Heads or Tails [Renard]

[Beckett]

That hand that hovered over Ren's chest felt it the second his heart beat for the last time, the final drop of his chest as the air in his lungs was expelled. He could only watch as those intense amber eyes dulled, pupils dilating. The very second that his life ended, Beckett knew it. His head fell back against the wall with a soft 'thud,' his tormented gaze closing as he tried to block out the rest of the word and quiet his guilt-ridden thoughts. Every muscle was tense and still to the point that he might have resembled a cat, unmoving and quiet. He had no idea how the creation of another vampire really worked, if there was some other steps he was meant to do to ensure that the process was completed. The only hope he had was that the blood alone was enough, and it was just a waiting game. There was no way for him to know just how long it was meant to take, if it did work. How long was he meant to sit with his dead partner's body before eventually giving up on the hope he was going to wake up, again?

He had no idea how long he sat there in the dark, his hands still on his lover's chest. Opening his eyes to search for any changes in Renard wasn't an option, as he simply couldn't bring himself to look on that lifeless form. Instead, he relied on touch. The hand that had covered the mangled flesh of the man's neck remained there, the blood drying to it uncomfortably so when he flexed his fingers, it would crack and itch. It was when he did so that he finally noticed the change, the subtle difference in the feel of the wound. It was then that his eyes snapped open, dropping to his partner's neck in disbelief. It was a slow process, but it was most definitely beginning to stitch together. That had to mean that it was working, didn't it? The coil of hope tightened in his chest, but he lacked the knowledge to rely to heavily on it. The waiting game. That's all it was.

Time didn't exist in the period. It was as though everything had just stopped. The only indication that life still continued outside of that room were the sounds of the street below and the occasional footfalls of those passing the door in the hotel hallway, and the ever so gradual healing of that wound until it was little more than a pink, raw scar. And then, Renard's eyes snapped open and it was like everything began moving in fast forward, too quickly for Beckett to keep up. He could only watch helplessly as his partner pitched to the side and began retching, the contents of his stomach adding to the blood stains on the floor. Honestly, he might have gone into shock at some point during the whole ordeal, because despite how badly he wanted to move to the man, he couldn't bring his body to comply. He was simply stuck there on the floor, in the same position he had been as he had cradled his lover's lifeless form. Could vampires even go into shock?

For a man that had just died, Renard seemed to be handling it perfectly fine as he finished throwing up, only to immediately jump to the next concern, something he had apparently forgotten. And it was as he pulled the cellphone free from his pocket that Beckett's expression finally shifted, his eyebrows furrowing and lips parting in disbelief. A phone call, seriously? That was his pressing issue that needed to be attended to?

It all made sense as soon as 'mom' left his partner's lips. He hadn't spoken to Hannah in a couple of days, and that was mostly likely the reason she had confided in Renard, told him the truth behind Beckett's leaving. He sighed as he vaguely listened to the one side of the conversation, moving for the first time in who knew how long to raise a hand and rub at his eyes, ignoring the blood dried to his skin. It was the comment directed at him that had him raising his gaze to the man, his expression quickly twisting into a scowl. "**** you. For a man that just died, you don't look much better." Of course those had to be the first words out of his mouth after Ren dying. If he had said anything different, it wouldn't have fit into their dynamic, at all. Even so, he pushed himself up from the floor with a groan, his body stiff. He stood there quietly for a minute, torn between the desire to pull Renard toward him, or punch him for not listening in the first place. For staying in a situation that Beckett had tried to avoid.

In the end, he decided on neither of those things. "Well, we'll learn from my mistakes and address the hunger sooner rather than later..." he sighed, tearing his eyes from his new...what the hell was he? All his attention focused inward, attempting to draw on his memories of the man from earlier, if he had used any terminology that might make sense. His awareness of his surroundings all but faded as he walked toward the bathroom without another word to Ren, assuming he would follow.

[Renard]

He heard the words directed at him. He had just died hadn’t he? And yet he felt alive. More alive than he had in over a week. Maybe that was because there was this surge of strength inside of him. He could feel it there, just beneath the surface, begging to be used and abused. There were some people, who when they were given super powers, would have worked hard to do what was ethically proper. The beaten to death line from the Spiderman franchise (one of them at least), was an example of this. And with Marvel and DC competing in the arena of cinema, superhero sentiments had only increased over time. In fact, that was the only thing that really distinguished a hero from a villain - how they used their natural benefits. And Ren was, without a doubt, not the sort of person who gave a **** if he was exploiting something to his advantage. So yeah. He wanted to head out and explore if the rumours about the undead were true. Should it have hit him that he was dead? That he would never have kids? That he was no bound by the night? Possibly some sort of evil demon thing?

Eh. Probably. But Ren really wasn’t the sort of person to get hung up on that kind of thing. Power was power. The only thing that bothered him was that he hadn’t been given a choice in the matter. And he would broach that topic with Beck when he was good and god damned ready to.

He stared into his lover’s eyes, his own gaze intense. It was as if he was challenging the other man to say something else. To take that insult a little deeper. To dig the knife in. It almost looked like he wanted it. He wanted all of his partner’s attention. Every ounce of it. He wanted the man to love him, to hate him, to be frustrated by him, to only ever want him. He wanted to consume every single thought Beck had. It had been that way from the beginning. Most of their lives, they had been been in love. Being together was like breathing. Well. Not that either of them needed to do that anymore, so bad comparison. Being together was as simple as existing. And sometimes that level of unity did not breed harmony. Sometimes they looked as if they couldn’t stand each other. But it was all just one big ornate, ******* dance.

“Yeah, sure.” He said. It was the first time since he had shown up in Harper Rock that he just went along with what Beck said. Which. Admittedly. Was probably a dead give-away that he really was starved for blood, or that he craved the hunt. And so when Beckett began towards the bathroom, he quickly approached. He grabbed a shoulder and yanked him around, only to grip and drive the other man’s back against the door frame. Halfway against the wall. Halfway against the entrance to the restroom. It was a taste of the same force his partner had used. He got closer. “We can shower in a minute.” He said. The staring contest began. “You owe me something.” He continued before he hooked his fingers into a shirt at the collar and tore down at an angle. His fingers tangled in the other man’s dark hair, and he jerked violently to one side. It was a little more force than he intended to use, but thankfully the angle and the way those shoulders created a natural pad upon which a cheek and ear laid - made it so that he didn’t do any damage. Save. Perhaps. For a little bit of shock.

“You’re a real fuckup you know that?” He asked. “I love you.” He said, because the two were not mutually exclusive. Then he sank his teeth right into the place where a pulse should have been. His fangs did not descend at first, as if they were confused why he was attempting to drink from a vampire. So he had to bite down hard, until his ivories dug into skin and muscle. It wasn’t until he made it very clear to his jaw that he wasn’t pulling out, that those needles ripped past layers of skin and the taste of blood suddenly filled his mouth. It was thick and dark and it didn’t taste right. Didn’t taste the way some deep and instinctive part of him thought it should. So he didn’t swallow. Instead he just let the fluid rush into his mouth and then out, over his chin and down to splatter on his shirt. He didn’t pull back until the desire to feed was gnawing away at his guts with so much force that it felt like he couldn’t breathe. Like he was being yanked under water and his lungs were burning. Except all of him burned. His eyes were bloodshot. He was teasing himself and he knew it.

But he had a ******* point to make. So he leaned back finally and lifted a hand to wipe his lips, dragging the back of his wrist across.

“You look sexy as **** covered in blood. Do it more often.” He said as he gripped Beck’s hand after a moment and tugged it down between them as if to emphasize his point.

“Now let’s go wash up.” He said. And it was as if he really was back from the dead. Renard himself. And maybe that was why he’d immediately launched into an off-hand low blow about his mate’s appearance. Because Beck loved the chaotic little monster that Ren had always been. And in a way, perhaps that was its own brand of fucked up comforting.

He pulled away and began to strip his clothes off as he disappeared into the bathroom. “Hurry up.” He called back. “I haven’t fucked in a week and my nuts are about to riot.”

[Beckett]

His back hit the wall with enough force to surprise him, and he hissed in protest. As if entirely reactionary, Beck's lips curled back to reveal the fangs once more, Despite the damn near feral expression, he didn't struggle or protest. It was, in a way, deserved, considering what he had just put Renard through. That same feeling of guilt gnawed at his very core, urging for an apology that he just couldn't bring himself to offer. Yet, he couldn't have said why that was. What made it so hard for those simple words to pass his lips. He felt helpless locked in the intense staring contest his partner had initiated. Trapped in their complex web of complicated history.

They'd met at the age of fifteen. Sophomores in high school and barely old enough to understand life. Except that they understood it a little better than most their age, between Renard's familial dysfunction and his own father dying after years of battling the very disease that he, himself, had finally been diagnosed with. Their reliance on each other to get through those hardships was borderline unhealthy, and their relationship was volatile. Subject to change and with a penchant of problems. The only constant between them was their inability to live without the other. They'd tried. Multiple times, even. The longest it had ever lasted was a year. And now, here they stood, both dead and yet, undead. With those intense amber eyes staring holes into his soul, the realization hit him like a brick.

Renard hadn't known what he was doing, and there hadn't been a choice in the matter. Beckett had taken that away from him, but his reason why was startlingly clear. He had never been able to live with the man before, and he wasn't about to start now.

Maybe Beckett would have said as much if it weren't for the fact that his head was wrenched to the side, his neck fully exposed to the fresh as rain vampire in front of him. **** up. Yeah, that was one way to put it, even if he wrinkled his nose at the term. He never had the chance to ask what it was that Ren planned to do or even to return the sentiment thanks to blunt teeth attempting to rip into flesh. As if suddenly spurred into action by the assault, his hands were against his partner's chest, attempting to push him back as a dull ache settled at the sight. "The ****, Ren. Get of--.." he snapped, the words quickly cut off by the fangs finally piercing through the flesh. The pain was temporarily blinding, his struggle coming to an abrupt end. For the second time, in less than 24 hours, he was subject to this ********. All the blood that he had just taken from Renard might as well have spilled from that fresh wound, staining skin, clothing, and floor.

So much for his first feed.

Renard pulled away, his lips a deep red before he wiped the remnants of the blood away. Not for the first time, Beckett wanted to the smack the ever living hell out of him. Especially as the man tried to play it off like everything was back to normal. Except that it was oddly satisfying to know that he was still just as unpredictable as ever, just as psychotic. "Because I love you, too, we'll consider it a topic for future discussion. Bite me again, though, and I promise you'll be the first of us to test out if we can die. Again." The words were sugary sweet, but laced with venom. He couldn't help it. Now he was just as deprived of blood as he had been before, and that was infuriating.

Then, his man...vampire...was pulling away from him to head into the bathroom, stripping as he went and leaving the clothes in his wake. The comment that followed had Beckett sighing, even as he followed suit. It had been a week, after all.

A TOTALLY APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF TIME LATER

This...was going to suck. Beck shamelessly watched Renard dress, but his mind was already on the streets below and the unlucky target for a freshly turned vampire's appetite. While he could try and keep the man from killing someone, there was no way he could guarantee it would work...mostly due to the fact that he once again ached for blood, and it was taking all his effort not to just leave without his partner.

Who was talking for. *******. EVER.

"For someone who was so eager to use those damn fangs in your mouth, you sure don't seem to be in much of a hurry, anymore..." he grumbled, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

[Renard]

Renard was in an amazing mood. He was humming a merry little tune as he got dressed, and there was this ‘spring’ to his step. Of course, the merry tune was ‘I Just Had Sex’ by the Lonely Island, which perhaps both explained the rare show of optimism, whilst simultaneously stealing away from the sweetness of it. It was all a lot more complicated than that though. For the first time in days, Ren felt like everything was right with the world. Sure. He was dead. Kinda? But he and Beck had been through a lot in their lives and Renard knew all too well that there was more than one way to be dead, and some were even worse to him than the medical observation. He had no clue what it meant to be a vampire, but knowing that he did not have to worry about dealing with it alone was more than enough to give him legitimate comfort (even if he likely wouldn’t have outwardly shown his concern anyway). Though it had not been said, things with Beckett were back on. And absolutely ******* nothing was going to get in their way.

He was pulling on his shoes when he heard his partner speaking, and he glanced up. Normally he would have probably retorted with a snappish comeback, but he instead quietly made sure they were fitted correctly before wandering over. His humming just got louder as he yanked the other man away from the wall with so much force that Beck was essentially made to collide with his chest. He nearly swung the other man around, but instead, his hands pressed along the natural curve of a back to rest either palm covetously over a muscular backside so he could pointedly squeeze. “Chill, baby. I’m ready. You’re ready. Let’s go drink our fill.” He said before pressing a kiss against the other man’s mouth. Then he pulled away. Yeah, everything was going ******* great. Absolutely nothing at all could go wrong. It wouldn’t go wrong. Because his name was Renard Sutton, and the ******* strings of fate and destiny were going to do exactly what he wanted for once.

Or at least. That was his thought process as the pair of them exited out onto the street. It was night, and there were surprisingly few people out. Well maybe not ‘surprisingly’. Harper Rock was known to be the home of vampires. Only an idiot was going to traipse around at night, expecting to get where they wanted unscathed. But that just meant hunting was going to be easier didn’t it? Then again, what did Ren know about hunting at all? He was operating almost entirely based on instinct. Like he felt this hunger gnawing at his core - but it was stronger than anything he had ever experienced before. Like being starved, and dehydrated, with his ability to breathe cut off all at once. He kept trying to shrug the feeling off but he knew himself enough to know that if he ignored it for too long, he would end up going a little crazy. Maybe he just didn’t have very strong will power.

There was a guy in a red hoodie headed towards them, who brushed right past Renard. He all but ignored it, even though the taste of copper settled on his tongue teasingly. He was not about to watch Beck feeding from another male. A reminder, perhaps, about whoever it had been who had turned his lover. But. That was a problem for another night. Because everything was going ******* perfect and it would continue to do so.

So it was when he caught sight of an attractive, leggy blond slipping into an alleyway across the street that he nodded in that direction, his fingers slipping to grip his boyfriend’s elbow and give it a tug in that direction. It didn’t occur to him that it might have been odd that she was taking such a dark route. Maybe she knew a shortcut or something. So he cut across the road just after a car flashed by, flooding the scene with the illumination of the head lights. He heard the sound of the motor growing more distant, as he and Beck entered the alley. All they had to do was do a little catch and release right? Wouldn’t take more than a few minutes and then they would be back (in bed preferably).

Except it was eerily dark and silent. He squinted, and suddenly there was the boom of gunshot. He felt the bullet slam through his shoulder and carry him back a half step. Pain immediately radiated from that spot. And there went another shirt. “****!”

And there went his perfect night. It had all been going so great. And then this *****…

He moved without even thinking. He lept towards the direction of the gunshot, and his hand lashed out. He caught the pistol in his hand, gripping it tightly around the warm barrel. “What are you doing?!” He asked. Of course. Had he paused a moment to consider, he probably could have guessed exactly what she was doing. But he was bleeding, and in pain, and this person, this horrible ******* monstrous **** had completely ruined his good streak. The gun fired again, and his thumb blew off. Which he didn’t even realize, because he was seeing red. He wrenched the firearm to one side, and there was a sickening crack as at least one of the woman’s fingers broke and snapped to one side. He discarded the weapon, and stepped closer still, gripping her around the throat.

He felt like he was holding her with a feather touch, just barely squeezing.

But there was another crunch.

Her throat collapsed.

And she was suffocating. “****!” He said. “Hey babe! Hurry your *** over here, I don’t know how good this is gonna be for much longer!” He called back.

Yep. Hunting was totally going great.

[Beckett]

Renard was humming that ******* song.

It wasn’t the first time he had done so, either, but it was the first time he had ever looked quite so chipper in the process. The snappy statement wasn’t so much due to the unusual show of positivity, rather than the fact that he was humming that song, in particular. Maybe Beckett just lacked an overall sense of humor, but he found it far less amusing than many seemed to. And, apparently, that number included Ren. That was the thing about spending your life with a psychotic gremlin, though. Perfectly harmless, deserving of affection and love one minute, and the second he got wet (so to speak), all bets were off. It was manipulation at its finest, and Ren had mastered that art a long time ago. Of course, two could play that game and he was no less skilled in getting what he wanted out of the other man. He just exercised it a little differently.

Then, the humming got louder and Beck scowled as his partner drew closer. The force with which he was pulled from the wall didn’t startle him, as he had displayed quite the same power a short time before. Green narrowed on amber, even as his hands came to rest on either side of Renard’s neck, thumbs grazing over the curve of his jaw. In response to those words, he could only hum in vague acknowledgement due to that kiss, though he felt no less impatient. Whether it was for better or worse, his self-imposed isolation ended the second Ren walked through that door, as he was now faced with a damn near uncontrollable desire to leave.

It was also entirely possible that it was, in part, due to the massive blood stains across the wall and floor, slowly darkening to brown as it dried. An unwelcome reminder of what had transpired, even if Ren seemed to be handling it all fairly well. But, then accurately conveying his feelings had never been his strong suit; he was more likely to lock them away behind a facade than let anyone see potential weakness. Beckett, who had been graced with the ability to see through that from the beginning, struggled get a read on him as they walked through the streets. Frustrating as it was, his attention almost never strayed from his love, all but managing to ignore the few passing bodies around them. Guilt clung to him like weights around his ankles, and he was sinking, fast.

When he felt the tug on his elbow, he blinked rapidly for the sake of bringing his mind back around from the rabbit hole it had decided to jump down. Following Ren’s gaze toward the opposite side of the street, his eyebrow immediately furrowed, putting a up a little resistance against the freshly turned vampire’s lead. ”Some ***** cuts down an alley, and you think that’s your best target?” he hissed between his teeth, fangs awkwardly prominent in the expression. There wasn’t any time to get an answer as they came to the mouth of the alleyway, strangely quiet considering a woman had just disappeared through there. ”Babe, I don’t like this…”

That was when the bang rang out and he winced at the sound. The expletive that followed had Beck looking to his side, the blood staining Renard’s shoulder rapidly. His eyes widened, his thoughts slow to catch up with the reality of the situation. The woman had known exactly what was happening as soon as the decision had been made to follow her. Before he could even comment, Tails was in action, pressing into the darkness. ”Dammit, Ren, wait a second!” Beck snapped, but it was too late. Another shot fired, but in the mix, he couldn’t have said if the bullet had landed on Ren’s person. It was only as a hand closed around the woman’s throat and he had the audible give of her windpipe that he realized he should probably lend a hand in the fray. Not that was much of one, now with the woman being unable to breathe.

Stepping up next to Ren, he looked at the woman as her struggles began subside. Taking in a deep breath, as if he were about to sigh, he merely shook his head. ”She’s yours for the taking. She won’t survive this, either way, and I had my taste of blood already…” he dryly commented, shooting his partner with a look out the corner of his eye. Prying Ren’s fingers from around the woman’s throat, he took over keeping her still, ignoring the strangled sound of her gasps.

A sudden and inappropriate grin took over his expression, then. ”Though, I doubt her blood will be quite as sweet as yours…”

Yeah, cause that’s the thought one had while holding a dying woman.

[Renard]

Okay so the entire time that Renard was trying to track down a good source of blood, Beck kept saying things that sounded curiously like really good advice. And on some level, Ren was all too aware that following some ***** down a dark alleyway was a really stupid idea, and was likely to get him fucked up. Of course, the Killer was on a winning streak. The world was a great place again - because he’d hunted his man down, and had gotten him back. The whole...being dead thing still really hadn’t sunk in. Not really. So he kept just pushing after the woman, even though there was a voice nagging at the back of his mind that it was a bad idea. And a very literal voice just behind him. Usually when he didn’t listen to his boyfriend, it blew up in his face. The fact of the matter was that Renard was a do’er, in the truest sense of the word. He often acted without even bothering to think, in a way that had earned him the title of ‘reckless’. And even when he did put thoughts into his actions, he usually went about it in such a defiant and *** backwards way that it didn’t earn him points with anyone.

Beckett was the sane one. That was just the way it worked. Beck was approachable, and level headed, whereas Renard was neither of those things. But that was also part of why he did not heed his lover’s advice. Because Ren was the sort of creature who would get fully behind his own idea, even if it was wrong, as opposed to listen to someone else. Of course. There were times when he made a point to take what the other man said to heart. He just wasn’t very good at it.

The woman was gasping, and the sound was this gross wet one, which sounded more gory than it really was. In fact, if not for the broken fingers and the caved in throat, there was no real evidence of a struggle on her. And then Beck was talking again. This time saying that the Killer could drink the blood, and a pair of amber eyes narrowed in their gaze, until his glare was boring into the center of Beck’s forehead with so much intensity that it was a shock a little spot of smoke didn’t begin to sizzle there. The newly turned vampire wrenched the woman up in his arms, but it was like trying to carry a rag doll. She kept flopping around, and her legs were hard to maneuver with, so he eventually just curled her into his chest as he stepped towards Beck with a grunt. “I just got shot! Hunting US down a meal.” His volume control was totally all over the place, but that wasn’t uncommon. Probably not the best idea when someone was trying to run the equivalent of a stealth mission.

“So you will…” The second sentence sank in right at that point. About how his blood was sweet. And suddenly the past hour played out in his head again, which was confusing as ****, because his jeans were suddenly tight, and he was starving for blood, but also annoyed at Beck, and yet totally not annoyed at Beck at all. It was a lot of really complex emotion, and Ren frankly wasn’t very good at even simple emotions, so he settled on snarling and sinking his fangs into her. He drank. He drank deeply. He drank until his stomach felt full and his throat was congested with blood and it was still pouring into his mouth. He didn’t have to worry about her surviving, because she was going to die regardless, so he didn’t see why he couldn’t just be a glutton. So he sucked it all down, aided by the flagging beat of her heart as it pumped the red fluid past his lips. He drank so much that when he pulled back and dropped her onto the ground, his vision was a little fuzzy and he felt as if he was floating. Just a little bit. His lips were covered in it. His chin. He stepped closer to Beck and curled his arms around the man, mashing their mouths together.

And he forced his tongue first past those lips before pouring some of the blood he’d stolen from the dying (probably dead by this point) woman right into his lover. Except it wasn’t really about feeding Beck. It was about kissing him. And tasting him, and sharing another chapter of their life (death?) together. So as sirens began to blare somewhere in the distance, he pressed against his partner. He kissed him until the flavor of blood was gone, and his tongue was swiping at the back of a throat as if he might follow the trail of delicious fluid right down to the other man’s gut. He pulled back, eyes wide. He dragged the back of his hand over his mouth and the red smeared into his skin like lipstick. “I love you.” He said and then he nodded towards the open end of the alley. “Let’s go before **** gets too real.”

[Beckett]

Fifteen years in the grand scheme of things (especially now that they were dead, wasn’t all that long. But, when it made up at least half of his life, it was a pretty significant amount of time. Renard had been a constant presence in those years, even when he wasn’t physically there. The year they spent apart, Beckett had tried the whole ‘moving on’ thing and it had never really worked out. Why? For one, the man’s voice played out in his head like a warning; “who the **** is that and why are you letting them get that close?” Needless to say, it was always enough to make him feel guilty; as if he were doing something that he shouldn’t have been. Which was stupid, because they had been apart for months at that point, only speaking every so often as Renard threw himself into his career and Beck was off completing his degree. Second, the one time things had actually seemed to be going well, Ren had shown up. In Denver. And proceeded to beat the ever living **** out of the poor guy, whose only transgression was being interested. Despite being totally out of line, and making sure Renard knew that...it didn’t stop the inevitable. They were back together within….hours after the fact.

That was just one instance where his long-term partner seemed to act without really thinking it through. Where his emotions (that he never really seemed to process in full) fueled his actions and landed him into more trouble than not. And this? This was no different. The glare he received had little effect, only earning Renard a roll of muted green eyes. “I tried to stop your *** from doing something stupid. That’s not on me, so you can shove it.” he sighed, gesturing to the woman without another word. Renard’s rebuttal fell flat and his head dropped to her neck., ripping into it without a second thought. Maybe Beckett should been concerned, should have kept the vampire from acting like a total savage, but the fact of the matter was that the woman was going to die anyway. There was no way around that. So, why not let the man have his moment rather than rip him away and let the blood go to waste? It wasn’t the healthiest thought in the world to have, but if he was going to survive being a vampire, then he needed to just accept the realities that came with the territory. That meant blood. A lot of it.

His head dropped to the side as he waited, occasionally glancing at the mouth of the alleyway for any passersby who were more perceptive than dim. And that’s when he was struck with a sudden clarity, his eyes narrowing on his partner, even as this thoughts turned inward. The Necromancer mentally cataloged his body for pain, those similar hunger pangs that had plagued him for hours before Renard had arrived, anything that would suggest he was still craving the blood that stained the alley and the scent that permeated the air. It was certainly there...a nagging voice that encouraged him to seek it out, but it was not nearly as powerful, as strong. It wasn’t a demanding force driving him to violence as it had been a short time ago in the hotel room. It was quiet, but otherwise tame. In some sense, that seemed off to Beckett, but he was also faced with the reality that he had no idea what being a vampire entailed. Maybe draining his love dry was all it took to calm the beast within, but in some sense, he had assumed he would need more. Especially after Renard bit him and made him lose just as much as he had taken. But...there was nothing incessant about it, and that was just...strange.

Any chance he had at processing further was quickly cut short by pressure of Ren’s arms, his focus immediately shifting to that amber gaze. Their lips crashed together and before he had any notion of what was about to happen, there was blood on his tongue. The woman’s blood. A soft groan later and a shudder accompanied the taste, forcing his body closer to his partner’s frame. Sirens sounded in the background as Renard pulled away and he honestly couldn’t have cared less. He made moves to yank the man back, but paused as he watched a hand swipe over a mouth, only to smear the blood. Teeth dropped against the flesh of his lip, holding back a laugh at the crazed look the other had going for him in that moment. It was certainly something different, but somehow was so befitting of the psychotic little chimp that Renard had always been. ”I love you, too…” he quietly responded, voicing cracking at the laughter bubbling just below the surface. ”Looking like that, anyone could pick you out of a line-up as the culprit. Let’s go, before you get us both shot.” he chuckled, glancing around the alley for the best escape route. Leaving the way they had come in seemed like a pretty stupid idea, but the woman had been smart. Choosing an alley that came to a dead end, rather than opening at the other side.

Beckett groaned, tugging Ren toward the mouth of the alley. ”Note to self: Never follow you into an alleyway and some random blonde off the street, again.” Once out on the street, the sirens were much closer, but Beck wasn’t sure what that really meant when his hearing was clearly much more sensitive than before. ”Do you need another pretty little thing to hold you over, or is it safe for us to retreat from the street?” he asked, shooting an exasperated look to his side.

[Renard]

Beck pushed himself closer to Renard’s body, as if the taste of the dead woman was this welcome thing they shared. In truth, Renard liked that, the closeness of his partner, over the taste of the blood, the heat of it rushing down his throat, the way it gave a bounce to his step and made him feel lighter. But that was no uncommon thing for him. With Ren, life was all about the context. Doing the things he loved alone was boring. Doing unremarkable things with Beck made them the greatest moments of his life. Death? He could have found glory in hell, if Beckett was there with him, burning alongside him, as a pillar of flame. The entire world could have melted into nothing, blown away by nuclear holocaust. He would have been no less appeased. This made him perhaps remarkably easy to please, but equally easy to enrage. He was smiling so big that he might have swallowed the full moon, given the chance. His teeth gleamed white against the field of red, because all of that wet life had been sucked clean of them.

It was time to move though, because Beck was right. If they were caught by the police, there was no way in hell they weren’t getting arrested, or worse. And while Renard didn’t really give a **** about himself, he wasn’t about to turn himself into a burden for his lover. So he moved with surprising grace towards the opening of the alleyway. “Yeah, you can lead the next one of these, so I can watch your back.” This was usually about as much innuendo as the normal person allowed for. Anyone could have read between the lines and determined that ‘watch your back’ meant something else entirely. “I mean oggle your ***.” He tacked on at the end though, because he honestly wasn’t great at people-ing. And sometimes he just liked to spell these things out in the most painfully clear way possible.

“I only have one pretty little thing in mind right now.” He said after that, which probably betrayed exactly what he meant. Though when they were on the street, he found himself trying to determine exactly how close the sirens were. If they were coming near or going away. Harper Rock was a hotbed of criminal activity. It was not uncommon for the police force to be overwhelmed basically all the time. At night? Especially so. And there they were standing in plain sight, clearly having just committed some terribly violent crime. Except the moment was only just catching up with the newly turned vampire. He had liked that. He had liked the brief skirmish. Every little part of it. He had liked getting shot. He’d liked attacking the woman. He’d liked feeling her die in his arms. He’d liked crushing her throat. He’d loved drinking from her and pouring her blood into his mate’s mouth. He wanted more of it.

“Why don’t we help the cops out tonight?” He asked as he tipped his head back to inhale slowly. His eyes were closed. He’d caught a whiff of something only a short time before. At first, he’d thought that his nose had been playing tricks on him. But no. He could smell drink and drugs. He could smell them in copious amounts. He had read somewhere that because of the rise in violent crime, that the drug problem in Harper Rock just wasn’t getting the attention it used to from the cops. Crack houses went unchecked. Drug dealers got released, to make room for offenders who harmed people more directly.

There had been plenty of reading material on the flight into Harper Rock. It had been a long trip.

He ended up shoved against Beck’s back, his arms winding around the man, underneath his arms, squeezing him tightly. He rubbed some of his blooded face on the other man’s neck. “I smell something fun. Let’s go into the part of town where people fear to tread. The part of town where the social elite would never deign to descend, where getting mugged is a way of life, and addiction is the norm.” He whispered against the other man’s ear, as if he were outlining the most romantic trip across the world. Okay. So maybe Ren had a really fucked up way of showing his affection. He nipped softly at the corner of his partner’s jaw, and then disengaged, only to slide past him, and grab the other man’s hand, giving a firm tug. They were headed towards the slums - the worst of the worst. Gangland.

[Beckett]

Beckett shot his partner a scowl. ”Thank you for clearing that up for me. I never could have guessed.” To leave the innuendo unexplained, suspended in the air between them, was never an option. At this point in their lives, Beckett knew better than to assume that half the **** out of the other man’s mouth wasn’t meant to imply something different. Especially if the matter had anything to do with him and their relationship. Renard had the presence of a speeding train with little desire to slow down for the sake of others before crashing head on. Sometimes, that meant he engaged his mouth before his brain, granting others far more detail into their private life than they deserved, simply for the sake of being as blunt and obvious as possible. Such as the time Ren felt it necessary to reassure his mother that, while the teen boys under her roof were having sex, at least they were doing it safely. Hannah had looked about ready to faint, and Dominic could only do his best not to laugh. It was one thing to just know it was happening, and another entirely to have it explained to them by one of the boys in question.

More than a decade later, and he had yet to want to punch Ren so badly as he had that day.

The suggestion that followed was enough to bring Beckett’s steps to a halt, turning to stare at his partner. The vampire had his head tipped back and was sniffing at the air like a bloodhound tracking the scent of prey. ”Help the cops? You?” he asked incredulously, his eyebrows rising toward his hairline. ”Did death completely alter your personality, or do you just have a very skewed notion of justice?” Naturally, where Renard felt it necessary to explain his sexual innuendos, he had no problem implying anything with that statement and leaving it well enough alone to speculate on. Yet, Beckett knew exactly what was meant. With crime on the rise, there wasn’t a shortage on gangsters in HR. If a few of them disappeared…

The Necromancer’s shoulders dropped with a drawn out sigh as he felt Ren press against his back, the man’s breath on his skin a momentary distraction. It wasn’t the most romantic notion in the world, going to venture into the slums where the worst of the worst called home, but it was strangely poetic in its delivery. Especially for Renard. Where, once upon a time, the other man could have owned the label of a ‘bad influence,’ the fact of the matter was that he never had to try very hard to get Beckett to come along. Not anymore, anyway, and he damn well knew it.

It was a balancing act, their relationship. They knew how to manipulate each other in just the right way to get what they wanted. In either putting a leash on Renard’s reckless and impulsive nature, or giving Beck a reason to be just that. Polar opposites in ways that made clashing all too common, and yet they’d always been better together than they ever were apart. Neither of them had to question why those ‘off’ periods had never lasted all that long.

The tug on his hand spurred Beck into motion, trailing after the vampire with his ears still trained on the sirens in the distance. They didn’t seem to be moving any closer to them, but the sooner they blended into the slums, the better. Not that they would blend for very long, if the man’s earlier actions with the woman were any indication. Where a plan might have been to be as stealthy as possible, Renard moved in like a wrecking ball. And it was only as that same scent that the freshly turned vampire had picked on hit his own nose than he returned the tug on a hand, forcing them to a momentary stop before they got any closer. ”If you plan to do something stupid this time, at least give me a heads up?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. Beckett raised a hand, trailing a thumb across his partner’s bloodstained lip. ”I’d hate to have your handsome face fucked up by a bullet.”

A devilish grin and a stolen kiss later, Beckett backed away enough to start moving once more. The smell of booze and drugs only became more potent in his nose as they got closer to the broken down and beaten slums of Harper Rock. The Necromancer hummed in thought, shooting a glance at Renard. ”What do you suppose drugs do to vampires? Nothing, possibly, considering the whole...dead thing and all?” He’d never really experimented with much in terms of the hardcore stuff, being the athlete that he was, but when you were already dead, what could be the harm, right?

[Renard]

Renard had been unchanging for most of his life. He did crazy, dangerous, dumb things that were likely to either get him seriously harmed or in trouble with the law. In fact, one of the first truly romantic things he’d done with Beck had involved their breaking into the school which they attended to steal back a collaborative project they had worked on together. In fact, their relationship was filled with moments like that, where Renard had decided to dive in head first without checking to see just how deep the murky waters were. “Yeah so here is your official heads up. I’m probably going to be doing some really stupid **** here very soon.” He offered when he was prompted, a smug expression forming at those words. Because most of the time - they were never caught. Sure, the nature of the crime was changing, but the basic principle was the same. They just needed to be smart and be careful. So he was exceptionally confident in his abilities.

So when a thumb dragged over his lower lip, he nipped at the pad where a fingerprint lay. “Like you wouldn’t love seeing an extra scar right…” He lifted his own hand so he could point between his eyes “...here.” He commented. He was actually pretty sure, if the whole not being able to die thing was legit that the other man was going to end up spending most of his time laughing at Ren whenever he was brutally injured. In fact, the previous few minutes had more than proven that Beck had no problem with poking fun at Ren’s misfortune for his own amusement. Not that the Killer was really bothered. Half the fun of doing something crazy was seeing if he could get a reaction out of his partner.

“There’s one way to find out.” He murmured as they made their way through the darkness, which was only periodically broken by the street lamps. Though even some of those lights were faulty and either flashed or were outright broken due to neglect. Of course, Ren had tried his share of different illicit substances. Usually he liked thinks that he could use to relax, which had the ability to calm his anger or his nerves. He rarely got into anything hallucinogenic. And he never took drugs that increased his focus or wakefulness. He was the sort of person who could burn a hole through iron with a look when he put his mind to it - which was to say that when he was set on a task, he did so with laser precision. He had a fantastic work ethic. The rest of his world could have been falling to ****, but that was one area where he was exceptionally consistent.

Still. The point stood. The only way they were going to know exactly what the results of drugs were, was by getting high.

He moved like a prowling predator, stalking his way through the night. There were no stars really overhead, canceled out by the light pollution. Already, the city itself was losing its quality - with roads that were uneven, with potholes and poor paving. The buildings looked like they had been built in the seventies and hadn’t been maintained since then. Most of the dealers were in for the night, because they couldn’t blend in as well as they did during the daylight hours. Which meant they were probably peddling their ‘wares’ in clubs, or near crack houses.

Ren’s nose led him. The acrid smell of poorly washed humanity grew stronger and stronger, along with booze, vomit and drugs. It only took a few minutes for him to stumble on what looked like a town house. The place had boarded over windows and the door was propped open, and there was a cement set of steps leading up to it which were all cracked. The sidewalk was uneven, and Ren could smell the human desperation in the air. The roof was in poor quality, with shingles having been ripped away and never repaired - so there were patches where the roof had rotted through. Renard nabbed his partner’s hand so that he could drag him inside.

On the walls was yellowed and peeling wallpaper, which seemed to have soaked up any number of gross substances. The floor had, at one point, been plush, ugly, burgundy carpet. Now, it was caked in mud and other disgusting things that gave it more of a grayed quality, matted and disgusting. There was trash absolutely everywhere, and Ren turned once they were through the door so he could shut and lock it. There was probably a back door somewhere, so he crept through the front hall towards the back of the house. If he locked the whole thing up, nobody would be able to escape. Not really. “Doesn’t look like there’s a party going on here.” He almost seemed sad. Maybe they should have found a proper club. But that, he suspected would have drawn more attention to what he had in mind. And finding a party was likely to end up having them bring harm to some stupid teens who were experimenting. And while Renard was not a paragon of morality - the idea of hurting some kid for making a mistake was not something he wanted to weigh on him.

In the next room, he came upon a half dozen bodies sprawled on a series of mattresses soaked in human waste. Just past the living corpses (which groaned periodically as if to prove that they were still enjoying whatever they had put in their veins), was a glass door which was shattered and had been replaced by a set of sheets duct taped into place.

It seemed there was no back door at all.

“There is something less...fun about them not being able to do anything. Maybe we should shake some of them awake and see if they’ll run…”