22nd October, 1891 — De Montfault Theatre, Hogsmeade

Ishmael had heard some interesting things.

He had seen this interesting thing for himself, tonight, having drifted into an empty box in the theatre partway through the performance, keeping his cloak on and his appearance nondescript. The company from America. And, in the bright light of the stage, it had been profoundly strange to witness. Ishmael still wasn’t entirely certain he believed it.

So perhaps a closer look was warranted. He’d left the theatre, lurked out towards the slums until the audience had gone, and the building was half-darkened, and then drifted, in the shadows, to the back of the theatre, and the dressing room windows. He was one of their stars, apparently: he would probably be alone. 

Ishmael might have gone back in the public way, but he had no intention of being noticed by the rest of this troupe even in passing, not when he was not fully apprised of the situation; instead, he had nimbly scaled the wall of it, and easily prised open this window from the outside. Ishmael, now perching on the thin sill of it, knocked against the pane for dramatic effect. Or to get the occupant’s attention, if the chill in the air had not. (The window might be open now, but the dressing room had an additional boundary, and Ishmael would be no threat at all until he was granted entry.)

“Excellent show tonight,” he offered smoothly, as if this was how the singer received all his admirers. “Can I come in?”

---

Oh. Maybe that had been a tad too dramatic, Ishmael considered, as the singer keeled over in front of him.

Luckily, he had given him an invitation inside, or Ishmael would have been left lurking outside the window and possibly even feeling a little bad for having shown up so unceremoniously. Instead, he dropped down noiselessly into the room and crouched over the other man. Not dead, thankfully: Ishmael definitely would have felt bad if he’d brought on a heart attack before he’d even figured out who this handsome young fellow was.

He must be young, if he looked like that and was alive. He was most certainly alive: Ishmael put a cool hand to the fainted stranger’s temples, and then lightly to his neck, feeling his pulse and the warmth of him, loosening his collar to help him breathe, and trying to resist the sudden urge to bite.

No, Ishmael. There were questions to be answered. There was a face to study here – Ishmael took a leisurely few minutes to examine it, finding the features more interesting than any other he had ever seen – and since he hadn’t seen his own, this was the nearest he had ever come to seeing himself in the mirror for more than a century, and he’d be damned if he didn’t drink it all in properly – and oh, maybe he should also try to revive him, no?

He poured out some water from a jug into the empty goblet still sitting there, and then knelt back down with it, sliding a hand behind his doppelganger’s shoulders to prop him up to see if he would wake. “I’m sorry about that,” Ishmael added, in case talking brought him round, “truly I am. But I thought it was best I caught you alone.”

---

The question who are you faded in Ishmael’s mind at the latter part of what he said when he awoke. Tariq Zahir.

Zahir?

If it had been one or the other alone – a resemblance, or the spark of a familiar name – Ishmael would have put it down to coincidence. This seemed a little... more.

He was sure the shock had crossed his face, whether he had wanted to conceal it or not; and Ishmael always liked to have the upper hand, had been going to offer up another alias, but he was confounded and intrigued and dazed enough that he changed his mind.

“Ishmael,” Ishmael offered, his gaze equally as intent as the one on him. He didn’t understand this, but he meant to find out. “And where are you from, Tariq?” Who exactly was he?

(Highly fortunate, however, that he had said Zahir before Ishmael could be left too long to ruminate on the question of whether it might be interesting to fuck someone who looked so strangely like – some former version of – himself. An unexplained doppelganger was one thing, but he would rather not seduce a possible descendant of his, thank you very much.)

---

Ishmael knelt opposite him, his guard – for a rare moment in his existence – entirely dropped.

One eyebrow was raised at that, that people had mistaken this boy for Ishmael (– where had this boy been wandering? what could this mean for Ishmael? could he use this somehow? –) but he lost track of that particular line of thought at Liverpool.

Ishmael had almost forgotten his own history. “Liverpool,” he echoed, staring nonplussed at Tariq Zahir and finding it a little amusing that someone else in his family had evidently followed him across the Atlantic. Pity they had never met again – Ishmael had looked, from time to time, but he’d never found anyone.

As it turned out, he’d been looking in the wrong places. This Zahir’s great grandfather. The thought struck him suddenly, and Ishmael’s mouth quirked down. “Am I really that old?” He said, mostly to himself. He was used to feeling pleasantly timeless, above such mortal things as ageing – but Tariq Zahir was a living, breathing, younger version of a man like him, and suddenly Ishmael supposed that, if either of them was the imposter here, perhaps it was him: a shadow, stretched beyond its natural bounds.

“I... was,” he offered, at last.

---

Ishmael gave a wry laugh. “Well, I look good for my age,” he remarked; the unnatural paleness and the dark circles and the fangs notwithstanding. He wasn’t going to be exact about his age, because this Tariq was still a stranger; but this Tariq was also more than likely family, so he could afford to be a little more honest than usual.

“No one you’d remember, I imagine,” Ishmael said, musing, and cocked his head sideways to suggest, once again, how far age separated them. No one Ishmael remembered, anymore; certainly no one left alive. “But I was once a Zahir, too. I didn’t think there would be – anyone else.”

Perhaps he would have to go back to America and see for himself? But what was he supposed to feel about any of this – was there supposed to be this strange inadvertent pang of loyalty to someone he had never met, just because they might share a distant bloodline? Ishmael had thought he was better than that, more – cut off from those pedestrian ways.

---

The younger Zahir had pieced together the puzzle now – Ishmael had been waiting for this moment, and had wondered what might happened when it sank in. The whispered tone worried him; he was ready to flit towards the dressing room door to prevent the boy fleeing or calling for help, if need be. But the boy didn’t.

Maybe the possible family ties had a stronger hold on both of them than Ishmael had expected. His stance relaxed a little as Tariq elaborated on his own story. Great grandfather. Well, that could be... no, but it didn’t do to dwell on siblings long gone. (Ishmael could not pretend not to be interested in what had become of them, though. He made a mental note to investigate that.)

His mouth quirked up at a corner. “Who knew?” he marvelled lightly, shaking his head. “I was in America once, myself,” he admitted – without elaboration, but a dash of camaraderie. “Is it your first time in this country?” Were he and his theatrical friends staying, or just passing through?

---

Done more than crossed paths, Ishmael suspected – Tariq’s predecessors might be the distant past to him, but to Ishmael, they were myth in his memory, the first faces he had ever known.

And maybe it was that, or the uncanny similarity between them, or even the idea of his being a foreigner in a strange land, that had Ishmael feeling an odd kinship. Partly protective, partly intrigued by the possibilities of how to use this newcomer for his own gain, Ishmael surveyed him again and, belatedly, held out his hand to shake his. “Well, pleased to meet you, Tariq. You’ll have to find me again, if you’re staying.” (As if Tariq had found him the first time, and not the other way around.) “I’m in London most of the time.”

---

He clasped the man’s hand – warm, so warm, even in spite of the fainting spell he’d just recovered from – and let him go again, the very model of restraint. He had to chuckle at the correction, which was true enough... but it was all the same to him. They were similar enough in look that to Ishmael the lines of being felt unnaturally blurred. Next time Tariq might as well find him. (Ishmael could certainly find this Zahir again if he wanted to.)

“Yes, I suppose so,” Ishmael agreed, because he could see poor Tariq was still processing the shock of all this. “I won’t detain you all night. But this time –” he added conspiratorially, sauntering from one side of the room to the other – “you won’t mind if I use the door?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just swung the door to the dressing room open breezily. The theatre should be quiet enough by now – and now that he knew what he was working with, if necessary Ishmael would not be above a little acting of his own.

---