Archive of Our Own

Henry doesn’t visit New York much these days.

His flat has been collecting dust for years, only used when Percy is on this side of the country. He leaves England very rarely, remaining close enough to his siblings that he can still feel them.

But, he had been in California to see Percy, and Percy had let slip about a real thorn in the east he had sensed on a previous visit.

A bookstore owner who uses it as a front to launder money to more terrible men. A crime, according to Percy, that a fair percentage of humankind is guilty of.

Percy likes to send him these men. The most terrible ones he can find. He’s never truly said, but he presumes Percy believes he is helping keep it at bay. The thing inside of him. The thing beyond the hunger that he is terrified of succumbing to.

The rot, the erosion of oneself.

It is satisfying to drain the world of evil. But it does not compare to taking from the innocent, even with the echoes of guilt. He has not done so for years, but the memories taunt him. His first years. The darkest of them.

The only thing that has remained with him for the last one-hundred and eighty years is that persistent, aching hunger. The paths it leads him down. The searching of his next feed only to never quite be sated.

That is his permanent rot.

This is why he sticks to the men Pez finds. Every four to six days - his absolute limit. Methodical. Practised.

The bookstore is charming. Glowing despite the gloomy evening. One window overflows with books in the form of a pumpkin, the other a ghost.

Inside of it stands a man. He can hear his sole, erratic heartbeat from here. And he cannot believe how truly easy this is.

The air is acrid with panic as he steps through the door. It hangs heavy and humid and metallic. He can hear mutterings about litigation procedure and the scribble of a pencil.

Wordlessly, he heads for the sprawling staircase to the fiction section. Just a quick look, he thinks. And then he will do as he has for much of this half-life.

He will feed. He will take. And he will leave.

He casts a look around. Classics he can tell are well-cared for. This is a surprise. He brings his finger along the spine. Used, the shelf edge says. But the spine is impeccable. As though it were crafted yesterday.

His finger catches. Glue. A rebind. So brilliantly done he could not tell at first. He’s sure it is undiscoverable to the naked eye. While the pages inside may be hundreds of years old, this cover is weeks, maybe days.

Turning the pages causes a stir of something inside of him. Flickers of before. A kineograph of a man long-rotted.

“Spoilt for choice?”

Henry does not startle when he turns to find the man looking back at him. Recognises that very same heartbeat. That metallic tang is gone now.

He is hit instantly with how beautiful this man is. Truly. Every feature is perfectly carved. He does not respond for several seconds.

“Yes,” Henry says. The man’s eyes are so very bright and inquisitive. Quite like Percy’s. Alive. “Do you work here?”

“Oh, yeah,” he taps the label at his breast. A name scribbled in such abysmal handwriting that it has Henry squinting. “I’m Alex.”

“Hello Alex,” Henry blinks at him. Back down at the book. “Is this a rebind?”

Alex’s big, bright eyes fall to the book in his hand. His full lips quirk upward. “Yeah. Believe it or not, we don’t get many customers. I like to give our oldest books some love on the slow days which are, uh, always.”

This supports the store being a front as Percy stated. Henry presses on, not that he needs the information. He could take Alex out right this second - wants to - but he wants to hear more, too.

Perhaps because Percy is the only other being he has spoken to this decade.

“This is an 1872 edition of Persuasion,” Henry says. “It looks brand-new. Are you a specialist?”

“Definitely not,” Alex laughs, leaning his shoulder against the shelf. He is quite a bit smaller than Henry. “I just watch tutorials.”

“Tutorials.”

“Yeah,” Alex blows out a breath. “Like I said, slow days. You get bored of Azee and Wordle soon enough.”

Henry blinks again.

“Well, you are very talented,” Henry tells him honestly.

Alex turns his face up with a grin. His throat is a never-ending expanse. There is a kick to his heartbeat again.

It would be so easy.

“You know,” Alex starts. Henry forces his eyes up to Alex’s own. It is… strenuous. “We have more on the lower floor if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.”

This causes him to pause. “Do you have any editions that are entirely untouched?”

Henry leaves with several books that he has not touched since he was alive, and Alex is left alone.

He does not speak to Alex for another three days.

Perhaps more, for time does not pass the same after so long of years toppling over one another. It used to stretch so long it felt as though it were suffocating him. Now, he cannot even grasp it before it has passed him by.

His hunger is starting to become noticeable. A gnawing ache as opposed to a muted thing that ebbs and flows. But, he ignores it still. Not yet, he thinks. Why he is delaying the inevitable, what he is waiting for, he’s unsure of.

He makes quick work of all six novels. And the juvenilia.

He is thinking of Alex. He is thinking of him when Percy asks if he has done it. He is thinking of him through every page. He is thinking of him now where he stands in the park opposite the store.

He is thinking of him because he does not understand why he did not kill him.

He learns that Alex runs before his shifts. Learns that he uses his shifts to study. That he is months from an exam and that, according to his phone conversations while running, he is struggling to pay rent. He doesn’t understand how he could possibly own a store.

There is more to this. That is his justification.

A good man would recognise this for the mistake it is. But he is not a man and he is not good. These things abandoned him when he chose to lay with his brother’s friend and lost his life for it.

It's not hard to follow Alex from a distance because Alex blazes through life. Through swarms of grey and makes it something. The saccharine joy that he leaves in his path spills over Henry. He thinks that even if he were a man, it would be impossible not to notice him.

Alex is to run this route at some point in the next hour this morning. So he waits.

People, Henry has noticed, get the same expression when they are trying to recall where they have seen him. It's rare for him to meet one more than once.

He used to, at the very start, at least try to stop himself before he killed them. It would leave them different. They would look at him on the estate grounds and he could tell they knew there was something off they could not quite recollect about him. Left always wandering, seeking something that would not come.

And so, he is in fact bewildered by Alex’s easy acknowledgement of him.

Alex beams as he jogs close. His skin glistens. His hair sticks to his face. Should it be sculpted, it would be remarked as unrealistic beauty.

He should not think as such about a dead man.

“Hey,” Alex waves, thinks better of it and shoves his hands in his pockets, “Guy from the bookstore!”

“You cannot get so few customers that you remember me.”

“Maybe you just made a great first impression with your Austen knowledge,” Alex squints, grinning beautifully in the sunlight, “What are you doing here?”

Henry’s fingers twitch. “I am waiting for the store to open.”

Alex’s eyes squint. It's such a minute movement that even Henry barely catches it.

“Cool. Well, I’m opening today.”

Henry knows this. “Ah,” he says.

“Lucky for you,” Alex teases. That squint does not falter. “You realise most people don’t hang around parks before dawn waiting for a shop to open.”

“Most people are lazy and care little for the world they inhabit,” Henry says. “This park is beautiful.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” Alex’s pulse spikes. His interest is like syrup on Henry’s tongue. His lip succumbs to his teeth. Pink to red. “Do you drink?”

Henry’s head tilts. It isn’t surprise. It’s incertitude. “Do I drink?”

“Coffee,” Alex clarifies. “Sorry. Obviously not alcohol. I get the vibe you’re a matcha guy?”

Henry, for the first time in many years, is at a loss for words.

“I don’t… I. Tea. I suppose.”

“Sounds right. British,” Alex hand-waves. Then he shrugs. “Well, would you like to get a drink before I open?”

Henry considers. It does not take him long.

The coffee shop is quiet. There are exactly four people inside.

Alex has showered. Santal 33 clings to him. Joins his heady desire and curiosity in making Henry’s head swim.

He has not fed in nearly a week. This is why.

Alex tells him about his sister. A name to the voice he overheard. About classes and the paper he knows he will get full marks on. The confidence is tantalising.

He asks Henry about himself. He’s not sure what compels him to be honest with him.

His own siblings are deep in the underbelly of the country. He sees them so little.

It took him decades to adjust to sunlight and to heartbeats around him. But, he forced himself to. Maundering the globe in search of bodies was better than the alternative, for he spent a century hidden away with them and it was not a life. It was barely a form of existence.

He tells Alex of a lifetime they all lived once; Bea as a touring musician and Philip running their late father’s business. They are happy.

Alex listens keenly. Asks about her music. The family line of work. Of his opinions on the Austen novels that Henry had taken. Henry cannot stop the words that spill from him as he loved her dearly. Before.

He had forgotten. He had forgotten many things. He had forgotten what it felt like to reminisce.

“Even though I’m more of a non-fiction guy, I fucking love James Baldwin,” Alex’s eyes widen with glee as he drops his cup to the table, droplets spilling, “You have to read Beale Street. Oh my God, and Another Country.”

Henry finds that he is tripping over himself on how to respond. He feels his mouth tug up, and he isn’t forcing it.

“Alright,” his voice sounds light. It isn’t the tea - he’s not touched it. He hasn’t allowed himself anything like this in a long time. “Alright, I will. Maybe those next after whatever you’re to recommend now.”

Alex is nodding, pulling out his mobile phone. Typing away furiously as though his hands are faster than his brain. Which, he is learning, works fast indeed.

“Here,” he says. Shoves it toward Henry - a list of names. Of novels, plays, anthologies. Woolf’s Orlando. Mary Shelley. Madame Bovery. “Like I say, I’m not a huge fiction guy but, just, I can’t recommend him enough. Look, hey, I can send this-”

“I also have a phone.” He does not know why he says so. “I don’t often use it. I… it is mostly for, well. For speaking to a friend. Not for, er, for video games. But you can send it to me through that.”

Alex snorts a high, wheezy noise. He grins at the table and back up at Henry. Henry’s stomach flips at the sight.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” he remarks, almost in awe and entirely to himself, and then pulls his phone back. “I’ll create a contact. Put your number in there. And you can tell me when you’re done, and I can let you know when we stock up some more Baldwin or Zadie Smith or-”

“Do you stock the Romantics?” Henry interrupts before he can help himself, taking the phone back.

“What, you mean like the Victorians? Coleridge and, uh -”

“Keats, Coleridge,” the names spill from Henry. He types but he cannot look away from Alex’s bright face, “Byron?”

“Yeah, dude, of course.” Alex is shaking his head, “Do you want to come open early with me?”

Henry doesn’t startle. He just stops.

“I assume you’ll be free because you said you were waiting for us to open but, like, it's really no pressure. But also the offer is there. So.”

“Alex,” Henry says. Alex’s heartbeat skips. It tastes - no, feels - strange. “I would… I would like that.”

“Cool,” Alex smiles brilliantly and gestures at his cup, “So, what, you don’t like it?”

“I, er.” Henry ponders how to not sound like exactly what he is. “I haven’t tried tea overseas.”

“Pfft.” Alex crosses his arms. “June gets it when we come here. I like it. Well, I liked it when I tried it anyway. Give it a try. You already paid for it.”

“I suppose,” Henry agrees.

He lifts the mug to his lips. It certainly smells good. Notes of citrus. Even less of malt.

He takes a sip and finds his eyes closing. Another thing he had forgotten. The warmth that seeps pleasantly through him. The way that flavours feel on his tongue and not just the sense of them.

Although it will not sustain him nor his thirst in the slightest, he cannot deny how he feels. Pleasant. He smiles.

When he opens his eyes, it's to Alex looking back at him. Not smug exactly, but pleased.

“Good, right?”

Henry cups his hands around it and takes another, lengthier sip.

“Yes. Good.”

The poetry collection is vast. A whole corner of the store stuffed to the brim.

The empty store.

For it is a front. A criminal’s front. He has been here several days longer than planned and he has still not gotten his teeth in that neck. And it would be so easy. Yet he does not.

What harm is another day?

“I know you didn’t mention Shelley but I did just finish a rebind of The Mortal Immortal. If you want to add that. Not a poet which you obviously favour but Romantic, Gothic, obviously.”

Henry nods. Takes it from Alex’s hands and adds it to his pile. Takes a sip of his tea, a second cup he’d gotten to go.

“Gladly.” Henry finds himself leaning. Watching Alex’s hands carve a path along the spines. “What else?”

Alex’s laugh in response is so beautiful. Henry is such a fool.

The secondary collection of books is so vast that his bookcase is full.

It's a bewildering sight.

He spends one day just organising it. Poetry at the top through to modern literature and to contemporary, only to take it all apart. Organises by colour. Genre. Alphabetically.

Settles on that. A reflection of his library two-hundred years prior. As a boy.

A flickering memory. Himself on the tip of his toes even on the step ladder. A hand on his back as he complains about being unable to reach about M-N-O. Hands lifting him to another world of authors. To Austen.

A face that he has forgotten near all features of beyond an oil painting back in Wales, but whose kindness he can still feel the effects of. Like a ray of sunlight.

He nods to himself. Acknowledges his half-read library of his own and picks up Persuasion. Again.

It is the sixth day when Henry opens The Mortal Immortal. The last in his secondary pile. The coffee table in the flat must be glad for the colour. For being used for more than dust collection.

Am I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it.

It does not take him long at all to complete it, to finish all eighty-seven pages. Time is nothing at all. But when he does, he feels incomplete. He regards the table in front of him. The various novels. The phone that sits atop them.

And his throat itches terribly.

Alex saved his own contact. When he opens it, a display name of Bookstore Hottie appears. His cheeks flood with others’ blood.

Alex answers, out of breath, “Hey!”

“Alex,” Henry says. He had not considered what he would say should he answer. “I did not realise you would answer so quickly.”

“Hey, c’mon, of course I did,” Alex snorts, “I didn’t know your name was Henry.”

“How could you have known?”

“Oh. True.” There’s a scratch. Pencil on paper - a quick thing. A line through text perhaps. “Well. Hi, Henry. It suits you, you know.”

Henry frowns at the book calling to be spoken of. He can’t remember the last person to call his name other than Percy.

“Thank you. Hello.”

“Hi,” Alex’s voice lifts, “How can I help you?”

“Don’t talk to me as though I am a customer,” Henry says. “Besides, I’m not calling about your place of employment.”

“Yeah? What’re you calling for then?”

“I wish to know why you recommended the Mortal Immortal to me.”

Another scrape. The pencil dropping.

Alex’s voice is lighter. “Did you like it?”

“No,” Henry answers. Asks, “What are you doing?”

“Mapping out my study plans for the week,” Alex admits. “I might end up back at The Loose Bean. Just in case you happen to find yourself hanging around parks before sunrise again.”

Something in Henry jolts. He closes his eyes. “Why did you recommend the book?”

Alex’s breath leaves him loose. A half-laugh. “Honestly? I just had a theory. And I’ve been proven right. Obviously.”

“A theory,” Henry says, curls his legs up underneath him. He wishes the room were not so grey, so uncomfortable. It feels odd to feel as such. “And are you to share it?”

Alex tuts. “You’re so impatient. And, like, this is me talking. Never met an essay word count I didn’t wanna exceed etc, etc.”

“Alex.”

“Well. You were in the romance section when I first met you. You left with Austen’s entire catalogue. And despite telling me you wanted to read the Romantics last time, half of the books you took were Gothic romances. And you clearly dislike Mortal Immortal.”

Henry is… affronted. “You knew I would not like it?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. There’s a wrinkling of fabric. Cotton? No, linen. Pyjamas. “Theory - you’re a romantic. Not the movement like you wanted me to think but the genre. Your face didn’t light up at Byron because of the movement but because he means something to you.”

“The First Kiss of Love is one of the first poems I remember reading,” Henry tells him. “And I never understood what he was trying to say. I wanted so desperately to connect with it. I do not, still… and I think that’s why I enjoy him.”

A pause. “So what I’m hearing is that I’m right? You’re a yearner.”

In the open, vast grey apartment, Henry grins to himself freely. His hand goes to his mouth as a sound escapes.

“You are awful,” He says, hands covering his cheeks at the foreign feeling of their stretch, “Yes. Perhaps.”

“Oh, thank god,” Alex laughs, “So, I’d already assumed as much so I have a list for next time too. I don’t know if you’re down with contemporary, so-”

Eventually, Henry leaves for his room with his phone attached to his ear.

He doesn’t have to sleep. He can last without it. But he finds his eyelids grow heavy and his throat sore from talking.

Once he’s done, he places the phone by his head on the pillow and hums for Alex to continue.

Henry awakens parched.

For the first time in recent memory, his mind is awake before his body. It floods with incessant thoughts of Alex and his university anecdotes and the way his tongue curled around vowels when reading out Manuel Acuña passages just because Henry admitted to loving his sway of words in just the translations alone.

It had been so very beautiful. To hear them in their original body spoken by someone so passionate about their contained message.

Henry’s head is clouded.

He finds himself at the park overlooking the store.

Alex, as always, is alone inside.

The sun is especially bright today. It is choking. Blinding. He lifts his chin, walks inside as quickly as he can get away with.

“I do not understand why so few people come in here,” Henry says as he enters. Alex doesn’t startle from his textbook. “I do not understand how it is functioning.”

“Me either. But the owner pays me well enough, I get to study whenever I like, y’know, win-win.” Then he beams at Henry, “Also, hi. Hello. Morning.”

“Good morning,” Henry says, and sways toward the desk.

Alex’s voice is loud. “Whoa, hey, you okay?”

“Yes,” Henry lies. “Tired.”

“I have cereal bars back here if-”

“You had a list for me,” Henry interrupts, clinging to the excuse. There is a racketing pulse in his ears. Maybe the hunger inside of him. Maybe Alex’s pulse. And just as that thought comes to him, it is all that he can think about.

It's pounding. So close to him, it is intoxicating.

He digs his nails into his palm and pleads that Alex lets it go. Begs for a distraction from what he is.

“Seriously, so impatient,” Alex mutters. Slides a slip of paper between the pages. It's imprinted with a logo - the surname Richards.

Henry’s eyes catch on the till. The same logo.

“Richards,” he says abruptly. Digests exactly what Alex had said. Berates himself. Closes his eyes to focus on swallowing. “You don’t own the store.”

“Oh, yeah, I run it alongside studying full-time at NYU and staying up all night talking to this insanely hot British guy who speaks like he’s in an Edwardian novel for some reason. Obviously.”

Henry stares. “Alex.”

“No, I don’t,” There’s that squint again, “It’s just to, like, afford to live. Law school is expensive, and-”

“Richards owns the store.”

Alex’s lovely face twists. “Yeah.”

Henry’s stomach drops with the realisation of how this is going to end. “I should leave.”

“What - why?” Alex stands up, frowning, “You just got here.”

“I have taken up much of your time,” Henry nods to himself, to Alex, “And while I have been enjoying you, I have grown careless, Alex, and I can feel how it is worsening and I-”

“Whoa,” Alex’s laugh is muddled with confusion and it feels wrong, tastes wrong, “Whoa, what the fuck are you talking about? Careless? You’ve.. You’ve spoken to me, like, three times. It’s not as though we’re-”

“No,” Henry’s cheeks are once again flooded and blotchy and he cannot think, “But this is something I cannot entertain any longer.”

Alex squirms. Henry nods once again.

“Careless,” he mutters, his head splintering, “Reckless.”

“Henry,” Alex is frowning properly now. His hand reaches out. It hovers over Henry’s arm. It touches his skin, that warmth, that strong pulse against him, and Henry…

It hits him. The sensitivity. The impatience. That pulse he has been hearing.

So many days. And Henry is not just hungry. He is starved.

“Henry,” Alex repeats, an echo in his head, and his hand slides up to Henry’s forehead.

Henry feels how he sways. It is as though he is watching another being work inside of his body as he takes hold of Alex’s arm. His lips twitch. His teeth, his heart, they both ache so close to what he wants.

“No,” he tells Alex. Tells himself. Digs his nails into his own skin so hard it splits. “I am leaving.”

He may be a fool for it, he may regret it, but he stays true to his word.

Jeffrey Richards.

One of the faceless businessmen in the city.

Owns an office and employs exactly two people there. Two women under twenty-five. Arrogant enough to presume security is not required.

No family to succeed him but a wife filing for divorce. An impossibility given Richards is also deep in debt and recently involved with even more heinous business.

He still cannot stop his mind wandering to Alex. Even now. Even on the verge of starving. He does not understand why.

He stands. He paces. He finds the roof.

Bea picks up on his third call.

“Hen,” she says. “I haven’t heard from you in a bit.”

“Yes,” Henry responds. His nails are deep in his thigh. The wind is harsh on his skin. “I’m hunting.”

“Oh, I don’t know why you bother with it. Not when we’ve had things sorted up here for so long.”

A flicker of another memory, then. An entire hiking group caught in a storm in those first years. Bodies ripped apart. Grey. Not drained enough to disintegrate. Not drained enough to turn.

Then the rot found its way to the nearby village. Henry had not. The flu, they’d claimed. When his siblings returned, they were what they are now.

As though such plentiful consumption, such greed, had eroded what was left of them.

Now, they hide away in ruins and compel any and all nearby.

He does not want to become like them. But it has been longer than usual. And everything else pales.

“You know I do not like it.”

“It’s easier than being out there.”

Bea has argued this more than today. He recognises the beats of familiarity. She will say it is smarter to lead a group to Weobley. That Henry is self-punishing when he should not be.

“There is a man,” Henry interrupts her by pushing the words out, “I have met.”

“Human?”

“Human,” he confirms. “He is… passionate. A bookseller.”

“Passionate,” she scoffs.

“Yes. He is beautiful.”

“This is why you haven’t fed yet?”

A sudden itch begins to throb beneath his gums, “Percy made an error. He was wrong.”

“Well,” her voice takes an odd lilt, “Does it matter?”

Henry startles. “Of course it does.”

“Why?”

“Because, well, their lives still have value. Just because we are monsters does not mean we have to…”

“I don’t understand. You know how it will end.”

“Yes,” Henry’s eyes catch on Mortal Immortal. “I know.”

“It’s your nature. You can’t help what you are no more than they can. You think I can’t tell you’re starving yourself?”

Henry hisses at the nick at his cheek, the delicate flesh. He had not realised his fangs had extended like so.

The pulsation he had felt in the store earlier had not been Alex’s pulse. It had been his own. Calling for more. Calling for him to take him.

“Bea,” he gasps out, “I don’t want to hurt him.”

She sighs, “Henry, you’re going to have to feed soon enough. Either him or some lowlife sneaking around, it doesn’t matter. And then come back here. Where you belong.”

It is much too late for that.

His head throbs. His ears ring. His throat, it aches so very much. This gnawing pain he has been suppressing. And he cannot understand why.

Alex. Alex, who is extraordinary and beautiful. Alex, who was not the one Pez had sent him here for. He should apologise. For this morning. He should feed.

He abandons his phone there. Leaves it among the grey. Throws himself out into the night.

The bookstore glows.

Inside of it stands another man. It is not Alex. He can hear the slow pump of blood around the body from here.

The air is thick, clouding, as he steps through the door. Panic at the doorbell at so late an hour. His stomach flips.

There is no one on the main floor. No one on the first when he jumps and climbs the rail. No one when he stalks the lower levels. But the fear amplifies and the anticipatory itch is so delicious, so great, that he forgets why he is here at all.

Henry paces the building. Every floor and room and hall. In search of that heartbeat.

“Hey,” comes a deep voice from the office ahead, “We’re closed.”

Ah. That there is Richards. He’s certain.

Henry walks on. Richards is standing in the doorway now. His heart is so very fast.

“Are you not hearing me, kid? Get the fuck out. We’re shut.”

Another body joins him. And then another.

Henry’s fangs extend. He hears himself begin to pant with anticipation.

“Seriously,” the second says, “Get the hell-”

Henry is done with the wait. He makes quick work of the distance and shuts the door behind him. One of them grabs his shoulder and he feels his teeth shift.

Henry presses them to the wall. It is not Richards but one of the others. No matter. He pushes his head to the side and pulls him down to him. To his mouth.

The thing about feeding is that it is a suddenness of compulsion not like anything possible to describe. Waiting as long as he has has only strengthened it.

His fangs pierce and part skin like fruit to the knife. He grows greedier yet, gnawing at the flesh until he finds bone. He feels his strength return. His mind does not, rather the opposite - he gives into his most primal self entirely.

The man is writhing. Henry pins him to the desk with a hand. The door rattles behind him. The other two are struggling to escape. The panic is so great - his quick, mangled cries - that Henry groans in pure ecstasy against the wreck of his neck. He bites another wound. Laps at the spurt. The man goes limp in his grip.

The door is open when he turns. Throws the man to the floor with a thud. Only the moon witnesses him follow the clear path. Richards and the other are so loud, and unsuccessful in their escape.

He’s yelling. The second one. Scrabbling up the staircase to the main floor of the store. Falls to his knees as Henry comes into view.

He had not even made it to the door.

“Go,” Henry’s voice is something he does not recognise as he speaks to the other man, “Go ahead and run.”

There is a battle within him. He does not need to feed anymore. It is as he had told Bea. But he is not sated.

He catches the man on the stairs as he trips. Sighs because it isn’t much of a chase at all. Straddles him and bites at the point where throat meets chest. His skin parts so easily. He tries to cry for help but no sound escapes. He makes quick work of him.

His heartbeat fades fast. Allows him to listen out for Richards who has made it to the ground floor.

Henry stands. Abandons the second and stalks after the third.

Richards is in the middle of the marble entryway. He’s openly weeping. Pleading. Henry shuts the door behind him. Richards then begins yelling.

Henry pins him to the floor with a hand over his mouth as he sinks his teeth into the arm thrown out to stop him. He pushes the arm aside and goes for his open throat where it is thickest.

Henry’s heart pulses as all of that life, that sorrow and pain and loneliness, slides down his throat. Richards is so, so afraid. So docile so soon.

He does not struggle any longer. That taste. That panic. That feeling - it is indescribable.

He should have gone for him first.

“Jesus fuck.”

Henry’s head snaps up. He knows this voice well.

So lost, he had not heard him. Had not felt that heartbeat.

Henry gulps down his mouthful, greedy for it still even in the wake of shame that washes over him.

“Alex,” his voice cracks, he still cannot part from the rivulets beneath his hand, shivers-

“Henry,” Alex is standing, a textbook clutched in his hands.

“You were late,” is all that comes to Henry in this state. The realisation clearly comes to Alex at the same time as Henry for his eyes widen.

“Oh, God,” Alex says, softer, “Let go of him. Come over here.”

Henry blinks. Pulls his face from the wreck of Richards’ flesh. “I…”

“You’re okay,” Alex says as though he is a wounded creature. Holds his now free hands out for him, “Just come here.”

Henry succumbs. He stumbles over, disorientated and drunk on it, limbs heavy.

Alex collects him in his arms. Henry sighs, noses at the side of his face. Presses his forehead to Alex’s, the heavy breathing a lull.

So many things rush through him. This is not right. He is going to poison Alex in the same manner that he had Beatrice and Philip, condemn him to rot, and yet he cannot keep himself from pressing himself to Alex. As close as he can.

Alex is petting his hair. Pressing his mouth to his cheek slick with blood. Henry whines. He listens to the heart pounding against Alex’s ribs and wants to bury himself among them.

There is something blooming within him in this moment that he does not understand.

There is a wet sputter to their right. A gasp for breath.

Alex’s voice rumbles, “Is that my boss?”

“Yes,” Henry mutters, nosing at him. Alex meets his mouth in a closed kiss, a press of lips, like he can’t quite help himself either. He does not need to, but Henry cannot breathe.

Alex’s lips brush his some more as he speaks, “Is he gonna die?”

Henry wants to kiss him. He wants every part of him. He suddenly cares very little for being here. For feeding any longer. He knows what he wants most of all.

He wants Alex.

“Not if I leave him.”

“What about the others?”

Henry swallows. “You were here?”

“I got an alert for a break-in,” Alex elaborates, “Imagine my face when I see you.”

“It is… I was not myself. I am not - not quite-”

“You’re perfect,” Alex shushes him. “Although, how do you normally, uh, deal with…”

A squelch. Richards’ skin stitching back together. Alex doesn’t look away from Henry.

You’re perfect.

Henry is shivering with this thing inside of him. Inspired by his overindulgence. “There is nothing left of the others.”

Alex sucks in a breath. “Okay. I’ll process that later. Yeah. Let’s get you out of here.”

Henry’s face falls to Alex’s shoulder and he, for the first time in this new life, yearns entirely for something beyond what he was made for.

“Please,” he says, and lets himself be led.

“What’s gonna happen to him?”

Henry does as he has been since they arrived at Alex's home. He sits. He watches Alex process. He listens to his pulse slow and feels his own mimic the calm.

Alex has been pacing. Continues to pace.

“He will not remember,” Henry says. “But I… he will be different.”

Alex’s head tilts. “Different? How?”

“I used to leave them alive. I didn’t know any better.”

Alex sits down. Lays a hand on Henry’s knee. He hears himself make a noise.

“He will be changed. A part of him will be gone, consumed by me. I have only ever - this sort of thing has not happened to me in a while.”

Alex hums. Shuffles further toward him. His hand squeezes Henry’s leg. It jolts.

“I can’t see him becoming more of a piece of shit. Maybe you’ve knocked loose some kind of humanity in him.”

Henry smiles despite himself. He is reminded of the surplus of blood around his mouth and throat. Now that he is fairly lucid, it makes his cheeks flood. He thumbs at his lip.

“This is not funny, Alex.”

“No. No, you’re right. It's not,” Alex agrees. “We should get you cleaned up. You’re not gonna, like, eat me if I get blood on me, are you?”

Henry’s mouth drops open. “Is that what you expect?”

“I don’t think you want the honest answer,” Alex scoffs, holding out a hand as he stands.

“Now I do,” Henry frowns. He stands too, allowing Alex the pretense of helping him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think I shouldn’t think what I’m thinking,” Alex’s cheeks are ever-so-slightly flush. His blood pounds.

Now that he is no longer so fixated, he can feel it. Taste it, it is so prevalent. Desire. Murky, undeniable sweetness. A tang so rich and so velvety soft that it makes him stumble.

Henry sucks in a breath.

“Okay?” Alex’s hands find his waist. To steady him, he’s sure.

Henry drops all pretence and noses at him once again.

“You like this,” he says between their faces as Alex swallows hard. “You’re… attracted to me more like this.”

“Oh my God, you can tell?” Alex groans, “Yeah. Yeah, obviously. There’s something extremely, very wrong with me psychologically. We can unpack that later.”

“Certainly,” Henry agrees.

“Cool. But you should absolutely kiss me,” Alex continues, “Right now.”

Henry huffs a laugh despite himself. Smiles tentatively against Alex’s bigger, sheepish beam. Parts his lips and shivers as Alex whines against them.

But he can’t make himself do it. After so many years of nothing, it is terrifying. No matter, thank goodness, because Alex makes the final move.

The first open, glacial press of their lips is enough to have them both groaning. They’re slick with blood that Alex does not shy away from.

And then they are kissing. Henry is being kissed for the first time in a hundred-and-eighty years without it being a means to kill. He is kissing and being kissed for pleasure. Because he wants.

Everything else grows distant. The irritant that is the city waking up. The radio Alex had thrown on in a panic. The lights above them. All may as well not exist when Alex’s tongue swipes its way across his mouth.

Alex kisses open, wet kisses along it. Henry catches the blood now smeared on his, and it's such a gourmand combination that he’s panting desperately. For him.

He needs something to ground him in this further. He chooses Alex’s hair, the roots of it, and tugs Alex’s mouth to his neck and himself to the earth.

Alex’s teeth scrape the skin. Henry knows it will not do anything, that it means nothing, but he still gasps out his name.

“I have wanted you from the moment I heard your heart beating,” Henry stutters as Alex begins to make quick work of his shirt.

Alex laughs sweetly in response, claiming a bite to his clavicle. Soothes it with his tongue and kisses further. Each is messier than the last.

“I don’t have enough brain power to be poetic right now. You’re so fucking beautiful that I can’t, like, handle all of this,” Alex is pressing frantic, messy kisses to his torso, “And I wanna suck your dick.”

Henry smiles. “Yes,” he’s nodding, petting his hair, “Yes, of course. Please.”

“Please, he says,” Alex grins, hovering over his stomach now. “Wanna feel you in my throat so bad.”

“Christ,” Henry strokes his hand down his face. “You do?”

“Yes,” Alex blinks up at him, doe eyes black and desperate, and tilts his head to suck his thumb into his mouth.

“Oh, you’re divine.”

Alex hollows his cheeks around the digit. Henry presses further, gets Alex moaning like he’s getting fucked and not, in fact, sucking off his finger.

Henry presses his thumb as far as it will go. Just to see. Alex does not react. He swallows. hard. His unabashed lust, the way he grabs Henry’s hand, makes Henry’s hips jolt.

“Fuck, you’re big,” Alex rips his mouth away with a pop. A look down means he catches Alex pondering something. And then he’s mouthing at Henry’s cock over his underwear, and Henry’s aware that his greed today has reached undeniable levels. But he cannot help himself.

“Are you going to tease,” Henry gets a handful of his hair, “Or are you going to make good on your request?”

“I’m gonna come in my fucking pants,” the words tumble out of Alex so abruptly that the spell is almost broken. Henry bites at his cheek, lips twitching.

“It would be a shame,” Henry says, gluttonous, “A waste.”

Alex’s hands pause on his waistband. Big doe eyes caught in the lights. “Huh?”

“The first time you come, I would like for it to be inside of me,” Henry tells him. “Would you like that?”

“Oh my god.”

Alex groans. And then he’s pulling Henry free from his underwear, not even tugging them down, and swallowing him down to the hilt without issue.

Things grow, well, rather hazy rather quickly.

Alex is incredible. Honestly, even if he were not, Henry would still be this embarrassingly vocal and desperate. Because he is. Desperate. Overwhelmed. Not to say Alex is quiet. No, he’s beginning to get the sense such a thing is impossible. He likes it greatly.

The first press of Alex’s tongue to his slit has him tugging hard at his curls. Perhaps too hard. He doesn’t get a chance to feel guilt because Alex moans with a mouth full.

Then he’s popping off, kissing his shaft like he can’t part from it, and saying from beneath long eyelashes, “Fuck my mouth.”

It's mortifying how fast he comes that first time. It's just that Alex’s mouth is open and hot and the noises when he thrusts into it as asked are a lot. And he has not allowed himself this since his heart beat with his own blood.

The promise of sex, yes, as a tool. Not this. Never this.

This is his reasoning when he warns abruptly and spills down his throat.

But Alex is grinning like he’s won something and pulling him into a kiss and to his bedroom, fast even for Henry. They trip over piles of textbooks, boots and a guitar.

“Trying to relearn,” Alex explains between Henry shoving his tongue in his mouth, “Again. It's a work-in-progress. Actually-”

Henry kisses him sweetly once on the mouth. “I love how impassioned you are.”

“Right. I-” Alex blinks, “You do?”

Henry nods. Looks between his eyes. “I like it very much.”

Alex flushes. Kisses him too. “How do you want to do this?”

Henry considers. Looks over the bed with its dozen-pillows, three separate blankets and a Hall & Oates record sleeve Alex pushes off.

“I would like you on top of me,” he decides. “Please.”

Alex smiles softly. Kisses him in an even softer manner. “‘Wanna lay down and get comfy for me?”

He does.

It's perhaps slightly tame of him, he knows. He is a romantic after all, something they are both aware of, and so this is exactly what he desires most right now.

The opposite of his first and only other time.

Alex is on top of him again, kissing him silly and running his hands up and down his body. It's so gentle that Henry sighs, back bowing with the foreign sensation. He raises a leg, wraps it around the back of Alex’s, pulls him down with it.

They kiss lazily for a stretched moment he hadn’t realised they could find, sliding their bare cocks together. It's a sort of slow-building pleasure. Alex is so sweet even with his hand creeping down to his cock, kissing him fully. He is overwhelmed by this the most.

There are soft whispers between them as they discuss what Henry is comfortable with. No, he doesn’t need to use a condom. Yes to being prepared. The rest he does not remember. Gentle kisses traded for hands spanning bodies. Then Alex’s fingers being lubed up and eased inside of him, one at a time.

Alex does not look away when they first breach. Henry tries to keep eye contact for he looks at Henry’s face like he’s drinking it in, but he can’t help throwing his head back. It's somehow painful and bliss and the hushed encouragements that return are so foreign that his eyes prick.

One becomes two becomes three. They move like they belong to a man well-versed in the art of fingering someone to orgasm in about sixty seconds flat. Henry feels so much. So very much. He gasps when he removes them.

Alex shushes. Lifts him by the waist to kiss his chest, right where his heart once beat from. Henry smiles, suddenly shy. Alex kisses that too. Then there’s a shuffle and Henry greedily takes hold of his glorious cock and finally, he’s guiding him inside.

“Oh,” Henry jolts forward, thighs twitching, “Oh, Christ.”

“Yeah,” Alex grunts as he bottoms out, teeth grazing his throat again, “Fuck, baby. Fuck, you’re perfect.”

“Hhng,” Henry agrees. “Move.”

“Are you sure?” Alex is asking, pulling back to look at him and the change in position means his hips jolt anyway. Henry gasps, gripping his arms.

“Move,” he instructs, begs, all sanity falling apart like tendrils in his hands, “Fuck me. Please, fuck me. Alex-”

“Yeah,” Alex is nodding. He pulls out. Kisses away Henry’s hiss as he slides the tip back inside.

Something guttural is punched out of Henry, from somewhere so deep that they both pause.

“Baby,” Alex moans, and buries his face in his neck as his hips roll.

After that, it truly is a blur. At some point, Alex’s hands gravitate to his waist and Henry’s to his ass cheeks to pull him closer inside. Like the both of them want to be as close as can be, and closer yet.

It hits Henry when Alex gets a hand around his cock, whispers that phrase again and Henry promptly comes all over his hand.

He likes this man. He evaded feeding to the point of near starvation just to be near him.

He doesn’t know what that means.

Alex’s voice breaks him out of it. “Should I - shall I pull out-”

“No,” Henry insists, breath still catching, digging his heels in, “Don’t you dare. I want - I need to feel it.”

Alex moans his name like some form of orison. And then he’s fucking into him with vigour. Chasing after his own orgasm, Henry’s release still coating his hand.

The aftershocks are delicious. The groan and the sensation of being filled as Alex falls over the edge make his eyes roll back.

They lie there for a second, boneless. Henry rubs his hands up and down Alex’s back as he pants against his neck. Henry smiles to himself, incredibly satiated.

Alex presses a few, wet kisses to his skin. Alex is sweating. Henry, of course, is not. But a mess, yes, he’s certain.

When Alex pulls out, they both hiss. Alex flops on his back beside him. Laughs to himself.

Henry turns his face to him.

“What?”

“Just.” Alex gestures between them, at the bed. The sheets. His body shining with sweat.

“I have not had sex in a long time.”

He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe to make Alex laugh. It's successful. He grins to himself too.

“For the record,” Alex is saying, head turned up to the ceiling in sheer, unequivocal delight, “I wanted to fuck you since I saw you fingering Persuasion.”

Henry groans, smiling, elated. He is not tired, not remotely, but he closes his eyes all the same.

“Must you word it like that?”

Alex huffs. “Actually, I was attracted to you. But then you started infodumping about the Romantics and then I wanted to fuck you.”

Henry kisses him. Alex hums in surprise but welcomes it. They trade several, perhaps too sweet for their current predicament, until Alex pulls back.

“We really should clean up now.”

Henry laughs. It is a loud, ugly noise. He cannot stop.

“I think there is something within me,” Henry confesses as it trails off, staring between Alex’s eyes, “That you have created.”

Alex blinks at him, brown eyes so very intrepid.

“I think maybe it was there all along,” Alex whispers too. And Henry cups his beautiful face and kisses him fully.

“Stop,” Henry warns, not pushing Alex away from his throat at all.

“Can’t,” Alex groans. Then he pauses, “Unless you give me full control of the pot.”

Henry tuts. “I offered to make you food while you rested. You take away the meaning of the offer if you help.”

“I’m all rested!” Alex smiles against his mouth. “Plus I’m no immortal creature of the night but I can tell you’ve probably not put any seasoning in that.”

Henry’s mouth parts. “I-”

“Am I wrong?”

Henry’s chin dips to his chest with the embarrassing strength of his smile.

“Alright,” he says, backing away from the thing. “It's probably for the best.”

“Mm,” Alex hums, eyeing the pot up properly. He closes his eyes as he sniffs. Then he puts the wooden spoon to his mouth and takes a bite. And drops it back in the pot.

“Alex,” Henry begins, “I haven’t had food in quite some time so I apologise if-”

“Shut up, shut all the way up,” Alex interrupts and leads him back into the counter to kiss him square on the mouth.

Henry melts instantly. Allows himself to be kissed stupid and clings to him like a lifeline.

Alex presses another kiss to his cheek when he’s done, laughing softly.

“It isn’t awful?”

Alex smiles fully. “Nope. I’d even say edible. But I just realised something.”

Henry’s hands find his waist. “Oh?”

“I’m not that hungry,” Alex whispers like a secret, and his hand falls to the waistband of Henry’s boxers.

“Oh,” Henry stutters, cheeks flushing. “Oh, Alex, you should - I, mm - you must eat.”

“I will,” Alex promises. His fingers dip inside. “Just wanna thank you first. Can you let me do that?”

Henry breathes out, trying to laugh but failing to do a thing but gasp in the gap between their faces as Alex’s hand moves lower.

“Yes,” he says as Alex’s fingers close around his length, “Please.”

Henry awakens with Alex clinging to his body. He is uncomfortably hot, his neck hurts and Alex is drooling on his chest.

It's wondrous.

Henry brings a hand to touch his warmed skin. Alex grumbles and Henry shushes, trails a hand up and down the rigid expanse of his spine and thinks of how incredible the man he is sharing a bed with is.

They had eaten after Henry had come in his pants. Correction, after Henry came in his pants and Henry talked Alex through completion against his stomach. So they ate, and they talked, and they held one another as Alex read Beale Street.

And then Alex had proposed an official engagement. Something like their morning at the Loose Bean but different. To get to know one another as people, Alex had said. His wording made Henry uncomfortable, but he couldn’t have agreed fast enough.

Truth is, he couldn’t get enough of him.

Emotions for him were always heightened to great intensity. After his turning, they have jumped from the scale. He has spent many decades shoving them down, no matter how intensely they make themselves known. Alex dons his feelings like badges. Even a human could sense them.

He thinks he wants to try it too.

Because the truth is he is still bursting with emotion at any given point. Right now, he thinks if you could physically see his, the room would be brimming with them. So much so, it’d breach the windows and the doors and his own chest too.

He thinks that Bea was wrong. He thinks that his kind could still be capable of love and care and joy. That maybe it has been possible all along and that his fear of it is ridiculous.

He considers then. Thinks of a lifetime ago when he would write every thought and feeling into a journal in the hopes of one day forming it into someone else’s story. He has the urge to commit this to page, to more than memory.

Alex makes another noise in his sleep. Presses his hand to Henry’s stomach too. Henry closes his eyes to the feeling that erupts.

Bookstore Hottie

In case you forgot.

Henry receives the list from Alex the week after.

After a call from Pez, he’s back in California. Momentarily.

The visit is brief. He can stand the sun, but it doesn’t mean he’s not incredibly sensitive to the brightness here. He handles it just fine.

Pez’s joy is reason enough to.

He lets him drag him out to a bar. For the first time in many years.

“So it was his boss all along?”

Henry takes a generous sip of his martini. “Yes.”

Pez stirs his drink. “So you killed him?”

“No,” Henry swallows, “The men who were there with him, yes. Not his boss.”

Pez narrows his eyes at him. “Babes,” he starts, “I don’t understand. I thought the point of our arrangement was so that you could clear your conscience?”

“It is,” Henry insists as he takes another, longer sip. “And they each were bad men. I could tell. But.”

“But?”

Henry’s phone pings again.

Bookstore Hottie

Richards is selling up

Place is in need of a new owner if u know any other sexy immortals who happen to be rich

Henry

I will get back to you. On the list and the store.

And your invitation to dine together this weekend.

Bookstore Hottie

Okay (:

Us mere mortals rly do call them dates. fyi

Henry smiles to himself. Pockets his phone.

“It's a rather tedious story.”

Pez reclines, glass at his mouth and eyes bright. “Oh, do tell, Haz.”

“Well, Alex caught me in the midst of, er-”

“Killing his boss?”

“Killing his boss,” Henry nods. His phone vibrates. Twice. Pez beams.

“You consider that tedious?”

“I consider it embarrassing,” Henry flushes. “You know how we get when we feed after a while without it. And considering I had fed from three bodies, I was…”

“Randy,” Pez delights with a tip of his drink. “Well, did you fuck him?”

“No,” Henry groans. “No, he took me home. Then he fucked me.”

Pez claps his hands together. “Henry. Who are you and what have you done to my best mate?”

“I know,” Henry shakes his head, smiling, “I don’t - he asked me out. This weekend.”

“Oh my god, darling. Look at you. You’ve gone and finally got your own concubine. It only took a century and a half.”

“Shut up,” Henry rolls his eyes, “Not all of us can happen upon a fellow creature of the night at brunch.”

“Pfft. He wasn’t one at the time,” Pez points out. A simple fact that Henry had forgotten, because of course.

Pez and Daniel had met in the late nineties when Victoria’s rule was coming to an end. He had turned him only weeks after they’d met. They have spent every consecutive day together since.

Henry nudges his foot. “How is he?”

“Good. Sorting something out for Spencer in Austin until later. Apparently houses are cheaper there. Who knew.”

Henry snorts. Pez smiles at him. Genuinely, all bemusement stripped.

“You’re happier,” he states simply.

“Yes,” Henry admits. Downs the rest of his drink. “And you’re getting the next round.”

“Of course,” Pez nods. He inclines his head. “Oh. Perhaps not. They’re about to leave.”

Henry’s teeth itch at the mention. “Maybe after?”

“Mm.” Pez downs his own. “The alley?”

“No, too exposed. The car park. The cameras are out.”

Pez sighs. Stands and stretches his arms. “I missed hunting with you.”

“No you didn’t,” Henry’s already half-listening. “I get the big one.”

Pez scoffs. “You had three a week ago.”

“Yes.” Henry is a floor above Pez already. “Do not act like you and Daniel do not feed from one another every chance you get.”

He can picture Pez’s face when he scoffs. No matter.

He does. Get the big one.

Pins him to the wall before Pez enters and drinks until he’s spent. And yet unfulfilled. When he’s done, Pez is waiting calmly beside a pile of ash.

“You’re right,” Pez nudges against him, “I don’t miss this.”

“Alex’s boss is selling the bookstore,” Henry tells him, thumbing at the droplets on his chin. He would be lying if he said he did not know why.

“Huh,” is what Pez says. “I haven’t been to New York since the eighties.”

“Hm,” Henry mimics. He slides his phone out of his pocket.

Henry

I may have found a solution.

He is relieved by New York’s greyness when he returns.

The cold and the wet is a relief. Stephanie Meyer got exactly one thing right - it just so happens that she was right about him, and no other vampire he has ever met. He adores the rain. Not because he is a crystalised figure that sparkles in the sunlight, of course, but because of the atmosphere.

It's similar enough to England without the uncomfortable ebb of his corroding family tree on the same land that he enjoys it.

He is coming to learn these things about himself lately. His love of the rain. Of earl grey teas. Of a walk in the park as the sun awakens with him.

Reading. Talking to Alex. Thinking of Alex. These are things he enjoys too.

Now that he has had a taste of such things, he cannot believe he has gone for so long without.

Alex calls him twenty-four seconds after Henry texts him to confirm he is back in New York.

“Was your flight okay?”

“Yes.”

He listens as Alex stretches. He listens to his slight groan. The thud of his pulse. Henry licks his lips.

Henry is greedy for more of him. “How was your day?”

“Good,” Alex says, “Richards had me draft a post about selling the store. I left early, used my gym card for the first time in a month so, y’know, now I feel dead. Good day, though.”

“Ah,” Henry bites his lip. Alex called to set him up on Instagram a few days ago while in California. He has seen many, many images of Alex’s body in such places. He had also gotten off many, many times in California.

These things are not unrelated.

“What about you?” Alex asks kindly.

“Sorry?”

Alex laughs. “Must’ve been a long flight, huh? Did you have a good day, baby?”

Henry feels his brain white-out. “Yes,” he responds too late, voice low, “I did. Thank you, love.”

“Oh. That’s new,” Alex’s pulse thumps. “You’re home now?”

Recklessly and with a flip of his stomach, he dips his hand to his waistband. “Yes. I am alone.”

“I just got home too. I haven’t - uh, showered. So.”

Henry finds himself painfully endeared. But also outrageously turned on. He palms himself. Doesn’t understand how he went so long denying himself this.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Henry confesses. “Your hands. Your fingers inside me.”

Alex sits. His breathing is heavier. “Yeah? What else?”

“Your cock,” Henry grits his teeth as he strokes a hand over himself. “How it felt when you came inside me.”

“Fuck,” Alex grunts. “Fuck, baby, me either. All I can fucking think about is you.”

“I love when you call me that,” Henry tells him. He’s so wet. Leaking on himself.

“Yeah?” He hears a slick noise from Alex’s end. “Wanna be my baby?”

“Yes,” He lifts his hips experimentally. Gasps aloud. “Yes. I touched myself in California thinking about - oh - it.”

“Fuck, I want you again,” Alex groans. “Why did we agree to the weekend? How fucking dumb am I?”

Henry laughs. Tightens his hand. Thrusts into it.

“What would you do to me,” he starts, “If I were there.”

The noises on the other end make him ache. “Depends. Do you need it like before? You want me to take care of you?”

Henry’s hand clenches. He moves it, fast, faster than his hips roll up into it. “No. No, I want-”

“Oh, you want me to fuck you,” Alex’s voice is so deep he can feel it against his throat. “Want me to be rougher than before?”

Henry can’t breathe. “Yes.”

“I’d want you on your knees,” Alex continues, “Take you from behind.”

A strangled noise leaves Henry’s mouth. “Oh, Alex.”

“Too much?”

“No,” Henry’s entire being is tingling, “No. I want to - I don’t know. I want you so much. I want whatever you’ll give me.”

“I’d wanna eat you out first,” Alex confesses, “Been thinking about it.”

“Oh,” Henry twists his hand. Gasps. “Tell me.”

“God, you’d be so wet. So open for me, wouldn’t you?”

Henry whimpers. “Please. Yes. Yes, I would.”

“Yeah,” Alex’s rhythm is off now too. Henry matches his to Alex’s. “Yeah, baby. Come on. You wet for me right now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am,” Henry’s on fire. He’s going to die. “I’m close. I think.”

“Fuck,” Alex groans, long and delicious. “Me too.”

“Tell me what else,” Henry is desperate. “Tell me. Tell me-”

“When I fuck you. When I have you on your hands and knees,” Alex starts, “You’d kiss me. You’d probably switch - uh - switch positions. Climb in my lap.”

“I’d love that,” Henry answers honestly, thumb pressed to his slit. He thinks of Alex’s tongue against it. “What else?”

“You’d lean down like you were gonna kiss - kiss me,” Alex’s voice is so breathy now, each vowel punctuated with a grunt, “But your mouth would find my neck. And you’d bite down, and-”

With a cry, Henry spills all over his hand. He listens as Alex follows him over the crest and laughs openly. Boneless, he is, despite untapped energy.

Alex swallows hard on the other end.

“So,” Alex begins. Henry is so overtaken by a sudden joy that he turns his face to hide it in his pillow.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Henry’s voice is muffled.

“Me either,” Alex’s own is slow. Relaxed like his breathing now.

“The weekend isn’t so far I suppose,” Henry reasons. “A few days.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. He swallows. “I can’t wait to see you.”

Henry thinks of that lovely throat. He thinks of what he wants too. What he has wanted since they met. What he has refused himself.

“Me either,” he says. “Did you mean it?”

“Yeah,” Alex responds instantly. “It doesn’t… you don’t mind?”

“You remember what instigated our first time, do you not?” Henry huffs. “Besides. You’ve no idea how much I want it. It's inadvisable and stupid, yes, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want it too.”

“Oh,” Alex swallows, “Yeah. Then yeah, I really did mean it.”

Henry chews on his lip. “We shouldn’t. But it is so tantalising a thought.”

“Yeah,” Alex huffs a laugh, “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t wanna put you in that situation just because it makes me horny. Everything about you does.”

“Me too,” Henry confesses in the same manner as a protagonist in a bodice ripper, bashful and ridiculously so given the state of his body currently, “It's rather silly.”

“So what?” Alex points out, like it's simple.

Maybe it is.

“Hm.” Henry languishes. “So, how has your week been?”

He asks despite how frequently they have texted. And Alex tells him with the exact level of enthusiasm he always has - the dial turned so high it's off of its hinges. Or something. His metaphors are skewed - his brain is mush.

“We should finish Beale Street,” Alex suggests when he’s done.

Henry smiles. “Yes. But now you should rest.”

“Oh,” Alex’s tone suggests he has only just realised the time. “I will. You should too.”

“I don’t-”

“I know you’re gonna say you don’t have to,” Alex interrupts, “You should anyway. I wish you could see how at peace you are when you’re asleep.”

Warmth spreads throughout him. “Alex.”

Alex yawns. “I’m just saying, sweetheart. Maybe you don’t need something to survive, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to enjoy it anyway.”

Henry fingers the crease in the satin by his head. “Perhaps.”

“I gotta shower,” Alex says. His voice takes a quieter, almost shy tone, “Can I call after?”

“Of course.” He settles back against the pillows. He must too. “Would you please read Beale Street to me?”

Alex exhales. He cannot prove its existence, but he pictures Alex smiling. “Yeah, baby. Sure. Call back soon?”

Henry smiles too. “Alright.”

The Loose Bean is quite charming.

Going alone means that he is forced to acknowledge the quaint beauty that it is. Before, he had focused too much on Alex and only Alex. A difficult feat to break from. Now, he appreciates how lovely it is.

He does not stay in places for long, it is true. It's really rather nice to just exist here, in this place.

The workers are so very kind. Polite, patient when he is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of drinks on offer. He settles for a London Fog by the frost-tipped window and sips as he watches patrons come and go. As it is Halloween, they often don costumes. Several struggle to speak around false fangs and he smiles to himself.

He listens to the workers bicker over music choices when Schubert’s collection begins to filter through. Lamps begin to flicker to life the later it gets. The fireplace comes to life and spits out its welcome when the moon rises. And then the patronage is truly only costumed, younger individuals, often carrying sweets or chocolates.

Henry orders an earl grey. Talks with a young woman about her own personal tea collection. She serves him a vanilla and pistachio cake and he spends much of the hour savouring it. Dedicates time to every single one of Alex’s sporadic text message chains.

It's all so very nice.

He walks home through the park. Takes in the crisp air and the distant notes of cinnamon and feels warmed through. He heads to the source. Notices a French twang to the vendor’s voice and speaks to him in a tongue he has not used in decades. Just to watch the man’s face light up.

The pretzel is incredible. He takes a photograph, he is getting better at them according to both Pez and Alex; a half-eaten treat among a sea of decaying leaves in the moonlight.

He notes down a few things in the journal eternally burning a hole in his pocket, begging for more of Alex too.

Alex responds as quickly as he sends it with one of his own. A photograph of the lower half of his face, a highlighter pen between his lips as he pouts. No doubts about why he is awake at this hour.

looks so fucking good, the text reads, we should go this weekend!!

He has never felt comfortable in one place in this new life.

But he thinks he could try to be here.

Henry hasn’t done this before. Truly ever.

He missed out on the practice of courting when he was alive. His parents had not pushed him to find a wife as they had Philip. The ordeals of much of that time are murky now, as though looking through a lake’s surface intending to find the bottom.

The point is that he is severely out of his depth and very determined to maintain whatever this is with Alex.

Alex wishes to meet at a Mexican food place in Manhattan this evening. He had shared with Henry his Google drive containing various maps and their adjoining spreadsheets of different coffee places, food places and bookstores. The latter, he had said, existed entirely for Henry’s benefit.

They’d agreed on the Mexican place as a classmate had recommended it highly to him.

His only issue is that it has been almost a week since California. Since he fed. And Pez is not answering his texts.

He must settle for hunting alone tonight.

After he parts from Alex. It is impossible to do so during the day without assuredly being caught. Compulsion is a gift he has not been granted unlike his siblings.

They first meet a few streets away at the other end of Washington Square Park, near Alex’s home. Alex is still pulling on his coat when he spots Henry. He shoves it on and jogs ahead, pulling Henry into his orbit.

“Hey,” he greets, hand on Henry’s waist and his eyes flickering like he’s debating something. “Good to see you.”

“Hello,” Henry smiles back, correcting his coat collar. His finger brushes the delicate skin of his neck. Alex’s pulse jumps. His gums itch. Henry yanks his hand back to his side.

Alex blinks. And because he is wondrous and brilliant, beams at him, “So, how about that Mexican place?”

“Of course,” Henry shakes his head of all murkiness, pleading with himself to get with it, “Please lead the way.”

He does. Actually. At first anyway. It's just that Alex slides an arm around his waist inside of his coat and grips his hip. Pulls Henry flush to his side and presses a sweet, chaste kiss to his jaw when he looks at him.

Henry’s voice is hoarse, “What was that for?”

Alex shrugs. Pulls a face. Says like it's simple, “‘Cause I wanted to. You look so nice.”

Henry digests that. Places his own hand on Alex’s back, between his shoulder blades.

“You are beautiful,” Henry tells him honestly.

Alex beams up at the nearest skyscraper. It doesn’t let up until they’re at the restaurant and seated.

The decor is. Loud. Obnoxious music plays. The staff all adorn sombreros.

Henry turns to look at Alex. Alex is glaring at the server one table over.

“May I ask which classmate recommended this establishment?”

Alex scoffs. “Hunter’s friend, Chad.”

Henry straightens. “The Hunter that you said implied Texas is inherently backwards and incapable of progress?”

Alex flushes. “Yeah. Yeah, that Hunter,” he groans, burying his face in his hands, “God, those dumb fucking assholes. Shit. I really, really wanted this to go well.”

Henry frowns. “How is it not going well?”

Alex peeks through the gaps, “I wanted to seem so blase. Like oh, yeah, some guy recced me this totally sick place. And we’d have overpriced alcohol and eat so good and it’d be perfect.”

“It's still very much perfect for me,” Henry says honestly.

“Really? They’re wearing fucking sombreros. This is so humiliating.”

“Not this place. Fuck this place,” Henry surprises himself as much as Alex with the cursing. He lowers his face to Alex’s level, “I’m here with you. I have your company. Your time. That is what is perfect. I don’t care what we do or where we go, Alex.”

Alex pulls his hands from his face. “Really? You’re not bullshitting me?”

“Absolutely not,” Henry confirms.

“Okay,” Alex is still flush, face hot with blood. Henry tilts his face back up so as to not look.

He clears his throat. “Is there any place you yourself would like to go? Anything you’d rather do?”

“I mean…” Alex looks away, “God. Maybe.”

Henry’s eyebrows raise. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Alex’s tongue pokes at his canine. “Despite all of this, I really do want Mexican. I could make it instead? Maybe?”

Henry pauses.

He really should feed tonight. It will have been twice since meeting Alex that he has put it off. He should disagree. Establish boundaries. Say absolutely not.

“That sounds wonderful,” Henry bites his lip, “How about at my place?”

Alex’s face grows impossibly more animated. His voice higher. “Your place? Seriously? You’d let me cook there?”

“Well,” Henry swallows, wondering if he has come on too strong. “Why on earth not? Would you not like to?”

“Of course I wanna see your place,” Alex physically brightens. His eyes go very wide and his nose twitches. “Is it all dark? Do you have a coffin?”

Henry feels his shoulders shake as he tries not to laugh. “No, Alex. It's just an apartment in Soho. This is not an Anne Rice novel.”

“I never finished those. The show is better. Also we should leave this dump immediately,” Alex says, “Right now. Fuck, I know a store in between our places. Zarazoga! They never fucking close. They’ll have everything.”

Henry smiles too, close-mouthed.

In all honesty, he thinks he will prefer it. Selfishly, the thought of unexpectedly getting Alex to himself all evening as opposed to in a public restaurant thrills him.

He will hunt as Alex sleeps - because he is not naive enough to assume either of them will want him to leave tonight - and all will be perfectly fine.

They cut through the park on the way to the store.

It is rather cold tonight, even by Henry’s standards, and Alex fast pulls him against his side. Henry revels in it; being held.

Their walk is slow. Alex’s fingers curling in the base of his hair are slower. The few fellow patrons in the park smile as they pass, scalding beverages in hand. Henry smiles too as they waft through sweet-smelling steam.

He can see Alex’s breath fog before them as they locate the pretzel vendor. His own does not.

He greets Henry and Henry responds enthusiastically. Alex’s eyes grow brighter the faster he does speak.

The vendor asks if Alex is his compagne. He smiles, corrects - pas tout à fait. The vendor narrows his eyes. Henry laughs, flushing as Alex beams too. Mon amour, Henry says. Mon amour.

The vendor’s hand goes to his chest and he insists on hot chocolates on the house with the pretzels. Alex, although visibly confused, is still smiling along.

So they sip. They eat. Let go of each other to do so. Henry is so very warm. They walk in companionable silence with only birdsong and the whistle of the leaves for company.

Alex is finished first. His mouth is adorned with cinnamon as he starts to ramble about the cinnamon to dough ratio in varying chains and various deserts. Henry cannot handle it. Drops his own cocoa in the nearest bin, pulls Alex close by the lapels and into a kiss. The cinnamon and the cream taste sweet. Alex’s joy is sweeter.

“I could see your reflection in the door when we left.”

Henry throws the fideo pasta into the cart and mentally checks it off of the list Alex reeled off when they entered. He looks back at him. “Ah. We’re having this conversation right now?”

“Just thought about it. Sorry,” Alex pulls a face. He throws in a smaller pack. “Another myth then?”

“Yes,” Henry smiles. Brushes his cheek with a kiss. “I think your curiosity is very sweet, love. Don’t apologise for it to me again.”

Alex flushes. “Okay, yeah. Nice. Cool.”

Henry nods. He heads for the fruit aisle. “Stoker introduced it but it has helped keep us hidden so it’s never been argued against. Do you want, er, limes or green peppers? I don’t remember what you said.”

“Oh, wow. That’s crazy fascinating actually. I need to pick your brain more. And we’re going lime. No chilis, no peppers, dios mio. I don’t want to kill you.”

Henry picks up a couple and places them in the cart beside the garlic. “I’m happy to eat whatever you make, Alex.”

“Well, yeah but it's got to taste good. And I don’t want to burn your sensitive taste buds off. Wait. Can you have garlic?”

Henry covers his mouth at his sudden bark of laughter. “Alex, come on, really?”

Alex nudges up against him, eyeballing the tomatoes. “It's a valid question! I’ve never made it without. It could taste like total ass.”

“It will not,” Henry shakes his head. “It’ll certainly be better than the monstrosity I tried to make you.”

Alex frowns. He drops the multiple tomatoes he was handling. “It was… edible! Besides, it wasn’t gonna be the highlight of my night no matter how well you made it.”

Henry feels his cheeks flood. He stares down at the tomatoes and places them in the cart beside the garlic.

“Well. It will not kill me. That is also a falsehood Stoker borrowed from Europe, likely the Slavic. A medieval superstition, interesting that it wards off microbial disease and that they believe our origins are of a blood-disease relation. Er. I have researched this a lot myself.”

“Huh,” Alex responds, his own face suddenly pink. Then he steers the cart toward the tills. “Tell me more?”

The evening is great. Perfect. Alex absolutely adores his place and says as such a million times, before and after the thirty-second tour. He laughs at the Mortal Immortal hidden in his bookcase. Selfishly, Henry loves the look of him among his few possessions, and the rich aroma of food throughout the place too.

He loves that it appears lived-in.

As he does cook, they talk. Alex tells him about his law professor, Rafael Luna, and the speech he gave Alex about his bright future. He tells him about the approaching exam and an open invite to his sister’s Halloween get-together he’s unsure about attending. They talk so much that the bottle of red is gone by the time Alex dishes up.

It's perfect. Of course it is. Incredible.

It's night by the time that they’ve eaten and settled on the sofa with the night coming to life behind them.

Well. Settled is perhaps not-

“Need you,” Alex pants, writhing beneath him. “I know we said otherwise on the phone, baby, but I need you.”

“Yes,” Henry pledges into his clammy skin, mouthing at his clavicle, “How?”

Alex groans, thrusting up, fingers digging into the dip at his waist, “Your dick in my ass, Henry, how the fuck-”

Henry’s forehead drops to his pec and he laughs heartily.

“Sorry to tease,” Henry kisses between them in apology. Alex gasps a curse, legs falling open, and Henry kisses them some more. They are really very nice. Red from his worshipping. He thinks they deserve a little more.

But then Alex drags him back up into a messy kiss he does admittedly lose himself in. For a bit. Except then he is reminded that everything necessary is in his bedroom and they are very much not.

“Wrap your arms around me, darling,” Henry asks. Alex nods. Does as told. And then Henry is carrying him off to the room.

Before he can fully drop Alex onto the covers, he’s being pulled down with him. Alex alters their positions, holding him down against satin.

“I’ve been dreaming about this all fucking week,” Alex confesses, ass moving back against his clothed cock. So, Henry supposes, that is how they are to do this tonight.

“You have?”

“Yes,” Alex gasps, hips circling unashamedly and rendering Henry useless, “God, you’re fucking unreal. I need this in me right now.”

“Yes,” Henry says, deathly serious. “But first, let me take care of you.”

Alex blinks profusely at him. Nods. “Yeah. Yeah. C’mon, baby.”

Henry bites his cheek. And then he’s reaching for the lube closer to empty than full after a week alone with a newly-unearthed libido and he’s opening Alex up.

He goes wonderfully. Fucks himself down on the digits. Pulls the three of them out, pushes Henry’s waistband down and positions himself atop his cock.

When he sinks down, all breath is punched out of Henry. Such tight heat is indescribable. He’s on fire, everywhere. His cock buried inside of Alex and Alex mouthing lazily at his jaw is a bliss he did not know possible.

It might be Henry inside of him, but it is Alex who is fucking him. Using his cock as he likes, strong thighs lifting and dropping him as he pleasures himself. Henry is so incredibly turned on by it that his hips begin to thrust in tandem too.

Then Alex is groaning, and it is like a dam has burst.

“Yeah,” he’s grunting, hoarse, “Fuck me, baby. God. Mierda. Come on.”

If there is one thing that these last few weeks have taught Henry, it is that he enjoys being at this human’s will more than he should.

Henry begins to anticipate Alex’s slams back down onto him. The desperate, greedy circling of his hips when he does. Like having Henry buried to the tilt simply is not enough. Henry agrees. He wants more. He wants everything.

“Jesus,” Alex is practically panting, “Henry. Henry-”

“I know,” Henry’s looking over his face in awe, likely crazed and something awful, he’s sure, “I know. You feel… oh, my love, you feel so - God.”

“Yeah,” Alex’s hands find his shoulders and cling. His mouth brushes Henry’s, and he’s falling, full-fledged.

Alex’s tongue brushes his own. His gums. Finds his canine-

There are no words for it. The smallest, most insignificant drop. Five, nearing six days without it. And this is Alex. Not some cruel, lowly criminal. Good, beautiful Alex. The taste is beyond measure. And he’s had practically none.

Henry moans. He knows he does, hears it distantly just as he pistons as far into Alex he can. His hands take hold of Alex’s hip as the both of them gasp.

“Alex,” he warns, tearing his mouth away. Except it is more of a beg. A broken noise around aching fangs as opposed to a name.

“Accident,” Alex soothes, taking his face in hand and kissing wet kisses in sporadic patterns. “But, I-”

“We can’t,” Henry closes his eyes. Stills inside of him. “You saw what I-”

“You’ll stop,” Alex presses their foreheads together, “You’ll stop. I know you will.”

“I don’t know how,” Henry reminds him, head swimming, “I won’t.”

“You will,” Alex promises. Henry almost believes him. “I trust you.”

Henry does not know within him if it is true. But it has been long. Longer than he should muster. And he is, as he will always be, hungry.

“You will not be strong enough to stop me,” Henry warns. He hears it within himself, the way it is already detached. “And I will not want to.”

“I know,” Alex’s voice is like a lark. His hand at the back of Henry’s head guiding him to his open throat like the most willing prey.

Henry gives in. His fangs pierce, and Alex hisses. Henry’s eyes roll at the first hot slide into his mouth.

Warmth spreads through him at once, his entire body set alight.

Henry moans. Desire is so sweet, the sweetest of all, and this blood is overpowered by it. It coats his tongue and pulls him down under. He accepts, follows the lull for more. Sucks at his prize.

Henry shivers with intensity. Grapples at the jaw against his cheek and angles it away to get to where he craves most. Where the blood is thickest.

When he bites down, a moan pierces the air. Hips press down hard on his lap. And he is reminded of his body, of the body above him.

“Henry,” is being chanted like prayersong, distant and still echoing through his head.

Henry begins to thrust in earnest as he pulls from the wound. His voice is strangled. “Alex,” he grits out against his throat, mouthing at the rivulets that escape.

“Yeah, shit, take it, oh my god,” Alex’s back is bowed. His hands are in Henry’s hair. Directing him back to the wound. To drink. To take from him.

Henry flips them. Pushes Alex into dark satin and fucks him. Fucks him as Alex had that night, fucks him like it's a claim. Fucks him like he’s his.

And he drinks. He burns. He floats.

Alex thrashes below him. Still trying to fuck himself back on Henry’s cock, he’s insatiable. Henry grins against his reddened throat, fangs and all, and shoves a hand down to fist his cock.

When he does, Alex’s body arches. His heels are at Henry’s waist and his hands deep in his hair, encouraging him.

“Look at me,” is said to him. Henry hums, lapping at both wounds. Sucking from the first where the blood is still most prevalent.

“Henry,” Alex sounds broken. “Henry, look at me.”

He’s not sure what compels him to comply. He has never before, this is true, been able to stop himself.

He doesn’t know why he does now. But he does.

When he pulls away with one last lap at his skin, Alex is smiling.

“Thank you for letting me see you,” Alex says breathlessly, brown eyes entirely black, palming at his cheeks, “Thank you.”

Henry whines. The unfiltered earnestness is what does it, he thinks. He must kiss Alex. Does so, and those hands wind into his hair once again.

They move together like this. Joined in every way two beings can. In one harmony. As one body.

They chase it together. And that is how it ends. The two of them, together.

The world as it is comes back to him in increments.

The first is Alex’s panting below him. His heaving chest and his hoarse laughter as beautiful as it is sudden.

Second is his own body. Spent and exhausted. He did not know such things were possible.

Third is everything else. Minuscule in comparison to this bed, this room, is the world beyond these walls.

“I genuinely do not think I have come so hard in my life,” Alex stares up at the ceiling, still laughing.

“Oh,” Henry says. Blinks. “Well. Me either. Erm.”

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Alex asks, teasing, “Oh my god, you’re so fucking hot, man, Jesus.”

Henry snorts too then, grimacing, “Don’t call me that when I am inside of you.”

Alex looks at him. Smiling widely, he laughs heartily, “You did it.”

Henry swallows. “I… I suppose I did.”

Alex leans up to kiss him once again. Henry closes his eyes.

“I think I really rather like you,” he confesses a little later on when they’re both washed and on the verge of sleep.

“Oh yeah?” Alex is smiling, he can tell, even in the pitch black.

“Yes. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Oh,” Alex’s chin dips into his chest. “Maybe you don’t need to do anything. This is really new for me too.”

Henry is surprised by this. “Really?”

“Yeah. Maybe we work it out as we go.”

“Mm,” Henry hums. “I think I would like that.”

Alex presses his mouth to his chest, smiling. And then he shuffles so that he’s pressed against Henry’s side. Henry follows his encouraging hands and turns so that he is also laid on his side.

Alex’s arms bracket him. His hand on Henry’s arm makes him feel enclosed.

Henry lies there. Henry waits until Alex is asleep to write down every feeling bursting out of him. And Henry sleeps.

The Met is nothing like Henry expected.

They traipse it and try and fail to cut through the sea of tourists and people recording videos in the exact same cadence and children on school trips just to catch glimpses of the art.

They had spent the morning in bed. Learning one another’s bodies some more. So, perhaps, it is their own fault that they’d arrived just as late as, well, every other person.

But Henry could not dare deny himself such alive beauty writhing beneath him as the sun rose behind them. Nor the mouth on his cock or the cock inside of him. He’d have to truly be dead to have done so.

So he does not quite regret it. Not really.

The Guggenheim is a lot less busy. They head through exhibition after exhibition, one about twentieth-century Europe and one rich with vegetation and a live piano performance that Henry finds himself welling up at. It's ridiculous that he thought of himself as capable of making like his siblings and going without his emotions for so long.

The tears do not stop for he wants to feel them. He wants to feel. He wants to feel everything he has robbed himself of. For his brother’s friend had taken his life, but Alex had gifted him it once again.

Alex’s hand slides into his and does not let go. Henry is so very glad.

They have lunch at a Thai restaurant with flowers draping from the ceiling and drinks inside of hollowed-out pineapples. He discovers another thing that he enjoys; fried ice-cream, and the feeling of Alex kissing it from his lips after they leave.

They end up at Henry’s apartment again. Bodies twisting and writhing against each other until completion and washing one another in the shower after.

They are already curled up, Alex is once again clinging to him and Henry is feeling gladly held when Alex blurts out, “You’re the first guy I’ve ever slept with.”

Henry’s eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Alex yawns against his neck. “I messed around with my friend in school but it was never… it wasn’t like this.”

Nothing is, Henry thinks.

“You’re the first man I have truly lain with in over a century. It was certainly not like this either,” Henry clears his throat, “If we are sharing things.”

Alex is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment.

“What happened?”

Henry bites his cheek.

“If you don’t want-”

“No,” Henry thumbs at his delicate wrist, “I want to share myself with you. It is just, erm, difficult.”

“Take your time,” Alex encourages, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

He does.

He shares in increments. Philip’s much richer friend, staying with them over the summer. Pursuing a Henry who had lost the father whose face he could not recollect. Pip’s friend, he could still see very clearly.

It was hard to forget the face of your maker. Of your killer.

He had just wanted to be close with someone. To feel a little less alone. And he had. Only, he had lost his life for it. And been granted interminable solitude.

Philip’s friend had left him there. Dying. Alone.

Only he wasn’t really alone, for he had condemned Henry’s siblings to an eternal death too. They had found Henry drowned in his own blood. And then he attacked them both.

“I have not shared any of this with anyone,” Henry’s voice trembles more than his physical being. “You are the first to know of this. I have felt for so long that this is my punishment for it all. This aching solitude.”

Alex pulls him to his chest, right where his heart thuds. He does not speak for a very long while. Henry allows the beating to take root and stop him floating adrift.

“Thank you for telling me,” Alex whispers.

Henry moves just to tangle his arms around Alex. Closes his weeping eyes to Alex’s hand in his hair.

“It's not your fault,” Alex tells him with such conviction that he almost believes it.

“I killed them,” Henry argues, two centuries of grief an unbearable weight on his chest. “I am what he made me.”

“Yeah,” Alex does not argue, “You couldn’t know what you were. You were… he killed you too. It's not your fault.”

Henry’s eyes sting. “I wish I could believe you.”

“Believe my wanting to be around you then,” Alex says, “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m obsessed with you. You showed me what you are, baby, and I’m still right here.”

Henry ponders. Could an undead heart beat once more? It felt as though his was currently able.

“I think you are the most beautiful person I have ever met.”

“And I think you’re stubborn. And refuse to see how great you are,” Alex says, a whole lot more securely, “Whatever you believe, I hope you know you could never be alone. Not if I can help it.”

Henry presses his cheek to Alex’s chest. His ear to his heart. And closes his eyes.

Henry spends another eve at the Loose Bean. Reading. Writing out half-dreams. Byron lines and Shelley quotes and tries to make sense of it all.

Business is all but nonexistent at night.

That same kind server from before sorts him a London Fog and then teaches him to make it. That and other drinks.

She praises his affinity for speed and precision.

And because it is late, when her shift ends, he walks the journey home with her. At the end of it she informs him that they will be hiring soon in the build-up for Christmas if he was considering staying behind the counter as opposed to in front of.

His gums itch with her so close. Of course they do. But he ignores it.

He considers. He thinks of what Alex had said. He declines politely and bids her good night. Goes home comfortable with the knowledge that she is safe and that, perhaps, he is capable of good things too.

Alex comes over again a few days later.

Henry preemptively feeds the night before - a man who had been harassing the young woman behind the counter. It is disappointing now that he has tasted Alex’s. A muted experience. Colourless. He, of course, does not share this.

When he does come over, they realise that the only food in Henry’s apartment is half a pack of noodles. So they head out for dinner to El Parado, the oldest Mexican place in the city. They order pretty much everything as a sharing platter and the server gives them wine for half the price when Alex mentions it's a date in Spanish, the words toppling over each other with his excitement.

He supposes it is.

They head back with half of their dinner boxed up and eat the rest on the sofa with the television showing reruns of the second season of a programme about a presidential office that Alex speedily contextualises when he asks.

They eat. They kiss. Henry licks salsa verde from Alex’s chin just to hear him laugh.

They fall asleep and awaken to the television airing Star Wars. Alex goes home when it ends, muttering about ewoks, and Henry cannot stop smiling for the remainder of the night.

He does, the following day, head back to the grocers that Alex previously took him to and stocks up his kitchen. Just in case.

“Have you heard any more from your boss?”

Alex looks up from his notes, glasses askew, smirking. Henry’s cheeks warm at the sight.

“About the store,” Henry clarifies, “Not-”

“I know,” Alex purses his lips. “Well. He’s meant to be meeting with a few buyers next week. That’s all I know.”

“Ah,” Henry nods. He returns to Don Juan.

“He’s been so fucking nice to me,” Alex tells him after a few pages, “Seriously. He’s said it's a condition that I can stay on when the place sells because I’m a student, so that's cool.”

“That is indeed very nice of him,” Henry agrees. He frowns down at the book. “I don’t know how many people are interested, but I do know Pez will be visiting next week.”

“The hot immortal you went to California to see?”

Henry lowers the book entirely. Casts a look around at the lack of customers in the book store, as always. “Do not let him hear you say that. But… yes. How on earth did you deduce that?”

Alex shrugs. “There’s only two photos in your entire apartment and they’re both featuring him. One of them is clearly on a Polaroid and you’re both decked out in awful polo shirts and the other is recent and he has clearly not aged at all.”

Henry is torn between wanting to roll his eyes or drag him into the empty storage closet to their right. “I-”

“Then there’s the fact you texted from Cali about sorting something with the store. Richards mentions a British guy named Percy coming this week, you mention a Pez visiting. Percy equals Pez. I just guessed.”

“You… you guessed,” Henry repeats.

“Yeah,” Alex shrugs it off. He takes a sip of his coffee as if he’d forgotten it were there. “I mean, if he got it you could come hang all the time.”

“If he got it, maybe the store would have actual customers,” Henry shakes his head. “You really are incredible, Alex.”

“Pfft. Obviously. Anyway,” Alex begins, and that is when Henry notices a spike in his pulse. He’s always monitoring it, of course, not just because of what he is but because it makes him feel better to hear it. “Uh, speaking of the next few weeks…”

“Yes,” Henry encourages. He takes a sip of his tea while he’s at it.

“It's Thanksgiving soon.” Alex says. Henry nods. It means nothing to him. “My sister is hosting. Well, not hosting, I guess - she described it as a get-together? Like, her and her girlfriend will cook dinner for a few people and then we just hang around and watch Hallmark until we die of food comas. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you wanna come?”

“You want me to meet your sister,” Henry states.

“Oh,” Alex’s eyes widen. He shoots up from his slouched position. “Oh my god, Henry, this isn’t - this is not me, like, trying to U-haul you. It's just, she’s basically one of my best friends which is kind of pathetic, I know. And now me and you are, uh, we’re-”

“Enjoying one another’s company,” Henry suggests.

“Enjoying each other’s company,” Alex breathes out, “So really, it's me inviting you to hang out with a few friends of mine. Do not read into it. God. I’m sorry.”

Henry swallows. Looks down at the table. Back at Alex’s lovely face, half-sheltered and half-hopeful.

“You’re the first human being that I’ve - er. I tried to spend time with the young woman at the Loose Bean but I just barely avoided biting her after a few hours. I suppose I don’t want to make things uncomfortable with my… proclivities.”

“So we make sure you feed,” Alex shrugs. “Get rid of any of your nerves. I’ll do it. If you want.”

Henry’s chest squeezes. “Alex.”

“I will,” Alex crosses his arms. “If it’ll make you feel more comfortable.”

“I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“Good thing you’re not asking. I’m heavily suggesting.”

Henry bites his lip. “You really are so very good, aren’t you?”

Alex’s cheeks are a high pink. “Yeah, well. I really want this.”

Henry is fairly sure he’s not just talking about his sister’s get together.

“I will attend with you,” Henry says softly, reaching out for Alex’s hand. “I can hunt before. It is no matter, love.”

“You could,” Alex brings his hand to his mouth. Kisses his knuckles and says against them, “Or you could cut the self-punishment and just feed from me again.”

Henry exhales. Hard.

“I don’t know if that is a good idea.”

Alex pulls a face. “Probably not. But I want it.”

Henry desires it too. Of course he does. He thinks it is unwise to admit how much.

“We’ll see,” he settles on. “What do you fancy for dinner?”

A few days on, Alex spends much of the morning rearranging the bookstore per Richards’ request.

Henry helps, with Alex’s explicit instruction, as it cuts the time in half. Alex is just stumped for the main display. What to really show off. Claims that it has been the same display of varying self-help and cook books since Alex started two years ago.

Henry knows exactly what to place there.

And when Alex is preoccupied with the window display, Henry rearranges the main display in the foyer to feature Alex’s rebinds. Classics on top. Poetry in the middle. Contemporary at the bottom.

When Alex reenters the store, the first thing he does is cry. Openly.

The second is that he kisses Henry stupid. The third…

Pez lets him know that the meeting is successful.

He does not do this over text message as he would have assumed most logical an act, nor a phone call.

(He had texted. And called. And knocked several times. Henry had just been too preoccupied to have noticed, heightened senses and all.)

Heightened senses had not taken into account the feeling of being in the lap of one Alex Claremont-Diaz.

So. Pez arrives to inform him. But Alex is kissing his throat and stroking him in his trousers, and he therefore - justifiably - truly does not notice.

Pez gasps in delight as the door slams. This he does notice. Alex scrambles and Henry climbs off of his lap, flushing red so quickly his head spins.

“Pez,” he slurs, throat hoarse, “I-”

“Am busy clearly,” Pez says, perfectly fine as Henry grapples for his clothing, “I can come back later.”

“Hey, Alex,” Alex says while tugging on his trousers, which only serves to make Henry redder, “How did it go?”

Henry splutters, exasperated, as Pez claps his hands together.

“Very well, thank you,” Pez beams. Extends a hand to a shirtless, mussed Alex and then thinks better of it. “Not as well as your afternoon, clearly. Percy Okonjo. Your beau’s best mate and your new boss. Pleasure to meet you.”

Alex bounces in delight too. “No fucking way. Really? How’d you manage it?”

“Eh. The man was very, very keen to be clear of the place, can’t imagine why,” Pez shrugs. Henry pulls on sweatpants that stop at his ankles. “Haz, afternoon.”

“Good afternoon,” Henry clears his throat. He slides a hand between Alex’s naked shoulder blades, passing him a shirt with the other. “I would like to reiterate that I did not intend to leave Richards alive but that I was preoccupied.”

“Well, I’d say it worked out rather well for all parties in the end. Daniel is very delighted by the prospect of living in Brooklyn. Big fan of Wes Craven, he is.”

“Such a fucking classic,” Alex beams. His undone belt brushes Henry’s hand. He does it up swiftly. “Oh. Um-”

Henry finishes buttoning up his very, very creased shirt. Pez is still grinning very much like the Cheshire cat.

“Well,” Alex pulls on his shirt. “Pez, do you drink?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Why don’t we go find us all a glass, huh?”

Henry cannot help himself. When they’re gone, he smiles too.

Henry discovers that Daniel had also flown in with Pez. Naturally, Pez heads off for dinner and to get home to an apartment he hasn’t touched in decades soon enough.

“I cannot believe that this is how you met Pez,” Henry complains into his glass.

“Eh. He’s really cool. Plus I don’t really care,” Alex says, curled into his side. His own empty glass sits beside the empty bottle and their empty plate donning only smears of crema. “Do you?”

Henry bites his lip. “I suppose not. I care that he interrupted us.”

Alex snorts. Lowers his mouth to Henry’s shoulder and traces the skin, just barely. Just enough to make Henry ‘s breath shaky.

“Nobody’s here now,” he mutters.

“You’re utterly insatiable,” Henry teases groundlessly, hand falling to Alex’s hair.

“It's your fault,” Alex argues, kissing up his open throat. “So hot. So pretty, baby. How could I not want you every second of the day?”

Henry groans, long and deep. He drains the glass and lowers it to the nearest surface. Then he’s sitting back against the sofa cushions and parting his legs.

Alex smiles, self-satisfied and smug, and carves a place between them on his knees.

He has a hand around him soon enough, like he’s just as desperate to get him off as Henry is. If not more. And then he’s marking a torturously slow path down his body to his cock, kissing and biting until Henry is pleading with both voice and body for him.

Alex opens his mouth and looks up at him, bottomless brown eyes pleading. Henry guides himself inside and those eyes flutter shut.

“You’re so good for me,” Henry strokes through his curls, fucking into his mouth. “So good. So good-”

Henry awakens to a cold bed.

There’s soft mutterings from elsewhere in the flat. A scratch of ink on paper. Alex humming a melody he had heard before. He’d heard it in the park that night of their first date, he thinks.

He does not think too hard about it.

Henry stretches. Enjoys the feel of a worn-out body. Squints at the sunlight that half-obscures his still bleary vision. Smiles at the warmth that spreads through him.

And then, of course, he finds Alex studying.

Henry enters the living area with two mugs, one earl grey and one coffee. He drops the latter in front of Alex on the table and smiles widely at the searching hands and the smack of lips against his jaw.

“Mornin’,” Alex rasps, pushing his glasses up. Then he regards Henry with a raised eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Mm. Yes,” Henry curls up beside him. Rests his arm over the back of the sofa and his cheek against it. “Tired.”

Alex snorts. Cranes his neck to kiss his hand. “How late were you up reading?”

“I resent the insinuation that this is of my own making,” Henry yawns. “I do not remember.”

“I bet you don’t,” Alex teases, deep and coarse and entirely too attractive for eight in the morning.

“I do not understand how I am tired,” Henry confesses truthfully. He sees no need to lie after his confession about his maker. He thinks he could lay his soul bare for Alex to take and he would like him anyway.

It's a little maddening a thought.

“Mm,” Alex considers. “I don’t know. Does it happen when you don’t feed? You were really out of it that day when, uh, yeah. When you bit Richards.”

“That is true,” Henry says, “It had been longer than usual. But I don’t think I was tired. Starving, yes. But not tired like this.”

“Maybe it's like… the more sleep you get, the more you actually need it. Does that make sense?”

“Oh.” Henry had not considered this. He thinks of how when he does sleep now, which is often, he wakes craving the taste of tea. Not thirst nor hunger but a craving all the same. “That makes sense, yes.”

“Maybe it's all the time you’re spending with me,” Alex wiggles his eyebrows in a ridiculously endearing manner.

“Perhaps.” Henry smiles at him, at the thought of something so mundane as insomnia coming back to bite him after one-hundred and eighty years, “What are you preparing for at present?”

“Four-thousand words on the merits of fair use defence in copyright law, I guess. Luna has such a fucking hard-on for Lockean labor theory,” Alex speaks around the words as if they are poison, “It's so boring I’m convinced I’ve spent all morning asleep.”

“Mm. Have you eaten?”

Alex’s face twitches. He suddenly becomes very interested in his computer.

Henry chuckles at the bewitching nature despite himself. “No matter. I will make us breakfast. I read that a cooked breakfast is key to ailing the after-effects of drinking. Something about kickstarting the liver’s process.”

“Oh my god,” Alex groans. “I’m done. Like, I’m out.”

“Oh.” Henry sits up.

“I can’t believe I thought you were, like, this terrifyingly hot and mysterious creature. Like, oh my god, he might kill me any moment type of shit.” Alex drops his laptop to the sofa arm. “God, you’re just not real.”

“It's - it's just breakfast, Alex, I deign to-”

Alex groans some more. “Shut all the way up. You’re so cute it makes me, like, insane. I just have to, like. Do this.”

Henry anticipates and welcomes the kiss.

It's a kiss that does not lead anywhere, however. Just sweet. Enthuasiastic. Just like its maker.

Henry’s still smiling to himself when he’s plating up the egg and toast - a dish he proudly does not muck up - and when he curls right back up beside Alex with two plates in hand.

For the next few days, Alex transforms into a man living a half-life as he buries himself in studying for a paper.

He inhabits Henry’s desk like a permanent residence, only leaving when Henry gently coaxes him into eating or taking a break or resting. These periods almost always end with Alex leaning against him, bleary-eyed and docile.

It does feel nice. To provide. To care for him. It's odd. To be the one doing so. To have switched like so, but he likes it very much.

Although, the more that he thinks on it, the more that he realises he has not been behaving as he once did for a while. For one, he has not visited or spoken with his sister. He has not felt the urge to.

He recognises that for what it was now. A reminder of what he is and what he has made of her. What she has made herself. A form of punishment.

He used to on a near daily occurrence. He does not wish to any longer. He may not be good and he may not be a man, but he wants to live like one.

He teaches himself recipes he finds online for that week. Attempts sausage sandwiches and pie and migas so that Alex does not go hungry. He tries falafel and makes extra portions entirely for himself. Adds this to the sprawling list of newly-discovered loves.

At the end of each day, Alex crawls into his arms and lets himself be held. Sometimes they go straight to sleep. Mostly, they kiss until sleep washes over them in a gentle, sweeping wave.

Alex does get top points on his paper. Of course he does.

Henry collects flowers when Alex is asleep and brings them to the foyer in congratulations. Yellow roses.

He takes Alex to the Thai place once again to celebrate.

They talk of Alex’s class and Rafael Luna’s joy for him and how the Bar exam sits on the horizon in his next year. They talk of Henry’s other lives and the places he has seen and those he has yet to see too. Of his love of Paris and how he has always wanted to traipse it as a lover and a writer and not a sole figure without being either.

Alex takes his hand in his and kisses it. Says, in his usual way of unwavering surety, that they will go together.

They head back to Henry’s home together, Alex’s hand a searing mark on his waist. It is an unspoken decision.

Alex dedicates the evening to taking him apart with his fingers and his tongue and, eventually, slides inside of him. Gratitude and prayer leave Alex’s mouth as one so many times that Henry feels reborn again.

It is a very, very good week.

Henry meets June Claremont-Diaz on a Friday afternoon.

Henry and Alex are sitting on the floor of the bookstore, a copy of Frankenstein between them.

They had ventured to see the newest adaptation. Henry had gotten rather cross at the changes but cried so very much that it did not matter. And then they had, of course, headed right here for Alex’s shift.

Pez is in the back office, Henry can hear, sorting through a very uncomfortable evaluation of the place’s assets.

“I cannot believe they cut out Henry,” Henry brings his knee up to his chest and rests his chin on it.

“I can,” Alex leans back against the wood, “It's Netflix, babe. Of course they did.”

“I suppose,” Henry frowns at the page. “But it's del Toro. If anyone were to understand the inherent queerness of the story, it would be him.”

“Netflix,” Alex repeats. “They fucking suck. They cancelled Sense8. They’re on my shit list forever.”

Henry hums. “Sense8?”

Alex snorts. “Oh my god. We’re introducing you to the Wachowskis’ best work when we get home.”

Henry flushes deeply. Alex blinks at him from behind his glasses - brought out due to the film’s length - and stammers out the beginnings of a response. That is when Pez’s newly obtained doorbell chimes.

Alex stands and Henry stumbles up afterwards, limbs useless in the wake of his words.

“Oh,” Alex stops before the desk. “Hey.”

“Hi,” a woman strikingly similar to Alex says with a calmness he does not possess retorts, and then her eyes slide over Henry. “I was just coming to check you weren’t dead. Hello.”

Alex squints at her. “Sure you were.”

“I sent you a million texts about Thanksgiving. It's this weekend, remember? Be glad it's not Nora,” she glares at him. Then she once again looks Henry over, not unkindly. “Henry, right? Hi. Sorry.”

“Sorry, yes, I am,” Henry nods, blinking. “And you are June?”

“Correct,” she smiles, “It's really good to meet you. My brother will not tell me a thing about you other than that I should leave him alone because he’s busy, which-”

“Oh my god, June, really?” He hears Alex’s pulse stammer. “You’re such a dick. Obviously I’m coming. We both are.”

June turns to Henry again, “Sorry about - I’m really glad you’re coming. I’d have totally understood had you not wanted to.”

Henry smiles at her too, calmly despite how his mind races.

“Well, it was a no-brainer for me,” he says truthfully. “I wish to thank you for the invitation to dine with you in the first place.”

Her eyes get that same minute squint to them. The same he had seen in Alex at the start, in the park.

“Sure,” she says. “You don’t have any dietary things to look out for, do you? Only, as you can probably guess, Alex doesn’t respond to me and-”

“Oh my god,” Alex half-laughs, “June, could I please talk to you?”

“Sure.” She says, clipped. She smiles politely at Henry. “Be right back.”

Henry nods. He pretends to not overhear their entire conversation in vivid clarity.

Alex is cross that she chose to turn up without warning and freak Henry out. June is worried that Alex is falling back into old habits when it comes to school. Alex, in typical fashion, tells her exactly how inaccurate that is - that Henry has not allowed that.

Her tone changes. She asks if he is happy. And Alex looks directly at him when he says beyond measure.

He watches them bicker and laugh together in the same breath and he thinks of a lifetime ago. He smiles.

When June returns to them, she reminds them of the time that they should appear at her home this weekend. And then she is leaving and Alex does not mention the slip of his tongue before she entered. Henry does not either.

Henry leaves Alex sleeping to hunt.

Himself, Pez and Daniel all hunting in one city is troubling so he heads past New Jersey instead.

Pez had shared whispers of a group of conmen who robbed the vulnerable. Henry draws it out as he once would. The taste of their fear should inspire a kind of ferality in him that is unspeakable. Chasing them should make it taste like ambrosia. It settles that gnawing hunger inside of him, that is true. It is just so very bland.

He comes home unsatisfied despite the several bodies. Alex is awake.

“Where we’you?” Alex mutters, sitting up from the sofa with the blankets pooling at his hips. Then he blinks a few times. Henry can tell by the pique in the air when the blood staining his shirt becomes visible.

He’s overtaken by emotion at the sight of him.

“Feeding. Why are you awake, love?” Henry settles on, pulling off his shirt for his pyjamas.

“Couldn’t feel you there, I guess,” Alex confesses. “You’re warm for a vampire, you know?”

Henry smiles despite his mood. Alex is affecting like that. He pushes his hand into Alex’s hair and watches him go with the tide. His eyes peer up at Henry, open and so very wide.

“We should get you back to bed,” Henry says softly. “Come on.”

Alex makes a noise. He climbs off of the furniture and falls under Henry’s waiting arm.

Henry falls into bed with a sigh. Alex wiggles so that he is the little spoon tonight. Henry smiles, presses a few, stray kisses to his neck and wills sleep to take him too.

“What if they do not like red?”

Alex’s lips purse in a manner of a man trying not to laugh. “Baby,” he starts, “They’d accept Winemakers if you offered it to them. Don’t think too hard about it.”

Henry frowns. “You prefer white to red.”

“I do,” Alex nods. “They do not care. Trust me.”

Henry breathes in, out. Nods. Lifts his chin. “Alright.”

Alex beams at him. “You really are ridiculously cute.”

Henry smiles too. “I want to make a good impression.”

“You will,” Alex tells him. Takes and squeezes his hand. He’s stopped from saying anything further by June appearing in the doorway.

“Hello Henry,” she says warmly, and then, to Alex’s preemptive snort, “Alex. Would you come in already please? Nora’s begging me to introduce her.”

Alex rolls his eyes. Takes Henry’s hand in his and leads him in behind June.

“Could you tell her to tone it down a little? Just for today?”

June smiles back at Henry again. He does feel a whole lot more at ease, he must admit.

“She’s just a little passionate, no off-button,” June explains to him, “I’m sure you’re familiar.”

Henry smiles widely. “Yes.”

“Hey,” Alex says in jest, but then a woman with tight curls comes bounding into the hall as they do.

Alex drops his hand to drag her into a hug. Henry offers the wine to June then.

“Oh,” June says as though she did not see him clutching to the bottle like a life raft, “This is so sweet. Thank you, Henry.”

“Of course,” Henry warms as Nora’s eyes slide over him, “I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”

Alex and Nora separate. She blatantly looks him up and down before taking the bottle from June’s hands. “This is the good shit. I’m impressed. You pass.”

Henry nods. “I didn’t want to, erm, assume tastes but I like this one very much. Hello, I’m Henry.”

“I know. Sorry, yeah introductions, right? You’re Henry. I’m Nora.” She hums. “You’re very dressed up.”

Alex interrupts. “Nora-”

“Sorry. I mean, you look nice,” Nora amends. “There’s a general, like, snack and drinks area just through there on the coffee table. If you wanna start pouring your expensive wine, I wouldn’t say no.”

“I’ll show you,” Alex says, sliding his arm around his waist, “C’mon.”

The short walk gives Henry the opportunity to take in their home without the pressure of interaction.

It's really very comfortable. Stylish but very much lived in. Not quite modern nor archaic but a very good blend. He thinks he likes the bay windows most. The sunlight touches every part of the living room.

Alex leads him to the sofa and curls up. Takes a handful of pretzels as Henry opens the bottle up.

“Okay?” he asks.

Henry huffs a laugh, pouring them both a generous serving. “Yes. They are very… nice.”

“June is,” Alex argues, “Nora’s a pain in my ass. A blunt pain. Can you believe we were best friends before she and June even met?”

“Yes,” Henry says. Alex gapes at him. “Sorry. Did I say that much too quickly? I apologise.”

Alex bites his lip. “No. No, actually, we dated, you know? For, like, genuinely a week at the start of college.”

“Oh,” Henry says.

“Yeah.” Alex frowns. “I don’t think we even really wanted to be together. It's like a fever dream. But we stayed best friends. And then she met June and now they’re just, like, symbiotic. They’re never apart. It's weird.”

Henry nods. Takes a long swig from the glass. “Hm.”

Alex takes a sip from his own. “So. They have a sick library. Do you wanna see?”

Henry grins. “Absolutely.”

“I actually can’t believe they cut the end scene,” June says around a mouthful from the head of the table, “Like, what do you mean it's too sentimental?”

“I must apologise on behalf of the British as a whole for that,” Henry slices through a broccoli stem, “I find it utterly maddening. But I choose to believe it is part of the movie. If you share deleted scenes, then I elect to decide they are canon to the text.”

“For sure,” June beams at him, sighs, “It's just so romantic, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. I do think I prefer it to the series even if it is a little less accurate.”

June laughs. “Same.”

“1995 had the Darcy lake scene though,” Alex argues, nudging Henry’s foot. Henry dips his head to share a smile with him.

“God have mercy,” Henry mumbles, “That is true. But 2005 had the rain confession. I’d wager that’s more attractive than anything in 1995 - as much as I love Colin Firth.”

Alex’s breath grows shaky. Henry smiles wider.

“I’d argue Emma is the best adaptation we have for Anya alone,” Nora says aloud.

“Dear God, the nosebleed,” Henry agrees. “Yes.”

“And she’s hot,” Nora adds. “If we’re talking deleted scenes, I’ve literally never been more turned on watching a movie.”

Henry surprises himself by guffawing. June laughs too, a hand over her face.

“Yeah,” June says, “That too.”

The meal, delicious, is followed up with the four of them curled up in the living area to watch the 2005 edition of Pride & Prejudice. With running commentary. It is mostly June and Henry.

Then, with the addition of his wine and a bottle of red pulled from somewhere, Alex and Nora too.

They leave their home with leftovers and a hug from both.

Henry feels very, very content. And relieved that it went so well.

He is also, possibly, a little bit inebriated.

“I’m so happy,” Alex says against his neck as Henry’s unlocking the door, mouthing at him.

“I can tell,” Henry teases, purposely brushing back against his crotch, “Let us get inside first, yes, darling?”

Alex hums. Moves his mouth to Henry’s jaw instead, teeth scraping at the delicate skin.

Henry swallows a groan. Closes his eyes, forehead to the cold surface. “Alex,” he warns, unmoving.

“Yeah. Yep,” Alex agrees. Except then he’s pressing Henry to the door directly, hands on his waist and cock against his ass and Henry’s spine zips. “God, nobody can see. You live in a penthouse.”

Henry winds a hand in his hair, “It's the principle of it. I - you are not fucking me against my front door, you heathen.”

Alex presses a kiss to his skin. And then he releases him. Steps away.

“Okay.”

“What are you..” Henry begins, hearing the way his voice slurs. And then he stops himself. Shakes his head. “You’re evil.”

“Just abiding by what you said,” Alex says lightly, “No sex against the door.”

Henry tongues his canine. And then he’s unlocking the door, pulling Alex inside and pushing him onto the bed at a speed he purposely doesn’t exhibit often.

By the time of Alex’s next blink, Henry is undressing at the foot of it. Alex, to his credit, takes it in his stride. He beams, climbs to the end of the bed to help him pull down his trousers and looks up at him with nothing but one question in those bottomless, dark eyes.

They find a place there; Alex sat at the end, mostly dressed, and Henry in his lap, very much naked. This is something he’s discovered he enjoys very much. Being in his lap, his arms, his grip.

Being in control is very appealing. But this is too. Perhaps more.

They prep him quickly but surely, clumsy and desperate with the aid of their moderate inebriation. It's intoxicating; how hungry they are both to get Alex inside of him.

He likes it best like this, he thinks as he sinks down onto his cock hastily pulled out of his trousers. Bracketed by Alex’s arms, entirely his, and held.

They move together. Messy and uncoordinated. Greedy thrusts. He’s not sure who is using the other. Maybe both. It's so good that he so quickly loses himself.

Alex’s throat is so close, and he’s arching his head back on purpose, Henry can tell.

“I want it,” Henry admits with his mouth against the dip between Alex’s collarbones.

Alex laughs like he’s said the magic words, breathless, slams him back down on his cock. “So take it.”

“I shouldn’t,” Henry argues, and he knows it's a moot point. Especially when Alex swallows and thrusts into him like so.

“You want to,” he says simply against Henry’s ear, “You should. I want it. Are you gonna tease or are you gonna do it, baby?”

“Oh,” Henry whines, somehow the one at Alex’s mercy despite being the one with fangs and superhuman strength. Or lack thereof.

He is very, very into it.

Alright, he thinks. They have done this before and Alex was fine. He stopped. Alex was fine. And he craves it so very badly. Not just the blood - although that is a significant part of it - but the intimacy that it involves. He wants everything. He wants more.

“Do not stop,” Henry tries to warn but it forms into a beg.

“No fucking way,” Alex whispers, so quintessentially Alex as his hands squeeze Henry’s waist that he laughs.

It rids him of nerves. Just a bit. That and the heady cloud of their shared desire at getting what they both want most.

Alex tilts his head, and he nods. Henry makes sure to meet Alex’s eyes as his fangs extend, one final bridge between them, and he watches them flutter shut.

Then he lowers his mouth to his throat. And he bites.

Euphoric. That is the only possible word to describe it, and even that is not fully accurate.

Alex’s hips stutter as he whimpers openly. He doesn’t feel distant from him. This time, it is as though he is the most connected to another being he has ever felt.

He shudders at the first swallow of his blood. This is amrita. This is what he has lived a half-life of a hundred and eighty years for.

Henry slides a hand under Alex’s shirt, palming at Alex’s bare chest as he drinks. Right where his heart is.

Alex pulls him back down onto his cock, and Henry rips his mouth away. Presses one, two kisses to his throat and then wipes his face before slamming their mouths together. Alex makes a desperate, keening noise or maybe it was Henry, and they continue.

It is nothing short of bliss as their hips move in tandem. Not against each other, desperate to get to their own orgasms, but together.

At some point, right when his toes are curling and his eyes rolling, he’s surprised by a wetness between their faces. He’s crying. Henry is crying.

Alex pulls away. Presses their foreheads together. Cups Henry’s hand on his chest and tangles their fingers together.

He wishes he could say that is not what does it. That the feel of Alex pulsing inside of him did it, or perhaps the blood of the pure warming him through, but that would be a lie. It is Alex’s tenderness that takes his hand and guides him gently over the edge.

And it's all-encompassing. He knows with surety that he is ruined for anyone else. He is so very glad and so very overwhelmed that he cannot stop the way that he begins to weep.

Alex kisses his cheeks. Thumbs his eyes. Kisses and kisses and kisses him.

Henry slides his arms around him, his hands into his hair, and knows that he is at last seen entirely.

“What’re you writing in there?”

Henry lifts his head. Alex peers at him from the other side of the shelf, chin on the wood between Goaches and Goddard.

Henry places his chin on it too, to Alex’s delight, and pockets the journal. “None of your business.”

Like a dog with a bone, Alex pouts, “Why?”

“Because,” Henry says childishly. “It's nothing.”

“Liar. You keep it by your side of the bed,” Alex retorts. The mention still brings him up short, just a little bit.

It's only been a few weeks since Pez officially opened the shop back up and they are exactly a few hours out from the opening party. It's been even less since Alex unofficially moved into his flat.

By this, he means they moved half of his things into it because he spends more time there than not. They are still taking things at a normal pace for human beings, he’s told, but glacial for him. No matter, he will wait as long as Alex needs.

Well.

“It's an amalgamation if you must know,” he says, as though it's remotely difficult for him to be honest with him.

There’s an audible thud as Alex drops the box of new titles by his feet. “Oh?”

“A lot of it is rubbish. A lot of talking to the wind. Quotes I enjoy, things I have seen.”

Alex hums. And then his mouth quirks. “Am I in there?”

Henry flushes. “Perhaps.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, of course you are,” Henry huffs, “How could you not be?”

Alex makes a noise. Another Goddard slides in to the left of his head.

“I can’t believe you came in here and tried to act like you aren’t the most romantic fucker known on planet Earth.”

Henry rolls his eyes. “Stop it. I could be writing absolutely awful things. Like how you leave your socks on the floor or toothpaste uncapped.”

“Oh my god,” Alex groans, slapping the last book into place. “You’re guilty of the sock thing too, baby, so don’t even-”

“Oh my,” Pez whistles, “No, please do not stop. This is much hotter than the last time I walked in on you.”

“I cannot stand you,” Henry sighs, moment broken. He turns to find Pez in a bedazzled lilac number with dyed hair to match, though, so he cannot truly be mad. “Oh, you look lovely.”

“Hot,” Alex adds. “How you feeling?”

“Excited to get shitfaced,” Pez shrugs. “No, no. A half truth. I am very excited. You?”

“I feel good. Ready to brag to everybody about how fucking cool this place is.”

“Hear hear,” Henry says, dips his head when Alex beams at him.

“They’ll tell legends about this night, boys,” Pez declares, tipping an invisible glass, “The Texan and the Brits he lured into this place to give it a second go of it.”

Henry is shaking with silent laughter. “You are ridiculous.”

“But I am right,” Pez insists, “Well. I wasn’t so much lured as I was gently manipulated by you into saving your boyfriend’s dying business but I digress.”

“There was no manipulation,” Henry says calmly.

Alex nods. “I’m inclined to believe him always, actually. Sorry Pez.”

Henry chuckles, tangling his finger around Alex’s. “Actually,” he starts, “We should probably both get ready, actually. For, er, your opening night.”

“Gala,” Pez amends, “Yes, go. Be back for six and look extremely delectable and I’ll put away your mess, yeah?”

Henry laughs as Alex begins tugging him toward the doorway. “Yes. Yes, of course. Thanks, Pez.”

They leave to Pez laughing too, around the word wankers.

“This is interesting.”

Henry looks down from where’s trying to amend the bunting that he heard fall, guilty.

“Sorry,” he says. He nods to the glass of wine on the nearby shelf. It thumps with the bass drop in the main hall below.

“No, don’t be,” Alex says. Extends a hand to him. “You don’t have to worry about it being perfect. It already is.”

Henry lets him help him down the ladder. Tilts his head back with a smile when he’s grounded and Alex’s arms merely wrap around his waist.

“What’s up,” Alex asks.

“Just,” Henry gestures vaguely. “I worry that… There are a lot of people in there. A lot of people that I want to be impressed by this place and you and Pez.”

“You’re doing really great,” Alex smiles, pecking his cheek once. “I think my sister wants to steal you.”

Henry snorts. Lowers his face to Alex’s shoulder and feels only a numb, buzzing desire to bite. He sighs.

“If you don’t feel comfortable in there, we’ll leave. I mean it. But I’m willing to bet this is a you being in your head and not a you being scared you’ll rip everybody apart thing.”

“Christ, love,” Henry huffs at the imagery, “Well. You may be right. Again. What a pain.”

He hears the smile in Alex’s voice when he says, “I think that Thai place is still open.”

“No,” Henry decides. He lifts his head. Smiles at Alex’s wondrous, lovely face. “We’re celebrating your place of work. Your work. I intend to be the last one to leave.”

Alex hums. “Don’t wanna go back in yet?”

“Not really,” Henry admits, “Actually. I was just about to make a call when I was done with that blasted bunting.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, okay,” Alex nods. “I’ll tell June you’re dealing with an unscheduled stock order or something.”

Henry smiles, grateful. “Thank you, my love.”

“Yeah, of course,” he steals another kiss like he can’t help himself, grins against his cheek when Henry smiles, toothsome and wide.

“I really am rather gone on you,” he says, “It's a bit of a predicament.”

“Good,” Alex kisses him in parting. “I’ll save you a falafel patty before Nora gets them all.”

Henry nods his thanks. And then Alex is gone.

He downs the glass. He makes the call. And then he waits.

Henry does not speak at first, wishing to hear the other person simply existing too. She, of course, gives no sign.

He closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what possessed him to make this call.

“I am well,” he begins shakily but surely. “I know I have not spoken to you in a while.”

“You haven’t,” Bea says, voice scratchy and unused, the first time he has heard it in quite some time.

“I intend to stay in the States,” he tells her. Ripping off the bandaid, Alex had said when he’d confided in him last night.

He hears Bea swallow. The first sign of something.

“Why?”

“I enjoy my life here,” he admits. “I really do, Bea.”

She doesn’t speak for a few moments. “Is it the boy? The bookseller.”

“Yes,” he peers through the window. Up so high, he can see Alex greeting a latecomer. A handshake and a wide smile. “Percy is here too. Daniel.”

“You’re foolish, the bunch of you,” comes another voice he has not heard in even longer. He stands straight. “Colluding with them is a mistake.”

“Perhaps,” he tells his brother, “But I am certain it isn’t. And I am sorry that you cannot see such a thing possible.”

“You really aren’t coming back?” Bea asks quietly.

Henry’s eyes prick. “No.”

“You sound happier,” she comments. Then there it is. Her voice shakes. “I’m glad.”

“Yes,” he wipes his face. “Me too.”

“You’ll write to us,” Bea asks. Tacks on, “To me.”

“Of course I will,” he smiles, bittersweet, “I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you,” Bea says. “Goodbye, Hen.”

He closes his eyes to the nickname he has not heard in a hundred and eighty years. And he hangs up.

Alex, as though through some divine intervention he cannot begin to understand, looks up directly at him through the frosted glass and the Quill & Quiver sign. His face falls, and then he’s making his way inside. And Henry is following that pull to, that rope to his chest, and making his way back into the main room.

He’s pulled into Alex’s arms.

“How did it go?”

“Fine,” Henry says, laughs wetly, “Better than I thought.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Henry pulls back. Presses their foreheads together to take an opportunity to breathe. Alex lets him. “How did Pez put it earlier? Getting shitfaced, I believe it was. I would like to get shitfaced.”

Alex laughs. “I think that sounds like a great fucking idea.”

Henry smiles. Catches June’s eye where she stands beside a few local booksellers too, curious but as warm as her brother’s. He smiles wider.

“But first. Come,” he tells Alex, “I believe there are a few people I’d like you to introduce me to.”

Alex smiles too, open and bright. “Well,” he says, sliding a hand around his waist, “Come on.”