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Chapter Text

London, 1873

The fog tasted like coal and death.

Harry pressed his back against the slick brick wall of the alley, lungs burning, the kind of burning that meant the sickness had finally found him. Cholera, they were calling it. The blue death. He’d seen it take his neighbors one by one, watched them get carried out in waxed sheets, their families weeping in doorways.

He was twenty-one years old, and he was dying in an alley that smelled like piss and river water.

“Easy now.” The voice came from somewhere to his left, soft and careful. A woman’s voice. “You’re burning up.”

Harry tried to focus. She was beautiful in that sharp, hungry way that made men write bad poetry. Blonde hair pinned up, dress the color of dried blood, eyes that caught the gaslight like a cat’s. 

“Don’t-” he managed, throat raw. “Don’t come closer. It’s catching.”

She smiled, and later he would remember that smile in his nightmares. “Not for me, love.”

She knelt beside him, and her hands were so cold they felt good against his fever-hot skin. He should have been afraid. Should have pulled away. But the sickness had him by the throat, and all he wanted was for something, anything, to make it stop.

“I can save you,” she whispered, and her breath smelled like copper. “But you have to want it. Have to choose it.”

“Please,” Harry gasped. He didn’t know what he was begging for. Just mercy. Just an end to the burning.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

Her teeth, when they came, were a relief.

London, Present Day

Harry woke to his phone vibrating somewhere in the tangle of blackout curtains and yesterday’s clothes. His bedroom was dark - always dark, even at what his phone told him was 2 PM on a Tuesday. Blackout curtains, blackout blinds, and weather stripping around the door. His flat was a tomb he’d decorated with Supreme hoodies and empty Nando’s bags to make it look like he gave a shit about being alive.

He found his phone wedged between the mattress and the wall. Seven messages in the  group chat, three missed calls from Simon, and one text from Josh: remember, we have a shoot at 4, you better not bail again

Fuck.

Harry dragged himself upright, and the hunger came with him like a faithful dog. It was always there now and had been getting worse over the past few months. A hollow ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his lungs and everything to do with the four glass vials hidden in his freezer behind a bag of frozen peas he would never eat.

He’d been rationing. Trying to make them last. Telling himself he was fine, he was managing, he was human except for the technicality.

The hunger disagreed.

He stumbled to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and immediately regretted it. The thing in the mirror looked like Harry Lewis, content creator, professional idiot, the one who screamed too loud and made his friends laugh. But the skin was too pale, pulled tight over bones that seemed sharper than they should be. Blue-gray shadows pooled under his eyes, and when he leaned closer, he could see the faint tracery of veins beneath the skin.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and his voice sounded thin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Four PM. He had two hours to pull himself together enough to be Harry Wroetoshaw. Harry, who was loud and chaotic and alive. Harry, who definitely did not need to drink blood to survive.

He opened the freezer with shaking hands.

Three vials left. Three. When had he used the fourth? Last week? Two weeks ago? Time did that thing it always did when he was struggling, slipping away like water through his fingers.

The vials were small, medical-grade glass with rubber stoppers. Anonymous donations from a black market clinic in Shoreditch that didn’t ask questions about whether you had cash. He’d been going there for decades, cycling through different names, different faces to the staff who turned over every few years anyway.

Harry held one up to the kitchen light. The blood inside was dark, almost black, and separated slightly from sitting too long. Old blood didn’t work as well. Didn’t hit the same. But it would keep him functional for a few more days, maybe get him through the video shoot without anyone noticing the way his hands trembled or how he couldn’t quite meet their eyes.

He unscrewed the cap, and the smell hit him immediately.

God. God.

He’d been doing this for over a hundred and fifty years, and it never got easier. Never stopped feeling like a violation of everything human he was trying to hold onto. But the hunger didn’t care about his feelings. It cared about survival, about the thing he’d become that October night in 1873 when Victoria was still on the throne and the city smelled like horses and smoke.

Harry tipped the vial back and drank.

It was cold going down, viscous and wrong. His body hated it, hated old blood, hated blood from a vial instead of a throat, but it took it anyway, desperate and grateful. The hunger receded, just slightly, just enough.

He leaned against the counter, breathing hard even though he didn’t technically need to breathe, and waited for his hands to stop shaking.

Two vials left.

He had to figure something out. Had to find another clinic, another source, something. Because the alternative was the thing he’d spent over a century refusing to do: hunting. Taking it fresh. Becoming the monster fully instead of this half-thing he’d made himself into.

His phone buzzed again. 

Simon

mate where are you? we’re all here

Shit. Four o’clock already? He’d lost time again, standing in his kitchen holding an empty vial like it could tell him how to be human.

Harry shoved the vial back in the freezer, grabbed a hoodie from the floor, and tried to remember how to smile.

The shoot was chaos when he arrived, which was perfect. Chaos meant no one looked too closely. Chaos meant he could slip in through the noise and the shouting and just be one more loud voice in the mess.

“Harry!” Tobi spotted him first, grinning. “Thought you’d bailed again.”

“Nah, just traffic,” Harry lied easily. He’d been lying for over a century. He was good at it. “What’re we filming again?”

“Among Us in real life,” Josh said, already halfway into explaining the rules. “We’ve got tasks set up all over the house, two impostors, you know the drill.”

Harry nodded, pulled his hood up, and tried to look engaged. The others were already moving. Tobi and Vik were arguing about task assignments, JJ was filming something on his phone, and Ethan was stress-eating Haribo gummy bears.

Normal. This was normal.

Except Simon was looking at him. Really looking, in that way, Simon had where he could see through bullshit like it was glass.

“You good?” Simon asked, quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah, man, just tired.”

“You’re always tired lately.”

Harry forced a laugh. “That’s what happens when you stay up editing till 4 AM.”

Simon didn’t laugh back. His eyes, clear blue, so alive it almost hurt to look at them, stayed on Harry’s face like he was trying to solve an equation. “You sure that’s all it is?”

“Positive. Now, are we filming this or what?”

The moment broke. Simon nodded, let it go, but Harry could feel the weight of that look even as they moved into the house. Could feel Simon’s attention like a physical thing, tracking him through the craziness.

He’d been careless. Let himself get too hungry, too weak. Let the mask slip just enough for Simon to see the cracks underneath.

Harry found his spot for the first task, something in the kitchen involving a blindfold and eggs, and tried to remember how to be loud. How to joke. How to be the Harry they all expected.

But the hunger was still there, patient and permanent, and it was getting harder to remember which parts of him were real and which parts were just very good acting.

They were two hours into filming when it happened.

Ethan was doing a task in the hallway, something that involved balloons and too much enthusiasm, when one popped too close to his hand. Sharp plastic, sharp enough to break skin.

The smell hit Harry like a freight train.

Fresh blood. Warm. Alive.

His vision tunneled. Everything went sharp and too bright at the edges, the way it always did when the hunger came roaring forward. He could hear Ethan’s heartbeat from across the room, steady and strong, pumping that beautiful living blood through his veins like an offering.

Harry’s hands clenched into fists. His teeth ached.

“Ow, shit.” Ethan was laughing, looking at the small cut on his palm. “That actually got me.”

“You’re bleeding, you muppet,” JJ said, somewhere far away.

Harry couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. His entire body was screaming at him to move closer, to take what he needed, to stop pretending he was anything other than what Victoria’s London had made him.

“Harry?”

Simon’s voice. Simon’s hand on his arm.

“You look like you’re gonna pass out, mate. When’s the last time you ate?”

The question was innocent. The concern was real. But all Harry could focus on was Simon’s pulse, visible in his throat, steady and trusting and there.

“I’m fine,” Harry managed, and his voice came out wrong. Too rough. Too low.

“You’re not. Come on, let’s get you some air.”

Simon’s hand was warm on his elbow, guiding him toward the back door, and Harry let himself be led because the alternative was standing there and letting everyone see him fall apart. See him for what he was.

The evening air hit him like cold water. October in London, damp and gray, the sun already setting because the days were getting shorter. Harry sucked in a breath he didn’t need and tried to find himself again in the spaces between heartbeats.

“Talk to me,” Simon said. They were alone in the garden, the sounds of the others muffled through the walls. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. I’m just-”

“Don’t.” Simon’s voice was gentle but firm. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve been weird for months. Missing videos, showing up late, you look like you haven’t slept in a year. And just now, you looked at Ethan’s bleeding hand like...”

He stopped. He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Harry closed his eyes. This was it. This was the moment where over a century of carefully constructed normalcy came crashing down because he’d been too proud or too stubborn to admit he couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t keep pretending.

“Like what?” Harry asked quietly.

Simon was quiet for a long moment. When Harry opened his eyes, Simon was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. Confusion. Concern. And underneath it, something that might have been fear.

“Like you were starving,” Simon said finally. “Like you were dying.”

Harry laughed, and it came out bitter. “Yeah. Yeah, something like that.”

“Harry-”

“I can’t explain it, Simon. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

And for one insane, impossible moment, Harry considered it. Considered telling Simon everything. The fog and the woman and the teeth. The way he’d woken up three days later in an abandoned warehouse with blood in his mouth and no heartbeat in his chest. The hundred and fifty years of trying to be human again, trying to fit into a world that had no place for things like him.

But he couldn’t. Because telling Simon meant losing Simon, and he couldn’t lose the one person who looked at him like he was worth saving.

“I just need to get my shit together,” Harry said instead. “I’ve been… struggling. But I’ll figure it out.”

Simon looked like he wanted to argue. Wanted to push. But Josh was calling them back inside, and the moment passed.

“Okay,” Simon said, but his eyes said we’re not done with this. “But Harry? Whatever’s going on, you know you can talk to me. Right?”

Harry nodded, his throat tight.

They went back inside. Harry finished the video. He laughed in the right places, played his part, and became the Harry they all needed him to be.

But he could feel it fraying. The control. The carefully maintained distance between monster and man.

And when he got home that night, he opened the freezer and stared at the two remaining vials for a long time before finally admitting the truth he’d been avoiding:

It wasn’t enough anymore.

It was never going to be enough again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter Text

London, 1874 - Six Months After

Harry learned to hunt in the winter.

The woman who’d turned him, Margaret (she’d finally told him her name), had disappeared three months after that first night. Just gone, like fog burning off at dawn, leaving him alone with a hunger he didn’t understand and a body that no longer worked the way bodies should.

He’d tried to die, at first. Walked into the Thames and let the current pull him under, staying down until his lungs screamed for air that wouldn’t come. But he’d woken up on the bank two hours later, waterlogged and furious, still dead and still here.

Immortality, he’d learned, was not a gift. It was a sentence.

The hunger ultimately decided for him. Three weeks of refusing to feed, trying to starve himself back to humanity, and his body had simply… taken over. He’d woken up in an alley off Whitechapel with blood on his hands and a dead woman at his feet.

No. Not dead. Unconscious. Pale. Breathing.

He’d taken enough to survive but not enough to kill, and he didn’t remember any of it.

That was the night Harry stopped trying to be human and started trying to be careful. Started learning the rules of what he was. How to feed without killing. How to blur the edges of memory so his victims wouldn’t remember his face. How to move through the world like a ghost, touching nothing, leaving no trace.

How to hate himself quietly.

London, Present Day - One Week After the Among Us Video Shoot

Harry hadn’t left his flat in four days.

The hunger was bad now. Worse than bad. It had moved past the hollow ache in his chest and become something physical, something with teeth of its own. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His vision kept going dark at the edges, then too bright, like someone was playing with the contrast settings on reality.

One vial left.

He’d used the second one three days ago, and it had barely touched the sides. Old blood was like drinking water when what you needed was whiskey. It filled the space but didn’t kill the thirst.

Harry sat on his kitchen floor with his back against the cabinets, phone in his hand, and stared at the group chat.

Simon

Has anyone heard from Harry?

Josh

Not since Tuesday.

Vik

I tried calling him yesterday, went straight to voicemail

JJ

man's probably just sleeping off a bender lol

Simon

for four days?

Simon

I'm gonna go check on him

No. Fuck. No, no, no.

Harry’s fingers fumbled across the screen, typos everywhere, had to delete and retype twice before he managed: im fine. just sick. flu or something. dont come over

Three dots appeared immediately. Simon was typing.

Simon

bullshit

Simon

You don't get sick

Simon

I'm already in the car

Harry let his head fall back against the cabinet. Of course, Simon had noticed. Simon noticed everything, especially the things Harry desperately needed him not to see.

Twenty minutes. That’s how long he had before Simon showed up and saw… what? The blackout curtains? The empty fridge? The way Harry looked now, all sharp edges and hollow eyes and visible veins?

He needed to get it together. Needed to be functional enough to send Simon away, to convince him everything was fine, that Harry was just regular sick, nothing supernatural, nothing impossible.

The last vial.

Harry pulled himself up on shaking legs and opened the freezer. The cold air felt good against his too-hot skin. Fever hot, like that night in 1873, like his body was trying to burn itself out from the inside.

He held the vial up to the light. The blood inside was completely black now, weeks old, maybe months. His stomach turned at the thought of it.

But Simon was coming, and he needed to be human for just a little longer.

Harry broke the seal and drank.

It was worse than he’d expected. Thick and cold and wrong, his body rejecting it even as it tried desperately to absorb something, anything. He made it halfway through before his stomach revolted, and he barely made it to the sink before he was vomiting it back up, dark and viscous and mixed with something that might have been bile if he were still human enough to produce it.

“Fuck,” he gasped, gripping the edge of the sink. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His reflection in the kitchen window looked like a corpse. Skin gray-pale, eyes sunken, lips bloodless. The veins under his eyes were dark enough to see from across the room.

This was it. This was the end of the pretending.

The buzzer rang.

Harry’s head snapped up, heart that didn’t beat somehow still managing to lurch in his chest. Too soon. Simon couldn’t be here already, he’d said twenty minutes-

“Harry? It’s me. Let me up.”

Simon’s voice through the intercom, worried and firm and very much here.

Harry pressed the button without thinking, pure habit, and then immediately regretted it because he had maybe ninety seconds before Simon saw exactly what he’d been hiding for over a century.

He tried to straighten up. Tried to smooth his hair back, pull his hoodie straight, look like a person instead of a thing. But his hands were shaking too badly, and there was still blood, old, dark blood, on his lips.

Footsteps in the hallway. A knock.

“Harry, come on, open up.”

Harry opened the door.

Simon’s expression went from worried to horrified in the space of a heartbeat.

“Jesus Christ,” Simon breathed. “Harry, what- you look like you’re dying.”

“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like ash.

“You’re not. Fuck, mate, you’re not fine.” Simon pushed past him into the flat, and Harry was too weak to stop him. “When’s the last time you ate? Drank water? Anything?”

“Simon, you need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving. Look at you, you can barely stand.” Simon’s hand was on his arm, warm and solid and alive, and Harry had to physically stop himself from leaning into it. “Come on, sit down before you fall.”

He let Simon guide him to the sofa, because refusing would take energy he didn’t have. The blackout curtains were drawn, but there was enough light from the kitchen for Simon to see the state of the flat. The empty takeaway containers that Harry had ordered and couldn’t eat, left out to make it look like he was still human. The layers of blankets. The darkness.

“This isn’t just the flu,” Simon said slowly, and Harry could hear him putting pieces together. “This is something else.”

“It’s nothing. I just need to sleep it off.”

“Harry.” Simon crouched down in front of him, hands on Harry’s knees, looking up into his face with those clear, living eyes. “Please. Whatever this is, let me help.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Simon wanted to help. Would do anything to help. But there was no help for this. No cure for what Harry was. Just management. Just careful rationing and staying hidden and hoping the hunger never got bad enough to make him lose control.

Except he was already losing control.

“You can’t,” Harry said quietly. “You can’t help with this.”

“Why not?”

“Because you wouldn’t understand. Because it’s not...” He stopped, swallowed. “It’s not something normal people deal with.”

Simon was quiet for a long moment, studying Harry’s face, before saying, “Try me.”

“Simon-”

“You said that last week, too. And you’re worse now than you were then. So either tell me what’s going on, or I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No!” The word came out too sharp, too desperate. “No hospitals. No doctors. They can’t- they won’t-”

“Then talk to me.”

Harry closed his eyes. The hunger was everywhere now, singing in his veins, making it hard to think past the base animal need. And Simon was so close, so warm, heartbeat steady and strong and right there.

“How much do you believe in?” Harry asked, finally.

“What?”

“Supernatural stuff. Monsters. Things that shouldn’t exist.”

Simon’s expression flickered. Confusion, then concern. “Harry, are you- is this some kind of breakdown? Because if you need help-”

“I’m over a hundred and fifty years old.”

The words fell into the space between them like stones into water.

Simon stared at him. “What?”

“I was born in 1852. Turned in 1873. Haven’t aged a day since.” Harry opened his eyes, met Simon’s gaze. “And I haven’t eaten food in over a century.”

“Harry, that’s not... that’s not possible.”

“I know.”

“You’re not making sense. You need-”

“Look at me, Simon. Really look.”

So Simon did. And Harry let him see it: the gray pallor of his skin, the dark veins under his eyes, the way his chest didn’t rise and fall quite right. Let the mask drop fully for the first time in decades.

Simon’s face went pale. “What are you?”

“The word you’re looking for is vampire.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Simon stood up abruptly, backing away, and Harry couldn’t blame him. Couldn’t blame him for the fear that was rolling off him in waves, couldn’t blame him for reaching for the door.

“This is insane,” Simon said, voice tight. “You’re- this is some kind of joke. A prank. For a video.”

“It’s not.”

“Prove it.”

Harry laughed, hollow. “How?”

“I don’t know! Do something! Something vampires do. If you’re really- if this is real-”

Harry moved.

It wasn’t conscious, wasn’t planned. Just pure instinct: one moment he was sitting on the sofa, the next he was standing in front of Simon, fast enough that human eyes couldn’t track it. Fast enough that Simon gasped, stumbling back against the door.

“Fuck,” Simon breathed. “Fuck, that’s not- how did you-”

Harry held up his hand. In the dim light, his skin looked translucent, veins visible all the way up his arm like a road map of everything he wasn’t. “I don’t have a heartbeat. Haven’t had one since 1873. Want to check?”

Simon didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Just stared at Harry like he was seeing him for the first time.

“This is why I look like shit,” Harry said, and his voice cracked. “I’m starving, Simon. Have been for weeks. And I don’t... I can’t-”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t keep doing this. Can’t keep pretending I’m human when I’m so obviously not.”

Simon’s hand was still on the doorknob. One turn and he’d be gone, and Harry would be alone again with the hunger and the darkness and the weight of over a century of trying to be something he wasn’t.

But Simon didn’t turn the knob.

“When you looked at Ethan’s blood,” Simon said slowly. “Last week. You weren’t just feeling sick.”

“No.”

“You were hungry.”

“Yes.”

“For blood.”

“Yes.”

Another long silence. Then: “Have you ever... with any of us...”

“No. God, no. Never.” Harry’s hands clenched into fists. “I don’t hunt. I don’t- I get it from clinics. Donations. Old blood. It’s not the same, but it’s enough to...” He stopped himself. “It was enough. Until recently.”

“What changed?”

“I don’t know. The hunger’s just getting worse. Harder to manage. I think...” He laughed bitterly. “I think my body’s finally giving up on trying to exist on scraps.”

Simon was quiet, processing. Harry could see him working through it: all the weird behavior, the missed videos, the way Harry never ate on camera, the strange hours. Everything is suddenly making a horrifying kind of sense.

“So when you said you were struggling,” Simon said finally. “You meant you were starving to death.”

“Vampires can’t die. Not from hunger, anyway. We just get weaker. More desperate. More likely to lose control.”

“And if you lose control?”

Harry met his eyes. “Then I become the monster I’ve spent over a century trying not to be.”

The weight of that hung between them. Simon’s hand finally dropped from the doorknob.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Simon asked, and there was something in his voice that might have been hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because this is exactly what I was afraid of. You, looking at me like I’m something dangerous. Something other.”

“You are dangerous.”

“I know.”

“But you’re also Harry.” Simon took a careful step forward. “You’re still the idiot who screamed at FIFA and can't tell a joke without laughing halfway through. You’re still my best friend.”

Harry’s throat tightened. “Am I?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.” Another step. “Even if you are apparently a hundred and fifty-year-old vampire, which is absolutely mental, but...” Simon stopped, took a breath. “You’re still you.”

“Simon, I’m literally craving your blood right now.”

“How bad?”

The honesty of the question caught Harry off guard. “Bad. Really bad.”

“But you haven’t hurt me.”

“Not yet.”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Simon was close now, close enough to touch. “Because you’ve been around us for years, and you’ve never hurt any of us. You’ve been starving yourself rather than risking it. So yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to suddenly go full on Dracula.”

Harry wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe he could keep control, keep the monster leashed. But the hunger was screaming at him, and Simon was so close, and it would be so easy.

“You should go,” Harry said roughly.

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Simon...”

“What do you need? To not die or whatever? What helps?”

“Fresh blood. From someone alive.”

“Okay.”

Harry’s head snapped up. “Okay? That’s not- Simon, I can’t just go out and-”

“So don’t.” Simon held out his wrist. “Take mine.”

The world tilted.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Harry breathed.

“Probably. But you need help, and I’m not going to watch my best friend waste away because he’s too stubborn to accept it.”

“I could kill you.”

“You won’t.”

“I could turn you.”

“Will you?”

“No. God, no, I would never-”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Harry stared at him. At Simon, who knew what he was now and hadn’t run. Who was standing there offering his blood like it was nothing, like Harry was worth saving even after learning the truth.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Harry said quietly.

“I know. But you’re hurting yourself trying to avoid it. So let me help. Please.”

The hunger roared forward at the invitation, desperate and vicious. Harry’s vision sharpened, his senses narrowing to the pulse point in Simon’s wrist, the blood moving beneath skin, warm and living and there.

“I haven’t fed from a person in over a century,” Harry admitted. “I don’t know if I can stop.”

“Then I’ll stop you.”

“How?”

Simon smiled, shaky but real. “I’ll figure it out. Come on. Before I lose my nerve.”

Harry’s hands were shaking as he reached for Simon’s wrist. This was a line he’d sworn never to cross again, not since that night in Whitechapel when he’d woken up covered in someone else’s blood. But Simon was offering, and Harry was so far past the point of rational decision-making.

“Tell me to stop,” Harry said. “If it’s too much. If I hurt you. Just… tell me to stop and I will.”

“Okay.”

Harry brought Simon’s wrist to his mouth.

The smell alone made his head spin. Fresh blood, human blood, Simon’s blood. Everything the vials weren’t. Everything his body had been screaming for.

His teeth extended - not fangs, not like in movies, just slightly too sharp, designed for tearing, and he bit down.

Simon gasped but didn’t pull away.

The first drop hit Harry’s tongue, and it was like coming back to life. Warmth spreading through his chest, through his limbs, chasing away the cold that had been living in his bones for weeks. The hunger backed off immediately, finally satisfied, finally given what it actually needed.

He should stop. Should pull away. Should take only what he needed and nothing more.

But it had been so long. So long since he’d had this, since he’d felt human-adjacent instead of like a corpse walking. The blood kept coming, and Harry kept drinking, and somewhere in the background he could hear Simon’s breathing getting shallower.

“Harry.” Simon’s voice, strained. “Harry, that’s- that’s enough.”

The words took a moment to penetrate the fog of hunger. When they did, Harry jerked back like he’d been burned.

Simon was pale, swaying slightly, blood trickling down his wrist. His eyes were unfocused.

“Fuck.” Harry grabbed him, steadied him. “Shit, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have-”

“S’okay,” Simon slurred. “Just… dizzy.”

Harry guided him to the sofa, wrapped one of the blankets around his shoulders. His hands were still shaking but from adrenaline now, from fear of what he’d almost done. A few more seconds and he wouldn’t have been able to stop. A few more seconds and Simon would have...

“I told you,” Harry said roughly, wrapping Simon’s wrist with a clean towel from the kitchen. “I told you I might not be able to stop.”

“But you did.” Simon’s head lolled against the sofa back. “You stopped.”

“Barely.”

“Still counts.”

Harry sat on the floor in front of him, head in his hands. The hunger was quiet now, finally fed, but the guilt was overwhelming. He’d just fed from his best friend. Had taken Simon’s blood because he’d been too weak to refuse it.

“I’m a monster,” Harry said quietly.

“No you’re not.”

“I just drank your blood.”

“Yeah, and now you don’t look like a corpse anymore.” Simon managed a weak smile. “I’d call that a win.”

Harry looked up at him. Simon was still pale, but his eyes were clearer, and he was breathing steadily. He’d be okay. Weak for a few days, maybe, but okay.

“Why did you do that?” Harry asked. “Why would you risk-”

“Because you’re my friend,” Simon said simply. “And friends help each other. Even if one of them is apparently an immortal vampire who’s been lying about his age for years.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you.”

“I get why you didn’t. This is some pretty big information to drop on someone.” Simon pulled the blanket tighter. “Are you going to tell the others?”

Harry’s stomach dropped. “I don’t... I can’t-”

“They’re going to notice you’re better. They’ve already noticed you’ve been weird.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Harry laughed hollowly. “I don’t have one. I’ve been making this up as I go for over a hundred years.”

“Well.” Simon shifted, settling deeper into the sofa. “We’ve got time to figure it out. Literally all the time, in your case.”

Despite everything, Harry felt something in his chest unclench. Simon knew. Simon knew everything, and he was still here, still calling Harry his friend.

Maybe immortality didn’t have to be a sentence served alone.

“Thank you,” Harry said quietly.

Simon’s eyes were already drifting closed, the blood loss pulling him toward sleep. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to figure out how to explain this to Josh.”

Harry groaned. “Josh is going to murder me.”

“Probably,” Simon agreed, and then he was asleep, breathing steady and peaceful like he hadn’t just let a vampire feed from him.

Harry sat there on the floor, watching Simon sleep, feeling more human than he had in decades.

And for the first time in over a century, he realized that he didn’t have to do this alone anymore.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter Text

London, 1925

Harry stood in Piccadilly Circus and watched the world change.

Electric lights were everywhere now, bright enough to drown out the stars. Motor cars coughing smoke instead of horse-drawn carriages. Women in short skirts and shorter hair, smoking cigarettes on street corners like it was nothing.

Fifty-two years since Margaret had turned him, and London barely resembled the city where he’d died.

He’d learned to adapt. Had to. Immortality meant watching everything familiar become foreign, everyone you knew turn to dust. He’d had friends in those early decades, other vampires, others cursed or changed, but they’d all moved on eventually. Left London for other cities, other centuries.

Harry had stayed. Something about this place kept him rooted, kept him walking the same streets even as they transformed beneath his feet.

He fed carefully. Took only what he needed from people who wouldn’t miss it: drunkards stumbling out of pubs, prostitutes who’d forget his face by morning. Never enough to kill. Never enough to risk making another monster.

He was lonely, though. Desperately, bone-deep lonely in a way that had nothing to do with being surrounded by millions of people.

Because none of them were like him. None of them would last.

Harry bought a newspaper from a vendor - the headline screaming something about the British Empire - and wondered how many more decades he’d have to endure before the loneliness killed something in him that even immortality couldn’t sustain.

London, Present Day - One Week After Simon Found Out

“So let me get this straight,” Josh said, standing in the middle of Harry’s flat with his arms crossed. “You’re a vampire.”

“Yes,” Harry said.

“Like, actual vampire. Drinks blood, doesn’t age, the whole thing.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been pretending to be human for how long?”

“About a hundred and fifty years, give or take.”

Josh looked at Simon, who was sitting on Harry’s sofa, looking significantly healthier than he had three days ago. “And you believe this?”

“I’ve seen it, mate,” Simon said. “He’s telling the truth.”

“This is insane.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “Pretty much.”

It had been Simon’s idea to tell Josh. Then the rest of them, before the questions got too complicated to answer. Harry had resisted, still thought it was a terrible idea, but Simon had pointed out that they’d all seen him looking half dead, and now he suddenly looked fine. They’d want to know why.

Better to control the narrative than let them draw their own conclusions.

Josh was taking it better than Harry expected, which was to say he hadn’t run screaming yet. Just stood there processing, that analytical mind working through the impossible and trying to make it make sense.

“Prove it,” Josh said finally.

Harry sighed. “What is it with you lot and needing proof?”

“Because this is mental, Harry. You’re telling me vampires are real, and you’re one of them. That’s not something I can just accept on faith.”

Fair enough.

Harry moved, using that same impossible speed to get to the other side of the room, before appearing in front of Josh within the speed of light. Josh jerked back, his eyes going wide.

“Christ,” Josh breathed.

“I don’t have a pulse.” Harry held out his wrist. “Check if you want.”

Josh did, fingers pressing against Harry’s skin for a long moment before he pulled back, looking vaguely sick. “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

“Been that way since 1873.”

“And the blood thing? You actually need it?”

“Yeah. Though I’m managing better now.” Harry glanced at Simon, who’d been letting him feed twice a week in small amounts. Enough to keep the hunger at bay, but not enough to hurt Simon. They’d found a balance, careful and controlled.

It wasn’t perfect. Harry still hated himself a little every time. But it was better than the alternative.

Josh sat down heavily in Harry’s desk chair. “This is absolutely mad.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do the others know?”

“Just you and Simon so far.”

“You planning to tell them?”

Harry exchanged a look with Simon. They’d been debating this for days. Part of him wanted to keep it contained, to limit the damage. But another part, the part that had been so desperately lonely for so long, wanted them to know. Wanted to stop hiding.

“I think so,” Harry said. “If they want to know.”

“They’ll want to know.” Josh ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, Harry. This explains so much. The weird hours, never eating on camera, bailing on stuff…”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Just- give me a minute to process this.”

They gave him five minutes. Then ten. Josh sat there, thinking, occasionally muttering something under his breath. Finally, he looked up.

“Okay,” Josh said. “So you’re a vampire. You’ve been alive since Victoria was queen. And you need blood to survive.”

“That’s the summary, yeah.”

“But you’re not going to hurt anyone.”

“I’m trying very hard not to.”

“Trying isn’t good enough, mate.”

“I know.” Harry met his eyes. “I’ve been managing this for over a century. I know how to control it. And now that I have… help,” He stole another glance at Simon, “it’s easier.”

Josh looked between them. “Simon’s been letting you feed from him.”

“Twice a week,” Simon confirmed. “Small amounts. I researched it, healthy adults can donate blood every eight weeks, so twice a week is well within safe limits if he’s not taking much.”

“You researched vampire feeding.”

“I researched blood donation. Same principle.”

Josh laughed, slightly hysterical. “This is my life now. My friends are a vampire and his blood donor. This is fine. This is totally fine.”

“We don’t have to tell the others if you think it’s a bad idea,” Harry said quietly.

“No, you should tell them. They deserve to know.” Josh stood up. “But Harry? If you ever hurt any of them-”

“I won’t.”

“If you ever lose control”

“I won’t.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“No,” Harry admitted. “But I can promise I’ll do everything in my power to prevent it. And if I can’t…” He swallowed. “Then I’ll leave. Disappear. You’ll never see me again.”

The thought of it made something in his chest ache, leaving them, losing this, going back to the loneliness that had defined so much of his existence. But he’d do it if he had to. Would walk away before he hurt any of them.

Josh studied him for a long moment. Then nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”

Relief flooded through Harry. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re still an idiot, but you’re our idiot.” Josh headed for the door, then paused. “One more thing, though.”

“What?”

“The Victorian era? What was it actually like?”

Harry laughed, surprised. “Of course, you would want a history lesson. Only Josh. He finds out his friend is a vampire, and the first thing he wants to know is about history.” 

“I mean, you were there. Seems like a waste not to ask.”

“It was cold, everything smelled like coal smoke, and the Thames was basically an open sewer. Romantic period, really.”

“Grim.”

“Very.”

Josh left, shaking his head, muttering something about his life being a movie now. Simon waited until the door closed before speaking.

“That went well,” Simon said.

“Did it? He looked traumatized.”

“He’ll be fine. Josh is practical. He’ll process it and move on.” Simon stood, stretched. “You ready to tell the others?”

“No. But I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”

“Want to do it all at once or one at a time?”

Harry considered. Ripping the plaster off versus drawing it out. Both options sounded terrible.

“All at once,” he decided. “Get it over with.”

Simon pulled out his phone. “I’ll set something up for tomorrow then.”

“Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For all of this.”

Simon smiled. “What are friends for?”

The Next Day

They gathered at Josh's house in the evening, everyone confused about why Simon had called an emergency meeting with no explanation. Harry sat on the sofa between Simon and Josh, trying not to look like he was about to confess to multiple murders.

Which, technically, he wasn’t. He’d been very careful about that.

“So,” JJ said, sprawled in an armchair. “What’s this about? Simon said it was important.”

“It is,” Simon said, then looked at Harry. “You want to…?”

Harry took a breath he didn’t need. “Right. Okay. So this is going to sound absolutely mental, but I need you all to hear me out before you say anything.”

“You’re not dying, are you?” Tobi asked, concerned.

“No. Opposite, actually. I’m-” How did you even say this? “I’m not going to die. Ever. Because I’m already dead. Technically.”

Silence.

“What?” Ethan said.

“I’m a vampire.”

More silence.

Then Vik laughed. “Okay, what’s the prank? Where are the cameras?”

“It’s not a prank,” Josh said.

“Come on, it’s got to be.”

“It’s not,” Simon confirmed. “He’s telling the truth.”

JJ sat forward. “Hang on, you’re serious?”

“Completely,” Harry said. “I was turned in 1873. I’m over a hundred and fifty years old. And I’ve been hiding it from you all because… well, because it’s terrifying and I didn’t want you to look at me like I’m a monster.”

“But you’re not,” Simon said firmly. “He’s not. He’s just Harry, but with some extra complications.”

“Extra complications,” Ethan repeated faintly. “You mean like drinking blood?”

“Yeah. That.”

“From people?”

“From Simon, currently. In controlled amounts. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!” JJ stood up. “Simon, are you mad? You’re letting him feed on you?”

“He needed help-”

“So you offered yourself up as a blood bag?”

“It’s not like that,” Harry cut in. “I don’t- I would never hurt him. Any of you. I’ve spent over a century learning how to control this.”

“But you are dangerous,” Vik said slowly. “You have to be.”

“Yes,” Harry admitted. “I could be. But I choose not to be.”

Tobi hadn’t said anything yet, just watched Harry with an unreadable expression. Finally, he quietly spoke, “Show us.”

“What?”

“If you’re really a vampire, show us. Do something we can’t explain away.”

Harry looked at Simon, who nodded. Then he moved. Just like he did with Simon and Josh.

Across the room and back in half a second. Fast enough that they all startled, JJ actually jumping out of his chair.

“Fuck me,” JJ breathed.

Harry held out his wrist. “No pulse. No heartbeat. Body temperature is about ten degrees lower than the normal human standard. I don’t eat food, don’t sleep unless I’m injured, and I’ll look exactly like this in another hundred years.”

“This is insane,” Vik said, but he didn’t sound disbelieving anymore. Just shocked.

“Yeah.”

“So when you were sick,” Ethan said. “Last week, when you looked like death…”

“I was starving. Hadn’t fed properly in weeks.”

“And Simon helped you.”

“He did.”

“By letting you drink his blood.”

“Yes.”

Ethan looked at Simon. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Simon said. “He’s careful. We worked out safe amounts. It’s not... It’s not as scary as it sounds.”

“It sounds terrifying,” JJ said flatly.

“It is at first,” Simon admitted. “But it’s still just Harry. He’s still our friend.”

“Our friend who’s a vampire.”

“Yeah.”

Another long silence. Harry could see them processing, trying to reconcile everything they knew about him with this new, impossible information. Part of him wanted to run, to disappear before they could reject him. But he forced himself to stay still, to wait.

Tobi spoke first. “Are there others? Other vampires?”

“Some. Not many. We tend to stay hidden.”

“Why come out now? Why tell us?”

“Because I was dying,” Harry said simply. “Or as close as I can get. And Simon wouldn’t let me.”

“So this is recent. You're feeding from people again.”

“I haven’t hunted in over a century. The blood I’ve been using came from clinics, donations. But it’s not enough anymore. My body’s giving up on the substitute.”

“So you need fresh blood now,” Vik said.

“Small amounts. Regularly. Yeah.”

“And if you don’t get it?”

Harry met his eyes. “Then I lose control. Become what I’ve spent decades trying not to be.”

The weight of that hung in the room.

“Okay,” Tobi said finally. “Okay, so what do we do?”

“What?” Harry blinked.

“I’m not saying I’m not freaked out, because I am. This is mental. But you’re still our friend, and if you need help, then we'll help.” Tobi looked around at the others. “Right?”

“I mean, yeah,” Ethan said slowly. “Obviously. But this is a lot.”

“It is,” JJ agreed. He was looking at Harry differently now, wary but not hostile. “You really can’t hurt us? You’re in control?”

“I can’t promise I’ll never hurt anyone,” Harry said honestly. “But I can promise I’ll do everything possible to prevent it. And if I ever feel like I’m losing control, I’ll leave. You’ll never see me again.”

“We don’t want that,” Tobi said.

“Neither do I. But it’s better than the alternative.”

Vik was quiet, thinking. “What do you need? To stay in control?”

“Blood. About twice a week. Not much each time.”

“And Simon’s been providing that.”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t be just Simon, though,” Vik said. “That’s too much for one person.”

Simon opened his mouth to argue, but Vik cut him off. “It is. Medically speaking, you shouldn’t be donating that frequently, even if the amounts are small. You need backup.”

Harry stared at him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we rotate. If you need blood twice a week, we can do that among the six of us. Once a month, maybe less. That’s sustainable.”

“You want to...” Harry couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Help our friend not starve? Yeah.” Vik looked around. “Anyone object?”

Harry expected someone to. Expected JJ to refuse, or Ethan to back away, or Tobi to realize this was too much. But they all just looked at each other, and then one by one, they nodded.

“I’m in,” Tobi said.

“Yeah, alright,” Ethan agreed.

“This is still mental,” JJ said. “But yeah. If it helps.”

Harry’s throat felt tight. “You don’t have to do this.”

“We know,” Simon said. “But we want to.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re our friend,” Vik said simply. “And this is what friends do.”

Harry looked around at all of them, these people who knew what he was now, what he’d been hiding, and were still here. Still offering to help. Still choosing him even knowing the risk. For over a century, he’d been alone with this. Had hidden and lied and kept everyone at arm’s length because letting them close meant they’d eventually see the monster underneath.

But they’d seen it now. And they hadn’t run.

“I don’t know what to say,” Harry admitted.

“Don’t have to say anything,” Josh said. “Just don’t make us regret this.”

“I won’t. I swear.”

“Good. Because if you do, I’m getting a stake and some garlic.”

“Garlic doesn’t actually work.”

“What about stakes?”

“Those do, yeah.”

“Good to know.”

The tension broke, everyone laughing slightly hysterically because what else could you do when you’d just learned your friend was a vampire and agreed to be his blood donor?

They spent the next hour asking questions, some serious, some ridiculous. What was Victorian London like? Could he turn into a bat? Did he sparkle? Harry answered honestly: grim, no, and fuck off, respectively.

It felt surreal. Sitting here with all of them, talking about the thing he’d hidden for so long, and having them actually listen. Actually, try to understand.

Eventually, people started heading home, the shock wearing into exhaustion. Simon was the last to leave, lingering in the doorway.

“You okay?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” Harry said honestly. “This is… It’s a lot.”

“Good lot or bad lot?”

“Good. Terrifying, but good.” He managed a smile. “Thank you. For pushing me to tell them.”

“They deserved to know. And you deserved not to be alone with this.”

“I’ve been alone with it for over a century. I’m used to it.”

“Well, now you’re not. Get used to that instead.”

Harry stood in his flat, the same flat he’d lived in for years, but somehow it felt different now. Lighter. Like the walls weren’t quite so close.

He went to the freezer, looked at the space where the vials used to be. He didn’t need them anymore. Didn’t need to ration and hide and slowly starve himself while trying to be normal.

His phone buzzed. 

JJ

still processing the fact that harry is basically a victorian grandpa

Ethan

mate ur so old

Vik

It explains why you’re so shit at modern slang.

Harry

fuck off im hip

Tobi

No one says hip anymore Harry...

Harry

i hate all of you

Simon

No you dont

Harry

no i dont

He smiled, something warm settling in his chest that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with belonging.

For a hundred and fifty years, Harry had thought immortality was a curse. A sentence served in isolation, watching the world change while he stayed frozen.

But maybe it didn’t have to be.

Maybe, with people who knew him, really knew him, it could be something else. Not human, never human, but not entirely alone either.

Harry looked out his window at London, the city that had seen him from birth to death and everything after. The lights were bright enough now to drown out the stars completely, but somehow that felt okay.

He’d survived this long. Survived the hunger and the loneliness and the weight of what he was.

And now, for the first time in over a century, he thought he might actually want to keep surviving.

Not because he had to.

But because he had something, someone, multiple someone's, worth surviving for.

Harry closed the blackout curtains, but didn’t lock the freezer.

Didn’t need to anymore.

He had help now. Had friends who knew the worst of him and chose to stay anyway.

And in the morning, when the sun came up over London, Harry would still be here. Would still be Harry. Just with slightly sharper teeth and significantly better friends than any vampire probably deserved.

The hunger would come back eventually; it always did. But he wasn’t afraid of it anymore.

Because he wasn’t facing it alone.

Chapter Text

A Month Later

“Okay, but seriously,” JJ said, pausing the FIFA match to turn and look at Harry. “You’re telling me you were alive when they invented football.”

Harry didn’t look up from his phone. “The Football Association was founded in 1863. I was eleven.”

“That’s mental.”

“You’ve said that about fifty times now.”

“Because it’s mental.”

They were all sprawled around Josh's living room again. Simon and JJ on the floor with controllers, Tobi, Josh, and Vik on the sofa, and Harry in the armchair scrolling through his phone. It had become routine over the past two weeks: someone would remember Harry was over 150 years old and immediately have a thousand questions.

“What was it like, though?” Vik asked. “Back then. Actually growing up in Victorian London.”

Harry finally looked up. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah, mate. You lived through history. That’s mad.”

Harry set his phone down, considering. He’d spent so long not talking about his past that it felt strange to have people actually curious about it. Strange, but not entirely bad.

“It was shit, mostly,” he said finally. “I grew up in Whitechapel, before it got really famous for… other reasons. We were poor. Properly poor, not ‘can’t afford the new iPhone’ poor. My dad worked at the docks when he could get work, my mum took in washing. I had three younger sisters.”

The room had gone quiet, everyone listening.

“Started working when I was twelve,” Harry continued. “Factory job. Fourteen hour days, six days a week, for barely enough money to keep us fed. Your hands would bleed from the machinery, and if you complained, you’d be out on the street.”

“Fuck,” Ethan said softly.

“Yeah. That was just normal though. Everyone I knew was working by ten, eleven. Kids younger than that, sometimes.” Harry picked at the edge of the controller. “The winters were the worst. Cold enough to kill you if you didn’t have coal for the fire, and we usually didn’t.”

“Your family,” Simon asked carefully. “What happened to them?”

“The cholera outbreak got my youngest sister first. Then my dad. Then the other two girls, one after the other.” Harry’s voice was flat, factual, like he was reading from a history book. “Mum went a few months after I was turned. I couldn’t see her, couldn’t risk it, but I watched the funeral from a distance.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

“Harry, mate,” Tobi said. “I’m sorry.”

“It was over a century ago. Everyone from back then is dead now anyway.” Harry shrugged. “That’s just how it was. Cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, something was always killing people. You learned not to get too attached.”

“Is that why you never…” JJ gestured vaguely. “You know. Relationships and stuff.”

Harry laughed, but it didn’t sound happy. “That’s a different story.”

“We’ve got time,” Simon said gently.

Harry was quiet for a long moment, considering, before whispering, “Her name was Eleanor.”

“I met her when I was sixteen,” Harry said, staring at nothing in particular. “She worked at a bakery near the factory. I’d walk past every morning, and she’d always smile at me through the window. Thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

He could still picture her perfectly, dark hair always escaping her cap, flour on her cheek, that smile that made the whole grey world seem a bit brighter.

“Took me three months to work up the nerve to actually talk to her. Nearly got fired for being late to work because I stopped to buy a roll I couldn’t afford just so I’d have an excuse.”

“Smooth,” JJ said, but his voice was soft.

“She thought it was funny. Said she’d been wondering when I’d stop just staring and actually say something.” Harry smiled at the memory. “Started walking her home after her shift ended. Talking about everything, nothing. She wanted to leave London someday, see the countryside. I wanted to give her that.”

“You loved her,” Simon said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah. I did.” Harry’s throat felt tight. “Proposed when I was seventeen. Didn’t have money for a proper ring, so I made one out of copper wire. She cried when I gave it to her.”

“Shit, Harry,” Vik said.

“We were supposed to get married that November. Had it all planned... a small ceremony, just family, nothing fancy. We’d find a room somewhere, start saving up. She wanted three kids. I would have given her a dozen if she’d asked.”

Harry stopped, swallowed hard.

“What happened?” Tobi asked quietly.

“I got sick. The cholera. Was dying in that alley when Margaret found me.” Harry’s hands clenched. “I woke up three days later as this, and I couldn’t- I couldn’t go back to her. Couldn’t risk her seeing what I’d become. Couldn’t risk hurting her.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

“Once. About a month after I was turned. I needed to know she was okay.” Harry’s voice cracked slightly. “She was wearing black. Mourning clothes. They’d told her I died, and she believed it.”

He remembered standing in the shadows across from the bakery, watching her work with red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands. Wanting so desperately to go to her, to tell her he was alive, that they could still have everything they’d planned.

But he’d seen what he was now. Seen the monster in his own reflection. And he loved her too much to curse her with it.

“I watched her mourn me,” Harry said quietly. “And then I left. Disappeared. Let her think I was dead so she could move on.”

“Did she?” Simon asked. “Move on, I mean.”

“Eventually. Married a blacksmith about two years later. Good man, from what I heard. They had four kids. She lived to be sixty-three.” Harry smiled, sad but genuine. “She got her countryside house. Little cottage in Kent. I checked, years later. She was happy.”

“And you never…?” Ethan trailed off.

“Never what? Found someone else?” Harry shook his head. “How could I? I don’t age. Don’t change. Anyone I loved would grow old and die while I stayed like this. And I couldn’t- I can’t- I won't turn anyone. I refuse. I refuse to make someone else into this. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“That’s lonely,” Vik said softly.

“Yeah. But it’s better than the alternative.” Harry looked around at all of them. “Eleanor got to live her life. Got to be happy. That’s more important than me not being lonely.”

“You still love her,” Simon said. “After all this time.”

“I’ll always love her. She was…” Harry paused, searching for words. “She was sunlight. Everything good about being human. And I’m glad I got to know her, even if I didn’t get to keep her.”

“Harry, mate,” JJ said, and his voice was rough. “That’s fucking heartbreaking.”

“It is what it is.”

“But you’ve been alone since then? For over a hundred years?”

“More or less. Had friends here and there, other immortals. But nothing romantic. Didn’t see the point.” Harry picked up his controller again. “Besides, I’m perfectly happy being single. Don’t need a relationship to have a meaningful life.”

“Still though,” Tobi said. “That’s a long time to carry that.”

“You get used to it. And honestly?” Harry looked at them. “I’ve got you lot now. That’s more than I’ve had in decades.”

The mood in the room shifted slightly, still heavy but warmer somehow.

“Okay but I have more questions,” JJ said, clearly trying to lighten things up. “What was the fashion like? Were you wearing those weird top hats?”

Harry laughed, grateful for the subject change. “Couldn’t afford a top hat. Those were for rich people. We wore caps, rough clothes. Everything was basically brown or grey because dye was expensive.”

“Grim.”

“Very. Although…” Harry grinned. “I did see Queen Victoria once. From a distance. She looked miserable.”

“Was she always in mourning?”

“By the time I was old enough to notice, yeah. All black, all the time. Really committed to the whole widow thing.”

“Did people actually say stuff like ‘good heavens’ and ‘I do declare’?” Ethan asked.

“Some of the posh ones, maybe. Mostly people swore a lot. Probably more than we do now, honestly.”

“No way.”

“Absolutely. You haven’t heard proper cursing until you’ve heard a Victorian dock worker who just dropped something on his foot.”

They pelted him with more questions after that. What was the food like? (Terrible.) Did everyone really have cholera? (Basically.) What was the first car he saw? (Terrifying.) When did he realize he could just… keep existing through different eras? (Took about fifty years to really sink in.)

Harry answered all of it, found himself laughing more than he expected. It was strange, talking about his past like this. He’d spent so long keeping it buried, keeping everyone at a distance. But this... sitting here with friends who knew everything and still wanted to know more? It felt good.

Natural, even.

Then Vik asked the question Harry had been dreading.

“What are you going to do?” Vik said quietly. “When we’re… you know. Gone.”

The room went still.

Harry had known this was coming. Had felt it hovering at the edges of every conversation since they’d found out. Because immortality had mathematics: he would stay, they would leave, and eventually he’d be alone again.

“I mean,” Vik continued when Harry didn’t answer immediately. “You’ll still be young. Still be here. And we’ll be…”

“Dead,” JJ finished bluntly. “He means when we’re dead, Harry.”

“I know what he means.”

Simon was looking at him with those too perceptive eyes. “You’ve thought about it.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Harry said finally. “I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

Harry set down his controller, pulled his knees up to his chest. Made himself small in a way he hadn’t in decades. “There’s a Council. For vampires and other immortals. They oversee things, make sure we don’t expose ourselves, settle disputes. That sort of thing.”

“Okay,” Tobi said slowly. “What about them?”

“They also grant… releases. If you want one. If you’re done.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“Releases,” Simon repeated, voice carefully neutral. “You mean-”

“I mean they’ll end it. Properly. A stake through the heart in a controlled environment. Quick, clean, permanent.” Harry didn’t look at any of them. “It’s the only way for vampires to actually die. Well, that or sunlight, but that takes hours, sometimes days, and it’s... it’s not good.”

“Harry.” JJ’s voice was strangled. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not saying I want to. I’m just saying that’s what I’d do. When you’re all gone.” Harry finally looked up at them. “I don’t want to keep going without you. Without this. You lot are the only family I’ve had in over a century. The only real friends. When that’s gone, there’s no point in moving forward.”

“But...” Ethan started, then stopped. “There will be other people. Other friends.”

“Will there?” Harry’s smile was sad. “I’ve been doing this for a hundred and fifty years, and I’ve never had what I have with you. Never let anyone close enough. This is it for me. This is the family I chose, the people I love. And I’m not interested in replacing you.”

“You're not replacing,” Vik argued. “You’re just… living. Moving forward.”

“For humans, maybe. But I don’t move forward, Vik. I just exist. And I don’t want to exist in a world where you’re all gone.” Harry’s voice was firm, certain. “When you lot are gone, then so am I. That’s the plan.”

“That’s not a plan, that’s-” Simon’s hands were clenched into fists. “That’s fucking suicide, Harry.”

“It’s a choice. The only real choice I’ve got.”

“No.” Simon stood up abruptly. “No, you don’t get to just... you’ve survived this long, you can’t just give up because we won’t be here anymore.”

“It’s not giving up. It’s recognizing when the good parts are over.”

“The good parts?” JJ’s voice rose. “Mate, you’d still have decades of life left, centuries-”

“Of what? Watching the world change again? Making new friends I’ll eventually lose? Doing this whole cycle over and over until I forget what it felt like to actually care about people?” Harry shook his head. “I’ve done that. For over a century, I’ve done that. And I’m tired, JJ. I don’t want to do it again.”

“So that’s it?” Tobi asked. “We die, you die? That’s the plan?”

“That’s the plan.”

“And what if we don’t want that?” Simon’s voice cracked. “What if we don’t want to know that our deaths mean yours too?”

Harry looked at him, at all of them, and felt something in his chest twist. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear. But it’s the truth. You lot are it for me. My family. And when you’re gone, I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Harry...” Vik started.

“You don’t have to understand it,” Harry cut him off gently. “You don’t even have to agree with it. But this is my choice. The one thing about immortality that’s actually in my control. And I’m choosing that when this,” he gestured around the room, at all of them, “when this is over, I’m done.”

“But you’d miss everything,” Ethan said desperately. “Technology, space travel, whatever comes next-”

“I don’t care about any of that. I care about you. About this. About having people who know me and still want me around.” Harry’s voice softened. “And I’m so grateful I got this. Got you. Even if it’s not forever.”

“It could be though,” JJ said. “If you just-”

“I don’t want it to be. Not without you.”

The weight of that settled over the room like a blanket. No one seemed to know what to say. What could you say to someone who’d decided their forever had an expiration date?

Finally, Simon sat back down, closer to Harry this time. “How long do we have? Before we have to worry about this?”

“Decades, probably. Fifty years, maybe more. You’ll get to live full lives. I’ll make sure of it.”

“And you’re certain? About the Council thing?”

“I’ve known about it for over a century. Yeah, I’m certain.”

“Can they say no? Can they refuse?”

Harry smiled sadly. “They don’t refuse. If an immortal wants out, they grant it. No questions asked.”

Simon was quiet for a long moment. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t like it. I hate it, actually. But it’s your choice.” Simon looked at the others. “Right?”

Slowly, reluctantly, they nodded.

“Still think you’re mental,” JJ muttered.

“Yeah, well. I’m a vampire. Mental kind of comes with the territory.”

“Promise us something, though,” Tobi said.

“What?”

“Promise you’ll actually live. While we’re here. No holding back, no keeping distance because you’re afraid of losing us. We’re your family, so act like it.”

Harry felt his throat tighten. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

“And no going to the Council early,” Vik added. “You wait until we’re actually gone.”

“I’m not going to-”

“Promise, Harry.”

“I promise. You’re stuck with me until the very end.”

“Good.” Vik leaned back. “Because if you go early, I’ll find a way to come back and haunt you.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“I’ll figure it out. I’m resourceful.”

The tension finally broke, and everyone exhaled shakily. It wasn’t resolved, couldn’t be resolved, but it was acknowledged. 

“Right,” JJ said, voice forcibly light. “Now that we’ve established Harry’s planning to dramatically die when we do, can we talk about something less depressing?”

“Please,” Ethan agreed.

“Like what Victorian diseases Harry probably had?” Tobi suggested.

“Oh god, all of them probably,” Harry said, grateful for the subject change. “Rickets, definitely. Everyone had rickets.”

“What even is rickets?”

“Vitamin D deficiency. Makes your bones soft. Very popular in Victorian England.”

“That’s grim.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Victorian England was grim.”

The conversation shifted after that, moving to lighter topics. But Harry could feel them watching him differently now. Could feel the weight of what he’d told them settling into the space between them.

They knew now. Knew that this, all of this, had an end date. That Harry had already decided he wouldn’t survive them.

And maybe that should have felt heavy, should have cast a shadow over everything. But instead, Harry just felt… lighter. Like a weight he’d been carrying alone had finally been shared.

Simon caught his eye across the room and held it. There was something in his expression, sad but accepting, like he understood even if he didn’t like it.

Harry smiled slightly. Simon smiled back.

They’d have decades together. Fifty years, maybe more. Enough time for Harry to actually live instead of just existing. Enough time to make memories that would matter.

And when it was over, when they were gone and the world felt empty again, Harry would go to the Council with their memory held close to his chest. Would ask for the release he’d been entitled to for over a century. Would finally let go of the weight of immortality he’d never asked for.

It wouldn’t be giving up.

It would be choosing, for once, when his story ended.

And it would end the way all good stories should: with the people he loved, even if only in memory.

Later, after everyone else had left, Josh lingered. 

“You really mean it,” Josh said. “About the Council.”

“Yeah.”

“And nothing I say will change your mind.”

“No.”

Josh nodded slowly. “Then I guess we better make these next few decades count.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Josh squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “We’re your family now. So we’re going to act like it. Make sure you have so many good memories that when the time comes, you’ll go out happy.”

Harry’s eyes burned with tears he couldn't release. “Josh...”

“I still hate it. For the record. But I understand it.” Josh's voice was rough. “You’ve been alone long enough. I get why you don’t want to do it again.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Just promise me something else.”

“What?”

“Don’t spend the next fifty years dreading the end. Live like we’re immortal too. Like we’ve got forever.”

Harry laughed, wet and shaky. “That’s asking a lot.”

“You’re worth it.”

Harry smiled and headed home through the London night. The same city he’d grown up in, died in, and somehow kept living in. It barely resembled the place he remembered. There was no fog or coal smoke. Instead, electric lights were everywhere, but it was still his.

Still home.

And for the first time in over a century, he actually wasn’t walking through it alone.

Eleanor would have liked that, he thought. Would have been glad he’d found people who cared about him, even if they were idiots who constantly reminded him he was old.

“Hope you’re proud of me,” Harry said quietly to the night, to a memory of a girl with flour on her cheek and a smile like sunlight. “I finally figured out how to let people in.”

The night didn’t answer, but that was okay.

He knew what she’d say anyway.

About bloody time.

Harry laughed and kept walking, the hunger quiet, the loneliness quieter, and the future stretching out ahead of him like it always had, endless and uncertain and, for once, not quite so terrifying.

Because he had time.

All the time in the world.

And finally, after over 150 years, he had people to share it with.