The figure hurried out of the alleyway, pulling her coat tighter around herself and sniffling.
"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, this isn't your fault boy it isn't I just…"
She leant against the wall, sobbing to herself and trying to keep it quiet. She wouldn't look back in, if she looked she wouldn't be able to walk away. She couldn't live with….with it, think of him as an it, already dead. She couldn't live with it, not looking like it did, like….like him.
"Please, when you get t-to Heaven tell Him I….oh God, God forgive me please!!"
As the sound of running footsteps and sobbing disappeared into the night, there was a low rumble of thunder and the first pat of raindrops.
And a newborn baby's thin wail rose to meet it.
-
Victoria pulled the man down the road. "Y' coulda picked a better night for this."
The man held the umbrella, smirking at the young prostitute. "Is there ever a good night for this? Now, I believe it was….?"
Victoria rolled her eyes, ducking down an alleyway and pushing the man against the wall. "You're not payin' me for talk." She jerked his fly down with less then a polite grip, hand dipping down and dragging a gasp out of the guy. Well dressed, snappy suit, she could and would make a mint off this one. "And I don' expect any intelligent conversation out of you anyway."
The man was about to protest when she slid to his knees in front of him, and Victoria mentally chuckled as she dipped a hand inside his pocket, pulling out his pay-packet she'd noticed earlier in their 'negotiations'. As her mouth did the hard work, the man struggling to hold the umbrella above them in the storm, she neatly lifted half the money before slipping the envelope back in. Sucker.
Victoria shifted, trying to keep her bare legs off the pavement. As her knee came down unexpectedly on something soft, there was a pathetic-sounding faint wail that made her back off. "Wha'….?"
"Wh-why'd ya stop….?"
"Shuttup."
That wail brought tears to her eyes unexpectedly – No, Victoria, don't think of that, don't – and she looked down.
There was a baby on the ground.
"Oh my god…" The guy had obviously just spotted it as well, judging from the immediate lack of interest. He quickly zipped himself up, crouching down. "Is it dead?"
Victoria hesitantly stroked the baby oh god it's so cold and it shifted a little, a soft squeak coming out of it. "No. Almost, though." Don't pick it up oh god….
"Oh Jesus." The man was actually crying. "You poor, poor bastard. Here." He gave Victoria the money she was meant to be earning about now. "You can't let him die, girl. Take care of him."
Victoria looked at him wide-eyed. "I can't. I can't."
The man sighed. Gesturing at the naked baby angrily, he shoved the money into her hands. "Somebody left him to die. Don't give them the satisfaction. Please, madam, as a favour."
Victoria looked down at the baby, undecided. He was so weak he couldn't cry, and it would only take maybe half an hour of exposure more. But….he was….so little….so tiny. Must be a newborn. He tried to squirm as rain fell on his face, and instinctively Victoria wiped it off, then reached out and picked him up.
"Attagirl." The man smiled, helping her up. He pulled off his jacket and helped her wrap the infant up in it, then walked with her to a taxi stand.
As Victoria sat in the warm, smoky comfort of the taxi, she looked down at the tiny bundle in her arms. The baby was nuzzling her, probably able to smell the milk she'd been unable to give to her… don't think of him.
-
Victoria didn't let go of the baby when she got back to the house where her and several other girls lived. Even when they cooed over him or gave her funny looks. She quickly wrapped the small boy in warm towels and dried him, noticing his skin was…soft. Almost as if he was covered in a very fine layer of velvet.
And, as Victoria noticed when she breastfed him, he seemed to have a full set of very sharp fangs. Which he didn't sink into her, thank God.
She looked down at the baby and smiled as he suckled, thumb stroking the tuft of blond hair on his head. "How could anyone leave somethin' as cute as y' to die, boy?" She murmured.
She wouldn't keep him, she decided the next day as she tucked him into a small basket next to her bed in her tiny room. He opened his eyes, fixing bright blue onto her own as a tiny hand curled around a finger and he mewed slightly. Victoria smiled, rubbing his cheek and cooing as he nuzzled into her finger and yawned. Take him down to the hospital tomorrow.
A week later, and Victoria smiled at the boy as he opened bright blue eyes and squeaked as she tickled under his chin, kicking slightly. He was so adorably cute, if slightly strange – his skin really was covered in a fine coating of fuzz, and his hair felt more like fur. Coupled with the fact he had fangs and tiny, tiny claws….and his pupils were ever-so-slightly slitted, the baby was strange.
"I s'pose I better give you a name, eh, boy?" Victoria murmured to him quietly. The boy was putting on weight fast, and showed very little outward sign of being close to death. The baby blinked up at her, going a little cross-eyed, and Victoria giggled. She couldn't give him up now. "Well… I'd give you my old one, but you're a boy. Ruth wouldn't suit ya, eh?" She winced as he nibbled her knuckle, teeth scraping the skin. "Well…I'm no good at names. Tell you what, boy, we'll call y' Victor. Victor Creed. Like tha'?"
The baby squeaked and then yawned, still nibbling at her knuckle. Victoria smiled, stroking his hair again. "Victor Creed… my son."
