[being human] a tale someone told (cutler/hal) -english
Fandom: Being Human
Title: a tale someone told
Characters: Cutler/Hal.
Rating: PG15
Warnings: none.
Word Count: 1593
Summary: There’s a cafe Hal likes (it’s always wherever Hal likes) that smells of beer and coffee and no tea. . Hal and Cutler meet over the years. (un'betaed).
“I’ve heard the stories,” Cutler ventures. They are sitting on a Tea Shop in the middle of London. It’s 1914 and the world is at war, and yet, this place, in northern England seems a bit oblivious to it all. Specially the small shop, that looks a bit 17th century and that it’s so of Hal’s taste. (They also serve fresh blood -which doesn’t happen often-, and there’s something enigmatic about sharing a cup of it with your maker).
Hal doesn’t reply. He is the quiet type, as Cutler has learned over the ages. It’s not that he never talks, oh, Cutler knows how he talks, fact is, he just chooses when and how and not many would dare question him. Or even insist. But then again, not anyone is Cutler.
“How did you get out?” he asks again and shivers as Hal fixes his eyes on him, before he opens his mouth to reply.
“I killed them.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Lord Harold.”
Hal shrugs and drinks up his cup.
*
It’s only when the war ends, and Cutler is bathed on his Lord scent under broken sheets in some random hotel on Paris, that he gets his answer.
Hal is dressing on the corner of the room, fastening his trousers and searching for his shirt around the room when Cutler wakes up.
“Are you looking for this?” Hazel eyes stare at him, hungry. “I don’t think the Lady will mind if you kill her wearing your shirt or not, anyway, so I might keep it.”
“What for?” He doesn’t hide his intentions, and Cutler appreciates it. It was not hard to notice the looks and the longing just before he managed to close the door behind them and leave the woman outside. His time is up now, Lord Harry is free to go and drink whoever he wants with or without him.
“Insurance.” Hal tilts his head at him, a trace of a smile on his lips. The silent repetition of his question sounds in the room. “That you’ll come back.”
“You are playing a dangerous game.”
“Because you are an old one?”
“Because I haven’t told you how I escaped.”
He realizes as soon as it happens that his face shows it all. Hal is smiling at him knowingly. But Cutler can’t avoid the curiosity that it provokes on him. (There’s only one thing that he wonders more- but he tries not to think on it when the obvious response lies in the bed they shared).
“Then the shirt is the price, Lord Harry.”
The shirt ends ripped in pieces as Hal threatens him to ever call him that again, it’s all play and laughs from Cutler, and Hal enjoys it as much as he pretends not to. He whispers his deed monk by monk on Cutler’s ear, each image mixing with blood as if they were drinking it of each other, as if Hal could convert him once and again and again.
The lady of the keep is not forgotten.
But it’s, at least, temporally put aside.
*
They are on America, United States of. He is not sure why they are here, why he is here, only that they are. There’s a cafe Hal likes (it’s always wherever Hal likes) that smells of beer and coffee and no tea. There’s smoke and no ladies (which isn’t the usual choice) but there’s an unknown singer playing on the background, and blues fill the air with melancholic sounds.
He feels the difference the moment Hal enters into the place. He looks tired, there’s a bit of dry blood on his shirt and his face, but no one seems to be paying attention. The old one walks up to him, and the disgraced look makes Cutler’s dead heart beat in desperation (no matter how much he knows it’s not actually happening).
Hal sits in front of him, a sad smile on his face, his eyes examining him as if he is trying to remember him. He calls the waiter and asks for two cups of wine, but he doesn’t say a word to him.
“You look horrible,” Cutler finally dares to say. “Have you eaten something spoiled? I didn’t know you for a necro-"
“Shut up, Cutler.” He sounds extremely serious, for a moment he smiles, but the tension in his shoulder doesn’t leave.
The two cups appear in front of them, full and red, and distasteful. He’d rather have the blood, but he drinks it anyway. Hal doesn’t leave his eyes from him; tilting his head slightly and drinking his cup on one go. It startles Cutler how uneasy he feels, it doesn’t happen often, and especially not with his Lord. His Hal.
“Why here?” he asks, trying to find some sort of conversation that will answer this strange behavior.
“It’s far. Not far enough. But far.” Hal is shrugging it off, and his foot is looking for Cutler’s under the table.
“Far from where, Hal? You usually prefer it close. As it is my experience” He winks, and Hal is laughing, a nervous broken laugh, but laughing anyway, and they are starting to draw attention.
“Shut up, Cutler.”
“Why, my lord? It was you who requested my presence here, and I, dutiful, complied. Don’t I deserve some sort of explanation?”
“You do.” He says, but doesn’t give it. They talk shit instead. Politics (human and vampire), weather, ladies (Cutler’s throws in a few men into the mix, but they seems so poorly lame in comparison), America, London and old times and Hal looks like himself for a while.
*
“You could be on top of it all,” Cutler says, and truly, absolutely, believes it. Lord Harold of all. He feels great here, back in England, in the shores of the sea, breathing air that smells of fish and years passed. Hal plays with the empty glass on his hand.
“I could not. Get that idea off your head, Cutler.” His lips are swollen in pain, and his eyes are starting to lose the bright sparkle he remembers seeing the first time they met. “I don’t want it, either.”
“What do you want, then?”
There’s a radio that keeps pouring voices into the bar, almost empty but for them, even the waitress has left into the kitchen, but none of them is paying attention. Hal is doing his thing: staring at him in silence; as if he is trying to say something (or hear something from him). The taping of his fingers on the table make company to the starting music on the background, but he remains still and silent and that unnerves Cutler.
“What does Lord Harold want?”
“Peace,” Hal whispers so low, that he can barely hear him. “And you on a bed of blood.”
“I never took you for a romantic.” The reply comes as easy as hard it’s to comprehend what Hal is saying. Hal grimaces in disgust and Cutler’s feels like vomiting. “You want me dead?”
He is startled to say the list, especially when Hal response is to laugh. “No, I don’t want you dead. No more than you already are, anyway.”
He makes himself close his open mouth and behave a bit more reasonable for someone his age (not that he feels anything but a kid on Hal’s presence). “Oh.” He says once the thought drowns upon him, and he is sure he would blush if blood had still run on his veins. “But first you said…”
“It doesn’t matter what I said.” Hal shrugs. “I say lots of things, you shouldn’t pay me that much attention, kid- ”
“Don’t.” He feels his body boil, his hands clutching at the word. He relaxes slowly, as Hal apologies with a simple nod. “It makes you sound old,” he says as explanation, even though both know it’s nothing but a lie.
“I’m old, Cutler.”
“Old and important,” he dares push.
“Too important.” Cutler wants to say he is being cocky now, but there’s something on Hal eyes that stops him from it. Instead, he presses his hand on Hal neck and says: “There’s a lady here ready to make that bed for us.” The thought of her doesn’t excite him as much as it does Hal, but at least, they are all hands and bites now.
*
The next time he sees him- Well, he is supposed to see him but he isn’t there. Not everywhere. It’s like if he had vanished, trapped somewhere, only there are no monks this time (Cutler guesses).
He waits.
And waits.
And waits.
But hal doesn’t come and he leaves the empty coffee shop alone and disappointed. It’s the first time Hal doesn’t show for a date, in all the years, he had been early or late but never gone. And then he does it again, and the third year he doesn’t show up either. And years fall one on top of the other like victims of his fangs.
He waits for a letter, a wink in a random alley one night, or anything that will prove the stories wrong. The stories they bring, with their ghostly skin and their ugly teeth. The Old ones, that look nothing like he expected them to (like Hal, handsome, intriguingly dangerous, captivating and not this- vomit inducing thing they seem to be).
“He is gone.” Vampires have no real knowledge of private space or thoughts or anything, but it’s not so wrong when it’s Ivan. Hal trusted Ivan. “He is gone, kid,” he repeats.
He doesn’t wait anymore.
He is his own Lord, now.
Title: a tale someone told
Characters: Cutler/Hal.
Rating: PG15
Warnings: none.
Word Count: 1593
Summary: There’s a cafe Hal likes (it’s always wherever Hal likes) that smells of beer and coffee and no tea. . Hal and Cutler meet over the years. (un'betaed).
“I’ve heard the stories,” Cutler ventures. They are sitting on a Tea Shop in the middle of London. It’s 1914 and the world is at war, and yet, this place, in northern England seems a bit oblivious to it all. Specially the small shop, that looks a bit 17th century and that it’s so of Hal’s taste. (They also serve fresh blood -which doesn’t happen often-, and there’s something enigmatic about sharing a cup of it with your maker).
Hal doesn’t reply. He is the quiet type, as Cutler has learned over the ages. It’s not that he never talks, oh, Cutler knows how he talks, fact is, he just chooses when and how and not many would dare question him. Or even insist. But then again, not anyone is Cutler.
“How did you get out?” he asks again and shivers as Hal fixes his eyes on him, before he opens his mouth to reply.
“I killed them.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Lord Harold.”
Hal shrugs and drinks up his cup.
*
It’s only when the war ends, and Cutler is bathed on his Lord scent under broken sheets in some random hotel on Paris, that he gets his answer.
Hal is dressing on the corner of the room, fastening his trousers and searching for his shirt around the room when Cutler wakes up.
“Are you looking for this?” Hazel eyes stare at him, hungry. “I don’t think the Lady will mind if you kill her wearing your shirt or not, anyway, so I might keep it.”
“What for?” He doesn’t hide his intentions, and Cutler appreciates it. It was not hard to notice the looks and the longing just before he managed to close the door behind them and leave the woman outside. His time is up now, Lord Harry is free to go and drink whoever he wants with or without him.
“Insurance.” Hal tilts his head at him, a trace of a smile on his lips. The silent repetition of his question sounds in the room. “That you’ll come back.”
“You are playing a dangerous game.”
“Because you are an old one?”
“Because I haven’t told you how I escaped.”
He realizes as soon as it happens that his face shows it all. Hal is smiling at him knowingly. But Cutler can’t avoid the curiosity that it provokes on him. (There’s only one thing that he wonders more- but he tries not to think on it when the obvious response lies in the bed they shared).
“Then the shirt is the price, Lord Harry.”
The shirt ends ripped in pieces as Hal threatens him to ever call him that again, it’s all play and laughs from Cutler, and Hal enjoys it as much as he pretends not to. He whispers his deed monk by monk on Cutler’s ear, each image mixing with blood as if they were drinking it of each other, as if Hal could convert him once and again and again.
The lady of the keep is not forgotten.
But it’s, at least, temporally put aside.
*
They are on America, United States of. He is not sure why they are here, why he is here, only that they are. There’s a cafe Hal likes (it’s always wherever Hal likes) that smells of beer and coffee and no tea. There’s smoke and no ladies (which isn’t the usual choice) but there’s an unknown singer playing on the background, and blues fill the air with melancholic sounds.
He feels the difference the moment Hal enters into the place. He looks tired, there’s a bit of dry blood on his shirt and his face, but no one seems to be paying attention. The old one walks up to him, and the disgraced look makes Cutler’s dead heart beat in desperation (no matter how much he knows it’s not actually happening).
Hal sits in front of him, a sad smile on his face, his eyes examining him as if he is trying to remember him. He calls the waiter and asks for two cups of wine, but he doesn’t say a word to him.
“You look horrible,” Cutler finally dares to say. “Have you eaten something spoiled? I didn’t know you for a necro-"
“Shut up, Cutler.” He sounds extremely serious, for a moment he smiles, but the tension in his shoulder doesn’t leave.
The two cups appear in front of them, full and red, and distasteful. He’d rather have the blood, but he drinks it anyway. Hal doesn’t leave his eyes from him; tilting his head slightly and drinking his cup on one go. It startles Cutler how uneasy he feels, it doesn’t happen often, and especially not with his Lord. His Hal.
“Why here?” he asks, trying to find some sort of conversation that will answer this strange behavior.
“It’s far. Not far enough. But far.” Hal is shrugging it off, and his foot is looking for Cutler’s under the table.
“Far from where, Hal? You usually prefer it close. As it is my experience” He winks, and Hal is laughing, a nervous broken laugh, but laughing anyway, and they are starting to draw attention.
“Shut up, Cutler.”
“Why, my lord? It was you who requested my presence here, and I, dutiful, complied. Don’t I deserve some sort of explanation?”
“You do.” He says, but doesn’t give it. They talk shit instead. Politics (human and vampire), weather, ladies (Cutler’s throws in a few men into the mix, but they seems so poorly lame in comparison), America, London and old times and Hal looks like himself for a while.
*
“You could be on top of it all,” Cutler says, and truly, absolutely, believes it. Lord Harold of all. He feels great here, back in England, in the shores of the sea, breathing air that smells of fish and years passed. Hal plays with the empty glass on his hand.
“I could not. Get that idea off your head, Cutler.” His lips are swollen in pain, and his eyes are starting to lose the bright sparkle he remembers seeing the first time they met. “I don’t want it, either.”
“What do you want, then?”
There’s a radio that keeps pouring voices into the bar, almost empty but for them, even the waitress has left into the kitchen, but none of them is paying attention. Hal is doing his thing: staring at him in silence; as if he is trying to say something (or hear something from him). The taping of his fingers on the table make company to the starting music on the background, but he remains still and silent and that unnerves Cutler.
“What does Lord Harold want?”
“Peace,” Hal whispers so low, that he can barely hear him. “And you on a bed of blood.”
“I never took you for a romantic.” The reply comes as easy as hard it’s to comprehend what Hal is saying. Hal grimaces in disgust and Cutler’s feels like vomiting. “You want me dead?”
He is startled to say the list, especially when Hal response is to laugh. “No, I don’t want you dead. No more than you already are, anyway.”
He makes himself close his open mouth and behave a bit more reasonable for someone his age (not that he feels anything but a kid on Hal’s presence). “Oh.” He says once the thought drowns upon him, and he is sure he would blush if blood had still run on his veins. “But first you said…”
“It doesn’t matter what I said.” Hal shrugs. “I say lots of things, you shouldn’t pay me that much attention, kid- ”
“Don’t.” He feels his body boil, his hands clutching at the word. He relaxes slowly, as Hal apologies with a simple nod. “It makes you sound old,” he says as explanation, even though both know it’s nothing but a lie.
“I’m old, Cutler.”
“Old and important,” he dares push.
“Too important.” Cutler wants to say he is being cocky now, but there’s something on Hal eyes that stops him from it. Instead, he presses his hand on Hal neck and says: “There’s a lady here ready to make that bed for us.” The thought of her doesn’t excite him as much as it does Hal, but at least, they are all hands and bites now.
*
The next time he sees him- Well, he is supposed to see him but he isn’t there. Not everywhere. It’s like if he had vanished, trapped somewhere, only there are no monks this time (Cutler guesses).
He waits.
And waits.
And waits.
But hal doesn’t come and he leaves the empty coffee shop alone and disappointed. It’s the first time Hal doesn’t show for a date, in all the years, he had been early or late but never gone. And then he does it again, and the third year he doesn’t show up either. And years fall one on top of the other like victims of his fangs.
He waits for a letter, a wink in a random alley one night, or anything that will prove the stories wrong. The stories they bring, with their ghostly skin and their ugly teeth. The Old ones, that look nothing like he expected them to (like Hal, handsome, intriguingly dangerous, captivating and not this- vomit inducing thing they seem to be).
“He is gone.” Vampires have no real knowledge of private space or thoughts or anything, but it’s not so wrong when it’s Ivan. Hal trusted Ivan. “He is gone, kid,” he repeats.
He doesn’t wait anymore.
He is his own Lord, now.