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What perhaps was some grim relegation of a fairytale fate penned by the most sadistic of writers was, in fact, just a silly story about sheer dumb luck.
‘Creature of the night’ is a phrase as blasé as any other grand motif for the things mortals did not particularly comprehend as humankind is wholly terrified of the nightwalkers and phantoms drifting through crowded alleys and buzzing pubs who ultimately mean no harm. However, time has conducted an almost haphazard wisdom to settle tiredly in the dust of his bones and thus that provides a simple understanding: man just found it easier to either pretend the monsters and boogeymans of their fantasies just simply could not exist or man strove to partake in the most meaningless of routines for protection—though admittedly, the tidbit on silver was quite smart of the whole lot’s part. Regardless of the means, whims, and deeds proffered by so-called warriors of the moonlit hunts or by those half-witted spiritualists, his first and only true mistake was being in the wrong place at the right time.
Bluntly put, he is old, so old that age is no longer a scratch whittled into a wooden doorway but a feeling of numbness spreading chill along the edges of his fingertips. For all he can recall, he treaded the woebegone soils for not decades, not even centuries, but millennia, has basked in the silver pine of the moonlit orchards and has sat along the dark shorelines with lightning crackling spindles across the rumbling horizon. His birth name is lost, scattered in the tomes of worm-riddled books, the pages crumbling beneath the onslaught of time’s promise of decay. Yet, he presides with a resilience most profound amongst his species—or, at least, he did, once heralded not as himself but as Count Banquet who with gilded pride hosted the most bombastic of dinner parties where red wine flowed freely into clinking goblets while roasted meats enticed the less sanguine-heady folk. Ah, those candlelit feasts were one of grand jubilance, beastly congregations praising the moonless hours of night’s gossamer veils mottled with the finest diamonds of stars any one of them could provide and the few brave mortals who dared tread into his corridors found his guests to be as lovely in death as they were in life.
If there were ever a curriculum to life, it was that all things end with either deafened screams or quivering pause. All too often, whether it be by blade, by fire, or by a touch of one’s own madness, he who once was Count Banquet has been in the hollows of regret or in the placation of bittersweet satisfaction. The tales he has observed with his own haggard reds are constantly repeated amongst the threads of the loom until the drunken muses snip out the next soul from the framework and the only explanation is that all things must end. Or, at least, until he discovers another sapphire along the silt waters of a muddy creek from a random excursion into the lonelier cacophony of the modern urban crawls.
Even so, even if he were blessed with the curse of seeming longevity, stamina and patience are not as abundantly drawn from the well depths as he prefers. As a vampire or nosferatu or demon or whatever the hell the piousblowhards have deemed him called, even he has been a testament to the withdrawal more vibrant affairs. Still, the quieter aspects found in his now home are much obliged, welcomed with open arms and grinning fangs, especially as the door creaks open in his small study for a pretty thing’s head to poke in. There he is, the luck of the draw, everything beautiful yet deadly comprised into a single existence, and does he not look the loveliest with a frown of idle admonishment?
“Jack? Are you coming down for supper or are you going to brood in the dark until dawn?”
And there is that steeled tongue, that huff of composure used as a mask to conceal his loneliness of waiting downstairs, and it would guide his heart to thud stone throws along his sternum if it were to ever beat once more. Lady Luck or whatever devious demimonde who wrapped his red thread around her finger must find his favored plight so enjoyable as he is entranced entirely by this shorter stature who he found within the gloom of London fog and felt cause to revel in a precipice of cold beauty to make his and his alone in the dim orange flicker of oil lamp.
But, of all the names to be addressed by, of all the nuances of man’s tongue, of all the sophistication twined through the arbors of how important namesake is, Jack was a name he did not have any intention to ascribe for a gentleman of his prowess. For one, it was a terribly dull, a one-syllable sound which of course slightly clattered off the tongue like a railroad accident; yet, it was common, easy to provide to any curious dame and easy to hide behind thanks to how the plethora of sloshed blokes raising their hands when called for, all hollering with a slurred congregation of ‘aye!’ Redundant in the most grueling of factors, he takes his contemporary label with some dignity as he himself is who plucked it from the headlines of newspapers detailing some awful bastard a little too knife happy on some poor ladies just struggling to earn one night’s worth of room and board.
Blue eyes the shade of summer skies which would sear his skin into flayed welts have a way of bumbling even an undead bastard as ancient as himself, but he does at least conspire some bourbon legato of a riposte.
“Darling, you know that I never brood, but merely ponder.”
With a snort, his company then steps through the threshold, his cane accompanying his gait with a repetitive tap. What a dashing sight his partner is, all slicked back chestnut tresses tied back meticulously while missing his iconic deer stalker, white dress shirt exposed as he is missing his well-loved coat, all tailored from a humble plaid tweed to accent what those less savvy to routine is a metallic sharp edge of a calculating gaze. Though hardly as brash as his critics persuade, this little detective, who finds comfort in a good book by the fire on the rainy evenings of London’s typical weather, more discerns through blatant observation while faking enough charm to utterly connivehis way through the doorways of esteemed suspects and witnesses, and even him who has knowledge to surpass any library lost in Alexandria is far from any closed novel.
Inference, an also not-name to keep secrets locked in dusty cabinets of a cozy yet barren office, is a puzzling illustration of grit coalescing into some malleable refinement of fool's gold through the alchemical catalyzing the variable of hardship. Most men of this reign of Queen Victoria have either fed from the feast with silver spoons in their fists or scratched the alleyways until their nails split and their knuckles bleed as fortune is a matter of the terrible attribution of luck. However, his lover is somehow the latter who tore away from the muddy streets of Elephant and Castle, who crawled out of the poverty abhorrent in Southwark to clasp for a hopeful star of military prowess to stabilize his foundations only for an accident of unknown origin to spark a lifelong ache of his hip and of his knee along blurring his vision. Even so, Jack waxes poetic of his loveliness, of how the fire roars for truth in pursuit of justice fair, of how every inch of what makes this Mister Inference brings a delight so molasses thick to drip around his not-heart.
Even if the man is not even an ounce amused by Jack’s counter once he fully presides himself into the room, “you brood in such a way even our Mrs. Campbell mentions it, dear.”
“Oh, let the poor woman have some pontification in her life,” Jack chuckles with a mere wave of his hand, still finding himself distracted by the faint glint of a gold band to match the same he slid along his companion’s ring finger months prior, “she needs something to gruel over after her sister—.”
Inference sighs in such a teasing frustration that were air a necessity, the sound might would have knocked the wind from his barren lungs like a torrent clattering the wind chimes of a quaint shop near the High Street. They abide each other, a sunset of red hues bearing carmine harvests along the blues of high noon and they cannot help but lean into the comfort that waltzes around their figures as the detective finally breathes, “a sore subject still so best to keep your ‘ponderings’ to yourself.”
Death is always a sore subject with mortals indeed, but for the fanged beast who would rather wind up their gramophone or perch upon the window pane to watch pedestrians fresh from the womb or steady march to the grave, death is a friend who simply takes and takes and takes with nothing to give in return for the profit.
Over the centuries, partners have come into his life with merely a murmur of a word to then slip into a sleep eternal in an earthly maggot bed a fathom deep. This lover of his is yet another testament to the frivolity of nature’s true intention found in the consequences of the rules placed upon his head since birth. To both his benefit and disadvantage, Jack is subject to be obedient to another realm of rules in which Inference will perhaps neverundertake due to the derision the stubborn man imbibes. Yet, there is something to be said when prides in having seen nearly every face the detective's comely countenance provides; he has seen frustration crease his lover’s brow, has seen joy quirk his mouth into a smile soft, has seen contemplation with a rub of his thumb along his chin as he reads case files well into the witching hour…
What threads dread into his ribs and his stomach is the sheer futility as one day, he will see a finality of gesture, will have to bear witness to the light of summer day fade into a midnight stillness as death shrouds Inference with either age or incident, and his bed will be a silk-laden casket rather than the one they comfortably share. For just now though, he will steal what granules of seconds pool in his palms as he adores, no, loves this man who eludes a coldness to hide the warmth found golden along the frays of his soul.
“I will ask again and only once again,” Inference mutters with naught of a threat found in the echoes of his tone even if he speaks of worldly aspects that only one whose time is limited can carry, “are you coming down to supper?”
To offer any sort of concession would be nothing short of detriment and to preside into the nuances of societal éclat is farthest from his desires. No, quite the opposite, as he is indeed a brooding thing that only wakes in the silver shine of starlight to gaze bored at the scant street life of their quiet alley even while the bed beckons. How many nights does he lie in wait for the sun’s torrid first break to tear asunder the serenity which smooth the fine crackles of wrinkles of his lover? How many nights is he pulled from his chair to join an Inference who would rather rush through the coals of hellfire than admit he might pout over the absence of another along the bedside? What aterrible crime to commit, but one essential to his exhausted existence as the days drone onward into a precarious scale of wanting to comprehend the progress of this species yet also not agree to be another cogs along the brass clockwork.
Companionship has a strange cause to bereave the what-should-have-been as Jack pats his lap with no sufficient reply dangling from his tongue. Then, he plucks some composed answer from a harp string of verdigris rust before he chuckles along the tune of a falsetto singsong at the befuddlement his lover acquires, “sit with me for a moment or three and then we shall see what Mrs. Campbell concocted in an attempt to satisfy your quarrelsome appetite.”
Inference scoffs in slight and Jack is quite satisfied with his presentation of an overgrown toddler playing some silly tit-for-tat against a poor detective whose soul feels older than the anomalies slithering through the coal of the America’s Appalachian—who are all horrid lot, the whole of them. To be a month or so’s sail across the Atlantic’s gray churn brings a well of relief as he is content to sit far away from the darker breeds who sing of scriptures of loathsome gods who came before the Christians’ own.
“Will my sitting upon your knee hurry you up?” interrupts the other as his cane taps just once along the hardwood, “or should I be a man of common sense and just have a plate brought up?”
A fool this one is as Jack is now a figure of impatience from this tedious game, and what barely thrums through his veins is nothing short of desire and the intent to fulfill such will be placated as far as he is concerned. By whatever master who performed his chrysalis, he will have his way, so he wraps a hand along a lithe waist to jostle his partner right into his lap without even a verbal cue, basking in the reprimand tumbling half-vicious from lips he is more than fond of.
“You’re a right bastard, Jack,” resounds pitiful, but for all the deductions calculating summaries within his lovely head and for all the knowledge of cases and witness statements locked within the confines of his memory, this detective, who has been emblazoned in the cry of paperboys selling the latest installment of The Daily Telegraph —or the even more practical Illustrated Police News—to any bystanders interested, fumbles into a decadent fluster. How beautiful he is, sublime especially with a rosy glow along the sweet apples of cheeks which usually go unnoticed due to the typical methodical frown during the more studious hours. Jack merely laughs in a baritone buoyant along the sways of his love, takes the small yet gun-calloused hand to kiss forgiveness unfair along the knuckles. Unfortunate for himself, all he receives is a light smack of fingertips along the ends of his cream-white hair—luckily, it only aids in providing proof that this old war hound who attempts to be some middle class gentleman is more adorable than the avid public cares.
Still, the vampire who stole his name from the same ink which portrays all of his love’s triumphs must humble himself, so he fails such in a fit of snickers before pressing his nose to a crown of chestnut. “I am your right bastard, yes?”
Long suffering is hinged on every syllable of a sigh, but the murmuring catches along the shell of his ears as Inference admits against the bulls-eye of a firing squad, “yes, of course, you are my right bastard… unfortunately.”
Their company stilts into a silence known only to them, placid along the fringes and almost saccharine within the circumference. Even with Jack trying to breath in perilous synchronicity with Inference, he can never time the inhales or exhales just so as the lungs stutter with each worldly cause: Mrs. Campbell fussing about past the balustrades as she tidies about whatever she can before her employers finally head down for a cold plate supper, cabby drivers snapping the reins of horses once a privileged couple hoist into the carriage, and a few straggles of women gossiping about the woes of courtship with every click, click, click their heels down the cobblestone lane. With every new person ambling in and out from their gazes, the revelation tolls that each person is but a temporary fixture, all to be strewn into ash and dust and forgotten pages of books if any are recommended for the libraries.How silly it is to observe them, how redundant it is to hope for more for them, how awful it is that Jack’s arms tighten around Inference’s hips as he recalls that one day too soon, this bout of dumb luck will too rot into a pallid shell.
After all, unless Inference agrees to a trade off, their relationship is bound for bleak haunts of cemetery.
“You’re thinking too loud again,” Inference chides after several moments into their muted sitting, his words an effervescent quandary of care for a beast who could wipe out half of Westminster in an hour’s time if he were just a little more of a juxtaposition of his less blood-thirsty self, “which makes me incessantly ponder upon whatever tidesyour thoughts.”
Ah, Jack could be a ruinous bastard, could just commence their debate of their fated parting which is surely embedded in a quilt work of stars, but the fires of disaster have never been his preference. Yes, doubt parades in noisy carousel to portend clattering damnation for this miniscule stroke of bittersweet fortune, yet such fears rely on the presumption there is still humanity budding in the murk of his rotten fields. A pity though that those buds, aspeckling of vibrant azure stubbornly flourishing amongst thorny vines and hard weeds, do indeed grow in tenacityas the night will eventually engulf the soul in his arms to carry along a river of glass pane void. How shortsighted the creature is, archaic in every sensibility, and despite this being so, the wisdom he cusps along the lines of his palms shatters grievous across marble top.
What stakes pine through his heart is how precious each second shines against the brevity of it all and what motivates him to dip his head to press his wordless worry along the breadth of Inference's shoulder is as rare as platinum. He lingers too long and not long enough, disinterested in offering explanation since, really, how does a being of immortal curse speak of the woes of loneliness to come?
Instead of baiting himself into further disillusion, he lets what acumen for quick wit he possesses wither along the chasm of his fruitless endeavors so he can permit a finger to pull away the stiff collar of his detective’s dress shirt to lave along a neck covered with the dismal fade of his bite marks. A sadness hues his thoughts into a bluer tone, colors their seclusion with a dimmer sacrilege that must be rectified promptly, and how wonderful it is that Inference seems to be willing to oblige as he tips his head to offer himself right up as a feast. A right stubborn bastard his lover, composed of essential sophistication to charm his way across the thresholds of suspicious hosts to have the appraisal of a dastardly case closed, yet so pliant in spite of the fortitude built from hostility.
“My, what a lovely thing you are,” is all night breed can whisper long the skin he has bruised and nipped over during the tapering walk of the moon along her wayward path, has pierced along the pale expanse to harvest petals of plum and rubicund along the riverside of a vein. There is a shudder of a breath, safe and revealing, and Jack can only thrive on the wing beat of hummingbirds fluttering in the blood just under the seam of his mouth.
“Jack,” and his not-name is spoken in a brittle tone to sings of an underlying conflict of lust, “what of supper…?”
“Shush for me, dearest one,” for their hours are not infinite and supper is as temporary as all the rest.
As he noses along that favored jugular, Jack sniffs near delicate as though he is merely abiding by the mannerlyconditions of sampling hors d'oeuvres plucked fresh from the silver platter of a splayed throat. In this nigh decrepitstate, Jack will admit his tastes are not only refined, they are picky to boot which just serves to be a blatant obstacle. In between feedings, he begrudgingly consumes the taste of raw bovine, but tonight might chime in for just a morsel of a snack, just a tad of one, nothing too terribly much. It surely does not alleviate his hunger to smell what entices him so profusely: copper so sweet it is damn near sickly with a tinge of bitter twang from the iron wrought of sheer determination. If there were ever a bed warmer before who ensnared him with nary but a curt glance, the vampire surely cannot recall it at the moment, although Inference, with steel chill of his jaw and quaintness of his heart, is one Jack worries he cannot part with.
Carpe diem chimes with a festering mockery as if Horace himself were at his back to inscribe the hopeful sentiment for the lauding generations, but Jack is older than nearly any other creature preying along the dirt of this dying earth and certainly outlived that fool, and seizing any formulation of the sun’s dewy light is a manner of trickery. He could inquire of this man in his lap what prospering plans of retirement might be carved into the woodwork, could reach out to grip along the jagged frays of his soul and covet all for himself, but it is a wearisome discussion not for the solace of the present. No fear pricks needle point across the cold wan of his skin as Inference is teetering along the youth of his lifeline, but there are still the evenings when his hip throbs with the ominous roll of storm clouds rumbling across the London skyline and furthermore the dawn breaks when his knee stings with winter’s first snow blanketing the church spires near Saint Paul’s.
Surely God intends to taunt him, intends to wreak rapture across the sinful nature of a being misunderstood for evil when he lies within the grays for when he slips his eyes shut, he can see Inference in repose at his own wake, shrouded in death’s pallor under the marble seraphs standing guard throughout the basilica’s height. Ironic to have such a fright when his lover is hardly a bastard pretending to even be in the servitude of false piety, might be more obligated to donate to the meager orphanage funds as he balks at throwing a mere pence into the depthless well of any Church account, but Providence giveth and so He taketh away for Jack’s love is so awfully all-consuming.
His bones rattle with a terror not even his nascent decades in this form could ever surmount; perhaps then this is an end of days for him as well.
A shift of thighs timidly anchors Jack to the harbors of their companionship as neither no longer cares to watchshouting ill-starred Londoners dash across a gray wet street as rain abruptly falls in a tepid warning of a deluge. For a moment, the illuminance of bronzed ochre flickers along the lanterns tall to impede as a distraction a miniscule of a second, but when Inference beguiles him in remarkable blues of vernal heavens, sanctuary fades into a sultry hymn of sinful indulgence. Were he able, the night walker might would salivate at the prospect of writhing limbs and twisted sheets, fangs eager to pierce into the suppleness of flesh; but when lips caress his own, he notes the peculiarity of the fervent desire along his cold bow. Something leaden drops into a maw of his belly, a chasm of so many what-ifs that gnaw along his dulled nerves until fingertips trail along his jaw and a smile serene as the cradle of a yellow moon enfolds his heart in all its lack of drumbeat.
“I suppose if one of us is going to at least eat this evening, you’re in a state of grander advantage.”
From there is a transfixing movement of fingers undoing buttons until the detective’s shirt ripples from his shoulder to bare forth more of his love-bitten glory, fresher blemishes from prior lovemaking fading into ones far older for nothing short of a masterpiece formed by his own mouth and palms. Trust is a gift, blessed and torrential, a prize priceless presented on the cushion of royal velvet for a gentleman who once fancied himself to be a Count. Rather, somehow in their looks askance, Jack yields by the minute, clock ticking from its corner in monotone soliloquy, then curiosity takes his throat and presses along the peak of an Adam’s Apple as his lips part:
“I sometimes wonder in my little ponderings, love, if this truly does not bother you? I am not like you and I never will be. Lack of true life aside, I do not care for sweet breads or cakes, I do not care for the dinners you claim are insufferable yet you find need to attend, and I most certainly do not care for the commotion around that infernal clock—so I seem to always stop to think of how different we both are.”
Inference does not even hesitate, does not once allow the mind to roll over whatever dubiety could occur between two lives who together crossed a borderline into unknown territory hand-in-hand, as he smiles one of those secret ones that crease his eyes and glow his cheeks as he suggests, “I do not think we are so unalike at all. Yes, you might like your wine and I might like my tea, but we both still hunger, don't we?”
As eyes of a carmine shine rove the patchwork wonder of Inference’s sun-loved skin, Jack mulls if relaying the detective’s true identity along the sweeps of the delicious curve of neck would elicit a trembling moan to spark lust in between the scant distance. Yet, they both know the authority of a real name, both know the power found in such a treasure of knowledge, both know they should only whisper such in the throes—and how perfect it would be if only he could recall his own. Names are as sacred as souls, always spoken within the confines of whatever thrives in the heartstrings whether it be in shy evening greeting or in the bitter vestiges of an unnecessary debate concerning his lover’s tendency to always overcompensate his health for his career.
Though what poppycock this needless prattling of his own traitorous thoughts, keeping them both encased in marble immobility before the elder of them shakes his head with a low laugh so he can tumble about such redundant matters. For now, he will be satisfied with this little two-story of theirs, with poor Mrs. Campbell probably fuming at the bottom of the stairs to fuss them right to the dining table, with his partner who seems to thrive in a wisdom not even he himself could ever expect to hold. Thus, he lets the fortune of stars and comets find their next prophecy in the dusts of constellations as his fangs prick the skin to then sink down and abate his hunger.