Archive of Our Own

When Jon comes out into the assistants’ office one Monday afternoon a couple of weeks before Christmas, he has to stop short, looking around and blinking. The place looked completely normal when he went into his own office and closed the door behind him this morning, he’s sure of it. Dingy, dusty, filled with boxes, three desks, each with its respective assistant working away behind it.

Now there are paper chains strung across the ceiling, paper snowflakes, the kind Jon remembers making at primary school by folding paper and snipping bits out, dangling from them. Multicoloured fairy lights have been fastened up along the walls, emitting, Jon has to admit, a much more pleasant brightness than the flickering, buzzing, fluorescent ceiling lights that are the Institute standard. There’s a medium sized plastic Christmas tree in one corner, festooned with so much tinsel and so many baubles that it looks in danger of collapsing under its own weight. It even has an angel on top, which is half the size again of the whole tree.

“What… what’s all this?” he says.

All three of them look up.

“Oh, this?” Tim says, waving his hand at the decorations casually, as though they’ve been there for the last three weeks and Jon has only just noticed them. For half a second, he even wonders if this is the case. He can get pretty unobservant when he’s engrossed in work. But then Tim says, “We thought we’d give the place a little festive cheer. Like it?”

“It’s…” Jon hesitates. It’s honestly a bit excessive. He doesn’t mind Christmas, but he’s never been religious, Christian or otherwise, and he detests crowds and parties and most of what seems to come along with the holiday season. He hasn’t properly celebrated in years, not since Gran died, really, if you could call their sedate little exchange of presents a celebration at all. He does like the lights, though. He can feel his headache dissipating the longer he stands here. “It’s certainly festive,” he says.

“We’ve got some spares for your office, if you like.” Sasha holds up a couple of boxes of the lights. Jon stares at them. He wants them. He’s not sure he wants to admit he wants them, though. It’s… it’s a bit childish, isn’t it? Not very professional. He wonders, uneasily, what Elias would say if he saw them. On the other hand, it is the Christmas season. Decorating for it seems pretty standard for most people who aren’t, well, Jon.

He sighs. “I suppose,” he says.

Sasha grins at him. “So we’ve got some lights, and a few decorations, and a little tree. We thought it could go on top of your filing cabinet. Sound good?”

“Ah, y-yes?” Jon blinks at her. Having some spare lights and decorations makes sense. This is a largish space and it’s their first Christmas down here. Not being sure exactly how much stuff they’ll need is something he can understand. But a whole second tree? That’s deliberate. They brought in a miniature Christmas tree for his office. On purpose. For a moment, Jon sort of wants to cry, but that’s ridiculous. He swallows his feelings down and nods at Sasha, who beams as she jumps up and heads for his office, Martin carrying an armful of paper chains and Tim with a Morrisons bag hot on her heels. Jon follows them slowly, feeling a little dazed.

“What about some mistletoe, boss?” Tim says as he enters, and pulls a bundle of plastic greenery out of his carrier bag.

“What?”

“Just to encourage a bit of festive kissing,” Tim says, waggling the plastic mistletoe in his direction.

Jon feels his face grow warm. He likes kissing, which Tim and Sasha, at least, are well aware of, and there’s hardly been any of it since they all got sent down here months ago. It had just felt a bit weird, now that he was their manager, to let Tim and Sasha keep kissing him whenever they wanted. Like he’d be taking advantage of them. So he’d banned kissing at work and it had seemed fine because they could still kiss anywhere else, only, he realises now, he’s almost completely stopped spending time with them outside of work at all. When was the last time? Beginning of October, he thinks, guiltily. No wonder he’s been feeling so strung out and miserable. Nobody’s touched him in months.

“All right,” he says.

Tim gives a whoop, and Sasha turns from where she’s hanging baubles on his little tree to smile at him. Martin, who is standing on a step ladder to pin the paper chains to the ceiling, stares down at him, wide-eyed. Of course, he doesn’t know about the whole kissing thing. That had been another reason Jon had banned it at work; he hadn’t wanted Martin to… well, at first he’d thought he might report it to Elias, or want to join in himself, and Jon hadn’t known him then. Had hated him. Had thought he was doing things badly on purpose to mess with him, that he might be spying for Elias, anything, really, to stop himself from liking the man.

He takes care not to meet Martin’s eye. He doesn’t think he’d mind if Martin kissed him, not any more. It might even be nice, to feel Martin’s pink, soft-looking lips on his cheek, or… or his mouth. But… suddenly, he feels warm all over. He pushes the thoughts away. He’s Martin’s manager, and he hasn’t been a very good one. He certainly isn’t going to do anything to make Martin feel as though he has to kiss Jon. That would be inexcusable.

Anyway, Tim and Sasha kissing him will be more than enough. He’s pretty sure that the mistletoe is nothing more than a device, something to give Jon an excuse to let the three of them slip back to somewhere closer to their old dynamic. He watches as Sasha puts the finishing touches to his little tree while Tim and Martin fix the lights together, and feels very, very fond of them. Sometimes he’s doubted that they even like him any more. What if Sasha is angry that she wasn’t offered a job he knows she’d be better at, and Tim feels the same, because they’re Tim and Sasha and that’s how it goes? What if Jon was only ever an interloper, a hanger on to their coat tails? But now, quite simply, as though it’s nothing at all, they’ve swept all that aside. They do still like him. They do still care about him. They do still want to be his friend. Even Martin is helping, so maybe he doesn’t hate Jon as much as he really, really should. Jon hopes so.

“Thank you,” he says, when they’ve finished. “This is… this is really quite…” He clears his throat. “Thank you.”

“Hey, you’re welcome,” Tim says, pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking the time. “Got to go, I said I’d call that bloke from St. David’s back at four. See you later.”

“Er, would you like a cup of tea, Jon?” Martin says. “I was just going to make one.”

Usually when Martin asks, Jon says no. This does not, of course, stop Martin from bringing him tea anyway, and it’s always so much better than anything Jon seems able to make for himself, but at first Jon had been too furious about Martin’s mere presence in the archives to accept anything from him, and of late he hasn’t wanted to make Martin feel as though he has to make tea. But now he looks up into Martin’s round face. His eyebrows are drawn together in slight anxiety, his eyes are bright and blue as always behind their glasses, and somehow Jon can’t quite bring himself to reject the offer.

“Yes, please,” he says, the words coming up a little dry and nervous. “I, ah, thank you.”

“Oh,” Martin says, going a bit pink. “You’re welcome, Jon.”

He smiles at Jon and bustles away, and that only leaves Sasha.

“So you’re okay with the kissing thing?” she says, the moment the door has closed behind Martin. “The mistletoe’s only for fun, we don’t actually have to if you’d rather not.”

Jon’s cheeks get warm again. “No,” he says. “I’d like… I… well, I’ve missed… I know it’s my own fault, but…”

Sasha’s grinning at him. “I take it that’s a yes,” she says.

“Oh,” Jon says. “Ah. Yes. Definitely a yes.” He smiles too, hot and embarrassed and really very pleased.

“Fantastic,” Sasha says, and then, even though Jon isn’t standing under any of the three bunches of plastic mistletoe Tim’s hung up in here, she kisses him. It’s brief and soft, just her lips pressed against his for a moment before she steps back again, but it’s warm and comforting and familiar. Something unhappy and tight and painful inside Jon loosens a little. He’s glad he agreed to this.

He continues to be glad as the week passes. Tim and Sasha start out slowly, cautiously, as though afraid going all in too quickly will scare him off and precipitate another kissing ban. Tim will tap on his office door when he comes in and take Jon’s chin in his hand, tilting his face up to be kissed as he sits at his desk. Sasha will round a dingy corner in the archives, find Jon there, sorting through some box or other, and stride casually up to him, her hands settling on his waist as she kisses him. But as the days go by and Jon welcomes every kiss, they grow bolder. On Wednesday morning, Tim pulls Jon out of his chair to pin him by his hips against his desk instead, and snogs him quite silly. And that afternoon, Sasha corners him beside the door to document storage, presses him against the wall, and proceeds to kiss him for a solid ten minutes, until Jon is a mere puddle in her hands, weak-kneed with his arms looped around her neck for balance. The more they kiss him, the more Jon can feel his whole body untensing, the tangled threads of his mind unwinding themselves.

They kiss Martin, too. On Tuesday afternoon, Jon wanders past the door to the breakroom and spots Sasha in there with her hands on Martin’s cheeks, lips pressed against his. Neither of them notices him, but Jon finds himself smiling unexpectedly at the sight. Martin should get kissed, even if it wouldn’t be right for Jon to do it himself. The next morning, an hour or so after Tim has kissed Jon to the point of incoherence, he comes into the assistants’ office with a question for Tim, only to find him seated on Martin’s desk, doing the same thing to him. This time Martin catches sight of Jon over Tim’s shoulder and pulls hastily away, face scarlet.

Tim looks round. “Oh, hey, Jon. Everything all right?”

Jon can’t stop himself from smiling again, even as Martin wipes his mouth guiltily. “Quite all right,” he says. “Sorry to interrupt, I just had a quick question for Martin.” It only takes a moment to clarify the point he’d been puzzled about, and as he leaves, he hears Martin say,

“Tim, maybe we shou…” before the sentence is cut off abruptly.

It does cost Jon a pang to realise that the only people in the archives not kissing each other are him and Martin. He keeps on catching himself imagining what it would be like, how safe and warm he’d feel with Martin’s large arms wrapped around him. He’d have to go right up on his tiptoes just to reach Martin’s mouth, and even then Martin would probably have to bend down to give him access. Or maybe Jon could perch on the breakroom counter to make up the difference in their heights. Martin could lift him up there easily. He imagines how it would feel for Martin to coax his mouth open, swallowing down the pleased, helpless little sounds Jon can never stop himself from making when he’s being thoroughly kissed.

He really, really wishes he hadn’t such a dick to Martin for the first few months. If he hadn’t, maybe they’d be friends by this time and it would be acceptable for Jon to kiss him. As it is, he takes care to stay away from any of the mistletoe decorations when Martin’s around, just to make sure he doesn’t feel any more uncomfortable in Jon’s presence than he has to.

And then, on Friday evening, everything changes.

The day begins normally. Tim comes in to give Jon his morning kisses, Sasha pops in a little later for a chat about a statement and some more kissing, and then again when she leaves after lunch to go out on follow-up. Tim has apparently made it his mission to kiss Jon at least once for every time he sees him today, even just passing him in the corridor. On his lips, on his forehead, on his cheeks, on his temples, on his neck, on his fingers, on his wrist. By the time he leaves for the day, lingering to snog Jon breathless against his bookcase, it feels as though Tim’s kissed him on every inch of exposed skin.

That’s probably why Jon is still feeling unusually relaxed even half an hour later as he goes through to the breakroom to make himself a cup of tea. Sasha and Tim both made him promise not to go home too late tonight, and he fully intends not to. He just needs to finish up what he’s doing first. It shouldn’t take more than an hour.

The kettle boils and clicks itself off, and Jon pours the water out onto his teabag. He wonders, yet again, what it is that Martin does to his tea to make it taste so nice. He’ll ask, one day.

“Oh, hey, Jon,” Martin himself says behind him, and Jon jumps and swings round.

“Martin! I thought you’d already left for the night.”

“I’m on my way out now,” Martin says. “D’you mind if I just get to the fridge?”

Jon moves aside and watches as Martin folds himself down to grab a plastic flask from the bottom of the fridge. It’s always amazing, and sometimes a little sad, to see how small Martin can make himself appear to be when he wants to.

“Okay, I definitely heard you telling Sasha you were going to leave on time today,” Martin says as he gets back to his feet, pushing the flask into his bag. “Now you’re making yourself tea?”

“I said I’d leave at a sensible time,” Jon says. “Not on time. Anyway, this shouldn’t take me more than an hour or so.”

“An hour!” Martin says, sounding a little despairing. “Jon, that’s not a sensible time, come on!”

“It’s earlier than I usually leave,” Jon says defensively.

He knows he needs to go home earlier, he really does, but there’s always so much work to be done, and Elias always seems so disgusted when he finds out how little Jon’s achieved. It makes him want to curl up in some dark, tiny corner and let himself shrivel away, but instead he’s been coming in earlier and staying later and taking work home at the weekends, until work is pretty much all he does. At least until this week. Yesterday, for the first time in months, he actually left at the same time as everyone else. It had felt weird, to have hours on end to do whatever he liked with, but he’d cooked a proper meal for himself, along with leftovers for the next couple of days, and he'd painted his nails green and started a book he’s been meaning to read since, god, he can’t even remember. It had felt, honestly, very nice indeed.

Martin, who doesn’t know any of this, shakes his head. “But will you actually leave then?” he says. “Or will you start doing something else, and then decide to stay until you’ve finished that?”

Jon opens his mouth to defend himself, and then closes it again. This is, in fact, a reasonable question and quite a likely scenario.

“I won’t,” he says at last, weakly.

“Hm,” Martin says, giving him a severe look. “Or you could just leave with me now. The work’s not going anywhere.”

Ridiculously, Jon is actually a little tempted by this. Maybe he shouldn’t have started letting Tim and Sasha kiss him again. It’s lovely, but it’s also sort of making him forget about the importance of work. And Martin’s eyebrows are creased in a little frown, his eyes resting on Jon. His gaze feels almost tangible, not in a heavy, painful way, like Elias’s, but light, warm, gentle.

“Um,” Jon says.

“Just this once?” Martin coaxes.

Just once, Jon thinks. That’s right. Leaving early today doesn’t mean he has to leave early ever again, not if he doesn’t want to. It just means today. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

He sighs. “All right.”

All this kissing is definitely making him weak-minded.

The next moment he stops caring about his own weakness of mind, because Martin is absolutely beaming at him. There’s really no other word for it. He’s smiling, and his little dimple is making a divot in his cheek and his eyes are all crinkled up at the corners and his eyebrows have uncreased themselves into their usual pale lines. He looks genuinely happy that Jon has succumbed to his benign bullying.

“Brilliant!” he says. “That’s great, Jon. Come on, then. Do you need to get anything?”

Without having quite meant to, Jon finds himself hurrying to get his bag from his office. For a moment, he hesitates, his hand hovering over a little pile of research, and then he pulls it back. Just this weekend, just this once, he doesn’t need to take work home.

Martin holds his coat out to him when he gets back out into the corridor, and it occurs to Jon that Martin probably doesn’t trust him to actually go home unless he supervises his departure himself. He should probably be offended by that.

He takes his coat and pulls it on, and, as he does up the buttons and looks back up at Martin, catches his eyes flicking down from the ceiling above Jon, a faint pink mantling his cheeks. Jon follows the movement almost automatically.

Ah.

Jon’s been so careful, this whole week, about standing near any of Tim’s mistletoe when Martin’s around, but there’s so much of it, because god forbid Tim do anything by halves, that he supposes it was sort of inevitable that at some point he’d forget and end up under some in Martin’s presence. It’s a little unfortunate that it’s happened while the two of them are alone together in the archives, but there’s not much to be done about it now.

“No, no, it’s all right,” he says quickly. “There’s no need… just ignore it.”

“Oh,” Martin says. “Okay.” There’s an odd note in his voice that Jon scrambles, unsuccessfully, to try to interpret. The silence stretches on for too many seconds, awkward and tense. Then Martin takes a deep breath and says, “I mean, I could just… just kiss you on the cheek. You know, if you…”

“What?” Jon’s voice comes out as an undignified little squeak.

“N-not if you don’t want to,” Martin adds. “Obviously. I… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and I know you don’t really like…”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Jon says, before he can bite the words back.

Martin blinks at him. “You’re… not?” Jon shakes his head. “Okay,” Martin says. “It… it’s just you’ve been really obvious about, you know, not going anywhere near the mistletoe when I’m there. So I thought…”

“Oh,” Jon says. “No, it’s not… I just didn’t want you to feel, ah, as though you had to… you know, just because Tim and Sasha…”

He gulps.

“So,” Martin says. “You… you’d be okay if I…”

“Yes,” Jon says. “Yes, I’d be… that… yes.”

“Okay,” Martin says. “Okay. Okay.”

He takes a step towards Jon, and then another, and another, until there’s a scant inch of space between them, and Jon has to tilt his head back to keep looking at Martin’s face. One of his hands comes up to touch Jon’s jaw, so lightly, with his fingertips, and suddenly Jon’s heart is racing. Martin leans down, and it’s ridiculous, honestly, how far he has to lean before his lips brush against Jon’s cheek. And then they’re gone again, far too soon, leaving Jon with a warm, tingling sensation and a ludicrous feeling of disappointment. Martin straightens back up, blushing hard, and Jon realises he’s not going to do anything more, not unless Jon…

He doesn’t think it through. He just goes up on his tiptoes, as high as he can, grasps Martin’s arms for balance, and presses his lips firmly against Martin’s.

As he pulls back again and gets both feet flat on the floor, Martin gives a tiny, muffled sort of squeak. Both his hands go to his mouth. His cheeks are flooded with red, and his eyes are huge and wide behind his glasses. Shit. Oh, god, Jon’s such an idiot, he’s totally misread the situation and he’s made Martin incredibly uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” he blurts. “Sorry. Sorry. Are… are you all right?”

“Mhm!” Martin nods vigorously, but his hands are still clasped over his mouth.

“Are you sure?” Jon says.

“Mhm,” Martin says again. Then he seems to realise that Jon needs more, and says, “Yep, I’m… I’m fine, I’m good. Jutht… fine.”

“Did I hurt you?” Jon says uncertainly. There’s something weird about the way Martin’s talking, as though he’s developed a speech impediment all of a sudden.

“No, no,” Martin says, not taking his hands away from his mouth. “It’th not that. Thit. Jutht give me a minute, pleathe.”

“But what’s wrong?” Jon demands, genuinely worried now. “Let me see, maybe I can help.”

He reaches up to pull at Martin’s hands, and it must take Martin by surprise, because he actually succeeds. Martin yanks his hands back up almost immediately but in the few seconds his mouth is uncovered, Jon sees enough. His mouth falls open.

“Ah, Martin?” he says. “Was… were those… were those fangs?”

For a moment, Martin just stands there, hands once more firmly clamped over his mouth, eyes wide with panic. Then he heaves a sigh and slowly lets his hands drop.

“Thod it,” he says. “I thuppothe there’th no uthe hiding it now.”

Jon stares at his mouth. He only got a glimpse of them before, but now, as Martin talks, he watches in fascination as his mouth moves, revealing his slender, pointed canines. They’re long enough that they protrude over his lower lip, and they’re very white and shiny. Jon lifts his hand, wanting to see if they feel as smooth and sharp as they look, only to have it slapped away in horror by Martin.

“What are you doing?” he says.

“Sorry.” Embarrassed, Jon puts his hands behind his back. “I just… they’re so shiny. I wanted to see what they felt like.”

“They feel tharp!” Martin says. “Obviouthly! Honethtly, Jon, have you got a death with or thomething?”

“No! I was just curious!”

“Of courthe you were.” Martin shakes his head, but in a fondly exasperated way, not a horrified one, which is a definite improvement. He pokes at his mouth, Jon watching avidly. “God,” he mutters. “Thith ith ridiculouth. Tim kithed me for about fifteen minuteth thith afternoon and I was fine, but one tiny kith from you and I’m…”

He catches Jon’s eye and stops talking.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks, with interest.

“What?”

“Well, you’re… you’re a vampire, yes? I mean, the fangs…”

“Oh, god. Yeth, I’m a vampire, Jon.”

“So this…” Jon waves his hand to indicate Martin’s whole… situation. “Must be some sort of… of instinctual thing? That you can’t entirely control, presumably. So. Is it because you’re hungry?”

“I…” Martin swallows. “Thort of? I mean, yeth, it’th like… like your mouth watering when you thmell… er. I mean, when you’re hungry.”

“When you smell…” Jon repeats, following the thought to its logical conclusion. “When you smell something good? Oh.”

He blinks, feeling his face grow hot. There’s only one thing Martin could have smelled, isn’t there, down here in the archives when everyone else has left long ago?

“I’m thorry,” Martin says wretchedly. “Normally I can control it jutht fine! I justht… I wathn’t exthpecting you to…”

Kiss him. Jon kissing him had… “Do you want to bite me?” Jon says.

“What?” Martin almost shrieks.

Jon flushes, but stands his ground. “Well, do you?”

“No! No, of courthe not! Abtholutely not! Definitely not! God, Jon! What… no! No. No. I mean, no.”

“All right,” Jon says, a little offended. “You don’t have to be quite so emphatic about it.”

“Thorry, I jutht, why would you even athk that?”

Jon shrugs. “I wanted to know. And I thought it might be… interesting.”

“To have your blood drunk by a vampire?”

“Well, yes.”

“Oh my god.” Martin covers his face with his hands for a moment. “How are you thtill alive, Jon?”

“You are the first vampire I’ve met,” Jon points out. And then, after a moment’s thought, “That I know of, anyway.”

“Lucky for you,” Martin mutters.

There’s a moment of silence.

“Are you sure you don’t want to bite me?” Jon says.

“Jon! I’d almotht got them to go back in!”

“Oh, can I watch?” Jon says, stepping closer to him and peering up at his mouth.

“No! That’th just making it worthe!”

“Because you want to bite me,” Jon says.

“No!”

“It just makes sense, though,” Jon persists. “They only came out when I kissed you, and now you’re struggling to make them go back in again. Could you if I went away for a minute?”

There’s a pause.

“Probably,” Martin admits.

“You see!” Jon says triumphantly. “You want to bite me!”

Martin puts his hands over his face again. “Okay,” he says, defeated. “Fine. Yeth, I want to bite you. You’re… you’re jutht… it’th a whole thing, okay? But I’m not going to! Obviouthly I’m not going to! You’re my both, you’re my friend, I’m not…”

“We’re friends?” Jon says, momentarily distracted.

“Oh.” Martin blinks. “Well, I… I thought tho, anyway. Didn’t you…?”

“Yes!” Jon says. “Yes, I absolutely want to be friends. I… yes. Very much.”

“Oh, good.” Martin smiles at him, fangs pressing lightly on his lower lip. Jon still wants to touch them. Still wants to know what they’d feel like, biting into his skin, what Martin’s mouth would feel like sealed around the wound they make, his tongue lapping up Jon’s blood.

“Well,” he says. “That’s all the more reason you should bite me, isn’t it? If we’re friends?”

“That doethn’t even make thenthe, Jon,” Martin says.

“Yes it does! I… wait, what do you usually do for blood?”

“I buy animal blood, mothtly. Online. It’th quite eathy to get hold of.”

“Does it taste different from human blood? Which is better?”

“It’th fine. Human blood’th better, it tathteth amathing, but there aren’t exthactly a thurfeit of humanth queueing up to have their blood thucked. There are thome, but to do it thafely you’d need a lot of people on rotathion. Animal blood’th muth eathier.”

“But human… is that what you’ve got in your flask? Blood? Can I see?”

“Oh god, Jon! Yeth, it’th blood, but I drank it on my lunth break tho it’th empty now.”

“Oh.” That’s a shame, but Jon supposes he can wait and ask Martin to see his blood another day. “Well,” he temporises. “You can still bite me, can’t you?”

“I’m not going to bite you!”

“Why not?”

“Becauthe! It’th… it’th… I don’t want to hurt you, Jon.”

Jon waves his hand. “Oh, well, if that’s all, I’ve hurt myself plenty of times by accident. I’m sure it’ll be fine. How much does it hurt?”

Martin pauses.

“Martin?” Jon says.

Martin continues to be silent.

“Martin, does it hurt?”

“Well, not technically. There’th… there’s a thort of venom in my thaliva, it anaethetitheth the victim and it’th an antitheptic, too, and encourageth the wound to heal quickly onthe you’ve finithed drinking.”

Jon digests this. “So you wouldn’t actually be hurting me.”

“Well…”

“And the wound would heal fast.”

“I mean…”

“And it would be clean.”

“That’th not the point, Jon!”

“Then what is the point?”

“I’d be drinking your blood!”

“Well, yes, but not all of it, I assume. You could stop when you’ve had a pint or so.”

“I thuppothe. I mean, yeth, of courthe I could. I would. But I don’t need to, Jon. I’ve got plenty of blood at home.”

“All right, but if you want to, why shouldn’t you?”

“Becauthe… becauthe…”

“Especially if I want you to, too,” Jon adds, hopefully.

Martin stares at him. Jon stares back. At last Martin says, sounding very uncertain, “You really want me to bite you?”

“Yes.”

“And drink your blood.”

“Yes.”

“Right,” Martin says. “Right. Right. Cool.” He peers at Jon. “Are you thure?”

“Yes, I’m sure! How many times do I have to tell you before you’ll believe me? I want you to bite me, Martin. I want to know what it’s like. I want…” He hesitates, because it’s not just that he wants any vampire to bite him, interesting as the general idea is. “I want you to bite me,” he says at last. “Not… not anyone else. Just you. I trust you.”

“Oh,” Martin says. It’s a small, shocked little sound, as though Jon’s managed to completely and utterly astonish him. “Okay, then.”

“Okay?” Jon says. Excitement rushes through him. “Really? You’ll do it?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Martin says, sounding as though he’s already slightly regretting his decision. “I mean, you were right, I do want to.”

Jon beams at him. “All right, where shall we do it? My office? Or would the breakroom be better?”

“No,” Martin says, so firmly that Jon actually shuts up and just looks at him. “If we’re going to do thith, we’re going to do it properly. Thafely. Okay?”

“Fine,” Jon says.

“However careful I am, there’th alwayth a chanthe you could react badly, have a panic attack, or go into thock, or be allergic to my thaliva or thomething. Lothing blood ith a traumatic exthperienthe for the body; that’th why they’re tho careful about it when people donate blood. Tho we need to do it thomewhere thafe, thomewhere you’ll feel comfortable, and I can make thure I have anything to hand I need to make thure you’re okay.”

“So at a hospital or something?” Jon says, frowning, although he doesn’t think he’ll feel very comfortable there.

Martin laughs. “I gueth that would be thafetht, but no, I was jutht thinking of one of our hometh. Yourth or mine, whichever you’d prefer. Ath long ath you have thome food to hand, and blanketth, thingth like that, it thould be fine.”

“Ah,” Jon says, relieved. “Yes, I see.” He considers the question. He’d quite like to see Martin’s flat. He has a feeling it’s probably a lot cosier than his. On the other hand, he’s never at his best in strange places, and if there really is a risk of having a panic attack, he’s a lot more likely to be able to handle it well in his own home. So, a little reluctantly, he says, “My place would probably be better, at least for the first time.”

“The firtht… you know what, never mind.” Martin shakes his head. “Your plathe thoundth great. Do you have thnackth, or thould we thtop off thomewhere to buy thome?”

“I’ve got plenty of food,” Jon says loftily, even though he only bought most of it last night, and that only because Tim and Sasha made him go home early for the first time in months and he actually had time to do more than dive into the corner shop on the way home.

Martin grins as though he knows exactly what Jon’s thinking, but all he says is, “Good. Can you give me a minute, then? I don’t want to travel through London with my fangth out. It maketh people look at me funny.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. Sorry. Ah, shall I…?”

“Jutht… jutht go and thit in the breakroom for a couple of minuteth or thomething.”

“All right.”

Jon retreats to the breakroom and pushes the door closed in case it’s not just a question of Martin being able to see him. He wonders what, exactly, it was about the kiss that made Martin’s fangs come out. He wonders if it would happen again if Jon kissed him again. Then he wonders if this means he still won’t be able to kiss Martin at work. That would be sad, although Martin biting him at home might turn out to be a very acceptable substitute.

A couple of minutes later, Martin opens the breakroom door and says, “All gone! Er, sorry about that.”

“Well, if it was anyone’s fault it was mine,” Jon says. “I was the one who kissed you. Ah, I apologise for that. I didn’t realise the effect would be quite so…”

“No, no, it’s fine.” It’s almost odd, now, to hear Martin pronouncing the letter S with perfect clarity. Jon tries to be subtle about peering at his mouth to see if he can spot any trace of the fangs, but the only teeth visible are Martin’s usual blunt, slightly wonky ones. Amazing. “Actually,” Martin goes on. “I… I liked it.”

Jon’s eyes shoot up to his. “Oh, you… really?”

“Wasn’t that obvious from the whole…?” Martin gestures vaguely at his mouth.

“Would, ah, would you like to do it again?” Jon says, hopefully.

Martin blushes. “Um. Yes, but maybe not until we get to your place. The… the fangs, you know. Probably safer not to risk it.”

“All right,” Jon says, disappointed to be denied but mollified by the suggestion that he has the power to make Martin’s fangs appear just by kissing him. He looks forward to trying it out again as soon as they’re in private. “Shall we go, then?”

The journey back to his flat seems to take three times as long as usual with the force of his impatience, but Jon deals with it as best he can by peppering Martin with every question that occurs to him about vampires and vampirism.

“Can you go out in the daylight?” he asks as they pass the Co-op on the corner and approach the tube station. “You must have been leaving work before it got dark during the summer.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t feel great,” Martin says. “Makes me pretty unwell if I’m out in it for too long, but I won’t burst into flames or anything.”

“Why do you drink so much tea?” Jon demands, as they finally ascend back to street level, Martin having refused to discuss anything to do with being a vampire while they were on the busy underground. “Aren’t you supposed to drink blood? What about food? Have I seen you eating? I must have.”

“I can eat and drink normal food,” Martin says. “It doesn’t do a lot for me nutritionally, but I enjoy it, so I do it when I feel like it.”

“What about immortality?” Jon says, as they trot briskly towards his flat, heads bent against the freezing December sleet. “Are you going to live forever? Does being a vampire make you beautiful?”

Martin snorts a laugh. “Yeah, no, that’s not a thing, neither of those.”

“Really?” Jon turns his head to look at him. “Why do you look like that, then? I thought you being a vampire might explain it.”

Martin wipes some sleet off his eyelashes and stares at Jon. “What are you talking about?”

Jon waves a hand. “You know. You’re… you’re so… you know.”

He looks at Martin, and despite the fact that he’s terrible at reading people’s faces, can tell immediately that Martin really, really doesn’t know. He’s got his face scrunched up in confusion, still staring at Jon. Jon feels a little pang of indignation.

“You’re lovely,” he tells him. Martin blinks a few times. He still seems baffled. “I mean it!” Jon persists. “I… even when I was being an absolute prick to you, I still thought you were… were lovely. Beautiful. I mean, it’s just an objective fact, really.”

Martin doesn’t seem to have any idea how to respond. He keeps staring at Jon, then looking down, then up at the sodden street ahead of him, and then back at Jon. He opens his mouth once or twice, and then closes it again without saying anything.

Eventually, it’s Jon himself who breaks the silence, as they’re turning into his street. “Well,” he says. “What about hypnotism, then? Can you do that?”

That, finally, makes Martin seem to come back to himself a bit. “I wish,” he says. “Would’ve been a lot easier to get a decent job if I could have just hypnotised someone into giving me one.”

“Ah,” Jon says, trying to look as though he hasn’t already been marshalling arguments in favour of Martin doing a bit of experimental hypnotism on him. “Yes.”

Martin gives him a disbelieving look. “Jon, are you disappointed that I can’t mind control you?”

“No!” Jon lies. “Of course not. I mean, it certainly would have been an interesting experience to have, if you could have done it, but I’m not disappointed.”

“Right,” Martin says, clearly undeceived. He shakes his head. “Seriously, Jon, do you have no sense of self-preservation?”

“We’re here!” Jon announces loudly, hoping to distract Martin from the question in case it makes him start to doubt the wisdom of biting him again.

To his annoyance, Martin insists on Jon eating a proper meal before he bites him, and makes him drink what feels like a quite obscene amount of water.

“Did you even have lunch?” he says sternly, when Jon tries to say he’s not hungry.

“I… think so,” Jon hedges. He honestly can’t remember, and, in any case, his treacherous stomach betrays him by giving a loud rumble. At least he cooked enough yesterday to have leftovers tonight. Offered a portion, Martin refuses, pointing out that he’s come here for a different kind of meal, so Jon bolts it down as fast as he can, drinks his water, fetches some blankets and snacks, and shows Martin where everything is just in case he needs it. Finally, he changes into a soft pair of jogging bottoms and an old, faded, band t-shirt, also at Martin’s insistence. Apparently the more comfortable he is, the better.

And then, all of a sudden, there’s no more preparation to do, and Jon is sitting down on the sofa, close beside Martin, and feeling his heart rate start to pick up in anticipation.

“Well,” he says brightly. “How do we do this? Do you bite my neck?”

“Oh, no,” Martin says. “It’s not really safe, too easy to do serious damage. Arm’s a good place, if you’re okay with that. You’re left handed, aren’t you? So I should bite your right.”

Jon nods. This sounds sensible. “All right, then,” he says. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“You… you’re sure you want to do this?” Martin says. He seems nervous, his fingers twisting together in his lap.

“I’m sure,” Jon says.

“Okay.” Martin nods. He fumbles his phone out of his pocket and brings up an app. “I’ll set a timer so I know when to stop, okay? And… and like I said, it won’t hurt. It’ll feel nice.”

“Nice? In what way?”

“It… well, it varies depending on the person, but most people seem to feel sort of blissed out. Peaceful. Safe.” Martin makes a face. “It’s something in the saliva, apparently. It’s supposed to stop the victim from struggling once you’ve bitten them. It’ll last half an hour or so after I finish, you know, drinking.”

Jon looks at him and then, impulsively, touches his knee. “You know I’m not a victim, Martin,” he says. “Don’t you? I’m a willing participant. An enthusiastic one.”

“Yeah,” Martin says quickly. “Yeah, of course. It’s just been a while, that’s all. And… and it’s you.”

“Me?”

“Y-yeah?” Martin blushes. “I mean, I’m… it’s… it’s not a secret, is it, that I’m into you?”

“You’re…” Jon feels his eyes go very wide.

“Y-you know,” Martin says, not meeting them. “Like, romantically. I… you didn’t know? I thought everybody knew! Even the cleaners know!”

“Oh.” Jon sits for a moment, taking this in. “I… to be honest, Martin, I wasn’t even sure you liked me at all. I haven’t exactly… I mean, I know I’ve been a… a poor manager. Very poor.”

“I guess,” Martin says. “Only at first, though. You’ve been really nice recently.”

Jon tries to think of an instance where he’s been really nice, and can’t. But Martin thinks he has been. Martin thinks… Martin likes…

“Can I kiss you again?” he says.

“Oh,” Martin says, hushed. “You… you want…?”

“Yes,” Jon says. “I do. I… yes. Please. If… if you…”

Martin kisses him. This time it’s not brief or chaste, like either of their previous kisses. He kisses Jon hard, and his arms wrap around him, pulling him in close, making tiny, desperate little noises into Jon’s mouth. Jon closes his eyes and lets himself sink into it, feel every sensation, the warmth of Martin, the strength of him. His mouth, his tongue, his hands. Aren’t vampires supposed to be cold? He must ask about that, sometime when Martin isn’t pressing him into the cushions of the sofa to kiss him harder, closer, warmer.

“Ah, fuck,” Martin mumbles after a while, pulling away, his hand going to his mouth. “Thorry, thorry.”

Jon finds himself laughing at Martin’s disgruntlement. “Can I touch them this time?”

Martin heaves a put-upon sigh, but Jon doesn’t think he actually minds. “Fine,” he says. “Jutht be careful, okay?”

So Jon, remembering the time when he was ten and Gran finally let him dust the mantlepiece, only for him to do exactly what she’d feared he’d do and drop her Dresden shepherdess, reaches up and gently strokes his fingertip over one of Martin’s long, shiny fangs. It’s not quite as smooth as it looks, but it’s as hard and solid as any other tooth. Jon runs his fingertip down the length of it, from gum to tip, and then round the point.

“Ow!” He yanks his hand back. “That’s sharp.”

“I told you to be careful,” Martin says. “Here, let me thee.”

“It’s fine,” Jon starts, because it’s really not much more than a paper cut, but Martin has already taken his hand in both of his. He bends over it for a moment, and then licks Jon’s finger over the cut. Jon squeaks and pulls his hand away. “What did you do that for?”

But the cut is tingling, and when he looks down at it, it’s completely closed. There isn’t even a mark to show where it was, and for a moment Jon is actually disappointed. Then his brain catches up to what’s just happened.

“You licked it and it healed up!” he says, amazed. “You never said you could do that!”

“Yeth I did,” Martin says. “I thaid it maketh woundth heal more quickly.”

“But not instantly!” Jon says, still inspecting his finger.

Martin laughs. “That wath barely a cut, though. It didn’t even bleed. It’ll take longer when I bite you properly.”

Jon looks up and meets his eyes, feels his breath hitch, and wonders if this is something Martin can do, make him feel the beating of his heart and the rushing of his blood through his veins, or if it’s just because he knows what’s about to happen. He wonders if Martin can feel it, too.

“Are you ready?” Martin says softly.

“Yes.” His voice comes out oddly croaky, and Jon tries again. “Yes. Yes, I’m ready.”

They’re sitting so close together that Martin could bite anywhere on Jon’s body without having to reach, but Jon moves his right arm anyway, holding it out for Martin to take, and he does. His hands, so much bigger than Jon’s, so much paler, wrap around it gently. His thumb strokes gently over the skin just below Jon’s elbow.

“I’ll bite you here,” he says. “All right?”

When Jon nods, Martin bends his head over his arm, but he doesn’t bite. Instead, Jon feels something warm and wet and realises that Martin’s licking him again. Right. He said the venom in his saliva has anaesthetic properties. His toes curl in his socks.

Martin sits up again and picks his phone up. “There,” he says. “Timer’th set. Four minuteth. No chanthe of me accthidentally draining you dry.”

Jon sniffs. “You wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But I’d rather be thafe.” He pinches the skin below the crease of Jon’s elbow. “No allergic reaction. Feel anything?”

“No.”

“Good, that meanth you’re ready. Unleth you’ve changed your mind?”

“For Christ’s sake, Martin!” Jon bursts out. “Will you please stop shilly-shallying and bite me!”

“I wath jutht checking,” Martin says defensively. “Conthent ith important, Jon.”

“Well, I consent. You have no idea how much consent I’m beaming at you right now.”

“All right, all right.”

“I’m literally about to start begging. Is that what you want, Martin? Me to go down on my knees and beg you to bite me? Because I’ll do it!”

Martin chokes. “Jon!”

Hah. That’ll teach him to keep Jon waiting. “Maybe next time,” Jon says smugly.

“Okay, that’th it, I’m biting you right now,” Martin says, scarlet in the face.

“It’s about time,” Jon grumbles.

Martin leans down to where Jon’s arm is cradled in his hands, and his lips are warm against Jon’s skin. He kisses the place first, once, twice, and then, at last, Jon can feel the sharp, slender points of his teeth as they break through, sinking down into the flesh of his arm. It should hurt; he can tell it should hurt, but it doesn’t. It feels… oh, it feels strange. Jon hadn’t realised his arm was a little tensed, before, but it had been. It isn’t any more. The muscles have relaxed, gone limp in Martin’s grasp, and Martin pulls his fangs out, carefully, so as not to tear the skin of Jon’s arm any more than the two small holes he’s already made, and then his mouth closes over the wounds and he sucks.

A small, garbled noise bubbles up out of Jon’s throat. That… should this feel so good? The sucking? He remembers Martin saying it was supposed to feel pleasant, that it’s part of the whole thing, but still, he hadn’t expected the deep warmth of it. It feels like Martin’s flying through his veins, gathering up every point of pain and tension in his body and… and sucking them right out of him.

He’s still making noises, he realises in some distant, irrelevant corner of his mind, because of course he is. How could he not? Martin’s tongue is lapping in tiny movements over his skin, his lips hot on Jon’s arm as he sucks, and Jon’s whole body is relaxing, drained of the strain that usually lives there. He slumps against Martin, his head coming to rest against his shoulder, and Martin shifts to make him more comfortable. He lifts his head, just for a moment, to look up at Jon and say, “All right?”

For a moment it almost feels too hard to make his muscles shape themselves into a smile, but this is Martin, so Jon makes the effort. “’S good,” he says, the words rolling out of his mouth soft and haphazard. “Feels really good, Martin, please don’t stop.”

Martin bends his head and Jon hears himself groan as he seals his mouth over the two little wounds and starts to suck again. He should be embarrased by that, but he’s forgotten how to be embarrassed, what embarrassment is even for. He can’t remember the last time there wasn’t anxiety swirling around in his brain, all metallic glint and sharp edges, inescapable, but there’s no trace of it now. There’s just cotton-wool bliss, the heat of Martin still sucking and lapping at his arm, the warmth of Martin’s body against his. Jon feels as though he’s floating, weightless, in the circle of Martin’s arms, anchored only by the suction at the crook of his arm. Little sounds are still burbling out of his mouth and swimming away like golden fish. He doesn’t want Martin to stop, not ever. He’d happily, euphorically, die like this.

A sound cuts through the soft, warm pleasure, an ugly buzzing. It stops again after a moment, and so does the hot pressure at the inside of his elbow, but the bliss doesn’t; he’s still suspended in that golden haze, barely tethered by the feeling of Martin moving beside him, moving him. Jon goes willingly. Martin can do what he likes with him. Martin is so perfect, so beautiful, so good. He tries to tell him, the words coming out slurred and fuzzy. Martin’s fingers stroke through his hair, and slowly, drowsily, like bright gold liquid dripping languidly into his veins, Jon begins to remember that he has a body. He feels loose and pliant, his limbs heavy, his thoughts foggy.

“How are you feeling?” Martin’s voice says, somewhere above him. He’s still stroking Jon’s hair, slowly and gently.

Jon fumbles for words. “Good,” he says at last. “Feel good.”

He’s lying down, he realises. On his side, his cheek pillowed on Martin's plush thigh.

“That’s great,” Martin says. “Do you think you can sit up?”

“No,” Jon says, and feels as much as hears Martin’s quiet laugh.

“All right,” he says. “You can have a couple more minutes, but then you need to have something to drink, okay?”

“Mmm,” Jon says. Given the choice, he’d stay like this forever. Martin’s thigh is warm, and his fingertips trail wonderful paths over Jon’s scalp, and Jon feels… happy. He can’t remember the last time he felt properly happy.

All too soon, Martin suggests sitting up again, and this time he doesn’t listen to Jon’s mumbled objections. He levers and coaxes Jon until he’s mostly upright, leaning against Martin’s chest, Martin’s arm around him. It quickly becomes clear that Jon will spill at least half the water if he’s in charge of the glass, so Martin holds it carefully to his lips instead, and Jon drinks, feeling the water slip, cool and silvery, down his throat. By the time he’s reached the bottom of the glass, most of the golden langour is gone. He blinks a few times. The world is starting to creep back in. He can hear faint noises from the street below his window, the sound of his elderly radiator clanking.

“How are you doing?” Martin says. “Back with us?”

This time the words come more easily. “I… yes, I think so. That was… that… good heavens.”

Martin laughs, joggling Jon slightly, and Jon finds himself smiling. It’s lovely here, practically in Martin’s lap, held safe and warm against him. He turns his face into Martin’s chest and sighs.

“You should have something to eat, too,” Martin says after another stretch of time has passed.

“Not hungry,” Jon says into his chest.

“It doesn’t have to be much. A couple of biscuits. Come on.”

“You’re mean,” Jon complains, but he turns his face again so that he can eat the biscuits. The taste and feel of them, sweet and crunchy in his mouth, finally brings him all the way back into his body. He feels… god, he feels as though he’s slept for a week. “What time is it?” he asks. “Or, no, how long since you bit me?”

“About twenty-five minutes,” Martin says. “Are you feeling okay? You were pretty out of it for a while there.”

Jon feels his inquisitiveness start to whir back to life. “Was I?” he says. “Isn’t that how it is for everybody?”

“It varies,” Martin says. He’s smiling at Jon in a way that makes Jon wonder if he even realises he’s doing it. Bright and sweet, his arm still round him. “It seemed like it affected you more than some, though. How did it feel?”

Jon doesn’t know how to even start to describe the feeling. “Gold,” he says helplessly. “Nice. Peaceful. Warm.”

“So good, then?” Martin says. “No lingering pain or anxiety?”

Jon laughs. “I think I forgot how to be anxious,” he says. “I… I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite this relaxed. Thank you for doing that, Martin.”

“Oh.” Martin’s arm tightens around him for a moment. “That’s… it was my pleasure. Really.”

“Was it?” Jon tilts his head to look up into Martin’s face. “Did you like it? Did I taste good?”

Martin blushes hotly, and Jon finds himself watching it even more intently than usual. Is that his blood in Martin’s cheeks?

“Um,” Martin says. “Yeah. Yeah, er, you tasted… you tasted great. Really good.” He can’t seem to quite meet Jon’s eyes.

“Does that mean we can do it again?” Jon says.

That makes Martin look him in the eyes. “Again?” he says, as though it’s the most outlandish thing he’s ever heard in his life.

Jon sighs. “Yes, Martin. Again. I liked it, you liked it. Why shouldn’t we?” When Martin remains silent, he craftily adds, “What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Martin repeats, aghast, just as Jon had known he would. Now they’re arguing about when Martin’s going to bite Jon again and have entirely bypassed the whole question of whether he will. “Absolutely not!” Martin barrels on, while Jon tries to look disappointed instead of smug. Luckily for him, Martin’s quite distracted. “Jon, do you know how long it takes to replace blood? There’s a reason the NHS only lets you donate once every three months!”

“Oh, well,” Jon says, heaving a tragic sigh. “I suppose I can wait.”

There’s a silence. Martin stares at him for a long moment. Jon attempts to project innocent guilelessness.

“You little shit,” Martin says at last.

Jon can’t stop himself from laughing, and after a moment, Martin joins in.

“You know you would have said yes in the end,” Jon says.

“Yeah, fine, I suppose I would. I’m… I’m glad you liked it.”

“I more than… I loved it, Martin.” Martin beams at him, pink and pleased, and Jon feels quite desperately fond of him. He shuffles into a new position, still close against Martin, but now he can put his hand to Martin’s cheek, letting his fingers brush across the warm, soft skin, and kiss him.

“You’re lovely,” Martin murmurs against his lips between kisses. “God, Jon, you’re… I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long.”

“Well, now you can kiss me as often as you like,” Jon says. “Actually, I was thinking we should probably practice lots over the weekend, so that we can kiss at work without your fangs coming out.”

“Practice, hm?” Martin says, his mouth quirking up into a smile. “I think I can get on board with that.”

And he kisses Jon again.