Innocent in the eyes of god

[Adrian Kwon]

Blood!

Staggering crazily through someone's back yard, all the world was shades of black and white and gray. Adrian fell heavily over a garbage can and crashed to the ground, amid the clamor of plastic bags falling out and the can tipping over. He grunted softly, picked himself up and continued at a determined half-trot. He had to get out.

He had to get out of this area, before he lost full control.

Stupidly, he thought that he could withstand the urges for one more night. It had been a long while since he last fed but with the chaos of everything happening at once--the rumors of witches selling dangerous potions, the feud between werewolves and vampires starting in earnest--it had been difficult to find time to go out of town. Adrian thought... one more day couldn't hurt. One more hunt, and then he could take himself out into the woods and catch something to temporarily sate the hunger.

He knew it was a bad idea once darkness fell, and the craving for blood became unbearable. It was like an unscratcheable itch, deep down inside. He felt like he hadn't eaten in months; he was ravenous, raving, maddened by bloodlust. There were so many people in this neighborhood. He could... he could break into any house and find a warm human to sink his teeth into.

With an anguished groan, Adrian reached the end of the street. Rounding a corner, he cannoned violently into someone and went sprawling with them in a heap of arms and legs.

Blood

He scented it. He felt it, heard the pulse of it racing through veins and arteries. It was like a primal beat, resonating, drumming rhythmically in his ears. Panting hard, Adrian tried to shove the man away from him, even as his fingertips dug hard into the man's arms. "Get-get away!"

[Jude Iverson]

The dirty little corner market sold food for cats and in a pinch, it was a good place to go. In this case, Ivy was in a pinch. His kittens, who were no longer on formula, had run out of canned wet food. Their teeth weren't quite developed enough to crunch up the hard food but they absolutely loved the wet food, particularly the smelly gravy that came in them. They'd all fight for that to the point that Ivy had begun halving the cans so that they could eat in two uneven groups.

The canned food in the little liquor store was a little overpriced but that was pretty much how it went with dinky stores that needed a little extra profit. Ivy perused the various flavors, only to find that the selection was limited to either chicken or salmon. Why not both? He bought several cans of both and brought them up front, where he made the transaction, bagged the cans, and then started back up the street. Winding through the dark neighborhood streets, he smiled as he appreciated the light breeze in the air.

What was that?

Somewhere close by, he heard a strange sound, something like a wounded animal, maybe? Immediately, his heart went out to the creature and his steps faltered. Where was it coming from? Maybe it was a dog. It sounded too large to be a cat. Even dogs could be enticed by cat food, though. He was just reaching into the bag as he made it to the street corner when a shadowy figure slammed into him, full force. Ivy had only enough time to realize it was a person shaped thing and not an animal before he hit the ground.

The cans went flying, scattering across the asphalt of the street with a hollow, metallic sound as they bounced and rolled around. Oh, he hoped they were mostly undamaged... A little dent wouldn't hurt them but...

"Ah..." He made a slight sound of discomfort as he propped himself up and tried to sit up. His elbow had taken a pretty hard hit, skidding against the sidewalk when he'd fallen. When he reached over to touch it, he could feel it--warm, wet, blood between his fingers. He'd scraped it pretty badly. But that was the least of his concern. The man that ran into him was pushing him away but at the same time, holding tightly to his arm. So tightly, in fact, that Ivy could feel his fingernails biting into his flesh.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, since a little of the wind had been knocked from him. He tried to slide away, per the man's request. He was probably a night jogger and he probably wasn't too happy about banging into a dummy like him, stopping for an animal the way he did. "If you would just let go..."

[Adrian Kwon]

Adrian let out a sound that was almost not human, as he doubled over. His hands slid off of the man and dimly he recognized pain in the voice.

This man wasn't a vampire, though.

He shouldn't be here.

"Go," Adrian gasped and it took almost every bit of strength in him to get the word out. The call of blood was too strong; it threatened to overwhelm him. Even a single drop was one drop too many and he didn't know how long he could hold out. He didn't want to hurt innocent people--humans or otherwise. He wasn't... wasn't a monster. There was still humanity left in him and he clung to that with feverish desperation, telling himself that he wasn't like them. He couldn't let an innocent man come to harm.

"Agh--!"

The blood.

The blood the blood the blood blood blood.

The scent of it in the air enveloped him like a temptress' embrace. It sang out to him, cloying, sweet, smothering all of his senses. Adrian lowered his head and in desperation bit into his own forearm just to stop himself from lunging at the man. His sharp, long canines broke the skin... but nothing oozed out. His blood congealed in his veins, useless in a body that had long since died.

[Jude Iverson]

Something here was wrong. When two people rammed into each other, they exchanged apologies, made sure they were each doing fine, and then they went their separate ways. Sometimes, they might even talk and become friends. Ivy was a firm believer in this; he made friends just about anywhere he went. He might be fresh blood here in Hazleton but he was bound and determined to get to know everybody in the small town. Maybe... it might even lead to answers about his real parents one day! Wouldn't that be an amazing side effect.

Truthfully, he knew that was why his adoptive parents told him about Hazleton and urged him to go. So when he got the job as an art teacher for young children in the small town, he'd eagerly taken it with arms wide open. Yet he didn't go out of his way to search for his biological parents. They must have had their reasons for letting him go and while it sometimes confused and saddened him as a child, he had grown up with wonderful, loving adoptive parents that would do just about anything for him.

Besides, they sent him with his big brother, Elliot. Another adopted child, just like him. Maybe Elliot's parents were here. Elliot was more the investigator in the family so he was the one who spent countless hours scouring the streets and meeting new people to learn his history.

Was this man one of them, perhaps? He most certainly was a citizen of Hazleton, just as surely as he was, even if he was new just like Ivy. Never having come across this particular citizen, Ivy couldn't help wishing it happened under better circumstances. He could barely even get a look at his features, especially since the man seemed to curl up inside of himself as he made some kind of pained or ill sound. Of course, it sent an immediate spike of concern through Ivy and he was on his feet, moving toward him, despite being told to go. How could he go when something seemed off about the man? What if he broke something in the fall? Ivy tried not to think too much about the bleeding; he was a hemophiliac so the bleeding wouldn't stop until he took his medication but at the moment, the man in front of him was more important.

With one hand on his own elbow to stem the bleeding as best he could, he reached out with the other to gently touch the man's shoulder. The touch was tentative, knowing that some people preferred their personal space. It was more a gesture to get him to look up, a gesture to ask permission.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "Do you need help? I live just around this corner and I can patch you up..."

It was hard to tell in the weak light of the streetlamp overhead how injured the other man was but he sure seemed like he wasn't doing well, the way he seemed to shiver and hide himself. Oh no! What if he was previously wounded and something happened during the fall to make it worse?

[Adrian Kwon]

"No!" A firmer and more desperate outburst this time, accompanied by a violent flinch at the other man's touch. It might as well have burned him, for how quickly he tried to shrug off the hand. Adrian could almost taste the blood in the air and the scent only grew stronger as the man leaned in closer.

He debated doing something. Something terrible, something inhuman. It would have been easy. Temptation hovered in front of him, touching him with a gentle hand.

NO!

Adrian was not a monster. He wasn't a monster. But maybe if this man thought he was, he would finally take the hint and run. He could have been a hunter, but at the moment Adrian didn't care. All the better that it was a hunter, to stop him before he... Before he fed off of an innocent man.

"I'm--a vampire," he gasped out loud, trying to push the other man away with a shaking hand. "Your blood... Run..."

[Jude Iverson]

"Ah..."

How badly had he been hurt? Ivy was sure that his touch caused pain because of the violent reaction. There was a wound! He must have touched it, no matter how light or delicate his approach had been. The man reminded Ivy so much of a lost, abandoned animal in pain, with nowhere to turn to and no real capacity to reason. All he was doing was lashing out, reacting to what happened while chaos clouded his mind. Chaos, pain, fear. Something. All of it, even. Of course, all that only made Ivy want to help even more.

"Oh?"

His blink was surprised, quick. The words were unexpected. A vampire. Yet it was dark outside and that was when the vampires roamed. This one seemed wild-eyed in the darkness, perhaps starving. Ivy swallowed hard. There was no way he could just stand up and move on, leaving the man out here to keep stumbling about blindly. If he didn't hurt himself, he was going to hurt somebody else. Ivy was the unfortunate soul he'd run into but Ivy could take care of himself better than a human without any idea of what was coming at them. Ivy, at least, knew about vampires. He was sure he could handle the situation.

"That's fine," he said, crouching beside him and cocking his head to the side to get a better look at him. Kind of hard to do even from this angle because the vampire was desperately trying to hide his face. "Come home with me," he said, trying to put a hand out to him to take. "Maybe I can help."

[Adrian Kwon]

What?

He thought the man said...

But it couldn't have been what he thought he heard. It couldn't. That was ludicrous, ridiculous. The word 'vampire' was enough to send anyone running for the hills and this man said that it was... fine? Adrian shook his head, no longer certain if he was hearing what he wanted to hear, or if he was going crazy in his bloodlust. It couldn't have been what he thought. No one could be that self-sacrificing--or idiotic.

Because it was idiotic, to not run from him. It was foolish to hold out a hand, to look the way he did, full of sympathy, pity, concern. To offer help. Adrian breathed heavily, dazed and uncertain. He started to reach for the hand but his fingertips hovered mid-air. "No," he said again, agonized by the scent of blood still lingering in the air. "No, you... can't." His trembling fingertips pushed the outstretched hand away.

"Save yourself!"

[Jude Iverson]

It wasn't a good idea. He could just imagine his brother's voice echoing in his head, berating him for being a dolt and bringing home a "damned vampire!" It was bad enough that he had only been in Hazleton for all of what, almost four months now? And he'd already managed to get a job that had him bringing home handfuls of children's art, that he'd gone and decided to foster a litter of kittens, and that he took it upon himself to help every helpless person or creature he came upon. Bringing home a vampire--inviting it in--was a bad idea. Elliot would tell him that if he was here and he knew it.

But if it were Elliot, would he not want help? That was the problem, he thought. People didn't think enough about the other person. It was always about what was in it for themselves. Somehow, Ivy never got that memo growing up. He'd always been the type to worry his brother, to constantly give away his own meals to other people. Elliot said people took advantage of him but the way Ivy saw it, he was helping. Most people, in the end, wanted that hand to stretch out toward them. He thought the vampire did too, the way he nearly took his hand. Their fingertips just missed... and then his hand was smacked away.

Ivy blinked.

Save... himself? From what? Even vampires were capable of not killing people. It wasn't his fault that he was hungry. Surely he hadn't done this to himself. And if he was so hungry, it probably meant he had been holding back, trying not to bite anybody. Slowly, Ivy dropped down to his knee, perching on one heel as he regarded the vampire and tried to get a better look at him in the dark. He didn't have the super human traits that vampires had, so all he saw was a hunched over man. Nothing that scared him. In his other hand, his elbow still bled through his sweater and he held it tighter for a moment before looking down at it. At this point, some of it had slipped between his fingers and dripped onto the pavement near his feet.

Now it was that hand he held out, not really thinking about how close it was to holding a steak before a starved dog.

"Then... take some. Please. You're going to hurt somebody if you keep going like this."

[Adrian Kwon]

A fool. What a fool. Adrian cursed himself and he cursed this man. He curled up tighter, as though that could form the necessary barrier between him and his would-be savior. It was... almost too much to bear, to control his ravenous desire for blood. It was even closer now; he could almost taste it.

"Please..." His voice was a frightened whisper. His hands, claws, dug deeply into his own face as he buried it between his fingers, letting out a tortured noise half-way between man and animal. "I'm not a monster." The words dragged out sluggishly, in the voice of an inebriated man. He slurred them, feeling his breaths stuttering in his constricted throat, heart beats coming to a near-stop in his chest. He needed the blood to keep it beating, but need and desire warred with one another deep inside of Adrian.

Suddenly, he lunged. But it wasn't to sink his teeth into the man's soft, unprotected throat. Adrian clung to him, his face mere centimeters away. "Don't make me--" He choked and grasped the man tighter. "I'm not a monster." The manic words burned as hotly as his eyes, with their fading night vision, staring hard through the darkness. "I'm not a monster. Don't make me... do this."

Blood.

The blood. It was so close. Dripping, slipping, sliding, seeping. The blood, it sang the song of temptation like a Siren's call, and Adrian was so... weak. So tired of fighting his monstrous side. So weary of the lonely, never-ending fight to stop himself from hurting others. He didn't want to be a monster. He was a man of God in another life; he served the divine, the holy, all that was pure and good in the world. That he had fallen so far as to become the worst of parasites was a stain on his soul.

The blood.

He could taste it.

He did taste it.

It was dripping, slipping, sliding, seeping down his throat, as he let out a noise half-way between a sob and a howl, of triumph and despair.

[Jude Iverson]

"Whoa!"

He almost fell over backwards as the vampire man suddenly came at him. He blinked owlishly as he waited for it, for teeth to sink into him. But he didn't bury his teeth against his skin. Instead, he stared at him with a wild look in his eyes. Had he... perhaps made a mistake? No. He didn't look like a crazy person. Just... desperate, perhaps. Did he have no alternative, no... what did they call them? Ghouls? Did he not have such a thing? Not many people willingly let themselves fall prey to vampires, he was sure.

"You're not a monster."

Would it still satiate him? His blood? Ivy didn't know if it mattered that he had a blood disorder or that he was a witch. Did it make any difference to a vampire? Honestly, he had no idea, having few associations with vampires in the past. Ivy kept to himself for the most part and he only connected with his past and his abilities upon arriving in Hazleton and finding a mentor.

Before that...

A sound rose up in his throat and he grasped at the vampire's shoulder as his other knee hit the pavement. Part of him didn't really think it would happen. Or maybe he thought somehow that the blood in his hand would be enough. The bite only hurt for a few seconds, like a needle piercing the skin. Then it was something else. Rather than the residual sting of a needle, it was something else, warm, blooming from the teeth to the rest of his body. His heart beat faster as he took in a breath, letting his head rest against the vampire's. He was starting to feel light-headed and his vision blurred momentarily.

"Sss... I..." He didn't know what he was trying to say. His hand briefly tightened, fingers grasping at the cloth of the man's shirt before he reached up with both hands to take the man's face in his hands, forehead against his forehead, nose brushing his nose, as intimately as lovers. "You... you're not a monster right...?"

[Adrian Kwon]

As the blood poured in, Adrian's heart roared to life. Even the sound of thunder and lightning couldn't drown out the thud of his revived heart. Suddenly, all was clear again. He snapped back to the present and sharply jerked his head back, away, with a shocked gasp.

"...I'm..."

A monster.

Adrian knew without having to look or check that he had taken too much. He had gorged and glutted on this man's blood, swelling his own veins and arteries with borrowed time. It didn't take all that long; it never did. Time seemed to have no meaning while he fed and only after, faced with the aftermath, did he realize his sins. Except this time it wasn't an innocent deer that he was bent over, it was a human. A man.

He closed his eyes as hands slid over his face, feeling something warm sliding down his cheeks. Rain. It had started to rain, pelting down on them in great fat watery droplets. Adrian could still taste it--blood. He smelled it in the air, all around them, and felt it on his fingertips as he raised a hand to staunch the flow from the man's throat.

"I'm not a monster," he whispered, feeling the weak pulse with his fingers. The dying pulse that ebbed and faded with each passing second. He didn't drain this man dry but he didn't need to in order to kill him. It didn't take much to kill a man. Adrian pulled him close with a horrible tightness in his throat and chest, cradling him as the storm swept in towards them, as if he could protect him from the elements.

"I'm not a monster," he repeated in an even fainter voice, tightening his grasp. He wanted to believe it so badly. So, so badly. He wasn't a monster. It was the hunger, the bloodlust, the horrible, all-consuming need for blood. Like every living thing, he wanted to survive and at his most desperate moment, help arrived. But why did he have to trade one life for another?

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

[Jude Iverson]

"N-no..."

His voice was lost mostly in the thunder and rain. He could feel the spatter of the raindrops on his face, in his hair. When he blinked, water entered his eye. The would-be innocent scrape on his elbow wouldn't stop bleeding. The new wound in his throat, too, seemed to keep bleeding, even with a hand pressed against it. Strange, how even as his heartbeat slowed and stuttered, he didn't feel fear. More accurately, he felt strangely at peace, as if he knew from the beginning that his death would serve to aid somebody else.

He wanted to say more but his thoughts would not order themselves. They were scattered and he almost imagined they were flying away with the wind around them. His eyes fluttered closed--he felt so tired--he tried to open them but they felt heavier with every passing second. Every time he blinked, he saw the world twirling around them, the sky above raining upon the two of them.

"...cats," he said, absurdly. The cat food scattered too. Just like his thoughts. Then he corrected himself with: "Kittens."

Somebody was going to meet him. Two kittens already accounted for, one by Rune and the other by the person on the phone. Another heavy blink and the world went fuzzy again. Everything sounded distant, like he was hearing it on a television in another apartment. It was all muffled--the rain on the ground, the thunder, the sound of the man apologizing. There were words, more words he wanted to say but then the light-headed feeling became more pronounced and he had to close his eyes to stop it.

It didn't stop.

It didn't stop for what felt like a long time and then he drew in another soft breath before exhaling and passing out.

[Adrian Kwon]

Cats and kittens.

The ramblings of a dying man.

Adrian tried to stem the flow of blood but nothing he did worked. Even when he applied pressure to the area, a trickle of blood still persisted. Time was running out for this man and Adrian could do nothing for him.

Stifled horror rose up, mounting into intense panic as he glanced wildly around. As though help of some kind would be around the corner, Adrian kept looking but nothing appeared. His hand shook as hard as the wailing trees around them as he brought the man's head up, only to discover that he had passed out. And he was still bleeding, from the puncture wound in his neck and from the elbow. Adrian's breaths caught in his throat. His exhalations were stuttered as, in a state of shock, his brain sluggishly sought a solution to his current unfortunate predicament.

There was one sure way to revive him, though. The only way a vampire could revive an innocent victim...

Adrian didn't know what was worse: death or becoming undead. Did this man wish to die? His actions, though foolish, didn't seem suicidal. There were ones who idolized vampires and who wanted to become like them. This man didn't seem like that type.

But he was dying, and time was running out.

"...forgive me..."

He couldn't let this man die. Whatever happened, he couldn't let him die. Adrian brought his own wrist up to his mouth; the long, sharp fangs made a thin cut along it. Then he brought it down, dripping blood--the man's own blood in Adrian's body, now tainted--and guided it to the man's lips. Only a little was needed. Only a few drops to spread the infection to his body, turning him. "God... please forgive me."

But he couldn't stand the thought of killing an innocent man.

[Jude Iverson]

Nothing.

Ivy went from nothing--to a peaceful blankness to...

The scent of iron. To the feel of cold. Wet. Rain. His eyes fluttered open, then winced closed as rain drops hit him in the left eye. He turned his head, taking in a deep, deep breath that didn't feel quite right. He tried to sit up but he found that he was being cradled against somebody else. Confusion crossed his face as he looked into the gaze of a semi-familiar face that looked far sharper and closer and more in focus than he could ever remember seeing anything.

Something tasted wrong, too. He coughed and raised a hand to his face, to his lips. He tasted... pennies. Blood. His hand was still smudged in blood in some places but the rain had run off with most of it. The blood on his hand... Flashes of memory finally flitted through his mind--the sudden appearance of a man--no, a vampire. Dropping his things. Being bitten... After that, nothing really came up.

"Wh... what happened?" He still felt like he was far, far away and it was taking him time to come back to himself. For some reason, he felt more tired than he'd ever felt but at the same time, he felt... something else. Something similar to hunger.

[Adrian Kwon]

Thank God. Thank God that he began to move again, showing faint but definite signs of life. Adrian let out a soft noise of relief and held him closer, briefly burying his face against the man's shoulder. "Thank God," he murmured. The relief was so profound that he almost laughed aloud--and at the same time he wanted to weep, knowing that he had doomed another man to the same fate. But he couldn't be sorry that he saved his life... even as he had damned it.

"You're all right," Adrian murmured soothingly as he pulled back. His fingertips tenderly brushed aside some wet strands of hair, with a mother's sense of care and attention. "You're all right. I'll take care of you."

This was his... fledgling, the others called it. His child, although Adrian didn't like to think of it in that sense. Children were innocent; they came into the world without sin. It wasn't exactly a fitting name for one whose soul was now corrupt in the eyes of God. Slowly, Adrian shifted so that he could raise them both to their feet. With the fresh blood surging through his veins, he felt strong and revitalized. He felt euphoric. There was a heady sort of rush, like a large burst of adrenaline, that made his heart race and his pulse quicken.

"Let's get out of the storm." Adrian's arms were around him, holding him firmly and securely.