This story was prompted through The 100 Fic for BLM by "small-towngirl22" on Tumblr.
I had a lot of fun with this fic and I really hope you'll enjoy it too!
For this fic, a donation was made to the Go Fund Me of 'Medical Bills Fund for Little Nikita'
Huge thanks to Penguin for beating and Kristy for her beautiful moodboard.
Listen to the music that inspired me into writing this here
Happy Bloody reading everyone!
[Fic Title from Let's Get Lost by Beck]
CHAPTER 1 - "I'm a vampire, not a Saint."
"I hope I'll see you soon."
As she shakes Dr. Collins' clammy hand, Clarke already knows she will never see him again. And since she has now been dead for almost a hundred years, she doesn't bother to play pretend.
"I don't think so," she says nonchalantly, intensifying the pressure of her fingers around Finn's palm.
The man widens his eyes, surprised, and Clarke can't tell if he's reacting to the pain radiating through his hand or simply to the shock of being rejected. His earlier charming and flirtatious expression closes in a flash. His response could be hilarious if only Clarke remembered how to laugh.
"Clarke–" starts Jackson, who is standing next to them and doesn't seem to know what to do with himself anymore.
The blonde turns to him and one look from her is enough to compel him to silence.
"What, Eric? You think I'm going to make a deal with such a jerk?"
"What did you call me?" snaps Finn, trying to get his hand back, but unable to do so.
Clarke now holds him in an iron grip as she gives him the plain, unvarnished truth.
"That's what you are: a jerk. And I can explain why in just four points. One: you're not a very loyal guy if I am to believe the wedding ring on your ring finger, the hickeys on your neck, the continuous vibrations from your phone in your pocket, and that ridiculous twitch that lifts the corner of your mouth when they remind you that you're just an asshole cheating on his wife with one–" another twitch from Finn makes her correct herself– "two other women."
The doctor's face turns red and Clarke now has the validation that she is right. Victorious, she nevertheless continues.
"Two: you think you're a hero, and okay you save lives, but you don't do it for them, you do it for yourself and only for your own prestige and reputation."
This time, Finn opens his mouth to protest, but Clarke stops him by carrying on.
"Three, you are a coward, but more importantly, you are a fool. That's actually why you agreed to this more-than-shady meeting, in the middle of the night in a deserted parking lot. You're already in big trouble, because of gambling debts or some stupid bets probably, and you're ready to do anything to save your skin and get some money back, even accept a deal that should go against all your morals as a surgeon."
Finally, the blonde let Finn slide his palm out of her grip and he shakes it, tears of pain in his eyes, face red with shame and anger. When he looks up at Clarke, he's filled with a rage which she believes for a second that he's going to unleash against her. However, Finn swallows slowly, winces, and then asks, defiant, but forever the coward she just described:
"You said four points."
Clarke's eyes flash with a crimson glint that she usually contains better than that, and Finn visibly shudders as he takes a step back.
"You didn't even ask what I was going to do with all that blood."
She doesn't have to wait long before he bolts. At her side, Dr. Jackson is now shaking his head, a tired, weary look on his face as he watches Finn climb into his luxury car, then speed off, the tires screeching on the asphalt of the underground parking lot's tight turns.
All that blood, it's for her. Half a liter at noon, half a liter at midnight, precisely. O negative only, because that's the blood that tastes the best.
Nope, that's a lie. The blood that tastes the best is the one she takes straight from the vein of a willing donor, her lips pressed against their burning skin, her fangs sunk into their tender flesh, the sound of their sighs right into her ears, and the beat of their frantic hearts echoing in her eardrums. The liquid, still warm, carrying the aftertaste of the last thing the person ate, that's what the best meal is. However, it's also something Clarke has refused to do for over sixty years now, for reasons she's been growing bored of explaining for almost as long.
"Clarke..." Jackson sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as if holding back a headache.
"What?"
"That was your last chance. I warned you. I'm leaving the hospital in a week, and after that, no one will be around to help you. Why are you being so difficult? You said no to Kara, Jasper, Niylah, and now Finn... You asked me to find you a new contact here, and I did, but you're scaring them all away one by one."
"Kara was too suspicious, she would have guessed what I am in only a few weeks. Jasper is a snooper, he's sweet but unable to keep his mouth shut. Niylah was the best of them but," she clears her throat, "–let's just say it wouldn't have taken long for our relationship to change and I can't afford the risk."
"But... Finn?"
"Oh him? He's just an asshole."
Jackson throws his hands up in the air, looking like he's giving up. He turns and opens the trunk of his car to pull out a cooler, which Clarke grabs before slinging it around her shoulders.
"You know, I always wondered how you knew everything about them right off the bat like that."
The comment elicits a smile from the blonde.
"A hundred and twenty years of walking this earth has that effect on people. That and the fact that I'm very observant."
"Well, still, Clarke, you could be nicer, don't you think?"
She answers with a shrug.
"I'm a vampire, Jackson, not a Saint."
Before he can respond and without so much as a goodbye, she melts into the darkness and disappears.
A week, and a disastrous meeting with Cillian later, it's an almost empty fridge that finally pushes Clarke to try to find her luck on the streets.
It's not that Clarke is difficult. It's just that she loathes those dirty, run-down dens, those crumbling squats where hard drugs and cheap sex mix with the blood trade.
What she likes is knowing that the blood she drinks is pure of any infection, drug, and disease, even if – let's be honest – none of it will kill her a second time. What she likes is the convenience and ease of just opening her fridge, pouring the blood into her favorite mug, heating it in the microwave for exactly 1 minute 45 seconds at 750 watts, and enjoying it in front of her favorite show. What she likes is to know that she is not just a wild, disgusting and terrifying animal, but that she has kept some of that humanity she lost 97 years ago.
It doesn't matter if she's the laughing stock of her small, closed community. Or that her only other vampire friend, Roan, laughs at her every time he comes to visit and catches her sipping her blood, slumped on her couch. It's not her fault that her second reaction to the idea of drinking blood from the vein is revulsion, once she's managed to choke off the fierce, greedy pull of her first impulse (the fangs lengthening, the taste buds salivating, her throat tightening, and her vision sharpening with desire).
That, and the fact that she doesn't want to take a life unwillingly. After being known as Wanheda, the commander of death, and spreading death, chaos, and destruction in her path for almost thirty years (but only to those who deserved it, she kept telling herself, to spare her conscience), she's longing for something else now, without believing that she could ever redeem herself. The very idea of absolution was ridiculous by itself. She didn't know any vampire who still hoped to reach heaven. And against hell, she had found the ideal solution: to never die, since she was in theory likely to live forever.
For all these reasons, and not because she is so-called difficult, she leaves the farthest den of her apartment almost as quickly as she entered, the first two nights she shows up at its doors.
The first night is a disaster. She will never, ever, touch one of the anonymous people lying on the floor in the darkness of their slum, presenting their wrists to her without even looking at her, pleading incoherent words in a hushed voice.
The second night is just an unfortunate setback. After all, she still has fifteen bags of blood, which means seven days of food, fourteen if she cuts her rations in half. She still has plenty of time to see it through. It's only that she's organized – and not a control freak, as Roan calls her, when he "forgets" that her superpowered hearing allows her to pick up on the slightest of his mumblings – that's causing the anxiety she's starting to feel.
Being persistent and resolute – stubborn as hell, Roan would say – she tries it again. But the third night is boring and no one holds her attention, nor teases her curiosity. Clarke walks through the rooms, avoids bodies as one would avoid mines on a battlefield, frowns and scrunches her nose at the disgusting smells and sad sights before her, closes her mouth to silence her irritation and thoughts.
She wishes so much that her kind could be more sophisticated, more evolved, more respectable. She's sure that vampires and humans could learn to live together (her own experience is proof of this) with a little bit of tolerance and willpower on both sides, but her hopes for a shared future shake before this tragic sight.
Is there no middle ground between those who wanted to kill them and called them monsters, and those who were obsessed with them and would have sold their souls to keep being their dinner for eternity?
She walks home and, once in the safety of her apartment, dials the number of her forever friend.
"Roan," his answering machine says simply.
"It's Clarke. It kills me to admit this, but– I need your help. Meet me at the address you gave me tomorrow night at midnight." Then after a heavy pause, and even though it rips her tongue out, "Please."
She hangs up and sighs, before heading to her fridge. There, the familiar, comforting white glow of her favorite sanitized space greets her. She grabs a blood bag, (the thirteenth), and closes the door with a sharp slam.
Even with the fridge closed, the remaining twelve bags seem to taunt her. Oddly enough, their unpleasant snickering sounds very similar to Roan's.
This fourth night will be the last one, Clarke promises herself as she waits for Roan at the entrance of this old ruined house at 11:55 pm. She will never again set foot in this kind of place. If she doesn't find a suitable match tonight, she'll go back to the hospital. And even if her blood boils in her veins just thinking about it, maybe Cillian, or even Finn – yikes – will accept her apology and only ask for money, of which she has plenty, in exchange for the blood she needs so much.
11:58 pm. Clarke is growing impatient when her phone buzzes once, signaling an incoming text. She sighs, already knowing what it says before even looking at the screen.
"Can't be there. Sent a friend. Waiting for you inside."
"Fuck you, Roan."
"Fuck you, Roan," because she needs to say it at loud too.
Only to keep her promise to herself does Clarke enter the den for a fourth and final time. The fact that she now recognizes exactly where to head in the crumbling house disgusts her. She knows that her exceptional memory will never let her forget this unwanted knowledge. Sometimes, her vampire status and the abilities it grants her are more of a liability than a benefit.
She quickly climbs the stairs to the top floor, her steps light and fast. Her eyes glow in the dark and scan the shadows, no longer looking for a prey but for a "friend".
Huh, who is she kidding? Roan's friends are far from being her friends, they're more like her enemies or something. Clarke wonders who she will have the misfortune to meet tonight. Ontari, the crazy psychopath who hunts her prey much too young and who hates her guts? Echo, the ice statue that nothing seems to reach, and who believes that everything is an eternal competition?
A glint of moonlight on pale hair hits her retinas and Clarke grunts.
Josephine.
The most narcissistic, insensitive, and selfish bitch to exist on this planet and – Clarke is sure – in the whole universe.
Great.
It's a busy night, tonight. Much more crowded than the previous nights, Clarke notices as she makes her way between the bodies. If she wasn't on a strict diet of a liter a day every day, Clarke would be far more affected by the smell of blood in the room, so strong and overpowering that she can almost taste it on her tongue. She would be more affected by the pounding of the hearts around her, by all those warm bodies undulating with pleasure from the venom of their tormentors. Their moans and whispers, lust and thirst, intrinsically intertwined to make their victims mere malleable rag dolls begging for more, "please, more, to the last drop", until there is nothing left, until pleasure becomes climax, climax becomes surrender, and surrender becomes oblivion.
However, Clarke isn't affected. She ate this morning, and the thirst which tugs at her stomach at this moment is only a reflex caused by the everyday routine. It's midnight, time to eat. She's hungry, but not yet in the mood to feel the hunger, and certainly not for that.
Josephine is the exact opposite. She's hungry all the time, could feed until her body is saturated with the blood of her victims. Until their blood flows through her veins. Until their heartbeats stop to make hers start again, even if that's impossible. Her heart has been cold for three centuries now, but Clarke suspects it was actually frozen long before that.
"Josie," she greets her as she arrives at her level.
The blonde releases her willing victim and the young brunette woman rolls onto her side, barely conscious, riding the waves of venom-induced bliss and chasing her peak, eyes closed, face relaxed, mouth half-open.
"Wanheda!" exclaims Roan's friend, false joy in her voice, as she stands up to welcome her.
The name hits her hard, but Clarke remains stoic, used to Josephine's repetitive jabs. When she hugs her in a perfect imitation of a long friendship, Clarke nevertheless can't help but shudder in revulsion.
"Roan told me you're being difficult again? He sent me to help you."
"I'm not difficult," the blonde retorts through her teeth, vowing to give their mutual friend hell the next time she sees him.
"You'll see, it's easy peasy. I've already got a small crowd waiting for me, go see if you fancy someone and help yourself!"
Josephine's enthusiasm disgusts her. The young woman seems as satisfied as when Clarke opens her fridge and happily notes that it's stocked for the next fortnight, which she has to admit is an accurate – if creepy – comparison.
Already, Josie has gone back to sit on her makeshift throne – an old beaded cushion covered in stains that Clarke doesn't want to know about – and lures her new prey to her, a shaky, thin young man who she's sure won't last long.
Looking around, Clarke is saddened to see that Josephine was right and that a line has indeed formed in front of her. She sighs, wondering why these people are lining up for two minutes of short-lived and deadly pleasure with such a terrible woman. A voice suddenly echoes behind her, seeming to answer her silent question directly.
"I'm difficult, too."
Her gaze catches the outline of one of the people waiting their turn. Despite the semi-darkness of the den, her vision heightened by her vampire senses lets no detail escape her. Neither his tousled brown curls, nor his tall and muscular body, nor his dark eyes. She can make out each of the freckles that dot his skin, as well as the dimple on his chin.
He's fifth in line, and yet he's not trembling with eagerness or withdrawal.
"I couldn't tell," she replies, because really, how can one claim to be picky, but still want to settle for Josephine?
The man raises an eyebrow and asks, defiant:
"Are you saying you're better than her?"
Clarke muffles a surprised laugh on a cough, a human reflex she'll probably never lose.
"Of course I am, but that's not the point."
"How about you showing me, then?" he offers.
Because his bluntness and his easy manner please her already, Clarke looks at him again. The gleam of the challenge of his brown eyes hides a sense of insecurity. It's the nervous twitch which agitates his left hand and makes his index tremble at regular intervals that tips her off. When he notices Clarke's eyes on the hand that's failing him, he crosses his arms over his chest and if the vampire then lingers on the defined muscles of his arms, shoulders, and chest, then so be it. It's his fault for wearing such a tight shirt, and hers for having such sharp eyesight.
"Do you want to taste my blood or not?" he finally blurts out, as if suddenly uncomfortable in front of her scrutinizing red eyes.
Clarke weighs her words before answering a cool:
"Yes. But not now."
He frowns, looking frustrated to not understand the situation.
"You vampires don't usually show this much restraint."
Clarke's lips stretch into a smirk.
"I'm not like the other vampires," she replies, and the crease of his eyebrows deepens further under curiosity. "I want something more...lasting."
"Are you telling me you're looking for a serious relationship?" the young man asks, casual humor in his voice.
The laugh that escapes Clarke takes her totally by surprise and she stops it by suddenly pressing her hand to her lips.
Yes, maybe she found what she was looking for after all. She can't believe that it's Josephine, of all the creatures in this universe, who put her on the right track.
And speaking of the devil, here is her nemesis who appears at their side, suddenly interested in what is going on without her company, curious to know what makes the most uptight and rigid vampire she knows to laugh so loudly, and eager to take away her new toy.
She spends only a few seconds to detail the young man, raises an appreciative eyebrow before grabbing his hand and demanding:
"Come with me."
If Clarke's heart suddenly tightens, it's probably her imagination. An organ that's been dead for almost a century isn't capable of this sort of thing. And if she notes the hesitation in the man's gaze as he wanders his eyes from one blonde to the next, it's just her hopes playing a trick on her ability to observe, right?
Right?
She gets the answer to her question when he turns away from her without an ounce of regret to follow Josie to her throne. Clarke crosses her arms and leans on the opposite wall to keep them in her field of vision while the vampire settles comfortably and raises to her lips the wrist that presents her new prey.
For once, the blonde takes her time and Clarke knows well that it's just to taunt her that she inhales deeply the skin of the young man before giving a stroke of her tongue where the veins swarm under the surface, full of the liquid which makes them all lose their mind.
"What a waste," thinks Clarke, biting her lower lip.
She listens for a few seconds. As he's about to be bitten by a vampire, his heart doesn't beat faster but perhaps even slower, more steadily, as if being on the brink of danger and plausible death is finally what he needs to keep calm. His breathing doesn't speed up either, under the effect of the adrenalin rising in him, but keeps level, becomes deeper and longer. Perhaps it's because Clarke pays so much attention to these tiny details that no human could hear that his voice rings so loudly in her ears.
"I'm ready."
Two words in a vibrant, deep, low tone. His assurance and resolve freeze Clarke where she stands, without her knowing why. His voice is hoarse, rich with the emotions that seem to storm behind his dark eyes, and the thirst the vampire suddenly feels has nothing to do with blood. It is that of curiosity that sings in her ears as the words echo again and again, in a loop that resembles that of infinity.
In her inhumanly fast mind, dozens of questions are suddenly racing.
What is he thinking? What does he feel? Why is he here? What is he searching for? What is he hoping for?
When Josephine's fangs finally sink into the tender flesh of his wrist, he reacts like no other. No moan of pleasure, nor sigh of ecstasy. An invisible weight, but that Clarke had noticed, slides off his broad shoulders and the man swallows slowly, his piercing eyes fixed on the blonde who now sucks his blood without restraint, greedy as hell.
The seconds pass, too long, too slow but far too quickly, and the eyelids of the man begin to close. Despite his seeming resistance to Josephine's venom, nothing can suppress the euphoric and calming effect of the vampire's bite. When he falters and the creature re-closes the grip of her teeth on his golden skin, he hisses in pain but does not protest as a lonely drop of blood escapes from his wound.
Clarke follows it, hypnotized, sliding from the inside of his wrist, caressing the visible veins of his perfectly shaped forearm, getting lost in the fold of his elbow, then disappearing in the sleeve of his shirt.
Immediately, reflexes which she had forgotten wake up. Her throat ignites, her taste buds salivate, her fangs grow imperceptibly longer, her already flawless sight becomes sharper and her sense of smell more acute.
At this moment, Clarke is not only thirsty, she is hungry for him.
She is not naive enough to believe it's his blood that suddenly sings to her. It's been sixty years since she last tasted direct blood from a vein, and the genuine curiosity she feels for the young man, as well as the keen observation she's made of him for several minutes, is undoubtedly the cause of her sudden longing.
When she takes the first step towards Josephine and her prey, however, she fails to identify the impulse that drives her forward.
Perhaps it's the call of blood.
Perhaps it's Josie's lack of restraint and the danger that hovers over this human life as the blonde continues to feed, ignoring the fact that he now has far too little blood left in his veins and that his heart rate is slowing down.
Perhaps it's the constant interest behind the hunger that consumes her.
The explanation she will give later is that she felt the danger coming. That she heard the first-floor windows of the den break. That she smelled the fire. That she picked up the first screams. What she will say to Josephine, then, is that if she stepped in between her and her almost-victim, it's to warn her to flee. On the other hand, she is relieved not to have to explain anything to anybody about her reasons to save the young man who collapses unconscious in her arms.
Josephine flees without giving them a single glance as the flames rise around them and the first screams resound, humans and vampires alike, caught in the fire. Another smell rises, acrid and heady, and Clarke tightens her grip on the young man as she identifies the holy water.
"Damn vampire hunters," she mutters as she places the weight of Josephine's victim across her shoulders without the slightest effort.
The first crossbow bolt flies into the room and Clarke doesn't stay long enough to identify which clan it is. She smashes the window with a kick and leaps from the third floor, light as a breeze, before landing soundlessly despite the extra weight on her back. Her footsteps don't make a sound in the tall grass of the abandoned and now burning mansion's garden as she takes off and heads back to the shadows to return to her apartment.