Chapter Text
Jon finally has the layout of the flat he’s been trapped in for four days. Though, admittedly, ‘having the layout’ is mostly a particularly grandiose way of saying that he’s finally felt brave enough to leave the bedroom. He had some notion of trying to stay awake during the day, truly explore his surroundings while his captor was in his deep, deathlike slumber. That quickly proved to be impossible. He is forced to explore at night.
It was not a flat. More accurately it would be described as some sort of town house. A master bedroom, two guest rooms, and two bathrooms (one attached to the master, one its own room) were on the first floor. On the ground floor, a kitchen, living room, den, and some sort of office. It’s the sort of thing that does not look extravagant, until you realize it is located in London, and the property taxes alone must cost more than a semester of courses at Oxford. Jon does not even entertain the notion of him renting. What sort of immortal undead parasite pays rent? He’s almost certainly a landlord himself. Late on this month’s check? Well, perhaps we can come to some other arrangement…
Jon shakes off the image. He’s thoroughly explored the house, avoiding the den. It’s occupied. The first thing Jon did was search the kitchen for knives. The fact he found one, a bright and sharp chef’s knife, almost makes him more anxious. If a knife would be effective, surely Jon wouldn’t be able to just reach into a drawer and grab one? He still keeps it. Perhaps this creature of the night has underestimated him.
Knife in hand, Jon stands before the front door. He has to see if it was a fluke, or a moment of anxiety, or even a dream.
Open the door, he thinks to himself. It isn’t even locked.
Nothing happens. Jon’s body does not move. Worse still, there’s an unshakeable sensation that he’s being ridiculous. Requesting his body to open the door feels about as realistic as requesting it to sprout wings and a tail. There’s no path for the signals to travel. It’s an idle fantasy at best.
He snarls. There’s a pantry in the kitchen. He goes to it, and with hardly even a thought, opens the door. The contents of the shelves entirely escape him, because Jon is too busy opening and closing the door. Open, close, open, close, as easy as anything! He marches back to the front door, arm already outstretched and--
Jon stops. His hand will not make contact with the knob. He glares at the distance, like if he concentrates enough he’ll be able to force the two to connect. His muscles don’t strain against some invisible force, nothing physical is stopping him, it just… isn’t possible. Jon looks at this unlocked door and sees an impossible obstacle he could never hope to move.
He’s considering trying to simply touch the door when he hears “Jon.”
He flinches, both hands coming up to hold the knife tight.
“Come here.”
Jon takes a step before he gets control of himself. It’s a trick, part of what’s been done to him to keep him confined here. The vampire has altered his mind, obviously. That’s the only explanation for Jon’s desire to go to the den, to follow the voice, to be-- it doesn’t matter. Because Jon isn’t going to budge from this spot, not for anything. He is going to resist.
“Jon.”
He moves. Practically hops to it, and by the time Jon’s realized what’s happened, he’s already in the den. As he stands there, a feeling swims through him, starting at his head and sweeping down through the rest of him. It feels like a lot of things, but the closest comparison Jon can draw is that it feels like inhaling a desperately needed drag in an alley, nicotine flooding through his veins and taking the edge off the world.
The vampire is leaning forward now, his book sat on the table beside him. He looks Jon over, idly lingering on the knife, before looking back at Jon’s face. He smiles, that damned, horrible, sickening condescending smile, and says “You don’t have to carry that around, Jon. You’re safe here.”
Jon barks out a laugh without humor. “I am demonstrably unsafe here. You’ve kidnapped me. You’ve bitten me. You stripped me!” Jon says, waving the knife as he gestures. “Nothing about any of that is what a sane person would call safe, Martin!”
He spits the name like it’s something foul. The tall, broad, fat man with pale freckles and slightly curled auburn hair looks a lot more like a Martin than a vampire. Nothing about him even looks especially threatening, nevermind anything like an undead nightmare with some sort of hypnosis powers.
He’s unphased by Jon’s outburst. “They needed a wash.” Martin replies, utterly shameless. “Your new clothes will be here in a few days, and I said you can always--”
“I am not wearing any more of your cast offs!”
Martin looks him over, then shrugs like it makes no difference to him. “Alright. In the meantime…” He leans back, and pats on his lap. “Up here, come on.”
Jon’s heart stops. His grip on the knife tightens, knuckle white. In his haste to explore, to finally learn something about this place he’s been confined for four full days, he’s forgotten something very important. Martin hasn’t fed yet tonight.
He has a knife. A knife is a weapon. Jon could, at this moment, rush forward, throw his entire body weight into it. Take Martin by surprise, hurt him, and find some way out of the house. He could crawl out the window, or maybe whatever he’s done to Jon will stop if he’s distracted. All Jon has to do is hurt the man who’s held him captive for days, and then he can flee, go out into London and get help.
The knife feels heavy in his hands. Martin still smiles, waiting for Jon to follow his orders. Jon takes a step forward. Another. Another. He’s right in front of Martin now, standing over him. The tip of the blade is within inches of Martin’s eye. He hasn’t moved, or stopped smiling.
Jon’s hands begin to shake. The idea of stabbing Martin, of hurting him, Jon can barely even comprehend it. Is that another bit of manipulation? But Jon isn’t a violent man, he’s never even been in a proper fight, let alone stabbed someone. Martin is just sitting in his worn down armchair; there isn’t anything threatening about him. It would be so much easier if Martin was looming over him, or backing Jon against the wall, or even just approaching. But he’s not. He’s just sitting there.
He only notices Martin is moving when he feels the knife shift in his hands. Dragged violently back to reality, he sees Martin taking the knife, pinching the blade between his thumb and two fingers. He doesn’t snatch it out of Jon’s grip. The motion is calm and over as soon as Jon has become aware of it. He doesn’t have the knife anymore. Martin puts it down, next to his book.
“Thank you, Jon.”
“For what?” Jon says. It comes out tentative, and confused.
“For letting go of the knife when I took it. That was very good.”
Good shivers up and down Jon’s spine, nicotine and chocolate and arms around him all at once. Jon shudders under the sensation.
“Come here, Jon. Up.”
Whatever resistance Jon has flees, and he crawls into Martin’s lap. He’s not even cool to the touch. He’s warm, like he’s alive.
Martin tilts Jon’s head, and following that without resistance sparks more pleasure. It only magnifies when Martin bites down.
It starts in a bar.
Jon would be loath to admit to it, but the truth is that he has spent most of his time in bars since he graduated from Oxford. Nursing beers and wine and (very occasionally) cocktails, sipping slowly and sparingly, ending nights barely tipsy and with bartenders giving him nasty looks for taking up valuable space without spending much actual money. Jon usually glares back. He’s gotten kicked out of a few establishments for that, but it’s London. There are always more bars.
His degree is sitting in the envelope it arrived in, not even hung up anywhere. He graduated with top marks from Oxford, and yet all he can bring himself to do is to sit in bars, listen to people talk around him, and drink. It’s significantly better than sitting in his empty flat and drinking. He can’t stand being there for more than a few hours at a time, not since Georgie--
Jon takes a deep swig of his warm and flat beer, finishing it off. He asks the bartender for another. It will be his third in three hours. This bartender, a stout woman with short hair, doesn’t pay him any mind. This isn’t the sort of bar where space is at a premium, so Jon is allowed to mope as much as he pleases.
Moping. That’s really all he’s doing. Still moping about being dumped, months later. He’s chewed through a significant chunk of his inheritance from his Grandmother, and knows in his bones she would be deeply disappointed and (even worse) exhausted by Jon’s antics. He hasn’t sent off a single job application. He’ll have to, soon. His rent isn’t being paid with a scholarship anymore.
Instead Jon sits there and drinks his beer. It’s terrible, but it slips the world just slightly out of focus, enough that Jon can shamelessly listen to conversation around him. Take in the presence of other people. He doesn’t like bars that are truly empty, just him and the person serving drinks. There has to be at least a few other people, talking and laughing. If it’s quiet, Jon could just get drunk for much cheaper in his own flat.
He might have to resort to it soon. Despite it being a few hours until closing time, the background din has been steadily dropping as groups finish their drinks and wander off into the warm summer night. Laughing and smiling together, some with their arms around each other.
Christ, this is getting ridiculous. Jon downs his drink and is just about to ask for the check when someone sits down at the bar next to him.
“Did you just finish that?” he says. It takes Jon a moment to realize he’s being spoken to, and another moment to actually turn and look at the man. What catches Jon’s attention first are his freckles. They're lighter than Jon’s seen before, pale pink spots on his face. When he blinks and tries to take in the whole, he sees a perfectly average man, occupying that age where Jon is certain he’s older, but unsure by how much. A round face like that could be anywhere from twenty five to thirty nine. Auburn hair, combed but not in any particular style, no spots of gray, completely unlike the steadily growing patches by Jon's temples. “Let me buy you another.”
“I’m not interested,” Jon says. He finds that it’s better to make that explicitly clear as soon as possible.
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” the man says with a laugh. “You seem like you could use a bit of friendly conversation, that’s all.”
“Yes, a delightfully friendly conversation before you spike my drink.”
“Damn,” he says. "Saw right through me. There go all my plans for the evening.”
Despite himself, and almost certainly because of the beer, Jon snorts. The man takes that as a positive sign, and before Jon can say anything else he flags down the bartender. “Two more of what he’s having, on me, please.”
“You’re going to end up drinking those yourself. I’m not much for conversation.” Jon doesn’t stand up, though. Normally, when he’s rude and snippy at anyone desperate enough to approach him, they snap back and walk off, usually tossing some insult over their shoulder on the way. This is… a not unpleasant change of pace.
“That’s alright.” He smiles and nods to the bartender when she returns with their beers. He takes a small sip before continuing. “If you don’t want to talk, we can just share a drink.”
Jon shrugs. He saw their beers being poured, and decides one drink with a friendly stranger can’t hurt anything. “If it’s all the same to you.” Jon takes his own small sip.
The first drink really is just them, sitting in silence. Jon nurses his beer, but Martin puts him to shame, barely any gone from his glass by the time Jon’s finished his.
“Slow drinker,” Jon blurts out. He frowns at himself. That was a rude thing to say to someone, wasn’t it? The beer must have affected him a bit more than he thought. Granted, he is perfectly capable of suddenly saying rude things while stone cold sober.
Martin doesn't seem to mind. “Oh, yeah, just a nasty habit from when money was tight.”
Jon raises a glass in solidarity. “Your Uni days?”
“I wish. Never had the chance. Maybe someday, though.” There’s something honestly wistful in the man’s eyes that makes Jon think he’s telling the truth. “What about you?”
“Uh, recent graduate, actually.”
The man smiles. “Congratulations! Where from?”
Jon coughs, hunches up his shoulders. “Um. Oxford?”
“What, really? Wow. Look at me, talking to an Oxford graduate.” The man reaches across and gives Jon a firm pat on the back. “Let me buy you another beer, so we can properly toast to it.”
“Oh, that’s really--”
But it’s too late, he’s gotten the bartender’s attention. This really is the time Jon should make his excuses and leave, he’s already heading towards being more inebriated than he’d prefer, but… Georgie and him broke up a month before graduation. He hadn’t gotten the chance to really celebrate with anyone, had he? Once that thought enters his head it’s impossible to shake. He can’t let it burrow in, nest in his gray matter. It would never leave.
One toast with a kind stranger. That’s a pleasant enough memory, isn’t it?
The bartender hands Jon his beer and tidies the empty glasses away. The man holds his own glass, now half full and starting to go flat, up toward Jon.
“A toast, to the graduate.”
“Jon,” he says, raising his own glass. “I’m Jon.”
“A toast to Jon, then. And to new beginnings.”
They toast, and they drink. Jon takes a hearty gulp, to try and distract from the heat in his cheeks.
“I’m Martin, by the way,” he says. “And if you don’t mind indulging, I’d love to hear about what going to Oxford is actually like. Can’t imagine it’s as cracked up as they make it out to be.”
“Hardly.” Jon takes another deep drink of his beer. “First of all, almost everyone there is entirely too rich to be sensible--”
Things get a bit fuzzy in Jon’s memory, after that. Martin is the perfect listening audience, gasping and commiserating and laughing in all the right places. He knows he went on at length, through several more beers, though Martin only had a few. Or, did he only have the one? It’s hard to say, Jon wasn’t paying much attention to his own drinks, nevermind Martin’s. All he knows is that they talk for a good long while. It’s nice. It’s the first extended conversation Jon’s had in ages.
They end up in a booth, at some point. Jon thinks Martin suggested it, with some light hearted griping about the barstools being unfit for purpose. He remembers laughing, and he remembers sitting down in a plush, out of the way corner booth. It’s late now, very late, but a new wave comes in, not young people having fun, but regulars coming in once all the loud kids have left.
“You climbed the fence?” Martin says, aghast, but in a sort of incredulous, delighted way.
“Well it-- it was the fastest way out! Georgie did it first. No hesitation at all, so of-- of course I had to follow! Besides, it was chain link. It’s really not that hard to climb. Wasn’t even any barbed wire.”
Martin laughs. “So I assume you both got away, seeing as you aren’t currently rotting away in some jail?”
“Yes, yes, yes, not even-- not even a scratch on either of us.” For a moment, Jon’s pleased, lost in the memory of that wild night. The way Georgie had cackled, laughing all the way back to their flat, pulling him into a manic twirl--
“She sounds like a hell of a friend,” Martin says.
“Girlfriend,” he automatically corrects. Then, less automatically, “Ex-girlfriend.” All at once, Jon’s light and fuzzy mood sinks down to the sticky bar floor.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Jon.”
“It was months ago.”
“But you’re still upset.”
He doesn’t reply. He tries to make his face stop doing whatever it’s doing that’s making Martin look at him like that. He goes for another drink, and finds his beer empty.
“Here, have mine,” Martin says, handing it off. Jon takes it without hesitation. Some part of him notes that it’s flat, and warm, but Jon’s was too before he finished it, so he doesn’t pay it that much mind. “It’s always terrible, losing someone.”
“She’s not lost. Just gone.”
“Still. I hope you had someone to talk to, after all that.”
Jon doesn’t say anything for a while. Martin looks at him, eyes deep and patient, and Jon says “No one. I didn’t-- my friends were her friends, and they-- I was never as close with them. It made sense. Tried to keep in contact out of pity but-- no.”
Martin hmms. “Well, always family, right?”
Jon can’t help it. He laughs. It’s the big landmine everyone he talks to steps on eventually, and it being in the middle of this conversation is so perfectly awkward it’s honestly hysterically funny. “No. Not for me. Little orphan Jonathan Sims, and my Gran died last year. Just me, these days, just me, myself, and I.”
The urge to sing some song about being lonely rises up in his head, but Jon’s not that drunk. Yet. He is very, very drunk, though. Drunk enough to not notice the way Martin’s expression and body language shift. He only sees it in retrospect.
“Maybe you’ll make friends with coworkers. You’ve sent out job applications, right? Put that fancy new degree to work?”
Jon waves a dismissive hand. “I’ll get to it. Soon. Tomorrow! Tomorrow is good, right? It’s a Monday. That’s a great day for sending out job applications. Or, finding them. Whichever, the principle is the same.”
“Yes,” Martin says, a strange softness in his voice. “Yes I suppose it is.”
Jon takes a drink, then, a deep and long one. It’s almost, but not quite, the last thing Jon remembers from that night.
The last thing he remembers is Martin saying, with a voice even now Jon can barely describe, “Jon. Listen to me very closely…”
From there, only darkness.
Jon wakes up in a dark, strange room, feeling like absolute crap.
A thick, heavy ache is perched behind his temples. It clatters around, making such a nuisance of itself that Jon’s tempted to roll over and go back to sleep out of spite. But when he reaches for a familiar pillow to drag over his head, he doesn’t find it. He finds strange, smooth sheets, and pillows with stitching he doesn’t recognize. That, more than the headache and the dry mouth, are what pull Jon into being properly awake.
He sits up, and takes a moment to let his eyes adjust. It’s dark, and he’s in a very large bed, something ridiculous like a queen. The blankets are heavy and warm, though they don’t match the thick, dark curtains Jon can see covering the window. It must still be night, with this little light coming through.
Jon’s glasses are sitting on the nightstand, next to his phone and wallet. He’s still fully clothed, even wearing his socks, which he usually can’t stand in bed. Jon’s memories of the night before are hazy, scattered, but he remembers another man, and he remembers how much he drank.
That’s not entirely unheard of, for him, though it has been a long time. He's really only been that drunk after a night out with a large group. For obvious reasons, this hasn’t happened in a while. The memory of how he used to act around Georgie after a few too many taunts him. This poor man (Martin, he remembers) probably had to deal with a stranger, practically blackout drunk on just beer, plastering himself all over him and refusing to let go. Georgie used to call him a cuddle bug, when he got drunk.
That’s not important. What is important is getting out of Martin’s flat before he embarrases himself any further.
Gathering up his things, Jon stands. His shoes aren’t in immediate view, but that’s fine. They’re probably by the door, and if they aren’t, he can search more thoroughly. Jon hardly walked here barefoot, right? So he’ll find his shoes, and he’ll leave before he can do anything to embarrass himself any further.
There’s an eerie stillness to these rooms. They’re dark, and Jon isn’t so interested in the time he’s willing to blast away his night vision checking his phone. He’ll figure out what to do once he’s left. First things first, getting out of here.
The bedroom opens into a hall, which, even with the large room and the big bed, is the last thing Jon expects. His world has been dominated by dorm rooms and student flats for years, and right now he lives in a studio that’s pretending a slightly larger closet is a bedroom. He’s beginning to realize that whatever Martin does for a living, it must pay rather handsomely.
At the end of the hall, there are stairs down. Jon takes them, for lack of anywhere else to go. At the bottom, a quick look around reveals a living space Jon doesn’t really parse, and what is clearly the front door. It even has his shoes next to it. Relief courses through him. He’ll put on his shoes, and then he’ll go home, and try to forget this absolutely mortifying indiscretion ever happened. Perhaps aided by going back to sleep. For some reason, exhaustion nips at his heels, even though he just woke up. Maybe he only slept a few hours? A glance at the front windows reveal only more thick, heavy curtains, but if he’s this tired, it must still be night.
His eyelids sink heavily down, and he forces them back up as he tries to force on his shoes without bending over. The left heel gets awkwardly crushed, irritating but tolerable. He’ll fix it while he’s waiting for the tube. Jon reaches for the doorknob and-- stops.
“There you are.”
Jon just about leaps out of his skin. He turns, and is met with Martin. He’s got an exasperated and yet fond look on his face, an affection Jon in no way reciprocates or understands. He crashed in this man’s bed last night after getting black out drunk in his presence, why is he looking at Jon like that?
“Come on, it’s far too late to be out and about,” Martin says, with a casual and complete certainty. “Best be getting back to sleep.”
“I-- I’m not--” Jon, despite himself, pauses to yawn an absolutely jaw cracking yawn, “tired.”
“Yes you are,” Martin says. “Come back to bed, love. You need your rest. You have a big day tomorrow.”
If Jon wasn’t already halfway to falling asleep where he stood, that would have alarmed him. If Jon understood what Martin was, what Martin had done to him, it would have caused him to panic. If Jon knew what exactly was going to be big about tomorrow, he would have scrambled, futily, for any way out of Martin’s house.
But Jon doesn’t know any of those things. “A-alright,” Jon says. “Apologies for--” he yawns again, briefly. “For the intrusion. I’ll be… I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”
Martin chuckles, just slightly, but offers no other response. He turns, and heads towards the stairs. He must have been in some other room on the ground floor, and Jon was just too out of it to notice him. Jon follows him, trailing behind without questioning why.
Exhaustion has almost completely overtaken him by the time they’re back in Martin’s room. So much so, that when Martin pulls back the covers and gets into bed himself, Jon doesn’t think to question it at all. He simply follows, and when Martin opens his arms, Jon cuddles in close.
“Good boy,” Martin whispers in Jon’s ear.
Jon falls asleep precisely as the sun begins to rise, hidden behind heavy duty black out curtains.