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When Mitchell was thirteen years old he watched a boy drown. He had freckles splayed across his nose and lashes too light to see. His parents were wealthy, they provided housing for the church and collected influence as rent, playing politics in a world Mitchell couldn’t even begin to imagine. What he saw instead was the way James’ beautiful face would twist in disgust at the sight of Mitchell’s dirt smudged cheeks, he saw the vicious curl of his lips, heard his proper pull of vowels.
He didn’t hate him for his arrogance or his sharp comments made in damp classrooms or for the bite of his knuckles against Mitchell’s teeth. Instead he hated him for the colour of his eyes, his delicate porcelain skin, for the pitch of his voice which would ring in his ears, keeping him awake at night. The sight of him made Mitchell’s chest ache, and so he buried it deep below the mud that caked his boots until he could almost pretend not to feel it.
Mitchell spent his evening watching the sun go down from the edge of a jetty made of mossy stone. He threw week-old bread to the fish and listened to the steady silence of low tide, wishing that he could leave on a boat and never see land again.
“Hey there, Johnny.” James wore expensive black shoes and walked along the jetty with careful, uncertain steps. He was not a fisherman’s son, he lacked the steady grip of the boys raised on the water. “You know, I always thought ‘no friends’ was a bit of an exaggeration but it looks like I might’ve been right all along. I’ve seen you here before, you know.”
Mitchell didn’t answer him. Instead he continued tossing bread as far as he could manage and watched as it was swallowed by the sea.
“Honestly, don’t you think-” James’ silken voice was broken by an abrupt shout as his foot slipped against the stone and Mitchell looked up just in time to see him hit the water. His head collided with the black rocks that lined the tide pools and blood swirled along his temples, haloed his golden hair. Mitchell watched as he was swept under water, close enough to reach, but his hands stayed clasped against the edge of the jetty. James looked beautiful below the icy haze of the tide, stunning and bright and blessedly silent.
Mitchell watched pearls of air escape his lips, he watched his eyes flutter open to the sting of salt water, he watched as his lungs took in the sea. He watched him struggle for just a moment, causing his blood to spread like rose pedals against the rocks, but soon he stopped moving altogether and Mitchell waited for the relief to come.
It wasn’t until he walked back towards the beach, when his feet pressed against the damp ground, that he realised the ache hadn’t left and James’ voice still rang in his ears like church bells. He sank to his knees, his hands fisted in the grass, and cried until his throat was raw and his eyes stung and when he could finally breathe again, Mitchell thought of his ocean blue eyes and his pale skin and the pitch of his voice and realised that he never quite hated any of those things.
He attended James’ funeral with his mother at his side. She held his hand like an anchor and it wasn’t until years later that he understood why. He stopped going to church. He hauled in fishnets with grimy fingernails and lit fires along the beaches in the spring. For nine years he gave himself to the sea, paying with sweat and song the price of James’ last breath.
When Mitchell turned twenty-three he went to war with James’ voice in his ears and walked into the forests of France intending to remain there. He still thought of him at night with his back to the frozen ground and wondered how he would look in uniform, with brass buttons at his throat. He was certain he would die, James' whispers told him it was time, so when he closed his eyes to the canopy of bare trees he never expected to open them again.
Mitchell finally knew silence the first time blood passed his lips and he quickly forgot everything that came before that moment. Herrick whispered his commands, brutal and swift, and together they buried whatever was left of his humanity like bodies along the wharf. Sometimes, as the years passed, he thought of that ache, the feeling that sat in his chest like damp stone, and wondered if it was ever truly as painful as he believed it to be.
Josie turned stone to autumn leaves which seemed to shift and flutter when she smiled. Mitchell watched her in the bath, running soap along her outstretched arm. She allowed herself to slide below the water, working the shampoo out of her hair, and his breath caught at the reflection of her closed eyes. That night he fell asleep to dreams of low tide along the Dublin docks and dreamed of little else for weeks to come.
When he first met Ivan he held a hand to his throat and Mitchell’s body burned for the breath it didn’t need. His autumn leaves turned to molten gold. They made each other bleed and Mitchell gasped into his mouth as he realised that his only chance at love drowned in the shallows of the sea.
Daisy took them both apart, piece by piece, turning gold to ash and building up from nothing. She took to immortality like she’d known it all her life, but she made Mitchell feel ancient with her light touch and heavy eyes. Daisy excelled at violence and Mitchell let her pull him in until finally he’d had enough. Daisy never missed him.
Carl turned ash to iron rings, weighing him down and holding him steady and reminding him that patience was a virtue he could achieve. But even with Carl's lips against his skin, he could never quite bring himself to believe it. He was too human for Mitchell’s mask of empathy so he left him in the middle of the night, shutting the door with barely a sound, but knowing that Carl was awake to hear it.
He sits alone at a bar in Bankside and tries to convince himself that he isn’t planning on leaving with a young woman stung along through his fingertips, but eventually he swallows what is left of his stout and thinks that he ought to know himself better than that. He drums his fingers against the table and looks for someone suitable, an easy catch. He looks for tired eyes, listens for soft desperation and instead what he hears is a distant flush of Irish vowels and a voice he'd never quite forgotten.
“I’m sorry, but it appears I don’t have any cash on me. I’m not from around here, just in on business, so I’m sure you understand. But I’ll set up a tab, if you’d like.” He whirls around, spotting a flicker of golden hair as a man leans across the bar and the bartender smiles with glassy eyes.
“I’d be happy to,” he says and Mitchell stands, walking to his side.
“James,” he whispers reaching for his shoulder, but when he turns Mitchell lets go and takes a step back.
“Sorry mate,” he says and James’ voice is gone, replaced with something lower with an accent from the colonies. “You’ve got the wrong the guy.” The features are there, high cheekbones and sea coloured eyes, but his mouth is all wrong, his jaw too narrow and Mitchell thinks he may finally be going insane.
“Sorry-” He begins, but the man waves him off.
“Mistook me for a friend?” He asks, smiling with chemical white teeth.
“Something like that.”
“Something more than that?” He leans his cheek on his palm, watching him with half lidded eyes. “Because I love stories, you know, and my flight was cancelled so I have nothing but time.”
“It's not much of a story.”
“Oh,” he says. “I know a lie when I hear one.” He gestures for the bartender and when he opens his mouth again, it’s James’ voice he hears. “Another Guinness, for my friend here.” Mitchell thinks he catches the sound of the ocean, a distant rush in his ears, but it's gone as soon as the bartender nods his head.
“What’s your name?” He asks.
“John,” he answers without thinking.
“So, Johnny. You’re not from around here either.”
“Ireland,” he says, his mouth dry. The bartender sets a half pint in front of him and turns away before he has the chance to thank him.
The man shakes his head, mimics disappointment. “You know that’s not what I meant.” Mitchell doesn’t answer so he finishes off his vodka in a single swallow. “I have a hotel room, you know.”
Mitchell’s belief system is limitless and he imagines this man could be anything at all. An angel perhaps, who knows exactly what voice he needs to hear before he dies, the only one out of thousands that he cannot blame on circumstance, the one voice that belongs to him alone. When he opens his mouth Mitchell hears the same whisper of inevitability that spoke to him in the forests of France.
“What’s your name then?” He asks, tipping back his glass as he waits for him to answer.
“Anders.” He’s smiling still.
“And what are you, Anders?”
“A PR rep,” he says easily. “That appreciates both sex and alcohol, with very few conditions when it comes to either.”
“Like gender?” Mitchell asks, setting down his empty glass.
Anders reaches for his cheek, his fingers cool against his skin, as he tilts his head back a fraction of an inch. “Like age,” he says, smiling as if he knows exactly what to look for. “Now come on. Follow me.”
He walks behind him, strung along through the empty streets of Monument, watching Anders’ shoulders shift under the fabric of his suit jacket and thinking that perhaps he hides more than just James’ voice behind his teeth. He seems to have swallowed his cruelty as well. He leads him through the glass structures of a hotel lobby and up to a room of satin sheets and deep red curtains.
“A client is footing the bill,” he says with a grin, loosening his tie and pulling off his jacket, rolling back his sleeves as he catches Mitchell’s eye.
“What is it you hear?” Anders asks, light and curious. Mitchell can’t bring himself to open his mouth or to make any sound at all, so Anders repeats himself with James’ voice and a smile at his lips. “Who do you hear?”
“The boy I killed.”
Anders hums, sitting back against the headboard, patting the spot beside him. “You loved him.”
“I don’t know,” he whispers. He can’t quite remember anymore, he doesn’t know if it was love or something more selfish than that. Now he thinks it must be guilt.
“I do,” Anders says. “People hear exactly what they want to hear, the voice they want more than anything else in the world.” He shifts to the side, moving on top of him and straddling Mitchell’s thighs. “We make bets, you know. I lose more often than not, he has a rather unfair advantage, but the second I saw you staring I knew.” He brushes a strand of hair out of Mitchell’s eyes. “And I was right. You’re beautiful.”
Mitchell can't begin to guess who it is that Anders makes his bets with, so instead he whispers, “Not as beautiful as he was.”
“Now that I don’t believe.” Anders' fingers trace his lower lip and he leans forward, his breath warm against his cheek. He kisses him, soft at first until Mitchell opens his mouth and allows his tongue to slide against his, tasting of vodka and little else. “Shall I talk like this?” James’ voice asks as he pulls away.
“No,” Mitchell whispers and Anders tilts his head, smiling.
“Why not?” He asks, kissing along his jawline, making Mitchell’s hands shake. “I don’t mind, you know.” The soft Irish lilt sounds out of place in Anders’ mouth. He pulls back, tugging at Mitchell’s shirt, lifting it up over his head. “I’m happy to play along.”
“What are you?” He gasps and Anders nips at his collarbones, palming him steadily through his trousers and breathing him in.
“A god,” he says. His fingers graze along his sides. “My turn, now. How old was he?”
“Fourteen,” he whispers. Anders unbuttons his jeans and pulls down his zipper with slow, steady fingers.
“Shame,” James’ voice murmurs against the ridge of his hipbone.
“He slipped and fell into the water. I could’ve saved him.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Anders licks him through the fabric of his boxers. He looks up, holding his gaze.
“Because I hated how he made me feel.” His fingers pause, his breath flickers, and Mitchell looks away. “Struck a chord?”
“Not in the way you probably think.” James’ voice is gone, replaced with Anders’ soothing drawl.
“Lover?” He gasps as Anders pulls his boxers down to his thighs, licking along the head of his cock, barely light enough to register.
“Brothers,” he answers, but this glimpse of humanity doesn’t last long. Just as Mitchell opens his mouth to respond Anders is swallowing down around his cock, humming as he hits the back of his throat. He pulls away for just a moment, using his hand as he smiles up at him and says, “Oh I could get used to hearing you make noises like that.”
Anders doesn’t strike him as the kind of man who keeps anyone around long enough to get used to them and he tells him so. “Maybe,” his fingers reach for his hips, lifting him up, pulling him closer. “But there’s always room for an exception.”
Mitchell looks down and wonders who, between the two of them, has been responsible for more casualties. “Stop,” he whispers, pulling away, tugging the hem of his jeans back up.
Anders tilts his head to the side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong?”
“I should go,” he says, standing, buttoning his jeans and reaching for his shirt. Anders watches him, leaning back onto his palms.
“See you later then, Johnny,” he says and Mitchell shuts the door behind him.
—
Mitchell answers Herrick’s call, like he always does, and falls into line as his little toy soldier in Bristol’s crumbling alleyways. He does his job, he calls for mess and watches as the vampires come running. But more often than not he finds himself thinking about Anders. He remembers the cut of his suit, the tamed curl to his hair, the scratch of his beard along the edge of Mitchell’s collarbone. It’s a novelty, really, thinking of someone who is still alive.
He meets George and he feels younger, feels empowered by all the things he doesn’t know. He tries to convince George that it’s possible to change and sometimes he nearly convinces himself. They meet Annie and his down feathers turn to winded sails because Mitchell does not belong. He’s a decent liar, though, when it comes down to it, and he stays long enough to make them believe that he might have.
Eventually Herrick’s whistle blows and he leaves for London in a haze of winter rain. He has a job to do but he’s far too old to dress the part so he shacks up in an empty flat in Hackney and spends most nights drinking at rundown pubs and convincing himself to leave alone.
He’s in London for nearly three weeks before he hears James’ voice again. This time it lacks his light thoughtless edge and it barely sounds like him at all. Anders looks tired as he leans across the bar, his button down creased along his shoulders, and orders a vodka tonic.
“Another delayed flight?” He asks.
Anders looks up, his eyes narrowed. “Fuck off, mate.”
“We’ve met before,” Mitchell says, taking a seat at his side.
“Yeah, I know. I recall very briefly having your fucking cock in my mouth, but I am just not in the mood for your introspective, self-loathing bullshit right now. Go on, beautiful. Find a human to warm your bed and leave me the fuck alone.” Anders has lost his sense of divine apathy and Mitchell wonders what’s happened since he left him sitting on the hotel bed in Monument. Sometimes he forgets what years can do to a person.
“I’ll listen,” he says. “If you’d like to talk about it.”
Anders’ eyes are lowered towards his glass. “You’re clearly not listening at all, Johnny boy. I’m telling you to leave.”
Mitchell smiles. “You remember my name.”
“You made an impression on him.” Anders says, downing the rest of his vodka tonic. “Enjoy your night.” He watches as he leaves without paying, suit jacket folded over his arm. For a moment Mitchell thinks about going after him, holding him against the brick wall and pressing his teeth against his freckled skin, but in the end he lets him go, feeling like it might be payback.
—
“Are you fucking following me?” Anders grabs his shoulder, forcing him around to face him as Mitchell steadies his beer with two hands. He’d picked a cramped pub outside of Regent’s Row for a Tuesday quiz night. He thought it was the best way to guarantee that he wouldn’t slip up. He knows from experience just how hard it is to lure people out of their tightly packed little groups at places like these.
“Well, arsehole?” He smiles at the expression on Anders’ face and he begins to laugh despite himself.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as Anders’ grip tightens on his shoulder. “Maybe you just have bad luck?”
Anders clenches his jaw as he pulls away. “If you’re fucking stalking me, mate, we’re going to have a problem.”
“I was wondering,” Mitchell begins, setting his drink down and turning on his stool until he’s facing Anders straight on. He can see every fine line against the thin curve of his mouth, takes in the red rims of his eyes. “Where is it you’re from?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, you lot can’t hear for shit. It’s like vowels are a fucking mystery to you.” He gestures for the bartender’s attention, ordering a vodka neat with an edge of impatience. “New Zealand,” he says finally and Mitchell nods his head.
“And how long are you in London?”
“Not long enough to fuck you, Johnny boy, so you can do me a favour and stop trying to play the one that got away.” Anders runs his fingers through his hair, still slightly damp from the rain, taming it back into place.
“Am I?” Mitchell asks.
“Are you what?” He looks distracted, already several drinks from sober as he drums his fingers along the bar.
“The one that got away?”
Anders rolls his eyes with such blatant exaggeration that Mitchell is tempted to do the same. The bartender returns with his drink and Anders swallows it back in seconds, setting the empty glass down onto the bar and patting Mitchell’s shoulder. “He’s covering me,” he says to the bartender. “Add it to his bill.”
Mitchell watches him leave, smiling against the rim of his glass.
—
Mitchell lights a cigarette from beneath the flimsy overhang of an empty town pub, leaving his jacket unzipped and his fingers bare. Winter isn’t quite so frigid when he has someone to wait on.
For two weeks he has watched Anders’ sanity slowly deteriorate into disbelief because no matter what pub either of them chose in the distant sprawl of London, the other was inevitably sitting at the bar or appeared rain soaked in the doorway at half past ten. Eventually Anders stopped threatening to castrate him with his bare hands and the aid of Mitchell’s own cigarette lighter and resigned himself to the company of a drinking partner.
“I hate that smell,” Anders says, stepping beside him with his hands shoved into his pockets.
Mitchell exhales smoke above both of their heads. “I know.”
“But I have a working theory that if you ever quit smoking I’d be able to smell your reluctance to shower instead.”
Mitchell watches him out of the corner of his eye, trying to fight back a smile and inevitably failing. “I’ll have you know, I only just showered yesterday.”
“And this is why I prefer women.”
“Come on,” Mitchell says, flicking the remainder of his cigarette to the ground and dragging Anders towards the door. “You need alcohol and so do I.”
He sits at a table in the far corner facing the door and allows Anders to work his magic, talking the bartender out of a pint of lager and two vodka tonics. He still doesn’t know why Anders is in London or how long he will stick around, but he always shows up in his neat, fitted suits and his carefully parted hair and a grimace that speaks of an afternoon spent in Bankside.
“If I go another week without seeing the sun I’m going to leap from the top of the fucking Shard,” Anders says, sitting beside him, drinks in hand.
“It is February, you know.”
“And you’ll be left by your miserable self,” Anders continues. “With the knowledge that it was your fucking country that pushed me over the edge.”
“I’ll be sure to tell anyone who will listen that the night sky has gained another star,” Mitchell offers, running his fingers idly along the rim of his glass.
Anders laughs and Mitchell savours the sound. “You’re a fucking prick.”
“Island boys,” Mitchell sighs into his beer. “Can’t hack the weather.”
“No one’s meant to live like this,” Anders insists. “No wonder you lot took over the fucking world, couldn’t stand to spend your winters in this fucking hellhole.”
Mitchell always found he rather misses the fog and mist of England when he’s away, preferring low clouds and overhang to the continent’s sunny afternoons. He wonders if the weather is all that Anders is missing from home, but he doesn’t ask.
“Shit day?” He says instead and Anders shrugs like he always does and Mitchell responds by leaning closer until their shoulders are pressed together and their thighs brush.
“Still not fucking you,” Anders says into his glass.
“You’ll come round.” Mitchell isn’t sure what it is he wants, but he likes the warm flush of Anders’ skin. He likes the smell of his aftershave and his blue eyes and so he plays along to the tune of his sharp teeth and ignores the warning bell of his withered heartbeat.
—
The only times he hears James’ voice anymore is when Anders orders them drinks, but even then it’s muffled and distant, lacking the clear accent of Dublin and mixing with something foreign, a bit of Anders’ own voice. Mitchell mentions his relative silence after half a night of whisky served neat and watches as Anders sighs into his hands.
“He’s angry with me.”
“Why?” He never asks who Anders refers to, who controls his vocal cords. He has lived an age and knows nothing of religion, though he knows enough to be certain that Anders will never tell.
“Because he fell in love.” He is looking away, facing the dartboard in the corner.
“And you didn’t?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who was it?” He asks, wondering when he’ll reach the invisible line where Anders will pull back, retreating into his own head and snapping at Mitchell to mind his own fucking business.
“My brother’s fiancée,” Anders says, surprising him, and Mitchell winces.
“Oh, mate.” Anders nods, rolling his eyes. “So, London,” he says, filling in the gaps.
“So London.”
—
March brings with it a single week of sunny weather and clear skies. Anders buys them a twelve pack to split and leads Mitchell to Victoria Park where they lay on benches beside the water and flick bottle caps at each other’s chests. The weather has brought out something in Anders that Mitchell wishes he could keep cupped between his fingers. It looks something like contentment.
Anders shows his hand half way through the evening with a horrified gasp as he sits up, scrambling towards the opposite edge of the park bench as a small flock of geese traipse by his feet, heading towards the water. Mitchell laughs so hard that he’s doubled over on his side and Anders has a finger to his lips, grinning as he tries to whisper for him to shut the fuck up.
“I don’t trust fucking wildlife, okay. And be quiet, they’ll call the cops if they find us out here,” he warns him, but it’s a bit of an empty threat because they both know Anders could talk them out of anything.
“You are so fucking drunk, mate,” Mitchell tries to whisper, but it comes out louder than intended. "Startled by fucking ducks."
"Geese," Anders corrects him, laying back against the bench after checking to make sure no more stray birds were passing through his general vicinity. “And yet not quite as drunk as you are.”
Mitchell closes his eyes, humming in response. The opaque haze of alcohol leads him back towards the ridge of Anders’ shoulders and the way his hands look pillowed behind his head.
The words leave his mouth before he has a chance to think better of it. “Has it ever happened the other way around?”
“I ought to get you home, Johnny boy. You’ve stopped making sense altogether.”
Mitchell rolls over to look at him, slightly envious of the fact that Anders fits perfectly sprawled across his bench, his head tilted back towards the night sky. Mitchell’s knees ache and the chill is beginning to set in but Anders looks content with the light pollution so finally he says, “Have you ever fallen in love with someone that he hasn’t?”
Anders sighs, barely audible, and says, “No, that’s not really my thing.”
“Love isn’t your thing?” Mitchell parrots with raised eyebrows.
“Not even in the range of my things. And if my mother is to believed, that’s why I’m stuck with him at all.” Mitchell sticks his foot out far enough to nudge Anders’ shoulder until finally he continues with, “They need someone to offset themselves. The prudent pick the reckless, the loving pick the indifferent, and the poets pick businessmen.” Anders has his hand splayed up against the sky as if he is counting the stars on his fingertips, though they both know he can’t make out a single one. Perhaps he can imagine them, where they ought to be. “Otherwise no one would get anything done.”
“So you’ve never been in love?” He asks. Mitchell has had damp stone and autumn leaves and gold and ash and windless sails and still he thinks there’s something to be said for love.
“Oh, don’t sound so tragic. I’m not exactly boyfriend material but trust me, I’ve never been lacking for company.”
Mitchell sits up, running a hand through his hair. “So you’ve never been with someone you loved? Not in love I mean, but just loved in general.”
“Like had sex? No, because that list is limited to my brothers.”
Mitchell clicks his tongue in sympathy. “So you’ve never had proper sex then.”
Anders flips onto his stomach, staring up at him. “Excuse me? Are you telling me you think I’m rubbish in bed because I’m not Don Juan De-fucking-Marco?”
“I’m sure you’re fine in bed,” Mitchell says, causing Anders to squawk an indignant "Fine?” He shrugs, curling a stray lock of hair around his finger. “I’m just saying you’re missing out, that’s all.”
“That is some story book shit, mate. An orgasm is an orgasm and love doesn’t make a single bit of difference.”
“I’d show you, if you let me,” Mitchell offers.
“No you wouldn’t,” Anders says, lying back towards the sky. “And do you want to know why?”
“Because you won’t let me take your clothes off?” Mitchell asks.
“Because I know whose voice you hear,” he says, and Mitchell knows without a doubt that Anders told the truth, that he has never been in love.
“Then who do you hear?” He asks. Mitchell feels the slightest pull of envy at the thought of someone owning Anders' voice.
“Myself. It’s no different from anything else I say.”
“Do you think it would change, if you fell in love?”
“No,” Anders says immediately and Mitchell wonders if he’s thought of it before. “It doesn’t work like that for me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s not about love, John. It’s about want. I have wanted more in my life than he could ever account for, and it’s always just been me. It won’t change.” Anders sounds tired now and Mitchell knows he’s found the line.
“Come on,” he says, standing on unsteady feet. “It’s going to rain soon, anyway.”
“When doesn’t it?” Anders asks, accepting Mitchell’s outstretched hand and pulling himself up. “It’s fucking England.”
—
Anders is slightly more drunk than usual, walking with slow attentive steps after a night spent doing tequila shots with a group of girls out for a hen do. Mitchell is more or less surprised that he isn’t leaving alone while Anders wraps himself around the redhead with a tongue piercing, but he certainly doesn’t complain.
“You gonna walk me home like a proper gentleman?” He asks, his hands in his pockets as they head towards Anders’ flat.
“Right to the doorstep,” Mitchell promises, leading him down an empty street filled with broken cobblestone, avoiding the Saturday night crowds of the high street. He pauses, reaching out for Anders’ shoulder at the sound of footsteps following close behind them. Mitchell knows who they are from their forced breathing and can barely resist rolling his eyes.
“What the fuck do you want?” He asks, turning. He watches Anders do the same from the corner of his eye. His plans for the night included watching as Anders stumbled up the stairs to his building and listening to the bubbling sound of his laughter. He was inevitably going to attempt a kiss to the cheek at his door, something that routinely earns him a punch in the shoulder, though he barely puts any effort in it anymore.
“Mitchell,” Seth says with a scratchy voice and a Yorkshire drawl. “Boss said you were meant to be in tonight.”
“Mitchell,” Anders repeats at his side, smiling between splayed fingers. “So it’s John Mitchell in full, is it?”
“What?” Mitchell asks, nudging his shoulder. The vampires watch them with uncertain, flickering eyes.
“John Mitchell coached the All Blacks.”
“Oh, what, like you’re a fucking sport enthusiast now?”
Anders no longer appears to be able to hold back his laughter, his valiant attempt wasted as he snickers into his palm. “He’s well hated, mate. We sent him off to the Americans. Had a reputation for getting into bed with-”
“Yeah, alright,” Mitchell says, shoving him away. “You’re hysterical.” He has to bite back a smile at the sound of Anders’ muffled laughter as he turns his attention back towards Seth. “I know what Herrick said, but I’m not going to babysit you lot. You’ve been running London well enough without my input for years.”
Seth grits his teeth and Mitchell wonders if his own skin ever looks that gaunt and sallow in the half light. “That was the point, wasn’t it? He decided we needed your fucking input. I don’t think he’d approve of you fucking off to spend time with your human mate.”
“Not a human, actually,” Anders points out, but Mitchell ignores him and takes a step forward.
“Oh and you’re the one who’s going to ask Herrick what it is he wants me doing? Or are you going to step up and do your fucking job without trailing after me like child?” He doesn’t answer, so Mitchell tilts his head towards the entrance to the street. “Fuck off, Seth. If you properly muck it up, I’ll step in. Until then, leave me alone.”
He turns and drags Anders along beside him, taking a short cut through an adjacent alleyway and coming out on a residential street corner. He laughs when he hears Anders mumble, “I’m starving,” from behind him.
“Really?” He asks. “No questions about any of that?”
“Don’t care about your freaky politics. However I do care very much about getting my hands on some fucking chips.”
“Alright,” Mitchell says, flinging an arm around Anders’ shoulders. “Chips it is.”
—
He hears Anders’ voice before he turns the corner and lingers back against the brick.
“That’s not my fucking problem,” he says. His voice lacks the vicious apathy that drew Mitchell into bed with him in the first place, but he hears the anger for what it is, and he can guess in seconds who he’s on the phone with. Anders is silent for a moment and Mitchell can hear the impatient tap of his heels against the pavement, drowning out the distant chatter from the pub. “And that’s absolutely fine with me. Let it end, as long as I’m on my way to being properly pissed while it does.”
Mitchell glances around the edge of the building, watching as Anders stands with his phone to his ear, gazing up at the sky. “You’re welcome to try,” he says before hanging up and closing his eyes, breathing deep. “Eavesdropping, Johnny boy?”
“Not my fault you’re so loud.”
Anders leans back against the wall and Mitchell reaches into his pocket for a cigarette, lighting it in cupped hands. “What would you say if I told you the world was maybe going to end?” Anders asks.
Mitchell exhales smoke and leans against Anders’ side. “I’d ask how long we have?”
“Anywhere from six months to six days.”
“Then I’d say we should keep doing what we’re doing, only I’d add that you ought to let me kiss you.”
He's silent for a moment, his eyes focused on the damp pavement, before finally Anders breathes a soft, “Yeah. Alright then.”
Mitchell drops his newly lit cigarette and pulls Anders closer, lingering with a hand at his cheek, the other splayed against the base of his neck. His skin feels hot to the touch, his eyes are lowered, focused on Mitchell’s parted lips and when he finally leans in close enough to feel the gentle exhale of breath against his skin. He hesitates for just a moment, their lips barely touching, before finally he kisses him. Anders inhales like he’s drowning and Mitchell takes his time, their tongues aligned and his thumb brushing against his temple.
Anders tries to pull away, to quicken the pace and lick into his mouth but Mitchell forces him to slow down, to breathe against his lips and see what a difference love can make. Eventually he pulls back, placing lingering kisses to the corners of his mouth until he reaches the notch of Anders’ jaw. He traces the outline of his ear with the tip of his nose, before moving down to press feathered kisses to the curve of his throat.
He can hear him exhale, a breath away from a sigh. His fingers comb through his short hair as he listens to Anders’ pulse hum.
“Are you fucking joking,” a man snaps from behind them, his voice slurred. “You’re in public and this isn’t fucking Leicester.”
Anders turns to him with glassy eyes and swollen lips and says, “You are absolutely not interested in anything we’re up to. In fact, I’m certain you’re craving something sweet. How about you go order an Appletini or two?”
Mitchell watches the man nod his head in agreement before reaching for the door and disappearing into the pub. He turns his attention back to Anders’ parted lips, taking in every detail. “Do it again,” he whispers.
“Do what?”
“Use your voice.”
“No,” Anders murmurs, his hands on Mitchell’s hips.
“Just one word,” he says. “Anything.”
“Stop asking,” Anders sighs.
Mitchell whispers, “Please,” against the skin of Anders’ neck and he feels him stiffen, his shoulders tense as his breath catches in his throat.
“Just one word,” he repeats and Anders looks down at him, his eyes bright.
“I already did.”
Mitchell laughs and kisses him again. He thought it would break his heart, losing James’ voice. He thinks instead of Anders’ insistence that it never had anything to do with love, and he wonders if all he ever really wanted was to take it all back, to reach out for James’ arm and pull him from the ocean.
“Will you let me?” He whispers against his lips. Anders doesn’t speak, but he nods his head and Mitchell can hear his hammering heart and for a moment it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.
They spend the night in Mitchell’s bed, tracing each other’s bodies with their fingertips. Mitchell touches him until Anders is out of his depth, until he’s impatient and unsure and finally mumbles, “Are we going to fuck or not?”
He smiles as he kisses down Anders’ spine, drifting along a paper thin scar across his lower back. “What’s this?” He whispers and Anders’ shoulders shift and sigh as he murmurs, “I fell out of a tree.”
Mitchell laughs and rolls him over, smiling against his lips as he counts his ribs with a slide of his hand. “Almighty Anders, felled by a tree.”
“It was windy,” he says in his defence. “And I was seven.”
Mitchell hums in mock sympathy and Anders chases his lips until they’re kissing again, languid and slow, Anders’ arms stretched out across his tangled bedsheets. He entwines their fingers and rolls his hips, making Anders’ breath catch. “You’d think,” he murmurs, as Anders locks his ankles around his lower back and pushes up against him. “That you’d have a little more patience considering you think the world’s going to end.”
“It’s not going to end,” Anders says, his eyes closed. “Because I’m going to help them fix it.” Mitchell stops for just a moment, his teeth against Anders’ collarbones.
“Well,” he whispers, working past the ache in his chest, sudden and familiar as he sinks down Anders’ body to nose at the base of his cock. “Even more of a reason then.”
Anders watches him, his eyes half lidded. “You sure about that?”
“You worried I’ll prove you wrong?” He asks.
Anders is silent, his eyes raised towards the cracked plaster of the ceiling. “You heard my voice,” he says, finally.
Mitchell spreads his legs with the palms of his hands, closing his eyes and brushing his lips against the ridge of Anders’ hipbone. He breathes him in, rests his forehead against his thigh, and thinks that regardless of what his voice means, whether it’s love or want or wishful thinking, this was always bound to happen. “You sound so surprised.”
“And you sound so certain,” Anders says, whispered and barely there.
Mitchell hopes he can feel his answer in the drag of his teeth, the flutter of his eyelashes, in the way he reaches for his hands, holding them tightly and pressing his lips to his knuckles. He wants him to feel it when their ankles entwine, when he presses him back against the mattress and gasps his name into the hollow of his throat. When Anders fists his hand in Mitchell’s hair, he thinks it might have worked.
—
Mitchell wakes to Anders pulling away from him. He sits on the edge of the bed and runs his hands through his mussed hair, his elbows balanced on his knees. Mitchell tries to memorise the shadow of every notch in his spine, the shade of his hair in the morning light and the colour of his skin, the constellations dotted along his shoulders. He keeps his lashes low, feigning sleep as Anders turns to look at him. He has his palm pressed to his mouth and Mitchell wonders if he’s doing the same thing, if he’s trying to take in as many details as dawn will allow.
He watches as Anders stands, digging around the room for his clothes, left thrown into separate corners, wrinkled and stained. He holds his button-down up to the window before dropping it to the floor and shifting through Mitchell’s wardrobe for a dark blue flannel. The sleeves are slightly too long but Mitchell thinks it suits him all the same.
He dresses quickly, pulling on his slacks from the night before and grabbing a pair of mismatched socks and when finally his things are all accounted for he hesitates, his tie fisted in his hand. “Admit it,” Mitchell says softly, his voice low and worn. “Best lay you’ve ever had.”
Anders snorts, his back to him, shaking his head. “I won’t be responsible for adding to your insufferably large ego.”
“It’s alright,” Mitchell says. “I already know the answer.”
Anders glances back at him, his eyes drawing up the length of his body, lingering for far too long. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t say anything at all, and Mitchell watches him leave.
—
With Anders gone, his winded sails turn to cedar trees. They sway and pull and the roots grow deep until Mitchell can hardly contain them. He calls Herrick outside of a seedy pub in Stratford and tells him that he wants to leave, that London has lost its appeal and he’s ready for the windy suburbs of Bristol. Herrick snaps his fingers, gives his distant salute, and Mitchell gets the next train back.
“Oh dear,” Herrick murmurs, pushing off of the brick wall and reaching forward, his fingers light against Mitchell’s temple. “You’ll never learn, will you?”
“It’s not like that,” Mitchell says, pulling away.
“No? You mean to tell me this one’s different?” He says it every time. He said it about Josie and Ivan and Annie and George. The only one he never knew about was James, lost to the Irish sea.
“You’re right,” he says, finally. “You’re right. It isn’t any different.” Anders is his to keep, with every detail carved into cedar wood, preserved and safe from Herrick’s endless curiosity. Sometimes he lays awake and wonders if Anders ever did save the world, if he still complains about the rain, if his brothers missed him at all while he was gone.
As ever, despite the forest in his head, nothing changes. He watches vampires wake from death and talks them down over Chinese takeout, explains their role in the cosmic food chain and assures them that they aren’t monsters anymore.
He doesn’t know what it is he pictures when he closes his eyes, but he takes to kneeling against the foot of his bed every night, half drunk on whisky or vodka. If any god will forgive him for what he’s done, Mitchell thinks it must be Anders, and so he prays.