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Jon feels deeply awkward sitting with Tim and Sasha, even though they've been meeting up for weeks and it's his kitchen table. It's a relief, in a way, to be able to discuss this with other people, but that can't erase his awareness of the other agendas here.
Tim isn't too bad. He's here because of his brother, not because of Jon, but they have a rapport. Even if he can't quite banish the thought that once Danny escapes his own vampire Tim will drop Jon like a hot potato, he can at least pretend.
Sasha, though... yes she was kind to him, yes she's seemingly kept her word about not telling Martin about Elias, yes she has information and experience he and Tim both need... but that doesn't erase the fact that her motives are drastically different to theirs. She's kept her word so far, but she can't or doesn't care to hide that she doesn't share their fears. She still thinks of Martin as safe, as a person, as her friend. She might perform being upset with him over how she found Jon, but they have no way of knowing that isn't an act. The only thing that keeps her in their meetings is that they can't do without her knowledge, and he thinks she knows it.
"I just think that to actually keep Danny safe longterm we should ask Martin for help," Sasha says. She's insistent on that point, but they don't know if it's because Martin Ordered her to be. People- bloodbags, a term Sasha let slip and immediately tried to backtrack and minimize but that settled with a terrible rightness in Jon's chest, a confirmation of everything he's felt since first meeting Elias- apparently exist on a spectrum, and she thinks that they need to know where Danny falls, which would require asking Martin. Potentially letting Martin bite Danny if he's too appetizing to stay free on his own.
He and Tim have discussed it, in whispers on the way from work to his flat before their meetings with Sasha and in the scant minutes before she arrives, the only times they're together with neither the threat of eavesdropping vampires nor Sasha herself. They don't dare meet up additional evenings, in case Martin is watching and his distance is conditional on having a witness included in the gathering to report everything they say, everything they might try to plan against him.
Sasha might be insisting that rescuing Danny from his vampire first instead of Jon is the smart thing to do because of Martin. She could be lying about how- how perfect Jon supposedly is as a bloodbag. Jon wants to be selfish and insist that's the case, but he can't.
"I'm not handing my brother over right back into the teeth of the same monster if I get him free," Tim says. "Absolutely not."
Jon has to sit there and let Martin bite him every month, even though he knows, now, that if he bought a wooden stake he might have a chance. They can't risk it. Martin is a known quantity, is at least pretending to be kind. From what Tim says about his brother's vampire, Jon wouldn't envy him even if he still had Elias. Sasha's opinion aside... he can't tell Tim he thinks that if they wait too long his brother might be dead before they can help him. He's sure Tim already knows, wonderful as he's been at making the appearance of advocating for Jon just as stridently.
Jon swallows. He's the quietest in these meetings, knows the least about vampires in spite of knowing about them for longer than either of the others, or Danny for that matter. Sense memories settle deeper and deeper under his skin, the way Elias would bury his face in Jon's hair and inhale, the things he used to say while he had Jon pinned to the bed, the subtler but still very present sighs and sniffs from Martin.
"It makes a difference," he says, almost too quietly to be heard. "It- it isn't the same monster. Not really. The same situation, but the monster matters." He hates it. He wishes there were no monsters at all in his life. But not fearing for his life every time he's visited is a quality of life improvement he doesn't know how to quantify. He doesn't trust Martin, except for how he's learned to trust that Martin- in a good mood, at least- won't take him to the brink.
He'll be finding out soon if that changes when Martin's angry with him.
Tim turns toward him sharply, he can tell, but he's too absorbed in his own hands, twisting together in his lap, to look at whatever expression he has. He doesn't want to look up and see all the sympathy and burgeoning friendship drain out of Tim's eyes. Tim needs him, for the moment. Jon is selfish enough to take the pretense for as long as he can have it.
"That's my point," Sasha says, even though Jon feels quite confident it was not, in fact, her point. A nail from the same box, maybe, but not her point.
"How long does that last? How long before Danny would regret it?" Tim asks, demands. His voice is loud and Jon tries very hard not to flinch. He shrugs without moving anything else. He's well-accustomed to the instincts of prey, now; don't move and maybe it won't see you, won't hurt you.
Tim sighs gustily. "I'm sorry." Because he needs them.
"I think," Jon says, small and faltering, "we should focus on helping Danny. Not what comes after. He- he should get to pick. And it sounds like we can't ask him before doing it, and if we wait too long it might not matter."
The silence crushes him beneath its weight. He just wants this to be over.
"Fine," Tim says sharply. "Fine."
-
Jon spends and increasingly large percentage of his time trying not to meet Tim's eyes. He has so little to contribute, and even that he can feel coming to an end. They've taken the question out of his hands, only include him in the discussions as a formality. It's better if Jon doesn't know what they're doing, because they're never going to follow through with helping him. They don't say that, they say that they don't want him to have anything that Martin could pry out of him, because he's too tempting to slip beneath Danny's vampire's notice if he goes, and they need to do it when they know Martin is otherwise occupied. Because he's too tempting to save. He just wants to pretend to have a friend a little longer.
He thinks they might be having sex, yet another way he's excluded from the group, another way he'll be left behind when they're finished. Sometimes he's sent to his room while they plan, but sometimes they do things the other way round, and he hears them giggling and squeaking and quite a bit of movement and exhortations to be careful, thuds of falling bodies, groans about kinked backs, through the door.
He gets chopped-up bits of the plan, the bits that fall out the edges and echo from the other room. But Jon's only job is bait.
Sasha's first step, he learns after it's happened, is to watch Tim's brother. They need to know how often his vampire visits him alone, what her schedule is. The work sounds like it's coming to frustrating conclusions for weeks, until suddenly it isn't. Danny's vampire is planning a performance. Is planning one of the things that make Jon glad to have had Elias instead. Then Sasha just has to nudge Martin into altering his schedule slightly, putting him off an extra week on her end so that he'll visit Jon the right week. The performance is on a Saturday night, so Jon- Jon's phone, typed and sent by Sasha with his permission because he's too nervous to do it- texts Martin about an imaginary scheduling conflict the night before, when he would normally see Martin.
Tim promises that he'll help cover for Jon if the lost day affects him at work, so that he doesn't give Elias an excuse to come see him again. Jon doubts that will happen; either Tim won't have any use for Jon anymore, or he'll be dead.
-
Jon sits on his couch and stares at his hands, waiting, waiting, waiting. Happy to help. Happy to wait. Happy to move Martin's visit to a day when he has nothing to take up the horrible, waiting hours before. Happy to wait and wait and wait, far longer than should be necessary. He's late. Does he know what Jon's done? What the others are doing?
The door unlocks. Jon stares at his hands. Heavy footsteps enter, door shut and locked behind them.
"Hello," Martin says, bright and sunny. "Alright, Jon?"
He knows he looks awful. All the tiny benefits of Martin were toppled when he realized he was trapped working for Elias, and the stress of the secrets he has to keep from Martin, for his own sake and the others', feels written across his forehead. He nods, because Elias didn't like it when he refused to answer a direct question.
"Jon?"
He looks up through his lashes, but not enough to see more than Martin's sock-clad feet, shoes removed by the door. A gentleman monster. The feet come closer, and Martin's weight settles beside him, making his half of the couch cushion incline so that Jon starts to slide down the fake leather into his side.
"Hold still."
He's wearing a t-shirt today, not a collared shirt. It doesn't take Martin any effort at all to be breathing over his jugular.
The dam separating Jon from his feelings cracks, and he starts to hyperventilate. "Please don't, please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, please, please, I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry." He's going to ruin everything, and even without Martin intervening to force the words out he can't stop himself.
"Jon?" Martin asks again, all the anxiety of buying milk when the line for the register is long in his voice even as Jon keeps bleeding pleas from his lips. "Jon, breathe. Take deep breaths."
His lungs rise and fall in a deep, even rhythm. He can't move, can't hyperventilate, can barely speak. What if Martin orders him not to speak? Not just for tonight, what if he forgets to give Jon permission again and he has to go to work on Monday and-
"Look at me."
He turns his head a sharp ninety degrees, all order with none of himself to smooth it into a more human movement. He doesn't even remember Martin telling him to do it.
Martin's forehead is creased with concern. He looks human and kind, with his head tipped curiously and that as his expression. A predator as perfectly disguised as Elias was until the moment he had Jon cornered and it was too late. "What's the matter?" he asks, and then, before Jon can blurt out his more immediate fear as a desperate bid at distraction, he adds, "Please be honest with me. I'm worried about you. What brought this on?"
"Tim and Sasha are counting on me not to tell you anything and I'm going to ruin everything."
All he can do is gasp in horrified realization, mouth lolling open. He feels so nauseous he can't close it, panting even breaths. He still can't move. Martin is going to be furious and Jon can't move.
"Who? Wait, when did you meet Sasha?"
"She answered your phone when I called you about Elias." He wonders if he could bite his own tongue off right now. It's about the extent of the movement available to him, and the only thing he can think of to stop himself vomiting secrets.
"Where did you see Elias?" Martin looks alarmed, like he actually cares, properly cares, on a human level.
"He's my new boss." Having to say it always sets hot tears streaking down his face, and now is no exception. If he lives long enough to go back to work, he'll probably start at it the next time Elias comes to gloat, breathing and speech unaltered but face covered in the evidence of his distress.
"What aren't you supposed to be telling me about?" Martin asks, finally getting to the crux of the issue.
"The vampire they're killing."
-
Martin tears everything out of Jon and then finally seems to remember that Jon can't move except to speak and blink, dismissing him almost absent-mindedly to go to his room like a troublesome child. He can't leave, but he can hear Martin in the other room, muttering to himself, making calls that that are never picked up. Deciding how angry he is at Jon before he feeds, so he can make Jon suffer exactly as much as Martin decides he deserves.
There are still tears running down his face. He can't stop them. It happens whenever he thinks of Elias now, and the only way he ever manages to stop is to think of something else. He tries to read, which usually works, but obviously tonight is an exception. Hard not to think about vampires with a vampire pacing up and down your hallway.
He goes numb, eventually. He sits with his back against his bedroom door and tears persistently running down his face, the beginning of a dehydration headache coming on before he's even lost any blood. He can't go for water, though, because he can't leave his room.
There's a knock on his front door, and Jon stops breathing.