Work Text:
Jean didn’t know his name. He knew he had pitch black hair and big brown eyes. He knew his hands felt freezing cold, but the way they danced together felt burning hot. He could barely remember walking in with his friends, being dragged over to the bar and ordering nothing but a water.
The man’s hands pressed against his chest, and Jean swore there must have been something in his drink after all for how dizzy he felt. The floor seemed to move, the bodies around him were more like walls, and the man in front of him was shoving him against one. He grinned and Jean grinned back.
“I don’t think I told you my name,” the man whispered. Jean didn’t know how he could hear it above the pounding of the music. He was too distracted by how soft his lips looked around sharp white teeth to think about it.
“No, I don’t think you did,” he answered.
“It’s Marco.” And then he grinned.
Somehow that took Jean’s breath away, especially when Marco turned around and pressed against him again. The crowd might as well have disappeared. Jean could barely keep his balance, focusing on the way Marco’s body felt on his. He already knew he couldn’t keep up, that Marco was much better at all this than him.
But Marco’s freezing hands reached back to grab his and pull them onto his hips. Jean’s breath hitch, and he could hear Marco chuckle. “Follow my lead,” he told him, and swung his hips very deliberately back onto him.
Jean distantly heard the music change, and Marco seemed to shift accordingly, his movements softer but just as hot, each one sending a shiver up Jean’s spine as he held onto Marco’s hips and tried to move his own the same way.
“I love this song,” Marco whispered, only turning around to wrap his arms around Jean’s neck. His lips were barely an inch from Jean’s, but all Jean could do was swallow hard. Marco smirked. “Come on, haven’t you ever heard of dirty dancing?”
His hands took Jean’s again, pushed them enough down from his hips so they could slide up under his shirt to run along his back. It was just as cold there, but seemed to warm impossibly fast under Jean’s hands. Marco tilted his head and smiled. “I think I like dancing with you,” he whispered.
Jean couldn’t stop himself from leaning down to kiss Marco. Jean didn’t know how to describe the feeling. Marco’s lips were like ice, but the way he smiled into the kiss felt so hot. Jean closed his eyes and melted into it.
Hands in his hair, bodies moving all around him, the ground rocked underneath them. Something sharp in Marco’s mouth nipped his lower lip and made it bleed. He only moaned and slid his hands farther up Marco’s back, lifting his shirt and making Marco laugh.
When they pulled apart, Jean’s eyes barely fluttered open. Marco looked at him curiously before saying, “Why don’t we take this somewhere more private?”
Marco seemed to carve a path for them, never touching anyone but never asking for more room. With his hand in Jean’s, he led them through the swarming dancers to a door near the stage where the DJ flooded the building with music, and pushed it open with only a smile back at Jean.
The alley between the club and the building next to it was startling quiet. Marco filled the silence with a soft, breathless laugh, crowding Jean against the wall and putting his arms around his neck again. Jean couldn’t help but smile as Marco kissed him again.
There was something about Marco’s kiss. It made Jean feel blurry. His skin burned, his head spun. When Marco caught his lower lip between his teeth and sucked, his whole body shuddered.
But he couldn’t stop grinning. To the point where Marco had to pull back and say, “I can’t kiss you if you smile that wide, you know.”
Jean eyes fluttered open again, and he found his forehead pressed against Marco’s. Deep dark eyes were staring up into his. It took his breath away. “Can’t help it,” he answered. “You’re a good kisser.”
Marco smiled a little at that. “It helps that you taste good.”
Jean raised one eyebrow and smirked. “Oh yeah?”
Marco’s eyes studied his for a long moment, and his smile seemed to fall. Jean began to wonder if he’d said something wrong when Marco sighed and pulled away from him.
“Are… are you okay?” Jean asked, eyes wide in surprise.
Marco backed away from him, crossing his arms slowly over his chest. “No…” he whispered. “Not really.” He looked down at his feet and raised his hand as warning when Jean attempted to step closer.
“Listen…” he whispered, looking up at Jean again. This time, as he spoke, Jean could see something different about his mouth. Poking out and pressing against his plush bottom lip were what almost looked like… fangs.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Marco said softly. He tilted his head at Jean. “There’s something different about you… I can’t really put my finger on it.”
Jean stared at him dumbfounded. “You don’t… what now?”
Marco blinked at him before starting to laugh. “Sorry, I guess I’m being a little cryptic.” He grinned wide, and there was no mistaking it--those were fangs in his mouth. Each canine was at least an inch longer than they should have been. “I was going to eat you. I do that a lot. But I’ve changed my mind, so you should probably go.”
Jean stared at him, not sure how he should feel. Whatever Marco was, it wasn’t human, clearly. But still…
Some part of Jean was still drawn to him. Something about his pale skin and copious freckles… something about the darkness of his eyes, something about the way his teeth glinted in the light of the moon. Something about the way he’d kissed Jean maybe…
“What are you?” Jean asked, not even quite sure why he was asking.
Marco for his part looked surprised as well. Maybe no one had asked him that before--or at least they’d never sounded genuinely curious and not horrified. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m none of your business,” he snapped, and marched past Jean, disappearing through the door and into the club again without another word.
Jean knew somehow that even if he chased after him, he’d have already disappeared into the crowd.
“I can’t believe you really like this place!” Sasha giggled at Jean’s side. They’d already come back twice in one week, something rare for Jean no matter the place.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jean answered, and although he was clearly distracted, searching the crowd for something, Sasha answered excitedly.
“I mean, you hate going out dancing. You’re more of a frat party kind of guy I think.”
Jean took a moment to give Sasha an unimpressed glare. She only giggled in response. “Anyway,” she sang, “I’m gonna go see if I can’t seduce some hot guy--or girl--or both.”
She waved him goodbye at the bar before disappearing into the crowd, leaving him with his water alone.
Jean’s knuckles were white around his glass. Her words couldn’t help but remind him of the creature he’d met the other night. He could still remember the taste of his lips and how cold his hands were. He’d tried to research, but wasn’t sure how to look up whatever Marco was. A werewolf, a wendigo, a zombie. He’d settled on vampire and shivered at the very thought. He seemed different from what he’d always thought a vampire would be. There was something warmer in the way he laughed. There was something meaner in the way he bared his teeth.
He didn’t notice someone walking up to him until he was standing right in front of him. He followed up the man’s pants and shirt until he met his dark, dark eyes. “Hello again,” Marco said. His expression was more confused than welcoming though. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Jean smiled sheepishly. “Likewise.”
Marco tilted his head at him and then slid into the seat beside him. “What brings you here again?” To anyone listening in, it might have seemed like they were flirting. Jean however could hear the hidden question. After what Marco had revealed to him, why in god’s name would he come back?
Especially if there had been no promise that Marco wouldn’t change his mind.
“I was hoping I’d see you again,” he admitted, swirling the lemon in his drink around in circles.
Marco raised his eyebrows at that, and to Jean’s surprise, began to smile. “Is that so? What exactly were you hoping would happen if you did?”
Jean looked at him then, studying his face the same way Marco had done a million years ago it seemed. “Maybe I was hoping we could dance again?”
Marco hummed, and Jean didn’t realize they’d been leaning closer and closer, until he found himself only a few inches from Marco’s face. But they didn’t kiss like they had before. “Sorry,” he said. “I was planning to dance with someone I might actually have fun with.”
As he said it, he opened his mouth wide and revealed those fangs again. “But why don’t you come back tomorrow night. We could talk a little more.”
He whipped away, and Jean watched as he sauntered up to another man sipping a beer. They flirted for a bit before Marco took his hand and dragged him into the crowd. He flashed Jean a look as he did that told Jean this man wasn’t going to get the same treatment Jean had gotten.
But somehow that only made Jean smile wider.
So he came back.
Every few nights, he’d meet Marco by the bar, sipping lemon water and asking questions.
“Having fun and having a meal are two different things,” Marco explained.
“I like when they’ve had a bit to drink beforehand. It’s the only way I get buzzed.”
“Of course I like dancing. How do you think I got so good?”
“No I only came to this place a few months ago.”
“I think you’re the only one that’s ever made an impression.”
Sometimes though, it seemed Marco had eaten before Jean came to visit. Jean could tell in how red and flushed Marco’s lips were, or how languid and sensual his dancing became. On those nights, his palms were warmer when he led Jean’s hands to his hips. Sometimes they’d sneak out back and talk..
Marco would tell him he was pretty much what a human would call a vampire, though he wasn’t exactly undead, though he wasn’t exactly a million years old, though he didn’t exactly sparkle in the moonlight (“unless you’re looking for it,” he added with a glinting smile).
Marco would tell him he was different from other humans, though he couldn’t say exactly how or why, or what it was that made Marco spare him a few pints of blood that first night (only that he was glad he had).
Sometimes they’d sneak out back and talk--but sometimes it was better.
“Tastes like wine,” Marco explained, lapping at the wounds on Jean’s hip. He smiled up at Jean from where he knelt on his knees. “Dry, sweet, thick.”
Jean snickered and said, “I fucking hate wine.”
But every night, when Jean found Sasha in the crowd again, drunk off her ass and flirting with some unsavory character, he’d tell Marco he had to get her home, and realize he didn’t want to leave.
As the weeks passed, Marco found better places to bite, Jean found better questions to ask. “So if you’re not exactly a vampire, what are you?”
“Something ancient, probably.”
“If you don’t kill anyway, why did you spare me?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to scare you away.”
“If you don’t sparkle in the moonlight, what happens to you in the sun?”
“I burn. Unless…”
“Unless?”
Marco looked at him in that curious way he had. Wondering if Jean was sincere or why he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve where he could sink his teeth into it. “Unless I use an umbrella.” He smiled. “What, were you expecting some big secret?”
Jean raked a hand through his hair, smiling sheepishly. “Well, not exactly…”
“Why do you want to know anyway? It’s not like we’ll ever see each other when they sun is up.”
Jean frowned, hands curling into fists to stop from wringing nervously around each other. He’d been hoping for a segue like this, but wasn’t sure how to follow it up before the moment left.
Lucky for him, Marco was good at staying silent for a long period of time. Studying him with those ever dark eyes, reddened lips shut in a supple line.
“Well… why can’t we?”
Marco raised his eyebrows, an amused expression taking over his face. “Because I burn in the sunlight?”
“Not with an umbrella,” Jean said, not meaning to sound nearly as much like a smart aleck as he did.
Marco only chuckled. “Say I bring an umbrella. What would we do?”
Jean’s mouth felt dry but he smiled wide. “Dinner? A movie?”
“How quaint. I can’t exactly eat human food.”
“How about coffee?”
“I could… stomach it.”
“Then… it’s a date?”
Marco’s smile told Jean that it was.
So it was.
And the next day, when Jean walked up to the cafe down the street from the club, he could tell where Marco sat from the umbrella covering him from the sun, and he knew this wouldn't be their last date.