Azrael thought it amusing that even as he and Jacob dealt with the present, and were worrying over the future, they found their way to a piece of their past. After Paul’s pyre had died down, they wandered back to their old neighborhood. They hadn’t said much until Jacob mentioned wanting a drink. Azrael couldn’t say he blamed him, the night had left him wishing he could have a drink of his own.

The bar hadn’t changed in the slightest from the last time they’d been there together. Azrael could almost swear the same patrons were seated in the exact same places. It didn’t help his opinion of the place as being almost vampiric in its static, unchanging way. The only thing that kept him from wondering if maybe the place really was stuck in time was the fact there was different music playing from the half-broken jukebox. It had been some soulful country playlist when he’d first been spotted by Jacob, and it seemed like someone with tastes leaning toward the harder stuff had taken over for the night.

Jacob had ordered two drinks at the bar before making his way to the booth Azrael had taken for the both of them. The werewolf slid the cold bottle across the table to Azrael, looking puzzled as Azrael stared first at the bottle, then at his friend. For a brief moment, Jacob stared at Azrael, too, before biting his lip with a deep sigh. Slowly, as if it was a difficult task, Jacob reached across the table with an apologetic look as he took the beer back.

Azrael nearly laughed, but he didn’t know if Jacob and him were at a point where they could find humor in the situation yet. Despite the night’s events, when he went to graciously buy two beers Jacob had forgotten all about Azrael’s status as a vampire. Azrael could no more drink a beer than Jacob could gain living sustenance from drinking blood. Just the smell was enough to make Azrael’s body instinctively recoil from the bottle, knowing it would make him violently ill. All but the rarest meat caused the same instinctive reaction, and it had taken Azrael a bit of practice to not only make it seem as if normal food and drink didn’t repulse him, but to appear as if he were consuming it to anyone curious enough to look.

Azrael waited until Jacob had finished the first beer before speaking. “So, I’m guessing that you being, well, what you are, is why you left?”

Jacob nodded. “My mom knew what was happening. She grew up around our kind, but she wasn’t one of us.”

Azrael knew they were far enough away from the other drinkers in the bar to not be overheard. “I thought werewolves made werewolves?”

Jacob shrugged. “A lot of the stories and information the big groups of werewolves have is mostly just stories. Most septs aren’t exactly big on the modern world, let alone on human science.”

“Septs? Is that different from a pack?” Azrael asked.

“Septs are basically a bunch of packs that work and live together in the same territory. Some septs are run by a group of older werewolves, while others are run by one person in charge. Those are the most common ways, but yeah, packs are a group of werewolves, and a sept is a group of packs. Most of them are pretty, uh, rural, and they like it that way. They call werewolves like me ‘Lost Pups’ because we weren’t born to werewolf parents,” Jacob said.

“I’m guessing this is some sort of genetic thing then?” Azrael asked.

Jacob nodded. “As far as I know, yeah. From what I can tell, both parents have to carry the gene for it, but without it being active. I don’t know too much about that sort of thing, but I think it’s called recessive? Or it’s more complicated than that, I don’t know. But both parents have to be involved for it to happen. A human who’s never had any werewolf ancestry will never have a werewolf kid, but not every child of two werewolves is guaranteed to be a werewolf either. It’s not common, but it happens, like with my mom. She grew up in a sept until she was old enough for everyone to realize she would never change. She was what most werewolves call ‘Kin’ or ‘Wolfkin,’ which is just a fancy title for a human who came from werewolf heritage.”

Azrael bobbed his head to show his understanding. “Wouldn’t that have made your dad ‘Wolfkin’ too?”

“Yeah, but it was pretty obvious he didn’t know it. My mom didn’t know it either, since she mostly kept her past a secret from people. She never thought twice about having kids with my dad, because I don’t think she ever thought anything would come of it. Wasn’t until I started having my…issues, that she started wondering,” Jacob said.

Azrael grinned. “Yeah, you went through quite the Jekyll and Hyde transformation for a while there. I used to think it was just normal teenage bullshit, but you just kept getting worse and worse.”

“Well, it was definitely hormones, but it wasn’t the normal human kind. If you think I was bad around you, I was even worse at home. I just got so angry and I didn’t know why. I had all this pent-up anger that wasn’t even aimed at anything specific. I’d just get so mad it would boil over and I couldn’t help but yell and break things. My dad was freaked out and pissed, and my mom, well, she was worried to begin with. She actually thought it was because of you at first,” Jacob admitted with a wince.

Azrael’s brow rose. “Really? She was always super nice to me whenever I saw her.”

Jacob laughed. “That was just my mom’s way. But yeah, she brought it up one time and I flipped out because I thought she was going to try to keep me from hanging out with you. I think she let it go at first to keep me from going into another one of my fits. She told me afterwards that she noticed I was actually calmer when I’d been around you all day. My worst days were when I didn’t see much of you.”

Azrael thought about how hard a downturn his own life had taken after his best friend moved away. He couldn’t help but smile, if a little sadly, wondering how different things might have been if Jacob hadn’t moved. Deep down, he knew it was probably for the best, since his friend had obviously been suffering from some inner force he couldn’t control or even name. It had taken outside help for Jacob to learn the control necessary to revert back to the same calm, happy Jacob Azrael remembered fondly.

Jacob continued. “Finally, after a really bad night, she understood what was going on. I don’t remember too much about it and I thought I’d blacked out. Turns out, I’d passed out after trashing my room, but not before I was halfway through turning. After that, there was no doubt in her mind as to what was going on. First she had to explain everything to my dad, who’d been there and seen it happen. Then she had to figure out what to do to help me.”

“Which meant you moving away,” Azrael said.

“Yeah, they didn’t have much of a choice, I guess. She knew what was happening, but she was as much in the dark about helping me as my dad was. My mom got in contact with some of her family members out in the sept and had one of them come out here. That was right before we moved, and they sat me down to talk about what was happening to me,” Jacob told him as he nursed his second beer.

Azrael snorted. “So what, they sat you down and were like, so you’re a werewolf?”

“That’s not as far from the truth as you might think. Werewolves aren’t exactly the subtlest people and they really value honesty, along with a few other things. It was my uncle, my mom’s brother, who showed up on our doorstep and sat me down to tell me what was going on. I didn’t want to believe it at first, even if a lot of what he described about how I was feeling was accurate. It took him turning right in front of me for me to finally realize he was probably telling the truth. That was about the time my mom told me what she and my dad had seen on the night I thought I’d just blacked out. After that, it was just a matter of moving away,” Jacob explained.

“Yeah, how simple,” Azrael grumbled, knowing he wasn’t being fair.

Jacob looked pained. “You can understand why we didn’t tell you anything.”

Azrael snorted. “What, you couldn’t bring yourself to tell your best friend that you were actually a werewolf and you were going off to join other werewolves?”

Jacob frowned. “That’s kind of a big and scary thing to tell someone.”

Azrael raised a brow. “Kind of big and scary, like telling your friend, who you haven’t seen in over a decade, that you’re a vampire. Especially when that same friend is apparently part of a group of creatures that hate vampires.”

“That’s different,” Jacob protested.

“Is it?” Azrael asked.

Jacob’s frown deepened, his mouth opening to reply before slamming shut. Azrael could see the thoughts running through his friend’s mind. Jacob might have finally been willing to talk about the truth of why he’d left, but Azrael knew it was important they address what was happening between them now. He didn’t know if Jacob had quite made up his mind about what they were supposed to do, but Azrael had. It was important that he make sure Jacob knew exactly where he stood, and to try to figure out where his friend would stand as well.

Jacob grunted, sounding annoyed. “Okay, maybe it’s a little similar.”

Azrael nodded, satisfied. “So, I know now why you left. Was it worth it?”

“Would you be pissed if I said that it was?” Jacob asked, uncertain.

Azrael was honest. “I want to be, yeah. I want to be hurt that you were better off away from me. That I was left alone here in this shithole, without the support of a whole group of people to make me better. Because after you left, it felt like my life just kept sinking deeper and deeper into the shit. But you know what? That’s not your fault. Part of it is just how life goes, and the rest is just me self-destructing. But mostly? I’m gonna be happy you got the answers and help you needed.”

Jacob smiled. “Completely happy, huh?”

“Well not completely, but eh, I’m allowed to be a little bitter about how my life went. Even if I didn’t really help it get better,” Azrael said with a shrug.

“I guess I can’t really blame you for being a little mad about things. I got to go away, get out of this place, and you were stuck here. Even if you were self-destructing, I can’t really fault ya for it. This place has that effect on people I guess,” Jacob said sadly as he looked around.

Azrael shook his head. “I’m allowed to be bitter, sure, but it’s not an excuse for the bad decisions I made. I knew what I was doing was wrong and that it was likely to be the death of me. But I did it anyway, and that’s on me. Everything I did was my choice, including being turned into what I am today. So yeah, blame me.”

“And yet I’m choosing to not blame you,” Jacob said with a smirk.

Azrael pointed a finger at him, narrowing his eyes. “That’s cheating.”

“Not really. And by the way, I don’t think you did choose to be what you are,” Jacob told him, changing the topic without warning.

Now that was a subject Azrael didn’t want to touch. He could live with the idea that his sire had coerced him into accepting his offer of vampirism. Just as Azrael had told Jacob, he’d brought himself to the point where he would have been vulnerable to his sire’s offer. The idea that Alexandre might not have asked Azrael at all, or had asked and then ignored Azrael’s wishes, was intolerable. Even if he hadn’t been coherent when he supposedly agreed, it had still been an agreement. It wasn’t the kind of agreement he would have preferred, but at least Azrael would have had some say in the matter.

“If this sept of yours isn’t all that big on the human world, why would they send you here?” Azrael asked, blatantly avoiding the topic.

Jacob watched him for a moment before shifting further back in the booth. “Because I spent my childhood living around humans, in the human world. Even as a teenager, I knew more about the world and technology than any other werewolf in the sept. They hate the modern world, but they’re not totally stupid. They know they need to keep an eye on things. So they take advantage of werewolves like me, who have the background or information to be able to keep up with the times. They make sure I know how they think things should be, and then send me off to do stuff like I’ve been trying to do here.”

“Spying on me and my Camarilla, then feeding it all back to the sept so they can figure out the best way to wipe us all out?” Azrael asked lightly.

Jacob frowned. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

Azrael fiddled with a stained napkin. “And how many times have you done this?”

“Do we have to do this?” Jacob asked, sounding angry.

Azrael looked up. “Why shouldn’t we?”

“Have I asked you how many humans you’ve killed?” Jacob asked, his words quivering with anger.

Azrael’s eyes narrowed. “No, you haven’t. But that’s not the same.”

“How?” Jacob demanded.

“Because unlike you, I feel bad about the lives I’ve taken. I haven’t killed many humans, but every single one of them was by accident, and I hated myself afterward. Well, the ones I killed by accident anyway,” Azrael added with a weak shrug.

“So there’s humans you’ve killed and not felt bad about then?” Jacob asked.

Azrael locked eyes with Jacob. “Yeah, but I’m not talking about the criminals and thugs I killed for Alexandre.”

Jacob frowned. “You were killing criminals for your boss?”

“Master and Sire, not boss, but yes,” Azrael said.

“There’s a difference between that and a boss? You’ve been doing his dirty work for him, I think that counts as him being your boss,” Jacob grunted.

“And you just got done saying that your sept has no problem using you to go into the modern world because they don’t want to. Looks like we’re both errand boys who get used because we’re willing to do the real work,” Azrael snapped at him.

Jacob’s brow rose, then fell into a thoughtful crease. “Ya know, I never really thought about that until now. I think you have a better point there than you think.”

Azrael sighed. “No, I only realized it the minute it left my mouth. You’re the werewolf who knows too much about the modern world, and I’m the vampire without a lick of grace or manners. We’re both pretty much pariahs in our own groups, but we’ve got skills they find useful. So they use us, it’s not a nice thought, thanks for making me think it.”

Jacob didn’t look quite as bothered. “I guess it doesn’t bother me as much. Living in a sept is all about duty and honor.”

“Honor bound to do your duty, are you?” Azrael asked with a derisive snort.

“I take it you guys aren’t into that, huh?” Jacob asked.

Azrael shrugged. “I think they’d like it if I was. Because then they could order me around and they wouldn’t get my normal attitude. Mostly, we just kind of do what we do because Alexandre says so.”

“So, you guys just do what he says then?” Jacob asked, looking worried.

“That’s what we’re supposed to do. Just like a pack is a group of werewolves and is run by one person in charge, it’s the same thing in Camarillas. Alexandre is my sire, and he’s my master, same as everyone else in the Camarilla. Everyone else seems to like things just fine the way they are, but then again, they get to manipulate and play their games. I’m happy to be left alone for the most part, while occasionally doing the jobs he gives me,” Azrael told him quietly.

“And him telling you to kill me?” Jacob asked after a moment.

“Something I was fully prepared to do until I figured out who you were. Why are you asking me this? I already told you I wasn’t going to do it,” Azrael told him, grumpy.

Jacob looked solemn. “Even if my duty tells me that I need to kill you and everyone else in your Camarilla?”

Azrael thought about that for a long moment, wondering if Jacob was simply curious or gauging what kind of resistance he would have to his mission. For Azrael, survival was all that had ever mattered to him. It was one reason he was willing to believe he’d actually accepted becoming a vampire. He’d survived through so much, his parents, the streets, a downward spiral, and he hadn’t intended on letting anything else best him if he could help it.

His survival as a vampire had so far depended on feeding upon humanity and doing the dirty jobs Alexandre assigned to him. His orders to kill Jacob were the first ones he’d ever even hesitated to follow, let alone defy. He knew his position in the Camarilla was based on his performance of the tasks given him. He was fully aware that the moment he stopped doing Alexandre’s dirty work, his sire’s protection could easily, and probably would, be rescinded.

He really wanted to believe Jacob wouldn’t waste their time by sitting down and talking with him in a bar only to turn around and try to kill him. While it was true they hardly knew one another, at least the people they were now, Azrael knew he couldn’t follow through on his orders. Whoever they were, after over a decade, Azrael still treasured the handful of childhood years with Jacob more than his current position.

Azrael shook his head. “Even then I won’t.”

Jacob seemed to deflate. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Azrael tried to keep his voice steady as his gut cramped. “Why?”

Jacob’s mouth twisted. “Because I can’t do it either, which means we’re both in a lot of trouble.”