to the ground. Despair sinks into him like filthy stormwater filling cracks in concrete streets. He is going to die here, not from the pain of the bite but from how long he’s let the teeth stay in. Hanna, he thinks, but the word doesn’t make it out of his throat. He wants to say something, to make some kind of last stand even though he can’t even stop his hands from sliding away from Hanna’s back, nor his eyes from sliding shut. Hanna just keeps drinking, sucking at what must be only a trickle of blood, now, a feeding animal unable to stop himself. Elisa’s face floats in the nebulous darkness, hazy and dreamlike, her features blurrier with each passing second. He wants to tell her to wait for him. Hard part’s over, Neil thinks wryly, wooziness making the words come like the slow-rising bubbles of a viscous liquid. When he opens his eyes, everything looks dimmer than it ought to be, so he closes them again. This time, her face is gone. He wishes it would return, but he knows it won’t.

He focuses on breathing, each inhalation taking more and more effort. He doesn’t even notice the cold. His whole body feels leaden, no longer capable of feeling anything but a vague warmth from Hanna’s body. He knows that if Hanna were to step backwards, he would collapse immediately. His heart rate is pounding faster than it ever has, past the point of physical exertion into the uncharted territory of trying to prevent total loss of circulation. He couldn’t open his eyes if he wanted to. He deserves whatever comes his way for being so monumentally fucking stupid, for not taking the shot when he had the chance. He knows he let Elisa down. He does not deserve to leave this alley alive. Hanna is only giving him what he deserves. He should thank him, really. He should—

“Vincent,” Neil tries, the mumbled word clumsy on his thick tongue and slow-moving lips. “Vincent…”

And then the world goes black.

The sound of a door’s lock clicking into place startles him into consciousness. He takes quick stock of his physical status: alive, in one piece, not bleeding. His mouth is uncomfortably dry. He licks over his lips even though he knows it won’t help. His head hurts something awful. His neck does not hurt at all. He is warm. A surprise. He figures he’s indoors, then, the theory corroborated by the orange light glowing on the other side of his closed eyelids. He moves one hand tentatively and feels cool, smooth leather. He’s on a couch. An unfamiliar one, probably old and well-worn, its cushions sinking under his weight. His entire body feels leaden. He takes several manual breaths before it comes sufficiently steady on its own. He gives himself five seconds’ grace before trying to sit up. Bad move. He grunts as his head slams back into the couch’s armrest, a sudden wave of nausea coursing through him, his blood rushing in his ears as his heart hammers against his ribs.

“Whoa, hey, take it easy!”

Vincent is at his side in seconds. Neil can tell by the sounds of moving fabric and footsteps and the smell: outdoor winter, recently dry-cleaned wool, expensive cologne. The scent of blood is still present, but it’s less acrid. He breathes through his nose for a few seconds until it occurs to him that he’s smelling it on his own clothing. He wants to bolt upwards, open his eyes, fully analyze his surroundings, but even trying to lift a hand makes his stomach churn, and the faint light visible through his closed eyes makes his head pound. It’s worse than the worst hangover he’s ever had, worse than the time he took a handful of pills in Manila, worse than waking up in D Block after being knocked out cold on the yard. Pain throbs at his temples and at the back of his skull. He can feel Vincent looming over him.

“The fuck happened?” Neil croaks.

There’s a long pause, long enough that he wishes he could open his eyes to see the emotions flitting across Vincent’s face. In the meantime, he focuses on taking slow, deep breaths. He realizes he is not wearing his coat nor his suit jacket; Vincent must’ve taken them off. He’s still wearing everything else. His shirt is unusually stiff in a few places, no doubt due to dried blood. His gun is gone. That particular fact would alarm him more if the firearm had been of any use to him tonight, but he knows he is not in any immediate danger. The simple fact of his being alive is evidence that Vincent doesn’t want to kill him, at least not yet. Neil’s pounding heartbeat slows slightly as he gets his bearings, but it’s still going much too fast for a man laid out on his back— a result, Neil knows, of the blood loss. He squeezes his eyes shut against the orange glow and tries to amass the strength to sit up as he waits for Vincent’s answer.

“I couldn’t stop,” Vincent finally admits. “I told myself I’d only take a little, but then I was on you and I just… couldn’t stop. Reminded me of when I used to do coke, back in my… halcyon youth, but better. Best fucking thing I ever tasted, swear it on whatever the fuck you want. I don’t know what woulda happened if you hadn’t passed out.”

Passed out, Neil thinks grimly, reverting to manual breathing to keep himself under control. He gave himself up to the vampire and put his life in his hands. It’s a failure beyond belief, a betrayal of everything he’s dedicated his life to for the past seven years, utterly humiliating on every level. Vincent should’ve bled him dry or left him to die in that alley; he should’ve made an example of him for every other idiot who doesn’t shoot the second they see the teeth. Instead, for reasons unfathomable to Neil, Vincent took him somewhere with indoor heating and a comfortable couch, removed his coat and suit jacket, and has been keeping watch over him.

“Then what?” Neil presses.

Vincent’s voice flattens into a dullness Neil can only assume is the tone he uses when rattling off the facts of a case to a superior long after the action ended.

“I carried you to my car. Thought about taking you to the hospital, figured you wouldn’t want it, took you home instead. Kept checking your pulse to make sure I didn’t have to call an ambulance. You’ve been out for a couple hours. I just went to get you food— hope you like Chinese.”

It’s more information than Neil is capable of processing. He does not want to imagine how bad he looks right now, nor does he want to think about takeout. His wrist prickles with the phantom sensation of Vincent taking his pulse, although then again, he might’ve taken it using Neil’s carotid, not far from the marks left by his fangs. Neil doesn’t remember it. He doesn’t remember anything after blacking out in the alley. He licks his dry lips before asking:

“Home?”

“My apartment. WeHo. You want the street address?”

He knows it already from his months of surveillance work; trying to calculate how far they are from where he left his car is a problem he’ll address when he gets the fuck out of here. In the meantime, he has a more pressing concern.

“Water.”

“Right. Water. Stay right there.”

As he hears Vincent’s footsteps retreat, Neil almost cracks a smile. Stay right there, like he’s capable of going anywhere in this state. He still can’t make himself sit up, so he focuses on the next best thing: opening his eyes. His first view is of an unremarkable white ceiling. When he turns his head to the right, he sees brown leather with a million tiny cracks, radiating outwards from a hole with the circumference of a cigarette burn. When he turns his head to the left, he sees a coffee table with several newspapers strewn over it. His gun rests atop a small stack of newspapers a few inches away from an ivory-handled Colt and a gleaming badge, close enough that he could reach for it if he were capable of lifting his arms. Behind the table is a television. Near the armrest his head is currently resting on is a hardbacked wooden chair, clearly brought in from the dining room to serve as a resting place for his sickbed sentinel. Next to the small dining room is a galley kitchen, in which he can see Vincent’s back as he fills up a glass of water. Neil’s fingers curl into loose fists as his mind is flooded with memories of himself getting innumerable glasses of water for Elisa. He remembers the quiet triumph he felt every time he returned to their bed to find her looking up at him with sleepy eyes and an affectionate smile. He always wrapped the glass in a carefully-folded napkin. She used to remove it with a certain solemnity, but she would kiss his cheeks lightly before offering him some of the water. In the present, he closes his eyes, certain that perceiving any more of his current situation will make him vomit.

“Neil?”

Vincent, of course. Who else? The proximity of his voice indicates to Neil that he’s as close as he can get without touching him. The next thing Neil’s aware of is a glass of water being held to his lips and a warm, solid hand smoothing back his hair, the same way he used to smooth Elisa’s hair back when she wasn’t feeling well. He is horribly, acutely aware of just how wrong things have gone. He is not too proud to drink. When he finishes the glass, Vincent steps away to get him another one. He drains it, too, then shakes his head so Vincent won’t go for a third. He shifts his position on the couch, a feeble attempt at preventing himself from falling asleep. He forces his eyes open once again, blinking in the dim light of Vincent’s apartment. He wonders if Vincent turned the apartment’s heat on for him.

He watches Vincent sit in the wooden chair, running one hand through his elegant swoops of dark hair. A clean hand, Neil observes. No blood under his fingernails. A real achievement, given the state Neil found him in. Vincent is wearing clean clothing, too— Neil figures he must have changed at some point between carrying him to his couch and stepping out to buy him takeout. Neil can smell the faintest savory aroma coming from somewhere in the kitchen, soy sauce and something fried, but the thought of eating turns his stomach. The water, though, is doing him some good: he feels significantly more solid, the throbbing in his head has receded just a little, and it no longer hurts to swallow. Vincent sets the empty glass on the coffee table next to the gun with the ivory handle. For the first time, Neil notices the multiple rings on Vincent’s fingers: various shapes, various sizes, varying degrees of expensive, not one of them resembling a wedding ring. When Vincent slides his hand into his pocket, Neil’s gaze wanders to the black fabric covering Vincent’s knee, then the wood grain of the coffee table’s leg, and finally settles on the gun with the ivory handle.

“Where’d you get that?”

Vincent turns his head towards the table.

“Get what?”

“The Colt. That’s not standard-issue.”

Vincent nods as he settles back into his chair— no easy task, given the chair’s stiff wooden back, but he manages. He sits with his legs spread and his shoulders slumped in relaxation. Neil knew from his weeks of surveillance that Vincent moves powerfully through every space, but this is the first time he’s seen him truly comfortable. He watches Vincent’s eyes flick around the room as he answers.

“Bought it off a Marine in ’84 because it reminded me of a pistol my father owned. A real cowboy piece, like Pop thought Chicago was the West, probably because when he first came out there, it pretty much was. This isn’t the right make or model— the real thing’s probably in a fucking museum somewhere, or some gun nut’s Doomsday-bunker basement— but it’s not far off. My boss and my crew share the philosophy that whatever gun puts bullets in the bad guys’ heads is fine by them, so nobody gave me any shit about it. I think they figure me for one of those guys who are real particular about their guns. I see no point in disabusing them of that particular notion.”

Neil nods. He chooses his firearms for their functionality; the sentimentality of what Vincent’s saying and the nostalgic warmth suffusing his tone are alien to him. Romanticism strikes him as an odd quality for a vampire to have, let alone a vampire in Vincent’s line of work, but then again, he doubts most vampires are in the business of carrying their unconscious-but-still-breathing victims home. He thinks it would be funny if it turns out that vampirism isn’t one of the strangest things about Vincent Hanna— not ha-ha funny, as Elisa used to say, interesting-funny. Ironic. The universe having a sense of humor at his expense. Neil can count on one hand the times he’s been called funny, but he knows when the joke is on him.

“You one of those guys?” Vincent asks. “Picky about guns?”

It feels like there’s some other question underlying the one Vincent’s actually asking, but Neil is in no state to dig through layers of hidden meaning. He shakes his head.

“But you know about ‘em.”

“I know enough.”

“From before or after you went all—” Vincent waves a hand around like he’s trying to pull the words out of the air— “ex-con Van Helsing?”

Neil’s still looking at the Colt; he can feel Vincent looking directly at him. He deliberates for a few seconds, then turns his head slightly to meet Vincent’s gaze and says:

“Before.”

“Yeah? Where were you stationed?”

It’s skillfully done, Neil can admit that much: Vincent drops the question with the practiced artfulness of a seasoned interrogator, like it’s the natural follow-up to what came before it and not a ploy to uncover a specific piece of information. The look on his face seems genuinely curious, though, his body language open and at ease. Neil, no stranger to being grilled for information by hardass cops, stares at the parquet floors as he considers how much to reveal. Instinct and training tell him to keep his mouth shut, but as he looks at Vincent, he knows it’s his own blood putting some color in his face, and nothing he’s ever experienced has prepared him for a set of circumstances this bizarre. He doesn’t decide to be honest so much as he acknowledges that anything else, at this stage, would be fairly pointless.

“Củ Chi.”

“No shit, really? You were one of the tunnel rats?”

Neil nods. He registers a flicker of surprise on Vincent’s face, gone so quickly he can’t be sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light. Decades after the fact, he still doesn’t have a firm grasp on just how much the general public knows about the war’s particulars. And Vincent was the general public during Vietnam, even though he looks the right age to have fought, because he looked like this in 1965 and 1964 and every year other between now and the day he was turned. Vincent’s staring at him like he’s waiting for him to ask the question. Neil, as a small gesture of thanks for not bleeding him dry in an alleyway, says:

“I take it you were not deployed anywhere in Southeast Asia.”

Vincent laughs quietly, a rustling-paper sound.

“Southeast Asia, no. They told me I was too old, which they were right about even though they didn’t have a goddamned clue how right they were. But I was deployed. A long time ago.”

Vincent’s body is still relaxed, but Neil detects slight strain in his voice. Vincent’s tar-pit eyes only meet his for the briefest of moments before darting off to other objects in the living room. Neil tries to read his face, but Vincent’s clearly endeavored to make his features inscrutable, and he has far more practice concealing himself from people than Neil has at figuring people out. And yet, it was Vincent who brought up being deployed, like he wanted Neil to pry. Like it’s something he wants off his chest, some unbearable burden he can’t slough off with anyone else.

“Where?” Neil asks.

“Mostly southern Virginia. A couple other places in the Eastern Theater. All under McClellan. I missed the first Bull Run, not that I got a lotta regrets about that. I showed up a few days before Antietam.”

Neil’s turn to laugh, though it emerges as more of a half-amused exhalation, an almost-chuckle, a knee-jerk reaction to Vincent’s matter-of-fact tone in the face of the absurdity of it all. Antietam, he thinks wondrously. Under McClellan. A place and a name he only recognizes from late-night history channel documentaries and the beat-up U.S. history textbook that had somehow found its way onto the Folsom library cart. No wonder Vincent doesn’t talk about it; if anyone at the LAPD caught wind of a detective reminiscing on his experiences as a Bluecoat, odds are he’d be not-so-politely asked to exchange his gun and badge for enough pills to subdue a rhinoceros.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Vincent says, one fang visible in his crooked grin. “You know, I’ve probably forgotten half the people I’ve ever met, and I’ve forgotten plenty about those years, but I still remember everything about that fucking day. Sometimes, I can still smell it.”

Neil nods his understanding. He has days he wishes he could forget, too, days he knows will remain seared in his memory until his dying breath. He remembers the tunnels, what it felt like to be surrounded by dirt, crouching low as he advanced, gun up, into the dark. Some of them were partially collapsed, so he’d had to crawl on his stomach, spitting out the clods of dirt that found their way into his mouth. Sometimes, he can smell it, too: the earthy scent of the jungle’s reddish soil turned to thick, sticky mud by monsoon rains; rotting vegetation and stagnant water; cigarette and gunpowder smoke hanging thickly in humid air even in the tunnels; the ever-present reek of sweat. He inhales through his nose without thinking. He’s relieved to find Vincent’s apartment doesn’t smell like much of anything. He feels Vincent’s gaze on him, seeing too much the same way it did in the alleyway, but this time, Neil meets his relentless stare and holds it. This time, he’s able to see into Vincent in return.

“What’s it smell like?” Neil asks.

For the first time, Vincent closes his eyes. His eyelashes are long enough to cast shadows on his cheekbones. Neil’s never seen cheekbones like the triangular ridges swooping beneath Vincent’s eyes. They catch the light when Vincent opens his eyes and raises his head, conspiring with his solid brows and slightly sunken cheeks to turn his eye sockets into carved-out caverns. His is an angular look, Neil decides; the unusual sharpness of his features gives the impression that his sculptor ran out of time to sand down his jagged edges before releasing him into the world. Neil curls his hands into loose fists so he won’t reach for his face.

“Hell,” Vincent says simply. “Horses and horse shit and horse corpses. Blood everywhere— you couldn’t tell if it was yours and you realized pretty fucking quick that it didn’t make any fucking difference. The muskets and the rifles made these big black gunpowder clouds, so thick you couldn’t fucking breathe, and you tasted it for days. All of it soaked into the dirt, along with every fluid the human body produces. You’d hit the ground and know that all of it was soaking into you. When you got up again you smelled like it. And you could smell people dying. The bodies, some of ‘em blown to bits, decomposing. The maggots on the corpses. Fuck, I was eighteen years old. Fuck.”

His voice breaks slightly on the last word. His tone is identical to the vets Neil’s spoken to over the years, guys who still wake up choking on Vietnam, Korea, Normandy. Neil was eighteen, too, when he went into the tunnels with no idea if he’d ever emerge. He can tell Vincent’s thinking along similar lines from the furrows in his forehead and the slight downturn of his lip. Against his better judgment, Neil reaches for Vincent’s face, ignoring the rubber-band trembling of his own arm. Vincent lets him, those sharp features softening as Neil’s palm traces his stubble-rough cheeks. His hand slides down Vincent’s cheek until the pad of his thumb rests on Vincent’s lower lip. Their gazes lock for a few seconds, and then Vincent parts his lips obligingly, letting Neil fumble in the warm wetness until he touches a fang. He rubs it gently, feeling the point graze his thumb, careful not to let it puncture the skin. Vincent allows it for a few seconds, and then, seemingly because he can’t hold it in any longer, starts to laugh. Neil doesn’t see any mirth in his inky eyes, but he does see the crow’s feet at their corners and the slight dimples around Vincent’s mouth.

“Just checking?” Vincent asks, the words slightly garbled around Neil’s finger, raising his eyebrows.

Neil shrugs. He can feel an embarrassed flush crawling up his neck and face, but he keeps his expression stony.

“You sound— I don’t know.”

“Human?”

His lips have formed a slight smile, wry and self-aware and a little bit pitying, though Neil can’t tell who’s on the receiving end of that pity. He shrugs.

“‘S’okay,” Vincent tells him. “Happens to the best of us. My coworkers somehow haven’t managed to put two and two together, and they’re supposedly the LAPD’s best and brightest. My condolences to the good people of L.A. County— no wonder the solved homicide rate’s so fucking dismal.”

“Do you ever forget?”

Vincent deliberates for a few seconds, which is all the answer Neil needs. He feels foolish for even asking; he has never once been able to forget that he is unlike most people, which pales in comparison to actually not being human. He withdraws his hand and wipes it on his pant leg, then sits up slowly, grateful for the couch’s armrest even though he tries hard not to slump against it. His head still aches, but most of the nausea has abated, and he’s able to hold himself up without issue. Which means he needs to start thinking about getting out of here, because it’s all well and good to trade old war stories with the monster that just nearly bled him dry, but he can only be so stupid for so long.

“On a few rare occasions,” Vincent finally says, which Neil takes as a polite way of saying no, you fucking dunce, would you forget that you were a vampire? “If I’m deep enough in a case, up to my eyeballs in shit ten times uglier than what I get up to. But then I get hungry.”

Neil just nods. Fuck am I supposed to say to that? In the ensuing silence, Neil’s eyes scan his surroundings in search of his suit jacket and winter coat. Both probably blood-streaked beyond saving, but he doesn’t trust himself to make it back to his car without a coat, especially since he doesn’t know exactly how far away from his car he currently is. A quick once-over of the window by the dining room table tells him it’s still dark out, which is good, but it also means he’s on the clock, because the last thing he needs is to be seen in this state in broad daylight. He turns to look at Vincent. The irony is not lost on him.

He takes another steadying breath. The pounding headache, previously debilitating, is now a mere irritation. He can hold himself up without relying on the armrest. Standing up will be a test, but he feels more himself with each passing minute. He wonders if Vincent can feel his pulse growing stronger or the solid, assured pumping of his heart as it endeavors to account for the blood he’s lost. He can’t tell from Vincent’s face nor his body language, especially not when Vincent plucks a newspaper off the table and begins to peruse it. As Neil’s eyes rake over him, he notices his hair’s been styled, in addition to the new suit and tie. The dark waves swoop elegantly away from his forehead, a few strands left deliberately out of place to create a sort of roguish charm. Neil also notices the rest of his jewelry: an analog watch, several gold bracelets, necklace chains just barely peeking out from his shirt. He’s well-assembled without looking fussy, groomed with just enough effort to make it seem effortless, and even without effort, Neil knows he’d be remarkably handsome. Were it not for the teeth and the eyes, he’d probably have his choice of a WeHo bar or nightclub. As it is, Neil’s finding it hard to look away.

“First look’s free,” Vincent deadpans, his eyes still on his paper. “But then I start charging by the hour.”

Neil can’t help the heat that rises in his cheeks, nor the humiliating little twist of his stomach, nor any of the other tiny physical responses that he knows Vincent is aware of. He forces himself to glance at his watch, ignoring the way the numbers on the digital display face swim for a moment before holding still long enough for him to read. Almost five. If he wants to beat the sun, time is running out. His eyes flick towards the door, then towards his own lap, then to Vincent’s face as Vincent puts his paper down and stares right at him. They sit in silence for a few long seconds, and then, without knowing exactly why, Neil finds himself reaching for his own neck, gingerly running his fingertips over the spot where Vincent’s fangs were not too long ago. He feels the telltale ridge of a scab, but it’s smaller than he’d anticipated. It does not hurt at all.

“It’ll be gone in, I don’t know, two, three days,” Vincent says. “Like any other cut.”

Neil raises his eyebrows. Vincent’s eyebrows mirror the motion, as if daring Neil to contradict him when he says:

“What did I tell you? Not my first rodeo.”

“Does it always hurt like that?”

A slightly sheepish look comes over Vincent’s face, which— with his gaunt cheekbones and ink-black eyes— has a decidedly odd effect.

“The first time, yeah. Nothing I could do about it— it’s just how human blood reacts to first contact with a vampire. It’s supposed to be a sort of… crude paralyzing agent. Most people’s systems can’t handle the pain, so they just pass out, which makes things real easy for us. I was surprised you stayed upright, but you were making things pretty easy for me, anyway, so I didn’t think too much of it.”

“The first time.”

Vincent’s eyes seem to grow darker, which Neil is sure must be a trick of the light, but that doesn’t stop his stomach from clenching. He knows from the seemingly unconscious way Vincent licks over his lips that Vincent knows exactly what he’s getting at.

“Yes,” Vincent says.

“So…”

“So if I were to bite you again, yes, it would feel like any other puncture wound. I could make it no worse than nicking yourself shaving. If you wanted.”

Neil doesn’t ask how he knows. He decides to take him at his word when he says not my first rodeo. He realizes his fingers are still on his neck. He considers lowering them; instead, he drags his fingertips in a small circle around the bite mark. He watches Vincent’s eyes follow the motion. The way his tongue darts out to wet his lips looks involuntary. It sends a bolt of warmth to the core of Neil’s being, though he can’t tell if it’s arousal or satisfaction or some combination of the two.

“Would you let me?” Vincent asks, the question spilling out of him like he tried and failed to keep himself from voicing it.

“Not tonight.”

It’s not what he meant to say— he’d intended something along more the lines of are you out of your fucking mind, fuck you and rot in hell— and he feels it like a stone sinking in his gut. The words are only sort of a refusal, a temporary armistice, laden with implicit promise of something he cannot even begin to contemplate. To his surprise, Vincent laughs. It deepens the lines at the corners of his eyes and on either side of his mouth. Humanizes him, somehow, which is strange because laughter opens his mouth wide enough to show both fangs in all their shiny, blood-curdling glory.

“Yeah, no shit, not tonight!” Vincent exclaims. “I woulda left you in that fucking alley if I wanted you dead! I’ve gotten good enough at delayed gratification not to deplete a resource like you on the first go-around, believe it or not. And I just don’t have the heart to bleed you dry. The world’s already got a shortage of handsome men.”

He keeps staring at Neil as he says it, totally unselfconscious. The word handsome, spoken in Vincent’s warm rasp, echoes in Neil’s mind even though he knows he’s too old for that kind of bullshit. He drops hand to his side and his gaze to his lap as he considers what Vincent’s saying. It didn’t really come across like a compliment so much as a simple statement of fact, a bullet point on the list of reasons to keep him around that carries the same weight as the taste of his blood. The good news, he supposes, is that Vincent won’t kill him tonight. Less reassuring is that Vincent is only not killing him because he wants to keep him around as a permanent, self-replenishing food source. Against his better judgment, he starts running the math: vampires Vincent’s age can go weeks between feeding; Vincent has the self-control to stop himself before going too far; Vincent feeding from him and him alone means he won’t have to hunt, which means there’s a way for Neil to protect people from him even if Vincent’s still alive. He stops himself before he can go any further, but it’s too late.

“Fuck,” Vincent breathes. “You would let me, wouldn’t you. With your fucking… accountant’s suit and your twenty-six successful hunts. One and a half centuries and you think you’ve seen it all, and then a guy like you comes along. A true fuckin’ original. You’re something else, you know that?”

Neil doesn’t have time to formulate a reply before Vincent lunges for him, landing in his lap and grabbing his face with both hands. He holds Neil’s face for a moment, drinking in the sight of him, before going in for a kiss at once demanding and sensual, tender and hungry. Neil closes his eyes against the wave of dizziness that threatens to overwhelm him. Vincent’s mouth is probing, plundering, kissing Neil like he’s trying to turn him inside out. Neil’s heart is racing, again, for reasons that have nothing to do with blood loss. His hands come up to hold Vincent’s waist as sparklers of pleasure burst all over him, mind already floating away as his system is overwhelmed by Vincent’s mouth on his. It dimly occurs to him that this is how Vincent kisses when he’s not looking to drink, that Vincent is doing this because he wants to. It’s all Neil can do to keep up.

The wet sounds of kissing reach Neil’s ears as if on delay, only to be drowned out by the ocean-like rush of blood in his ears. He tightens his grip on Vincent’s waist— tight enough to bruise, if he were human, but he’s not, and Neil’s head is already spinning too much to think about the possibilities opened by that. Vincent adjusts his position until he’s straddling Neil’s thighs, pressing Neil into the couch cushions and sucking at his bottom lip. He’s heavier than Elisa was. More aggressive, too. Elisa was fond of running her hands through his hair; Vincent grabs a handful and uses it to yank Neil’s mouth against his. Neil lets him. Any other time, any other place, Neil knows he’d be lifting Vincent and kissing him stupid against the wall, but he doesn’t have the strength to do anything but cling to him. His breathing comes shakily when Vincent pulls his head away, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Desire seems to radiate outwards from him, its origin somewhere in the depths of his pitch-black eyes, which are now boring into Neil’s. Neil feels pinned down by those eyes, rendered naked and vulnerable and small by their impossible darkness and the power simmering behind them. Unable to bear it any longer, he grabs the back of Vincent’s head and forces his mouth to his neck. Vincent lets out a low, wordless sound, almost a purr, like he was waiting for Neil to do exactly that. He’s mumbling something against Neil’s skin, exact words impossible to determine. The meaning is perfectly clear.

Neil’s chest heaves as Vincent kisses the underside of his jaw, then his bobbing Adam’s apple, then the flat side of his neck mere inches from the bite mark. He doesn’t need to tell him not to draw blood; Vincent’s nipping at the flesh with an eagerness that makes Neil’s stomach flip, but he’s using his front teeth, careful not to break the skin. Neil turns his face towards the ceiling, panting quietly with his mouth open as Vincent noses aside his shirt collar to suck a bruise into his neck. With the hand not tangled in Vincent’s hair, Neil opens the top two buttons of the shirt. Vincent’s hum of approval swells the fierce, guilty heat churning inside him. Neil grabs a handful of hair and pulls Vincent up. Vincent’s lips are reddened and slightly swollen. His eyes look bottomless. Neil stares into them as a monstrous, ferocious want roars through him, lighting up everything it touches, burning in his veins and arteries as he grabs Vincent’s face and crashes their mouths together.

Vincent opens at the first slide of Neil’s tongue. Neil explores slowly, tentatively, careful not to cut his tongue on Vincent’s fangs. From the way Vincent has gone still, Neil gathers he’s thinking along similar lines. The thought of Vincent thinking him fragile ignites a flare of red-hot, irrational anger in him, anger that spurs him to dig his fingernails into Vincent’s bare waist and bite down hard on Vincent’s lip. Vincent’s whole body shudders, a whimper tumbling helplessly from his mouth into Neil’s. His back arches as Neil scratches up his flanks. Neil kisses him roughly as he digs his nails into Vincent’s skin, bumping their noses, small bursts of triumph warming him his insides every time Vincent yields another one of his little noises. Neil finds himself overwhelmed by the frantic immediacy of it all, the heat, the sloppy wetness, the tightly-coiled energy surging within both of them palpable with every rough, urgent touch. He’s never kissed a man before, but then again, Vincent isn’t really a man. Which makes it easier, somehow, even though he knows it’s really much, much worse. The thought vanishes the second he realizes Vincent’s whines aren’t wordless anymore, but rather—

“Neil,” Vincent groans softly, his arms tossed over Neil’s shoulders, “Neil…”

Neil bites his lip again, rougher this time. Vincent lets out an undignified yelp, then immediately grabs the back of Neil’s head to pull him even closer, his fingernails scratching at his scalp and his upper body shoving him against the couch cushions. Neil’s already hard, his pants uncomfortably tight, his hips grinding against Vincent’s ass in search of friction. His hands still slightly unsteady, he manages to work open the buttons of Vincent’s shirt. He runs the thin chains of his necklaces between the tip of his index finger and the pad of his thumb. The metal is cool to the couch, fine but not flimsy. The pendants hanging from them take numerous shapes, some of them smooth and some with etchings, their exact designs unknowable from touch alone. He’d like to take them out and study them. He’d like to have Vincent spread out before him so he can study all of him. He contents himself with releasing the jewelry and dragging his fingertips through the small patch of hair on Vincent’s chest, then down the center of his sternum. He feels the muscles of Vincent’s stomach undulating as he touches him. He watches, entranced, as Vincent pulls away from him and tosses his head backwards, his throat moving with every swallow. Neil’s hands immediately settle on Vincent’s bare back, holding him in place as Vincent shifts on his lap and holds onto his shoulders. Neil takes it as an invitation to kiss every inch of skin he can, savoring Vincent’s warmth and the way he responds to everything Neil does, his lip curling in private triumph each time Vincent rolls his hips. He can’t help the way he grinds against Vincent’s ass in return, mindlessly chasing the friction, lifting Vincent’s torso to his mouth so he can elicit more of Vincent’s lovely sounds.

“Fuck!” Vincent gasps, his hands clenching around twin handfuls of Neil’s shirt as Neil scrapes his teeth over his nipple. “Neil, please—”

“So fucking pretty,” Neil mumbles into his chest hair, half-delirious, the words addressed to the world as a whole. “You sound so— fuck—”

Vincent rewards him with another moan, this one slightly higher-pitched, its naked neediness sending a bolt of heat to Neil’s gut and his groin. He grabs the back of Vincent’s neck and leans in to suck at the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. He knows it won’t bruise— he could punch Vincent in the face and it wouldn’t bruise— but it’s worth it for how quickly Vincent leans into it, one hand in Neil’s hair and the other trying to reach down the back of his shirt, the warmth of his shifting bulk heaven on Neil’s hard-on. Vincent lets him stay there for a while, alternating between biting the smooth skin and pressing his lips into the necklace chains and inhaling lungfuls of rich, spiced cologne, before tugging his head away. Neil stares at him with his mouth hanging slightly open, drowning in his eyes. Vincent’s lips pull back in a hungry smile, almost a leer, his fangs on full display. Neil swallows hard, his heart pounding. It feels like a physical blow, the reminder that Vincent is not a beautiful man but rather a monster, an inhuman creature with Neil’s blood running through his veins and teeth capable of ripping him to shreds without a second thought. And then Vincent kisses his cheeks, feather-light and perfectly gentle, and the way Neil’s cock throbs tells him that he cannot trust his body. That he needs to ignore the want coursing through him like a river that’s overrun its banks during the rainy season and use the pragmatism he’d so loved about her. She would’ve never gotten herself in a situation like this. She would’ve fired the second she saw the teeth.

Vincent, oblivious to anything other than the eager reactions of Neil’s traitorous body, has lowered his head to lap at the bite marks. His hands are caressing Neil’s torso, now, slipping through the gaps between the buttons, their warmth bleeding through his undershirt. Neil squeezes his eyes shut. He needs to leave. Every additional second he spends here is a betrayal of her, of himself, of the values and worldview they’d shared. Of Vincent, even, because the shrewd, careful hunter he’d seemed to respect when Neil had a gun on him in the alley is not the man underneath him right now. He opens his eyes right as a particularly deep roll of Vincent’s hips tear an involuntary groan from his mouth. Bitter, slimy shame curls around the base of his spine, fighting for space with ferocious desire, the two in tandem making his stomach churn. One of Vincent’s hands is caressing his side, the touch soothing and unbearable. The other is on his chest, right over his heart, tracing aimless circles with increasingly large diameters until his palm is running over Neil’s lower stomach. Vincent’s mouth is warm on his neck, the slide of his tongue fleshy and wet and wrong. Neil thinks of her smile, her laugh, the way she looked at him like something about him was worth all the ugliness that came along with it. The hand on Neil’s stomach slides lower, and before Neil can change his mind, he grips Vincent’s wrist as tightly as he can. Vincent lifts his head to meet Neil’s gaze, blinking confusedly.

“Neil? What’s—?”

“I need to go.”

Something in the air seems to vanish, the nameless thing that had been swelling between them deflating as suddenly as a ruptured balloon, the coldness between them like an opened window allowing the winter night into a previously warm room. Neil’s throat is dry again; his tongue sticks to his palate. His headache has come back in full force, the pounding at the base of his skull making it hard to think. He releases Vincent’s wrist. It hovers dumbly in mid-air as Vincent stares at him.

“Go? What do you mean, go? Go where?”

He doesn’t have a better answer than anywhere but here, so he keeps his mouth shut. He struggles to slip out from under Vincent; Vincent is deceptively heavy for his size, and Neil is nowhere near full strength. Vincent clambers off of his lap himself, but the look on his face remains baffled. Neil uses the couch’s armrest to help himself up. He sways slightly as he stands, but he stays on his feet, and he doesn’t topple over when he takes a step away from the couch. He reaches for his gun and is nonplussed to find that Vincent hasn’t removed the bullets. He turns towards him, a searching look on his face.

“For your next hunt,” Vincent says, an emotion Neil cannot identify etched in every line of his handsome features. “But you don’t gotta go. I don’t think you should, actually. You still don’t look so hot.”

Neil could give a fuck. The gun goes in the pocket of his pants. Not as good as his belt, but the last thing he needs is for Vincent to see him fumbling his weapon with shaky fingers. Its grip will be concealed by his suit jacket, anyway. As will the bulge in his pants, which seemingly hasn’t gotten the memo that this, whatever this is, has to end. What the fuck am I doing? he wonders, then realizes he doesn’t know whether that’s about staying, leaving, or something else entirely.

“Where is my coat?” Neil asks.

“Covered in blood, you don’t want it—”

“Where is it?”

He says it coldly, flatly, brooking no argument. Vincent blinks again, staring at him like he doesn’t recognize him. His shirt is still hanging open; the necklaces glint faintly in the apartment’s dim light. His hair is a mess. He runs one hand through it as the other settles on his hip, shifting agitatedly.

“Neil, baby, listen to me, you’re in no state to go anywhere!”

“I’m going,” Neil mulishly replies.

“Neil—”

“I am going.”

Vincent turns and stalks off. It takes Neil a second to realize he’s going to get his things, a realization he doesn’t quite know how to feel about. He also realizes that Vincent is unarmed, with his guard down and his back to Neil, and that he, Neil, has a fully-loaded gun in his pocket. For a moment, he considers it, his hand drifting towards the weapon. Then, he remembers that the gun wasn’t on him when he lost consciousness; he’d dropped it in the alley before Vincent drank from him. Which means that as he was carrying an out-cold Neil to his car, Vincent stopped to pick it up. Then left it fully loaded in Neil’s line of sight, within arm’s reach, as he waited for him to wake up. Neil’s hand falls limply to his side. Shame wells up inside him, hot and sick and paradoxical— shame for what he failed to do and what he’s failing to do, and shame for thinking about doing what he was supposed to do in the first place, because the paradigm’s shifted. Vincent almost killed him, but Neil let him do that. Vincent also probably saved his life, completely of his own volition. Neil’s torn from his thoughts when Vincent returns with his bloodied clothes draped over one arm, his face a stony mask.

“I got your fucking coat. Since you want to be stupid and risk passing out and dying of hypothermia even though I am extending some first-rate fucking hospitality. Gimme a fuckin’ break. Stupid bastard.”

Neil gets the distinct sense that even though he’s addressing him, he’s not quite talking to him, a suspicion strengthened by the way his voice wavers on the last two words. Neil accepts the suit jacket and the coat with a wordless inclination of his head. There’s too much blood on both for him to be comfortable wearing them in public, but it’s still dark out, and there won’t be many people on the streets at this hour. Worst comes to worst, he can point at the marks on his neck, though he has no idea what he could say caused them. He puts on both garments then strides towards the door, already mentally bracing himself for the cold. Vincent follows him, grabbing his bicep to stop him before he can reach for the door. Neil turns, heart thudding heavily in his chest, a burning thickness in his throat.

“Neil,” Vincent tries. “Stay.”

Neil shakes his head. His head aches. His legs feel like jelly. It occurs to him that this will probably be the last time they ever see each other. It should be. That doesn’t stop the pang of loss that reverberates through him, so strong he almost reaches out to brace himself against the wall. He thinks of Elisa’s body on the ground, of Vincent’s on his lap. Disgust churns his stomach, disgust and guilt and shame, humiliation so potent it sears his throat and stings his eyes like the lingering cloud of gunpowder after a firefight. He stares at Vincent one last time, drinking in the sight of him, trying to memorize his features. Then, he turns away. He hears Vincent take a step towards him, but he doesn’t go any further than that, and he doesn’t say anything else, either. Neil hears his blood rushing in his ears as he grips the doorknob.

The door slams shut behind him. He doesn’t look back.