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There were a lot of things people got wrong, about vampires. A lot they got more or less right, but a lot they got wrong, as well. For example: he could drink blood from anyone, if he wanted. It would sustain him, technically. But he doesn't want to, not unless things changed drastically and he had no other choice.
He doesn't know what it is about certain people that makes their blood so much more appealing- so much more filling- than others'. He just knows that he can tell, from the barest whiff of a person, and that the comparison between feeding from someone who smells good (a bloodbag, someone who's meant to be fed on, he's learned many of his peers think. It doesn't sit right with the part of him that was human, but he doesn't always listen to that part of himself anymore. Something dulled many of those qualms after he Changed, something that feels fundamental to his brain chemistry in the same way it felt like a revelation when he entered his twenties and the hysterical and emotional parts of his mind were suddenly so much quieter, so much more willing to take a back seat and let him think instead of forcing him into pointless tears) and feeding from someone who doesn't is similar to the difference between living on a normal diet and eating only food scraps dug from the trash. Livable, maybe, for a time. But not something someone would choose, given the option.
He's noticed variation between the people who do smell right, as well. Maybe there's some vital vampire nutrient that only some people produce adequately, and the whole of humanity exists on a sliding scale. Maybe he'd know these answers if his sire wasn't as absent in this life as his father was in his first.
The sliding scale idea matters, though, because some people don't just smell good, they smell mouth-watering. The human equivalent of the gust of fresh-bread smell wafting out the doors of a bakery. His mum, for example.
And the man he just bumped into on the Tube, for another.
-
He doesn't need to ride the Tube- could get around perfectly well other ways, and more efficiently besides. He does it to look for people who smell right; he doesn't need to do that, either. He's kept perfectly well fed with his current supply of bloodbags. Compassionate, human Martin thinks that subjecting people to that life unnecessarily, without even asking, is cruel.
But human Martin is dead. When he's particularly loud, the Martin that still lives tells himself that he's not being greedy, just expanding his options. Mum won't live forever, but he'll still need to eat. It wouldn't be fair to Sasha to support him all on her own, even if it's probably technically possible. It's hardly fair to her now. They checked how often normal blood donations can be given, when this was new and they were experimenting, and she's giving to him twice as often as she would be allowed to if it was a regular blood donation. They think that whatever makes bloodbags more appealing than other humans might help them bounce back faster, but according to medical guidelines he probably ought to have four of them, not just two. There are lots of rational excuses.
When that part of his brain is silent, though, he admits that he's not motivated by any of that. He could be glutting himself on blood and he thinks he would still want more.
-
Once he has Martin's attention, he has it in more ways than one. The only person Martin's ever met who smells quite that good is Mum. Maybe the smell's messing with his perception somehow, but the man is gorgeous.
He's probably already been claimed by another vampire, smelling like that and living in London. There are a fair few of them here, where the population is dense enough to support them without bloodbags finding one another and sharing stories very often. Martin's not strong enough to win the fight that would ensue if he were found feeding on someone else's bloodbag- it's dreadfully inefficient, that there's no way for them to mark out who's been claimed and who hasn't, but there's nothing for it. Anyone who smells that good is probably their vampire's primary source; he'll spot them within the month, if they exist.
He follows the man off the car and out of the Underground.
-
Martin's first years in his new body were nightmarish.
He realized the perks quickly, most notably that he didn't need to sleep anymore and could therefore work nearly 24/7, only popping home to take care of Mum. It helped their finances, but at the time didn't seem worth the cost.
Maybe it would have been better if he'd had a more normal introduction into his new life- in the nearly a decade since, he's met others like him and found out that usually new vampires are turned deliberately by sires who stick around to show them the ropes. The Change is traumatic for many of them, given the small percentage of sires who ask permission before changing someone and the shock and fear of having your own blood drained and someone else's shoved down your throat, but it isn't quite as bad as what Martin had.
Martin got to come home to his sire's ill-timed visit to Mum, an unfamiliar man bent over where she lay in her sickbed with his mouth to her neck and Mum doing her level best to claw him away.
He doesn't know why he let things be so miserable for her, when by what little Mum was willing to tell him afterward their Bond should have been strong enough to order her to lie still, if not enjoy herself. But then, what he has learned of his sire indicates the man was a piece of work in just about every way.
It was routine for Mum by then- his sire had been visiting her longer than Martin had been alive, only giving her a break when she was pregnant with him- but it wasn't for Martin. All he saw was a stranger in his house, assaulting his sick, defenseless mother.
So he attacked him.
-
The man's flat is quite conveniently located, for a bat looking for a nice, out-of-view ledge to peer in his windows from. He's not particularly good at remembering to close his blinds, either. It wouldn't be very entertaining viewing- if the man is unclaimed, it's probably because his life is too boring for anyone to want to scope him out long enough to be sure- if Martin weren't so inexplicably fascinated by him.
It's not rational- he texted a picture to Sasha under the pretense of merely having spotted an attractive stranger on the Tube and she had conceded that he's nice looking, but not gotten what had Martin riled up enough to take a creepshot of a stranger.
(He's pretty sure she's onto him, since he's never done that before, but she hasn't brought it up yet and he's certainly not going to.)
Even far out of range of his scent, the stranger is just- incredible! The line of his nose when he looks down at a book, the way his hair tosses, the way he walks! It's like he's been made to appeal specifically to everything Martin didn't even necessarily know he found attractive. Watching someone schlep back and forth between a cramped flat and a boring office job (just because it was easiest to go to a bloodbag while they were at home didn't mean it was the only option, so he has to watch both) shouldn't be so endlessly engrossing.
He didn't expect to be more than disappointed if it did turn out the man was claimed, but finds himself almost... devastated, the day that he arrives on his perch outside the window to see that the flat is already occupied by a man lounging on the sofa with a glass of wine. He doesn't go to events with others of his kind much, always the outsider because of how he was Changed, but he thinks he might recognize the stranger in the man's flat.
The man arrives at his front door only a bit after Martin. He can't see the hallway outside, but he enters the flat with slumped shoulders, clearly already aware that there's someone waiting for him. He stands as far away from the sofa as he can manage while keeping it in view, and his posture is stiff, somewhere between angry and afraid.
The man on the sofa swirls his wine glass and says something, and the man responds despondently. The man on the sofa speaks again, and the man goes into the bedroom with even stiffer posture, moving along like a marionette. Martin recognizes that kind of movement, the way someone walks because a Bonded vampire ordered them to.
He could leave then, he knows he's horning in on another vampire's turf and it wouldn't be good if he was found watching a bloodbag he already knows is taken, even without feeding on him, but he can't bring himself to do it. He's enjoyed watching the man too much, these past weeks, had almost started to hope that he wasn't already claimed after three with no sign of a vampire. He tells himself he's just staying put because he's afraid the disappointment will affect his ability to fly straight. He's just waiting out the wave of emotion, and then he'll be off.
He watches the man take off his shirt and lie down on the bed. He curls up into a ball, clearly upset at his situation.
Martin's never really been around someone that upset about being a bloodbag. Sasha entered into their agreement of her own free will, more interested in Martin being a monster than she was in keeping all her blood on the inside, and Mum was resigned to her fate long before Martin found out about any of it. This man clearly didn't volunteer- or if he did (unlikely, Sasha's the only bloodbag he's ever heard of who did) he regrets it and can't escape the deal. The man might actually be crying, a subtle shake of his shoulders that might indicate that or just the chill of the room. The fear of knowing he's about to be devoured.
The vampire stays on the sofa, sipping his wine slowly, in no rush to feed. If he's the same person Martin remembers seeing around he's old, and powerful. He probably doesn't need to feed with any sort of desperation, plenty of other bloodbags taking the edge off.
He stays to watch the other vampire feed. It feels strangely intrusive, in a way that stalking the man's life for weeks never did. He squirms and cries at the vampire's touch, though he's held fast against the mattress.
The feeding goes on for a long time. Longer than Martin's have since he met Sasha. Maybe even longer than they were when it was just Mum he was feeding from. He starts to worry that he's going to watch the man die here. It would be a waste, to kill off such a good bloodbag. He might be tempted to intervene even if he wasn't so interested in the man in particular.
But the man starts to pound- more like pat- at the vampire's chest, saying something that's almost certainly a plea to stop. It takes nearly a minute of that, the man's protests growing weaker, before the vampire actually withdraws, but he does eventually. The man sways as he's pulled upright and the trailing drops of blood are licked from his neck. The vampire says something, and the man falls backward in a dead faint.
It seems unnecessary to Martin, to make him sit up if he was just going to be ordered to sleep and fall over right after.
-
The fight with his sire was messy. He had the advantage of surprise, and the vampire was in the daze of feeding, nearly as addled as Mum was from being fed on. It's probably why Martin wasn't killed outright.
The vampire could have ordered Mum to do something, climb out of bed despite her illness and bloodloss and intervene, or tell Martin to stop, or anything, but he never said a word. He lunged at Martin instead of collapsing when Martin hit him over the back of the head with Mum's bedpan. The unexpected vigor startled Martin into stumbling back, out the door and into the hallways.
That was about the point he realized he should phone police, now that the most immediate part of the threat to Mum was over. He'd stumbled toward the kitchen, where the phone was, but the vampire had pursued, angry at being interrupted or unwilling to deal with the fallout of a visit from law enforcement.
He tackled Martin in the dining nook, just a couple meters away from the phone. They went down hard, Martin flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him, completely incapable of pushing back when the vampire latched onto his neck.
He's very, very lucky. He's lucky that he didn't immediately faint or go woozy from the bloodloss. He's lucky that the chairs around their table were made of rickety wood. He would have died had they been plastic or laminate or something, or if they'd been well constructed.
He managed to knock the chairs over onto the pair of them, hitting the vampire hard enough in the head to jar his seal against Martin's neck. He took advantage of the momentary relief to roll and thrash, managing to squeak out from under the vampire and grab at the chair as though he might've been able to pull himself away using its unanchored weight.
The vampire could have ordered him to lie still and let it kill him. It had fed on his blood, and that was all it took to make a Bond. Maybe it was just too angry for words, not thinking any more clearly than Martin had been.
The leg of the chair broke off in his hand when the vampire used its superior strength to pull him back in close. At the moment, he had had the hysterical, self-flagellating thought of how utterly useless it had been to try to grab the chair instead of doing almost anything else. Still, as the vampire bent down he had whacked it with the broken-off leg as hard as he could.
It wasn't the sort of hit that could kill, but one of the splinters at the leg's end had been at an angle to cut into the vampire's forehead. That was when it started bleeding. He didn't know when some of that blood managed to fall into his mouth, but he knows it must have happened as some point in the scuffle for him to have woken up the next morning Changed.
The vampire had reared back, half at shock in being made to bleed. Most things like that can't hurt them; they're tougher than humans. He's pretty sure that they're not as indestructible as they might like people to think, that they have weaknesses outside the traditional set, but he hasn't exactly wanted to impale himself on a sword or jump in front of a train to see if he can get up after. Little things, though, even if they're enough to open up a wound, don't usually make them bleed. Martin was just lucky that a splinter was close enough to a stake to draw blood; the only other thing he and Sasha were able to find for that were his own teeth.
The second of distraction was enough for Martin to get out from under the other man, and from there much of the fight was a blur, neither of them ever quite making it to standing before being yanked down. He did remember realizing that if he didn't kill his attacker, that terrible sucking, aching consumption would go on until he was dead. That was when he decided to put his hope and trust in the sharp-ish end of his improvised weapon and started aiming to stab instead of strike. The bedpan was heavier than the chair leg and it had just made him angry, so he wouldn't be knocking the other unconscious with it. He had to do serious damage if he wanted to escape with his life.
Eventually, he'd managed to gore the vampire in the arm, breaking off part of the chair leg in the wound. Fortunately for Martin, that had just made the end sharper, and while the vampire was reeling from the injury he was able to surge forward and plant it squarely in the center of the other man's chest.
He remembered being bemused at how quickly the vampire had collapsed after that. Like a puppet with its strings cut, none of the desperate dying flails he had anticipated. He hadn't even really thought it was a bad enough injury to kill him until he was dead.
He was still winded and woozy and nauseous from the feeding and the fight, so he has blurry memories of checking on Mum, getting her and himself something to eat and drink and deciding that he would figure out what to do about the dead body in their house in the morning before collapsing into bed.
-
He stays on his ledge all night, watching the other vampire wrestle the man's limp form into pajamas and tuck him into bed. Watching as the vampire crawls in behind him, not sleeping but cradling him with his head on the vampire's shoulder, lolled back so that he can return to nibble at the bite and take tiny additional sips every so often.
Martin knew that wasn't uncommon practice, for other vampires, but it's always seemed impolite to him. He understands putting the bloodbag to sleep, but feeding on someone while they sleep is harder than when they're awake to be aware of the predator at their throat, their heart rate rising in response. You can't get much more out of a sleeping bloodbag than sips, but some vampires like to hang around like this after a feeding. The wound from a bite will heal up faster than it ought to, left alone, but snacking the night away ensures that it won't, and that in the morning the bruising will be more severe. Seems rude to make someone's life more difficult like that when they've literally given you their lifeblood, however unwillingly.
He keeps following the man. He shouldn't. He could probably lie and say that he's just been checking the territory if the other vampire catches him and wants to know what he's doing hovering around someone else's bloodbag, pretend he didn't see the feeding, but that can only hold true for so long.
He starts to think of ways he could meet the man somewhat normally. It's stupid to consider befriending someone else's bloodbag, would probably be seen as just as bad as following him discreetly in terms of taking someone else's territory, no matter how much he claimed they were just friends. It's nice fodder for his daydreams, though. Thinking about bumping into the man on the subway, apologizing, maybe going out for coffee.
He realizes how screwed he is when it occurs to him that those daydreams have started to take on a distinctly romantic quality. He can't even imagine the other vampire's reaction if he found Martin out. He should stop following the man immediately, the need even more urgent than it was before his realization.
He doesn't.
He doesn't know how often the other vampire feeds on this particular bloodbag- although it can't be more often than every three weeks or so, since Martin's only spotted him the once. He hopes it's infrequent; he knows the other vampire has a large stable of bloodbags, and doesn't need to visit this one often to stay well fed. The further apart the feedings are, the longer Martin can get away with trailing his new crush.
He knows it's most likely a vain hope, with a bloodbag like that. They aren't common, and they're so much better than anything else.
-
He woke up the morning after his fight with his sire with a pounding headache and an incredible hunger. He ate his usual breakfast and hurried to work at a grocery store, barely making it through his shift. He managed to convince himself that the previous day's events were all or mostly a dream, or that the man hadn't really been dead and decided to make a break for it when he woke up wounded on Martin and his mum's floor instead of continuing to hassle them. He hadn't noticed the body when he grabbed breakfast, and that wouldn't have been possible if he was still there, right?
He was still there, though it took Martin a bit after returning home to realize it. He hadn't checked on Mum yet, since the grocery store job started in the wee hours of the morning and let him off before noon, and she wasn't likely to be awake yet. She didn't like being woken up.
He had choked down a sandwich that didn't really satisfy him and decided to tidy up the mess. The dining nook was tossed, clear evidence that he hadn't dreamed everything. It would be quick to fix, except for the broken chair, without a body to worry about.
There was a body to worry about.
He had stared, not quite processing what he was looking at. It didn't make any sense, after all. Bodies didn't decay like that in less than a day. They didn't turn into mummies at all if they were kept in English kitchens. But that was the nearest comparison Martin could make for the way the thing on his floor had shriveled and shrunk, curling in on itself and the piece of chair leg still embedded in its chest.
He had reached down to remove the leg. He didn't know why, it hardly seemed like the most pressing concern in the situation, but it was also the only part of the tableau that seemed real.
His touch shifted the leg, and the motion made the entire thing crumble into dust. He remembered thinking, in a dissonantly calm tone, that at least dust was something he knew how to clean up.
-
Martin is still watching the man when the other vampire returns to feed again just over two weeks later. If the visits are that frequent and that inconsistently-timed, he's definitely going to get caught. But he can't seem to help himself.
This time doesn't go the same as the last. The man seems more upset when he enters the flat, and starts actually yelling at the vampire, jabbing a finger at the door and clearly saying some variation on "get out." The vampire doesn't react much, but it does go over to the door. The man goes stiff when it's in grabbing range, but the vampire just leans over to do something out of Martin's view. Probably locking the door.
The man tries to run at that, maybe hoping hide somewhere deeper in the flat, though he must know it's useless. The vampire catches him instead of ordering him to stop, seemingly enjoying the man's struggles. It makes Martin feel a bit sick. His empathy for humans and general moral sense has definitely been dampened by becoming a vampire, but is he going to turn into that, given a couple centuries? It seems worse than uncaring or rude, it seems cruel. Sadistic.
The vampire pulls the man in towards his chest, burying his nose in the man's hair as he struggles (and, well. Martin can't blame him for that, at least. He'd very much like to get to smell the man up close like that). The vampire says something that makes the man go still, almost limp. He kisses him on the top of his head before letting go, the man performing that same unwilling march to the bedroom.
Martin's stomach sinks to see the man crying as he takes his shirt off this time. There's some part of the messy reality of vampirism that can't be avoided, but he doesn't like the idea of the man being so distressed by it. He curls up as he did last time, but Martin knows that the tremors aren't just cold or fear, now.
The vampire takes a very long time savoring his wine. Martin knows that he must be enjoying the man's fear- it's part of what feeds them, besides the blood, the fear at being latched onto by a predator that even Sasha can't suppress once he bites her. They don't really need more than that, though; terrorizing his bloodbag like this is an indulgence. It's cruel.
Finally, though, the man and Martin are done waiting. He tries to rocket off the bed the moment the vampire opens the door, probably Ordered not to move until the vampire arrived and trying to escape the first moment he's able. The vampire pins him easily, sitting atop him in a way that looks distinctly... well. Martin's afraid he really is going to have to look away. He might be willing to watch the feeding, but that would cross a line.
It's harder, with the man on his back and the vampire on top of him, to gauge how much blood he's lost, but Martin knows that the vampire reaches the same point as last time, where Martin and certainly the bloodbag start to worry that this is where he dies. But this time, the bloodbag doesn't beg to be let up, and he can't paw at the vampire with his wrists pinned. He probably can't speak, either, if he isn't, likely Ordered to stay silent for some reason.
A vampire can tell about how much blood they've had, with experience (Sasha had had Martin chug a pint of milk, when they started, for an idea of what that felt like in the belly before she let him bite her). But even so, it's hardly an exact science. It's easy to get carried away. It's important for a bloodbag to be able to make it clear when they've had enough, in Martin's experience. But the man he's watched for nearly two months now, that he might be a little in love with, can't.
He's debating barging in himself and bearing the consequences (most likely his own death and not helping the man much at all) when the man starts trying to buck the vampire off, actually managing to disrupt the bite (which is none too easy, Martin can say from experience).
The vampire glares down at him and hauls him to sitting. Martin's sure he's about to see the same needlessly hard collapse into sleep as last time, but instead when the vampire speaks the man rises from the bed, though his knees are trembling.
Martin watches in horror as the man raises his arms above his head- doubts he'd even be able to if he wasn't Ordered based on how he shakes- and the vampire uses them to pull him up onto his toes before going back to feeding. Martin notes that while he licks away the blood from the first bite, he goes for the other side this time, another unnecessary cruelty.
When the man's knees give out, the vampire thankfully only holds him up for a few more moments before drawing away, rather than draining him entirely. Martin watches numbly as the man is put to bed as before, cradled in the vampire's arms.
Feeding more than he must normally do doesn't stop the vampire from sucking away little additional snacks throughout the night.
-
When he had finished sweeping up the remains of his sire, Martin had finally decided to check on Mum. He felt like hell, and she was likely doing just as poorly.
All thoughts of taking care of her, though, were arrested when he stepped into the room and caught the scent of her.
He wasn't really aware of what happened next- at least, that's what he told himself- only coming to when he'd drained her significantly, though she was still conscious. He had been horrified, rushing to the loo and trying to vomit up the blood until Mum had called that it wasn't as though that would help her any. He couldn't give it back to her.
He'd tried to apologize, but she'd just given him a hateful glare and given him the bare bones of her side of the story, in a way that made it sound as though she blamed him for the entirety of it.
She had met the vampire before Martin was born. His name and exactly how she'd met him were none of Martin's business. He'd been feeding on her once a month or so ever since. No, she didn't know how this happened, or how much blood Martin would need to drink. No, she doesn't know if that's why she's sick, it couldn't have helped. She was glad he was dead. She'd like to sleep now.
(They never addressed how, before shriveling into a husk and turning to dust, Martin's sire looked an awful lot like Martin.)
-
It's incredibly impulsive of Martin, but he makes sure he's outside the building when the other vampire leaves the man's flat come morning, able to fall in step beside him as he exits. The man looks nonplussed, but clearly realizes what Martin is. His eyes glitter, as though threatening that whatever Martin wanted, it had better be important.
"You don't treat your bloodbags, well, do you?" Martin says, in a casual tone.
He gets a slanted look of derision from the other. "You're young."
Martin shrugs, not arguing. He doesn't want to be like that when he's the other vampire's age, but if there's one thing that becoming a vampire has taught him it's that he really, really can't tell the future. "Just saying I'd treat that one better, if he was mine."
The other snorts. "He doesn't want to be treated well. Apologies for the disappointment." He sounds more sardonic than sorry. "He is quite a catch."
"Yeah," Martin agrees, and the both go hazy for a moment at the memory of the man's scent.
"Did you want something?" the other vampire asks in a my-patience-is-running-out tone.
"Him." Martin doesn't see the point in lying. It won't serve him here.
"Bad luck."
"Even if I had something to trade?"
The older vampire gives him a look. "You don't have anything to trade."
Martin hums his disagreement. "You're... Elias, right?" He recognizes him, now that they're up close, from his few times around groups of other vampires.
"I am."
Martin hums again. "You're the one who likes collecting people's first bloodbags." He never understood, himself. Someone's first bloodbag is the same as any other. More likely to be dead, of age or the frenzy of the first feeding, but otherwise unremarkable.
"Your first bloodbag isn't worth him."
Martin would agree, if he weren't a very, very fortunate man. "He smells incredible. Never met someone who smelled better. The same, though..."
Finally, interest glimmers in the other vampire's eyes. "Alright. Let's go somewhere appropriate to discuss this, shall we?"
He takes off into the predawn gray in bat form faster than Martin can track. It's a lucky thing he's been getting so much practice with that shape, because the other vampire clearly doesn't intend to wait for him. If he can't keep up any deal is off, he assumes.
They don't have to go far before he's led to land on a window ledge on one of the upper floors of an office-type building, old enough to be historical instead of dated. The other vampire smoothly shifts back to human and opens the window, sliding into the office beyond. "Come in, why don't you?"
Martin waits until he's inside the office to shift. He's may have become more and more attached to the idea of rescuing the man from such a cruel vampire over the course of the night (to having him all to himself) but he doesn't want to plummet to the ground for the sake of it.
The time it takes Martin to shift and close the window behind him is enough for Elias to produce brandy and glasses from somewhere and pour for both of them. "Sit."
Martin agreeably takes the seat across from the desk, sitting up straight, not eager to be too vulnerable in another vampire's territory. He sips the brandy, and thinks that it's probably very expensive, if he were discerning enough to tell.
Elias regards him. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. You know my name, clearly, but I don't know yours."
"Martin Blackwood," he says, before realizing that it means that Elias knows his full name but he only knows Elias' first. He takes a bigger sip of the brandy at the mistake; it's minor, but in a negotiation with someone like Elias every little power play counts.
He thinks he sees some kind of recognition glimmer in Elias' eyes before it vanishes, and the other man is all business. "You know that perfect bloodbags don't exactly turn up every day." His tone is laden with doubt at Martin's claim that he does know one such bloodbag. He supposes "perfect" isn't a bad term to describe them; he can certainly tell the difference between Mum's blood and Sasha's, and Mum's or the man's scent and anyone else's.
"I do. I just got lucky."
"Who."
He's hardly going to give up the name; it might be rude to feed on another vampire's bloodbag, but Martin isn't really strong enough to challenge Elias if he tries and Mum's too old and fragile to support both of them. "My first."
"And who was your first bloodbag?"
It's a bit of a rude question- not in this context, really, but normally it's not the type of thing you ask another vampire. Too many of them are allowed to turn at home, and end up attacking family or friends. Usually those loved ones aren't meant to be bloodbags, and it doesn't go well even if they don't die of that first bite. Maybe the rarity and emotional connection is part of why Elias likes collecting them.
"My mum."
It's definitely interest in Elias' eyes now, though Martin doesn't know quite why. "You realize if you gave her to me you would never be able to see her again?"
"Traded. Not gave. And I do."
"Why do you want Jonathan so badly?" It's an offering, probably meant to make Martin feel like he's winning their negotiation, but it's not as much of one as when he asked Martin the question. Martin already knows where Jonathan (Jonathan) lives, after all.
He's not quite sure himself, what the answer to Elias' question is, but he can't say that. He shrugs. "He's not bad looking."
Elias laughs, some of the same satisfied cruelty Martin saw in his interactions with Jonathan in the curve of his mouth now. It means his gamble paid off, and Elias drew his own conclusions about Martin's intentions from that statement; that he likes the idea of it. "He is that."
They're silent for a bit, both sipping their brandy, while Elias turns his proposition over in his mind. Martin waits for him to speak, not wanting to seem desperate (he feels a little desperate. It's probably a bad idea to have a crush on your bloodbag- on any bloodbag- but it's a bit late for regrets).
"You'd trade your mother to me even though I 'don't treat my bloodbags well?'" Elias asks eventually.
He nods. He would. It's one of those things that Changing burnt out of him, that desire for Mum's approval. He thinks she got nastier after he Changed, too, but that might just be the lack of that desperate devotion clouding his judgement, since a lot of their earlier interactions seem bad in retrospect as well. She's made it quite clear that she hates him, maybe more than she hated his sire, despite all the years he spent caring for her, dropping out of school to do it, working constantly to do it. She'd refused to let him pay for her care after she had to be moved to a nursing home, preferring to end up wherever the government could find to place her even if it was bad over accepting anything from him. He's not especially regretful about her finally receiving some nastiness in return.
The only person who would know he's traded Mum away is Sasha, but she changed jobs ages ago. She didn't like Mum much when she was her nurse, and she doesn't care enough to ask after her now.
"Such a dutiful son!" Elias scoffs, but he looks more delighted than scolding. "Alright. I'll trade."
Martin's heart leaps a bit, but he crushes that down. He knows how this is done, he's seen it before when he ventures into vampire society, but he's never done it himself before. He can tell from his face that Elias wants him to go first.
"You first.'
"Don't you trust me?" Elias asks with a crooked eyebrow.
"No," Martin replies flatly. "If I go first, you could kick me out without reciprocating. You're older and stronger than me, I'd be out of luck. If I try to reneg, you have a better chance of making me pay up than I have of making you."
Elias smiles a bit. "Fair enough."
He rises from his chair and comes around the desk, leaning back against it before running the pad of his thumb over his teeth and letting a bead of blood well up. He proffers the thumb to Martin and intones, "With this blood, the Bond of Jonathan Sims."
Martin leans forward and licks the blood off. He can feel the shift, and it makes his head spin for a moment before he can cut his own thumb. "With this blood, the Bond of Diane Blackwood."
Elias keeps eye contact as he licks the blood from Martin's finger.
-
They were stuck in a pattern of Martin feeding off of Mum more often than he should have, barely getting by and feeling less and less guilty with every repetition, until she had been in the home for a few months. He figured out Ordering her fairly quickly, when his half-futile efforts to make sure she actually ate something became drastically simpler at a word, so she's never been able to deny him visitation. Not that it would actually keep him away if she had tried.
He only really visited her to feed, but that was still more than either of them would prefer. All the nurses thought he was a very pitiable figure, so loyal to a mother who took every opportunity to badmouth him to staff.
Things changed the day that Sasha came into the room while he was feeding.
He didn't think he'd ever moved as quickly as he did then, grabbing her and covering her mouth before she could do anything, begging, "Please, just- I can explain!"
He was much closer to humanity, then, and much less sure of himself. That probably helped, when he spilled the whole story out to Sasha while Mum glared. If the same thing happened now- well, if it happened now, he's gotten much better at sniffing out decent bloodbags, and he would have realized Sasha was one. He probably would have bitten her to keep her from going for help, and then just Ordered her to keep the secret.
As it was, he told her everything, including several things that it was probably unwise to tell a stranger. Personal things, much more of his confusion and fright at the sudden change in his life than he would have if he were thinking straight. But it had worked. Sasha had nodded her agreement not to shout if he uncovered her mouth when the whole saga was out and he asked. It was probably good for him to tell someone.
He expected her to have been lying, at the very least to demand he leave and never return and do her level best to make that the case (though of course she wouldn't have been able to). Instead she spoke in a very calm and level voice.
"What if you fed on me?"
-
Elias gives him his copy of the key to Jonathan's flat when the deal is made, but Martin doesn't go in before Jonathan gets off work and lie in wait the way Elias did. He can't feed on Jon for nearly a month, but fortunately he had his last feeding with Mum just a few days before making the deal, so it doesn't strain him any to wait.
(Physically. Emotionally, he's practically vibrating with excitement over actually getting to meet Jonathan.)
He waits for Jonathan to arrive home before he knocks on the flat's door and uses the key to unlock it. Now that he has a Bond with him, he can't be barred from the man's home the way he is others'. He shuts and locks the door behind him, and turns to find Jonathan frozen midway between the sofa and door, probably intending to answer his knock before realizing that a stranger had a key to his flat.
"Hello," he says, and then, "Don't scream."
Feeding on someone forms a Bond, and Martin has inherited Elias' with Jonathan, so he can Order him around. It's not as strong as it will be once he's actually fed from Jonathan himself though, so Jonathan's, "Who the hell are you?!" is still louder than he'd like.
"I'm Martin. Nice to meet you." It is, he hasn't been this close to Jonathan since that first meeting and he's forgotten how beautiful he is up close. It's almost distracting.
Jonathan gapes for a second at being answered before dashing for the door. He doesn't really have much of a chance of getting out with it locked and Martin right there, but Martin still Orders him. "Stop that. Don't fight me."
He can see the moment the fact that he can't dawns on Jonathan, followed by the fear a moment later. He asks again in a punched-out voice, "Who are you?"
"You won't be seeing Elias again. If he does come around, tell me."
Jonathan shakes his head in mute denial, backing slowly away. "I- you-"
"Use your words, Jonathan." He really doesn't want this to be any more frightening for the man than it has to be. "And I'm no Elias."
"Jon," he corrects automatically, scowling a second later. "But you're-"
"I'm a vampire, yeah. But things are going to be better, Jon." He doesn't really need to tack the nickname on the end, but he does it for the pleasure of saying it, of knowing it. Jon.
All the blood rushes from Jon's face and his retreat becomes more of a stumble, kept from running outright by Martin's Order. "I don't- No, I don't want-" He starts hyperventilating, unable to finish the sentence.
Martin frowns, stepping into Jon's space and taking him by the shoulders. "Breath." He has to.
He should have guessed that Jon would make the same conclusions he led Elias to, but... maybe he was just too excited to think of it. Although Elias did say...
"Did you like having to stand on tiptoe with your hands above your head until you passed out?"
Jon flinches at Martin's knowledge of that moment, but he starts shaking. Martin isn't sure he can convince Jon that his intentions are as pure as they can be, here. But actions speak louder than words.
"Come on." He goes to the bedroom with one hand still on Jon's shoulder. He won't be playing any waiting games with Jon; he'll feed on him the same way he used to feed on Mum. There won't be any friendly chats beforehand like with Sasha (yet, the hopeful part of his mind insists) but it'll be over as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Jon starts sobbing in the couple dozen steps it takes to reach the bedroom. Martin guides him to sit down on the foot of the bed; he knows that with what Jon must be thinking, Martin touching him is the last thing he needs, but he's also not sure Jon wouldn't collapse without support. "Take your shirt off for me," he Orders, going to close the blinds. Any vampires scoping Jon out will have to find their entertainment elsewhere.
"Please," Jon tries when he returns to sit beside him on the bed. "Don't do this."
Martin frowns. "I wouldn't if I didn't have to."
He bites before Jon can respond. Jon lets out a reedy moan when he bites, but then the room goes silent except for the sound coming from Martin's throat.
(He doesn't know why that happens, a sort of purr every time a vampire feeds. Feeding is a dizzying, euphoric rush, but he wouldn't purr about it given the choice. He thinks it's a bit embarrassing, even if he feels the general sentiment more deeply than usual finally being with Jon)
He stops when he's been feeding for around the same amount of time it usually takes with Sasha. It's far earlier than Elias seems to have made a habit of. Jon seems a bit confused to still be so much himself when Martin detaches. Martin smiles at him, close-lipped because he knows his teeth look like a horror show right now. "Stay put. I'll be right back."
He ducks into Jon's bathroom so he can return with a cool flannel and bloodless teeth. He sits down next to Jon again. "Let me see."
Jon tilts his head so Martin has better access to his neck, though he clearly doesn't want to. He flinches at the first touch of the flannel, but relaxes when he realizes it's not Martin's teeth. "Can you hold that there?" he asks, "I just want to make sure you don't bruise too badly."
He digs around the bedroom while Jon watches, though having watched Elias dress him for bed twice he at least doesn't have to dig too much to find the oversized t shirt Jon wears to bed. Jon still seems a bit shaky, barely managing to keep the flannel still against his neck, so Martin helps him into it. He makes sure the shirt is on all the way and he's several feet away before telling Jon to take his trousers off, though. He leaves the room immediately after, heading for the kitchen before he can see anything untoward.
He manages to locate some orange juice and a granola bar, and figures that Jon's probably done changing.
Jon is dressed in his pajamas and standing with his back against the wall, wide-eyed, when Martin returns.
"Hey, shh," he says, "You shouldn't be standing, come sit down and eat these."
It's awkward watching someone else eat, and Jon goes as slowly as he possibly can under Orders, maybe hoping that he can delay whatever Martin plans to do to him when he's finished. Lacking anything else to do with his hands, Martin finds himself reverting back to his habits from years of taking care of Mum and starting to tidy the room.
Jon flinches when his snack is finally gone and Martin approaches him again, but Martin just helps him into bed. He makes sure Jon notices him pulling the covers up over him and tucking them in, obviously not in the bed himself, before he finally says, "Go to sleep, Jon."
Once Jon is asleep, though, Martin lies down on top of the covers and plays with his hair for the rest of the night, drinking him in with his eyes instead of his mouth.
He gets up when he knows Jon's alarm is about to go off, giving himself just enough time to go to the kitchen and prepare an omelette, beans, and toast, carefully selected to help Jon bounce back from the feeding as quickly as possible. He leaves a note, his number scrawled along the top.
"Call me if you see Elias again, he's not supposed to bother you anymore. I'll see you 26 June."
-
Sasha took to Martin being a vampire with all the excitement he hadn't felt. She assured him that she didn't see letting him feed as different from donating blood, really, and bombarded him with questions as her apparent payment. Martin was a bit abashed to realize he didn't know the answer to most of them. Sasha insisted they test them, as much as they were able.
He hadn't changed his habits after being Changed, so sunlight obviously didn't effect him.
A splinter of wood made him bleed in a way that subjecting his fingertip to a knife, needle, or papercut didn't.
They spent an afternoon with Sasha passing every cross she could get her hands on, along with miscellaneous other religious symbols, to Martin one by one. The only one that bothered him was the wooden one, which gave him another splinter.
They spend another afternoon with Martin feeling very silly at even trying before he stumbled upon the trick to changing shape entirely on accident and much to his disbelief. Then they spent the evening with bat-Martin panicking more and more as he tried to figure out how to return to human.
Crossing over running water did nothing to him.
And so on, until they realized that a harm mitigation strategy had turned into actual friendship.
-
Elias clearly never informed Jon that vampires can feel wherever a person they have a Bond with goes, because 26 June finds him not in his flat. Martin doesn't even bother going, instead setting off for the general direction he knows Jon to be- he's tried to cut down on following him, though he hasn't been able to go cold turkey, so he doesn't know exactly where he's gone until he recognizes the direction and realizes he must have fled to his ex-girlfriend's flat. He wonders what he told her.
Martin spends the walk up to the girlfriend's door worrying about how he's going to get in- he likes to keep his promises, and would rather feed on Jon tonight than wait for him to be somewhere Martin can get to him and surprise him. Jon can't bar him from his home, but that doesn't say anything about other people's homes. He's quite pleased to see that the girlfriend has a welcome mat, decorated with a smiling cartoon cat.
He drifts beneath the door and through the flat as a mist, finding Jon's door easily. He's come later than he'd like, waiting for the girlfriend to retreat to her bedroom and Jon to the guest room before entering. Hopefully he doesn't have to wake Jon up.
He doesn't. Jon is in bed, but he's not asleep yet, lying with eyes closed either trying to sleep or trying to feign sleep. Martin reforms next to the bed. There's something on the floor in front of the door, in too deliberate a line to be a spill. He doesn't understand until he spots another line on the windowsill, bottle of garlic salt still next to it. Not a bad idea, but no dice.
"Don't do this again, Jon," he says, letting his annoyance show in his voice. The girlfriend barely lives in London, way out at the edge of the city. It was an inconvenient trip. "Don't shout," he adds when Jon jolts, eyes flying open.
"How did you find me?" Jon chokes out in an undertone.
"You can't hide from me." Martin feels much less annoyed, suddenly. How could he be, with Jon looking at him? "And you also shouldn't. What if you had tried this with Elias? You think he'd just leave her alone?"
Jon looks even more petrified. "I- I'm sorry, please don't hurt Georgie."
Martin sighs. "I'm not here for her." He could be. He could smell it on the way in, though it's hard to make out now that he's in a room with Jon. She's not good enough to be a hugely appealing prospect, but she still smells good. Maybe he will bite her, just so no one nastier than him can. As a favor. If Jon cares about her.
He can't do any of his usual rituals here. He doesn't want to risk waking Georgie. He can't even ask Jon to remove his shirt, because he doesn't wear any trousers with the pajama shirt. He has to work around it- does without much ceremony, in an unfamiliar setting with another person potentially able to walk in on them- biting much higher on Jon's neck than he'd like. He'll have to wear a turtleneck tomorrow, even if Martin isn't going to leave bruises on the scale Elias did.
He can still put Jon to bed, at least.
-
"You're weird lately," Sasha says.
"Am I?" Martin knows his innocent act doesn't work on her, but he gives it his best effort.
"Yes." She gives him a flat look.
He fidgets for a bit, but she'll hound him until he tells her anyway. "I'm not seeing Mum anymore. I found someone else."
"Oh." She looks surprised before her face pinches shrewdly, "Is it that guy you sent me creepy pictures of a few months ago?"
Martin sputters. "Wh- How do you even remember that?!"
Sasha just raises an eyebrow, "Well?"
"Yes," he mutters. "I do think he's handsome, though. It wasn't- I wasn't... I don't know. Sending you pictures of other prospects as a weird way of introducing you, or something."
"Good." She nods decisively. "When are you going to introduce us?"
Martin shoves her shoulder, and she cackles.
-
The next month, Jon is in his flat.