Hotel Renaissance, Paris, Morning, 8 Jan. 1902

[bitten_notshy]

By the time Jack directed the luggage back to the hotel room and gathered some papers he felt Sebastien needed to see, the vampire was well settled in. Still, Sebastien’s mind had stayed on the wolf or dog or vision he saw leaving the train station. " ... but in any case,” he finished, “it was a great hungry-looking dog."

"Werewolves?" Jack said, glancing up from his breakfast with wide eyes and lifted brows. He knew they were considered mythical – but he was fairly certain plenty of people a universe away in Bristol would say George Sands didn’t exist, either.

"There's no such thing as a werewolf," Sebastien said, pushing his tiny glass of orange juice across the small table in their room so Jack could reach it easily. They ordered two meals, and Jack consumed both. Young men were always hungry, and it didn't hurt Sebastien's charade if he seemed to be dining.

Jack finished his own orange juice before reaching for Sebastien's. "You know," he said, "every time a vampire says he doesn't believe in lycanthropes, a werewolf bursts into flames."

Sebastien eyed him for a moment, trying to decide if his reciprocal sarcasm extended to slow clapping, and instead contented himself drawing on the tablecloth with a finger dipped in water. "I didn't say there were no such thing as lycanthropes. I said there were no such thing as werewolves -- in this particular universe, if you must. There are plenty of other were-things in it."

"Aren't werewolves the iconic lycanthrope?"

"Ironic, isn't it? They were never common, and they were hunted to extinction by the Inquisitio -- "

"English, John," Jack reminded, gently.

"That was Latin," Sebastien answered, hurt. "In Spanish, la Inquisición. Or el Santo Oficio."

"Neither of which is English. Which is what we are supposed to be."

"Don Sebastien de Ulloa is probably safer in Paris than Mr. John Nast, under the current circumstances."

Uncertain as to the right answer, Jack went to spread butter on his croissant. He felt Sebastien’s eyes on him as he did. After a moment, the vampire put his hand over his mouth, and muttered into his palm. "'Eh bien, cria Satan, soit! Je puis encor voir! Il aura le ciel bleu, moi j'aurai le ciel noir.'"

At that, Jack glanced up, more than half annoyed. "Beg pardon? Still not English, sir."

"Will you permit me French in France, mother?" Sebastien repeated it, and translated, though they both knew Jack did not need him to. "'Very well,' cried Satan. 'So be it! I can still see! He will have the blue sky, and I will have the black!'"

"'Et déjà le soleil n'était plus qu'une étoile,'" Jack answered, skipping ahead in the poem. And already the sun was no more than a star. "Victor Hugo. 'La fin de Satan.' Pray God, tell me you're not succumbing to vampire angst ."

"Satan's forgiven in the end," Sebastien said. "In any case, werewolves did not long survive the advent of gunpowder. Silver bullets."

Jack broke open his second croissant and reached for the jam pot. "So then what did you see on the street?"

Sebastien lifted one shoulder and let it fall. And then corrected himself to a less continental mannerism, and worked his shrug again. "Perhaps it was a werewolf's ghost. Get some rest when you've eaten. Tonight we work."

"Yes," Jack said. "But first, I have a letter to deliver."

[OOC: NFB, NFI, lightly edited from New Amsterdam. Part of this. And here you have what may be my favorite Jack/Sebastien conversation in the books.]