Title: I'll Take a Quiet Life
Fandom: Being Human
Spoilers: General series 4
Warnings: Non-con. Violence. Blood. General unpleasantness.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters (I wish!), or make any money writing this stuff.
Author's note: Title stolen shamelessly from Radiohead.
Summary: Hal Yorke, meet Mr Snow.
Salzburg, 1802
Air gasps into Hal's lungs. His eyes startle open – a blur of red hair, of white skin – and he squeezes them shut. Raw pain, piercing the flesh beneath his jaw; Snow's mouth working, dragging the unwilling blood from his veins. Instinct snarls at him to fight, to thrash, to dislodge the man pinning him to the bed. He holds himself still. There's always a chance that Snow will tire of this, that he only enjoys it when his victims are conscious. Besides, he already tried fighting, and look where it got him.
Snow's tongue rasps once across the wounds in his neck. The smothering weight shifts, and is gone. Hal listens; he waits. His battered muscles start to ache, but he ignores them. The silence stretches out, pulling his nerves taut, setting his skin prickling with apprehension. He lies there, limp as a fresh kill. Playing dead: and the irony isn't lost on him. A giddy, gallows humour bubbles up inside him – but he mustn't laugh.
Fingers: trailing up his thigh, catching on the jut of his hip. The touch is gentle now, but he shudders under it, the memories igniting at the feel of that skin on his. Rotten breath, panting in his ear. Snow's fingers, closing like iron on his flesh. The pain – He blinks the images away.
"I had to do this, you understand." Snow's voice is poisoned honey. "You refused my invitation."
"Invitation?" Hal winces at the rawness of his throat, but outrage rips the words from him. "You sent four men –"
"Who would simply have escorted you here, if you'd been reasonable."
Anger burns away his caution, hurling him to his feet, but his head swims and his legs won't hold him up. He lands with a thud, the mattress sticky against his back. Blood: the bedlinen is drenched with it. Older splashes, already drying; fresh pools of it, glistening in the candlelight. So much blood, and all of it his – Snow spilt more than he drank. It wasn't hunger, then: a show of power.
"Discipline must be maintained," Snow tells him, "or we descend into mere chaos."
Snow fusses with his shirt and buttons up his breeches, and then he's on the bed again, his fingers smearing slick redness across Hal's chest. A single fingertip draws a line of loops and curves; when Hal realises the man is writing his own name, he can't suppress a shudder. The memories claw at him, but he refuses to let them in again.
"I'm not angry with you," Snow murmurs. He gently traces a bruise the size and shape of his own handprint. "I want to talk, but you've lost a lot of blood. Let me get you something to drink."
Drink: just the word sets Hal's empty veins roaring to be filled. The hunger slams into him, fiercer than it's been in years – more demanding – and all his defences have been breached.
Snow is almost at the door before Hal manages to gasp, "I don't –" He flinches at the cold anger on Snow's face, but he stammers, "I don't do that any more."
Before Hal can even flinch, Snow is on him. The first time, he'd held out a little while against the Old One's strength. But now he's groggy and slow, and his muscles tire quickly. Snow's fingers clamp around his wrist – a vicious wrench, and he's pinned and helpless, one arm twisted behind his back.
Snow's weight settles inexorably, absorbing the tremors that ripple through him, and this time the memories won't be denied. The mocking encouragement as he squirmed and fought. The endless, tearing stretch of being violated.
Then Snow is forcing his legs apart, reawakening the pain in his tenderest, abused flesh. The ring of muscle flutters and clenches, and warmth trickles down towards his balls. He's leaking: semen or blood, he can't be sure. He buries his face, and chokes out his shame into the iron stink of the sheets.
But maybe this is what he deserves. What he's suffering here is no worse that what he's done to others, so many times in the past. Perhaps God looked into his heart and saw that the guilt was fading – that his sleep was plagued with fewer nightmares – and decided to punish him with this. Hal sucks in a deep breath, and goes still.
"Don't be squeamish," Snow chides. "You haven't always been so fastidious. Or have you forgotten what your life was like before you put on those fine clothes and fancy airs, my lord?"
Snow leans in, closer still, and his breath whispers into Hal's ear. "Bastard. Whoreson. Born in a brothel."
Hal thinks for a moment that his heart has stopped beating, but he's being foolish: it stopped a long time ago.
"How –?" he gasps.
"I've had my eye on you."
So it wasn't chance that their paths had finally crossed. Snow had been waiting for him. Perhaps he'd even come to Austria to find him. Hal had thought that he'd been careful – quiet, hidden, safe – and all the time Snow had been watching him. He feels truly naked now, inside and out.
"Don't flatter yourself," Snow sniffs. "It's not just you. I know where everybody is. There's nowhere you can go that I can't find you."
It isn't true; it can't be. Hal could hide himself in London, or or Paris, even one of the teeming cities of the Indies. It will have to be somewhere with people, a lot of people, but if he's careful, if he stays dry –
The thirst tears through him, and he wrestles it down.
"You don't believe me. No matter. I suppose you'll insist of finding out for yourself, but you're hardly the first."
Unease stirs coldly in his gut at the quiet certainty of those words, and when Snow releases him it doesn't quiet his fears. But it's a measure of freedom, however limited, so Hal rolls over and flexes his aching limbs.
"But you don't have to run." Snow bares his rotten teeth in a smile. "I've been hearing your name: the butcher of Magdeburg; the man who ate the harem of the Sultan of Tangier."
The reminder hits him like a slap in the face. That was half a century ago: a lifetime. Another man had done those things, even if he was still cursed with the memories, and the guilt.
"You've caught my eye. There could be a place for you here with us. With me. The American colonies have fallen. The old empires are crumbling, and we will be there as the new ones rise. I can find a use for someone like you."
All that Hal can see is Snow's relentless smile. Inside this room – or outside, hunted – there's nowhere to run, no way to win. Panic shudder up his spine and seizes him by the scruff of his neck.
"I don't want to be part of that," he pleads. "Not any more." He's braced for the Old One's anger; Snow's amusement is far worse.
"Oh Hal, do you think this is about what you want? That you have a choice?"
"I know I have." He says it as though he believes it. "I can do this."
"For now."
"It's been fifty years."
"And in another fifty?"
Hal can't answer that. Not truthfully, at any rate. Thirsty or sated, good or bad – he's been through this enough times to recognise a pattern.
"Sooner or later you'll change your mind," Snow tells him, and it's hard to argue with a man who's voicing your own darkest thoughts. "Maybe sooner than you think."
Hal staggers to his feet. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Do to you?" Snow smiles at him indulgently. "Nothing. I don't need to." He leaves the door open behind him when he leaves.
Hal's clothes lie scattered on the floor – discarded where they were torn from him – but he doesn't have the energy to gather them up. He needs to hold himself together, to stay on his feet. He's halfway to the door and hope burns inside him.
A silhouette looms in the doorway; Hal stumbles back. Then the figure is jolted forwards, tumbling to her knees. She looks up at him through a tangle of hair and he sees that she's young, barely more than a child. Pretty, too: his favourite kind of prey. She scrambles to her feet, but her eyes are fixed on him. Hal knows what she must be seeing: a naked, bloodstained brute. He wants to tell her not to fear him, but hunger swallows his words.
Too late: Snow has already grabbed her by the throat, pressing her against the wall. Any moment now, he's going to twist her head to one side and sink his fangs into that delicious neck. To gulp down the first, heady spurts. The girl's heart is hammering, and it calls to Hal with its siren's song. His fangs itch for the long-denied sensation, and his vision starts to sharpen with the change.
A single sob, choked off in terror. Hal blinks. Snow has let the girl go, apparently unharmed, and she's edging towards the open door. Then Hal sees the scarlet oozing down her neck – just a scratch, just the smallest, tantalising trickle. The floor tilts dizzily beneath his feet. He wants to turn, to get as far away as possible, but his body lurches towards the rich scent of her blood.
"You're free to go, if that's what you want." Hal's head swings round and he struggles to focus. Snow is smiling at him from the threshold. "It's your choice; take as long as you need. I'll be waiting."
The girl is crying now, holding out her hands to beg for mercy. Why can't she see that her fear just makes the pulse throb harder in her throat, that her whimpers make the beast inside him lick its lips?
Her mouth is moving, but all he hears is the rhythm of her heart as it sends the blood singing through her veins.
Hal closes his eyes. When he opens them again, his world turns red.