Chapter Text
“-- what exactly do you even do all night?” Sasha asks, leaning so far over the booth table that her drink is in serious peril of getting knocked over by her chest. Martin resists the urge to lean back against his seat, smiling awkwardly instead. There’s a whole table between them; it’s not like she’s going to climb over it to shake him by the shirt collar.
Right?
“Oh, just regular night guard stuff,” Martin says lightly. “Patrol the halls now and then, keep an eye on the camera feeds, check the entrances and exits, shine my torch around.”
“That’s all?” Sasha asks. “I’d be bored out of my mind.”
“Sash,” Tim says. He’s lounging at the outermost seat of their booth at the opposite side of the table from Jon and Martin, one arm slung over the back, his other hand holding his pint glass. He’s a handsome man, tall and fit, about half a dozen piercings in his ears, his hair cut short and stylish. He’s dressed in a way that, combined with everything else, makes Martin feel like he wouldn’t look out of place on a magazine spread supposedly advertising the tight jeans or loosely buttoned shirt he’s wearing. That might have been intimidating, except he’s been wearing a bright, disarming, friendly smile for most of the night so far.
“Well, I would! It’s not even like guarding a-- a bank or something. It’s not as if there’s exactly a high chance of a break in.”
Sasha has big, bright, inquisitive eyes, and the effect is only enhanced by the large, round glasses she wears. She’s dressed like someone who hasn’t bothered to go home and change first after a day at the office, a thick cardigan folded up and tossed on top of a messenger bag with a spot of its own in the booth, leaving her in a nice short sleeved top and long skirt. Her lipstick looks faded like she hasn’t reapplied it all day since she first put it on in the morning, and if her hair was in a more orderly style earlier it isn’t now, instead haphazardly tied out of the way with a big pink scrunchie, stray strands of unruly hair escaping. Her body language, the way her gaze rarely strays from him for more than a moment, her driving questions-- it all speaks to her being interested, curious, engaged. Now that’s intimidating. If Martin had to pick one word to describe her, it would be vibrant.
“I think it’s pretty peaceful, to be honest?” Martin says. “Nice and quiet.”
Last night Martin had visited a vampire called Jane Prentiss, more freshly turned than him. Elias had wanted him to give her a warning to stop killing people in London without his permission, or to prepare herself for the consequences. Pretty much the only reason Martin had made it out with all limbs intact is because he’d been ready to run immediately after passing on the message. He’s only been doing this job for a week, and he’s already starting to realize that that’s the safest way to go.
“I still don’t get why Elias thought to hire a night guard,” Sasha says, wondering, persistent. “It’s not like we’ve had any incidents before. Not those kinds.”
“Sash,” Tim says again.
“We haven't!”
“Most security measures are intended to be preventative,” Jon chimes in, sitting up straighter as he finds an entry into the conversation that isn’t just filthy lies. That’s more Martin’s area of expertise than his. “Locks, alarms, cameras-- and guards. Simply the visible presence of them is supposed to be a significant deterrent to any potential thieves.”
“Elias mentioned something about some kind of publicity scandal recently?” Martin says in a deliberately vague tone, as if he’s not quite certain. “Like-- something to do with a bank, I think?”
Sasha blinks, and then cringes as she visibly draws the connection.
“Oh, yeah?” she says faintly, picking up her own drink to hide in it, ducking her head.
“Yeah,” Martin says. “I think Elias might be more afraid of any pranksters or whatever breaking in to vandalize or just shoot some videos. Pretty harmless, but they might break some windows in the process, or something worse.”
Sasha hums like she’s very fascinated by this, but is also conveniently sipping from her drink so she can’t reply. When she finally emerges from her rum and coke, she’s ready with an attempted distraction. That’s good; changing the subject generally works way better when you make the other person want to do it, rather than just doing it yourself.
“So-- does anyone else want some refills? I’m nearing empty.”
“No, thanks,” Martin says cheerfully. “I’m just nursing mine. I get hangovers so easily, they’re awful.”
“One more for me, thank you,” Jon says, who’s been taking a lot of nervous sips at his gin and tonic to try and disguise the fact that he’s not really interacting with the conversation. Martin had specifically asked him beforehand to just not try and cover for him if he didn’t feel confident about it.
“I could go for a refill,” Tim says. “Come with and help me carry them, Sash?”
“I-- oh, alright, sure,” Sasha says, sounding for a moment like she wants to protest, before giving in. Three drinks isn’t a lot for one person to carry, but it’s a small request.
There’s the undignified process of two people squirming their way out of a booth seat, Tim having to pass over his jacket and bag to Sasha to be relegated to the middle of the booth so they won’t be an obstacle for her. They slip away from their tucked away spot in the corner of the pub, towards the counter.
Jon almost immediately ducks his head close to Martin’s, conspicuously whispering just a touch too loudly.
“Do you think they believe us?”
If it weren’t for the fact that they’re in a pub, surrounded by the muted murmur of about a dozen other people chattering and laughing and drinking, Tim and Sasha would have absolutely heard him. Fond exasperation pangs in his chest.
“I think so?” Martin says. “Be quiet for a second and let me listen.”
“Listen--? Oh.”
The din of other people talking and enjoying each other’s company in their vicinity isn’t a benefit for Tim and Sasha. Martin wouldn’t have been able to do this for maybe the first half year of being a vampire, but he’s gotten the trick of it by now. Of how to sharpen and focus his hearing and pick out a specific conversation in the crowd, instead of being overwhelmed by the clamor, everything running over each other at once into an incomprehensible stew inside of his head. For the first few weeks, he hadn’t been able to stop hearing every single furiously whispered domestic argument his downstairs neighbors had, every time the baby three floors up came wailing awake. He’s glad those days are behind him.
“--never going to live that down,” Sasha’s saying.
“Everyone’s moved on by now, Sash,” Tim says reassuringly. “Most people don’t even know about the Magnus Institute-- I had to explain my new job to my parents. I still don’t think they really get it. Anyways, even if some people might vaguely remember it doesn’t mean they’re gonna remember the name of the specific researcher involved in the whole thing. If anything, they’ll remember that old skeezeball’s name.”
“Old people haven’t heard about it, you mean. What do I care about old people? They’re all going to be dead in ten years.”
“My parents aren’t that old. And-- listen, could you stop prodding at Martin about his job?”
Martin’s already focused on the conversation, but his interest sharpens as his name is brought up. He unconsciously leans forward in his seat, even though they’re not even in that direction.
“Why?” Sasha asks. “Am I being rude?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not really why. I’m pretty sure that Jon somehow managed to convince Elias to hire him for the position, so it might be-- I don’t know. Touchy topic or something. Let’s just move on from it.”
“Really? How would Jon manage something like that? It’s not like he and Elias are all chummy chummy.”
“Maybe he begged? I don’t know, just-- Jon’s friend’s in a bad place, is having a hard time finding a job, and then he finally manages to find one where Jon works? A position that the Institute doesn’t even really need? Way too much of a coincidence.”
“Huh. Is that… better or worse than Jon lending him money?”
“Better, I guess? It’s not like Jon’s paying his wages. He seems nice enough.” This last sentence is said in the wary skeptical tones of someone not willing to be easily tricked by an unassuming facade.
That’s about when the bartender drifts over towards them, asking what they might like. Martin snaps his attention away from the scene, blinking back into place. Jon’s sitting at his side, looking directly at him with an expectant, impatient air.
“Well?” he asks, once he notices Martin looking at him, instead of his eyes being presumably glazed over and unfocused. “What are they saying?”
“You told them I was having trouble finding a job?” Martin asks.
“I-- oh,” Jon says. He looks flat footed at having the focus suddenly turned on him. “That’s-- yes, I-- I did do that, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Martin. It’s not-- it came up very organically, they were asking questions about you, I didn’t intend to--”
“I think they think I’m trying to scam you?”
Jon’s expression sours, before he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“It’s ridiculous,” he says. “They’re being ridiculous. It’s as if they think I’m the sort to fall for Nigerian prince scams or the like. I thought that if they simply got the opportunity to meet you for themselves they’d see how utterly foolish the idea is. Do they seriously still think that?”
“I think…” Martin says, carefully picking his words. “I think they’re keeping the possibility in mind, at least.”
Honestly, it’s nice to know that Jon even has a couple of friends who worry about him. He deserves that. Martin’s not really hurt by the assumption; it’s a reasonable one, despite what Jon may think, and they don’t have any reason to give Martin the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully he’ll be able to win them over with time-- especially considering what they’re soon about to bring up. Which--
“Unbelievable,” Jon mutters.
“Um-- Jon, about what we were going to-- are you sure? You know, with what I just told you? We can still put it off for another day, maybe, when they know me better and stuff.”
Jon gives him a baffled blink, and then straightens up in his seat, a belligerent expression sliding into place on his face.
“Absolutely not,” Jon says. “We agreed to tell them tonight, and I’m certainly not going to change my mind because of that. If anything, it’s the opposite. Their wariness of you is ludicrous and unwarranted.”
Considering that Jon and Martin first met when Martin lured him into an alley and then assaulted him for his blood until he passed out, Martin isn’t quite so sure that their distrust isn’t entirely fair and warranted, but he diplomatically holds his tongue. They’re still in a crowded bar, even if they have the privacy of a small bubble of space in a relatively loud room. It’s not a smart thing to bring up. And Jon would just argue that that doesn’t count, since there’s no way they could possibly even suspect the incident.
“... Unless you truly don’t want to tell them,” Jon belatedly concedes, some of his righteous indignation leaving him, his posture deflating some. “You-- I’m not going to force you to… it’s your choice as well.”
It’s so clumsy and tentative and sincere that Martin feels himself soften at the offer. That, and how obvious it is that Jon would be disappointed if he accepted it. He’d try to hide it, but Martin’s sure he would be.
“No, it’s alright,” Martin says, caving. “We can tell them.”
The way Jon smiles at that, bright and pleased, cements Martin’s conviction that it was the right choice to make. Even if the timing may not be ideal, bad first impressions still not smoothed over. What the hell. Might as well rip the plaster off.
Jon has the time to quickly down about a third of Martin’s pint for him--he’s going to get tipsy at this rate--before Tim and Sasha get back, drinks in hand.
“We return!” Tim announces. Depositing his own drink on the table, he leans over and hands Jon his before letting Sasha squeeze past him back into the booth. “Hope you two didn’t have too much fun without us.”
“We spent the entire time plotting against you,” Martin says jokingly. Which isn’t an outright lie, considering. Jon chokes a bit on his first sip of his second drink, likely fresh and cold compared to the dregs of his first one, condensation dripping off the glass. Martin gives him a pat on the back without looking as he coughs into his fist.
“Oh, well, sorry to say you’ve already lost that battle,” says Sasha. “We spiked Jon’s drink on our way here. He’s got five minutes left.”
“Very funny,” Jon rasps past a cough. He clears his throat, blinking hard.
“Swallowed it down the wrong pipe?” Martin asks sympathetically.
“I-- yes,” Jon says awkwardly. Martin rubs at his back comfortingly, not removing his hand from earlier.
He notices the way Tim’s eyes latch onto the touch, lingering for just a bit too long. Like he’s mentally noting it.
Perceptive guy. Martin still doesn’t take his hand away.
“There’s-- I wanted to tell you two something,” Jon says after a beat of silence that isn’t immediately filled. Instantly, he has the table’s attention. He stiffens underneath it, shifting uncomfortably in his seat before clearing his throat again.
“Oh, good, you’re finally getting to it,” Sasha says.
“I’m-- pardon?”
“Well, we’ve been here for, like, forty minutes now. I’m glad you’re getting to why you invited us out for drinks. I was starting to wonder how long we’d have to wait for.”
“I-- how did-- how did you even know I had a reason?”
“Jon, it’s you,” Sasha says, as if that’s all the reason she needs to give. At the look on Jon’s face, she apparently decides to elaborate. “You’ve literally never invited us out for drinks for the entire time we’ve known you. We ask you, and sometimes you say yes. It doesn’t really go the other way around. So, you ask us to come out for drinks with you, meet your friend - there’s a reason for it. Right?”
“Well… yes,” Jon says, clearly reluctant to concede the point. Sasha makes a show of preening a little, tucking some hair behind her ear. Tim turns his face away, visibly trying to bite back a grin. “I was hoping to-- we were hoping to-- that is, I thought that you ought to be… I wanted to tell you that…”
Martin isn’t sure whether he should be letting Jon do the honors here himself, if that’s important since they’re his friends, but this is really kind of getting kind of painful to listen to. He jumps into one of Jon’s stammering pauses as he blindly grasps for the apparently perfect phrasing, putting him out of his misery.
“I’m Jon’s boyfriend,” Martin says quickly, and then feels all of the stolen blood in his veins immediately rush to his cheeks, flaring as red as they can. Oh, okay, yeah. If this is how Jon had felt, then he gets why he wasn’t managing it. He’s never actually said the words to someone before. It feels-- thrilling. In a mildly terrifying sort of way.
There’s a beat in which Tim and Sasha’s expressions are entirely blank, processing, and then--
“No!” Sasha exclaims, practically bursting up from her seat so abruptly that Jon yelps. “Really!?”
“Oh my god,” Tim says at the same time, overlapping. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
“I can’t believe I didn’t guess!” Sasha says vehemently. “Worrying about him, helping him out, introducing us-- it all makes so much more sense now.”
“How long has this been going on?” Tim demands.
“How did this even happen?” Sasha asks. “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me, Jon.”
“Done-- done what?” Jon asks, bewildered. “Sit down, Sasha. And lower your voices!”
Martin laughs incredulously. He puts a hand up to his face, trying to swallow it down, but it keeps hiccuping up out of him like bubbly carbonation. Sasha stands stubbornly for a moment, her hands braced on the table so she can lean over it towards them, but then Tim tugs on her skirt and she relents, sinking back into her seat.
“I don’t see how it warrants so much shock and fanfare,” Jon grumbles defensively.
“This is the first time you’ve dated anyone for the whole time that we’ve known you,” Tim points out. “It’s a first!”
“Not for me,” Jon snaps. “I’ve dated before.”
So has Martin. The mention still makes something inside of him perk up with irrational protective possessiveness, jealousy. Other people have been with Jon; for all Martin knows, they’re wistfully lingering in the shadows, pining away for their chance to steal him back for themselves. Who wouldn’t want to?
That’s completely ridiculous. Martin’s going to go ahead and pretend like that’s his vampire instincts talking, which can get stupidly teritorrial sometimes.
“In the distant past,” Sasha says. “An era passed and gone, done and over with. Like disco.”
“I wasn’t born when the disco era ended,” Jon says with great dignity.
“Seriously, though, how the hell did this happen?” Tim asks. He’s sitting up straighter now, his posture less loose and relaxed, like he’s paying more attention. Martin thinks about his worries and speculations from earlier, when he’d thought he was out of earshot. Thinking that Martin might be trying to use Jon, conning him. That would only feel more likely from a sudden boyfriend than from a sudden friend, Martin thinks.
“We kinda bumped into each other when Jon was on his way home from work one day,” Martin says lightly. He’d singled Jon out of the after work crowd and deliberately separated him from the pack like a predator, but it’s close enough to be easy to remember. Stick as close to the truth whenever you can. Less discrepancies to be possibly found. “We got to talking, one thing led to another, and I ended up impulsively asking him out. And here we are.”
Tim raises his eyebrows. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Martin says.
Tim doesn’t look entirely convinced; that’s fine. Martin’s pretty sure that the only thing that would convince him is just… time. Let him see Martin continue to date Jon, and not leave him once he’s gotten what he wants, or take advantage of him or make him miserable. Martin already intends to do that, with every fiber of his being. He’ll prove all of his worst suspicions wrong in time.
“I, ah, I realize that I haven’t been very forthcoming about all of this,” Jon says. “I simply… well. We’ve been together for a little over three months now, and I thought-- I thought that perhaps--”
Sasha flaps a hand in the air cutting him off. “You wanted to keep your boyfriend all to yourself for a while, and then you wanted to introduce him to your friends. Pretty natural. Thanks for telling us. But seriously-- did Martin just say that you agreed to a date after one meeting?”
One meeting for Jon; two for Martin. Jon’s memories of their first encounter was permanently lost, gently erased by Martin’s cautious orders.
“Well-- and so what if I did?” Jon demands, flustered.
Sasha grins. “Didn’t think you had it in you, is all.”
If Sasha had any wariness for Martin, it seems to have melted like cotton candy over the course of this meeting. Like she thinks he’s an especially unthreatening teddy bear or something.
“We, um,” Martin says. He can feel that banked heat in his cheeks again, and wonders just how visible it is. If he were still human, he’s certain it’d be a bright, rosy pink. He always blushed so easily. “We-- we hit it off pretty well, pretty quickly.”
Jon, despite all of his stiff, wary prickliness, was strange and charming enough to infatuate Martin almost immediately; and he’d also been crazy enough to accept Martin’s confession on some kind of mad whim too. He still has a hard time understanding that he was really that unbelievably lucky.
“I bet,” Sasha says. The way she says it makes Martin feel like he should be flushing even more, but he literally doesn’t have enough blood in his body to manage it. Not like that, he wants to protest, but knows he can’t.
“Martin was very… enthralling,” Jon says, apparently blissfully oblivious to Sasha’s obvious assumptions. It takes Martin a full moment to register what he actually said, at which point he physically can’t stop himself from leveling an incredulous, outraged look at him. Jon keeps his gaze pinned straight forward, his expression stubbornly wooden. Only his lips are very slightly twitching at the corners, betraying him. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Martin considers his options for all of a second, and then kicks Jon in the shin beneath the table. Jon winces slightly, but otherwise doesn’t react. He looks utterly unrepentant, the bastard.
Terrible sense of humor.
Martin loves him.
“Well, this calls for more drinks,” Tim declares. “To congratulate the happy couple!”
They leave about two hours later. Jon looks warm and flushed when they do, his jacket tied around his waist and his shirt partially unbuttoned, his hair in disarray, fresh sweat on his skin, his eyes slightly unfocused with drink, his movements loose and unbalanced. He’s not outright drunk, but definitely on the wrong side of tipsy. There’s a persistent smile on his lips, which makes Martin not regret a single moment of this night. All four of them pile out of the pub at once, practically spilling out onto the street. After the suffocating, crowded warmth of the pub, the first breath of fresh night air feels like an invigorating slap to the face.
Martin has to help Jon not lose his balance, probably unused to walking after spending hours crammed into the booth. Sasha almost does the same, wavering on her sensible office heels before Tim snags the crook of one of her arms for her. She cackles about something, loud and uninhibited.
“Oh, my,” Jon says, swaying before leaning his weight on Martin’s side. “I perhaps should have had one or two less drinks.”
Probably. It didn’t help that he’d had to keep sneaking sips of Martin’s drinks all night either.
“Go home, drink lots of water, sleep?” Martin suggests.
“One other thing first,” he says, which-- right. They’d talked about that too. Martin had sort of hoped he’d forgotten, with the drinks and friendly company and all. He’s about five times more tentative about this plan than he’d been the first one, and he’d been fairly tentative there.
But it had worked out alright, hadn’t it?
Martin shakes the strangely hopeful, optimistic thought off.
“Hey!” Tim calls out to them, too loudly for the short distance between them. “Want to go and get kebabs with us?”
“No, thanks!” Martin replies. “I get really nauseous when I drink! Not hungry!”
“Boo, you whore!” Sasha jeers. She’s definitely more than just tipsy.
“What?” Jon asks, blinking like a bewildered owl.
“Movie reference,” Martin says reassuringly, patting his arm. Turning back to Tim and Sasha, he gives them both his friendliest smile. “It was really nice meeting you guys! But we’re kinda tired, we’ll just go straight home now.”
Tim throws them a broad wave, before he and Sasha turn as a single, clumsy four legged entity to go down the sidewalk in a not entirely straight line, giggling with each other. Martin briefly considers trying to eavesdrop on them again, trying to see if they have anything else to say about him-- but decides not to. He doesn’t think he has to. They probably just think they’re going to go home to have giggly drunk sex or something; it doesn’t seem like Jon’s bothered to tell them that he doesn’t do that sort of thing.
Jon has his head tilted back, like he’s trying to find the stars in the night sky. It’s an impossible task, of course; the light pollution in London practically washes them out entirely.
“Good lord,” Jon says. “I didn’t even notice how little air there was in that building.”
“We can just go home if you want to,” Martin offers. “Do this some other night, when you’re feeling more… Well, sober?”
“I feel sober enough,” Jon says, giving Martin an askance look at the suggestion. “Especially now that we’re out of there. I just need… let's walk for a while, and I’ll be able to gather my bearings. Give me a moment.”
“Okay,” Martin says. He offers his arm to Jon, who takes it. They walk.
“That went well, didn’t it?” Jon says after a minute. “I’ve never actually done this before. Introduced a partner to people I know, I mean. Gran died less than a year after I moved out, before I had the chance to get into any relationships, and then-- well, I didn’t have anyone left to make introductions to.”
“I think it went alright,” Martin says reassuringly. Tim and Sasha had seemed to enjoy his company well enough, not counting any hidden reservations. They’d left happy and drunk, anyway. Maybe it was more like they’d enjoyed the excuse to drink. “Not that I’ve done this before either.”
“Really?” Jon asks. “You have your mother, don’t you?”
Martin’s mum doesn’t want to see him, much less any boyfriends he might make. He hasn’t even told her he’s gay; he doesn’t have to be a genius to be able to tell that nothing good would come of it. He hasn’t told Jon any of that. Maybe he should; he’s had a pretty harsh lesson in what a bad idea it is to try and hide all of his unpleasant problems from him. But… he’s got a lot of unpleasant problems, and he’s already told Jon a good chunk of them. He’ll just… he’ll tell him eventually. Later. Right now though, they’re having a good night. He doesn’t want to spoil it.
“That’s not the problem,” Martin says, which is a bit misleading. There’s no the problem. There’s a bit too many of them for that. “I haven’t… this is actually my longest relationship?”
Jon stares at him for a long moment. Blinks.
“We’ve been together for three months,” he says.
“Yeah,” Martin says. “I know.”
“You-- oh. Ohhh. That-- that actually makes sense?”
“Does it?” Martin asks dryly, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, you know, what with all of the-- the hiding secrets, and trying to be perfect and flawless, and, and all of that. Makes sense now.”
“I wasn’t trying to be perfect,” Martin defends himself. “I just-- I didn’t want to bother you, that’s all.”
Jon is shaking his head at him. “No, no, no. See, that’s wrong. Dating someone is bothering them. That's the point of it. You date someone so you have someone you can bother with all of your problems, and they can bother you with all of theirs. Because their problems are your problems, and vice verse-- vice versa.”
That sounds fake. Really, he has someone to help and support and care for… and then they’re supposed to return the favor? It sounds too… too generous, to Martin. Too good to be true.
But between the two of them, Jon’s got the most experience when it comes to relationships. Martin’s probably had more of them, but they were empty and fleeting, nothing meaningful or significant. No one willing to stick around for long, once it became clear that Martin’s… Martin. With all of the inconvenient baggage that entails.
He supposes he’ll just have to trust Jon on this.
“I feel better now,” Jon says. “Less dizzy. Do it.”
“What-- just like that? It takes a bit, Jon.”
“What about him?” Jon asks, pointing at someone. Martin hurriedly grabs his hand and pushes it down.
“Don’t point at them!”
“I-- alright, yes, fine. I’m sorry. What about that fellow with the long hair? He'll do, won’t he?”
Martin shoots a wary look in said man’s direction.
“No,” he says. “Look-- there’s a camera right over there.”
“So?” Jon asks. “It’ll simply look as if you’re exchanging a few words with him, before he follows you. It’s not as if he’ll think to file a report tomorrow.”
Martin shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t-- I want to be careful. And I haven’t checked any of the alleys nearby yet anyway. It’s better to already know what the place you’re going to looks like-- if there’s cameras there, or other people around, or if it’s too open.”
“That’s--” Jon says, and then visibly stops himself. “... Very well. You would know best. Let’s do that first, then.”
Looking around, Martin leads Jon to the nearest alley. Right off the bat, it actually looks perfect; it’s a deadend, there aren’t busy establishments to either side of it, it’s unoccupied, and there’s a large dumpster that should be easy to tuck behind, out of easy view from the street. There aren’t any cameras. Parking himself to the side of it, Martin takes his phone out of his pocket and holds it like he’s reading something on it, discreetly eyeing everyone who walks past them.
“What about her?” Jon asks. “The one with the tattoos up her neck?”
“She looks drunk.”
“So?”
“Makes it taste weird.”
“Oh. Well then… What about him? The large camo jacket.”
“He looks pretty thin… he might not be healthy enough for it.”
“The man with the shaved head.”
“He’s not alone.”
“So? Take both of them.”
“Jon, that’s way too risky.”
“It’s no wonder you’re half starved,” Jon says. “You’re far too picky.”
“I am not. I’m being cautious.”
“What about her, then?” Jon demands, gesturing with his head at a woman walking down the street, carefully keeping his hands behind his back like he needs to keep them in place to avoid any pointing. Martin looks at her, tries to find any flaws or potential risks. She’s alone, not on her phone, not walking a dog, isn’t wearing earbuds, looks healthy and sober enough from where he’s standing…
Martin, to his dismay, doesn’t see any reason not to take her. She’s a perfect mark. He has no reasons to say no.
“Are you… are you sure about this, Jon?” Martin tentatively asks. “This is-- it’s not going to look pretty from the outside, I think.”
“I think it sounds like a fascinating experience,” Jon says firmly. “Finally being able to see it from the view of a third party.”
“It’ll be boring for you, then,” Martin tries. “It-- it’s not like you’ll be able to have any yourself. You’ll just be watching me feed.”
“I’ll live through you vicariously,” Jon says staunchly. “And you know I like it when you eat. You don’t do enough of it as it is.”
Martin has no arguments for this.
“Hurry,” Jon says urgently. “She’s getting away.”
Martin hesitates for one more long moment-- and then he breaks out into movement, hurrying after the woman. Jon stays behind, watching him from a distance.
It’s a matter of moments to catch up to her, to tap her on her shoulder, to give her startled, cautious face a soothing but unyielding order, to lead her back towards the alley, her attitude going as placid and unresisting as a drugged lamb. Jon follows them into the alley, looking at the woman’s calm, blank face with unveiled fascination. Martin tries not to let self consciousness prickle across his skin too much, and instead focuses on gently pushing the woman back against the alley wall, hidden behind the dumpster.
“Tell me your name,” Martin says.
Off to the side, Jon makes a small, surprised noise.
“Olivia,” the woman breathes. Martin’s sure he’ll have forgotten it before the week is over. Or maybe Jon’s presence here is going to burn every second into his mind; who knows.
“I’m about to bite you,” Martin says, feeling Jon’s gaze on the side of his face like a tangible thing. He wonders if these are the exact words he’d first used on Jon, when they’d met months and months ago. If not, then they’re likely very close. He has a script. “But it won’t hurt. It’ll feel good. You’ll like it.”
“Okay,” the woman--Olivia--says, utterly trusting and accepting as Martin dictates exactly what he’ll do to her and exactly what she’ll feel about it.
“Once we’re done here, and I leave, you won’t remember any of this. Nothing strange or memorable will have happened tonight.”
Olivia nods-- and Martin gently but firmly takes hold of her jaw, pushing it up several inches until her throat is exposed and strained. When he lets go, she doesn’t move from the position he’s put her in. Martin leans in-- and hesitates.
Jon’s right there. He’s going to see Martin be a monster without any enthrallment clouding his senses, no intoxicating chemicals to dull the raw, ugly edges, nothing and nothing but the plain and simple reality of it. He’s going to see Martin.
There’s a hand on the back of his neck, as familiar as it is unanticipated.
“Come on,” Jon urges him, pressing down with the gentlest of pressure. “You can do it. You need to eat.”
Martin bites down on the woman’s throat. She cries out in almost the same motion, and he reflexively moves to press a hand over her mouth, muffling her voice. She moans into the palm of his hand, feebly squirming-- he presses more firmly against her with his entire body, trying to pin her nice and still. The effects of a bite automatically makes humans go limp and loose, so they won’t move around too much and potentially rip their own throats out on the vampire’s fangs-- whether this is for the vampire or the human’s benefit is a matter of opinion. Martin knows he’s in the minority.
Closing his eyes so there’s no chance of him catching a glance of Jon out of the corner of his vision, Martin drinks. He can’t stop himself from moaning into her throat at the first draught, just as muffled as her own voice against his hand. It feels so good, so desperately craved and wanted, like the first sip of water for a man who’s wandered a desert for days.
That pub had been pungent with human scents, bare skin sweating and tempting, people laughing and drinking, weak and off their guards. Martin could have taken any one of them off into a corner and taken his fill, and only looked as if he were necking with some drunk stranger.
If he was suicidally reckless, that is.
The woman clutches at him, and Martin can feel himself fall into the act of feeding, every single coherent thought in his head fading away and being drowned out as irrelevant compared to this, this vital, essential, all important thing. The world is stripped down and simplified, narrowing down to this single point, this single moment, this single act. Just this alley, Martin hid away in the dark with a woman ecstatic to have her blood taken from her-- and his dear thrall.
Jon’s still touching the back of his neck. He’s practically pressed up against his side, standing so close-- Martin can feel his breath on his face. Like he’s trying to get a good look.
“Is it good?” Jon asks, his voice hushed. Like he’s speaking in a church.
Martin hums affirmation into the woman’s throat, and Jon squeezes the nape of Martin’s neck once.
“Good,” he says, a little breathlessly. “That-- that’s very good.”
There’s movement, and Martin instinctively slits his eyes open to see. Jon’s hand, coming to rest on the unoccupied side of the woman’s throat, fingers seeking out her pulse. Martin closes his eyes again, content to just bask in the feeling of feeding the yawning hunger inside of him, instead of ignoring it.
A long, blissful, perfect minute passes like that, adrift in the simple but profound pleasure of feeding. And then there’s a gentle tug on his neck, Jon’s lips brushing against the shell of his ear.
“I think now would be a good time to, ah, to disengage. She’s getting paler.”
It takes a long moment for the sounds and syllables to come together as something coherent in his head, instead of just pure noise. Jon gives him another, slightly stronger tug, and then says more firmly, “Martin.”
How dare he try and stop him, some part of him thinks. The cold part, that part that doesn’t need to breathe, that can’t stand the sun. He doesn’t get to dictate when he’s had enough. He’s still hungry.
“We’ll find someone else,” Jon says reasonably, soothingly, as if he heard him. “She doesn’t have to be the only one. It can be a… a three course meal, of a sort. With me as dessert, perhaps?”
The idea of Jon as dessert is enough to abruptly snap Martin out of his stubborn, possessive mindset, like a bucket of water thrown at him. He stops drinking-- remembers that he has to close the woman’s wound before she ruins her shirt. By the time he finally comes up from her throat, her skin smooth and unmarred like nothing ever happened at all, Jon’s taken a step back, giving the two of them space. Martin blinks, trying to wrench his brain back into the proper gears, away from any weird, awful hindbrain instincts that demand he now and immediately push Jon up against the wall and take him as well.
“Are you--” Martin stops, clears his throat. “Do you feel okay?”
“I don’t--” Jon says.
“Yes,” the woman sighs out. Olivia. “I feel amazing.”
Of course she does. Martin probably shouldn’t even be asking that question; it’s kind of pointless. He can make any human feel euphoria at being bitten by him, no matter how bad it might be for them.
“Do you feel dizzy?” he asks her. “Faint?”
She gazes at him for a long moment, adoring but uncomprehending, her mind working like syrup slowly dripping from a spoon. Martin sees when comprehension clicks into place behind her blown out dark eyes.
“No,” she says simply. She takes another moment to think her answer over, before adding, “sleepy.”
“Where were you going before I stopped you?”
“Home.”
“Go home then. Lock the door behind you, take your shoes off, and sleep in your bed.” He thinks for a moment, and then adds, “drink a glass of water first.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, not a hint of irony in her voice. His victims call him-- stuff, sometimes. Whatever feels natural to them. It’s not like he gives them his name. Probably the most jarring one was when someone called him daddy.
“Good,” Martin says approvingly. “You did really well, Olivia. Go get some rest now.”
Olivia does a full body shiver at the praise, before moving to obey. Martin watches her go, watching the way she moves, if she sways or stumbles-- she doesn’t. That’s actually a bit unusual. Usually his thralls at least look a bit drunk by the time he’s done with them.
Usually he doesn’t have Jon here to stop him, though.
Martin braces himself, and then makes himself turn around to face Jon for the first time since he bit Olivia’s throat.
Jon has his head tilted slightly to the side, his gaze pinned to Martin. He’s always had a piercing stare, but it feels magnified now, like he’s a slide underneath a microscope.
He doesn’t look disgusted or scared. He hadn’t sounded that way earlier either.
“Um,” Martin says. “So. That’s… what it looks like. From the outside.”
It had been Jon’s idea. He’d been enthusiastic and firm about it, pushing for it, and Martin-- Martin hadn’t had a lot of strength to push against him. Not with how much he’s messed up so far, and with Jon still willing to forgive him and keep seeing him despite it.
“I love you,” Jon says, with a nod to himself almost like he’s coming to a unilateral decision, signing off on a piece of paperwork.
“You-- what?” Martin says, blinking. That had been about the last thing he’d expected to hear at that moment.
“I love you,” Jon repeats himself, like it’s nothing at all. “I realize I haven’t told you that before while not under any sort of influence-- or I suppose I am slightly inebriated, but you get what I mean. But I definitely love you.”
“I, thanks?” Martin replies, like a complete idiot. Jon, thankfully, doesn’t seem to take any offense.
“I just wanted to tell you,” he says. And then, unexpectedly changing the subject, he goes on. “Do you ask all of them for their names?”
“I-- yeah, I do. I’m-- I’m not really good at remembering all of them, but I try to.” It hadn’t occurred to Martin that Jon didn’t know about that little ritual of his, but how could he? Martin never told him, and he literally wiped his memory of that first time in that alley.
Jon nods slowly, as if taking that in.
“You were very attentive towards her,” Jon goes on. “Checking in with her afterwards.”
“I… I try to be. Listen, Jon, you-- I’m sorry you had to, to intervene like that.”
“I’m sure I didn’t have to,” Jon says. “You haven’t had any incidents yet, have you? Besides me. I just figured-- you drink every night from just one person, as much as you can take from them without leaving them too weak to get home. That’s just barely enough to get you by, not comfortably. Sometimes you drink from me as well, and then you do better. But you can’t drink from me every night; I don’t have enough blood for that. So what if you just… spread it out a bit? Just a touch more? Two or three victims a night, smaller quantities from each. Drink until you’re not hungry any longer.”
“With each person I take, the bigger the chance is that something goes wrong.”
“With each time you feed from someone while you’re half starving, the greater the chance is that something goes wrong. Trust me, Martin; you have excellent judgment when you’re clearheaded. You picked out your target cautiously and logically, you treated her gently and attentively-- I think you can do this. You don’t have to be hungry all of the time, Martin.”
But I deserve to be, flits through his mind. Martin opens his mouth to argue, and-- and he knows he can’t say that. Jon wouldn’t accept that. He’d tear the argument to pieces-- or worse, he’d look at Martin with that sad look on his face, like Martin’s broken his heart.
“I don’t know,” is all he says in the end, feeble and too little.
Jon closes the distance between them, his arms sliding up around his neck, squeezing him in a hug. Martin breathes in, and smells warm and alive blood coursing underneath skin-- and he smells mine mine mine. He hugs him back without thinking, squeezing him close and snug.
“It would make me very happy if you gave my idea a chance,” Jon says, as if he’s prepared the statement ahead of time, practiced it. Like he’s ready to defend this plan like it’s his dissertation. He probably is. “I want you to feel good, Martin. To be well fed.”
“I do too,” Martin mumbles into Jon’s hair, like it’s some sort of shameful secret. He doesn’t want to be hungry. Not really.
“Good,” Jon says fiercely. “I’m glad to hear it. Let’s enter a pact.”
Martin separates from the hug just enough to look Jon in the eye at that.
“A pact?” he asks.
“An eating pact,” Jon says firmly. “I’ll eat well and consistently, enough to be healthy and enough to feel full-- so long as you do the same.”
“... I’m literally mind controlling you to do that, Jon,” Martin says. Jon had, after much hemming and hawing and pondering, asked Martin not to lift the food order for now. Jon seems to enjoy the benefits of eating regularly, even if he’s more lukewarm on the mechanism that makes him do it. He’s confessed to Martin that it feels much more eerie now that he’s aware of it, and that he can’t help but notice it every time now.
“And you should be considerately making up for my lack of ability to do the same to you by listening to my requests,” Jon says. “It’s the only fair thing to do.”
“Is it,” Martin says.
“Yes, it is. It’s not as if I’m asking for anything unreasonable.”
He’s asking for Martin to assault twice, if not thrice as many people on a nightly basis.
“That’s…”
“Please?” Jon asks.
And just like that, Martin feels some last resistance deep inside of him topple and crumble.
“Okay,” he hears himself say, and watching the way Jon lights up as he takes in Martin’s words is like getting to see the sunrise again. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’ll try and eat more.”
He means it, too.
“Good,” Jon says firmly, and then comes up on his toes to press a kiss to Martin’s lips, like a seal of approval on a contract well negotiated. Martin lingers in it for a long, happy moment, before it ends. He blinks his eyes back open, grasping for an earlier thought he’d had.
“... Did you really mean that about you being my dessert?”