Jacob’s voice was a low growl of intended violence that sent a chill through Azrael. “You, lied to me.”

Azrael hadn’t exactly lied, but he didn’t think this was the time to point that out. “Jacob, please listen to me.”

The grip around his neck tightened. “And why the hell should I?”

“Because you’ll regret it if you don’t hear me out,” Azrael said, going with his gut instinct and praying it was correct.

“Vampires, all of them, are abominations, blights upon the planet. Why the hell shouldn’t I make you join that leech’s pile and burn you both into ash?” Jacob demanded.

Azrael smiled shakily. “Because if you were going to do it, you already would have.”

Jacob’s rage flickered for a moment as he thought about that. His grip around Azrael’s neck began to slacken. It took a long time, but eventually, Azrael was allowed to drop to the ground, barely managing to stay standing. Never was he more thankful for not needing to breathe than at that moment, but Jacob’s grip had started to make it difficult for Azrael to talk.

Azrael looked up at his friend, smiling sadly. “So, you’re not going to kill me, does that mean you’re willing to hear me out then?”

Jacob’s lip curled in another growl. “Talk fast.”

Azrael glanced around them, then at Paul’s still-animated body. “Can we take care of the cleanup before we do that? I don’t want to have some poor human come across us.”

Jacob grunted but stepped away from Azrael so he could move. It didn’t take much effort for Azrael to grab the two parts of Paul and carry them out of sight. Careful to not splatter too much blood about, he hopped over the fence, sliding down to the bottom of the canal. After making sure Jacob was with him, he began walking along the canal to an easier spot to burn the vampire.

When he finally found a proper spot, he dropped the vampire into an unceremonious heap. It took only a few moments of searching along the edges of the canal to find enough flammable material to create a proper fire. Among the indecipherable storm of his thoughts, he spared a thought for Paul. Although vampires could survive decapitation, it would be an absolute horror. With the brain disconnected from the body, the body is rendered useless. Paul would still be perfectly aware of what was happening, although the blood draining from his neck would muddle his thoughts. Azrael couldn’t imagine what it was like to lie helpless, knowing others were preparing the pyre that would take you out of existence.

Jacob had remained as a silent guard over Paul and hadn’t moved by the time Azrael came back. Neither of them spoke as Azrael began to build the material up around the other vampire. Turning into a vampire had erased the nicotine habit of his mortal days, but Azrael always carried a lighter with him. He lit some of the kindling and shoved it toward the bulk of the makeshift fire pit he’d made. The fire flickered for a moment before finally lighting. To Azrael’s surprise, the fire leapt into a blaze as it met with Paul’s skin. He hadn’t known vampires were that flammable, and he backed away from it instinctively.

Jacob watched the fire burn, standing in complete silence beside him. The feral look on the werewolf’s face was gone, leaving a very human expression of anger. Azrael glanced at himself self-consciously, seeing that the shirt he wore was completely ruined by blood. He pulled it off, using it to wipe up the blood that had soaked through to his bare skin before tossing it into the flames.

“I was turned five years ago, by a vampire named Alexandre,” Azrael began.

Jacob didn’t look at Azrael. “Why?”

Azrael sighed, hating himself. “He’d taken an interest in me. He showed up in my life a couple of years before that, when I started taking better jobs than the small-time ones I was doing as a kid. I stole something from one of his lockups, and he’d been really impressed with my skills. He started hiring me for jobs of his own after that. Sometimes he would simply pay me for my time.”

Jacob frowned. “I thought you said you never got into whoring.”

Azrael flinched at the accusation in Jacob’s tone, “I didn’t, it wasn’t that kind of attention. I don’t even know if the guy has sex anymore, and I don’t want to know. He would just…talk to me. I didn’t know it then, but I think he was trying to get to know me, figure out if I was someone he could bring into the fold. I don’t know if he saw the problems going on in my life, or if he just didn’t care. But he was both checking me out and trying to groom me, as best he could anyway.”

“So he checked you out, decided you were ready to be one of them. Then he made you an offer you just couldn’t resist,” Jacob said.

Azrael shook his head. “Alexandre swears I accepted it, but I don’t remember.”

Jacob finally looked at him, expression dark. “Why wouldn’t you remember that?”

Azrael hung his head, feeling the old shame come back. “My life back then wasn’t as great as you seem to think it was. Sure, I was getting better jobs and making more money. I’d moved out of that shithole part of town, but I took everything with me, including the bad shit. I had more money than I could be smart with and I started having too much fun. If I wasn’t working, I was off doing something, or someone. Drugs, booze, it didn’t matter, I was downing it all. Every bit of extra money that came to me was spent on shit like that. I knew, even then, that I was on some downward spiral that wouldn’t end until I was dead or locked up, but I didn’t care. So long as I could do my work and get my fix, that was all that mattered.”

Jacob’s face slackened. “You became a junkie.”

Azrael shook his head, “I used to tell myself I wasn’t a junkie. That all the drugs and booze were because I was having fun. Sure I might have been an addict, even then I knew that, but I wasn’t some pathetic, shaky wraith, begging for their next fix. Everything I wanted or needed, I bought myself, and I did my work stone cold sober. I was only lying to myself though. I was a junkie, even if I was a functioning one.”

“You were destroying yourself,” Jacob said, voice sounding odd.

It was the truth, but the words, which were said with such quiet horror from someone who meant everything to Azrael, stung. Azrael had never been one to shrink away from a new experience or sensation. He’d dabbled in drugs and booze long before his downward spiral began. There had never been enough available for him to really lose himself, however, until the money had begun pouring in. It was then that some twisted, broken part of him finally found a handhold and began taking over his life.

“I was nineteen when the money started really coming in, when I started making a name for myself. Suddenly, I had enough money to get the fuck out of our old neighborhood and never look back. I kept paying my bills and kept myself fed, but everything else started going toward having a good time. It started off innocent, but within a few years, it had gotten out of hand. There was rarely a moment when I wasn’t working, that I wasn’t out partying somewhere. I was rarely sober, and I didn’t even give a fuck,” Azrael admitted.

Jacob’s mouth twisted in a sudden realization. “You overdosed.”

Azrael nodded. “Alexandre usually kept a close eye on me or had one of the Camarilla keep an eye on me when I was partying. He wanted to make sure I didn’t overdo it, and there was usually someone around to curb the worst of my use. One night, though, he didn’t have a babysitter on me. Apparently, Alexandre had thought I was off on a job and hadn’t assigned anyone to watch me. By the time he realized his mistake, I was already half-dead in some nasty alley.”

“And he found you and decided you were better as undead,” Jacob said, voice low.

“He said I was coherent enough to know what was happening and that I agreed to be turned,” Azrael offered up, not knowing if that made it better or worse to Jacob.

Jacob scoffed. “Sure, offer a dying, high man a chance to escape death. Might as well offer a starving man his favorite meal, and then tell him that he accepted it when you give him the bill later. That wasn’t real consent, Gabriel.”

It was very similar to what Azrael had found himself thinking more than once, but he shrugged. “Well, that’s the story.”

“And the other story?” Jacob asked.

Azrael watched Jacob for a moment, wary. “I’m going to hazard a guess that you mean why I was in the bar in the first place.”

Jacob snorted derisively. “I’m not a total idiot. You were there because your master figured out I was in the city and what I was up to. He sent you after me to get everything I’d collected and to kill me, didn’t he?”

Azrael nodded with a wince. “Yeah. I’m really good at doing the dirty jobs, so he sent me after you. I—I didn’t know it was you when he sent me though.”

“How could you not? If he’d already identified me, why wouldn’t you know who I was?” Jacob asked in disbelief.

Azrael chuckled nervously. “Because I like to do shit my own way, so I don’t like to operate with too much information. I’m kind of learning my lesson on that one a bit, since I keep getting surprised, usually unpleasantly. Honestly, when I met you in the bar, I still didn’t know you were the guy I was supposed to be hunting down until a bit later. I was so caught up with seeing you again after so many years, it took me a minute to put two and two together from our conversation.”

Jacob blinked, his head cocked. “You were the one who ransacked my apartment.”

“Yeah, that was me,” Azrael grimaced.

“That was the sloppiest search job that I’ve ever seen,” Jacob said.

Azrael met Jacob’s gaze. “It was supposed to be. I’d been there before the bar, but after I realized who I was dealing with, I went back. Tore the place up and took off.”

Jacob hesitated. “You were warning me.”

“What? Of course I was fucking warning you, what the hell,” Azrael said, indignant.

“Why?” Jacob demanded.

Azrael stared at him in shock. “Why? What the hell kind of question is that? Because you’re you! I wasn’t going to kill you, and I didn’t want them to decide I was taking too long and send someone else after you. I tried to warn your ass so you would get a better hiding place, and you did.”

“So why keep talking to me, if you did your noble deed?” Jacob asked sarcastically.

Azrael could feel his temper rising. “Because you were my best friend, and because seeing you again made me the happiest I’d been in over a decade. Because you were still in danger and I wanted to figure out a way to get you out of here safely. So long as you’re in this fucking city, you’re always going to be in danger. Alexandre knows you’re here and he’s already seen me with you. I’ve got his ass convinced that I’m trying to cozy up next to you so I can gain your trust.”

“My trust? The thing you had before I realized that you were—were—” Jacob said, struggling to say the word.

“A vampire, I’m a fucking vampire,” Azrael finished for him with a stubborn jut of his jaw.

Jacob’s eyes flashed. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“Isn’t that part obvious? Look at you! You were all ready to throw down with me until I talked you off the edge! You were a hell of a lot happier not knowing what I was, not hating me for what I am. I wanted you to stay that happy,” Azrael threw at him.

“Don’t act like you were being noble, you were doing it for yourself too,” Jacob snapped.

Azrael threw his hands up. “Yeah, maybe I was, so fucking what? Maybe I wanted to feel some real happiness in my life for the first time in who the hell knows how long? Maybe I wanted to know what it was like to spend time with someone I could be myself with, who cared about who I was as a person. Maybe I didn’t want you to know what I was, because that was all you were going to see me as, as some disgusting, blood sucking monster that you’re supposed to hate.”

Jacob glared at him. “You’re not exactly supposed to like me for what I am either.”

“Oh, I don’t even give a shit. It’s the same stupid shit all the gangs in the neighborhood would run their mouths about. Oh, you’re supposed to hate them because they’re in a different gang. Oh, you’re supposed to hate them because of their different skin color. Oh, you’re supposed to hate them for whatever stupid fucking reason, because they’re just a little different and it makes it easier to ignore our own bullshit, because instead, you can focus on bashing other people. My whole life, including the vampire part, I’ve been repeatedly treated like I’m some freak because I don’t do, say, and believe what everyone else does. So you know what? I say screw this idea that I’m supposed to hate you just because you can turn into a wolf. Also? I say screw the idea that you’re supposed to hate me because I have to drink blood to survive. I’m so tired of stupid shit coming into my life and ruining every good thing I’ve ever had, and I’m not going to make myself hate you over something I don’t give a crap about. You are you, the same person I loved back in the day. So what if you’re a werewolf? You’re Jacob, and that’s all that matters to me,” Azrael drilled at Jacob, his voice rising in pitch as he became more earnest.

Jacob stared at him for a moment, blinked, and cocked his head. “Wait, you loved me?”

Azrael stared back. “That’s what you pulled from all that, really?”

“Don’t avoid the question,” Jacob accused.

Azrael gave a strangled noise of frustration. “I mean, yeah, I don’t know if it was like that because hell man, we were fifteen. But I loved you like a best friend could, and maybe it would have been more if we had opened that door. So yeah, when you kissed me like that, I saw that door show up again. I was ready to see if maybe we could open it this time.”

Jacob peered at him in wonder. “You really do mean it, don’t you?”

Azrael could have cheerfully throttled him at that moment. “You really—you—yes, for God’s sake, yes, I really mean it. I’ve meant everything I said to you.”

“I—I believe you,” Jacob said, as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

Azrael stopped short. “Wait, you do?”

Jacob nodded, glancing at the fire. “I guess I kinda have no choice, do I? All the evidence points to the fact that you really do mean everything you just said to me. If you didn’t, why the hell would you have gone through all this trouble when you could have already stabbed me in my sleep?”

Azrael made an ugly face. “Don’t joke about that, it’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking, and there’s not a whole lot about this that’s funny. I’ve got a vampire in front of me, telling me he wants to still be with me. A vampire who just killed one of his own and discarded the evidence to save my skin. I should be hating you and I should want you dead. But I can’t help but see you. You don’t look like some monster, you don’t look like you’re poisoning the earth. You’re just Gabriel, the same kid I looked up to when I was younger, and the same man that makes me lightheaded when I look at him,” Jacob admitted softly.

It was everything Azrael hadn’t dared dream of hearing, but reality still hung like a dark cloud over them. “What do we do?”

Jacob shook his head sadly. “I don’t know.”

It was the kind of answer Azrael expected, since there wasn’t a handbook for what was happening between them. “Yeah, me either.”

There was a long pause and then Jacob glanced at him with a smirk. “Nice new name by the way.”

Azrael glared at him in warning. “Don’t start.”

“Azrael, angel of death, that’s uh, very vampiric of you,” Jacob said, sounding like he was struggling not to laugh.

Azrael kicked a cloud of loose dust at him. “Don’t be an ass!”

Jacob waved a hand through the cloud, laughing. “If it’s all the same, you’re still Gabriel to me.”

Azrael didn’t try to hide his grateful smile. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”