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It’s four am, or something close to that, and he’s bleeding through his back enough to soak into his coat. Infernus is standing there, arms glowing in the unlit hallway, dressed in only his draws and a worn-thin wife beater. It's a stark difference from the usual trim vest and tie. The fire on his head is bright enough it makes Abrams squint, cornrows sharp black in contrast, and afterimages dance around like sparks from a bonfire.
“I haven’t seen you in a minute, brother,” one of the afterimages says.
Is that a question? Abrams braces himself against the lintel above the door, hunched down to look him in the face. The book is heavy by his side, arm hanging slack and fingers curled over its edges until they dig into his bones. “Yeah. The case I’ve been working’s been…” Annoying? Deadly? “...Consuming.”
“Well,” Infernus drawls, slow and thick in that accent of his that makes the hair on Abrams’s arms prick up. He eyes the book for barely a second, then the attention is back, burning a hole through his overwrought senses. “Come on in then, Detective.”
And Abrams must blink, because between one second and the next he’s gone, the doorway open and empty like it's beckoning him in. He follows, one hand on the wall, something gritty sticking to his palm as he pushes off it and walks mostly under his own power.
“Sorry I didn’t call in advance,” he grunts out, as a small candle lights in the kitchen and wavers its way towards him. A hot, hot hand takes his arm and he nearly pulls away on instinct, a wave of lightheadedness washing over him as he does.
Infernus doesn’t comment on that at least, just grabs him again, steering them unerringly towards the bare couch. The smoke from the candle smells like lemongrass. “Eh, Hank’s got the bar. I’m the only one you’re bothering.”
“You’re not helping?”
Something interesting happens to his face at that. “You know how it is.”
Abrams does not. If he wasn’t about to fall over, he’d ask about it.
Lucky for him, Infernus has always been good at reading his mind. “Times are tough, gotta cut back on labor, yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” he nods. Goes to say something else, but then he’s blinking open his eyes, and he’s half leaning on his book, its hard spine digging into his ribs. Probably soaking the damned thing. “Hmgh.”
He’s numb, he realises, and not just from the blood loss, though that’s not a good sign either. But the ever-present heat that radiates off Infernus has disappeared somewhere. Abrams lifts his heavy head, squints out into the dim lounge, and concludes that he’s alone. He can hear water running off in another room. Struggling upright, the book thumps down onto the old leather cushion as he removes his weight, and Abrams winces at the noise.
He’s still half-ready for another assailant to launch out of the shadows, eyes green with greed and the light that occasionally spills from between the crumbling pages. Still half-guarded against another knife, or five, another hit—
He’s at Fern’s.
Shaking his head and shaking the thoughts off with it, Abrams gets back to business. His muscles ache and his wounds scream at him as he shifts, struggling to pull off his coat without lifting his arms above his shoulders; but he does manage it, and eventually, with a dull pain starting up behind his eyes to join the others, he frees himself of the tangling sleeves and drops the damn thing on the floor. His shirt should go next, but he finds he can’t quite work the buttons. His fingers are large, and clumsy, and cold, and a wave of nausea tries to swallow him as he looks down.
“Done half the work for me already, would ya look at that.” And there’s warmth at his side again. Infernus leans around him to place the bowl he was carrying down on the table, using one of Abrams’s shoulders for support. It tugs unpleasantly at his injuries, but Abrams doesn’t comment, just breathes deep. Along with the lemongrass and iron he catches that familiar scent of hot stones dulled by water, gasoline and clean laundry buried underneath.
Abrams shakes his head again, squeezes his eyes shut. “Can you get the—” he flaps a useless hand over his back. “Couldn’t, hm, reach.”
If Infernus can get it, then he can do something about all this. He can’t just go up to a civilian and start draining them, but Fern- he’s fine. He’ll be fine.
Infernus is staring at him instead of doing as he’d asked, something amused in the quirk of his brow. He’s got a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and as he twirls it with his tongue the end starts smoking.
“What?” He asks, dog-tired. He doesn’t have the energy for their usual games tonight.
“Oh, nothing.”
‘Nothing’ his big blue ass. ‘Nothing’ is Fern for I have opinions but I’m pretending to be polite these days.
A vein ticks in his forehead. He can feel it when it does, because it’s bulging with blood he doesn’t have to spare.
Fuck it. Twisting around, ignoring the tear of his flesh as he goes, Abrams reaches for the handle of the knife still sticking out of his back. And, just like the last three times he’d tried it before showing up at Infernus’ door like some kind of pathetic wounded animal, his spines get in the way. Fuckin— it’s bad enough just dealing with them usually, but this is—
“Hey, hey, careful there—and you’re not listening, are you?”
He keeps straining for the knife, fingers shaking, and the very lightest graze of a pad on its spindly little hilt has hope flaring in his chest; he doubles the effort, feels a glob of thicker blood slip down his back under his shirt and a white-hot pain that surely means success… Except he slips, and nudges it deeper instead. There’s a scrape. Probably bone.
Ow.
Breathing heavy in through his nose and out through his mouth, he gives up.
When he untwists himself, slowly, clutching the back of the couch for balance against the dizziness and the throb he can feel in every nerve, Infernus is right where he left him: chin propped in his hands, toothpick loose on his lips, and his eyes alight with something that’s not entirely amusement any more. They’re not tracking his face, but the tremble in his fingers and the sweat on his brow and the blood dripping onto the couch.
Abrams doesn’t want to think about that. “ What, ” he bites out again, at the end of tonight’s very short rope.
“You want help after all?”
“Do I look like I can do it myself?”
“I’d never doubt your capabilities, detective.” Still, he doesn’t move. Abrams is going to throttle him. “Say please?”
“I’m going to throw you through your own fucking wall, Fern.”
“That seems like a bit of a feat, even for you.”
“I hate you.”
“Aw, you sweet talker.”
His vision is going splotchy at the edges. It’s probably from the sudden spike in his blood pressure. Still:
“Please. ” Abrams says it like a curse, would match it with his glare, if he could find the glow of Fern’s head.
Oh, yeah. Yep. There it is.
Instead of giving him more to snap at, there’s a crinkle of cloth rustling as Infernus stands, and the soft click of his shoes as he crosses the wooden boards of the floor. A radiating heat raises the tiny hairs along Abrams’s neck, and then there’s hot hot hands on his shoulders. He only tenses for a moment, and gets a pat in reward as he relaxes.
“Are you ready?” Infernus asks, casual and easy. His hands run down the length of Abrams’s spine, trailing heat in a way that has his tail lifting from its exhausted slump. The warmth lingers around the bloody, slippery edges of his gaping skin, tracing it. It should sting, it should ache and smart, but it doesn’t anymore.
God he's so cold. He didn’t even realise he’d been shivering until Infernus touched him. Abrams closes his eyes and curls his top lip in a half-hearted snarl. “Just do it already.”
“Drain me, second it’s out,” Infernus steadies him with a warning, one burning hand on his back as the other leaves, and that’s all he gets before—
Schnnk—
The intrusion leaves him with more pain than it had going in, and Abrams feels the world tilting, hears a soft, “Whoa there,” feels cold and hot at the same time, his skin wet with blood and sweat, and—
A breath out through his mouth, a breath in through his nose—and he pulls , blue flames bursting into being throughout the apartment, finding nothing, and concentrating themselves smaller, stronger, in a shroud around the two of them. The furniture and floors remain untouched by the dancing circle, even as Infernus himself slumps a little closer. He can feel the trickle of restorative power seeping in. It’s not enough, though. Abrams’s head is still swimming. He’s losing blood faster than he can feed.
His hand snakes out faster than he can think, crushes around Infernus’ wrist, ignoring his grunt and focusing on that unstoppable heat. He pulls and he pulls, and the blue flares higher and brighter. Slowly, his spotting vision clears.
“Back with me?”
Infernus is holding him by the shoulders, head tilted down as Abrams tilts his up, looking him in the eyes. There’s that same amusement there, even as his wrist creaks under his grip, even as blue engulfs him head to toe. Abrams can literally feel the man’s life leaking into him, sip by sip, and knows that the sensation can’t be anything pleasant—not like this. But he’s always been able to read Infernus well. And when he reads his face now, there’s nothing but amusement, and hunger, and something too intense to be warmth. He’s bitten clean through his toothpick, teeth stark white against the skin of his lips.
His blood, despite the recent stabbing, tingles to life again.
Abrams lets go of him like he’d been scalded. “You’re such a freak.”
“Mm-hm.” The fire still burns around them. Infernus slumps even more, almost all of his weight on Abrams’s shoulders. They’re nose to nose, like this. Close enough to touch. “So you tell me.”
His skin is knitting back together, itching as it does. Abrams takes the weight easily, sitting up straighter, and their noses do brush for a second, until he shoves a meaty palm up into Fern’s face and pushes him back. The dizziness is fading, and he can feel his senses returning to him, and even though he’s tempted to just drain the man dry right then and there and save himself a thousand future headaches, Abrams relents. The blue flickers and dies out, like it had never been there.
Infernus, the degenerate, makes a small noise of disappointment and bites Abrams’s hand at the loss. Snatching it back with disgust, he wipes his palm on his filthy trousers and reaches for the bowl of water on the table. There’s heat and weight all along his back where Fern is lolling, the fire of his hair lowered after the drain but still licking at Abrams’s ear. He makes a face and doesn’t push him off.
“You’re lucky you make good drinks,” he mutters.
“Pshh,” A second longer to absorb some of his strength back from Hell or the Bronx, whichever has more claim on him, and Infernus summons enough will to get up. There’s already a cloth in his hand, and he uses Abrams’s head as leverage as he dunks it in the bowl. “You love me. C’mon, off with the shirt.”
“Other way around, isn’t it?” The hard part’s done now, that must be why he’s letting his mouth run away from him. That and the fatigue slowing his brain. He fumbles with the shirt again, then just gives up and yanks it off. It was already ruined anyway. The poor abused eyelets weep open, buttons scattering over the floor. “You’re not this touchy-feely with all your customers.”
“Rest of my customers can’t take it, can they?” Infernus wrings out the cloth, the motion practiced and easy, and where his hands hadn’t touched it only shockingly cold water dribbles over the wounds. Abrams hisses but doesn’t move away, even as he dunks the cloth and does it again. “But you can.” His voice lowers at the end, something almost interested crawling in.
Infernus can’t touch people—the whole of New York oughta know that, with how many dames he’s let down. Dames and others. Abrams allows his attention to drift over the rest of the apartment; its bare brick walls, its abundance of woolen blankets in easy reach, its oven mitts in conspicuous places. He thinks about the way Infernus is wearing shoes inside his own home, less of a choice and more—spotting scorch marks on the floor—to save himself the cost of rebuilding.
It takes a second for his brain to kick back in, as the dizziness that had evaporated is replaced with bone-deep exhaustion. When it does, he blinks his weary eyes back open twice before he can formulate a response.
“...We’re talking about the heat, right, Fern?”
He chuckles, deep in the back of his throat, and slaps the sopping wet washcloth down on Abrams’s back. “What else would we be talking about, Detective?”
That’s not a yes. Those hands are still burning trails around his wound, over and over again, tracing the edges even as it stitches itself back together with the remnants of Infernus’ soul. Abrams holds himself carefully still as it happens.
“Absolutely nothing,” he says, with all the conviction of an innocent man on death row. “I’m going to pass out now.”
Infernus laughs again at that announcement, soft and private. Abrams grapples with a shiver as he slowly tips to the side, losing the fight to both his body and gravity.
If only he didn’t make such good drinks.
Abrams is unconscious, sunken into the old couch Hank got them, like a dad seven beers into Sunday. He’s not even snoring, which is enough to tell Infernus all he needs to know about how much sleep he's been getting lately—but it’s not like he needed much help figuring that one, not with those bruises under his eyes.
He kneels in front of the couch, bracing himself steady as he watches the slow rise and fall of his favourite customer’s chest. Any other day he’d be enjoying the view: all plush muscles and wiry chest hair that’s just begging to be explored. Familiar from loose neckties and an easy reach over the bar. Blue and red go well together, he’d decided long ago. Maybe too well.
It’s why he doesn’t usually let himself touch.
He can still feel the fizz in his veins, ichor coming to life like lava, from the second he’d laid eyes on the wrecked and stubborn man at his door. Knowing in a split second that Abrams had come to him for help. That this was trust. It had helped him shove aside the part of his brain that was howling and barking like a starving dog at the sight of… well.
Abrams was injured. A normal person probably would have been scared. For him, of him. Concerned, maybe. Angry, if they were feeling protective. Then again, a 'normal' person wouldn’t have come to their bartender for help instead of a hospital. Infernus dips his fingers down to trace over Abrams’s newly split lip, pressing into it slow and gentle, until a bright new bead of blood wells up, and a shiver wanders down his spine.
Scared and concerned. He’ll remember that for the morning.
When was the last time Abrams had shown up at Jezebels without limp or a bruise, or a week-old shirt, or gaunt cheeks and worn down slacks?
Too long, that’s when. He lines up an image in his head, faded with time, of a giant of a man with a cheerful grin and too much red string. Comparing it with the slumped, haggard body in front of him, he feels the weight of time on his shoulders. There’s so many new lines in his face; his knuckles are bigger, if that’s even possible, swollen with use. He traces the differences, ghosting over clammy skin and up, up, over his weathered forehead, between his nicked horns, to run his fingers through greasy hair until he finds something that’s remained the same: the softly pointed curve of an ear. It’s even flushed pink, just like it used to be when Infernus managed to get a rise out of him.
He must be smiling, he realises after a while. His mouth is dry. Chuckling to himself, he retraces the same path over his head, mussing up Abrams’s hair even worse than it already had been.
It’s pure indulgence; he should be getting to bed. There’s work to do in less hours than he wants to think about, and he needs to clean up before Hank gets back. There’s a trail of blood and mud leading from the couch to the hall, and he’d be willing to bet a week's worth of drinks that it goes a fair way down the street, too. And then there’s that fat tome serving as a pillow, uncannily clean amongst all the filth and stains spotting the rest of Abrams’s gear. Infernus’ eyes dance over it when he goes to look, and when he tries again he’s rewarded with a pang in his head. Letting out a puff of air, he diverts back to the detective’s face. Revelling, just a little bit, in the way the man’s flesh doesn’t bubble under his touch.
“Got yourself in a real pickle this time, Abe,” he murmurs, contemplative. There’s a catch as he strokes over the cut lip again, his thumbnail snagging on an edge and skipping down sharp bristles from days of five-o-clock shadow.
Then again, who isn’t in a pickle these days? Hank’s in debt, the professor’s more hole than man, the boys say Wraith’s gearing up for something big…
There’s a storm brewing.
Drawing his hand back to his side, he gets up and heads for the door. Better to clean up that trail before Hank sees it and gets too fussed, or someone follows it where they shouldn’t.
Besides, it’s not like Abrams is going anywhere for now. Plenty of time to put a bit more colour in those cheeks before he lets him leave.
Infernus smooths down his grin and gets to work.