Disclaimer: I don't own the movie or book rights to "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: I hated how unresolved Speed's death was in the movie. Like he got bit and the train exploded and, yeah, I couldn't let it go.
Warnings: *Contains: angst, very mild sexual content, vampires, vampire turning, blood, adult language, adult content, deals with aspects of: depression, loss, loss of a loved one/friend/lover/established relationship, period appropriate language and attitudes.
Remake thyself (and the world will stay the same)
Chapter Two
April 15th, 2015.
It was an unspoken tradition. Coming back together each year on the eve of Abraham's death. To commiserate and comfort one another on a shared loss that still lived and breathed in their breasts despite the years that had slid smoothly past.
The separate rhythms of their life often took them to opposite ends of the world, but on this there would always be consensus. The world could be reduced to ash and still they would make the same journey, year after arduous year.
For the world had changed.
And with it, so had he.
He had invested, more or less wisely and after a smattering of years amassed enough to get into business. He used his strengths and banked on the skills amassed while helping Abraham rule the nation and carved out a life for himself. Black Thursday and the depression in the thirties nearly bankrupted him. But he'd been smart enough to have backups. The concept of living forever was one that both depressed and frightened him. Turning him shrewd and untrusting, investing cautiously but with a keen eye for the market that brought with it, its own rewards in due time.
Henry at least, remained a comfortingly familiar creature. Dependable in his expensive taste and on-and-off-again habit of grooming allies to fight the darker forces. It was a routine that had existed long before either he or Abraham had been born and one he suspected would stay that way until God saw fit to wrend them from the earth completely.
In past years they'd met on the White House grounds for the occasion. Rediscovering familiar haunts and memories to be shared. Now, with technology and a keener awareness of the importance and inherent dangers of the position of President of the United States, they'd long decided that the risk simply wasn't worth the reward. Could they? Certainly. But the chance that their presence – whether in arriving or escaping – might harm an innocent was too great.
Instead, for the last five decades, they had taken their wake to one of his townhouses around the city. This time a penthouse suite within sight of the Lincoln memorial. It wasn't the nooks and crannies of the Oval Office roof, but he supposed it would do. It was the spirit of the thing after all.
Henry had just smirked when he'd given him the address.
Smarmy pillock that he was.
Henry arrived in the same whirl-wind he always did. Manic and ancient and painfully young despite the centuries he'd lived fully, long before his own forefather's had been born. Smelling of liquor and a particular brand of emotional misery that was not his own. The acrid taint of depression and inner conflict that anyone with senses as theirs could smell from a mile away.
"Another recruit?" he asked blandly, clapping the man on the back as they embraced in the door way. Nodding to Jerry, the building's door man, as the old codger gave him an off center salute from the elevator before limping back into it. Likely already thinking fond thoughts of his chair by the door in the lobby and spy novels he devoured page by page.
"Only time will tell," Henry chirped, in suspiciously good humor as he kicked off his boots and followed him inside. "Though I will admit to being woefully wrong on one count."
"Oh, just one?" he teased, smile honest in its merriment as the familiarity of his old friend immediately put him at ease. They had spoken on the phone only a few weeks ago. But there was nothing quite like seeing one another in the flesh.
"You would have approved. In fact, it felt very much like a soap opera," Henry commented, tossing his overcoat in the vague direction of the rack before bounding down the hall - ever curious. Letting him trail at a more sedate pace as the man did his usual rounds.
"I like this one, tell me you'll keep it?" Henry demanded, peering out of the window before flicking the lock on the roof-side door and stepping out into the open city air. Dress shirt rippling, blowing back the scent of-
"Good lord, you reek of gun oil and-" he started, pressing a hand to his nose before cutting himself off as the man rolled his neck and grinned at him.
"Now you see why I called it a proper soap opera."
He sighed, knowing his interest had been well and truly caught.
"Alright then, tell me. I doubt you'd give me a moment of peace until you do anyway," he remarked, beckoning the man inside the warm comforts of a modern, but distinctly period appropriate parlor. Fire crackling merrily in the grate, as if to welcome them hence.
"So why the gun then?" he asked, fascinated, rolling his sleeves up as he sauntered into the kitchen and pulled a couple bags of fresh blood out of the hidden compartment in the back of his crisper. Nose twitching at the sterile scent of the fridge before letting the stainless steel doors hush closed behind him.
"Ex-Marine, only a week fresh from his last tour," Henry replied, relishing the attention. "When it slipped out of his holster I thought he was going to keel clear over in shock. Told me he didn't feel safe without it. I rather don't blame him. Still, he seemed remarkably even tempered despite the taint of supernatural on him."
"So, he wasn't out to kill anyone then?" he asked again, feeling the need to clarify the matter after Henry had rambled on about jilted lovers and a squad commander that clearly wasn't what he pretended to be.
Though, personally, how they'd managed to survive in Afghanistan of all places, in that sun, without being discovered was a mystery to him.
"Not at all, save for perhaps his ego," Henry returned. "It is truly a new era, Speed. He told me right then and there that he was trying to get up his courage to confront his commander about a suspicious death that happened on tour. Apparently his lover, a true red-headed summer son of the south - you two would have probably gotten on well - went out on patrol with him halfway through their tour and only the commander returned. Only he doesn't think the commander did it. Has utter faith in the creature. Rather, he thinks that his commander was made to cover it up by someone higher up. He wants the truth. That's all. It's all very cloak and dagger. Refreshing."
"I hope you talked him out of it?" he replied, brow raised. Not putting it completely past his friend to let the entire thing play out just a measure too far for the sake of his own entertainment.
"Of course not," Henry scoffed. "A man like that couldn't be talked out of anything, including his own death. I merely wished him luck and then followed him when he'd drank enough to steady his nerve. He's in a motel four blocks away at this very moment sleeping it off. His commander threw him through a wall and had him pinned down, fangs literally poised to fall before I stepped in. He'll be alright. In time. Broke a bunch of ribs and got the daylights beaten out of him, but I think he'll shape up just fine. You might even want to meet this one, Speed, he's a quiet one."
He nodded, entertaining no such thing as he used the sharp of his nails to slice through each packet before pouring the lot into a copper sauce pan. What Henry did with his human pets was of little interest to him. He didn't see the point, in all honesty. Why make things harder for yourself in the long run. Forging acquaintances – relationships – when you knew they wouldn't last?
"You'll have to approach him carefully, you understand?" he remarked after a pause. "He's different from the others. He has already fought a battle, he knows war – what it does - how it burns you out from the inside. He's suffered from it. He might not be so forgiving if he finds out what you are the wrong way."
"He already knows," Henry replied, looking lazily pleased with himself. The same look that Mary used to threaten with the sharp slap of a ruler. Claiming that he was up to no good and she would tolerate none of his foolishness in her house that day.
Ah, Mary.
"You broke script," he accused, surprised in spite of himself. Knowing how uniform Henry preferred to keep his recruiting affairs.
"You said it yourself, he's different," Henry shrugged, following him out to the den. "He didn't need a convenient story to believe before circumstance saw fit to unveil me. It was the one thing I regretted with Abraham. And it cost me years of his friendship. That regret is on me, and if you believe nothing else, believe that it is not a mistake I wish to repeat."
"I explained to him before I left to come here, in terms that despite his injuries, he fully understood. Not every man with a gun is a murderer. Just the same as not every man with fangs is necessarily evil."
He opened his mouth to reply, but Henry beat him to it.
"Enough of this talk, let's drink!" the man exclaimed, "I have to admit I've worked up quite an appetite this evening! I feel oddly as though our dear Abraham would have approved, all things considered."
There was a quiet sort of freneticism to his friend's movements when they settled into chairs by the fire. Enough that when Henry sighed and set aside his glass - barely touched - and reached for something inside his jacket, he already had his undivided attention.
"There is something I've been meaning to give you," Henry started, bringing out a cloth wrapped bundle and setting it carefully on his lap. "Every year we come together, I've had it on me. But I've never quite gotten to the point of taking it out of my jacket. I suppose I've been waiting for the right time, the right year. And for some reason, I think that time has come."
He took the bundle cautiously, throat hitching on a breath that was more habit than anything as the cloth fell away and his world rapidly narrowed down to the worn leather journal in his lap.
His nostrils flared.
Eyes flashing as the faint, barely-there scent of Abraham flooded the room.
God it had been so long.
So very long.
"I hope you will forgive me for keeping it from you," Henry replied, looking truly hesitant for the first time that evening as he watched him carefully. "I mean it when I say it never felt like the proper time."
"Where did you find it?" he breathed, suddenly besieged by a lifetime of memory. Moments in the little room above his shop, watching Abraham scribbling away at the desk. The long lean bow of his back highlighted in all its glory as the sweat of high summer sluiced down the knobs of his spine. Abraham in the train car, just before the end, cursing as the nib of his pen splattered ink blots across the half-dried page.
"He entrusted it to me the night he died. He'd finished it, finished it while I watched, as Mary paced down the steps and stood waiting by the carriage. The true account of his life, as he told it," Henry shared, expelling a long pent up breath as dark eyes watched his behind hooded lashes. "For a long time, the irony was too much to bear."
His fingers trembled around the cover. Fangs dropped behind the veil of his lips like violence unchained. Almost overcome as the years rolled back and the hard press of the man's skin glided across his own – old ghosts hovering. Breathing in the truest scent of him as words neither of them wished to take back come morning were uttered unabashedly into the night.
"And you've read it?"
"A thousand times over," Henry admitted, leaning forward in increments until he was kneeling in front of him, grasping his hand in his own before lowing it slowly onto the cover. Soaking in the chill of the man's skin as through him his deadened fingers clutched at what was perhaps the only spark of warmth left in the world.
"He loved you very much, my friend."
"I asked him once, you know," Henry murmured later, nursing a glass of fire warmed red – AB+ from a lovely and very discrete donor he'd become particularly fond of over the past year. Watching offhandedly as the lights of the capitol flickered and gleamed. Jewel-like but still slightly tainted, like the air had never quite recovered from the black dust of the old coal-steamers before other forms of pollution ushered in at the wings.
"I know you think it selfish, but I still wish he'd let me turn him."
He remained silent, thumb caressing the scuffed leather of the journal. Taking comfort in the weight of it in his lap as the lingering traces of the man's scent soaked into his clothes – leeching into his skin so that once again, however faintly, they finally smelled alike again.
"I miss him," Henry stated, frowning like the truth of it surprised him. "More every day."
"As do I," he returned, gratified when the words came out more or less level. "But you know as well as I that he wouldn't have wanted it. Even if it was only to be here, with us. There were some things he simply couldn't bear the thought of. And one of them was us. To become what you hate? I doubt there is a worse fate, Henry. You know that as well as I."
Henry just sighed, swallowing what was left in his glass before leaning forward to pour himself another generous measure. Savoring the flavor appreciatively. Stretching in place as the plush armchair groaned in warning.
"We could have done a lot together, us three. Can't blame me for speaking it aloud."
His lip quirked. Seeing Abraham in his mind's eye the day he'd sat him down and told him everything after Adam and his cohorts had kidnapped William. Vampires. The supernatural. His mission. Earnest but completely prepared for him to cast him aside completely or even call the authorities, believing him mad. The man had kissed him soundly, wrecked and joyous all in turn when he'd simply clapped him on the shoulder and asked where they should start.
God, he'd loved that man.
"Some men don't need to live forever to make the difference they were created for," he replied quietly. Feeling the truth of it mingle with the blood freely given – flowing easily off his palate as a thousand different flavors melded together. Giving a picture of a life – a person – before it was gone again. Begging to be rediscovered in the next sip, then the next.
"And what about us then?" Henry quipped, fangs glinting. Eyes dark, not threatening, but not shying away from the challenge either. Lending just enough violence to the moment to call it tense as the clock in the hall tick-ticked its way through the seconds – minutes – before-
"Oh, my dear friend," he answered, shaking his head sadly as Henry blinked slow. Chuckling low and rueful in the depths of his throat, flirting with the butt of the joke before letting it fall – free and damning as the very minute they said Booth's finger tightened around the trigger passed by unmarked but not unmourned. "It has been a long time since we were simply men."
They sat together in silence, fire crackling slow and soothing, for a long time after that.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.
