Title: Selective Amnesia
Fandom: Being Human
Spoilers: Up to 4x07.
Warnings: Blood drinking. Mild violence. Swearing.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.

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Summary: It turns out that Hal's the sleepy kind of drunk. (AU – diverges from canon about halfway through 4x07.)

I'm still wearing my shoes. Dirty shoes, up on the bed: I need to take them off. I'll have to clean the bedspread – except that's not my bedspread. Something's wrong, but there's a buzzing in my head that's making it hard to think, and the light is searing my eyes: I must have forgotten to turn it off. I forgot to take my clothes off, too. Something's very wrong. I fumble for the light switch, but I can't find it – can't even find the wall, just metal underneath my fingers. Panic jars me from the bed, but the ground heaves beneath my feet and I fling an arm out, grab hold of wire. Wire mesh: a cage. A cage with a bed, and a light. And my coat draped neatly from a hanger. I'm still in the warehouse.

Cutler's locked me up. Bloody Cutler, of all people, is keeping me a prisoner, and it's been decades since anyone did that to me. I've no idea how long I've been here. The windows are boarded up, and the skylights have been painted, but that might be sunlight seeping through. My watch swims into focus – it's six something: not yet dark – and blurs back out again. There's something I'm supposed to do, somewhere I'm supposed to be, but I'm trapped inside this fucking cage. Well, I was breaking out of prisons before Cutler was born. Before his great-great- however-many-times-removed was born.

Two steps back and a deep breath. Brace for the impact – but the door flies open. I hurtle through and out, thump down onto my hands and knees, concrete grit-sharp against my shins. The door wasn't locked; I was free to go. I need to pick myself up – but up and down keep seesawing. I crawl back to the cage and anchor myself to the mesh. Cling on, and haul myself to my feet as gravity swoops and whirls around me. The pulse is wincing in my temples; sweat prickles all over my body; nausea lurches in the pit of my stomach, but I'm hungry. And there's this taste in my mouth –

There are no rushing feet, no shouts. No sign of anyone, in fact, apart from a single voice out there in the gloom. One half of a muted conversation, but I know that voice, would recognise it from a whisper as well as a scream. I unhook my fingers from the cage, take a few experimental steps. I feel better now – good, almost: the dizziness is fading to a pleasant buzz – although I wouldn't swear I'm walking in the straightest of lines.

Cutler's leaning up against the table with the skulls and ribs and spines. He has his back to me; I could leave. The lights brighten his hair to tarnished gold, and glint off the decanter, making the blood inside it glow. Two clean glasses, and two dirty ones; there's a rusty flavour lingering on my tongue, and fractured memories rattling inside my head. A glass, trembling to my lips; the rich tang, flooding my nostrils, making my mouth water even as my throat tightened. Down in one glorious, burning swallow, and then – a blur, a fever dream: too bright, too sharp, too hot. Blare and dazzle: too much, all too much, and everything fading, falling. Darkness.

Cutler: he still has his back to me. I could still turn around and walk away, but I haven't done what I came here to do and I'm not leaving without that information. I could make him talk: I always had ways to loosen his tongue. But I'm not that man any more; I choose not to be. And Cutler's not quite the man I remember, either, and it goes against the grain having to tread softly, to bide my time. To stop and consider how Cutler might react. But I need to know what he's up to. So if I have to swallow my pride, if I have to smile and drink another glass of blood – there's enough left for both of us: still a few inches in the bottom of the decanter – then that's what I'm going to do.

"How soon until you get here?" Cutler's still talking into that bloody phone. He must have realised I'm here by now, but he gives no sign. "Good. Come straight in."

He hangs up, and that's how I know that he's heard me. He doesn't look at me, doesn't acknowledge me in any way, just switches his phone off and drops it into his pocket.

"You stayed." He stares at the decanter, as if the contents hold the answers to all life's questions. Once upon a time, he believed they did. "You stayed because you want something." His fingers close around the handle. "So, how did Hal Yorke end up like this?"

He pushes the decanter away: away from me. The glass grates along the table, grates on my nerves. It's not that I want to drink – I'm glad I don't have to look at the stuff, to breathe in the aroma of it – it's the fact that he's playing games with me. That Cutler is playing games – with me – and he actually thinks he can win. Thinks he can beat me, when I'm the one who invented the rules.

"Tell me what you're planning." I shouldn't even have to fucking ask.

"I won't let you act like the last fifty-five years never happened." He almost snarls: bared teeth and red anger. He's forgetting who he is; he's forgetting who I am. "I want answers, Hal. I deserve –"

"You deserve what I choose to give you, nothing more."

He blinks just a little too quickly; his lips pinch together for the briefest moment. Small betrayals, but they don't escape me, and the predator inside me scents his fear and grins back into life.

"I already told you what you wanted to know." Cutler rallies, drawing himself up to his full height, trying to exploit that half an inch he has on me. "But you don't remember, do you?"

I do, but not everything. Not the right things. I remember Cutler's face warming into a grin. I remember him tipping back his head to drink – always a messy feeder; always greedy – staining his lips a darker red. Eyes darting towards me as he licked them clean. Arms closing around me, holding me closer or holding me up: it's lost in the haze.

"Look, Hal, I don't want to know all your secrets." I stare up at him, because that extra height means nothing – never did, but Cutler's always been a slow learner. "You've got things you don't want to share – and that's fine." I step closer, invading his space, stealing his air. "But you left me. Not just left, but let me think you were dead." He keeps talking, that nervous, mobile mouth twisting around the words, his tongue peeking out as he struggles against the urge to moisten dry lips. "You can't just walk in here and expect me to –"

"Shut your mouth, or I'll find a better use for it."

My hands reach out to caress his face. He flinches, tries to back away, but there's nowhere for him to go, so he settles among the dirty ivory of past kills. His thighs fall slack, then part, and I'm drawn into the space between them. If he didn't yield, I wouldn't push. If he didn't give, I wouldn't take – and, god, I want to take. I crowd him and he arches back, even though there's still an inch or two of trembling air between us, his spine straining beyond what can possibly be comfortable. What we had was never comfortable.

His voice is strangled, but I can hear him grinning when he says, "I knew you were still in there."

It's wrong – I know it's wrong – but it's hard to resist the lure of old habits, old appetites. Cutler's neck curves beneath me and I want to bite, to sink inside that pale flesh, to reclaim what's mine. I fasten my lips to his throat, breathe in sweat and aftershave and arousal. I press my tongue against his skin, feel the artery throbbing just below the surface, feel him shiver against me. His hands clutch at the remains of the dead, and it's almost like old times. The blood leaps and tingles in my veins and, when I lean my weight against him, we both groan.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Alex. And those gorillas Cutler tried to introduce me to earlier. His very own Louis, his own Dennis – and I know exactly what to read into that. Alex: pale, trembling, but still trying to wriggle free. The more she struggles, the faster her heart beats, churning that delicious panic round her body.

"All right, guys." Cutler's shoving his way upright, straightening his jacket. "I think we'll be able to handle the girl."

The men grin at her as they leave, and she glares right back. Anger looks good on her. That dress looks good on her, too: it highlights the soft pink of her skin. It exposes her neck. She changed for our dinner date – I remember now: that's where she was, where I was supposed to be.

"What the hell is this? Some sort of weird practical joke?"

She doesn't run: she's scared, but she's not scared enough. That's the problem with humans: they think they're the top of the food chain; they never believe it's really happening, not until it's far too late. Not until they see the eyes, the teeth. Until those teeth are buried in a vein, and the blood is spurting. Until the blood stops spurting – weakens to a trickle – and the heart spasms and the eyes go dull.

Alex is young; she's fast. I'm faster, and I yank her round by the wrist – pin her other arm when she tries to punch me – press her back against one of the cages. She doesn't scream, but I hear the breath sob in the back of her throat. She's squirming against me, hot and frantic, and she's only going to make it worse for herself. She shakes her head and closes her eyes, as though that's going to make this all go away. As though it's going to make me stop. And there it is, the old refrain – god, please, no – just like that coroner. Like the man in the pawn shop, on the day that Tom stopped me. The day that Pearl passed over. The day that Leo died. Leo: I made him a promise.

Clean, salt air still clings to Alex, and I suck it, shuddering, into my lungs. Her eyes are still squeezed shut against the sight of me. She closed her eyes for me once before, at the museum; she trusted me, and I found the strength to walk away from her. Now her skin is cold and clammy, and her breath rasps, harsh and shallow: she's terrified, and I can feel a sympathetic pang somewhere behind my ribs. But I want to drink – want it so badly I can almost taste the hot gush of her in my mouth – and the hunger-shame-desire-revulsion fuses me to the spot.

"Run."

She blinks at me, not realising that she's free. Then she runs. I hear the door creak open – I'm striding towards Cutler: intercepting him – and then it slams shut. Alex is gone. But she's not safe, not yet. Cutler's face is twisting in confusion, in anger. He wants to go after the girl, but I'm standing right in his path. He's going to call his men.

"Don't." There are already two stupid, angry men in the room, and that's enough. "I don't want to have to kill you."

There's the strangest look on Cutler's face: desperation or determination, it all boils down to the same thing: he's liable to do something rash. To find a stake. To launch himself at me with just his fangs and his bare hands. Cutler lurches towards me – and stops. His shoulders slump; his head droops. He half reaches for me and there's pain, real pain, glistening in his eyes. He gulps, swallowing down the words he never dares to say, but I can't deal with this now.

"I'm going to walk away, and you're not going to come after me." I can't even be near him, not when the temptation is so fresh, so raw.

I turn away – and I'm looking right at Alex. She's standing in the doorway. She doesn't move; she doesn't speak, and I've no idea why the bloody woman isn't half a mile away by now. She stumbles forwards: she's actually coming inside. Then she looks back over her shoulder, to where a dark shape looms against the fading daylight. I can't see his face, but there's a gleam in the shadows and I can feel his eyes on me. I want to look away, but it's too late: it's already too late.

"She ran straight into my arms." Mr Snow steps across the threshold. "Are you hungry, Hal?" He smiles.