Author's Note: This story is the sequel to my Frederick Abberline/John Wilmot crossover, The Half Killed. I appreciate the readers who have enjoyed the first story and have moved on to this one. I hope you enjoy this tale just as much! Eloise and Frederick are back, though the story will primarily focus on John and his mystery Irish love, Darcy Gallagher.
Comments, criticism and compliments are ALWAYS welcome.
Thank you, E.
PROLOGUE:
Dublin, Ireland
February 9th, 2005
Midnight was rolling around at Whelan's and the last call had just been given. The crowd was heavy, but hardly competent, and hardly aware of a single thing he was singing. Still, John went on.
He dabbled and he strummed. He harmonized and he told a story even he wasn't sure he believed very much. It was a tale about a pretty girl in a garden. It was a song about a lovely bird with shining eyes and a heart torn in two. He didn't even know if he knew this girl anymore, or where she had come from this time, or how she had ended up in his set list this evening. He wasn't sure if she had ever even actually existed at all. Maybe, just maybe, she really was only a figment of the twisted black hole that was his un-life. He let it go for now and focused on where he was, what he was doing.
There was a rowdy mix of Englishmen and Irish drunkards strewn about from stool to stool, window to window, and corner to corner of the little pub in the middle of the big city. There were a few Greek goddesses tossed in, an American or two, and even a handful of Romanian gypsies at a table on the far side of the bar. He could hear them all. He understood each of their conversations and reasons for being there. He knew who liked his music, and he knew who absolutely loathed it. He knew which women were single, which were taken, and which were hoping to be taken by him before the night was over. The latter of which, was really all of them, betrothed or not.
They had twirled and shimmied and shaken themselves in front of the stage since the sun had gone down over the bay. They had dirtied the rims of glasses with a plethora of lipstick shades, and batted their eyelashes over a million different iris hues, and tossed about their hair at different lengths and angles and scents and tints. He counted the red-heads with blue eyes, the blondes with green eyes, the brunettes with gray eyes, on and on and on, endlessly.
None of this changed. No matter what city the band wound up in, or what country they stumbled onto the shore of. The women were the same. The tunes were the same. And the end result to heavy liquor and charming smirks was the same. In fact, he already had his pick.
He was opting for the daring copper-head lingering at the southeast corner of the stage, swinging her soft hips and swaying with his every word. She smiled when he looked down at her and she sang along with his words when he covered a song she recognized. He wasn't even sure if she was Irish, or English, or Russian. He wasn't sure if she would understand a word he said, when he finally hung up his guitar for the night, took her in his arm's embrace and led her back to whichever room in the city she had first crawled out of.
When he finished this song and the tired crowd applauded, he would mumble into the microphone, "Thanks very much. We're going to play just one more song for you, tonight. You've been great company as always, Dublin. We hope to see you again soon…"
Then he would turn to his band mates—the ex-pirate, the hippie and the convicted felon—make that same 'prepare to wrap' gesture, and draw his eyes back upon the dizzied audience. He would begin to lightly strum at his instrument, rocking it against his hips in a way that sent the little lass under his spell reeling, whoever she happened to be on any given night.
And then he would take off, beating out the rhythm of the same song as always. It was the song that worked like a well worn charm. It left the women in puddles on the dirty floor and the men in a desperate fit of needing to fill their sexual appetites. It made the band wild with excitement when he sang the words they all knew and loved, and it left even him in a decent enough spirit, almost always.
But he haunted all of them, all at once. He spooked them. He both dared them to cross him and begged them to shroud him in attention. He was at his absolute greediest with this song, and also, at his very gloomiest.
The dark of the alley, the breaking of day
The head while I'm driving, I'm driving…
Soft lips are open, knuckles are pale
Feels like you're dying, you're dying…
You…
Your sex is on fire!
Consumed…
With what's to transpire!
John plucked more determinedly at the strings of his old Fender and the toes of his boots neared the edge of the stage platform. The women reached out for him, breathed on him with the stale scent of perfume and Guinness and bar peanuts and mint gum. They stroked at his legs and his chest where it was tight beneath the cotton of his black t-shirt. They giggled and mumbled lyrics that absolutely had nothing to do with the song. He laughed, amused because he had to be, because this was the way he'd chosen to live eternally.
Wretched wandering fool, he cursed himself as he went on crooning darkly.
The music got louder, richer, and thus, began to work more and more on inducing the pub full of potential victims. The humans couldn't know what his band was doing to them. They couldn't know what all of this was really about, and what the four of them were really after by playing this way for them.
Hot as a fever, rattling bones
I could just taste it, taste it…
If it's not forever, if it's just tonight
Oh—
It's still the greatest, the greatest, the greatest…
You…
Your sex is on fire!
Consumed…
With what's to transpire…
He was singing directly to the vixen of his choice, narrowed into her hazel eyes with earnest attention and every promise he could possibly make to a woman before the morning sun. He smiled, and delivered every line of the song hungrily on her lips, his guitar stirring temptation between their bodies. She was lost and he knew exactly why. She was under the trance of pure, honest want and need.
She wanted him. And he needed her.
He needed to feed. He needed the sweet tang of a beautiful woman's flesh and all that lied beneath in wait, pumping furiously, giving life to her at every interval of the song. John needed to finish the set and call it quits for the night, take her by the hand and convince her that she wanted to take him back to her place, and that she wanted to undress him and make passionate love to him on every possible inch of her bed. He needed to satisfy her desires while indulging in zesty bites of his yearning. He needed to fuck her and make her feel wonderful and carry her down into a dazed sleep.
Then he needed to leave. He needed to decide where he was going next, search out his band mates in whatever two-bit, dodgy inner city rooms they had wound up in with their female company. And then they needed to get the hell on the road to somewhere else.
He had needed so much for so long, that John had finally forgotten what it felt like to want something, pure and simple, and actually go after it.
Sex on Fire by: Kings of Leon