Archive of Our Own

Jon is the first of the three of them to have a visit from Martin. The text message telling him so sat in his phone like a live bomb for three days before he got up the courage to tell the others.

"It'll be fine," he says as he packs an overnight bag, the bag itself borrowed from obscurity at the top of Tim's closet. Martin's made it clear he can come for Jon wherever he is, but he's never been to Tim's flat. Even if it's inevitable, Jon wants to maintain that just a little longer. He should probably just move back to his own flat completely, but the Stokers haven't asked him to leave yet and Jon is selfish enough to take advantage of that.

"You're sure you don't want us there?" Tim asks, a line between his eyebrows.

Jon shakes his head, too hard. "No. No, it'll be fine. I'll call you in the morning."

"You're sure."

"He's sure, Tim!" Danny snaps. "Drop it."

"It'll be fine," Jon says again, nearly whispering. It's his fault they're in this mess, and he can't worry them even more by letting them guess how scared he is that this won't be like the other times, now that Martin can't keep up the nice and non-threatening act anymore. 

(He thought about claiming to be getting a cold or making up some sort of medical appointment and pre-emptively calling out sick for Monday, but Tim and Elias would both notice.)

"It will," Danny says, squeezing his shoulder. Jon tries not to lean into the comfort. "We'll talk in the morning."

London seems darker than usual as he leaves. He's always been a homebody, but he hasn't missed his own flat at all. He didn't even take the chance to go back in preparation for tonight; he let Danny be the one to follow his own suggestion and make sure Jon would have something in the fridge. Partially because he seemed so desperate to feel useful, but Jon's discomfort was a larger factor than it should have been. He wasn't the only one to be bitten there.

He gets stuck at the door, frozen in indecision. Is it better to have to wait for Martin, like Elias banishing him to wait in his room all over again, or to have kept Martin waiting? He didn't feel like he knew how to predict Martin before, but now he's entirely at sea. His mind sticks on his shirt. He changed after he and Tim got home from work because he didn't trust himself to get a button up off on his own, but he thought the t-shirt's neck was wider than it clearly is. He'll have to take it off completely, or let Martin bite high enough on his neck to show. He lets Jon get away with just undoing a few buttons sometimes, at least.

But maybe tonight was never going to be one of those nights.

(Should he let Martin bite him higher? It would be a clear sign to Elias that Jon is still Martin's bloodbag.)

It's almost physically painful to push himself into motion and try the door. He can't change what's on the other side now, and he doesn't want to keep Martin waiting any longer than he already has been, if he is inside. He can't stand at his own doorstep forever.

The knob doesn't turn. Jon fumbles for his key with numb fingers.

Lacking anything else to do in his empty flat, he paces a circuit. He finds juice and a half-size carton of eggs in the fridge, everything he'd left there thrown away or taken back to Tim's flat, just as Danny promised. He thinks Danny might have taken advantage of having Jon's key to tidy up, too. Someone cleared the sawed-up wooden spoon and its shavings out of the bedroom. He hopes it was Danny.

He also finds bottled water and snacks stacked neatly beneath the bed, sticking out just enough that Jon will see them. He pushes them back, out of sight, and tries to choke back tears. Martin isn't likely to care if he's crying because he doesn't know how to handle feeling grateful to someone he's wronged so deeply or because he's afraid.

Jon walks as fast as he can out into the living room. He doesn't want Martin to find him already waiting in the bedroom, but he doesn't want him to catch him running around suspiciously, either. Martin didn't do anything about the fiasco last time, but Sasha was there. Maybe ensuring he kept her on his side was why he didn't do anything to Jon last time. 

Martin seems to step through the door and take off his shoes in complete silence, Jon's heart is thudding and his brain is screaming so loud. He struggles to keep track of what's going on beyond the sirens in his head and the dots spotting his vision.

"Jon?"

Jon jumps. His head and fingers tingle like he stood up too fast, and Martin is suddenly at his side, jostling his shoulder. "Uhm?"

"Come sit down," Martin says. Jon tries to make himself move, but he can't. The part of his brain in charge of voluntary motion is drowning under too much terrified static. Martin repeats the Order, and Jon marches stiffly to the couch.

He should say something, but he can't. He can't make himself do anything. He won't even need to be Ordered to hold still for Martin's bite.

"Here." There's a cold mug of water touching Jon's hand. He got lost again, and it hasn't even started yet. He manages to fumble his fingers through the handle and take a token sip. He can't make Martin angrier.

"Are you alright?" Martin asks when Jon's spent another few minutes sitting frozen, unresponsive.

"Fine," Jon manages to choke out.

"You don't seem fine."

Jon swallows bile and takes a sip of water to try to banish the taste. "I'm fine."

Martin takes a slow breath like he's trying not to be angry. Or maybe he's just smelling Jon. "I'm sorry about last time."

"Okay."

"Jon."

"Yes?" Is he shaking?

"I need you to talk to me."

"Okay." He is talking. This is the talking he can do right now. Unless Martin wants to have a ventriloquist's conversation instead, this is all Jon can offer. 

All Martin is going to care about is that it's not enough.

"I'm sorry."

He said that already. Why is he bothering to apologize to Jon? He must have answered wrong the first time. "I'm sorry."

Martin sighs. "You- No. I am. I shouldn't have reacted like that, I was just..."

Hungry, because Jon lost his mind and Martin shut him in his room instead of biting him. Angry, because Jon humiliated him. Greedy, because one way or the other he needed more bloodbags.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut. "Just do it, already."

Martin is silent long enough that Jon's afraid he's made an even worse mistake. It might be years before he says, "Okay. If that's what you want. Come to the bedroom with me."

If that's what you want. As if Jon ever wanted any of this. Come to the bedroom...

He should have changed! He was alone in the flat, most of his things are still here. He could have tried to get away with a t-shirt with a lower neckline.

Jon fumbles his shirt over his head before Martin can ask. He can feel goosebumps on his skin. He doesn't want to seem eager, but he hates the feeling of being Ordered to strip. He doesn't think you could call him anything close to graceful or suggestive, at least. Better than unfastening buttons.

The mattress creaks beside him. "Hold still."

Jon shuts his eyes, he can move that much, trying not to react. He feels Martin's breath against his skin.

He whimpers.

He can't feel Martin anymore, and a few tears squeeze out from under his eyelids. He should open his eyes and look at Martin, but he can't move to wipe away the tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He keeps making things worse.

"Jon," Martin says, unbearably tender. He sighs. "Look at me."

Jon can't, not really, but his eyes open and his neck rotates to display the tears completely obscuring his vision to Martin anyway. "Elias just pulled me out, or Ordered me," Jon's mouth decides to say. "I didn't think you would, the window- I didn't mean to-"

The only sound for what feels like a very long time is Jon's heaving breath. "Sasha told me about Elias," Martin says eventually. "What you told her, at least."

"I'm sorry," Jon pleads. He wants to cover his face with his hands, fold in on himself, anything that might make Martin's gaze feel less like being flayed open, but he can't. He's still held in place by the Order.

"It's not your fault," Martin says, and it's clearly meant to be reassuring but it isn't. It's someone's fault, and Jon is the safest option.

"I can't quit, the contract-"

"Sasha told me," Martin interrupts calmly but firmly. "It's not your fault. I know you wouldn't stay there if you didn't have to."

"Martin, please. It's my fault, no one else-"

"Are you talking about Tim?" Martin asks, incredulous. He doesn't sound gentle anymore.

"No, he didn't-"

"Jon."

 Jon's jaw clicks shut. There's no Order, and Martin doesn't say anything else immediately, but Jon doesn't want it to look like he's trying to interrupt Martin.

"Things between Tim and I are between the two of us. Just like how things between you and I are between the two of us," Martin says after a measured breath.

It's a clear signal to drop the subject, but Jon can get away with more than Tim. Martin likes him, as much and as little as that protects him. The same can't be said for Tim. Martin hasn't even bothered to try to hide it.

"Elias knows," Jon blurts. He wishes he could wipe the tears away. He needs to see Martin's face, he needs more to go off than a vaguely Martin-colored refraction. They aren't coming much anymore, but he can't manage to blink away the full obstruction.

"What?" Martin asks. "What does Elias know?"

"About Nikola."

"The vampire you three decided to kill." His voice is flat. Is it a good thing that Danny clearly isn't being held responsible for that fiasco, or does it just mean more danger for Tim and Sasha?

Sasha. He should have checked on her. She took her regular feeding, the one she would've if it was still just her and Jon, so that the rest of them wouldn't have to. Martin wasn't pleased with her, either. They should have made sure she was still okay. 

Still with them at all.

"And how do you know that?" Martin asks. Jon doesn't know what that tone means. He doesn't know what to do.

He wants to close his eyes, but Martin Ordered him to look at him, so he doesn't even have conscious control of blinking. "Please," he whispers instead of answering. "Please let me move."

There's a sharp intake of breath. Maybe it's a good thing Jon can't flinch from it. "You can move," Martin says.

While he curls in on himself and wipes furiously at his face Jon notes that his voice doesn't sound as tense. Almost apologetic. Does he think Jon is that stupid?

"It's cold, you should put on your shirt. Or a jumper..."

Martin stands and walks toward the closet, so Jon risks looking too eager to avoid being fed on and pulls his shirt back on. "I'm fine. I'm not cold." He's shaking, but it isn't from cold. His goosebumps go away once he's dressed again, he's plenty warm.

Martin pauses and looks at him. Jon can't hold his gaze, but he doesn't want to seem too reluctant. "Elias was at the Circus. Tim saw him."

"...And what did Tim do about that?" Martin asks. He practically tiptoes across each word, he's so neutral and detached.

"Nothing." Martin's expression is as carefully composed as his voice. Jon looks away again. "He just told us."

"Us?"

"Danny and I. While you and Sasha were gone." He doesn't want Martin to get angry with Sasha for keeping things she didn't even know from him.

"That's all, though."

Jon cringes. "No. N- no, he... at work..."

Martin sits beside him on the bed again. "What happened at work?"

"It wasn't Tim's fault," Jon says like it isn't the most suspicious thing he could say.

Martin's mouth thins. "What isn't Tim's fault?"

"He's our boss," Jon murmurs, then tries to marshal a bit more volume. "He's our boss. Tim's been there more than a year, Elias can fire him. He can't just refuse to go to a meeting if Elias asks him to."

"Okay," Martin says. His face is still blank, but his voice is taut. "What was the meeting about?"

-

Sasha gives Martin a hard look. "To me?" She turns and marches away from the door, leaving it open.

"Sasha."

"Martin."

"Look-"

"I told them they'd be safe." She slams a cup onto her counter. 

"Wh- from me?"

Sasha has to take a deep breath, eyes shut since her back is to Martin, so she doesn't just tear the fridge door off its hinges when she opens it. "Yes from you."

Martin is wavering between angry and shocked when Sasha slams the fridge shut and turns around. "Why?"

"Why?!" Sasha parrots, setting the orange juice down instead of trying to pour it with hands shaking with rage. "You snuck up behind Tim and bit him. Just because the conversation wasn't moving as fast as you wanted!"

"Jon was-"

"Jon was in his bedroom. And you knew it." He didn't get to say he could tell where they are and have no idea Jon never left the flat.

"I- Everyone was- Things got chaotic, okay? I spent hours trying to talk to you, with no idea whether you were even still alive!" He's breathing hard. She thinks he'd be flushed, if he were human.

"I've spent months trying to talk to Jon because you kept giving me the brush off."

Martin stills. "I still don't understand how you did enter the picture." 

"You had hours trying to call me, when Jon was right there, and you focused on your phone instead of asking a question?" She would've thought that was an absurd thing to say, two weeks ago. Martin could compel one of his bloodbags to answer a question, but he had no reason to. He would never. That just wasn't what Martin was like.

He huffs. "He said he saw Elias."

"And you ordered him to call you."

"And?"

Sasha rolls her eyes, shaking off just enough rage to return the juice to the fridge without visiting violence upon its person. "And you've known me for how long?"

"You can't just answer other people's phones!"

Sasha flails a hand in the air. She doesn't like how normal the argument feels, suddenly. "Right there. You wouldn't cooperate, and then there he was on your phone, and you were in the other room!"

"I was coming back!" Martin's getting frustrated, setting his jaw. Sasha wants to tease him about it. Anything but this.

"Sometimes you wander off and cook something! What would've happened if it rung out?" She doesn't know what, exactly, Martin said when he Ordered Jon to tell him if Elias turned up. Would Jon have called back? Had to come looking? Would Martin have reacted appropriately to a missed call?

Would Martin have reacted appropriately at all?

"You should have told me."

Sasha stomps past him toward the couch. "What would you have done?"

Martin is quiet until Sasha's turned around, sat on the couch, put her glass of juice on the coffee table. His arms are crossed and he's hovering at the edge of the living room. "I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what he said because you answered!"

Does she tell him Jon asked her not to tell him? "I was afraid he wasn't going to be okay by the time I got there."

Martin looks a bit shaken. Jon is his favorite, after all. "You should have told me! You waited for me to leave."

Sasha takes a deep breath. If there's anything she needs Martin to take on the faith of their past friendship, it's this. "If I brought you with me, he wouldn't have been okay. Alright, Martin? He was almost as scared of me telling you as he was of Elias."

"What...?" Martin's eyes are wide.

Sasha already weighed the encounter out in her head. She had a summary she planned to deliver to Martin, if Jon wasn't up to it once the dust settled. Now she has a different version of events. She doesn't want to say the wrong thing. "I told him I was your friend and he covered his neck. Why didn't you tell me he was afraid of you?"

Martin rocks back a bit, finally looking the tiniest bit guilty. "I- I was handling it."

"Were you?" She looks away. She doesn't like arguing. She pats a hand against the couch cushions. "Just come do it."

Martin's first step is faltering. The next one isn't.

-

"I'm sorry," she says.

He doesn't pretend he doesn't know what she's talking about. "Not your fault."

"I told them-"

"I know," he says, daring to raise his voice a bit. Sasha sits back in her chair a bit but she doesn't look angry, or offended. "It wasn't your fault."

"But if I hadn't said it would be fine." And Tim thought he'd wrung all of the apologies out of her so Danny wouldn't have to try to field them. For such a pessimist he can be very optimistic when he wants to be.

"I haven't seen someone die in more than two months. So."

Sasha's expression fractures instead of being reassured, like Danny'd hoped. 

Making people smile and brightening their day, that's Danny. Wherever he goes he leaves laughter in his wake. 

"I'm sorry. That you had to... For that, I mean." She sucks her lips in and chews on them.

"I'm still here." Unemployed, directionless, and under the fang, but unlikely to perish in the very near future. It was a more comforting mantra with the Circus. At least there he had some control.

Which is better, a bit of control over his life, or his death?

He looks Sasha over, now that the awkward apology stage seems to have sputtered out. Tim and Jon both said they asked if she was alright, but Tim doesn't know what he's talking about yet and Jon's always been alone.

Dark circles she didn't have when they met, but that's to be expected. Hair a mess, again not unexpected. Her neck is as unbruised as it should be, six weeks out from her last feeding. Her top is just a little too long for him to see everywhere a bit could've been hidden in the crook of her arm instead, but if she were hiding one she probably would've rolled the sleeves down. Nikola'd put the occasional adventurous bite a few other places, but Sasha's a nurse and Martin hasn't had to hide bites before now, so going for the elbow seems like a no-brainer. Sasha doesn't move like someone nursing an injury, and she's at least getting enough sleep to be solid on her feet and speak coherently.

"Are you alright?" he asks once he's sure he can't tell more without asking.

"Fine. You don't have to worry about me."

Danny doesn't know what the others said to that line, but he sets his jaw. He can do the newbie speech. He doesn't even have to do the worst parts, because there's no Nikola and Sasha's already adjusted to vampires being real.

(If Martin needs sections just for him, Jon doesn't know how to articulate them and Tim hasn't.)

"Martin's never going to be the one screwed over by us hiding things from each other. Especially injuries." He manages to bite off the bit about everyone's acts interconnecting before habit can bring it past his teeth.

Sasha purses her lips and frowns. "So Jon and Tim are keeping you updated?"

Not one of the responses the newbie speech is calibrated for. Danny rebooting.

"Because I don't expect them to tell me. We were planning- things. For weeks, and Jon dodged every time I tried to ask." Her body language doesn't offer any clues, and if her face is supposed to it's too subtle for Danny.

"You're the one that knows the most first aid," he says. Listing the best people to ask for help is a part of the newbie speech his brain can grab as he finishes reorienting himself in the conversation.

Sasha smiles and sort of half-laughs. "More than first, but yes."

"You don't have to tell everyone," he says, skipping forward significantly but more confident he knows what retrofitting his script to this conversation means. "But someone needs to know."

She doesn't say anything. She turns her head away, but being able to examine her without the risk of eye contact doesn't help him figure out what she's going to do next.

"Someone besides Martin," he says when he can't take the silence any longer.

Sasha laughs.

-

Unless the Wicked Witch of the West shows up to ruin his plans next it's foolproof.

Fool Tim once...

He's allowed to fool himself, so he's still pretending he's having another key to his flat made because he's going to suggest Jon cram into his flat for the next few months, until the lease ends and they can move somewhere bigger. He still has to go to work and keep up a strong face in front of the others. He needs something.

He doesn't crave routine the way Danny does, but they are related. Pondering exterior, genetic explanations for how the text from Sasha is throwing him off is easier that trying to predict the different ways this is going to screw them over instead.

Change of plans. Going forward, feedings happen at my flat, and you can sleep in my guest room.

Sasha sent it as the first message of a brand new group chat, so it's clearly intended for all of them, not just Tim. It doesn't seem like something Martin would suggest, which makes it more suspect, if anything. Sasha's presence is clearly supposed to lull them into a false sense of security, but for what?

Well. It's not really a mystery what Martin might want to do to Jon, or to two people he obviously dislikes and has complete control over.

His phone pings again before he can decide if he thinks Sasha is a deliberate accomplice or being puppeted by Martin. The new message was only sent to him, not Jon or Danny.

Aiming to have you come over for an hour or two instead of overnight eventually, but this was more important.

Fool Tim twice.

Jon is clearly worried about the text. Tim's pretty sure he's recursively worried about looking worried, too, because they're always worried about being watched by Elias, these days. He doesn't have to be in a shape they recognize to see them, after all. Bats are small, and Sasha gave them access to her research notes. Apparently vampires in the form of mist can spread themselves far enough to pass unnoticed, and they aren't that far from Artefact Storage, where fumes and fire extinguisher fog aren't unheard of.

They don't say anything until they get home. Danny is, of course, just anxious as they are, barely two feet from the door when Tim opens it. More anxious, maybe, for being alone and having significantly fewer malevolent observers.

"So." Tim chivvies them toward the kitchen table. "Sasha."

Danny looks confused and worried. Tim feels confused and worried. Jon mostly looks confused.

"It wasn't supposed to be her flat," he mutters.

Tim's eyebrows go up. "You knew about- whatever?"

Jon shrinks, not looking at either of them. "I- I didn't want-"

"You were what, just going to rent an empty flat for the rest of your life?" Danny asks, a bit more agitated. "That doesn't seem fair." Tim kicks his ankle under the table.

Jon droops further. "Martin wants me to move back soon."

Tim can't make himself breathe for a long, long moment. Danny's face is set in old, resigned lines.

"Why."

Jon cringes away. "I don't know."

Yes he does. They try to protect him from it, and Tim hopes Jon knows less than Sasha does, but Jon suspects Martin's intentions toward him are even less pure than a vampire's towards prey.

"How did Sasha end up here?" Danny asks. It takes Tim a moment to place the tone. It's how he used to coach new members of the Circus, no-nonsense, firm, and neutral enough it's hard to guess what's going on inside.

"I-" Jon glances up, but he only manages to meet Tim's eyes for a moment. "It feels safe here. I didn't want... Martin already has my key."

Tim kind of wants to scream at him. Knowing it's because of how badly this is affecting him doesn't make it much easier to stuff things down until he can be reasonable. "No. You're coming with us when we move." Tim's already figuring out how to end Jon's lease early, he thought it was obvious.

Jon laughs bitterly. "No I'm not. You don't have to pretend."

Danny flicks Tim in the head. Tim glares, but remains silent. Danny glares back until he manages to wipe most of his emotions off his face again. Danny is right. That isn't what he wants Jon to see if he finishes contemplating the floor.

"Sasha," Danny says instead of pursuing the point.

Jon nods. "I didn't want to get your hopes up. If there wasn't even a chance, I figured Sasha would know."

"And she said he might say yes?"

Tim leans back in his chair and lets Danny play interviewer. His nerves might be a bit more frayed by his impending date, and Danny is, unfortunately, experienced in keeping a level head while dealing with vampires.

Jon shakes his head. "She said she thought it would go better if she asked."

Oh.

"Oh." Danny nods. "And she asked to move things to her flat instead of yours."

Jon's eyebrows scrunch. "She... must have." He looks up slowly. Hardly anything's changed for Jon, but he looks like a massive weight's been lifted from his shoulders.

Tim feels sick.

-

Martin knocks on Sasha's door. He doesn't, normally, but things have been so complicated he isn't sure he should just let himself in.

Sasha opens the door and immediately stomps two steps back to let him in.

Martin pulls the door shut behind him. "What? I didn't do anything, why are you looking at me like that?"

Sasha's tone is icy. "You told Jon he wasn't allowed to move out of his flat."

Martin blinks in confusion. "What?"

"You heard me, Martin."

"I didn't!"

"That's not what Jon says."

What happened to talking things out like adults? "But I didn't!" Sasha just stares him down. Martin finds himself being the one to break eye contact. "Sasha, I swear I don't know what you're talking about."

Sasha works her jaw, but drops her arms and takes another step back, further into the flat. Martin fumbles with his shoes, now that it doesn't look like he's about to be tossed out on his ear or forced to flee in terror. "You did something, then."

Martin traipses behind her, into the living room. Sasha sits in the armchair instead of joining him on the couch like normal. "I didn't!"

Sasha looks at him like she thinks he's the biggest idiot in the world. "It doesn't matter what you did. Something you said or did made Jon think you didn't want him to move. It doesn't matter what you meant."

"Of course it matters!" He fails to summon the memory of the last time Sasha smiled at him.

"Martin!" She says it so loudly he startles away from her. "None of them trust you! Jon least of all! You told me he said something to Elias, and then Elias almost killed him."

Martin opens and shuts his mouth a couple times without saying anything. He can't- Jon can't think that, can he? "I'm not Elias."

"And you have a long way to go to prove that to him. To any of them." Sasha shakes her head, more to herself than at him.

"But he didn't tell you the reason he thinks I said that, either." At least she didn't include herself in the people who think he might be as bad as Elias.

"You broke their trust in me, too," Sasha says, venomous as she rarely is, even since everything devolved into arguments about Tim Stoker. "I promised that they'd be safe. I told them that if Danny came back to Jon's flat you would tell him how at risk you thought he smelled, and then let him decide what to do about it."

"He volunteered."

"Did Tim?"

Martin sighs. "Well, we still don't know why Jon thinks that, and if I don't know why how am I supposed to say I didn't mean whatever it was?"

Sasha shrugs tiredly. "What did you do? Everything, I mean. All of it."

Martin pretends it takes him longer to recall everything he said and did last time he saw Jon than it does. "The door was unlocked when I got to his flat. He said he didn't want to chat, just go straight to it, but he-" he breaks off at the thought of Jon crying at the thought of Martin touching him for the second visit in a row. "He was upset. He told me about some things Elias did at work, and he was upset, but I calmed him down. I bit him. I helped him clean up and got him some juice, but there wasn't anything else in the kitchen, so after he was asleep I went to pick up some groceries, and-"

"Define groceries," Sasha says, almost like her old self.

"I-" Martin shakes his head. "You know. Iron, things. He had eggs, so I got bacon and spinach for omelets, er, and milk, you know-"

Sasha sighs explosively before he can go on. "He isn't living there, Martin."

"Yea- you said, you said he didn't want to, why are you yelling at me!"

"What do you think Elias would have meant, if he met Jon somewhere Jon wasn't living, and bought him bacon, milk, and fresh vegetables?"

Oh. Martin isn't used to Sasha catching on like that before he does. Not outside her work, at least. "Oh." Elias is still implying things like that at work, Jon said as much himself.

"Just call him and explain," Sasha says, so tired. "Now. I want to make sure you do it without tossing another hand grenade."

"Right," Martin says, voice tight.