It took at least an hour lying on her back in the moonlit room for Hannah to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Despite a desperation to relax and sleep, her mind refused to give way to it and at 1:30AM she finally flung back the covers and climbed out of bed.

5 minutes later, clad in a dress, boots and a cloak, Hannah was exiting Hiraeth gardens and wondering aimlessly along the streets in London. She had no planned direction, lost in thoughts and her fears for the following day.

The longer she walked, the more Hannah realised something. This was her final night alive. Tomorrow she would die.
Tonight she had to live.

Slim legs guided her towards diagon alley and onto Knockturn alley. Uncharacteristically, and for the first time in her life, she stepped through the door to The Demon’s Head. Bright brown eyes found the bar and she made a beeline towards it.

“Ah…” Suddenly not sure what she should have to ‘live’ and enjoy her final night before who knew what would happen, she began to stumble over her words. “Wine. Red. Please.”

“Bottle or glass, Miss?”

There was a slight pause.
“A Bottle.”

It was the height of evening, as far as Tristan was concerned. He would not be going into work this night - it was technically Saturday after all - although he had left a message with the division notifying them of his whereabouts, should anything urgent arise. More and more, the vampire felt he would need to be alert if recent crimes were any indication of future ones.

He drank something pink at the bar, fizzy flavoured by what he must assume was the same syrup they used to form blood lollipops. It was too sweet but Tristan was hungry.

More than a week yet until his hunger peeked but it had been a tiring week. His skin was sallower than usual, shadows beneath his eyes somehow darker. A witch had come into the pub - she seemed unaffected by the jovial drunkenness on the floor. Typical Friday night.

All she asked for was red wine. The bartender did not seem to care that she had not made further specifications. Tristan wished he had not been born French, for a moment.

"There are other things to drink, if you're only looking to get drunk...." he remarked out loud, lounging on a stool not far from her along the bar. His gaze dropped on Hannah, he caught little details of her appearance as he smiled smartly at the witch.

She had chosen the wrong dress, for red wine.

Bright eyes found the voice and, despite herself, her lips parted in surprise at the figure seated comfortably on the stool nearby. He was remarkably pale, strangely captivating. The witch never met a vampire before yet she knew undoubtedly that she was now facing one. He smiled, a calm smile. She bit her lip, brows furrowing slightly. Of course he knew she planned on getting drunk, she’d ordered the bottle.

“I’d like to enjoy the process of getting drunk.” Surprising to the witch, her voice was calm, at ease. The bartender uncorked a bottle of merlot and slid it across the bar to her along with one glass. After handing him some coins, she began to pour, eyes dancing over the liquid in her glass. She needed this more than sleep. She needed to be out and distracted and not thinking about the possible end the following evening.

“You have a better suggestion? Something pink?” Brows rose as she studied the wizard.

Tristan could only remember what it was like to be drunk. He recollected, in the same vicinity of memory, the taste of unicorn blood - forbidden thing that he had fortunately not drawn himself. It was so much easier for humans to obtain that state of mind, that loss of inhibition and memory. They misused it terribly and on such a regular basis.

       "...a better suggestion? Something pink?"

His gaze flicked from the witch's face to his glass, half empty, prelude to a better feeding for the next new moon. "Ah. No." Tristan sipped and tried to forget about eating.

"You're in the right alley for inebriation," he continued as he eyed the wine bottle as one would consider a child's toy. "Absinthe is quicker - and sweeter, if I recall how it is served. Or do you only go for reliable methods? Tried and tested? Very British, I'm sure."

Tristan observed it in pubs, often. People never tried new things when they were alone. They were less courageous without someone to push them forward into new territory.

Regardless of how she spoke of the necessity to enjoy the process of inebriation, the reality was that only once in her lifetime had Hannah been truly drunk. She’d kissed her best friend and awoken the following morning in his bed, fully clothed and hungover. As a witch who was no longer in true control of her own life, she valued the aspects she did have control over. She could control her own actions, to an extent, she could control her own thoughts and feelings. What she couldn’t control were the monthly changes or the hold Almasy had over her life.

Alcohol made people lose control. It loosened their lips and inhibitions. It made them forget.

Tonight she wanted to forget.

Rather than immediately responding to the obviously informed vampire, Hannah lifted her wineglass and took a fairly large sip. Her expression revealed her opinion; the liquid was tart, nothing like the wines Johann had bought her.

“Honestly?” Her eyes darted back to the pale figure, placing the glass back down on the bar. “I’ve not tried and tested anything else. Drinking away your control so easily… it’s wasteful; reckless.” Deciding that tonight she would be reckless, Hannah shrugged off her cloak to reveal bare, scarred arms, and dropped it on a stool beside the vampire. She sat down and waved for the bartender to come over.

“Absinthe, yes?” She confirmed with Tristan. “Does it come as a bottle?”

A shame, to order a whole bottle of something that she obviously would not enjoy. Tristan smiled knowingly at her declaration of drink as being something wasteful and reckless. To do so in a pub was as distasteful as blaspheming in church - neither of those places you were wont to find a vampire at any rate.

He finished his drink just as Hannah revealed her arms. Scars. Tristan put down his glass, narrowing his eyes and taking a deeper breath.

Ah. That was the smell. Beneath the perfumes and liquors and late night sweat that pervaded this bar: he could smell the werewolf on her. Not a preferable strain of blood. Lycantrophy was pungent and it left an aftertaste not unlike its unusual scent. His nose wrinkled slightly.

       "Absinthe, yes? Does it come as a bottle?"

Tristan slid his empty glass across the counter, addressing the bartender and ignoring the witch's question. "She'll have her green fairy in the old style," he ordered before turning back to Hannah. "You might hallucinate. They don't serve that muggle swill around these parts."

A tall glass of cold water was set down on the counter, between them both. It was followed by a smaller, shapely glass filled with glimmering green liquor: balanced on the rim was a slotted spoon with a sugar cube in it. The barman had replaced the usual silver spoon with brass.

"You pour the water over the cube," Tristan indicated with his fingers but made no move to help - the drink was very popular during the Belle Époque and he only liked to see it taken the way they used to back then. "Let it drip. Drink. Repeat."

It was something tough to maintain a schooled expression when told that she might hallucinate. That, combined with watching the somewhat fiddly set up of her Absinthe experience made the normally very cautious witch wonder why she was accepting alcohol suggestions from a strange vampire in a knockturn alley bar where she ‘might hallucinate’.

The situation should have made her nervous. She should have grabbed her cloak and left. Instead of even considering leaving, Hannah felt herself overwhelmed by an excitement. The scene of the alcohol filled her nostrils and already she felt heady, her cheeks gathering a pinkish hue.

“I’ll be dead tomorrow.” She muttered, reminding herself why she was here, why she was being reckless. Slim fingers picked up the water glass and she gently tilted it, pouring cool liquid over the sugar and watching the cube dissolve.

The spoon was taken off the small glass and she glanced back to the vampire.
“Some might find it rude. Or suspicious.” She gripped the glass but her eyes stared at his, trying to read him. “You suggest a drink but don’t indulge yourself?” Even as she spoke, Hannah realised how little she really knew of his kind.
“No…you like something more exotic don’t you?” Teeth bit into her lip, unsure whether she should be nervous in his company.

       “I’ll be dead tomorrow.” The witch began to pour water over the sugar.

"Not if you pace yourself." Tristan advised coolly, untouched by the melodrama of human nature - that was something he did not miss about his old self. Hangovers. Lord help the poor soul who woke up the next morning with the weight of life on his shoulders.

The bartender left them to it, and Tristan leaned against the counter to rest his head on his hand whilst watching the sugary water drip away. It was not the flashy flaming green fairy that came into fashion after his time; only the patient art of watching the liquor turn cloudy, like green jade of China.

       “No…you like something more exotic don’t you?"

He continued to watch the drink turn pale, half of his mind in the past and the other listening to Hannah speak. "Blood is hardly exotic." Tristan replied on reflex and tried not to bristle at her use of the word: he thought it better put to diseases than to the necessity of his diet. When his gaze flicked up to the witch's face, it held only a quiet curiosity.

"Rude and suspicious are common fare in this alley...." he remarked, playing with the tips of his long dark hair. "You wouldn't be here tonight if either were a deterrent. Are you drinking to forget?" Tristan imagined that many werewolves did.

"Not if you pace yourself." The vampire misunderstood. Hannah wasn’t about to correct him. There was something rather liberating about being there with someone who didn’t know her. There were no prejudgements, there was no harshness to his voice when his eyes had danced over her scars. He knew what she was. Vampires, just like werewolves, had a keen sense of smell. They sensed things; and Merlin knew how many years he’d had to make sense of that around him.

“No.” She gave a simply answer, not drinking to forget. “There are other ways of forgetting things.” But she did finally lift the glass to her lips. The aroma was the first thing to overwhelm her senses before the liquid even passed her lips to burn her throat and tongue. Eyes were screwed shut, expression tight as she swallowed, immediately feeling a heady sensation.

Bright eyes quickly shot open as she glass was slammed down. She gasped, throwing long bushy hair back with her hand. No wonder he’d suggested such a thing. She was suddenly smiling, more relaxed, less strained, less cold.

Bright eyes took in the mysterious man.
“I don’t normally drink. It’s hard enough to maintain control without helping things along. People already expect a monster out of control.” Her tongue was loser thanks to the sudden onslaught of alcohol on her system. "Sometimes I want to just give it to them."

As with many others, all it took to make the witch less taciturn was a mouthful of liquor. Tristan recognised her just then - it was a face he had seen in the papers. Bombay. A werewolf with a knack for running into the spotlight where least desirable; she must have talent for trouble because the other wolves in his acquaintance did not spend nearly half as much time in headlines. Even the patrons of Lapin had a better time of it.

       "People already expect a monster out of control." This cheerier version of Hannah continued. "Sometimes I want to just give it to them."

"You could." Tristan raised a dark eyebrow at her, though his relaxed and smug smile did not denote provocation. "But then you only prove them right."

He wondered if her struggle to maintain control preceded the lycantrophy. Werewolves drank, ate, celebrated much in the way of regular humans. They were wilder when the full moon drew close and had other ticks but... no. The vampire suspected Bombay was simply a different breed of human personality. Isolationist, perhaps, or reclusive.

"Unless you believe you are a monster?" he crossed one leg over the other as he spoke, fingers drumming against the bar counter. Tristan was curious about how other Beings saw themselves.

She would only prove them right in showing them the monster. Hannah had heard it before. She’d believed it for years. From the time she’d been arrested with Knox Greyfriar and put in front of the Wizengamot, she’d had the thoughts pushed into her head about the dangerous monster she was. She’d had it impressed upon her about her irresponsibility and recklessness. Now she was daily reminded that she wasn’t worth much more than as a monster, that as a dog to ‘obey’.

The drink wasn’t making her forget. The drink was bringing it all back. She stared at the man, considering the question.

“It wouldn’t matter if I did.” She spoke quietly, fingers tracing the rim of the small shot glass. “People find monsters where they want to. For a society preaching of change and a lack of prejudices towards muggleborns and halfbloods, we’re still in the dark ages when it comes to anyone different. Different scares people. Different is a monstrosity.”

When she realised she’d spoken possibly a bit too much, Hannah frowned and shook her head.
“I’m sorry. You haven’t come out to hear some wolf bitch’s woes.”

He couldn't disagree. Tristan had become a vampire because he valued different, in an era where changing mindsets happened in leaps and bounds rather than the steady trickle of these times - but Hannah's acknowledgement of prejudices was more bitter than anything else. It was angry and unpleasant.

The ugliness of society had imposed itself on her and this was how she reacted. He wondered if she would be as concerned with differences if she had never been subject to its ill effects.

Most people were selfish in that way.

       "I’m sorry. You haven’t come out to hear some wolf bitch’s woes."

"We're in a pub." Tristan pointed out in a soft voice, sitting straight as he gestured for the bartender to bring him another blood syrup tonic. "If I wished to avoid woes I would have wandered down to Le Masque and listened to joys instead."

The drink arrived, he picked it up and held the tall glass absently. "At least you are not alone, if society thinks you a monster. There are so many of your kind-" Tristan sipped, relishing the taste of blood but regretting the lack of gratification. "- packs, isn't it? We have covens, ourselves."

“We don’t run in packs.” Hannah’s words came out condescending, her unfiltered reaction to something that seemed ridiculous. The realisation that her tone hadn’t been suitable came too late. Lips pressed together in mind disdain with herself before she let out a breath and tried again.
“Covens may work for you.” she pulled the tart wine over, deciding it still needed drinking. “If your experience is similar to others like you.” An eyebrow was raised before she took a sip of her wine. It was nasty.

“And you have your control and dignity.” The witch gave a shrug, leaning forwards, elbows resting on the bar as her long hair fell down over her shoulders. “Dignity… Making friends with a pack of werewolves won’t change the number of people that I’ve woken up naked in front of.” That didn’t sound right; she knew it.

       “We don’t run in packs.”

Tristan narrowed his gaze at her, vaguely surprised but paradoxically aware that she was perhaps not so educated in the ways of her species as others were. He looked past her at the bartender and signalled for another drink - a second of his blood syrup concoction to keep his appetite sane.

"Are you certain that your kind don't?" he glanced back at Hannah and sat straighter on the barstool. "I know at least of one[1]. But you don't seem sociable enough in that arena... or you would not be alone at a bar this night to drink yourself to death."

His own drink arrived just then and he smiled politely at the barman. Tristan had lived a long time. He couldn't blame the witch for not knowing things, she was still young and had a lifetime ahead of her - in some way the ignorance was almost enviable.

He took a sip, ice cubes clinking in the fizzy pink water. A light laugh at Hannah's phrasing... suggestive as it was he could not imagine the awkward woman in such a situation. "Dignity and control are only mine if I'm well fed." Tristan's smile widened and his sharp teeth were marginally noticeable.

"Best not to speculate on the nature of what you don't know, I think?" he suggested as he put down his glass with a sense of delicacy, voice soft. "There is nothing dignified about the taking of human life to survive."

1.	Tristan means the Donovan Pack.

“It’s not drinking that will kill me.” Her response came quickly, and Hannah realised just how terrified she really was for the following evening. Having a friendly conversation with a vampire over absinthe and whatever bloody concoction he had was certainly not going to distract her from the reality that faced her when she and Lawrence carried out the plan. But anything had to be better than being practically owned by a mad bitch with a psychotic man slave.

"Best not to speculate on the nature of what you don't know, I think?" Hannah had very possibly hit a nerve, but she strangely didn’t care. With her mind spinning over reasons for why she was about to do what she’d planned, the vampire’s apparent indignity at killing for food featured extremely low on her list of apprehensions.

"There is nothing dignified about the taking of human life to survive."

The words rang through the witch’s mind. Sometimes there was no choice. Tomorrow she would take her own life to survive. Dignity had nothing to do with survival. Dignity was a privilege; it was something so easily taken away. Survival was what you fought for, what you put your soul into.

“You have a choice to take life or feed from other sources. You can be dignified. There is no dignity in being treated like a bad dog.” Her tongue was loosening with the alcohol but she was mentally focused enough to realise it. Hannah stood, snatching up her cloak. She had to leave before she said too much to the stranger.

“Enjoy your dignity, Sir.”