Wow, someone liked my story! Thanks for reviewing! Here's some King POV for I-love-Azrael and roguey, and some more Abby/King for Quicksilver19 (I'm afraid it's not the kind of A/K you wanted though...) ChaiGrl; hope you like this direction! Hermione-Potter-McTaggart; the sadness continues.
Hope you all like this next part. I've got the rest of the story laid out pretty well, but I'm always open to suggestions.
The rating is changed to T, because of King's bad mouth.
Chapter summary: A trip inside the mind of Hannibal King, post-Trinity. Please fasten your seatbelts, and don't feed the demons.
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Chapter 2: King
King likes to name things. People, weapons, places. The Talos residence, he's dubbed 'that fucking hellhole' because that's what it felt like. The place in the harbour where Abby brought him after she rescued him, he called 'the Honeycomb' because of all the passages, the valves and the secluded corners that gave it the look and the feel of a beehive.
He hasn't found a good name for the new place yet, at least not one he wants to share. In his mind, the abandoned office-building is 'the pit of misery', but he's not telling anyone. He thinks Kate might take offence. After all, she and Caulder have fixed it up right good. And the more King thinks about it, the more does he believe that anywhere would be a pit of misery right now.
He had thought he was long past the stage of screaming nightmares, but it turns out he was wrong. He hardly dares to close his eyes from fear of finding himself back at the Honeycomb, limbs heavy from painkillers, dull throbbing ache in his shoulder, hard hand closing over his mouth.
King never wants to sleep again.
Well, obviously he has to be sleeping, because he's still functioning pretty well. He just can't remember when he does it. He's suspected for a while that Kate slips him sleeping pills, but he can't prove it, and he's sure as hell not going to confront her. Kate's been chewing him out one time too many since they got here. It's got to be a hobby of hers.
King has decided that he doesn't like Kate that much. Well, sure, he was impressed in the beginning, because she's been a Nightstalker since, like, forever. She even used to work with Abby's father back in the day. Before Blade entered the stage, Dr Kate Dawson was the hunter, the one vamps told stories about to scare each other shitless.
Kate's old now, and King finds it disturbing as hell, though he's not entirely sure why. Maybe it's the fact that Kate is the only hunter King knows of, other than Abe Whistler, who's reached the age of fifty. The retirement-plan for this occupation sucks.
King has resigned himself to the fact that he'll probably die young, and after meeting Kate, he's not so sure it's a bad thing. She limps, not from old battle wounds, like King thought when her first met her, but from arthritis. She's got asthma and diabetes and takes more medication than King likes to think about. Everything about Kate screams frustration and disappointment. King thinks that if this is where a lifetime of hunting leaves you, maybe dying along the way is an alternative to consider.
Kate is also far too concerned about other people's business. At least Abby seems to have found a kindred spirit. It's bad enough to have one of them at his throat, but lately they've started to gang up on him.
Like yesterday. Or rather; early this morning. King and Abby took out a nest downtown, just a routine job. So, they'd done a sloppy stakeout. Whatever. So, there were a couple of more vamps than they expected. No problem, they're professionals. They know how to deal with surprises. Besides, it's not like he's never taken a beating before. All right, so he was out for a while, no big deal. Abby could handle the remaining vamps just fine. Black eye, couple of bruises, a few minor scrapes. He's had worse.
Abby going into hysterics when they got back was not part of his plan for the evening. She even screamed: "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" at the top of her voice, and Kate stood besides her, nodding in that officious way King hates. Spider was pretty pissed too, but King figured it was mostly beginners' nerves.
King knows better than to start a shouting match with Abby, and he couldn't think of anything clever to say anyway, so he just ignored them and went to bed, so right now, Abby seems to want to bite his head off. He can't see any chances of kissing and making up in the near future. Actually, it was a while since there was any making up at all. King doesn't know when it happened, but he always seems to be at odds with Abby these days, and he doesn't like it. It reminds him of the beginning, when he was new at the Honeycomb and couldn't seem to do anything right in Abby's eyes.
He sips at his coffee and grimaces slightly as the hot liquid touches the place in his mouth where he bit himself last night. One of the vamps had a real good right hand hook. Abby is putting clean dishes away, and King can see that she's just waiting to start screaming at him again. He hopes that she'll at least wait until Zoe's finished with her breakfast. The kid doesn't deserve this.
King can't bring himself to look Zoe in the eyes any more. He still remembers the last time he did, how Danica bent down and whispered in his ears, told him in detail what she would do to him if he didn't tell her about the Daystar. Turn him again. Leave him to starve, and then, just when he was on the verge of going insane with thirst, give him Zoe to feed on.
Zoe heard nothing of it, she couldn't have heard, because her eyes were so full of trust, like she had no doubts that good old King would make everything all right again.
King can't look her in the eyes anymore, because he knows the truth, knew it even then. He wouldn't have had a choice, he couldn't have told Danica, the gutter-slut from hell, about the Daystar. He couldn't have told her, because there were far more lives in the bargain than just his and Zoe's. The only thing he could do was wait and hope for Abby and Blade to come, and try to figure out what do if they didn't come. He still doesn't know what he would've done. He knows that there would be no hope for him if he were turned again. There's no way to fight the thirst.
He doubts any of the others would understand if he told them. To Abby and Kate, it's all about strength. They have everything inside their heads, they make up their minds and whatever they want to happen happens. Caulder would be interested, in a scientific way. He'd want to run tests and write articles and documentaries. Spider would just mutter something like "Tough shit, dude", and act awkward. Spider likes the excitement of the hunt, but he doesn't want to think about the consequences. Of course, no one likes to think about the consequences until they jump up and bite you in the ass.
And Zoe…Zoe can never know. Zoe is the epitome of innocence, the only thing bright and good and pure in King's life. He can't remember anyone he's wanted to keep safe as much as Zoe.
Well, Abby of course, but Abby is a woman, not a child, and she doesn't need King to look after her. Abby's only child-like when she sleeps. He can lie awake for hours, just watching her sleep. She curls up around her pillow, mumbles softly, pouts like a little girl. And she hogs the covers.
Right. Keeping Zoe safe. He managed to fuck that job up all right. How much of an idiot can you be? They knew Drake was on the prowl. So Abby and Blade takes off, leaving him with Sommerfield, who's blind, and Dex, who's a better driver than hunter, and Hedges, who pants his lungs out after running up the stairs. And what does Hannibal King do? He falls asleep. And then he wakes up and sees a face that shouldn't be there, couldn't be there, and the only thing he can think of to say is: "Dude, you're dead."
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Sommer is dead, Dex is dead, Hedges is dead. And it doesn't matter what Abby says, or what Kate says, it still feels like his fault.
King remembers Blade's comment about 'rookies' and he thinks about Kate's endless rants about 'children' and he thinks that they're both wrong. He's not a rookie and he's not a child. He knows damned well what he's got himself into. He just wishes that he could've kept Zoe out of it. She's a child, and King wants her to have the chance to stay a child. Zoe doesn't need to know that one of the few adults she still has left in her life spent hours to figure out a way to kill her as quick and painless as possible, to spare her even greater pain.
King had thought he didn't know how to hate someone until he met Danica Talos. That was before he met himself.
It is Teh Angst, yesss it is, precioussss…
King: "Hey Zin, wrong fandom!"
Zin: "Oh, sorry. I get confused sometimes."
King: "This story needs more booze. And more naked women."
Zin: "Yeah, right. In your dreams."
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