Chapter Text
This was not the only war you’d participated in, but it was certainly the loudest. The first bombs had been dropped in May, and three months later the war still showed no sign of stopping. In all your hundred and thirteen years of undead life, never had you imagined such an effective way of killing people. It was modern, yet entirely barbaric.
Unlike Remmick, you still held onto some sense of humanity, regardless of how frail it may be at times. Joining in the war effort meant you could stay well fed while saving those poor boys, swallowed by the promises of glory and valour the government shoved down their throats. They had no idea what was in store for them overseas, they were lied to. The least you could do was comfort the soldiers as they cried for their mothers, wailing through broken jaws and missing limbs, never to breathe the same again.
Hell was an understatement.
There was a younger patient that had been dropped off in your tent one day, Jamie Harris. He’d lied about his age as many others had before him, he’d lost three fingers trying to get pushed back from the front lines but was denied at first. The only reason he was here with you was because his leg got infected after getting tangled in razor wire, much nastier stuff than the barbed rolls. You barely had any antibiotics left for the more severe patients. Instead of using the pills you simply sanitised with alcohol and ensured his bandages were kept clean. It was a miracle the limb was not black and green by now.
Walking down the middle of the medical tent you hear a quiet “Mum?” being murmured. Turning your head, bottle and rag in hand, you sit on his bedside. “They’re going to send me back aren't they?” smiling softly, the kind a nursery teacher would wear when it's nap time, you answer in your usual tone “I don’t think so, war could be over before you even leave this bed.” He wheezes out a breathy chuckle, “that’s a nice thought Miss.”
“Do you have any nice thoughts for me?” asking questions like that usually managed to get the soldiers in a better mood, it distracted them from the constant noise outside. The shells always made it that much harder to sleep. If they had memories of their family with them, that made it easier to pretend.
At moments like this your hunger was left on the backburner, made you have sympathy, even empathise at times. “My dog.” whilst Jamie spoke you began to unwrap the stained bandages around his hand “Yeah? What’s its name?” Your question was tuned out by the sound of him whimpering at the pain of you pressing a soaked cotton ball onto the gap in his hand where the rest of his fingers should be. The brave soldier manages to talk through it “Daisy, she's good. Sister got her for me.”
“Sweet of her.” you wonder if anyone had been to collect his mail, one of the other nurses had been transferred east and the responsibility hadn’t been shifted just yet.
“for my birthday.” the boy's eyes never left you, it was the only face he’d seen since that morning and yesterday evening. There hadn’t actually been a doctor in here for six weeks. You could understand the shortage though, most of the patients here had already had ‘surgery’. All you had been told to do was wait for them to heal or inform the closest corporal when a new bed was available.
You obviously did more than that, wanting them to have the best chances with your decades of medical experience, but to a certain extent you were helpless. Deliveries were becoming few and far between, factories had been turned into plane manufacturers or DIY parachute facilities. Fresh cloth for bandages were treated like satin scarves around here.
Your nightly chatter continues idly until Jamie asks you something interesting “You got any family waiting for you back in Ireland?” You’d told him about your transfer when he first arrived, having been stationed at this camp for about two months already. “Just the one really. Remmie. But he’s fighting over in Italy right now.” the boy gives you a cheeky grin, showing off his cherub-like dimples, stabbing you in the heart with his youth and innocence.
“A brother or a husband?” Rolling your eyes, only slightly miffed, this infant thought you looked old enough to be someone's kitchen appliance. You sigh but eventually answer with, “Just a friend, though I've known him for a long while.” Jamie's eyes begin to droop, light from in between the tarp flaps start to dampen, revealing the setting sun.
“I hope you get to see him again” taking his hand for a moment, you squeeze it softly before standing “Thank you. I’m sure if you get some rest and focus on healing you’ll get to see Daisy soon.”
You were wrong about the war back then, it lasted another few years before the Germans signed for peace in 1918. Jamie had been handed to another ward and you never heard from him again, or any of your patients for that matter. Remmick had returned from overseas and you met him at the docks ready to sail over to America. You waved as his boat came in. Then waited, and waited. Then waited some more. He was taking his sweet time. The crowd began to disperse and a pit of worry began to sprout.
That is until the bastard stuck up behind you.
“There you are, Carina. You hear that? That is Italian sweetheart.” He was laughing in your ear, and had been watching from afar, all too amused by the smell of your growing anxiety in the air. Tears burn your skin, wiping away the blood only smudges your make-up further as you turn around and trap him in a hug, pressing your face into his jacket.
“Woah, hay there. You missed little old Remmie?” nodding into his chest the man peers down at his friend, pressing a thumb to your forehead to get a good look at you. “Oh, that is disgusting. Getting fresh stains all over my uniform.” he grabs you by both arms, peeling you off him slowly.
“Yeah okay, quit that. We’ve got another boat to catch at eight and I left half my dinner in the engine room so we better head out.” His ear twitches at the sound of your sour voice, weepy. It was pitiful, but you still found time to criticise his feeding style. “Why would you do that, someone is obviously going to notice.” he picks up your bags, shoving one to your chest and heading towards the station “Better they notice when we ain’t here then.”
After a week-long boat ride you’d finally arrived in New York then took a quick train to the new apartment. It was quaint. Warm and had the potential to feel like home after unpacking. Remmie barely travelled with anything, another thing different about you two was the fact you had generational wealth, the man had come from nothing. But you took care of each other, plenty of money saved from the war so he offered to pay for accommodation for the next decade or so. Then it was your turn. That was how it had been for years and it had worked so far.
Besides he was hardly ever home, drifting in and out of your life like a stray cat, sometimes gone for months with no note but an occasional letter if you were lucky. Joining the local clinic paid the best, with the wage gap you could start building connections with the other nurses. Seeming close but remaining distant always worked knowing you’d have to move when they notice you’re not aging.
Years pass and the memory of the war slowly fades then rises again. Germany grows more powerful by the day and there's talk of America now joining the fight in forty one. Six months before the second war was announced, Remmick had invited you to France for this massive gala. It was a charity event hosted by one of the country's most powerful businessmen, accompanied with all the bells and whistles of flaunting one's wealth.
You can’t quite remember any of their names but your friend seemed pretty adamant on going with you, despite already having a new lady friend fawning over his shoulder before even leaving the car. Somehow you’d managed to hitch a ride in the mayor’s mulliner limousine. It was worth it, even if you had to listen to the old man's bragging while his wife was making eyes at Remmie.
In her defence it was the reason he’d chosen to wear his uniform that night, as to attract the many brunettes attending said function. Many of them with hefty chunks of change dangling from their ears and wrists in the form of diamonds or gold, ready to pinch.
Making your way inside, Remmick is already nowhere to be seen. There were endless halls of people crawling over one another ‘mingling’, you hated the word. Too many people all too close together. That’s how disease spread, surely anything these people had to say could be counted as a disease as well. Poisoning their brains with nothingness while the war brewed outside these very walls. All those words did was feed into the delusion that the war couldn’t catch them here. Like when a child believes a blanket is strong enough to ward away any monsters ready to grab their ankles from underneath a bed or deep inside an open closet.
Despite this, you pushed forward. Tonight meant you could spoil yourself with a full meal, bad people meant that their blood was ethically sourced. If you just so happen to get peckish. But, you had to choose right, there was only one chance. Who were you to choose as the worst person in a sea of suitable candidates?
The Nazis. Obviously.
You had some idea of how this many higher ups managed to get an invitation, let alone into the country. The group even had their own table and these French bourgeois-looking boys were swarming them like flies. Each one trying to appease Mr Schmidt himself. As soon as you caught sight of that face you turned. The man was practically brainless but powerful.
If you got the attention of- that wasn’t a pleasant thought to finish. You heard about their research, just rumours floating in the wind, still strong enough to lead you away from their table. Johann was sure to notice the missing voice as people sung his praises. Sadly, the universe was not so kind as to agree with your survival instinct.
“You there, Miss?” Schmidt called from across the hall, weaving his way smoothly between the rich, stalking closer and closer. His smell was overwhelming, like a chemical burn. Metallic in the back of your throat, forcing bile to rise. Now here he was, trapping you in social etiquette. What an ingrown toenail of a man. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Perhaps with your name. I am Lieutenant General Schmidt.” turning to meet his gaze politely, you smile, biting either corner of your lips to prevent an involuntary hiss from slipping out. “Are you a German man?” he straightens the front of his uniform, surprisingly without a certain badge wrapped around either arm. “A socialist, My Dear. I run the deep science-division for our military’s leader." The name of the moustached dictator left some ashes on your tongue from the nether world “Hitler?” Schmidt preens in response “An ambitious young man, wouldn’t you say?”
You close the conversation swiftly, not fully turning your back to him until he does so first “No. Not particularly. Good day.”
As you take another step a gloved hand grabs your arm, all alarms flare as you pause, attempting to contain any outburst or expression of frustration that may lead to injury. He was testing your patience. “This is a direct line. I hope you will change your mind, sooner rather than later.” Folding the paper you shove it in your purse, quickly turning heel and leaving to find Remmick. You were leaving.
Following the smell of perfume and iron you end up two streets down, standing in the opening of a small alleyway. “Remmie!” you whisper yelled into the dark, only hearing a small gurgle, drowned out by soft crunches “Remmick!” the man turns his head, pulling away from the shallow cave he’d dug into the side of a poor woman’s neck. The old lampposts lighting the distant street reflected in his Alligator eyeshine. Revealing two deep reddish dots staring back at you. “Why are you feeding all the way out here? Anyone could find you. You left me alone to pick dinner, prick.”
There's a wave of silence, he was a deer in headlights, frozen stiff. Only this deer had a chicken caught in its teeth. “You listening?” his voice was honeyed over, mind still swimming in the fresh pleasure of flesh and what lay underneath. “I heard sweetheart, I was just ignoring you.”
Remmick doesn’t let the woman fall from his arms, simply pulling her lifeless limp figure closer to his chest. He walks closer, drunk off the feed. He was giggling, swaying from side to side, attempting to put one foot in front of the other with the lady beside him. The warm lamps do little to better illuminate him, but you could see he’d already ruined the shirt you’d pressed that morning. “Jesus, could you get more blood soaked in this cotton?"
Remmick wears the red dripping down his chin proudly, wheezing away at something amusing to nobody but himself “She was a sweet one, diabetic.” He takes her hand in his, swaying them both to the rhythm of distant music echoing down the street hauntingly. Rolling your eyes and brushing hair away from the woman’s face. She was beautiful, had a kind face. The least you could do was go find her husband and reunite them both. “I’ll go grab her husband. Heard he had some underground trafficking ring anyway. People are less likely to notice if they both go missing. You clean up then we'll catch a bus back to the hotel”
He smiles wildly, spinning with the body trapped in his arms. Holding onto it like a paper doll. “But me and my lady were just getting started, you should have seen her” raising a brow you ask “When she still had a throat? you’ve chewed it in half. The head doesn't even stand up anymore, all nasty and crooked” your friend scoffs, absently petting the girl’s hair with a heavy hand. “Since when were you an expert in table manners? Next time you start feeding I'll be there to nag, see how you like it.”
Returning back to the house party, you exchange smiles and quiet greetings. Slowly climbing the steps upstairs to where the more rowdy gentlemen reside. Walking blindly though cigar smoke and the sounds of wedding bands scraping against crystal glasses you finally find the man you were looking for. “Excuse me, Sir, but it seems your wife had a bit of an accident. She’s just outside if you’d like to follow me.” you make sure to hold a steady unblinking gaze, slowly sinking his consciousness.
“What has that miserable cow done now?” the other pigs chortled along, all stuffed together in one pen. Not answering his question, you lead your next meal out of his sty, preparing for the mercy you were about to reward the living with so as to no longer suffer under his influence. He was trapped. You already had him. “Would you like to follow me? Quietly.”
Heels clicking against the pavement, you shove him into the alley, attempting to make as little contact with his body as possible. “Now, close your eyes and think of England.” Fangs sink in, peeling back long strips of flesh, breaking open the carotid arteries. This showered your face in rich blood but you latched on tightly, careful not to spill all over your dress. If you had returned it with so much as a loose thread the shop would never give you back the deposit. Remmick had long since abandoned the wife, leaving her slumped against a bin. He watched from the opposite wall, asking after the last few gulps “How was it?”
Pulling off the husband, letting his knees crack when hitting the stone path, you kneel down to wipe your stained hands on his jacket “Bitter.” Remmie pushes off the wall “Lets have a taste” and licks up the side of the opening only to turn then spit a moment later. “It's the alcohol, cheap stuff” He hands you a handkerchief for you to wipe your face, thanking him quietly you continue “Drop them off in the docks, I’ll find us a bus.”