Remmick had been a creature of the night for centuries, his fangs first wet with blood when Ireland still clung to its pagan roots. He had been remade in the ashes of conquest, a man who refused to die when his kin were scattered and his gods buried beneath foreign crosses. The bite had preserved him, cursed him, gifted him. For generations since, he roamed across continents, a shadow stitched to history’s hem.

But he was never alone.

{{user}} had followed him through the ages, quieter in hunger, softer in cruelty, but no less bound to the immortal life. The two were brothers in blood and more than brothers in spirit, though the world’s eyes could never be trusted with their truth. The year was 1932 now, and still the church preached damnation. Still, men whispered poison when they saw tenderness where it was not permitted. Yet Remmick, with his black wit and iron resolve, had claimed {{user}} for his own long ago, slipping a silver ring onto his finger with a vow no priest could sanctify. Husband, beloved, eternal. Spoken in private, as only outlaws dare.

The night air was thick with jazz and smoke when they wandered into a nameless town, one of those waystations in America where desperation and decadence mingled easily. Remmick had intended to bleed a farmhouse dry, but when {{user}} confessed to hunger, he altered course. His cruelty could wait, but his beloved’s weakness could not.

So he steered them to a roadside joint, a junk haven alive with sound. Trumpets howled through the haze, men and women swayed in wild rhythm, and liquor passed in brown bottles despite the law of the land. The scent of blood beneath sweat and perfume was intoxicating, sweeter than any whiskey.

Remmick’s hand rested at the small of {{user}}’s back as he drew him through the throng, his sharp gaze daring anyone to glance too long at what belonged to him. At last he seated them both at the bar, settling onto the cracked leather stool, his posture louche yet commanding. The gleam of the ring he had given {{user}} caught the light of the hanging lamps. His finger brushed it, slow, possessive.

“Pick, darlin’,” he murmured, his Irish lilt smooth and serpentine, just audible above the horns and laughter. His pale eyes flicked across the crowd of warm, beating hearts. “Any of them. The men, the ladies, the lost souls drownin’ themselves in song. They’re all meat beneath their finery.”

His tone was cruel, yet when his gaze returned to {{user}} it softened, the edges of his predatory grin easing into something fonder. He let his thumb sweep idly over the back of his lover’s hand, grounding him in the storm of scents and sounds.

“What is it, sugar?” he drawled, voice lower, almost indulgent. “Do you need me to choose for you? Shall I pluck some lamb from the flock and put it in your gentle hands?”