Title: Seems Like Yesterday
Spoilers: All series 4.
Warnings: Nothing too graphic, but does contain blood drinking, violence, murder and implied non-con.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
Summary: There was a time Hal and Cutler were friends.
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Cutler doesn't mean to hit her so hard. Doesn't really need to hit her at all, but he's eager to impress and she just keeps on struggling. A frantic energy surges through him – it isn't pleasure: feels more like fear – and his fist crunches into bone. The woman falls, and she doesn't get up.
Cutler stares down at her. His hand is still clenched, but it's trembling with the shock of impact. He crouches, pressing his fingers to the crease of the woman's neck: hunting for the hectic rush of life; already knowing that he's not going to find it. Hal is watching from the armchair, cigarette dangling from his fingers. He sighs, expelling smoke and irritation in equal measure, and Cutler tastes the man's disappointment, acrid in the air.
"I told you not to play with your food."
Cutler drags the woman's collar down and yanks at her necklace – and pearls explode in all directions, bouncing and clattering across the parquet floor. He can feel Hal's scrutiny, a silent, unrelenting pressure, but the woman's getting cold and Cutler's hungry veins are shrieking. He bends lower over the still form.
A stinging burn at the back of his neck. Cutler yelps – flinches, bats at it – and Hal's cigarette hits the floor in a shower of sparks. His maker is frowning now, and Cutler forces himself to his feet.
"Not when they're dead."
It's bad form – poor taste – and so Cutler has to go hungry. It's all right for Hal: he doesn't seem to need it, not in the same way that Cutler needs it. Hal can turn his back and leave all that blood to fester, undrunk. Cutler watches the other man walk away, and he wonders if he, too, will some day be free.
They say that Herrick's got too big for his boots. That he's making waves, refusing to toe the line. In Cutler's opinion, the man has a point. They're a hidebound lot, these vampires. It's not just Hal who seems to be living in another century. Pointless traditions and outdated ideas: in the real world – the human world – all of that has been crumbling since the war. Cutler can sympathise with what Herrick's trying to do. But the man himself …
Herrick's scared. Scared enough to be here, to have answered Hal's summons. But there's something about him that makes Cutler glad he's not alone with the man. Herrick can sense it, too: he's staring at Cutler. Just sitting there and staring, with the sort of grin that tells a man he's debating whether to kill him quickly or to flay him inch by agonising inch.
The clock ticks slowly on. Not that Hal needs it: he has a watch, older than Cutler, but it keeps impeccable time. No, the clock is there to remind visitors that they're being kept waiting. That Hal has the power to keep them waiting. And that's the worst part: knowing that Hal's in there, on the other side of that door, while Cutler's out here with Herrick's cold eyes staring and staring. Louis is no use: he sees Herrick's smile, not the teeth beneath it. The big idiot takes a penknife from his pocket and starts scraping dirt from under his nails: scritch, scritch, scritch.
"Let me get you another drink."
Cutler manages to keep the decanter from rattling against the glass as he pours. He turns – and Herrick's there, right there, and the smile's gone now. There's something violent inhabiting Herrick's skin, and Cutler wants to protest, to shout for help – to call to Louis – but the words strangle in his throat.
"I'm sorry to have kept you so long."
And there's Hal, striding towards them, and his hand rests on Cutler's shoulder as he passes. Just for a moment – the most casual of gestures, the most familiar – but Herrick sees it, and he takes a step back. It ought to rankle, being claimed like property, being marked like territory. But it's territory that Hal's prepared to fight over – not to fight for, but it's good enough – and all that Cutler feels is an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Hal pulls the stocking out of the woman's mouth. Air gasps into her and shudders back out: she's too weak to scream. Too weak to struggle, as well, but there are still a few minutes of life left in her. There's no point in letting her suffocate, not when her blood's still beckoning brightly – and Cutler wants to follow that salty stream back to its source, to lick his way up cooling skin to the dozen oozing holes in her thigh.
But she's Hal's kill, and Hal has already drunk his fill. And now the man's content to roll onto his back and stretch, and prod the woman with one idle toe while the sheets blossom with red. Saliva floods Cutler's mouth, and he gulps it down. Hal's watching him. Hal's always watching – watching him, watching everybody – all surface smiles while underneath he's bored, or sneering, or planning murder. This time, his maker is laughing: laughing at poor, hungry Cutler. Desperate; pathetic.
A broken, animal noise escapes the woman, but Cutler hardly hears it. He sees her mouth move, watches her lip crack redly open – she bit through it while Hal indulged in the preliminaries – and he wants to kiss the last of the blood out of her. But, amazingly, she's moving: feet kicking spasmodically, heels digging into the mattress, pushing herself along. Pushing herself away from Hal, but he's up on his hands and knees, grinning down at her as he tracks her painful, inching progress. Her arms jerk and flop; she gropes blindly towards the bedside cabinet, fumbling for something, anything, that might save her.
Now Hal pins her: just one hand, it doesn't take much. The other hand is lifting the woman's wrist, and Hal is tearing open another vein, but he doesn't drink. This is his kill, and the bastard would rather let it go to waste than share. But then Hal is extending that bleeding flesh in Cutler's direction, holding it out to him the way he'd offer a glass. And Cutler's sucking frantically, dragging the heady warmth into his mouth before he pauses to wonder about the price. About what today's lesson is going to be. Cutler tenses for the hand clamping down on his wrist, for the arm closing around his throat – for the soft, cutting words that always follow. But they never come.
A drop of wine escapes, running down the outside of the glass, and Daisy darts an agile tongue to lick it off. She catches Cutler's eye and winks; she's been flirting with him all evening. She's not exactly subtle, but Cutler can't afford to be choosy, so he smiles back. Daisy snatches an asparagus spear from his plate, and when she wraps her lips around the bulbous, glistening head, arousal sizzles through him, right down to his toes.
But Hal is aiming a smirk at Daisy, and it's only half contempt. And, if Cutler's going to be honest, she's been flirting with the older man all evening, too. But that's normal. That's just the way things are: the women prefer Hal. And even if they don't he lets Hal take them anyway. Hal's good at taking without asking, and he won't let the fact that he calls Ivan a friend get in the way this time.
So here they are, the three of them. A triangle, with Hal and Daisy the shortest side – getting shorter, too, as Hal eases his chair closer to hers. And then Hal trails his fingers down her arm, his knuckles just brushing against her breast, and the arousal settles, hot and pulsing, in Cutler's groin. He pushes away his plate of half-eaten food: getting ready to leave; conceding defeat.
"Daisy, Daisy," Hal croons, "give me your answer, do." Now his hand is teasing up her leg, and Cutler can see the top of one of her stockings, a stretch of pale thigh. Cutler's breath hitches and gasps. "The answer's yes, isn't it, Daisy?" She's looking right at Cutler, but Hal's fingers bury themselves between her legs and her eyes flutter closed. "The answer's always yes."
Hal shares his kills sometimes, but Daisy's not a kill and Cutler can't just sit here, watching. His chair screeches on the tiles. Hal frowns, but Cutler can't stomach any further humiliation. He wants to hang onto what's left of his dignity, to be allowed to leave – even if it's just to go somewhere private and finish himself off. Hal's unfastening the buttons on Daisy's dress, but he looks back over his shoulder.
"Aren't you going to join us?" he asks.
Hal grins at their silence. He's enjoying this: watching them squirm, drawing out the suspense about who he's going to take, who he's going to leave behind.
"Wales?" Fergus sneers. "I preferred the bloody Crimea."
It's his idea of subtlety: reminding Hal of their past exploits, pointing out that he's the longest-serving of their little band. But Cutler can see the tension crinkling the corners of his eyes; Fergus is worried that Hal might be ready for some fresh faces. He ought to be worried: Fergus is stupid, blinkered – not like Cutler. But Hal and Fergus have history.
"I might need you to knock a few of those Welsh heads together." Vampires like their history.
And then there's Louis. If Fergus is dense, then Louis is imbecilic. Lucky him: he doesn't have the sense to be afraid, to wonder if maybe Hal is feeling cruel or fickle, or – worse yet – bored. A simple nod from Hal, a slap on the shoulder, and Louis goes back to his pint, blissfully unaware of just how thankful he should feel.
Dennis waits in silence, leaning against the bar, mouth a gentle curve inside that wiry mass of beard. The weathered composure of a man who's endured a lifetime or three – or maybe just a bloody good poker face. Cutler's never quite been certain.
"I hear they've got a bit of a werewolf problem," Hal says. "I'm going to need my best dog handler." Dennis is safe. Of course he is: Hal does so enjoy his dog fights.
Now Hal is turning to Cutler – Cutler, who's been left till last, but that doesn't mean anything: he's the youngest, the newest, after all. Hal is taking the others; surely he won't leave his own blood behind.
Cutler clasps his hands against the urge to fidget, to stammer out something stupid, but it's hard to keep your mouth shut when your whole future is at someone else's mercy. Cutler's stomach clenches, and he's back on the terrace of the Rivoli Ballroom, taking Rachel by the hand and going down on one knee. Old pain tightens like scar tissue around his heart, but he mustn't think about that – he has to think about the future.
Silver flashes through the air. Cutler flings out a hand, catching instinctively; he stares down dumbly, as though he's never seen a car key before.
"Fill her up," Hal tells him. "You're driving." And Cutler can think about that future, now.