Chapter Text
Hong Kong, 05-08-1991, 2:02 AM.
We all have bad nights. Sometimes you step in a puddle and get shit all over your shoes. Sometimes your dickhead boss calls you in for unpaid overtime. Sometimes you find a moment to yourself and wonder why you put up with it all.
And sometimes a pair of punks make a mess in your territory, but you haven’t fed in days so you’re hungry as shit and it makes you sloppy.
So I’m a puk gai with my face in the pavement, and I can hear that little voice in my veins come up while the gash in my temple stitches itself together. The idiots think I’m really dead—and maybe they aren’t wrong, but they sure as hell aren’t coming out of this feeling like they made the right choice.
When I get to my feet, the look they’re giving me tells me they know they made their mistake. But I’m already too pissed, and I’m really fucking hungry.
Maybe I should have kept one alive. Maybe I shouldn’t have drained one into a shriveled up corpse—but despite the sweat and the stubble and the grease and the aftertaste of pork intestine, it tastes so fucking good, feels like nothing else feels anymore, and suddenly I’m on top of the world, I’m flying into heaven, far, far out—
And then the poor lady whimpers, slumped up against the wall, and her bruises fade, her cuts heal, and her terrified, gemlike eyes find mine.
And I know I shouldn’t, but she’s not healing fast enough, and I don’t think about it as hard as I should, but she’s looking at me; she’s looking at my wrist, sliced open. Her tongue tests my skin, then her fangs sink. Her Kiss gives me wings, and I’m flying again, past the stink and the mud and the neon lights—I’m in the clouds, with the sun on my skin, but she’s a dragon, and the sky is getting darker. It’s all getting darker—
“Fuck no!” I scream as I shove the greedy bitch off of me. Her head smacks against the brick wall, and her hair fans in puffy waves. Her eyeliner’s a little smudged, and the deep red of her lips is pouting at me like I’ll be dumb enough to give her more. My vitae’s still dripping down her chin, and a drop lands on her collarbone. Her pale skin reaches down to the low V-cut of her vinyl dress. Her chest doesn’t rise or fall. I feel like I’ve seen her in a dream.
Then the rain starts to pour, and I remember I only have a few hours until sunrise. I’m an idiot, I keep telling myself, as I wrap my leather jacket around her. We get out of the rain, run through the streets.
Neon is glowing in the mist, and for once the city feels quiet. It’s dimmer by the time I lift a rolling shutter and let her inside my little hideaway.
“So,” I say, wiping myself with a towel. I plop down on the table across from the beat-up couch she’s sitting on. “Got a name?”
Not a word leaves her. The metal hum of the shop's coolers buzz in the silence. I give up after about fifteen minutes and head to the sink to wash my face. My chest's still flat, and there's an apple in my throat, but I have a guest over who already knows too much about me. It still bothers me, though. Uncle Wei says that you learn to get over shit like this in our line of work, but after about 80 years there's a lot of shit I haven't really gotten over.
It's not really the time to brood, though. A Ventrue should always keep up appearances, after all. And the little mute on my couch? Malkavian, maybe, but who knows? Everyone's batty when they're hungry. I dig through my freezer, then toss a blood bag on the table in front of her.
Batty just looks at me, unimpressed. She's still wearing my jacket. It's loose on her shoulders, but the collar flares around her porcelain neck. The tips of my fangs poke at my bottom lip. I swear she's about to smile, and she pats the cushion beside her.
It's getting harder to deny what this really is when she looks at me like that. I don't know where my head is. But my ass finds its way on that couch, and then she's leaning into me. The taste of iron's stuck on her lips, and on her teeth. Her fang cuts my tongue as I slide over it. Her nails are tracing over my shirt. She draws lines across my abs like she's memorized the shape. Her waist is thin around my arms, and she's so soft pressing against me. Her hips are grinding on me now, and the vitae is flush in both of us.
Her palm presses on my chest, and she breaks our kiss, looking me in the eye. Her lips hang open, and her pearly fangs shine with a promise. I'm trapped beneath her weight, and I'm stuck on the way her waist curls as she rolls against the cock in my jeans.
"Fuck," I cry out, leaning my head back on the armrest. She's nibbling at my pulse, teasing the skin without piercing the flesh. I'm losing breath I don't even need, and fuck she's good with her hips, with her sexy fucking lips on my neck, please, my mouth's trying to say, please—
Batty Kisses me for the second time this night, and I melt into the cushions. The floor feels like it's thrumming beneath me. She's cradling me, and I wanna feel this way my whole fucking life. My veins are drying up.
She lets go just before I get there, and I'm starving again. Her eyes are bloodshot, and she's still grinding on my cock, and she's close too. So I tighten around her waist, pull her in closer, I'm panting into her neck, my fangs are throbbing, I'm sinking—
She's like heroin. Vitae squirts against my tongue, and I can taste her heartbeat. She's shaking, and I'm shaking, and her voice is so sweet as it echoes in the basement.
. . .
When the light on the ceiling stops burning my eyes, the zipper of my jacket is digging into my waist from the way she's lying on top of me. My ears are ringing, but I remember the blood bag I left on the table. I hold it out to Batty, who looks ready to pass out. She nibbles on it, and I shake the thought of going for another round.
By the time I hit the shower I realize I'm an idiot. But she's sipped from me twice—maybe it's salvageable. One way or another I need answers for this situation, or else the Ivory Tower will light my ass on fire for the murder scene I'll have to tell them about the next night. That is, unless I get my shit together and clean up the mess before they find out about it.
"Yo, boss," Cory says through the phone.
"Meet me at the usual corner. Bring stuff for a cleanup. Be quick," I say, promptly hanging up. Batty is still lounging while I'm drying my hair. When I squat down by my pile of clothes in the corner, I feel her eyes on me. I ignore her, rifling a hand through the mess for a dry shirt and a different pair of briefs and jeans. Plucking a black coat from a rack by the stairs, I tell her, "Stay here," then head out.
Cory's leaning on his fifth-gen Honda Civic when I get outside, but he doesn't waste any time being a hassle. "Hey, so you know, boss, I kinda need to be up early if you want me to take care of that thing for you today."
"Did you bring everything?" I jerk my chin to his car.
"Y-yeah. Did something happen?"
I look down at him directly, and he shuts up.
The drive is short and quiet, in part because I block his hand from the radio when he tries to turn it on. This kid should know the meaning of discretion by now—then again, he's cleaning up my mess. The street's still cleared out by the rain when we arrive at the alley, and the corpses are still there. I guess the kid's never seen an exsanguination before, because he doesn't even try to make smalltalk. He's been too chatty with me lately; I'm hoping this reminds him who he's working for.
We get the bodies in bags and in the trunk then drive off to the Wetworks. Luckily it's still raining, because our blood isn't gifted with strength, and it takes the both of us two trips to lug them across the closed stalls to the red lamp at the far end.
While Cory's chopping up the bodies, my back's against the tile wall and I find myself thinking about her again. Her taste is still on the tip of my tongue, and yet it's still too far. I drank from her, too. Even before that—those eyes of hers, like smoky quartz set in white marble—she could've messed with my head. But is that even possible without saying anything out loud? And why even get herself two sips deep in with me? Unless she was confident there wouldn't be a third.
Fuck, I shouldn't have left her alone in there. Why did I lead her to my haven in the first place! What's wrong with me?
And while I'm scrunching up my hair, Cory calls out to me again, and we're almost ready to go home.
We dump the bodies into the sea, and then we're sitting in the car. Ships are still coming in and out of harbor as their lights glitter across an ocean that could care less about all of the bullshit I put up with on a nightly basis. I envy the lucky bastards getting out of this glittery cage. We'll spend another 3 years or so 'packing up our bags,' and by then who knows if it'll be too late? And then one of the passenger liners starts to sail off, and I can almost see myself on the main deck, looking away from the glowing signs and the looming skyrises, out into the dark.
In the silence, I can practically feel the question on my ghoul's tongue, but before he can say anything, I say, "Cory."
"Yeah, boss?" he says cautiously.
Then his eyes fall into mine while my vitae is stirring.
"Forget," I say, and he does.
. . .
Batty's still there when I get home, except she's changed into one of my shirts. She washed off her makeup, and her lips are a light pink without my blood on them. She greets me with an innocent smile, but I'm already feeling death seep into my bones, and I need to make sure she hasn't messed with anything before I get too tired.
I sigh with relief when I find my crucifix in the lockbox hidden under my desk. It's always easier to sleep when I have it close at hand. Slinging it around my neck, I sit down on the couch beside her so I won't have to look her in the eye. I feel her staring at me anyways.
"If you can't talk, can you write?"
From the corner of my vision, she nods.
"Chinese?"
She shakes her head. Is she foreign? Either way, I go to my desk, sift around for my notepad—making a mental note to secure it somewhere safer. I flip through pages of intentionally vague reminders and rip out the first empty page I can find. Then I grab a pen and hand both to my mysterious houseguest. I lean against the wall so the table's between us, and I keep my eyes on her hands—delicate fingers, nails painted red.
"What's your name?" I try for a second time.
This time she just shrugs at me.
"Your clan then?"
Another shrug.
She's more cooperative with my vitae running through her veins, but it doesn't prove more useful. If anything, it leaves me with more questions—how does a Kindred just end up in an alleyway with none of her memories? After being beat up by mortals, no less. Maybe they were ghouls? Who the hell is pushing ghouls into our—into my territory?
I'm getting angry again, and I can feel the Beast getting antsy at the mere taste of it, but this time I'm not suffering from nearly week-long Hunger. Either way, none of this makes any sense, and I get a little sick in my stomach, because I know I'll probably have to ask Uncle Wei for help.
And I've been around long enough to know he charges a heavy bargain, clan-ties be damned.
Thinking about it wears me out, and soon I'm slipping into the spare cooler in only my t-shirt and briefs. The sting of ice soothes my skin, and the low hum is my favorite lullaby. I can feel peace coming, but then Batty steps inside the cooler with me, and in the dark, we're a tangle of limbs and dying flesh. I'm too weak for discomfort or protests.
As the night ends, we're nothing more than a couple of corpses in the basement of an ice cream shop.