The Lucky One

[Kenneth Branagh]

"Right," said Ken again, in the same type of tone as before. Niall would never resort to a childish trick like that. Niall who insisted that he was an adult, and therefore was entitled to doing whatever he wanted, which was the complete opposite of what adulthood really was. That Niall was definitely not above tricking Jem with a fart bomb, or some stink sap, or itching powder.

Mmhmm.

But God above, it was nice to hear him laughing again. The tension from before all but melted as their laughter mingled--although one man's laugh turned into a wince of pain when a foot connected with a shin. All in good fun, though. And fun had been sorely missing in Ken's life after Niall was forced out of it. He went through the motions of living but the world lost its color when he lost Niall. The things that he used to find joy in became painful reminders of what he once had, and lost.

Ken reached out and playfully pulled the covers up high over Niall's head. "Hush up, Poodles," he grinned. "Don't be giving yourself terrible ideas, laddie."

Poodles, Wooly, Curly, Sheepy, those were names he threw out in the past in reference to Niall's unruly head of hair. Some had better reception than others, though. Wooly got him tackled; Curly got him a coy little grin. Poodles... Mm. Poodles wasn't a fan favorite--which was probably why it stuck out in his mind all the more vividly.

[Niall Gallagher]

"Oh, but I always give myself terrible ideas, Kenny boy," he said, the old impish light back in his eyes. So many terrible ideas. There was the time he'd decided (somehow) that it would be a great idea to try slinging cow patties at Paddy after the bastard kicked the back of his knee during crossbow training. So a few days later, while Paddy was out on the range himself with his lads, there snuck up Niall, with a tin bucket filled with cow poop. (Don't ask how the collection process went.) The mixed turds hit him square in the back and Niall immediately dived for some bushes. OOH, how pissed Paddy was. And then he found Niall because he was laughing.

A few hours later, the laughter still erupted at inappropriate times, even though Niall was laid up in bed with a bad case of stinging nettles. Paddy would have been, too, if Jem hadn't grabbed him by the arm and loftily told him that Niall had just made his own bed and he could roll in it.

"I can't believe you still remember that awful nickname. Poodles." He scoffed and blew at his hair, as if he could just let it take flight, like the dandelion head Ken kicked so many years ago. Of all the boys, Niall was the only one that had that nest of curls. It was another thing that set him apart from them but he didn't mind it so much when he grew older and people seemed to like it. Ken made fun but Niall liked to think it was because he was attracted to it.

Niall yawned again, eyes half closing. "Today has been a day, hasn't it?" After a moment, his eyes drifted fully closed, then opened again. "You think that kid's all right? Cain?" His eyes half closed again. "Hope his dad's not an uptight hunter like mine. Brother seems bad enough..."

[Kenneth Branagh]

Poodles was a sight better than what they called Niall after they discovered them in the woods. Ken's smile faded ever so slightly. He remembered the names, the looks on once-friendly faces, the disgust in his own parents' eyes. The worst of the lot was sinner. It made him feel unclean, like the ones they hunted.

Ken sat alone in the back corner of the meeting hall, hands clasping either side of the hard, straight-backed chair so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. He looked at the backs of heads. His mother and father, their fair heads held up high despite the murmurs and mutterings that were spreading throughout the community. At Paddy and Dan and Junior, who sat with their parents, refusing to look at him. He thought maybe Dan turned once in his direction, but when he fully looked up, Dan was staring straight ahead again.

The curly nest of hair that usually occupied a space between Dan and Junior was noticeably missing.

Talk turned to their next hunt. The big one: a nest of insidious vampires in the upland moors of Scotland. It was going to be a long journey there, fraught with danger, but it had to be done. In a way, Ken was looking forward to it. Maybe if he distinguished himself, he could earn back the respect of the others. Maybe it would help fill the void, having a purpose in life again, after Niall vanished from the community.

He listened and he watched Colm Sr. taking the lead, speaking in that heavy, solemn tone of his. Tasks were assigned--way-finding, reconnaissance, supplies, security. Names were drawn from a long list and Ken listened for his. He was versatile; it made him good in many roles.

But his name didn't come up. He met Colm Sr.'s eyes and saw the revulsion there. The hardness in them. The hatred. As if he was the devil who led Niall down the path of sin. As if, because of him, the Gallaghers lost two sons instead of one.

Slowly, Ken lowered his eyes to the ground.

He nodded slowly and sighed, his own eyelids growing heavier. "Mm." Cain. That sweet, gentle-looking boy with the words of a fanatic on his lips. Speaking of saving souls, eagerly explaining to him that God wanted him, Ken, to save Niall. Back at the clinic, Ken felt unsettled. Here, thinking back to that moment, he felt it again--that sensation of something not being right.

But surely, a child like that... No, he was imagining things. Perhaps he had been unsettled by suddenly running into Niall. And now, laying in bed with him, he was tired. His mind was playing tricks on him.

"The lad will be fine. His brother loves him." Anyone could see that, by the way he stormed in. No one who didn't love their brother would have gone into such a state of anger and panic. Ken closed his eyes. "Go to sleep, Poodles."

[Niall Gallagher]

"Yeah..." He smiled as his eyes began to close again. "He does..."

The brother might be a stick in the mud but he loved his brother, anybody could see. Maybe he wasn't even a stick in the mud. That was just all they saw of him because they were the ones corrupting the poor laddie's pure little mind. Yeah... That made him feel better, knowing Cain was out there with a brother that worried over him. Hopefully he didn't slip away without him again and end up meeting somebody way worse than a guy like Niall.

He reached up without opening his eyes to locate Ken's lips with his finger.

"Shhhhhhh," he whispered, finger pressed to what he hoped was lips. "Quiet, no momming me. We had a deal."

He was forgetting, of course, that the deal had been firmly rejected but his tired, drunken, pill addled mind didn't care. He had to get in that last word because Niall was still Niall. As sleep finally cocooned him, his hand slid from Ken's face to somewhere along his neck or shoulder. He was out like a babe.

At least for several hours, he was.

He was back at the artisan fair and instead of a little blond boy, he saw a familiar slim boy with dark hair. Cocking his head to the side, he walked over, a half smile cracking as he took hold of his shoulder.

"Lor?" he asked, puzzled but ecstatic. "What are you doing here?"

When Lor turned around, Niall recoiled.

"I should be asking you that question," Lor said, eyes half lidded and lazy. Never in his life had he seen that expression on Lorcan. Niall stared at him.

"Who are you? You're not Lorcan."

He couldn't remember the rest of it--something so dark happened next that his mind blacked it out. All he knew was that he woke up breathing heavily, crying out as he sat up violently. He raked his hands through his hair. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..."

[Kenneth Branagh]

I said no deal, Ken mouthed against the fingertip pressed to his lips, because as always, Niall had to have the last word. But that was okay because they both knew that regardless of how much Niall insisted, or how much Ken insisted, he would mom him. He would mom the hell out of him--literally--until his soul was scrubbed shining clean.

Ken slept as he always did--with one eye open. And when Niall jerked awake suddenly, he did too, senses immediately on alert. But the instruments that he had left scattered across the room were mute and unresponsive, and he felt no instinctive sense of danger to himself or to Niall.

"Hey," he said in a sleep-roughened voice, reaching for Niall. "What's wrong? What is it?"

[Niall Gallagher]

"Lorcan?" His head shot up immediately, tone tearful and hopeful at the same time. The dream involved Lorcan so his sleep addled mind thought it must be Lorcan in the room with him. It wasn't, though. Even in the darkness, he could tell that much. Trying to sit up a bit more, Niall used his bad wrist and crumpled to the side with a hiss of pain, falling against the other person in the dark.

"Ow. Ow, ow, ow."

He looked down at the cast and slid his hand over it, not at first recalling why it was there in the first place. The voice beside him was familiar but he supposed that wasn't new. Just because he had frequent partners didn't mean he didn't have the same ones frequently as well.

"Nothing," he said, still stuck on the cast. God, oh god. His head, it throbbed mightily and so did the wrist. Clumsily, he tried to extricate himself from his bed partner, whispering "sorry, sorry," a couple of times as he shoved at his beloved piles of blankets in annoyance.

"God," he said as he finally got one leg over the bed. "I'm dying," he said dramatically. "What the hell did we do last night?"

[Kenneth Branagh]

"Careful, careful," Ken murmured as he eased Niall upright, helped in no part by Niall himself who seemed to have lost control of his limbs. Lorcan, he'd said. Likely a nightmare, then. Ken couldn't imagine a good dream about him, given the circumstances of his death. Once Niall seemed to have righted himself, Ken eased away and rubbed a hand over his sleep-fogged eyes too.

"Nothing. Nothing happened."

Something maybe almost happened, but it barely counted. Lips touching lips innocently. Not even a true kiss. Ken shifted off the bed and reached for the lamp by the bedside to turn it on. A weak golden light flooded the dark room. "I'll get you a drink of water. Don't get up." He crossed the room to grab a glass and filled it with water, then returned to hand it to Niall.

"Here. You all right?"

[Niall Gallagher]

Even the weak light lanced through his eyes and straight through his skull. Flinching, Niall recoiled from the light like a cartoon vampire.

"God," he said with a wince, "what time is it?"

He didn't remember pulling the curtains closed and there was no sunshine streaming into the room so it was probably still night... early morning. Same difference. Bleary eyed, he finally lowered his hands to look at his bed partner and jerked back in surprise.

"Ke... Kenny?" he said, as if seeing a specter. He even reached out to him as Ken came over with a glass of water in hand. Although Niall took it, he was still staring up at Ken like he could hardly believe his eyes.

"Yeah..." he said, voice soft, lost in a dream. "I'm fine. I just... had a nightmare."

He blinked, expecting Ken to disappear as he woke up but no, he was still there. Slowly, Niall sipped his water, still staring at Ken as memories began to return in fragments.

"Actually," he said sweetly, "I'll be better if you pass me some of those pills from the doctor..."

[Kenneth Branagh]

There was no alarm clock by the bedside—presumably because Niall didn't have pressing places to be—so Ken didn't know the time. His watch was on the table but he was busy with the water, so he shrugged and said that he didn't know. It didn't much matter anyway; the sun wasn't up, so it was Ungodly O'Clock.

"I see," was all he said as he delivered the glass into Niall's hand, looking down at his startled expression. Niall looked like an owl, blinking, staring, eyes wide. Puzzled, Ken started to ask who else it could be before he decided that it must just be the sudden waking up that confused Niall. Maybe he wasn't completely awake.

But while Niall sipped the water, Ken gently brushed back some stray curls from his temple, in a rare show of tenderness. Niall had been dreaming of Lorcan. After all this time, his younger brother's death still haunted him and in a way, Ken wasn't surprised by that. Niall had always had a hard time letting go, and he had been closer to Lorcan than any of the other brothers. The guilt of Lorcan's death had followed him all the way here, though, after all this time. There was something so profoundly sad in that.

"...you'll not get more than one pill tonight, after the four you inhaled earlier today."

Ken withdrew his hand and, unswayed by Niall's suddenly persuasive tone, walked over to extract the pill bottle from his trouser pocket. He shook out one pill and brought it back to Niall, tipping it into his hand. "And in case you're wondering, I did count how many there were in that bottle, so don't try anything funny."

[Niall Gallagher]

"ONE?" he all but squeaked out the word as he looked down in disappointment at the single pill in his hand. A single pill wasn't going to take away his pain! Even the kid had given him two! And--and everybody always said take two and call me in the morning so that had to mean something.

"Kenny... come on. Just one? You can at least let me have two."

He thrust the aching wrist in his direction, as if that would persuade Ken to his side, since his tone and expression weren't doing the deed.

"It really hurts." Plus, his head hurt, too but that probably had to do with the drinks earlier. He hadn't counted them but it didn't take a lot when it was paired with strong painkillers. Ken had a heart in there somewhere! He had to, the way he touched his hair a moment ago. So why the stinginess with the pills? They were prescribed by a real doctor. It wasn't like it was prystal or like... cocaine or something.

Glancing at Ken's trousers, he tried to calculate his chances of diving for it and Ken's chances of intercepting him. Ken said not to try anything funny but even if he did know how many were in there... Actually, Niall had no idea where that line of thought was going. He was still sleep addled and he felt like a truck hit him. Thinking wasn't his best suit at the moment.

[Kenneth Branagh]

"One," said Ken firmly, and his mind was all made up on that matter. That meant that the matter was Closed For Discussion. But he wasn't heartless, despite how Niall's tone, expression and posture seemed to indicate just so. He inspected the broken wrist by the dim light of the bedside lamp and gently touched along the length of the cast.

"You need it in a sling." Was the diagnosis. Niall was moving it around far too much--no wonder it hurt. It was jigging around in the cast, not getting a proper chance to set and for the bone to mend.

"You do not," he repeated for emphasis as he sat back down on the couch bed, "need another pill."

[Niall Gallagher]

Making a face that wouldn't look out of place on an angry toddler's face, Niall threw the pill into his mouth and swallowed it. One single pill. His expression still wasn't very happy as he drained the rest of the water from the glass and shoved it onto the table beside him. Despite his childishness, Ken was still being patient, though, looking at the wrist and Niall watched him with hopeful eyes. Maybe he would change his mind about the single pill.

Or.
Not.

Niall pouted but the second Ken's butt touched the couch bed, Niall made for the trousers.

[Kenneth Branagh]

"No!"

Ken saw it coming. Saw the hand darting out, headed for the pocket with the small bottle tucked inside. His hunter senses hadn't abandoned him just because he was half-awake! Years of hunting had honed his senses, whereas Niall clearly hadn't kept up with his training.

He caught the hand as it landed on the pocket and hunter instincts kicked into high gear. Push it away. Swing his body over, the full force of it sliding over Niall and pushing him back down. He was aware of the injured wrist, however; he didn't go for it. Instead he went for the good hand and pinned it down.

"No means no, ye scamp."

[Niall Gallagher]

"Nooooooooooo!" Niall howled as he was pinned down, struggling to get out from under Ken. His good hand was pinned, unable to try and go for anything--pills, a swing, a scratch, whatever was available. He was so close! (Not really.) Why didn't he remember he was dealing with a honed and experienced hunter? While Niall played games with vampires, Ken had been out working. Between the two of them, Niall never stood a chance.

"Why do you even care?" he asked, too tired to keep struggling. "If you weren't here, half the bottle would already be gone!"

If he never ran into Jem, he'd never run into Ken and he would never have even broken the wrist. Which, honestly, meant he never would have had those pills in the first place so meeting Ken had nothing to do with the wrist. His head spun and he squeezed his eyes closed.

Pitch black. Niall ran his hands out around him and met stone walls. Why were they so close? It felt like he was inside a stone closet of some kind. Or was that a pillar? His curiosity got the best of him and he slid his hand over the smooth stone. Suddenly, a body sank down onto his, pinning him to the hard floor. Niall's lips curved into a lazy smile and he moved his hand from the stone to something that was clearly not human.

"Fuck!" He gasped and jerked upward, eyes wide. Wait. No, he was just back in his bed with... Ken pinning him down. But he felt it. That... inhuman itch. His eyes sparked golden unbeknownst to him. With his heart pounding, he grasped at Ken with his bad hand, wrist throbbing.

A second later, there was a very assured knock on his door. Niall continued to hold onto Ken, as if he was going to get up. He shook his head violently, even as a woman's voice called, "Niall? I know you're home. I heard you shouting."

[Kenneth Branagh]

"What?"

Did Niall have to ask why he cared? Ken was momentarily taken aback and his grasp on Niall's hand slackened ever so slightly. "Of course I care," he said, almost... offended. Almost hurt that his intentions would be called into question. He wasn't here to hurt Niall. Denying him the drugs wasn't Ken's way of torturing him; one was enough. He saw the dosage and he judged that one was sufficient.

Before he could elaborate or do anything, Niall... His eyes... Ken froze. His heart began to thud in his chest as the instruments in the room suddenly burst to life, indicating that a supernatural creature was in the vicinity. Close. Right beside him.

But it had to be a mistake. It couldn't be so. Ken's mind was racing at the speed of light to process the information, all the while the instruments were going crazy around him, going out of control.

"Your--wrist," he said mechanically, as a woman's voice came from outside. The vampire. He seized on that fact--the vampire. She had to have set off the detectors. It couldn't be Niall. Not his Niall. It was--the glow was a trick of the light by the bedside.

He rolled off of Niall but he didn't go far. He took Niall with him, holding him close, in fear, to protect, in denial. "Shhh. Shhh..." Could Niall feel the painful thump of his heart? The way his throat went dry? The crack of his voice? "Niall... shh..." Ken put a hand to the back of his curly hair and pressed Niall's face into his shoulder.