6:00 p.m.

Iman hesitated. She knew it was not the time nor place to hesitate, not with Julien groveling on the floor, grinding his forehead into the tiles, not with Beck a few rooms away, oblivious. Think, think, think.

Iman stood and bumped the bathroom door shut with her hip. "How long?" she demanded, resting her back against the door.

Julien moaned and shook his head. His black hair was even blacker with sweat, the faintest tremors racking his shoulders. It was a pitiful, pitiful sight—enough to prick hot tears from Iman's eyes. Agony was the word that sprung to mind. It looked like he was in agony.

"Julien," Iman snapped. The risen volume of her voice finally seemed to catch his attention; he looked up, red eyes helpless. "How long?"

"The last time was...sixteen days ago," he said, and Iman let out a startled breath. "It was a squirrel."

"Jesus," she said. Then again: "Jesus! Jules—"

There was a knock on the bathroom door that jolted both of them. Julien groaned again and curled himself around the bathtub as Beck called from behind the door, "Hey, what's going on in there? Can I come in?"

Iman swiftly reached for the door's lock before remembering, belatedly, that the lock on the hall bathroom had been faulty for a few months now. Suddenly she wished she hadn't put off repairing it. Cursing under her breath, Iman grabbed for the toilet paper rack and jammed it beneath the knob. Beck jiggled again; Iman was relieved when it held. "Iman? Julien?"

"Just a second! He's just sick. Must have been something he ate!"

Beck sounded slightly less alarmed, but still alarmed. "Oh, really? Man, I'm sorry. I'll go get him some water."

"Yes! That'd be great!" Iman said, pressing her ear to the wood and listening for Beck's retreating footsteps. When he was gone, Iman crashed to the floor beside Julien, taking him by the shoulders. "Julien?"

His voice was a low growl, his face turned away from hers. He smelled like salt and earth. She kept expecting to feel a pulse beneath his skin, but he was utterly still. "What?"

"Drink..." Iman faltered a minute, but made up her mind. "Drink my blood, okay?"

Julien winced, cringing away from her like she'd struck him. "No! No. I'm not gonna do that, Iman, that's—"

"Shut up!" Iman snapped, taking him by the chin and turning his face towards hers. He stared at her, his lips trembling, fangs gleaming white underneath the bathroom lights. "It hurts. I know it hurts. This'll make it stop hurting. It's okay, Jules. It's okay."

He shook his head, wrenching away from her. "I don't know if—if I'll be able to stop once I start. God, your—your heartbeat's all I can fucking hear. It's sick. It's sick, Iman. I'm—sick."

"Julien," Iman said, dropping her voice to a whisper. He had always been strong for her. Every time she showed up at his doorstep, shivering, uncomfortable, unsure of where or when she was, he had always been strong for her. Now it was her turn to return to the favor. "Hey. Look at me."

Julien let out a shuddering breath, and lifted his gaze. His eyes were roses, a bleeding, thorny red. It was the worst sort of fear, too. The fear of himself. "I'm sorry," he exhaled, trembling. "I didn't plan for it to go on this long. I thought—"

"Shh," said Iman. She reached to move the collar of her shirt aside. "It's okay."

Julien opened his mouth, fangs bared, just as the bathroom door exploded inwards.

There was a brief moment of stunned silence as Iman whipped her head around.

Beck dropped the glass of water he'd retrieved; it was thankfully plastic. "Holy—um? Is that—" He paused, one hand on his hip. "I'm sorry, but what the fuck is happening?"

Belatedly, Julien clapped a hand over his mouth, letting out a muffled, "Shit."

Iman got to her feet, her hands outstretched, as if trying to manually calm Beck down. His face was the picture of blatant shock, his brown eyes round and his face flushed a bright red. Julien turned away, craning over the side of the tub as if that were an adequate hiding spot.

"Beck," Iman said. "Beck, wait. I can explain—"

"He has fangs. He has fangs! He has fangs?" Beck said, leaning against the door like he could no longer steady himself. "And the eyes—no. No, no, no. Im? Immy, please don't tell me—"

"Yes!" Julien roared, startling both of them. He turned around, scowling at Beck. "I'm a fucking vampire! Is that what you wanted to hear? I've been dead since 1836, I get badly sunburnt if I spend more than five minutes outdoors, I kill squirrels and rats most of the time because I don't like feeding on humans, and I hate garlic!"

Beck opened his mouth, and closed it again. His eyes slid towards Iman. "Is all that true?"

Iman nodded, solemnly. "I was going to tell you," she said. "Eventually. And there's...something else—"

"Forget it," Beck said. She expected to hear anger in his voice, frustration, but there was none. It was just the reappearance of his brazen pragmatism, his utter disregard for anything else but the matter at hand. "You. Vampire man. You don't look too hot."

"No," Julien growled. "I haven't fed in over two weeks and all I can smell right now is both of your blood and I'm afraid I'm going to devour both of you literally any second now."

Beck brushed Iman's shoulder, stepping further into the bathroom and crouching before Julien. He extended his wrist; Julien just regarded it, questioning. "You can have mine," he said, and looked away. "Mostly because I really don't want you to eat Iman."

Julien gave him a painfully fake smile. "Touching," he said, but turned away. "But hell, no."

"Julien," Iman snapped. She had never seen him like this, so arrogant, so prideful, and it was roiling nausea within her stomach. This wasn't Julien—this was the hunger inside him, the sleeping beast she'd wished he'd never woken up. "Are you in any place to be picky right now?"

Julien grimaced. "I'm not going to eat your boyfriend. That would literally make me the worst person ever."

"Then don't!" Iman exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "No one's telling you to eat anybody, we're just telling you to stop killing yourself!"

Beck held his wrist out further, his face suffused with a strange, eerie calm. Julien looked at him, let out an annoyed breath, and grabbed his arm—only to curse and back away again, the bathroom filling briefly with the scent of sizzling flesh.

Beck blinked. "Is it—are you okay?"

"The necklace, dumbass," Julien hissed, gesturing towards the crucifix around Beck's neck. "I can't get near you with that thing on."

"Oh," said Beck, reaching back to unhook it from around his neck. He turned, pressing it into Iman's palm with silent obedience. "Sorry."

"I shouldn't do this," said Julien.

"Shut up," said Beck and Iman at once. Beck proffered his wrist with more force.

Julien shook his head once more, but gave no other protest as he held the inside of Beck's wrist to his mouth. Beck cringed as Julien's teeth broke the skin, and Iman looked away with a shudder. It was one thing to hear about the feed, to hear about warm blood dripping, dripping, down his chin and onto the floor, and it was another thing entirely to watch it.

A few long moments later Julien sputtered and shoved Beck away, mopping his mouth.

"Julien?" Iman asked, expectant.

He got to his feet with a novel ease, brushing past them both as he fled into the hall. A second later, Iman heard one of the bedroom doors slam shut.

Beck grabbed a towel from the rack beside the tub and wrapped his wrist with it, red slowly bleeding through the white. He looked up at Iman, one eyebrow risen. "Immy?" he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is there something you want to tell me, maybe?"

The two of them stood outside on the fire escape in silence, watching as the sun dipped below the trees ahead of them, as rush hour hummed below them. Iman knew what to say, in theory. She'd already decided she was going to say it. What she did not know was where the hell she was supposed to start.

Beck shivered, wrapping the bathroom towel tighter around his wrist. He was trying to act like it didn't hurt, but even Iman could see him grimacing.

"Are you cold?" She asked him. "Do you want coffee, or something? A blanket?"

Beck shut his eyes, leaning his weight against the railing. "Iman," he said, practically under his breath. "You're not...a vampire, too, are you?"

It was a logical question, all things considered, but nevertheless Iman couldn't help but laugh out loud. She coughed to stifle it when Beck shot her an almost hurt glare. She turned away, eyes down towards the sidewalk. "No," she said, hugging her arms around herself. The air was crisp, on that border between moderate and chilly. "I'm very alive; I promise. I have a pulse, don't I?"

Beck brushed her wrist as if he wasn't sure. He let out a surprised breath. "You mean Julien doesn't—"

Iman shook her head. "It's like he said. He's been dead for almost two hundred years."

Beck was silent for a moment as he worked his jaw. Iman could see the gears turning in his brain as plainly as he were an open-faced clock and not a person. She knew Beck had read many a vampire novel before; he even cited Dracula as one of his favorite books of all time. But it was awfully different when it was real. That was a truth that never faltered. "How did you—how, Iman?" he asked. "I don't understand. How'd you meet him, how'd you learn that he's...you know, a vampire...h-how did we get where we are now?"

"That's the other thing."

Beck's head turned sideways again. "What?"

Iman pushed out a breath between her teeth. She was going to do it; she had to do it. She was so tired of lying to him. She wanted him in her life. Every messy, dark corner of it. "I'm a time traveler," Iman said, and Beck let out a dry laugh, hiding his face in his hands. "I can control it on rare occasions, but most of the time if I get stressed or if I'm sleep-deprived I can sometimes just—hop around a bit."

"You're kidding."

Iman glared at him. "After everything that just happened, you really think I'm kidding with you, Beckett?"

Beck cringed, his grip tightening on the railing. "If that's true, then is that how you met Julien? Did you meet him somewhere...er, in time?"

Iman nodded her head. "For whatever reason time seems to stick us together over and over again. More often than not I end up somewhere near him when I travel."

Shock poured into his face. "Why?"

"Like hell I know," she said. "It's all a big mystery, okay? But until recently we'd never met each other in the present. That night at the concert, that was when I saw him again."

Beck frowned, the gold city lights glinting in the reflection of his glasses. "That's why you ditched me."

"You're getting it now!"

But Iman's short-lived enthusiasm died again when Beck placed a firm hand over hers, holding her gaze so intensely that it was nearly a palpable sensation along her skin. She looked into his eyes, his dark, dark eyes, and the regret filled her so rapidly that she could cry.

Yet his voice was gentle. "Immy," he said. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

She ducked her head. "I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure how you'd react, Beck. I was scared, okay?"

"As if," he said, tipping her chin up with his finger. She looked up at him through a haze of tears, stunned. The wind blew by, crisp and cool, but she scarcely felt it. "As if anything could ever make me leave you, Immy. I love you, time traveler or not. Do you believe me?"

Iman sputtered, "I—"

Beck shook his head, his voice hardening like ice as it freezes. "Do you believe me, Iman?"

Iman lowered his finger from her chin, taking his hand instead. She nodded. "I believe you."

Beck let out a breath so large that his shoulders caved, and pulled Iman into his chest. As he buried his face in her hair, he said, "Thanks, by the way."

"For what?"

Another heavy sigh. "With you spelunking through time and that other guy being undead, I now feel like the most boring person on Earth."