The Lucky One

[Niall Gallagher]

The detectors were going wild. Niall stared at them, same as Ken. His heart raced but he said nothing, still hanging onto Ken like he was going to get up--and damn it, he did. No! He was about to protest but Ken didn't actually go to the door and he held Niall close, so he wasn't going anywhere. Close as they were, it was impossible not to feel the hard thud of Ken's heart. He heard it, too, as his head was cradled and he lowered it, side eyeing the door. JC could open the door if she wanted. She'd been invited in before.

"Niall?"

Another knock. There was impatience in her tone but boredom, too. JC wasn't used to being stood up and now that he thought about it, she had said something about coming over tonight, hadn't she? Niall remained silent, but his gaze went to the detectors now. Then back to the door. The doorknob twisted but thankfully, it was locked. JC could pick locks if she wanted to but she wasn't a chaser. If Niall wasn't easy for her to grab, she would move on to somebody that was.

"Suit yourself," she said. "I just thought you'd be jonesing by now."

The sound of her heels clicked away in the other direction and Niall let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

[Kenneth Branagh]

Ken's hand slid down slowly over curly locks, over the back of Niall's neck. His fingertips grazed the side of his throat and he felt them, the two sunken round holes in the flesh. A vampire's bite. Maybe the woman's, the one who stood outside knocking.

He still had that knife under his pillow. It was within easy reach and if she had entered, Ken would have pounced on it. Thrown it. Speared her through the heart and then taken off her head, just to be sure that she was completely dead.

But the woman seemed to grow bored of knocking and receiving no reply, she went on her way. And Ken let out a breath too, but he held Niall even closer, even more protectively as the instruments died down to a low background murmur.

"She's the one..." His fingers brushed the holes in Niall's throat again and his heart wrenched. "Did she..."

[Niall Gallagher]

He wished Ken didn't know. The last thing he wanted was for Ken to know that he was cavorting with vampires. If he didn't find out now, though, he would have found out when Jem outed him. And he would, because Jem loved to rub Niall's nose in his dirty deeds. Frowning, he remained as he was even after the heels had receded down the hallway. The beat of Ken's heart was reassuring, actually. Vampires didn't have the beating heart of a human being. They weren't so warm, either, and they certainly didn't cradle him gently.

Still, he closed his eyes again as Ken's fingertips found the bite marks. They were recent. Just a couple of nights ago, actually. No time to heal. Never time to heal. It was easier for her to just slide in the way she always came, her loyal dog. Maybe he should have shouted for her to rescue him from Ken but in all honesty, he didn't want them to come face to face. There would have been a fight, JC probably would have been killed and then her friends from the old ring would be on to it and there would just be all kinds of trouble.

"Don't," he said, feeling fingertips brush the bite marks again. He finally loosened his grip on Ken, which only made his wrist hurt more. Stupid cast, not doing its job. "She just..." She was just trying to live, like Niall, like Jordan, like Ken. They were all just trying to live their lives. And Ken was Ken and he was going to do his job. That was a problem.

"She's not alone."

[Kenneth Branagh]

She's not alone.

Not alone.

Ken's jaw tightened but his grasp on Niall loosened and eventually he rolled away and sat up, with a stony expression on his face. He slid his elbows against his thighs and let his head sink low, eyes closing.

She wasn't alone. Not the only one.

There was probably a nest of them around here. Somewhere. Vampires. Leeches. Parasites. His nostrils flared briefly as he took in a breath. An angry breath. Ken didn't lift his head again; he sat like that as though cast in stone.

And his voice was like stone too, when he said, "If she comes back again..." He let the threat hang in the air.

He was a hunter. And he had a job to do.

[Niall Gallagher]

Annnnnd... there he went. Niall sighed and hid his face in his blankets. Normally, he didn't care about people's judgment of him but this was too much. Ken's opinion mattered and he probably thought he was dealing with a pathetic ghoul now. Which sort of was the truth. Niall had given himself up to the vampires, despite all the alarms that went off in his head and once he'd given himself to them, they basically owned him. Her magic was strong, too, beckoning him to come out but without direct eye contact, it wasn't strong enough to make him leave Ken's side.

What if it was, though? Ken would have thrown him away like garbage right into the bin. Or he would have gone and killed JC right then and there. He knows where she lives. It was only a matter of time. Their connection would be found, they would use him against Ken. Didn't he see any of that? Or they'd use Ken against him.

"No!" Niall sat up, reaching out and grasping Ken's shoulder. "I'm telling you, she's not alone. She's part of a bigger ring. They--they're all over the place, there's loads of them and they hate you. Well, not you specifically, but they've got it out for hunters like you. If she knew you were in here with me..."

He scrambled to sit on the edge of the bed alongside Ken, his hand dropping to his thigh--not in a sexual way but an imploring way. "You probably would have gotten the drop on her, it's true. You'd kill her and that's... she would... it's like the hydra. You cut her off but then a bunch more spring up where she was. They're like a big ant colony here. She's not the queen but she's close to the one I guess you would call the queen and he's... scary, Ken."

[Kenneth Branagh]

"I'm a hunter."

That was the naked truth. He swore an oath to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Those who were weak, who fell prey to creatures not of this Earth. The Unclean and the Ungodly had to be banished back to hell, where they came from.

He looked at the hand on his thigh and eventually his own hand covered Niall's, but he said nothing and made no promises. Vampires were powerful if they were ancient, but so was the determination of man. Ken had hunted them before; they were troublesome sods. But he got through all right.

And this time it was personal. This time they were holding Niall under their thrall. This time they had someone so close to Ken's heart that he... He might as well have been Ken's heart.

Slowly, he shook his head. "Let's go back to sleep." Arguing about it was pointless, as it always was. Ken wouldn't be dissuaded. Niall had to have it his way. They were at an impasse here so the best course of action was to not talk about it--for now.

"Come on. Lay down. You need to rest." He squeezed Niall's hand gently and when he looked up, his expression was no longer hard.

[Niall Gallagher]

And I need them, he wanted to add. He needed them to suck the negativity out of him, to leave him nothing but a zoned out, happy little shell of a being. He needed that so much. But he... he almost felt like he might need it less since Ken was there. At least, in the moment. With Ken there. The touch on his hand reassured him even though Ken didn't promise anything. If anything, reiterating he was a hunter was his answer. He'd hunt them, no matter how dangerous it might be.

"Alright, you... mom."

Niall sighed and he flopped back onto his side of the bed, twitching and kicking the blankets so that they covered the length of his body. As things went back to silence and Niall lay there with his tired eyes half closed and staring up at the dusty old ceiling fan, he thought back to Ken's reaction to JC earlier. The way he grabbed onto him to protect him. The way his heart thumped so hard. What was he so scared of? She obviously knew Niall so she wasn't coming to kill him. Give him the old 'bite and suck', sure but she always gave him money for it, money that was later squandered on things like prystal and other illegal substances.

Was that why? But he seemed... for once since they'd reunited, Ken seemed to drop his cool demeanor. Lightly, Niall touched the small of Ken's back.

"She wasn't going to kill me."

[Kenneth Branagh]

"You say that like it's an insult," Ken said with a smile, though he made no move to lay down just yet. His eyes traveled around the room again, at his instruments. They were quiet again, with the departure of the vampire.

...maybe it was her. Maybe they weren't reacting to whatever the hell that glow was in Niall's eyes. He was probably imagining things. The job had a habit of doing that to people, too; it made them too wary and too suspicious. Stare hard enough into the darkness and everything became tinged in shades of the occult.

"I know." He turned off the lamp and slowly laid down beside Niall, outside the covers. Ken stared up at the dark ceiling. There were worse things than death, though. Niall had to know that. He'd been through it once, laying on top of Lor's grave and crying his soul out.

"But we're partners. And partners protect each other."

[Niall Gallagher]

Another face made in Ken's direction. Momming a guy was a total insult but Ken was back to his calm self, letting the words deflect from his armor. At least he smiled, although he still seemed tense after their near encounter with JC. If he met her, maybe he wouldn't be so worried. Did he think she was going to enter while they were sleeping? She might, actually, if she didn't find somebody suitable. Hopefully she didn't. He wondered if she'd heard any of the detectors and he bit his lower lip. Would she know the sound if she did?

Ah, darkness once more. It blanketed Niall like the pill, although the pill wasn't doing a whole lot for the wrist and the headache. It was trying to do the work of two pills, that was why! Niall shifted slightly but he didn't think he was getting away with lunging for the bottle again. He'd have to wait until Ken was properly distracted.

I know. Niall continued to stare upward, swallowing hard. She wasn't coming to kill him, Ken was saying, she was coming to do something more disgusting. Lowering his gaze, Niall curled into his mound of blankets and regarded Ken with a dubious half smile.

"We're partners now?" Niall grasped a pillow to arrange it more comfortable beneath his head. "I'm not a hunter anymore, Ken. I hate to say it, but I think you're on your own with this one."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Being used as some vampire's chew toy was the worst fate that Ken could imagine. Being food... being someone's toy, that defiled one's dignity and self-respect. It was wrong, plain wrong, and Ken didn't even want to know what drove Niall to it. But he liked to think that Niall fought against it, and that he succumbed only because they preyed upon him.

But maybe a part of him knew. The pills, the drugs, the alcohol... They all pointed to signs of systematic abuse. Ken sighed. It was too early to think about all of this. Or too late. He turned his head to look at Niall in the darkness.

"We've always been partners. You don't have to be a hunter to..." He paused, sighed again. The words felt too damning to say aloud.

[Niall Gallagher]

If Ken came back here to get him to come back to the hunters, he would be left disappointed. Niall was in no position to save himself, let alone anybody else. It was hard enough waking up every day and finding a purpose to keep motivated to live the rest of the day, every day. If it wasn't the past, it was the things that happened in that decade between the last time they saw one another. Niall tried to have relationships, but they lasted for maybe a couple weeks, maybe a couple of months, before they were breaking up over one thing or another. Usually over Niall's addictions or Niall's tendency to cling or Niall's night terrors or Niall's irritatingly over-the-top attitude.

It was always Niall's fault and he wasn't going to argue. He knew he was scrambled in the head but it sure made every new relationship a little scarier every time. Niall still had that streak in him that wanted it to work out, though. He wanted to love and to be loved so he took the risks and damn it if he wasn't burned every single time. The hole in his heart just seemed to grow with every failed attempt.

He wasn't hollow yet but he felt like he was on the precipice. At the moment, however, he was in bed and he was warm and he was safe. And he felt like he wanted things from Ken but he wasn't ready for those things. He wanted so much to push for them but he wasn't able to articulate himself the way he wanted. So he kept his hands to himself and he toyed with the edge of one of the blankets.

"If we were always partners," Niall said, "I wouldn't be here."

[Kenneth Branagh]

"I know," Ken said with would-be calm, but the darkness hid the way that his heart rate quickened and the sudden sweatiness in his palms. That hadn't happened in a good long while, though. Only when he was nervous or anxious. And the Ken that laid in bed with Niall was neither nervous nor anxious, not even in the face of a group of weres. But somehow, this felt more dangerous.

He slowly smoothed his palm against the side of his leg. "That's why I said. It was a mistake."

Was Niall sober enough to remember? Maybe not. A lot of things were said while he was dead drunk and under the influence of the painkillers. If he didn't remember meeting Ken or falling asleep with him, he probably wouldn't remember a few things said to him so long ago.

Everybody said that that curly-haired Gallagher boy was Trouble, with a capital T, but Ken didn't know what made them say that. Even his own brothers—Paddy and Junior—made it a point to come over to his house to warn him.

Niall Gallagher was Trouble and if he, Ken, wanted to be a good little soldier and hunter, and if he wanted to get in with the 'right crowd' then he'd stay away.

But... He didn't look like Trouble. He looked friendly. Ken peeked out from beyond his parents, seated primly on the hard church pew. The priest was saying something about sinners. It was always about sinners, though. It was never about the good people, or the righteous. Always sinners, and how to not sin.

He tried to hold his bible up to hide the fact that he was looking at Niall, but somehow Niall seemed to know. They made eye-contact and suddenly Niall's face was wreathed in smiles. Ken started to smile back, before he noticed Colm Sr. scowling at Niall, and he schooled his expression back to one of neutral blankness. But when Colm Sr. looked away again, Ken smiled too—a fast little flicker of the lips.

"It was a mistake to let you go."

[Niall Gallagher]

Damn it. Ken knew just what to say to hit that arrow straight through the heart. It was a mistake. A mistake to be his partner? Or... or... His eyes burned again with telltale emotion. Niall always had that super ability to cry on a dime, sometimes they were crocodile tears but sometimes they weren't; he was just an emotional person, alright?! To let you go. That was the part that struck him so hard. Niall lowered his gaze and tried to ignore the salty heat forming behind his eyes and in his sinuses and the way it burned in his achy little heart.

Niall perched on the fence, straddling it casually while he watched Ken training. For once, he was training alone. A little bit ago, he'd been with some of the others, including Niall's own brothers. Their return home was the reason Niall had even slipped out of the house, heading straight to the training field. To his satisfaction, it was just Ken. Niall had been watching him from a distance and had barely said ten words to him since he'd arrived. But they'd shared loads of smiles.

"If you're done, I could show you something," Niall said, oh-so-casual even though his entire being brimmed with the energy of a dozen pups.

What hurt now was knowing that Ken regretted it, too. After Niall left, how did he deal with it? Did he throw himself into the fight? Maybe he tried to follow but it was too late. And Niall never came back. Did Ken wait patiently for him to come back around, like the spoiled kid that couldn't hack it on his own? Did the families tell him not to worry about it? Maybe they even lied to cover for what happened to him. Niall had no idea what happened when he made his escape--he wanted to think it made his family think about him but after years of radio silence, hope dwindled.

"I waited for you to come after me," he confessed to the blanket.

[Kenneth Branagh]

"You are a DISGRACE! A SHAME to our family! A SINNER and a DISAPPOINTMENT! How DARE you! This FILTH! This WRETCHED PERVERSION WILL CEASE IMMEDIATELY!"

Ken had never heard his father taking that tone before. His father was generally a quiet man, well-spoken and almost a little bit aristocratic. They had royal blood in their veins, he'd heard tell. They were a legacy family and therefore, their pride was everything. Appearances were everything.

But now his father was like a madman, a man possessed. His fair, blond hair was plastered against his forehead. His blue eyes bulged. Froth worked its way around the corners of his lips and his hands were half-curled like he wanted to strangle the homosexuality out of Ken.

His father paced the dining room, back and forth, to and fro. His mother sat with a wooden expression, her eyes cold, lips pressed into the thinnest line Ken had ever seen. Thinner than the time she caught him sneaking back into his room after a midnight jaunt with Niall and Lor.

"From now on you will confine yourself to your room. When you are not hunting, you will remain there. You are also not to associate yourself with anyone outside of this family. UNDERSTOOD?"

Ken couldn't speak. His cheeks burned and his eyes burned and his heart—oh, his heart burned so much more than either of those. He was trembling too, from a mixture of shame and mortification and fear. The fear ate away at him, it clawed into his heart and clamped its cold, bony fingers around it.

"I was..." Young. Alone. Unprepared.

"Scared."

Too scared to look for Niall, when it felt like his every move was being watched. Too scared to step foot outside his own door, because the weight of those judgmental stares was like a physical hand, flattening him down and destroying his confidence and his pride. The whispers, the muttering, the revulsion that he saw in each and every pair of eyes paralyzed him.

"And I was wrong."

[Niall Gallagher]

"I was too."

Niall never did anything as drastic as leaving the country all alone. For all the rebellion and wildness of spirit in him, he had been terrified when he stood in the airport, ready to leave. He'd been stuck in the country for a time before getting out because he needed the appropriate paperwork and there were... complications getting those. And then there was the ride to the states. And then there was the states.

All of it alone. Niall was enterprising, though. He wasn't timid and he had an easy time making friends. Some of those friends weren't really friends, in retrospect but they got what they wanted out of him and he supposed he got something out of them, too.

But it wasn't all liberation and freedom, the way he'd thought it would be.

"Scared," he elaborated, "and wrong, too."

"What'll you give me for it?" the older man asked, gaze trailing down Niall's body in semi-interest but affecting boredom at the same time. Niall blinked back at him.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, you don't expect me to just GIVE it to you, do you?"

Niall didn't understand. He put his hands up and tilted his head to the side. "You said you had a place for me here. What do you want me to do? I can work for you, if you like... I mean... I already told you I don't have a job. I used all my money getting over here and I--"

Suddenly, he was shoved hard up against the brick wall behind the man's house. "You want the room, you give me something in return, you understand?"

Niall pressed his back as hard as he could against the wall, as if he could assimilate with it. "I... kinda? I don't know what you want from me."

"Then I'll show you," the man growled, his hand sliding over the zipper of Niall's trousers.

"I shouldn't have left," he said, still to the blanket. "But I had to. After Lor..." His voice caught and he fell silent for a moment. "And after us... after you stopped... I know they probably told you to, but when you stopped talking to me... when you ignored me..."

It broke him.

"I couldn't do it without you."

His family, the other hunters, the community. Everything became unbearable. It was stay and do something drastic like kill himself or it was run away and try somehow to collect what was left of himself and stitch it all back together.