May 4th, 1888 - A Back Alley in London near the Augurey Beak Cafe
Ishmael

Raymond's nights had been a big hectic leading up to the May Day event but luckily things had calmed down in the days following. He'd just had work and a few bouts to see to but that night had gone a bit poorly. He'd lost more than he'd won and as a result, was in a rather piss poor mood. Not to mention the freshly broken nose that would surely result in two black eyes. Worst of all, the damned thing didn't seem to want to stop bleeding. He'd definitely had better nights.

Idly, he limped along the back alleys of London headed on his way home. He'd had to take a detour thanks to some commotion down his usual path and found himself not far from the Augurey. He'd have to bypass it with the state he was in though, which only added to the amount of time it would take to get home. It didn't help he had to keep a hand held under his nose with what remained of his shirt to try and still the bleeding. Another reason for lurking through the alleys to get home. He was in only his pants with plenty of fresh cuts and bruises marring his bared chest, not to mention the dried blood from dripping down his face.

He'd just turn, a bit abruptly, down another alley only to run head long into someone else in the alley. The collision dislodged his hold on the shirt and revealed the stream of blood coming from his nose. "Sorry," he managed to mumble almost incoherently as he tried to readjust the cloth to stifle the flow of blood, oblivious to the fact he'd just run headlong into a vampire.

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Nolan Sets = Love

Ishmael was, not unexpectedly, on his way to Monty tonight. He didn't plan to stay in London long - not with a new vampire up at the caverns (he wouldn't want to miss any drama there, if it unfolded) - so he had been walking swiftly down the darkened alleyways, used enough to the route not to need to pay much attention. His footsteps were so quiet he was almost gliding, his thoughts too far away to tune into the lumbering sound of footsteps coming his way. There was the pervading smell of blood, but Ishmael was mostly convinced that was an imagined taste, just because he was getting thirsty.

Until he collided with someone, the physical force of it almost negligible next to the scent of blood as it swelled and crashed over him in a torrent. It was enough to make him salivate.

He reined himself in enough to momentarily shake off the sensation, enough for his blown pupils to return to normal, raking over the man and seeing him, properly. He was tall and broad-shouldered and burly, but what really made him a tasty snack were the glistening cuts across his chest - and the broken nose gushing like a bloody chocolate fountain.

Ishmael caught him by the arm, a move that might have merely come as a reflex from the collision to steady himself, if his nature didn't make him far more solid than he looked, and if his grip had not been an iron vice. "It's... no problem," Ishmael declared with a serene smile, pausing to close his eyes and draw in a deep breath, almost as if he were unsteady on his feet. The long inhale had not helped that, of course: rather, it had brought the smell of blood rushing into his lungs again. And this, of course, made him less inclined than ever to let the man go. "What happened to you?" He asked, his tone light, floating somewhere near friendliness.

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It was perhaps a good thing that the light was not well in the alley otherwise Ray would have certainly noticed the suddenly changing of the pupils of the man before. But, as it was, he was a bit preoccupied with staunching the flow of blood from his nose so that he didn't bleed to death in a back alley unknown to his brothers at home. He did, however, notice the almost vice like grip the man had on his arm but was willing to brush it off as just trying to help him out. He clearly didn't look as though he was in good shape even if most of his wounds were hardly flesh wounds and would be fine in a day or two.

"Boxing match," he responded simply, moving to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand only to find the other man was still holding his arm with quite the grip still. That was when his body tensed up again, almost preparing for a fight as he regarded the man before him with a heightened awareness and caution. "You can let go of my arm," he said, his focus now solely on the other man, "I'm quite all right." And he was. He'd had worse.

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Nolan Sets = Love

Boxing, hmm. Ishmael was well familiar with the sorts who hung around London's underground boxing scene, if not the scene itself. He heard about it from Monty, now and again. And Abernathy had used to dabble, hadn't he?

If he'd had a clear head, he might have wondered what this fellow got out of boxing. Did he do it for the cash, the glory, the violence, the exercise, the hell of it -? Was he any good? It didn't look like he'd gotten off lightly, though he sounded decently nonchalant about it, so perhaps it looked worse than it was.

It looked like a lot of blood. An unignorable amount, even for him.

"I'm... not sure that I can, actually," Ishmael offered slowly, his grip, if anything, sinking in even tighter. It was more of a statement or a warning than a threat, however it sounded; he certainly didn't want to kill a - probably a - good guy in an alleyway. He was old enough to know better. Old enough to do better.

But this guy was making it so hard to be good, and Ishmael's throat had gone dry, the thirst pulsing vividly in his head.  

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Ray was not a smart man by any means. He'd only managed one year at school before being expelled after just barely starting in second for punching a classmate out. It hadn't ended well and he hadn't had the ambition to further his education after being kicked out. At least not when it came to book smarts. What he did have, however, was street smarts. A person didn't survive on the streets the way he had for over a decade without learning a few things. As such, he was starting to figure out he was in a pretty precarious situation. This man, whose grip was beyond anything he'd ever felt before, was surely not a human. Chances are, he was a vampire. He knew enough about them to draw some assumptions.

Fight or flight was quick to kick in. And as a man that made a big chunk of his living off boxing, fight was his first reaction. As such, he didn't bother to use any words. There would surely be no compromising, not when he offered such a tantalizing view to the man. So, he swung. His fist made contact with a disgusting crunch, more than likely the bones in his own hand but he wasn't about to think twice on it otherwise it could very well be the difference in surviving or not.

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Nolan Sets = Love

Ishmael had been trying to be civil about this. He had been going to let go; or at least he had been going to try.

But then the fellow thought it wise to punch him in the face. This perhaps made sense, as an instinct, especially if the split-second of silence before had been a sign of the man figuring out what precisely the problem was, here. Humans did generally like to keep a vampire's mouth as far away from them as possible. Ishmael recoiled, letting go of the guy's arm for a moment to massage his jaw - the punch had been strong enough to feel it. The nasty cracking sound, however, did not appear to have been Ishmael - it would take more than a human, even a boxer, to manage a blow that might break bones as fossilised as his - but there was no way he could leave the encounter here. Not after that.

"That was... unnecessary, you know," Ishmael returned, letting go of his jaw and throwing all his weight into pinning the stranger back by his shoulders against the nearest wall of the alley, not about to let the guy make a run for it. Anticipating a continued struggle, Ishmael did not lessen his hold, but now - in ever closer proximity, stretched up to reach the stranger's shoulders - his hold on his own restraint was waning.

One of his hands slid down to grasp at the man's forearm, the one with the uninjured hand. Ishmael twisted it up to a better angle, allowed his other hand to grip onto the stranger's fist, and sank his teeth into the boxer's wrist, piercing an artery. Really, the man ought to thank him for not going straight for the jugular, and risking his death; it had been tempting, too, what with his already-bare chest.

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Ray's hand was most certainly broken. He'd be out of the boxing game for a few weeks at least. Hell, bartending was going to be miserable for awhile, too. Perhaps he'd have a chat with Cole and see about getting something to help with the pain so he could manage. But those thoughts would have to be figured out later. He was running out of options quickly and then in an instant there were literally none left to him.

The vampire had him pinned hard against the brick wall. He could feel the rough brick cutting into the bare skin of his back. Luckily, the adrenaline due to the situation was coursing rampant through his veins so he couldn't actually feel any of the pain. It would hit him eventually probably much like a freight train but that was also another thought for later.

There was no doubt he was struggling with all of his might but it didn't really matter, not with the creatures inhuman strength. He was very much a fly stuck in a spider's web and the more struggling he did the harder the brute held onto him. He watched in horror as his uninjured hand was brought up to the beast's mouth before being pierced with those sharp teeth. He felt that pain. Sharp and strong as the teeth pierced into the artery of his wrist. He couldn't help the bellow of pain that escaped from his throat. He wouldn't beg though, he'd simply fight as best he could for as long as he could. If he was going to die in some dirty back alley, he wasn't going to do it without a fight that was for damned sure.

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Nolan Sets = Love

All his struggling, and the grunting and bellowing of pain, smoothed out into a muted backdrop as the first drop of blood hit the back of his throat. When the thirst reached its dizzying heights - that buzzing in his brain, an itch that spread like pins and needles throughout his limbs, a pounding need he could not ignore - there was only one way out of it, and that was giving in.

As he sucked the mouthfuls of blood from the man's wrist in a steady, warm gushing stream, the pounding lessened bit by bit, some of the crushing pressure released and pockets of sense returning. Stop, sense said, stop now, so soon into the endeavour that Ishmael's only other thought was a protested already?. But that was how this worked, if he didn't want to end up with the boxer's body slumped in the alley and the chore of disposal on his hands; that was how this worked, lest he end up with a churlish newborn vampire boxer on his case.

He felt as though the man's resistance had lessened, since his bloodloss had started - and Ishmael remembered that he'd already been beaten up before he'd started drinking, had probably been a little woozy already -

Savouring the last taste of blood as it dissipated from his tongue, Ishmael reluctantly relinquished the man's arm from his mouth, and promptly lifted it up by his wrist, holding it firmly there so that the puncture wounds wouldn't continue to bleed. "There," he said. "Don't tell me you haven't had worse." The man had been littered with cuts and bruises even tonight, after all. He could hardly call this roughed up, surely. Clear-headed again - more so, at least, than before - Ishmael eyed the man coolly for how he might react, against the groggy consciousness that was inevitable when one was drunk from. He'd put up a decent fight, admittedly. Ishmael wasn't ruling out another attempt.

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It didn't really take long for Ray to feel the dizzying drunk sort of sensation of the loss of blood. While he had been bruised and a bit battered before, he hadn't suffered a great amount of blood loss despite the way his nose had been bleeding. It didn't take long, however, for the loss to be felt by him and his fighting attempts grew weaker.

Fuck. He was going to die. And it hurt like a damned bitch. But amid the pain, there was another strange sensation rushing through his body. Excitement? No, that couldn't be. That didn't make any sense. How could one be excited over the potential of dying. And dying in such a damned way? It had to be the adrenaline still coursing through his body, surely. But he couldn't quite shake that sense of excitement and almost.. pleasure.

And then just like that, it was over. The pain was still vague even as the vampire raised his arm up over his head likely so that he wouldn't bleed to death right there in the alley. His first thought was to throw a punch but he found his arms felt like lead. If it weren't for being held up, he'd probably have slumped to the ground. "Best I've ever had," he ended up sneering though his usual strength was evidently not quite where it normally would have been.

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Nolan Sets = Love

Ishmael licked his lips, wishing they were not already so dry. The boxer was still pretty slumped against the wall; the bloodloss had done its work to subdue him, then. Poor thing. Between that and his injured hand, trying to start another fight was probably out of the bounds of possibility for tonight.

He carefully guided the man by his shoulder and arm downwards against the wall to a better resting position so that he could let go and take a step back - he was better in control of himself, but that didn't mean the glisten of blood across his chest and smeared under his nose wasn't still temptation, now that he knew how the stranger had tasted.

"Now, now, best not say that," Ishmael advised, supposing he was only being as sardonic as the other man, "or we'll have to do it again sometime." He'd never actually say no to a willing donor, of course, but he wasn't sure this was precisely the time to attempt to cultivate a new contact. The lack of consent and the broken hand had - soured the situation, some.

"No hard feelings, though, I hope?" Ishmael said, despite all that, hoping the man would see his stopping and the care he was taking now as some measure of goodwill. If not, he'd just have to leg it.

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Raymond signed slightly as he was lowered to the ground to rest against the wall. His head fell back some so that he could look up to the night skies and just breath for a minute. He felt more ragged and worn down than he ever had in his life. And though he should have been fearful and angry, he felt a strange sense of euphoria. It was like a high he had never known existed. Better not tell Coleman about that.

The mention of doing it again caused him to pull his gaze from the skies to focus on the man, no the vampire, still standing there in the alley. He was a bit surprised he'd continued to lurk. Wasn't it more common to take your fill then flee? At least, that had always been Ray's belief of the things. What were vampires even? Beings? Creatures? Monstrosities?

No. This man wasn't a monster of any sort. At least not in the way he was acting. He may have nearly killed Ray but he was lingering around to make sure there weren't any hard feelings and that had the drained boxer suddenly questioning almost everything.

"I.. No," he said, giving a weak shrug, "No hard feelings." He stared at the vampire then, looking him over from head to toe. Ray's punch would have normally knocked a man of his stature out but clearly he was no normal man. Probably not even a normal vampire from the looks of it. Though he didn't know if that was really a thing. Were there different types of vampires? Too many questions were filling his mind.

"That was supposed to hurt, right?" he found himself asking instead.

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Nolan Sets = Love

The man’s snark had softened in his weariness, it appeared. No hard feelings, indeed. Well, that was good. Even if that was a lie and he reported this encounter, there wasn’t all that much to go on besides Ishmael’s physical description; besides, what with the boxing and the stranger’s general attitude, he didn’t exactly seem like the Ministry sort.

So this was all fine and dandy - the boxer had survived (not-too-scathed, if not unscathed), Ishmael had had a convenient meal, the conversation was more civil than it might’ve been otherwise.

Now was probably time to take his leave. Except - Ishmael’s eyes snapped back to him suddenly - he had a question in return. His question was that was supposed to hurt.

“...Didn’t it?” Ishmael inquired, an eyebrow raised, licking his fangs noticeably with his tongue to suggest that it probably should, being bitten, being drunk from. He’d seen it before, men and their bravado, trying to pretend to be tough as nails, fending him off with fists and force like this poor bloke had done. If the insistent struggle didn’t kill them - Ishmael had used to play far freer with that possibility in his youth - it did tend to leave them cowering messes by the time he’d had his fill.

So this was a little unusual. If it hadn’t hurt, he wondered, eyeing the man more curiously, then what? (Ishmael wasn’t especially familiar with the sensation, himself. For the last hundred years, it had usually been him doing the biting, after all.)

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An involuntary shudder racked Ray's body as the vampire turned back to him and questioned his own question, even going so far as to lick his fangs as if trying to prove the point. They were clearly sharp. And they had hurt. The whole damned experience had hurt and was going to continue hurting as a result thanks to the broken hand. But there had been another feeling mixed in with the pain that he'd never really acknowledged before as he'd felt his fair share of pain in the past.

"Well yeah," he said a bit simply but shrugged as well, "It hurt worse than anything I've felt before but there was.." He trailed off, averting his gaze unsure of where he was even going with what he was saying. No matter what he said, he'd sound crazy surely.

"More," he ended up finishing, looking back up to the vampire.

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Nolan Sets = Love

Ishmael's smile lingered in something like surprise. More, he said. "Bit of a thrill, huh?" Ishmael sussed out, raising an eyebrow without any real judgement. It was exhilarating on his end, a bigger rush than anything else imaginable - obviously - but maybe this man was just the sort of person who liked the danger, who did stupid things for the adrenaline rush. Maybe it was sheer masochism.

Whatever his reasons, Ishmael could hardly pass up someone who might find an ounce of pleasure in a thankless task  (metaphorically; Ishmael was usually quite polite), even if this was just the dizzying bloodloss talking. "Hm," Ishmael murmured, moving to the wall to lean on his side there next to the man, his arms idly crossed. "Well now that I know you like it rough, we should do it again sometime," he suggested, smirking slightly. He'd let the man make his protests and let it go if he wanted to pretend he was joking, but it was worth a shot.

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Ray didn't really know how to answer the vampire. He was confused. A person wasn't supposed to like being a living food source for a vampire. They weren't really supposed like being a human punching bag either. But, apparently, Ray wasn't a normal person. Boxing had been fun, always would be, but he'd never been one to mind if he did lose. He still got a thrill out of it no matter what the outcome ended up being. But that seemed to be a legitimate thing. Offering ones self to a vampire was something entirely different.

"H-how often do you need to?" he ended up asking, not even sure how he would respond to the answer he was to get. He watched the vampire as he smirked down at him, getting the feeling this definitely wasn't the norm.

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Nolan Sets = Love

"At least once a week," Ishmael replied easily, though that was a bare minimum, and was why his roster of willing donors had to stay long and varied, and also why he had his own stores of blood bags to top up in between, for the less convenient times - "but not just from you, don't fear. I have... other sources. So it needn't be as often as that, only every once in a while. And only if you're up to it." (That was a little of a lie; Ishmael needed a steady supply, whether people were up to it or not, but he thought this guy would take the challenge for what it was, and be keen to prove himself.) Perhaps monthly, or so, he considered; that way it was not so often that it would become an inconvenience, and rare enough that the thrill and the danger hopefully wouldn’t wear off too soon.

This might be the moment he sweetened the pot by offering to pay for the blood he drank, but here he thought he might just get away by reminding this man of the inherent danger involved, if that were his weakness. "Little and often, you see,”" Ishmael added idly. "That's how you don't wind up dead."

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