V

"I got an A," the boy tells him. He's been smiling at the waiter, who's been smiling back, and only turns his attention to Edward once he's ordered.

"I'm so happy for you."

The boy's grin widens. "Never got an A before..." he says. "Not since I were a boy."

Edward reclines in his chair. The diner is small, the yellow wall paper peeling. They've done that cliché thing where you hang each state's number plate on the wall but he only counts forty eight. "You're still a boy."

"Am not!" the boy's hand smacks down on the table. "I'm seventeen. 'Sides, I done stuff, seen stuff."

"Fucking doesn't make you a man. It makes men paedophiles."

"You mean like you?"

"No," Edward says defensively, "not like me."

The boy crosses his arms and juts his chin. "How old are you anyway. You're not so old I reckon."

Edward laughs. "And how do you suppose that?"

"It's the look on your face when you come... You look like a kid. No older than me."

Edward rolls his eyes. So the boy sits forward and his hand reaches out and he takes a fistful of Edward's hair and just yanks at it.

Edward catches his wrist in his hand. "What are you doing, you stupid fuck?"

The boy is breathless. "Just messing up your hair. Making you look like a kid again." He pulls his wrist free and sits back. "So..." he picks at the corner of the table with this nail. "How old are you?"

Edward takes a deep breath. "Seventeen."

The boy's eyes flicker to his. "How long have you been seventeen?" he murmurs.

Edward pinches the napkin from his lap. "You know, I'm sure I prefer it when you're not talking." He pushes back from his seat. There's a tremor in the boy's throat now, and the scars his teeth left stand out silvery. "Though that's not to say I don't want to hear you scream."

/ \

Edward braces his palms against the boy's knees, pressing them into the mattress. His hips snap, snap, snap and he thrusts, thrusts, thrusts into the boy. He's close. Too close. He grabs the boy's wrist and sinks his teeth into the veins.

There's a short cry.

Edward finishes, unloading his venom inside the tender, human body of the boy.

In response, the boy releases a thin sob.

Mouth still fastened around flesh, blood slipping past his lips, Edward glances at the boy's face.

It's screwed up in pain and disgust, his head turned away from Edward, eyelashes dripping with tears.

Edward drops his hand and watches it fall onto the mattress. He glances down and pulls out.

The boy flinches and his eyes flutter open. Slowly, he pulls away and crawls off the bed, grabbing his clothes and gingerly getting into them. "You know," he says, tears trickling down his cheeks, "you're really fucking shit at that." He shoves his boots on, leaving the laces, wipes a hand under his nose and leaves.

Edward lets him go.

/ \

He's in the same alley that he always is. This time, when the boy spots Edward, he just sags and purses his lips and bends further over his work. He's clutching a notepad again and has a textbook propped open against a couple of empty beer cans.

Edward breaks away from the shadows. He has the sudden urge to wipe his palms on his trousers, even though he can't actually sweat. He wants to say something too but the boys won't look up at him. He tugs on his fringe. Then he bends down and shuffles up the mattress, easing back against the wall.

The boy is pretending to ignore him, sniffing once in a while or sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He's doing maths homework again, the small yellow stub of his pencil clasped in his bony fingers. There's dirt under his fingernails and grazes on each knuckle. He clenches and unclenches his fingers, pulling at the sleeves of his maroon, woollen jumper.

Edward points to the top of the page. "Is that your name?"

The boy follows his finger. He nods.

Edward pulls back.

The boy, Jasper, wipes his nose. His pencil continues to move across the page. "What's your name?"

"Edward."

More than half of Jasper's equations are wrong. He can't even keep the numbers on the line. And a blue-green vein pumps in the back of his hand.

Edward stops breathing and forces himself to look away. At the end of the street a car cruises past the mouth of the alley… then speeds away.

"So how come you're on the street?" Edward asks.

Jasper shrugs, his thin shoulder nudging Edward's. "Me dad's a prick."

Edward glances at him.

Jasper has turned the pencil over and is trying to use the blunt rubber to erase an answer that is actually correct. "I ran away."

There's a minute or so of silence.

Then: "He didn't do nothing to me. His mates did once – but… whatever. I was fourteen – so you know." He shrugs again. "It wasn't a big deal."

For the first time since he died Edward actually feels sick.

Jasper sighs heavily, titling his head and scribbling long addition in the margin. "So… How come you're paying for sex?"

Edward tugs again at his thick fringe. "I left home. I got adopted into this family. But then… I left."

"Did they treat you bad?"

"No. They treated me very well."

"You going back?"

Edward shrugs. He looks back to Jasper's book. "You know," he says, "you're supposed to do the bit in the brackets first."

There's a pause. "Oh. Right." Slowly, Jasper's eyes scan the page, counting the number of equations with brackets in that must, therefore, be wrong. "Shit," he says.

"And that one was actually correct," Edward continued, pointing. "Before you rubbed it out I mean."

"Shut up," Jasper says. But he's actually smiling. He sniffs again. After a moment he says. "I'm better at history."

"Yeah?"

Jasper nods.

"What are you studying in history?"

Jasper tilts his head back as he thinks. "J.F.K and – and that sort of stuff."

"Yeah…?" Edward scratches his jaw. "You know, I saw him assassinated."

"Did you!?" For the first time Jasper looks across at him. He grins. "All that fine blue blood and you just left it there on the floor?" He looks back to his book and shrugs, smile fading. "You must have had better self-control back then."

Edward looks away.

Beside him, Jasper heaves another sigh. "Let me finish this," he says. "Then we can fuck."

Edward gives a small shake of his head. He climbs to his feet. "Don't worry about it," he says.

Jasper watches him leave.