Sometime in 1879 — The Jinxed Jackrabbit, London

Earlier, he'd done a deal under the table (and played a game of cards at the table) with an acquaintance of his in the corner of the pub. The acquaintance had left a while ago; Ishmael had stayed, thinking he might while away the night here. He was fairly inconspicuous in this corner, with his back to the wall, his movements unhurried and his mind enough at ease that the place wasn't going to be filled with Ministry officials any time soon.

At ease enough; there was a faint throbbing of thirst at the back of his mind and the back of his throat. There always was. It wasn't bad tonight, not yet, but even the scent of the ale sitting full in front of him was utterly drowned out by the smell of blood in the air. No one was bleeding, but Ishmael could still smell it; could hear every pulse in the room; had, almost indelibly, the imagined taste of it on his tongue.

He cast around for something else to listen to than the cacophony of human heartbeats (like too many ticking clocks in a room), and by chance, his attention focused on a young man over at the bar. He was getting a drink, exchanging a few words and a coin with the bartender, along with some quip about making rent.

Ishmael smiled.

He watched the man head back over to a table - no; he was no more than a boy, really, young and rangy and slightly scruffy - and waited a while longer, until he'd finished his glass. Leisurely, Ishmael strolled to the bar, taking his own drink with him and ordering another. With them in hand, he reached the stranger's table, and slid the new one across. "Here," he said casually, and closed his mouth to offer a half-smile.  

---

Kieran Abernathy

  

---

The problem with losing his shit job was, that, well, he had no money. Without a steady income, he could contribute to neither Fallon's education nor his rent in the flat with Eileen - and while his sister's tuition was already paid, rent was a pressing, monthly issue. Eileen was patient, (with him and no one else,) but she wasn't a saint - if Kieran had to flake on their rent, she was going to smother him.

The bar, probably, wasn't the best place to handle his financial woes. It was a good place to handle his financial stress, though, and to complain to the bartender and hope that things came through. A week. He had one week to make rent, and with the sum he owed the landlord, a few knuts on a pint wasn't going to make much of a difference.

The pint disappeared too quickly. Kieran was mentally calculating the prospect of selling his body -- ultimately not worth it -- and if he knew anyone who would give him the sum, which was also a no. He probably shouldn't spend more of his knuts on booze, though, because he was going to have to hoard them - and suddenly, a new full pint was sliding toward him. Jostled from his problems, Kieran looked to see an oddly gray-colored man with dark circles under his eyes. He grinned.

"You're sure?" Kieran said, raising the glass to take a sip right after he asked - he wasn't one to look a gift vampire horse in the mouth.

---

  

He'd accepted the drink without (much) protest. Excellent. Ishmael considered this allowance enough to pull out the chair opposite and drop into it - and did so, accordingly.

In reassurance of his question, Ishmael nodded amiably. It wasn't, itself, a deal with the devil: Ishmael may be a bloodsucking leech, but he wasn't that stingy. After all, a couple of knuts spent on a drink was no skin off his back, whether he hooked the bait or not. (Not as though he got his money through hard-earned, honest labour anyway.)

"You looked like you could use another," he said with an easy shrug, making sure to lift his own undrunken pint up in a silent toast - a diversion from his mouth while he spoke, for a moment or two longer - before the signs became obvious and the boy scarpered.

---

  

---

He could definitely use another before he tried to process his budgetary dilemma some more -- in fact several more would have been better, but Kieran wasn't going to push his luck. Probably, this stranger wanted something from him, and as he studied him out of the corner of his eye Kieran was hoping that 'something' was 'a bathroom hookup.' Or an alley hookup. Really, any kind of hookup.

Kieran returned the toast.

"I'm Kieran," he said warmly, after taking a gulp of his pint.

---

  

The boy seemed comfortable enough with the situation so far - fair enough, he'd gotten a drink out of it, most people in this pub wouldn't have been averse to that - but whether it was because he was oblivious to any possibility of attached strings to making Ishmael's acquaintance or on the just right verge of desperation enough to consider almost anything, he hadn't decided yet.

He'd introduced himself, though. Kieran. "Yousef," Ishmael returned genially, not going to throw around the name most people knew him by these days for what might only be a one-time thing (or a no-time thing). "It's good to meet you," he added, leaning forwards a fraction; this time when he smiled, it was with an open mouth, sharpened canines glinting conspicuously. If Kieran hadn't had a hunch already, that ought to be plenty to start the cogs turning. The beginnings of an offer was on the tip of his tongue, but Ishmael held back for the moment, interested to see if what he was was already a step too far for the young man.

---

  

---

Kieran's eyebrows twitched upwards. Those weren't normal canine teeth. Suddenly things made a lot more sense: the pint, the stranger's pale skin, and, okay, those were the only two things Kieran questioned. He tilted his head. This ought, according to common sense, to be when Kieran bailed on this interaction. But there was the free pint, and there were people all around them, and now his curiosity was officially piqued. (And, okay, he was still pretty attracted to Yousef, whatever.)

"You too," Kieran said, after a beat, with his own cheerful smile. "I've never met someone like you, you know."

---

  

There was a beat, and then -  apparently entirely unaffected. He knew what he was, his comment made that clear, but. Ishmael's smile twitched a little wider. Perfect, then.

"Is that so?" He said, finding the phrasing of Kieran's words quite diverting. "Well," he added, casually toeing the line between teasing and flirting (not what he'd intended, but sometimes it was hard to resist), "hopefully I don't seem a disappointment."  

He caught his fingers idly dancing across the tabletop, and reminded himself that he didn't have all night to play with his food. He liked Kieran, though. Kieran seemed easygoing. Fun. "Actually," Ishmael murmured, his words still relaxed, but his tone lowering a little to voice his proposition. "I thought we might be able to help each other out."

---

  

---

Maybe this was when he should back out. Kieran took a sip of his pint. But there were still all these people, and Yousef seemed harmless - or if not harmless, at least friendly and good-looking. He didn't look feral, like vampires were supposed to look.

"Oh really?" Kieran asked in an equally low tone, raising his eyebrows again, "What did you have in mind?"

---

  

“Nothing too unpleasant,” Ishmael assured him, his grin just sincere enough. And it wasn’t, strictly speaking, too unpleasant, being fed on: perhaps a little pain initially, but nothing lasting, and nothing you couldn’t get used to - Ishmael would go so far as to say some people almost began to enjoy it, and the light-headedness that typically accompanied the blood loss. He was not going to detail the whole process here, however, for everyone to hear it. Demonstrating would be faster.

“And I’d be happy to reimburse you for your help,” he added nonchalantly. As a token of his generosity - a sign of good faith - Ishmael fished out some sickles from his pocket and slid them across the table. “Have another drink first, think on it.” (He could have a good few drinks on that money.) He slid out easily from his chair, and paused to lean atop the back of it. “I’m headed out for some fresh air -” and the midnight privacy of the alleyways around the corner, “- and I’ll wait awhile, but don’t feel obliged.” How long Ishmael hung around varied, time from time, on how he judged the poor human on their scruples, lack thereof, or fear of getting murdered.

But this was still easier than murdering people. Mostly.

---

  

---

Holy shit. Kieran looked at the sickles, mind momentarily blank, and then back at Yousef. It was a solid step towards making his rent, even if it was not even half - it was a fourth of the twelve sickles he used to make weekly. If there was anything he could do - and Kieran was not really ruling out anything - to get more sickles, then he could give Eileen his half of the rent, afford more decent groceries, store some money away to help pay for anything Fallon needed. He could breathe until he got his next job. Yousef told him to get another drink and come talk about it, but Kieran's mind was already made up - short of prostitution (and he was not entirely sure that the stranger wasn't asking for sexual favors) he had few other options until he was able to dredge up work.

He chugged the rest of the pint after he watched Yousef leave, dumbfounded. Kieran snatched the sickles off the table and slipped them into his mostly-empty coin-purse. He walked towards the bar and, cheerfully, ordered a round of shots for himself and the rest of the people at the bar, handing over a sickle to cover it and getting back a small sum of knuts. He took the shot, steeled himself, and walked outside.

He was feeling the quickness of the shot and the drink, just a little. Not in terms of being drunk, but in that fun sort of buzz, where anything was possible. The cold air outside the bar hit him and Kieran turned, eyes adapting to the dark. He was not sure where Yousef had gone, but after walking around the corner, saw a figure in the alleyway.

"Yousef?" Kieran called, soft but curious, stepping into the alleyway. "I'm in."

---

  

He'd checked to see that the alleyway was otherwise deserted, well-practised at picking out the barest movement in the shadows. Once he'd assured himself there was no one around, he leant back on the brick wall to wait.  

The footsteps and call of his name - well, the name, not his - revived him at once from his stillness, and with another grin he beckoned Kieran over, grasping him lightly by the arm to steer him into an alcove that would see them securely out of view, even were someone to wander by. If there were a next time to this, perhaps he would procure Kieran's address from him and show up there, if he could expect an invitation - but for a first time's sake, there was no sense in letting anyone take him home; putting the boy back in his comfort zone was a surefire way to illuminate this as a bad decision.

And it wasn't all that bad a decision, Ishmael considered, if he had come outside willingly. He suspected the money had done most of the work - but he wouldn't take that personally. Standing in front of him - closer than they had been across the table - he surveyed the young man for a moment, curious about how au fait Kieran was about what he had agreed to.

"My turn to drink, then," Ishmael said, still smiling cheerfully. "I'm very good," he continued, as casual and as in-control of the situation as he could be so that it was clear he'd done this a hundred times before, and knew how to stop himself. "It'll only be a pint or so, I promise -" he explained, more for the play on words than anything else, poor Kieran getting to pay him back for the pint in turn, "- and I'll be discreet. From wherever you like." He tapped just above Kieran's collarbone and then at his forearm as examples of places he could drink from that would cover the bite-marks and bruising under clothes, lest this stranger have overbearing good influences in his life who might object to vampire bites all over his neck. Look at how considerate he was! He'd even let the boy choose.

---

  

---

Kieran knew, he knew that he really should just back out now - but there was the promise of more coins, and Yousef really seemed to know what he was doing. He was good-looking and cheerful and knowledgable and he bought Kieran drinks.

He trusted him, without any real reason to.

Kieran looked down at himself and then up at Yousef, as if trying to identify the best place. He opened his jacket and tugged at the collar of his shirt, exposing his lower neck, which was usually covered by cloth. Eileen wouldn't know, anyways - almost no one would know unless he ended up sleeping with someone. He felt, more or less, that Yousef should drink from somewhere classic.

"There," Kieran said, tapping the exposed point. "If that works."  

---

  

He'd bared his neck, if that worked. "Perfectly," Ishmael assured him, moving in closer still. He slipped his hands under the shoulders of Kieran's jacket to push it down his arms and out of the way a bit further, and then took to calmly unbuttoning the top of the young man's shirt, pulling that open some more on one side; an easy precaution against avoidable bloodstains.

He could hear Kieran's heartbeat better than before, the alleyway near stripped of all sound but that inviting rhythm. When Ishmael was not too overwhelmed by thirst, it was an easy way of reading their nervousness, that patent human vulnerability - but Kieran had been gloriously cooperative thus far, so he had very little to worry about. (Unless Ishmael lost control. Rare, but known to happen.)

Ishmael braced one leg between Kieran's and let one of his hands settle on the opposite crook of his neck to hold him still, coaxing it to incline away from him as he brought his mouth close to the boy's uncovered neck, teeth already itching to sink in to that exposed skin. "Ready?" He said, but didn't wait long to indulge Kieran in an answer: second thoughts were the enemy here, and Ishmael was ready enough. So he proceeded swiftly, the bite sharp and fast but the drinking slow and careful as he could manage, savouring the amount he could allow himself to take.

---

  

---

Yousef's hands were cool, Kieran noted, which was not all that surprising. After all, Yousef was dead.

The pain came sharp and sudden, and Kieran gasped, eyes widening. He pressed his fingers hard against the back of Yousef's shirt and the skin underneath, reduced to instinct even as he'd invited this in every sense of the word. His body was rigid. It took Kieran a beat to remember that, oh, he'd consented to this, he was getting paid, he was going to be fine. (Except that Yousef could kill him, could really kill him, if he -)

He closed his eyes, and his muscles relaxed, although he still kept his palms pressed against Yousef's back. After a few seconds the pain of the bite faded, and instead there was the rush in his ears of his own blood leaving his body, and a sudden, dizzying feeling as he became increasingly lightheaded. He wanted to laugh, but couldn't, under the circumstances.

---

  

He heard the gasp, and felt the boy tense, grasping at his back - but none of it made any difference to Ishmael now. Fight or flight were always a human's instincts, but freezing was only halfway to either, and the truth was Kieran wouldn't get any further if he tried; not where Ishmael had him, with a hand pinning him in place and his teeth buried in his neck.

The young man relaxed eventually - he could feel Kieran's body settling into the sensation, somewhere at the edge of his own consciousness - and this permitted Ishmael to find a rhythm in his drinking, mouth to the bite wound. He could taste the alcohol in Kieran's blood, as much as the adrenaline, and it proved a heady mixture. It was great a high as ever, the rush of blood to his own body, every nerve ending in him being sparked to life; this feeling alone made the rest of his existence seem dulled and grey and sluggish, made him all the greedier... why was the feeling always doomed to fade so fast?

Ishmael would not pretend to be satiated, but he eased off from Kieran's neck nonetheless, relieved at his ability to do so. He kept one hand on Kieran, not sure which of them needed more steadying now, but pulled back and - with his other hand and a gratified hum - wiped a last smear of blood off his lips to save himself from dribbling. After that, he fished out a folded handkerchief from his pocket, and pressed it, under his palm, onto the bite mark (to stem the bleeding or to stifle the smell of it somewhat, either way). As he let the feeling of inebriation wash over him, he surveyed the boy again, hoping he hadn't drunk too much. "How do you feel?"

---

  

---

His heart thumped in his chest, fierce and alive, and for a second that beat was the only thing Kieran could really focus on. His head was light. His entire body was light, and he kept his hands pressed against Yousef, seeking the physical support. His body felt languid; if anything, he felt good, except for the sharp throbbing pain of the wound in his neck. His head was tilted back, pressed up against the alley wall, the damp of the wall offering a tinge of realistic feeling to the experiences.

"Dizzy, mostly," Kieran muttered. He wanted to kiss Yousef, sort of, although it was a stupid feeling - the physical closeness of the moment getting to his head. He grinned at the vampire anyways, a crooked and mischievous expression. He hadn't hated this, and Yousef hadn't killed him.

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