BH Fic: Cursed (George/Mitchell)
Title: Cursed
Character: Mitchell (George/Mitchell)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,727
Warnings: Language, death, lots of blood talk
Summary: Mitchell didn’t think of it as a curse. Not at first anyway.
A/N: Written for toestastegood who asked for George/Mitchell, cursed. My apologies that it’s so Mitchell centric, I was trying to make it shippier, but Mitchell wouldn’t stop hogging the spotlight.
He remembers waking up. That first gasping breath, the sound of crows disappointed that their meal was suddenly moving, and then his fingers coated in grime finding the puncture wound on his neck. He was dead. He was alive.
He didn’t think he was cursed.
***
Herrick was a patient teacher. He brought Mitchell his first kill, a girl, a beautiful thing that blushed when Mitchell winked at her and giggled when he dared to touch her arm. She screamed when he sank his teeth into her neck. He should have found it appalling, this act, but Herrick was at his back, a fatherly hand squeezing his shoulder and the blood was gushing into his mouth spilling over his tongue and it tasted like life---laughter and fucking and chocolate and something more, it tasted like death, like ending.
It was intoxicating---and then it was over.
That was when it began; the wanting, an itch deep inside of him, a constant throb that would never stop, but he didn’t know that then.
He brought his wrist to his mouth and opened a vein---he made his first monster.
He still didn’t call it a curse.
***
The years rolled one into the other until he lost track of when it was, of which stars were in vogue and which songs the kids were singing. Behind him he left a trail of bodies, of people, of lives and he was just beginning to realize what that meant.
Herrick was there, a constant, his friend, his father. Together they owned every room, crashed every party. They shared kills; wiling away nights sharing women and wine and musing how one was so much like the other. But it was loosing its luster, this life of debauchery and death, something was missing; there was no joy in the ritual anymore.
“I’m going to give it up,” he said one night, blood still warm on his lips.
Herrick shook his head with an air of condescension, clucked his tongue as if Mitchell was an exceedingly simple child. He let the body he was holding drop carelessly to the floor.
“There’s no giving it up, Mitchell. This is what we are, now put this nonsense out of your head, the night is young and I could go for a bit of dessert. What do you say, mate?”
He said yes because it was expected, but the seed had been planted. This was the moment it all began to change.
***
The first time he stopped, he lasted a week before he gave in. It was tortuous, his hands quaked and a fine sheen of sweat clung to him even though there was snow on the ground. The worst part was the noise, he couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the thrum of a hundred heartbeats. He imagined the blood flowing just below the skin, warm and bitter, just out of reach.
He snapped on day seven, grabbed a girl off the street and pushed her into the alley. He bit her before she had a chance to scream. It was a sloppy kill; it was broad daylight, there were people on the street, anyone could have seen, but he didn’t care. He drained her in minutes not bothering to stop the blood from dribbling down his mouth. He felt like an animal, a predator and it wasn’t until it was over that the guilt began.
This wasn’t what he wanted to be anymore, but he didn’t know how to be anything else.
This was the first time he let the word enter into his mind.
Cursed.
He was cursed.
He sank to the ground not bothering to worry about the snow or the blood or the dead body at his side.
***
He tried again and again to quit. He would make it a week, a month and then he would relapse, add another body to the pile. He was disillusioned and fed up and when he closed his eyes he could see eternity sprawling in front him, day after day of Herrick and the others and rivers of blood---always the same. This was his life and it would never end.
But then there was George.
***
He smelled him before he saw him, caught the scent of blood on the air and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It was different, acrid---tainted. Werewolf.
He found him surrounded by Herrick’s lackeys, lying defeated in a pile of rubbish. His nose bloody, his face contorted in pain. He was so young and so broken---Mitchell saved him. It was a strange sensation; he wasn’t in the business of saving lives, but this one, this bloody Lyco he wanted to rescue.
So he did.
***
They went back to George’s flat above the café afterwards. George limping, one hand holding his stomach. Every move seemed to cost him something. Mitchell didn’t know what the hell he was doing, standing in some stranger’s home helping him cram his belongings into plastic bags. All he knew was that if they were going to leave, they were going to have to do it immediately.
The blood was still caked on George’s face, dry and crusted. It made him look small, like a little boy who had just had his ass kicked in the schoolyard. Mitchell didn’t like it.
He went to the sink and ran a cloth under the tap.
“Sit down,” he instructed. George looked up from his packing, his expression was wary, but he let himself sink to the bed.
Mitchell knelt down beside him and gently began to scrub the blood from George’s face. George winced and reached out to stop him.
“I can do it myself you know, I’m not helpless.”
There was an indignant whine in his voice; a sound that would become familiar to Mitchell over the next two years, but this was the first time he had ever heard it. It made him smile and that in of itself felt miraculous.
“I know you can,” he said with a wink. “But I want to.”
George was too tired to protest further, he just nodded and let Mitchell continue the process of cleaning him up.
It was strange to be so close to fresh blood and not want to drink. Strange and wonderful. There was no desire, no throbbing need. George wasn’t food. He was George. Mitchell felt lighter than he had in years. He let his fingers wander to George’s neck. He found the pulse, steady, a bit erratic---probably because he was terrifying his new friend, but he didn’t care. He was kneeling next to a living, breathing human being and he wasn’t imagining ripping him apart.
He laughed, really laughed for the first time in what felt like decades. George was staring at him in disbelief.
“What’s funny about this? I was nearly killed by vampires, by vampires…and you’re laughing…”
“You’re alive,” Mitchell said with a grin. “And I don’t want to eat you.”
George shook his head as if Mitchell were completely insane.
“That’s…good to know.”
***
They left that night and began moving from town to town. They worked odd jobs, washing up dishes in exchange for day old chips and scrubbing toilets for the luxury of sleeping in hotel lobbies. Mitchell had never been happier.
Three weeks after they set out the full moon came and George changed.
He was a bundle of nerves all day, he broke three plates at the little café they were working at that week and the owner chucked them both out on the street. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t focus on anything. Mitchell tried to distract him; he told him stories about dancing with Audrey Hepburn and seeing The Beatles play live, but George was too restless to listen.
Night fell and George disappeared into the woods with the look of a man going to the gallows. Mitchell spent the night in the car listening to distant howls and praying to see the light of day.
The moment the first rays of sunlight came filtering through the car windows, Mitchell set out to find George. He caught his scent quickly and he found himself running towards his friend. He found him, naked and covered in dirt, curled against the trunk of a tree.
George whimpered when Mitchell touched him as if every inch of him ached.
“Sorry…” Mitchell said.
“It’s okay.”
George’s voice was hollow and the sound made something inside of Mitchell clench.
“Come on; let’s get you out of here.”
He looped one around George’s waist and hauled him to his feet.
***
Mitchell used what little money they had to spring for a proper room that day. It was cheaper to get a single bed.
George was exhausted and unusually quiet. Mitchell had grown accustomed to a steady stream of chatter from him. The silence was unnerving. He watched his friend lying on the bed, his knees tucked against his chest as if he wanted to disappear into himself. After a moment Mitchell settled in behind him, pressing his chest against George’s back. He pulled George closer to him and felt him shiver, Mitchell wasn’t sure if it was from the coolness of his skin or from the shock of human contact. He threaded his fingers through George’s so that their hands were clasped together.
“You’re alright now,” Mitchell whispered.
George snorted and shook his head.
“I’m not alright, Mitchell. I’m never going to be alright. I’m cursed. This is going to happen every month for the rest of my life…it won’t end, it won’t ever end.”
Mitchell could hear an echo of himself in George’s words. Three weeks ago he had been just as hopeless as George was now. He had resigned himself to being a monster, he had given up. But then he had saved the life of a chatty, brilliant young werewolf and everything had changed. He believed his life could be better, that he could be better and he was going make George believe that to.
He squeezed George’s hand gently and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.
“We’re both cursed, George and we can’t change that. You’re a werewolf and I’m a vampire, it’s what we are, but it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“Why’s that?”
Mitchell laughed. “Because we’re not alone.”