chosehumanity | Over the Past Few Weeks, Bristol, UK

"Oh, there's my friend. Sorry guys, I've got to go."

Mitchell could have recognized that voice across continents, underwater or screaming. Herrick, the vampire who'd made him, in the middle of a mud-caked shitstorm back in 1915. He hadn't seen him in quite a while - entirely by choice, as Mitchell had drifted towards the fringes - and his appearance meant nothing good.

He slapped the folder he'd been idly browsing (Fandom High? It sounded like a bad teen soap opera; fun for everyone) down on the nearest table and walked into the lunchroom.

"Another time, I promise," Herrick told his audience (he always had to have an audience) as he passed them by, striding cheerfully through the hospital lunchroom.

"Did you get my message?" Mitchell asked. He shifted his posture, maneuvering them closer to one corner. "This isn't your fucking larder, Herrick."

"This is a social call." He had the gall to sound offended. "We're worried about you, Mitchell."

Mitchell ignored the incoming speech. That wasn't the point: the point was that he'd been spending too much time doing things like rescuing werewolves and telling Seth to keep his head down that he really shouldn't need to be doing. "We're meant to keep a low profile," he hissed. "Coming here? Attacking people in their sleep?"

"Attacking people in their sleep?" At least by now Herrick had gotten the message about keeping his voice hushed. "Who's attacking people in their sleep?" Sure. Play the innocent. It was Herrick's particular expertise, and Mitchell knew far better than that.

"Seth said--"

"Seth said? There's something you need to know about Seth." Herrick said, and then reached with one hand to pat him on the arm, consolingly. He'd done that to widows and orphans on the streets, always the compassionate policeman in the daylight. There was still something disgustingly perfect about that combination. "He's an idiot."

The grin promptly split the illusion in two. Whatever. "Makes you think, though, doesn't it? These rules about we can and cannot do," Herrick continued, after he'd had his laugh, "Now here's a thought. Suppose the world-- knew of our existence."

It didn't work that way. In a way, the thought was appealing. It was also impossible, disturbing-- it couldn't happen and he hated Herrick for spouting that kind of propaganda. Mitchell looked away.

"Suppose they had a choice."

On that cheery note, Herrick pulled away from him and made a beeline for the lunchlady. Some-- babble about hot chocolate. Mitchell wasn't paying that much attention. Suppose they had a choice? Who'd choose to be one of them, monsters, prowling in the dark? Always looking for another kill, another hit?

"Do you want a hot chocolate?" Herrick called. It startled Mitchell out of his thoughts, and he muttered a quick denial. He watched as the other vampire flirted with the portly lunch lady behind the desk. He was still trying to figure out whatever Herrick's game was, although in a way, this was still familiar. So familiar, in fact, that he couldn't repress a snort as the girl gave in and gave that hot chocolate away for free. "Thank you very much," said Herrick, "Take care."

As soon as he turned, Mitchell demanded, "What was that all about? More tricks?"

"No, it's... manners."

What the fuck ever. "So we declare ourselves," he shot back, "And then what? Start a mass conversion?"

"No, no," Herrick said, carefully, and cradled his hot chocolate while he walked. "One step at a time. But, that is exactly the kind of left-field thinking we need right now."

"And those that refuse?"

"Well, as I recall, you welcomed me with open arms," Herrick pointed out, idly, raised his hot chocolate and took a good sip. "And-- Oh, that is terrible," he muttered, thrusting the cup away from him. "Taste it."

As always, Mitchell ignored his antics. Herrick didn't have a leg to stand on-- he'd had his reasons. "To save the lives of my men," he threw back.

"Yeah," Herrick said, "How noble of you to take on the curse of immortality so that your friends could wither and decay in hospitals and old people's homes."

Mitchell's upper lip twitched.

"I'm just kidding." Herrick pulled away at the last second, and resumed his walk with intent in another direction, "I was teasing you. I want to bet that if you offer people eternal life, not just for themselves but also for their lovers and their children, the queues would stretch a thousand miles. Let's go upstairs to the children's ward," he segued, hushing his voice again, "and see those parents. You think a single one of them would turn us away?"

He'd seen them. The kids. Their parents. So much sorrow, so much pain-- deadly illness in children was a particular brand of cruelty, jagged and horrifying.

Herrick smiled triumphantly, like he'd found what he was looking for. "You've thought about it, haven't you?" He paced away, his voice increasingly lower, underscored with seductive promises of power. "They had their chance. We left them to tend this paradise, Eden, and look what they did--"

"I don't understand," Mitchell interrupted. "This interest in me."

"If there was a change, then having you at my side as it was, back in the day... would--" Off Mitchell's expression, he stopped, bounced to another track without any effort at all. "People admire you," he said, "I admire you." He tossed his cup into a waste bin. "Despite your eccentricities."

Mitchell raised his eyebrows. "My eccentricities?"

"Well," Herrick checked the lapels of his police uniform, "We all play a part, but you... it's like... it's like you like it. Plus now I hear, everyone tells me, you're on the wagon."

Of course he had. Mitchell couldn't help himself, because he knew what Herrick would say, because he knew what everyone else thought-- so he laughed. "I don't expect you to understand."

"Good. I don't. It's mental," Herrick told him, straight on, "You're a shark. Be a shark." Again, he was pacing towards Mitchell, and he knew it was shark-instinct, predatory. Not like Seth; Herrick had never been as bumbling. He certainly held a large batch of short man's anger, a regular Napoleon Bonaparte with an unassuming middle-aged face.

"Everything's about to change," the other vampire whispered, "And nothing can stop it. This is nature, this is tectonic plates shifting, and the only thing, the only thing you and I get to choose is which side we're on when it happens." He smiled, then began to back off. The significant look in his eyes didn't change. "Make-your-mind-up time."

He could hear the beeping of the machines upstairs; the parents shuffling about, their children, and he thought back to Seth, beating up on that poor guy -- George -- in an alley, hanging over some dying man for a quick fix. Thought of a thousand murders back in his past and his pangs of conscience hadn't lessened any, only grown.

But first and highest to the forefront was the picture of a girl, not too long ago, spilling her life out into an alleyway.

"I choose them," he said.

"Pity," Herrick said. Over his shoulder, Mitchell could see his cronies - Seth up front, of course, with that dumb-arse expression on his face - waiting and waving. "Be seeing you. And your puppy, too."

Mitchell didn't bother to respond.

He turned and started walking, his feet speeding up on every step: this was not good. He kept on walking until he found the table with that folder on it, the one he'd read aloud the first time he saw it because any place called Fandom High was funny by definition.

He took the folder and left.

---

George	George sat, slumped, on the couch in Mitchell's bachelor's flat, a tiny, one-room efficiency without even its own toilet. He'd gotten used, over the last few weeks, to sharing the loo down the hall with a large man he'd taken to calling Bubba, in his head -- or, rather, trying to avoid sharing, as Bubba, most times they encountered one another, 'flirted' in a most disturbing manner, no matter how much George insisted he wasn't gay. So there George sat, staring blankly at Laurel and Hardy, in black and white spectacle on Mitchell's television screen. He wasn't taking any of it in. "This school, you say it's accepting of..." He trailed off, unable to find words to finish the thought until he came out with: "Of what happens to me?" On the floor in front of him was his duffle, packed tight now not only with the few belongings he'd brought from his room over the cafe, but also with what Mitchell had bought for him: more clothes, more books. A cheap, second-hand laptop computer, all that he'd allowed Mitchell to buy. "I won't take charity," he'd sad, ignoring all that Mitchell had already given him. "I just mean, it's not that I don't trust you. I just find it... How can anyone possibly accept that?"
Mitchell	"It's complicated." That had become Mitchell's stock phrase when these issues came up. Mitchell, of course, didn't mind, and was draped leisurely over his own floor, leaning his back into his old couch. The new place he'd arranged for better have one as good as it. "People are... different there. More open. They've got loads of diverse people coming in, it won't be a problem."
George	"Diverse? You make it sound like I'm gay. Or European." He paused. "... Continental. You know what I mean." There was another moment. A shudder. "This isn't something people just... shrug off."
Mitchell	"This, George?" Mitchell asked, slanting a look at him over a good bite of a crisp or two. "Of course they're not going to shrug it off, you can't even say it."
George	George stared at Mitchell. "Say it? You want me to say it? Fine, Mitchell. I'm a werewolf. Once a month I turn into a slathering, wild, uncontrollably aggressive beast who might eat everyone I care about and any number of innocents, or, worse, turn them into a werewolf themselves, and you wonder why I can't even say it? I don't want anything to do with it!"
Mitchell	"It's who you are," Mitchell persisted, "You can't keep running away from it."
George	"It's not who I am," George insisted, "it's something that happened-- happens to me. Once a month. That's it. It's completely separate." He turned away from Mitchell, unable to meet his eyes. "It is," he repeated. Trying, perhaps, to convince himself more than Mitchell.
Mitchell	"All I'm saying is this. You wouldn't be the worst thing they've ever seen," Mitchell started. George's moping was distracting him from his TV, but if he had even the slightest chance of getting this through to him, it'd be worth it. "Or heard about. They have their own definitions of normality."