Klaus was more bored than he had been in decades, and his patience with the 70's was quickly wearing thin. In a fit of annoyance he had gone to the bar and drunk a tremendous amount of alcohol, so much so that if he had been human it would have put him in the grave twenty times over. He was as drunk as a vampire could get, so when his latest victim, sporting a sloppy red wound, proceeded to stand up and say something about evolving to survive, Klaus's reaction involved blinking blearily and assuming the bartender had slipped something into his drink.
In particular, he remembered her slow wink and sultry smile, as well as her suggestion that he enjoy himself, before she'd slid his drink over the countertop towards him.
The man was still talking, and his voice was beginning to grate on Klaus's nerves, especially since he wasn't even really there.
"Shut up," Klaus groaned, yanking the man towards him and sinking his fangs into his neck for the second time. The blood tasted real enough, for a hallucination, and as he finished, he wondered what, exactly, the woman had given him.
After the fifth attempt, Klaus was beginning to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the man wasn't part of some particularly vivid hallucination.
"What the hell is this, mate?" Klaus asked drowsily, sitting back against the alley wall and rubbing his eyes.
"I've told you," the corpse explained, "I adapt-"
"To survive," Klaus completed in a bored monotone, "So you've said. Again. And again."
The corpse grinned, a dazzling smile that Klaus thought matched nicely with his dark brown skin and bright red blood. "Exactly. Perhaps you should consider stopping with the murder attempts." He shrugged, "I've survived pretty much everything."
"Everything?" Klaus asked, intrigued despite himself. He leaned forward slightly, interest briefly pushing back the boredom and irritation that seemed ever-present nowadays.
The corpse rubbed his neck absentmindedly, considering. "Not everything," he said, "But a lot." He sighed, and then began to recite in a careless drawl, "Bullets, a couple long falls, a few car crashes, knives, clubs, water, fire… even a nuclear explosion."
"Oh?" Klaus asked, sitting up straighter, "A nuclear explosion? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? When were those again?"
The corpse laughed, a faint trace of something like embarrassment, or maybe pride, creeping into his voice, "Neither. Jeez, those were over thirty years ago. It was a… little… nuclear explosion. Very contained."
"Sounds fun," Klaus replied sarcastically, "Invigorating."
"It was," the corpse mused, smiling sagely, seemingly oblivious to the sarcasm, "for a second it was like… flying. To quick to really be painful." His smile widened, "Are you a mutant, too?" he asked, "Though I'll admit I've never seen a single mutant with any adaptations remotely resembling yours."
"Mutant?" Klaus asked, eyeing the corpse, "Never heard of that. I'm a vampire. Hybrid, actually. Just about a thousand years old."
The corpse nodded, appearing impressed, "A vampire, huh? How many like you are out there, anyway?"
"Hundreds. And none. At least, no hybrids."
"That's a shame," the corpse said, "It's never good to be alone."
Klaus shrugged, and with a sigh stood up, stretching. His vampirism was quickly curing him of the side effects of the many drinks he had consumed earlier, leaving him with only a rapidly disappearing buzz. He examined the corpse on the ground, and deciding that it wasn't a corpse at all, just a man- a mutant- with copious amounts of blood staining his clothes. The man in question pressed his arm to the wall and drew himself up, stretching out a hand.
Klaus took it. "Klaus." He told the other.
"Darwin," the man replied, smile bright and glittering.