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Everything hurts.
Aside from the constant, ever-present looming of insistent hunger, Jere’s skin has started aching all over, like a massive, invisible bruise stretching from his scalp to the soles of his feet, throbbing in his extremities painfully like a full-body migraine. The shit just doesn't fucking end with this new body.
It’s not entirely new – it had been a whisper at first, a dull ache that only hurt when pushed, starting a few weeks after that night. It hadn’t been something Jere had paid much notice to, then. He was so overwhelmed by how hungry and angry he was, and the raw throbbing in his gums as his teeth started to push out, that another budding pain had gone mostly unnoticed.
Jere doesn’t know when it started getting so much worse. It’s impossible to ignore now, shrieking over the screaming hunger, battering his senses. He curls into himself, burrowing deeper into his nest of blankets, arms hugging around himself. He can feel himself sweating through his shirt, hungry and writhing in his agony, legs sawing restlessly against the sheets.
Tommy’s still away, wherever he goes during the night, when he slips out before Jere wakes, only to return when the faintness of dawn begins to creep at the night’s edges. It scares him, in a way he doesn’t understand. Being left alone, hiding and scared in his pain, curled under the bed like a hurt animal, makes his mind scream for help. He doesn’t know if Tommy could take the pain away, he doesn’t know if it’s even Tommy he wants to come home, but the loneliness of his isolation and the magnitude of his pain makes the animal part of his mind wail for him.
Jere’s viscerally reminded of the feeling of being sick and home alone, scared and begging the clock to pass its time faster, for his parents to come home and take him into their arms. Of being sick and alone in the hospital, uncertain and lonely. He’d thought he’d outrun pain – I did everything I could in the end, hadn’t I? He’d gotten the fucking stoma, he’d spent months in the hospital with his fear and pain and hopelessness, he’d gotten the fucking J-pouch. Why did this have to come to him now?
I did my time, I did it, why now?
And it’s all Tommy’s fault, he could have lived the rest of his life out just fine if Tommy hadn’t–
A pulse of pain throbs through him, and his thought breaks off, jumbling in his scared and confused and agonized mind into something more like why won’t Tommy just come home?
It feels like hours before the click of the lock from somewhere across the house reaches Jere’s newly sensitive hearing. The time it takes for the footsteps to cross from the front door to the bedroom feels like the longest twenty seconds of Jere’s existence, and he can’t help the low whine of relief from escaping him as the lock of the bedroom finally clicks open.
Tommy’s footsteps are careful as he approaches the bed, kneeling to look for Jere in his safe place, buried under the blankets. “Jere?” He asks softly, a hand touching at the edges of the duvet tentatively.
Jere wants to say what’s wrong, he wants this to be some fucking vampire problem that Tommy knows how to fix so he can go back to normal. He opens his mouth to say it hurts so much , but a strangled sob chokes him before he can get a word out.
He pulls his wet face from the blankets, trying to focus on Tommy’s figure hunched over behind the narrow gap between the bed and floor. It’s dark and Jere can’t see his face, and his head hurts so much his vision is blurring at the edges, shapes swimming in his peripherals.
“Let me see you,” Tommy mumbles, untucking the blankets from where they’re wound tightly around him, tugging gently at Jere’s arm. Jere’s skin crawls at the feeling of Tommy’s hand around his forearm, but he’s hungry and cold and hurting and the idea of being alone again is worse than dealing with Tommy. Tommy’s hand is warm, nearly burning in contrast to Jere’s cold skin, and Jere wants him to fix what’s wrong, so he goes.
Jere lets Tommy gently tug him out of his hiding spot, feeling weak and nearly boneless as he unfurls himself from that tight space. His face is wet with tears and snot and spit, soaked through with sweat, but he doesn’t care. His throat is swollen with the hurt, and he still can’t speak. He shudders, opening his mouth to force out anything, to try to communicate what’s wrong, but all he manages is a hoarse squeak. He squeezes his eyes shut in frustration and embarrassment, face turned down as Tommy pulls him into his lap.
“Hungry?” Tommy asks, stroking Jere’s back through his damp shirt. Jere is, he can’t deny that, but he needs the pain to end first. Tommy notices his hesitation, tilting Jere’s face up to make him look at him. “Sick?”
Jere nods minutely, the movement sending pulsating shocks of pain down his face. Hurts , he mouths.
Tommy’s expression is unreadable for a moment, the dark of the room making it even worse. The corners of his lips twitch, and Jere can see in his eyes a shine of something he can’t place. Fear? Jere thinks at first, but Tommy doesn’t seem scared. His pulse is racing under Jere, and he’s holding onto him so securely.
“This is normal,” Tommy says, words low and careful, like Jere is a wild animal he’s trying not to spook. Underneath that though, is a tremor of that same thing that’s shining in his eyes, colouring his words with some intention.
It’s excitement .
“I can make it go away– I mean, you can make it go away,” Tommy says, and the tremor is growing in his voice, his words strained like he’s trying so hard to keep his shit together. “But you need me.”
Jere feels a flinch of disgust at Tommy’s words. He doesn’t want to need Tommy for anything – he already depends on him to curb the gnawing hunger in his stomach every night. He especially doesn’t want to rely on him for anything that’s getting Tommy this worked up.
But it hurts so bad, and he just wants it to go away. So he nods.
Tommy tucks Jere’s head into the crook of his neck, nuzzling into Jere’s hair. One hand rubs circles into Jere’s back over his shirt, and Jere can feel Tommy’s skin practically vibrating with whatever excitement he’s feeling, at whatever excuse he has to be so close to Jere for. “Fledglings need their sires,” Tommy says against Jere’s hair. “You need me– you’ll get sick without me because you need me.” He’s rambling, hands petting over Jere’s back in a way that makes Jere’s skin crawl. “You have to let me in, Jere, or you’ll be sick forever.”
Jere doesn’t know if he should believe him. Tommy is a liar and a thief and a cunt, and Jere certainly doesn’t want to need him, or whatever Tommy’s babbling about. There’s a tug in his chest like a fishhook in his sternum, dragging him and catching on his muscle fibres as Tommy holds him, a tug that pulls him insistently toward Tommy. Jere doesn’t want to believe Tommy but that tug is real and he thinks Tommy might be telling the truth, that this is just some fucked up vampire biology that’s forcing him to cling to the man that has already stripped so much agency from him, who keeps him home and feeds him like a helpless, mewling baby bird.
“Relax– please just relax, I’ll take care of you, I promise, I always take care of you,” Tommy’s hands are an extension of that dragging hook in his chest, pulling Jere into himself. Jere realizes nauseatingly that it feels right , that that scared, pleading version of himself is comforted somehow by Tommy’s touch and hold and babbling. The ache is still throbbing through his bones and over his skin, pain receptors firing, but the part of himself that Tommy calls “newborn” wants to cling to Tommy and let him do whatever he needs to do to take the pain away. Jere knows he hates him, that this is just some weird, fucked up instinct that’s cracking his resolve, but this little part of him that grows over his adult, human conscious like mycelium wants Tommy so badly that it feels like it’s crawling up his trachea.
Jere slumps against Tommy, trying to just give in and relax, because it hurts so badly that he doesn’t care in this moment anymore about whether this is some kind of mind game or instinct or whatever, because he just needs it to go away. Jere squeezes his eyes shut tight, hands fisted in his own shirt, twisting in the fabric as he tries to push the nausea of Tommy’s touch from his mind. Tommy shouldn’t be allowed to touch him like this but he is and Jere is letting him do it and he’s disgusted and sick and uncomfortable but with every pass of Tommy’s palms over his aching skin his mind is becoming more and more clouded by the part of him that wants Tommy to do this, to touch him.
The smoothing of Tommy’s hands over his back, running over his shoulders and arms and elbows and hair, is actually starting to soothe the pain. Wherever Tommy’s hands touch, a glow of muted relief follows. Without thinking, pulled by the same line in his chest like a puppet, Jere’s moving, twisting in Tommy’s lap to wrap himself around him. His legs lock behind Tommy’s back, pushing himself against him like he could bury into him, be surrounded in Tommy’s ribcage by the touch that’s pushing away the bone-deep ache little by little.
Tommy lets out a soft noise of surprise and delight, wrapping his arms firmly around Jere’s back, before humming and cooing softly into his hair, rocking Jere minutely in his lap. Jere feels a surge of something, like his lungs and heart are filling full of something viscous and tingling, pressure building in his thoracic cavity uncomfortably. It feels right though, in a strange, off-putting way, it feels like Jere’s being stuffed full of something that he needs.
His eyes are closed and he’s tucked against Tommy in a crushing, saving hug. He’s trying, trying so hard to picture in his mind someone else. Someone else’s arms, someone else hugging him like this. When was the last time he was held just to be held? He imagines his mom, his brother, Jesse, Bojan. Someone else. Jesse crushing him against his chest and laughing after a hockey game. His mom hugging him after he was cleared from the hospital for the last time. His brother holding him in the hospital. Tommy feeding him. His dad ruffling his hair. Tommy kissing him with bloody lips. His nieces and nephews in his arms. Tommy’s teeth in his neck.
The thick, fluid feeling in his chest drips over the images flashing in his mind. Jere watches, helpless as the fear of Tommy’s visage and the pain of the memories blur in his mind until they’re soaked through, damaging until Jere’s heart seizes up thinking about them, his skin hot with something other than pain. He tries to focus on the other memories, his friends, his family, everyone he’s ever loved and everyone who’s ever treated him better than Tommy could ever dream of. Anyone who’s ever loved him and gave him the choice to love them back.
But every time he closes his eyes, it’s only Tommy there, and it’s only Tommy touching him, holding him.
Why should I keep trying to fight it?
Jere blinks, shudders. It’s not something he wants to think about, and he tries to force the thought from his mind. He needs to fight it, he can’t let Tommy have everything he wants after he’s already taken everything else.
It would be easier just to let him.
Jere huffs, shoving weakly at Tommy. He doesn’t want Tommy to stop. He just wants Tommy to get the fuck out of his head, do whatever he needs to keep the pain away. Tommy just leans into him, kisses behind his ear.
“You’re in my head,” Jere grunts.
“I know,” Tommy says, inhaling deeply against the side of Jere’s neck. Jere thinks he’d vomit if he had anything in his stomach. His fingers are creeping up the hem at the back of Jere’s shirt and his fingers are warm with blood and Jere wants to simultaneously arch away from the squirming, featherlight touching and lean into the warmth and the strange pull of his sire.
“I don’t want this,” Jere says, voice hoarse from disuse and thick from tears.
Tommy shrugs. “You will.” It sounds final, and Jere prickles at it. It’s true, and Jere knows it, but it’s not a comfort.
“You don’t give me a choice,”
“You can choose to want it now or later,” Tommy mumbles against Jere’s skin, nosing at the two small, silvery scars puckered against Jere’s neck. It’s ownership and Jere knows it. Everything Tommy does feels so fucking suffocating, like he knows everything, and knows exactly everything Jere doesn’t.
“That’s not choice.”
“Not to you, maybe,” Tommy sounds distant, almost bored. He’s more invested in how Jere’s throat and chest vibrate with his voice, and how his own reverberates through Jere’s sternum, so closely pressed against him. “Let’s be quiet now.”
Jere pulls a face from where he’s tucked against Tommy. He can’t find the words to talk back, and he doesn’t think he wants to. Tommy is holding him, and the pain is nearly almost gone, a dull ache clinging to his ribs the only remainder of the pain.
“Want to eat?” Tommy asks, flicking the ring in Jere’s ear. Jere nods, exhausted and hungry, the pain’s receding letting the hunger take centre stage again. “I’ll feed you, and we can go to bed, okay?” Jere doesn’t feel like arguing, feeling like a doll with its strings cut, nodding again weakly.
When everything is done and Tommy’s cleaned them both up and dragged him into bed, Jere lies on the mattress stock still. Tommy is pressed up against him, already sound asleep. Or so Jere thinks. He has no idea what the truth is with Tommy, or what else he’s willing to lie about.
Tommy’s braids are undone and his hair spills over his face in greasy strands, kinked from his plaits. Jere wants a shower so bad. A hot shower. A real, honest-to-god shower. Not Tommy’s licking and fussing like a cat, but a shower, by himself, with no one leering over him or touching. His own hair feels greasy and his skin feels caked in grime and old blood. He wants out. He finally feels cleared enough to think about anything other than hunger or pain, and he’s aware of just how much he’s missing.
A shower. Clean clothes. A clean bedspread. The lights on. A book. A TV. A haircut. Anything more than this. Anything more than a bedroom with barely anything in it.
He’s not alive anymore. He just wants to feel a little more like it, or just less dead . Tommy owes him that. If he wants to fuss over him he can give him more than a full belly and a place to sleep. He doesn’t care what he has to do to earn it, but he needs to feel a little closer to life than whatever the fuck this limbo Tommy has put him into is. He’ll never get out from under Tommy’s thumb like this. If he wants to be a person again, something other than a growth on Tommy’s floor and bed, he has to be able to get something out of this.
Desperation claws at him like nothing else. He’s desperately hungry and lonely and bored . He doesn’t want to stay like this.
Jere stays awake.
When Tommy’s eyes blink open again, the edges of the covered windows starting to glow with the amber of dusk, they’re staring right into Jere’s. “You’re awake,” Tommy croaks, fingers brushing Jere’s wrist.
Jere swallows down his pride and shifts his hand, turning it under Tommy’s light touch until his own fingers can push between Tommy’s, lacing them together. Tommy looks down to where they’re linked, and when he looks back up at Jere his eyes are suffocated with barely-restrained ecstaticism, like he can barely believe his luck. His hand is trembling nearly imperceptibly under Jere’s, his faint pulse rushing, quickening even further until Jere thinks Tommy’s blood vessels might burst with the pressure as he leans in close.
“I chose.” Jere murmurs into Tommy’s ear, brushing the hair from Tommy’s face with his free hand. He restrains himself from shuddering at the damp, tacky feeling of the lank locks of hair he tucks behind Tommy’s ear, forcing himself to smile in what he fucking hopes appears genuine.
When Tommy leans in to kiss him, eyes shut in the perfect image of contentedness, Jere lets himself scowl.