Being Human: Blood Beats Black [Hal/Cutler]
Title: “Blood Beats Black”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: R
Timeline: 1950 [Spoilers for Episode 4x07]
Summary: Cutler’s first week of being a vampire. Or a poor excuse for one. [Hal/Cutler, Cutler/Rachel]
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC. Title from “Bloodbeat” by Patrick Wolf.
A/N: Cutler’s background story pretty much made me cry and want to give him a hug. Then this came to pass.
BLOOD BEATS BLACK
The first time Nick wakes up like this, the hunger in his mouth tastes like dirt. He can barely breathe past it, not that he specifically needs to. He is a realist, but he is not stupid: he knows what the black eyes and the teeth and the… the biting, for heaven’s sake, mean.
His hand shoots up to his mouth, fingers probing frantically, tracing the sharp points of his canines. They are not always like this. No, he remembers seeing Yorke smile that terrible, promising smile of his. The teeth were normal.
Nick pushes at them, hard, as if trying to shove them back, to make them grow small and human again. He bites through his own finger. He clenches his jaws and covers his mouth with his hand, holding the bleeding thumb as far away as possible.
--
The first time he sees an empty space where his reflection should be, he almost bursts out screaming. It’s like he doesn’t even exist anymore. Horror dissolves, and he feels inexplicably sad. He thinks he’ll never be able to tell Rachel about this. It’s the first secret he is going to keep from her. Things were never supposed to go this way.
--
He wakes up on blood-drenched sheets with a dying girl struggling to breathe in spite of the wounds on her neck. The smell gives him a headrush and fixes a cocktail of horror and hunger down in his innards.
Hal tells him to fucking stop fighting it. He is five days old and he hasn’t tasted blood other than that of his maker because he cannot bring himself to open a vein. Hal has just done it for him.
“C-can I… have a cup?” Nick stutters, feeling miserable and pathetic. Some history maker he is turning out to be. He fully expects Hal to reconsider and kill him off one of these days. Maybe even right now.
The expression on Hal’s face is that of quizzical disappointment. Nick suppresses the urge to cover his ears. He cannot stand this wheezing noise that keeps coming from the… the body, and he feels a violent urge to do something about it - except he cannot even bring himself to look at her… it.
“Please,” he murmurs quietly.
Hal rolls his eyes, lip curling in distaste, and walks into the kitchen. He is not going to baby him forever, Nick thinks. If he doesn’t learn, if he doesn’t embrace this new world Hal has given him, he will perish. Hal will find someone else, easily, with a snap of his fingers. The thought of that is very nearly unbearable.
Hal returns and hands Nick a small cup. Nick fumbles with it awkwardly, then presses its rim to the girl’s neck. He manages to collect but a few drops. A failure, that’s what he is. A bloody stupid failure.
Hal snorts, as if guessing the direction Nick’s thoughts are taking (Rachel always did say he had very poor control over his facial expressions). He takes the dying girl by the hand and bites her wrist and squeezes blood into the cup that Nick stupidly holds in place. As soon as he is done, Nick swallows it all, it’s fucking intolerable, he wants more - and he wants it to stop. He wants the taste of grave dirt in his mouth gone.
Hal leans into the girl and clenches his teeth around her throat. Nick watches him, transfixed. He could be like this too.
Hal looks up at him, lips smeared with blood. That vibrant, violent red hypnotizes him. He grips the cup so tightly that a thin crack spreads down its side.
Nick feels about for the girl’s hand. He needs more blood. The need is physical, tearing at his very system, inside and outside. Hal reaches towards him and shifts Nick’s fingers so that he could feel the girl’s pulse, which is not there anymore.
“No,” Hal rebukes him softly. “Corpses won’t do. It’s poor taste.”
He smiles with those blood red lips at the lost expression on Nick’s face. So much blood to go to waste. Nick swallows hard past the hot, sticky lump in his throat. Hal’s lips part slightly. Nick can see the tip of his tongue. If Hal’s so much as flicks his tongue, all this compelling redness will be gone. He pushes himself forward instinctively and clamps his mouth over Hal’s lips. He’s always been a sloppy kisser, too nervous and too eager to do things properly (no, Rachel did not tell him that; he just knows) - and he doesn’t stop to think what he is doing. He sucks the blood out of Hal’s mouth, even mere suggestions of it, and the world goes black with ravenous hunger and explodes into facets of taste. He nips at Hal’s lips and swipes his tongue over Hal’s, a clumsy mash of teeth and- No, it’s all teeth, it’s all there has ever been, teeth made to sink into flesh, to shred and gnaw, it’s the weapon of hunger, the needle through which poison is administered.
Nick pulls away, terrified and elated. He wants to make Hal proud. Next time he will.
--
Nick is six days old when the thought of drinking Rachel first crosses his mind. She just keeps yapping about some silly female things that hold about as much interest for him as watching a snail crawl along a straight line. His hands start to shake. All he can think about is the sound of her heart pumping blood. There are five litres of blood in a grown up human. Enough to quench anyone’s thirst.
He kisses her to shut her up. She is surprised, but she kisses back and lets him take her to bed. Perhaps she likes it rough. Perhaps she always has, but he never asked. He is almost offended that she cannot see the change in him. As she cries out in pleasure, he cannot but imagine her scream. She is all blood underneath that fleshy exterior, precious life. He leaves a trail of bruising kisses along the side of her neck but he never breaks the skin. He tells her he loves her in ragged whispers, hammers every word in, struggling to drive the point home. He loves her. He will never hurt her.
--
On the seventh day Hal first brings it up.
“You will have to move on eventually,” he says, matter-of-factly. “She will live and she will die. You won’t. What will you do when she is old and grey?”
Nick hasn’t thought of that.
“It’s merciful to leave her now. For both of you.”
Of course Nick doesn’t know yet what “leave” really means.
They are in somebody’s house, a familiar story, and there is a girl tied up in an arm-chair. To Nick, she is almost more captivating than smudges of blood on the wall as she bears some physical resemblance to Rachel. It is probably unintentional on Hal’s part; for all Nick knows, he might be seeing things. Fergus watches him with not so vague contempt. Louis flashes him a smirk. Dennis is… not here, which is good because he gives Nick the jitters.
“There are no gifts in this world,” says Hal, kneeling before the girl. She whimpers, biting at the gag in her mouth, her eyes thickly veiled with tears. She looks beautiful and terrible. Hal rolls up her skirt, exposing long, slender legs. He spreads them apart and holds out his hand, which Fergus places a knife into. “Nothing is given,” he continues as he trails the blade down her thigh, leaving a deep bleeding gash. “Only bought.” The girl chokes on her own scream and screws her eyes shut, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Especially miracles,” says Hal, adding another cut.
Nick’s vision goes double. Hal beckons him closer, then grips his tie and holds it so that Nick cannot escape. He forces Nick’s head down until his lips brush the split skin. The girl’s thigh is warm and slick with sweat. The maddening smell of blood and fear clogs Nick’s nostrils. He drinks greedily until it’s not enough anymore, and he tears the supple flesh with his teeth, desperate to get more.
When he pulls away, the others are no longer in the room. He vaguely remembers hearing Louis’s nasty chuckles a couple of minutes ago, probably on the way out. Hal smiles at him, and Nick feels his chest swelling with something akin to pride. It’s the first time he’s actually bitten someone, granted there was already a lot to go on, but maybe he can still make a vampire that Hal would approve of.
“Are you even enjoying this?” Hal asks.
The inquiry takes Nick by surprise. He blinks owlishly and stutters:
“W-well, obviously…”
“I’d hate to force you.” Hal gives him a blank, pleasant smile that states exactly the opposite.
The girl picks the wrong time to attempt screaming again. She should have figured out by now that nobody would help her, not in this house. Hal remains visibly unaffected, save for a tiny vein bulging on his temple. His hand moves, as if possessing the will of its own. Nick’s eyes barely register its movement as the knife slits the girl’s throat and she bleeds all over Hal’s fingers. The forefinger, the middle finger, the ring finger, all dazzling red, rivulets of blood spreading over his skin like syrup.
“Do we absolutely have to?” Nick feels emboldened enough to ask. “Kill people?”
Hal brushes his slick fingers against Nick’s lips, smearing them with blood. Irritation bubbles inside Nick. He wants to tell Hal that this is degrading, even worse than being spoon-fed; he’s not a child for crying out loud.
“Selectivity pertains to humanity,” Hal says, his eyes dark and hard. “You have been delivered from this weakness. Imagine if you spare one person. Just one. What then? Some delusion that you will inevitably mistake for conscience will start weighing down on you, telling you that what you’re doing is wrong. What will you do then? Starve?”
Nick opens his mouth to answer, but it’s impossible to concentrate when Hal is offering him a treat, though offering is a kind way to say that he is dangling a sweet in front of a baby without any intention to give it away. Of course. There are no gifts in this world, particularly for people like them. Vampires do not wait for breadcrumbs; they take, they devour, they hunt for more.
Nick sucks Hal’s fingers into his mouth, licking them clean, tasting the texture of Hal’s skin, the sensation he’s become increasingly familiar with lately.
“Natural selection,” Hal whispers, his voice a little hoarse, and Nick sweeps his tongue over the sensitive patch of skin between his index finger and his middle finger - just because. “We didn’t create this world, but it was in the end made for us. Blame your urges on the nature if you like.” He withdraws his hand, leans into Nick and kisses him briefly and violently. “But don’t blame them on yourself.”
--
The taste of grave dirt is slowly being washed away by the rich, powerful flavour only blood can possess. Nick Cutler always knew he was meant for something more.
March 19-23, 2012
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: R
Timeline: 1950 [Spoilers for Episode 4x07]
Summary: Cutler’s first week of being a vampire. Or a poor excuse for one. [Hal/Cutler, Cutler/Rachel]
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC. Title from “Bloodbeat” by Patrick Wolf.
A/N: Cutler’s background story pretty much made me cry and want to give him a hug. Then this came to pass.
BLOOD BEATS BLACK
The first time Nick wakes up like this, the hunger in his mouth tastes like dirt. He can barely breathe past it, not that he specifically needs to. He is a realist, but he is not stupid: he knows what the black eyes and the teeth and the… the biting, for heaven’s sake, mean.
His hand shoots up to his mouth, fingers probing frantically, tracing the sharp points of his canines. They are not always like this. No, he remembers seeing Yorke smile that terrible, promising smile of his. The teeth were normal.
Nick pushes at them, hard, as if trying to shove them back, to make them grow small and human again. He bites through his own finger. He clenches his jaws and covers his mouth with his hand, holding the bleeding thumb as far away as possible.
--
The first time he sees an empty space where his reflection should be, he almost bursts out screaming. It’s like he doesn’t even exist anymore. Horror dissolves, and he feels inexplicably sad. He thinks he’ll never be able to tell Rachel about this. It’s the first secret he is going to keep from her. Things were never supposed to go this way.
--
He wakes up on blood-drenched sheets with a dying girl struggling to breathe in spite of the wounds on her neck. The smell gives him a headrush and fixes a cocktail of horror and hunger down in his innards.
Hal tells him to fucking stop fighting it. He is five days old and he hasn’t tasted blood other than that of his maker because he cannot bring himself to open a vein. Hal has just done it for him.
“C-can I… have a cup?” Nick stutters, feeling miserable and pathetic. Some history maker he is turning out to be. He fully expects Hal to reconsider and kill him off one of these days. Maybe even right now.
The expression on Hal’s face is that of quizzical disappointment. Nick suppresses the urge to cover his ears. He cannot stand this wheezing noise that keeps coming from the… the body, and he feels a violent urge to do something about it - except he cannot even bring himself to look at her… it.
“Please,” he murmurs quietly.
Hal rolls his eyes, lip curling in distaste, and walks into the kitchen. He is not going to baby him forever, Nick thinks. If he doesn’t learn, if he doesn’t embrace this new world Hal has given him, he will perish. Hal will find someone else, easily, with a snap of his fingers. The thought of that is very nearly unbearable.
Hal returns and hands Nick a small cup. Nick fumbles with it awkwardly, then presses its rim to the girl’s neck. He manages to collect but a few drops. A failure, that’s what he is. A bloody stupid failure.
Hal snorts, as if guessing the direction Nick’s thoughts are taking (Rachel always did say he had very poor control over his facial expressions). He takes the dying girl by the hand and bites her wrist and squeezes blood into the cup that Nick stupidly holds in place. As soon as he is done, Nick swallows it all, it’s fucking intolerable, he wants more - and he wants it to stop. He wants the taste of grave dirt in his mouth gone.
Hal leans into the girl and clenches his teeth around her throat. Nick watches him, transfixed. He could be like this too.
Hal looks up at him, lips smeared with blood. That vibrant, violent red hypnotizes him. He grips the cup so tightly that a thin crack spreads down its side.
Nick feels about for the girl’s hand. He needs more blood. The need is physical, tearing at his very system, inside and outside. Hal reaches towards him and shifts Nick’s fingers so that he could feel the girl’s pulse, which is not there anymore.
“No,” Hal rebukes him softly. “Corpses won’t do. It’s poor taste.”
He smiles with those blood red lips at the lost expression on Nick’s face. So much blood to go to waste. Nick swallows hard past the hot, sticky lump in his throat. Hal’s lips part slightly. Nick can see the tip of his tongue. If Hal’s so much as flicks his tongue, all this compelling redness will be gone. He pushes himself forward instinctively and clamps his mouth over Hal’s lips. He’s always been a sloppy kisser, too nervous and too eager to do things properly (no, Rachel did not tell him that; he just knows) - and he doesn’t stop to think what he is doing. He sucks the blood out of Hal’s mouth, even mere suggestions of it, and the world goes black with ravenous hunger and explodes into facets of taste. He nips at Hal’s lips and swipes his tongue over Hal’s, a clumsy mash of teeth and- No, it’s all teeth, it’s all there has ever been, teeth made to sink into flesh, to shred and gnaw, it’s the weapon of hunger, the needle through which poison is administered.
Nick pulls away, terrified and elated. He wants to make Hal proud. Next time he will.
--
Nick is six days old when the thought of drinking Rachel first crosses his mind. She just keeps yapping about some silly female things that hold about as much interest for him as watching a snail crawl along a straight line. His hands start to shake. All he can think about is the sound of her heart pumping blood. There are five litres of blood in a grown up human. Enough to quench anyone’s thirst.
He kisses her to shut her up. She is surprised, but she kisses back and lets him take her to bed. Perhaps she likes it rough. Perhaps she always has, but he never asked. He is almost offended that she cannot see the change in him. As she cries out in pleasure, he cannot but imagine her scream. She is all blood underneath that fleshy exterior, precious life. He leaves a trail of bruising kisses along the side of her neck but he never breaks the skin. He tells her he loves her in ragged whispers, hammers every word in, struggling to drive the point home. He loves her. He will never hurt her.
--
On the seventh day Hal first brings it up.
“You will have to move on eventually,” he says, matter-of-factly. “She will live and she will die. You won’t. What will you do when she is old and grey?”
Nick hasn’t thought of that.
“It’s merciful to leave her now. For both of you.”
Of course Nick doesn’t know yet what “leave” really means.
They are in somebody’s house, a familiar story, and there is a girl tied up in an arm-chair. To Nick, she is almost more captivating than smudges of blood on the wall as she bears some physical resemblance to Rachel. It is probably unintentional on Hal’s part; for all Nick knows, he might be seeing things. Fergus watches him with not so vague contempt. Louis flashes him a smirk. Dennis is… not here, which is good because he gives Nick the jitters.
“There are no gifts in this world,” says Hal, kneeling before the girl. She whimpers, biting at the gag in her mouth, her eyes thickly veiled with tears. She looks beautiful and terrible. Hal rolls up her skirt, exposing long, slender legs. He spreads them apart and holds out his hand, which Fergus places a knife into. “Nothing is given,” he continues as he trails the blade down her thigh, leaving a deep bleeding gash. “Only bought.” The girl chokes on her own scream and screws her eyes shut, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Especially miracles,” says Hal, adding another cut.
Nick’s vision goes double. Hal beckons him closer, then grips his tie and holds it so that Nick cannot escape. He forces Nick’s head down until his lips brush the split skin. The girl’s thigh is warm and slick with sweat. The maddening smell of blood and fear clogs Nick’s nostrils. He drinks greedily until it’s not enough anymore, and he tears the supple flesh with his teeth, desperate to get more.
When he pulls away, the others are no longer in the room. He vaguely remembers hearing Louis’s nasty chuckles a couple of minutes ago, probably on the way out. Hal smiles at him, and Nick feels his chest swelling with something akin to pride. It’s the first time he’s actually bitten someone, granted there was already a lot to go on, but maybe he can still make a vampire that Hal would approve of.
“Are you even enjoying this?” Hal asks.
The inquiry takes Nick by surprise. He blinks owlishly and stutters:
“W-well, obviously…”
“I’d hate to force you.” Hal gives him a blank, pleasant smile that states exactly the opposite.
The girl picks the wrong time to attempt screaming again. She should have figured out by now that nobody would help her, not in this house. Hal remains visibly unaffected, save for a tiny vein bulging on his temple. His hand moves, as if possessing the will of its own. Nick’s eyes barely register its movement as the knife slits the girl’s throat and she bleeds all over Hal’s fingers. The forefinger, the middle finger, the ring finger, all dazzling red, rivulets of blood spreading over his skin like syrup.
“Do we absolutely have to?” Nick feels emboldened enough to ask. “Kill people?”
Hal brushes his slick fingers against Nick’s lips, smearing them with blood. Irritation bubbles inside Nick. He wants to tell Hal that this is degrading, even worse than being spoon-fed; he’s not a child for crying out loud.
“Selectivity pertains to humanity,” Hal says, his eyes dark and hard. “You have been delivered from this weakness. Imagine if you spare one person. Just one. What then? Some delusion that you will inevitably mistake for conscience will start weighing down on you, telling you that what you’re doing is wrong. What will you do then? Starve?”
Nick opens his mouth to answer, but it’s impossible to concentrate when Hal is offering him a treat, though offering is a kind way to say that he is dangling a sweet in front of a baby without any intention to give it away. Of course. There are no gifts in this world, particularly for people like them. Vampires do not wait for breadcrumbs; they take, they devour, they hunt for more.
Nick sucks Hal’s fingers into his mouth, licking them clean, tasting the texture of Hal’s skin, the sensation he’s become increasingly familiar with lately.
“Natural selection,” Hal whispers, his voice a little hoarse, and Nick sweeps his tongue over the sensitive patch of skin between his index finger and his middle finger - just because. “We didn’t create this world, but it was in the end made for us. Blame your urges on the nature if you like.” He withdraws his hand, leans into Nick and kisses him briefly and violently. “But don’t blame them on yourself.”
--
The taste of grave dirt is slowly being washed away by the rich, powerful flavour only blood can possess. Nick Cutler always knew he was meant for something more.
March 19-23, 2012