The worst thing about being immortal - at least as far as Tommy was concerned - was that nothing ever truly changed.
Humans thought as much, only because they weren't around for a very long time. Tommy was around for a very, very long fucking time. And he knew everything always stayed the same. Even when it didn't, it still did. Most people just couldn't see it.
He had watched the same events play out over and over again during his lifetime. Sometimes, it almost seemed like people would learn from their mistakes. Then they went right back to their bad habits. Humans had declared the end of war and prejudice and violence so often he couldn't keep track. Tommy didn't care anymore.
The only thing he still cared about was himself.
He wasn't too different from most other vampires in that sense, the majority of them only gave a shit about their own hide and their coven. And Tommy's coven had been taken from him long ago.
He couldn't remember their names or their faces. In truth, he didn't know if he ever harbored any real attachment to them, even to his sire. Tommy was still a fledgling when they died. Covens rarely took in abandoned vampires and Tommy never became a sire himself, so he had spent the rest of eternity alone. He didn't need anybody, he was fine getting on by himself really.
(But sometimes, it stabbed at him worse than a stake could. That small, burning spark of longing that Tommy recognized as loneliness but would never call that out loud)
About half a century ago, he had moved to a humble town not too far from the capital. It was the perfect place for somebody like him: too small to draw much attention but too big for people to have a close-knit sense of community. The town was on a crossroad that saw a lot of traders and travelers pass through, so the population was always changing. It was a convenient place for people to settle temporarily. Nobody would notice one or two who went missing each month. Even those who did stick around minded their own business and rarely grew old in this town, retiring to the capital or the countryside once they reached a certain age. Somebody like Tommy could easily stay unnoticed.
He could pass for a teenager without trouble and nobody ever asked him about his lack of aging since people were always moving. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time somebody asked him where exactly he lived.
It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but maybe Tommy didn't need excitement. He watched the humans make their mistakes and repeat history and then he went to his one-bedroom apartment - Tommy had killed the landlord forever ago so the place was basically his to own - and slept. Life didn't get much better than that.
(Tommy had given up on his life getting any fucking better a long time ago.)
Until those three came into town.
The sun didn't bother Tommy at all.
Maybe that was another reason people didn't throw vampiric accusations at him. The superstition that creatures like him burned to a crisp when they saw a sliver of sun was pretty popular. Never mind that only applied to fledglings and younger vampires. Tommy didn't think a lot of people knew how to deal with an ancient like him.
He liked spending his time near the town square, watching others.
Not because he needed prey, though that did happen to be how Tommy found humans to feed on too. But also because it wasn't like he had anything better to do. Merchants would pass through town often and sometimes they even brought something along worth getting. It was better than being bored out of his mind all day.
The sun reflecting off blond hair with an intensity that made those strands look like spun gold was what caught his eye that morning.
The man was shorter than most, stocky in build. He should not have stood out to Tommy - nothing about him was more remarkable than the dozens of other humans that walked across the square. But Tommy found himself unable to look away, head tilted down a bit.
Something about this man reminded him of… Tommy couldn't tell. The man did not remind him of his sire, no. They had been spindly and thin and with hair darker than night. A paranoid bastard that only haunted Tommy's nightmares in vague flashes of memory. This man smiled at the world, unafraid to face it. And the skin around his sky-blue eyes wrinkled in delight.
Tommy's own eyes had become red after being turned, but sometimes when he looked into the mirror he could see an echo of the blue they used to be.
Fuck, he was a bit of a sentimental prick, wasn't he?
The man wasn't alone, he was traveling with two companions. They were younger than him by a lot, though they were both adults. His sons, perhaps? They looked remarkably alike, a casual observer might have mistaken them for twins. But Tommy was no casual observer and he could tell that one of the two was older by perhaps a year or so.
The older one was tall and lanky, more limb than torso. His curly brown hair had long bangs that rested on top of the wire-y frames of his glasses. His eyes were brown, Tommy could see even from a distance. Vampiric enhanced vision was cool like that.
The younger one looked almost identical to his brother aside from the longer, straighter hair that reached his collarbones and was dyed a dusty pink. Tommy had seen more humans with colorful hair than he could count, but this stranger was getting some weird glances and looks from the other townsfolk. They weren't as used to something so strange.
As Tommy watched, the man talked to his sons and chuckled when the younger one said something. His laugh was deep and pleasant, the sound of it carrying all the way to Tommy because of his sensitive hearing. He tilted his head further down.
He wasn't hungry.
The thought struck him cold, unfitting. Tommy shouldn't find his interest drawn to a specific human unless it was because starvation was gnawing at his gut again. That was when his instincts started ringing alarm bells in his brain and he paid attention to the people in town. And even then, not to such depth he looked at this man and his sons.
This wasn't hunger. This was something else.
This was a feeling both familiar and foreign that pressed itself into the hollow of his throat, with the itch of craving something he couldn't have as he watched the man reach up and squeeze his older son's shoulder and he grinned back before poking his brother in the side.
Unwillingly, Tommy found the charm hanging on his belt. The copper was completely faded, the surface smoothed out by how often he had rubbed his thumb over it. A keychain, a small trinket that he had from before he was turned, and thus the only item that had already belonged to him when he was still human. The only item Tommy had left from the family that birthed him.
Tommy could remember them even less than his coven.
The man straightened one of his son's scarves with meticulous care, fuzzing over it so they wouldn't get cold in the early autumn breeze. And Tommy had to turn away to go back to his apartment before he couldn't swallow down the bitterness that had come from out of nowhere.
They lingered in the town, much to Tommy's annoyance.
The man was a merchant, like most anybody who passed through. But apparently, he liked the town and decided to stick around a while, usually putting up his stall on the square where the other humans did. He sold books.
Tommy watched them. He didn't have anything better to do.
The two sons always came with their father when he sold his books. The older one brought his guitar sometimes to play. It was a good ploy since it worked to lure people over to their stall where the man could try and sweet talk them into buying. Even from a distance, Tommy could tell he was charismatic. There was often laughter rising up from the crowd around the stall. That wasn't what interested him though.
What interested Tommy was the quiet moments in between. When there was nobody around and the older brother would still sit and pull on the strings of his instrument, but softer. As if nobody but the three of them was supposed to hear, a private concert while the man sorted his books and dusted the covers and hummed along to the tune. And the younger brother peeled an orange and gave the pieces to his family to eat. He would always flick off the white little bits before giving them because they were bitter and foul.
They cared for each other.
Tommy could have been blind and he would be able to see how much they cared.
And he wanted that more than he could phantom. Tommy didn't care about anything but himself.
(Nobody cared about him either.)
Sometimes Tommy was certain his emotions had left him along with his humanity. After a couple of centuries, he wasn't so sure he felt real anger or fear or happiness anymore. It was all dull, monotonous. It wasn't real.
Watching those three proved him wrong. Envy was as powerful a feeling as ever.
Vampires didn't dream.
Probably because they didn't really sleep, which was kind of a necessary thing for dreaming. So Tommy had decided a long time ago that what he saw when he drew the blinds and closed his eyes, losing himself for a few hours to the silence of his mind, was not dreaming but rather him revisiting old memories he thought he lost.
It was the only way he knew his coven.
But the man that stood before him tonight was not a vampire. His skin was flushed a more lively color, his hand did not feel cold as ice when it cupped Tommy's cheek. His lips were warm when they pressed against Tommy's forehead before lifting him up into his arms.
There was a word for what this man was and it was eager to burst from his throat but all that his instincts had warped it into was sire, sire, sire and Tommy wanted to scream his frustration at the world.
He woke up so pissed off he tore his room to shreds, cursing the passage of time stealing everything from him. Like the envy, it was nice to feel anger again.
Even if it was only a small spark amidst the all-consuming longing that had settled in his chest now. Hunger paled in comparison.
No, Tommy craved this on a more primal level than he ever craved blood.
Two weeks after that family had arrived in the town was when Tommy made up his mind.
He wanted to keep them. Specifically, he wanted to keep the man with the gold-spun hair and the sky-blue eyes. Tommy had decided he would turn him.
He'd never turned anybody but how hard could it be?
Tommy wasn't an idiot though. If he turned the man against his wishes, that would probably spell trouble for him later. Despite never having one of his own, Tommy knew how notoriously hard to manage a fledgling could be. Especially one turned by force. If Tommy wanted this man to be his - completely and truly his in body and mind and with love - he'd have to make him agree to be turned.
And to do that, he would simply have to turn the other two first.
He had seen how much the man cared for his sons. He would never leave them behind.
The sun felt warm against his skin as Tommy made his way across the square, excitement making him bounce with every step. Going from a passive observer to an active participant was exhilarating, Tommy couldn't remember the last time he was looking forward to his plans.
But it had become so hard to contain himself.
The man's elbow shoulder slammed into his own. The hit would have not moved Tommy an inch normally, his vampire powers made something like that feel like less than a breeze passing through. Tommy had practiced though. He knew exactly how to stumble to make the collision look convincing, just as he had known exactly how to step into the man's path to make it not look obvious that this was all intentional.
A small oomf sound left the man, the air leaving his lungs in a surprised little exhale. Tommy pretended to flinch, then looked up to watch those blue eyes settle on him. He had to suppress the urge to grin like a maniac.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the man said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Tommy waved him off quickly. The expression on his face was one of fake surprise. "You're that guy with the books!"
"What?" When he spoke, his throat moved, drawing the vampire's eyes to it. And Tommy had to resist every instinct he had screaming at him to make his claim now.
Patience. If he could be patient a little while longer, this man would join his coven willingly.
"You're selling books? On the square?" Tommy pointed at the road behind him. "I see you when I come through town all the time. My name is Tommy, I live here."
For one small second the man blinked, perhaps surprised at Tommy's forwardness and the fact he introduced himself so easily. A traveling merchant might be more used to hostility from the communities they visited. The suspicion faded almost quicker than it had appeared, only caught by Tommy because he was especially perceptive of such things.
"Yeah, that's me. I didn't know I already had a reputation." There was a small chuckle there as if the man wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
Tommy held out his hand to him. "It's nice to meet you."
The man took it, curling his fingers around Tommy's hand. "Phil. Nice to meet you too, mate."
Patience was not one of Tommy's strong suits. But for this human, he would try.