A/N: Hi guys! This is my first Being Human fanfiction, so do enjoy! :D

Craving Affection

Hal felt his trepidation subside as he stood outside of the café, relieved that another torturous shift of human contact had ended. He despised his job and he despised his colleague more: a werewolf who was naïve in everything but his vampire-hunting skills. It was an embarrassment to admit that they went home together every day. Luckily he had no one to admit this fact to.

As Tom locked the door, Hal counted the seconds it took to close up and finally head home. Soon the two of them were walking side by side, exchanging pleasantries.

"You're a right dickhead, you know that, Hal?" Tom never ceased to be upfront about anything and everything, and this day was not an exception. Hal had been shooting snide remarks for the duration of their shift, so he hardly cared if the supposed Old One was offended.

Which, of course, he was not. Hal didn't value Tom's opinion enough – or at all – to take offence. He merely sighed at another vulgar comment, dressed in an accent that was barely comprehensible and would benefit from lessons in elocution. "I know that now." He retorted.

"Hey, what's that?" They were at the house now, and Tom had seen something grazing in the grass.

Hal identified it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's a feline, Tom – a cat. You do know what a cat is?"

Tom overlooked Hal's attempt to insult his deficient knowledge, too curious about the creature in the grass. The cat seemed to be returning Tom's curiosity, staring at him with equal intrigue. It hadn't anticipated two men to grace its presence, especially when it could sense that both weren't quite human.

Hal deduced from its untamed fur that they were encountering a stray. Strays were flea-ridden; diseased. Hal shifted uncomfortably at the thought of a flea-ridden house, and ebbed towards the front door. "Tom, we're going inside."

The cat's eyes reminded Tom of the marmalade Annie spread on everybody's toast in the mornings, and he kneeled down to examine their colouration better. What happened next surprised him. The cat perceived Tom as less threatening on the ground, and emerged from the grass tentatively.

It started to circle Tom as though he were prey, before pausing at his feet to sniff his shoes.

Hal was baffled. Why would a cat be attracted to Tom? The man was not only infuriating, but a werewolf! Didn't cats fear dogs?

Tom ran his hand through the cat's fur. "Can we keep 'im, Hal?"

"Keep what?" Annie must have felt their arrival, because she rent-a-ghosted to their location quickly. "What are you two doing out here?"

"Shooting the breeze, perhaps?" Hal's sarcastic remark was lost on Annie.

She pulled a face, like one she would make at Eve to cheer her up. "Is that a cat you've got there, Tom?"

"Yeah, we found him 'ere, didn't we, Hal?" Tom scooped the cat up in his arms, despite the risk of claws. However, the cat didn't appear disturbed by this gesture. It was actually purring.

Hal nodded, not keen to remain outside any longer. He needed to resume his routine in a few minutes so he was in accordance with the day's schedule. He also wanted to disappear before Annie reeled him in to help with Eve.

His routine was becoming less and less rigid nowadays; Hal's façade was slowly slipping.

Annie wondered if the cat would be a stabling influence on Tom. After all, he was a young man who needed attention, and a cat needed attention too. Her lips moulded into a smile. "Shall we give him something to eat, Tom?"

Tom's eyes brightened like a kid's in a candy store. "We can keep 'im, Annie?"

Annie bobbed her head, maintaining her whimsy smile. "We can keep him." She looked over at Hal, who appeared to be entering the house now. "Oh, Hal?"

Hal almost winced at the acknowledgement, foretelling the request that would most likely follow it. What could Annie possibly want from him at a time when he should be entertaining his dominoes – a backrub for herself, perhaps? A rusty cup of tea? A reason to be staked by Tom? He would happily oblige with the latter if it meant never working at the café again.

He glanced back and mustered a polite, albeit strained, smile. The corners of his lips twitched ever so slightly, as though smiling was unhealthy for him. "Yes, Annie?"

"Could you check on Eve before you… do whatever it is you do now?"

That was something Hal could fit in. "Certainly."

His dominoes stood on the table like soldiers, queuing up, awaiting orders. Hal had impressive attention to detail, and each domino was separated by the same amount of inches. Each domino was parallel to the next, and none were misplaced in the slightest. His precision with these things - so irrelevant to life - was immaculate.

Through achieving perfection with this minor task, Hal could accomplish a sense of control over his craving, and stave off the demons for another dark day.

He hadn't considered that this illusion of control would shatter momentarily. Hal should have shut his door like he was accustomed to, but something tempted him to be flexible today. Something tempted him to leave it open, test his rigor. After all, Annie and Tom were tests in themselves to his inelasticity every day. What harm could an open door do?

Besides, he wouldn't hear Eve cry if the door was closed.

Suddenly his dominoes were ambushed; something leapt up on the table and knocked them all down in the process. Hal was livid. For a moment all he saw was his dominoes – his soldiers – falling and hitting the ground. It reminded him of the warfare of his mortal life; the bloodshed and killing with which he sifted through seamlessly in his transition to a vampire.

What pulled Hal from his stupor and his flashbacks was the recurring meows which escaped the beast: the killer of his men; his dominoes on which he depended so much.

It was just that infernal cat, he thought bitterly, but it briefly represented a hell of a lot more to Hal. That cat was briefly everything he loathed about himself.

The cat's needy meows resembled Eve's needy cries, but they also emulated how needy Annie and Tom were at times; their constant need to intervene and weave their way into Hal's routine, as though they were worth the disruption. They evoked a frustration in Hal that he hadn't experienced for decades, but perhaps it was preferable to the numb contentedness he had been trapped in for a lifetime. In between the bloodlust he had a yearning to feel something sometimes.

Sometimes, he wanted to reach out and touch and feel something real. Hal hadn't registered that he had done just that – reached out to the cat and touched its ginger fur. His hand combed through the tangles before settling on the cat's head, scratching its ear with a tenderness he didn't think was in his capacity.

The cat appreciated being petted, purring against his fingers subtly. Hal felt a tinge of warmth at the reaction.

"Hal?"

His fingers retracted as soon as they had extended.

Tom lingered in the doorway, surprised that the cat had chosen Hal's domain as its refuge. He had searched every room for his new friend, except this one.

He was almost amused to stumble upon Hal's interaction with the cat, but he was more perplexed by the development, more curious. "What are you doin'?"

"I was examining the cat's coat for parasites – fleas." Hal wasn't necessarily speaking the truth, but he did abhor a filthy cat, and he didn't want to appear soft to the one person who would mock him for it. "I don't want to upheave my routine because the house is crawling with… with disease." Hal physically shuddered.

Tom deemed the explanation as believable, entering the room to lift the cat from its destruction. Tom observed it had destroyed Hal's domino activity, and quickly expressed guilt to avoid resentment. "Sorry 'bout that."

Hal nodded, warning him that it shouldn't be repeated. "Keep your moggy out of my room."

He didn't really mean it though.

"Her name's Nina."

Hal blinked. "It's female now?"

"Annie said it's a girl, so yeah." Tom was inching out of the room. "We'll leave ya alone now, to play with your dominoes."

Hal dismissed the stab at his little rituals, nodding again. "You're stalling my routine." He stated.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. See ya down for tea later."

Hal counted the werewolf's heavy footsteps before they ceased to be heard, proceeding to retrieve his dominoes from the ground. It was as he was picking them up that he realised how sad he was, how disappointed. He had been deprived of something he hadn't received for more than one lifetime, or his whole life, for that matter.

It only took a stray to inform him of what was absent in his desolate existence: affection. Perhaps that was why his craving for blood could be intense at its worst. To drink someone's blood would entail intimacy, and that was what he craved with equal passion. Proximity. Somebody's touch. The warmth of that touch. Its undertones of affection.

Hal craved affection as much as he craved blood, but he would deny himself both.

He couldn't have one without the other.