Being Human: Like It Never Was [Rook & Hal]
Title: “Like It Never Was”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 [for mentions of attempted suicide and suicidal thoughts]
Timeline: post-Episode 5x03, “Pie and Prejudice”
Summary: A day after the first phone call, Hal calls Rook again.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
A/N: This started out as a potential phone sex fic, but these bastards highjacked it with their philosophy and their angst. Alas, I fail, so this is pre-slash at best. Anyhow, this exists because of Shiro and her awesome ideas.
LIKE IT NEVER WAS
The gun rests on the desk, right where he left it. He could still do it. Anything is better than dealing with the hassles of unemployment: bills to pay, job interviews to go through. The funny thing is, Rook has lied continuously about his work in the civil service being dull, but he never believed that the lie might one day become the truth. Agriculture, Alistair had said. Of course that was before… certain developments. Now he can’t even have that.
He sits on the broad window-sill, nursing a half-empty bottle of scotch, and watches the street below. Hazy, bluish-black in the starless night. He can’t even get drunk properly.
His phone starts ringing, startling him out of his cheerless ruminations. Rook picks up without glancing at the display. He doesn’t care who it is or what they want, at least not until he recognizes the voice on the other end.
“How does one fall into your line of work anyway?”
Hal Yorke. To what does Rook own this honour for the second time in as many days?
“Did you kill someone again?” he asks. “Is this going to become a regular occurrence?”
Perhaps this is the answer to his impending financial troubles. He should just charge Hal for every mess he helps to clean up.
Hal laughs. It’s husky, velveteen sound. These creatures, they are charming on the outside but all rotten.
“What were you doing when I phoned you yesterday? You sounded… off.”
Rook answers, perhaps a bit too hastily: “Nothing.” His throat feels dry, and he takes a swig of scotch. He should steer the conversation back on track, but he keeps silent. So does Hal. Rook can hear him breathing, which is odd: why does a Type 2 need to breathe? It’s a measured sound, intense like the ticking of a clock.
Rook listens, trying to assess the situation. Hal is calling from the landline, so he must be sitting in the living-room, perhaps by the counter, not far from where the body was. Rook registers the pattern of his breathing. In: sharp, noisy, forceful. Out: drawn-out, barely perceptible. He should have set the timer to see how long it would take either of them to break the silence.
“I didn’t kill anyone today,” Hal says pointedly. “Will you be there the next time I do?”
Rook wants to say that he is always there - but it’s not his job anymore, is it?
“You sound as if you would like me to.”
“You’ve chosen a very strange modus operandi. Sweeping big, scary secrets under the rug instead of trying to stop all those evil things from happening. How does that benefit humanity exactly?”
His voice sounds somehow… ingratiating.
Rook shifts, leaning against the window-pane and stretching his legs.
“Is that what you want? For me to prevent you from killing? I’m afraid it is outside my competence.”
Hal laughs again. He is quite clearly drunk but not, Rook suspects, on spirits. Perhaps the flask did come in handy. It occurs to Rook that if Hal should agree to the offer Rook has made him, Rook would not be able to uphold his end of the deal.
“I think you couldn’t even if you tried,” Hal drawls. His voice sounds almost sultry. “That would rather negate the point of you. You are a cleaner. What will you do if there is no vomit to mop up?”
Rook wants to get angry, but Hal has got a point. More than he imagines, in fact.
“You asked for help,” Rook points out. “You phoned me.”
Hal sighs. It travels through Rook in a warm rush, pooling low in his belly. Vampires, especially the Old Ones, are malign, cancerous. Rook doesn’t hold any particular grudge against Yorke; the man is, after all, rumoured to be a human sympathizer. It’s not Yorke per se; the entire species is poisonous.
And yet, when Hal speaks again, Rook thinks that maybe it is him. He has quite a bit of insight into Rook’s state of mind, especially for someone who is drunk and unacquainted with the circumstances.
“Would you like to know what happened? I can tell you what happened. He insulted my friends. And you know… desperate times, desperate measures.”
“Most people would just punch such a person in the face.”
But then, Rook knows all about desperation. There was no blood in the house and Hal mentioned the victim was a Type 3, which meant Hal couldn’t have drunk from him. Was it an impulsive act? Sort of a crime passionnel because the victim had happened to badmouth the people the perpetrator cared for? The idea of a Type 2 forming attachments outside their own species is not new, nor is it particularly shocking or far-fetched. In fact, some of them are strongly exogamous, especially those who, like Hal, strive to maintain a “clean” lifestyle.
It strikes him that he has never before made any specific inquiries as to the reason for a death. The cause - certainly. The type of an attack - definitely. But the motivation? That is outside his jurisdiction and, by extension, outside his field of interest.
It also strikes him that he wants to know. If Hal wants to tell him, he will listen.
Hal’s speech is a jumble of words. Most of the time Rook can’t make heads or tails of it. But there is an underlying motive: justification. It’s nice to talk to someone who understands the need for it. It’s almost as if Hal is trying to come up with an alibi.
It’s hot in the room, which is strange because it’s never hot here. The room is big and empty, a little draughty; he doesn’t even have curtains. Maybe it’s the alcohol. He loosens his tie and unbuttons the top button on his shirt. He doesn’t really have any house dress. The suits he wears are not just uniform; they are second skin.
“Sounds to me like you knew perfectly well what you were doing,” he says when Hal falls silent. “Blood or no blood.”
“Of course I d-.” Anger makes Hal’s voice warm.
An abrupt thud follows. Rook instinctively takes the mobile phone away from his ear. He looks at it, then brings it close again.
“Hal?”
Silence. It sounds like Hal has dropped the receiver or the entire machine. But the connection still works; Rook can hear the muffled sounds of something being moved, dragged across the floor. It reminds him of how they moved the body.
“I was going to kill myself, you know,” Hal says. His voice, loud and clear all of a sudden, all but makes Rook jump. “I was prepared. I was going to put both Ian and myself out of misery.”
Rook glances at the gun, and doesn’t say anything.
“I’ve got no illusions,” Hal continues. “I know where this ends. For all of us. I’m not dying for anything big. This will not be a heroic act. It’s an act of cowardice or just fate. When I die, I’ll just die.”
“Sometimes,” Rook whispers, “it’s the only valid alternative.”
“But it won’t mean anything!” Hal exclaims. “All my life will not have meant a thing. All the cycles, all the struggle…”
A smile tugs at the corners of Rook’s mouth. How bloody ironic it is that Hal should discuss such things with him. He is neither a philosopher, not a priest; as of a few days ago, he is not even sure life has a meaning.
“A friend once told me,” Hal goes on, “that all vampires are afraid of death. That’s why we keep running from it. I dismissed his words then, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that perhaps he had a point. But it is not so much fear as the sense of… entitlement. When you’ve lived five centuries, you can’t help acting like it’s supposed to last forever. Like the world belongs to you.”
“Do you believe that?” Rook asks, morbidly fascinated by the immensity of these delusions.
“Not right now. But there is a part of me that does.”
This is why Rook abhors Type 2s. Always with the split personalities. A part of me did this, a part of me wants that. They have no integrity. Rook doesn’t like admitting it, but they have a lot in common. He uses the greater good as a crutch, much in the same way as Hal uses the monster within him.
“I told you before,” Hal says. “You don’t want to see me leading the vampires.”
“And yet, you drank from the flask.”
Hal is quiet for a while. Rook’s arm has gone numb, so he takes the phone into the other hand. He slides down until he is lying on the window-sill, and puts the tired arm over his abdomen. The window-sill is too narrow to be comfortable, but he can’t be bothered to go to the bedroom. He doesn’t want to allow this conversation to escape beyond this room.
“How did you know it was the flask?” Hal asks.
“I simply reckoned that if you had tasted warm blood from the vein, you would not have been wasting your time telephoning me.”
Hal’s silence tells Rook he is right.
“It was cold and stale,” Hal says, as though accusing Rook of deliberately giving him bad blood. “Revolting.”
“Why did you drink?”
“Why did you want me to?”
Clever. Shifting the blame. Rook is not falling for that.
“It was a friendly gesture. The fact that you kept it says more about you than it does about me.”
“Stop your mind games!” Hal hisses.
“You’re free to hang up whenever you want,” Rook points out. “But I would much appreciate an answer to my question. You killed a werewolf, supposedly so that he stopped threatening the safety of your household. That is arguably a noble cause. It was a human-style murder. You didn’t feed, so technically your personal rules of conduct were not broken. And then you drank from the flask. Why? Why now and why the flask? You said it yourself: the taste was bad. If you wanted blood, you could easily acquire it in the streets.”
“I said,” Hal bellows, “stop!”
Breath catches in Rook’s throat. He wets his lips and stares, wide-eyed, at the white window frame.
“You’re like a child poking a rattlesnake with a stick,” Hal says slowly. “Larry made the same mistake. He wasn’t frightened enough.”
“Hal,” Rook reasons, “I’ve seen a lot of things. If you want to frighten me, you should try harder, but I’d rather you didn’t make it your life’s work.”
His heart beats so loudly that he wonders if Hal can hear it. If it gives Hal ideas. If it turns his eyes black.
Hal is quiet again, deafeningly so.
Rook can’t help smiling.
“I think you should stop trying to corner me,” Hal says at length. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m truly desperate.”
That, of course, is a matter of opinion, but Rook doesn’t argue.
Their conversation is inexplicably cut short when someone (evidently the werewolf Hal lives with) asks who Hal is talking to.
“No one,” Hal says, “wrong number,” and slams the receiver down.
Rook slowly puts the phone down. His chest feels tight and his skin uncomfortably hot as if he’d drunk too much hot tea too fast. His work was never personal. He never displayed any specific interest in his so-called tenants. But Hal, Hal is something different.
Rook gets off the window-sill, picks up the gun and looks at it for a few moments before putting it back into the desk drawer.
Not today.
February 19-21, 2013
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 [for mentions of attempted suicide and suicidal thoughts]
Timeline: post-Episode 5x03, “Pie and Prejudice”
Summary: A day after the first phone call, Hal calls Rook again.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
A/N: This started out as a potential phone sex fic, but these bastards highjacked it with their philosophy and their angst. Alas, I fail, so this is pre-slash at best. Anyhow, this exists because of Shiro and her awesome ideas.
LIKE IT NEVER WAS
The gun rests on the desk, right where he left it. He could still do it. Anything is better than dealing with the hassles of unemployment: bills to pay, job interviews to go through. The funny thing is, Rook has lied continuously about his work in the civil service being dull, but he never believed that the lie might one day become the truth. Agriculture, Alistair had said. Of course that was before… certain developments. Now he can’t even have that.
He sits on the broad window-sill, nursing a half-empty bottle of scotch, and watches the street below. Hazy, bluish-black in the starless night. He can’t even get drunk properly.
His phone starts ringing, startling him out of his cheerless ruminations. Rook picks up without glancing at the display. He doesn’t care who it is or what they want, at least not until he recognizes the voice on the other end.
“How does one fall into your line of work anyway?”
Hal Yorke. To what does Rook own this honour for the second time in as many days?
“Did you kill someone again?” he asks. “Is this going to become a regular occurrence?”
Perhaps this is the answer to his impending financial troubles. He should just charge Hal for every mess he helps to clean up.
Hal laughs. It’s husky, velveteen sound. These creatures, they are charming on the outside but all rotten.
“What were you doing when I phoned you yesterday? You sounded… off.”
Rook answers, perhaps a bit too hastily: “Nothing.” His throat feels dry, and he takes a swig of scotch. He should steer the conversation back on track, but he keeps silent. So does Hal. Rook can hear him breathing, which is odd: why does a Type 2 need to breathe? It’s a measured sound, intense like the ticking of a clock.
Rook listens, trying to assess the situation. Hal is calling from the landline, so he must be sitting in the living-room, perhaps by the counter, not far from where the body was. Rook registers the pattern of his breathing. In: sharp, noisy, forceful. Out: drawn-out, barely perceptible. He should have set the timer to see how long it would take either of them to break the silence.
“I didn’t kill anyone today,” Hal says pointedly. “Will you be there the next time I do?”
Rook wants to say that he is always there - but it’s not his job anymore, is it?
“You sound as if you would like me to.”
“You’ve chosen a very strange modus operandi. Sweeping big, scary secrets under the rug instead of trying to stop all those evil things from happening. How does that benefit humanity exactly?”
His voice sounds somehow… ingratiating.
Rook shifts, leaning against the window-pane and stretching his legs.
“Is that what you want? For me to prevent you from killing? I’m afraid it is outside my competence.”
Hal laughs again. He is quite clearly drunk but not, Rook suspects, on spirits. Perhaps the flask did come in handy. It occurs to Rook that if Hal should agree to the offer Rook has made him, Rook would not be able to uphold his end of the deal.
“I think you couldn’t even if you tried,” Hal drawls. His voice sounds almost sultry. “That would rather negate the point of you. You are a cleaner. What will you do if there is no vomit to mop up?”
Rook wants to get angry, but Hal has got a point. More than he imagines, in fact.
“You asked for help,” Rook points out. “You phoned me.”
Hal sighs. It travels through Rook in a warm rush, pooling low in his belly. Vampires, especially the Old Ones, are malign, cancerous. Rook doesn’t hold any particular grudge against Yorke; the man is, after all, rumoured to be a human sympathizer. It’s not Yorke per se; the entire species is poisonous.
And yet, when Hal speaks again, Rook thinks that maybe it is him. He has quite a bit of insight into Rook’s state of mind, especially for someone who is drunk and unacquainted with the circumstances.
“Would you like to know what happened? I can tell you what happened. He insulted my friends. And you know… desperate times, desperate measures.”
“Most people would just punch such a person in the face.”
But then, Rook knows all about desperation. There was no blood in the house and Hal mentioned the victim was a Type 3, which meant Hal couldn’t have drunk from him. Was it an impulsive act? Sort of a crime passionnel because the victim had happened to badmouth the people the perpetrator cared for? The idea of a Type 2 forming attachments outside their own species is not new, nor is it particularly shocking or far-fetched. In fact, some of them are strongly exogamous, especially those who, like Hal, strive to maintain a “clean” lifestyle.
It strikes him that he has never before made any specific inquiries as to the reason for a death. The cause - certainly. The type of an attack - definitely. But the motivation? That is outside his jurisdiction and, by extension, outside his field of interest.
It also strikes him that he wants to know. If Hal wants to tell him, he will listen.
Hal’s speech is a jumble of words. Most of the time Rook can’t make heads or tails of it. But there is an underlying motive: justification. It’s nice to talk to someone who understands the need for it. It’s almost as if Hal is trying to come up with an alibi.
It’s hot in the room, which is strange because it’s never hot here. The room is big and empty, a little draughty; he doesn’t even have curtains. Maybe it’s the alcohol. He loosens his tie and unbuttons the top button on his shirt. He doesn’t really have any house dress. The suits he wears are not just uniform; they are second skin.
“Sounds to me like you knew perfectly well what you were doing,” he says when Hal falls silent. “Blood or no blood.”
“Of course I d-.” Anger makes Hal’s voice warm.
An abrupt thud follows. Rook instinctively takes the mobile phone away from his ear. He looks at it, then brings it close again.
“Hal?”
Silence. It sounds like Hal has dropped the receiver or the entire machine. But the connection still works; Rook can hear the muffled sounds of something being moved, dragged across the floor. It reminds him of how they moved the body.
“I was going to kill myself, you know,” Hal says. His voice, loud and clear all of a sudden, all but makes Rook jump. “I was prepared. I was going to put both Ian and myself out of misery.”
Rook glances at the gun, and doesn’t say anything.
“I’ve got no illusions,” Hal continues. “I know where this ends. For all of us. I’m not dying for anything big. This will not be a heroic act. It’s an act of cowardice or just fate. When I die, I’ll just die.”
“Sometimes,” Rook whispers, “it’s the only valid alternative.”
“But it won’t mean anything!” Hal exclaims. “All my life will not have meant a thing. All the cycles, all the struggle…”
A smile tugs at the corners of Rook’s mouth. How bloody ironic it is that Hal should discuss such things with him. He is neither a philosopher, not a priest; as of a few days ago, he is not even sure life has a meaning.
“A friend once told me,” Hal goes on, “that all vampires are afraid of death. That’s why we keep running from it. I dismissed his words then, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that perhaps he had a point. But it is not so much fear as the sense of… entitlement. When you’ve lived five centuries, you can’t help acting like it’s supposed to last forever. Like the world belongs to you.”
“Do you believe that?” Rook asks, morbidly fascinated by the immensity of these delusions.
“Not right now. But there is a part of me that does.”
This is why Rook abhors Type 2s. Always with the split personalities. A part of me did this, a part of me wants that. They have no integrity. Rook doesn’t like admitting it, but they have a lot in common. He uses the greater good as a crutch, much in the same way as Hal uses the monster within him.
“I told you before,” Hal says. “You don’t want to see me leading the vampires.”
“And yet, you drank from the flask.”
Hal is quiet for a while. Rook’s arm has gone numb, so he takes the phone into the other hand. He slides down until he is lying on the window-sill, and puts the tired arm over his abdomen. The window-sill is too narrow to be comfortable, but he can’t be bothered to go to the bedroom. He doesn’t want to allow this conversation to escape beyond this room.
“How did you know it was the flask?” Hal asks.
“I simply reckoned that if you had tasted warm blood from the vein, you would not have been wasting your time telephoning me.”
Hal’s silence tells Rook he is right.
“It was cold and stale,” Hal says, as though accusing Rook of deliberately giving him bad blood. “Revolting.”
“Why did you drink?”
“Why did you want me to?”
Clever. Shifting the blame. Rook is not falling for that.
“It was a friendly gesture. The fact that you kept it says more about you than it does about me.”
“Stop your mind games!” Hal hisses.
“You’re free to hang up whenever you want,” Rook points out. “But I would much appreciate an answer to my question. You killed a werewolf, supposedly so that he stopped threatening the safety of your household. That is arguably a noble cause. It was a human-style murder. You didn’t feed, so technically your personal rules of conduct were not broken. And then you drank from the flask. Why? Why now and why the flask? You said it yourself: the taste was bad. If you wanted blood, you could easily acquire it in the streets.”
“I said,” Hal bellows, “stop!”
Breath catches in Rook’s throat. He wets his lips and stares, wide-eyed, at the white window frame.
“You’re like a child poking a rattlesnake with a stick,” Hal says slowly. “Larry made the same mistake. He wasn’t frightened enough.”
“Hal,” Rook reasons, “I’ve seen a lot of things. If you want to frighten me, you should try harder, but I’d rather you didn’t make it your life’s work.”
His heart beats so loudly that he wonders if Hal can hear it. If it gives Hal ideas. If it turns his eyes black.
Hal is quiet again, deafeningly so.
Rook can’t help smiling.
“I think you should stop trying to corner me,” Hal says at length. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m truly desperate.”
That, of course, is a matter of opinion, but Rook doesn’t argue.
Their conversation is inexplicably cut short when someone (evidently the werewolf Hal lives with) asks who Hal is talking to.
“No one,” Hal says, “wrong number,” and slams the receiver down.
Rook slowly puts the phone down. His chest feels tight and his skin uncomfortably hot as if he’d drunk too much hot tea too fast. His work was never personal. He never displayed any specific interest in his so-called tenants. But Hal, Hal is something different.
Rook gets off the window-sill, picks up the gun and looks at it for a few moments before putting it back into the desk drawer.
Not today.
February 19-21, 2013