Chapter Text
Three hours after the slaughter, the deepest hours of the night had not yet dragged Guy’s body to slumber. The exhaustion from the past days seemed to peak tonight, and yet the stress only served to fuel his insomnia. Guy still feels it on his skin, the discomfort of those lousy jazzy halls chases him in the dead silence of these walls, the high stakes of his mission, the gun at his temple, the blood and cracking noises of snapped bones.
His mind doesn’t grant him rest.
It had been a mistake to go back to Jasper’s, Guy knew he should have said something in the car, each turn, each stoplight, just tell him to drop you off, but it always turned green too soon. It was fine, Guy had been too spent to protest anyway. The idea of going back to that empty flat rented out for him, Talamasca eyes into the cracks, gift wrapped by those same people whose minion sold him out just a few hours prior, it terrified Guy more than the prospect of one more night with Jasper and his grunts.
Guy knew he should have insisted on calling himself a cab, instead, he gave into those false pleasantries, willingly falling for that kind, half genuine condescension. You’ll get yourself stabbed if you waddle around London at this hour kid, let me offer you a coffee to seal the nerves, then be on your way.
It didn’t happen, neither did he believe Jasper truly wanted him out of his hair.
There must have been something entertaining about him, with the way the vampire lingered on stolen glances each time he thought he wasn’t being watched, smiling to himself while turning away, the likes of a proud child successfully pulling a prank. Other times, Jasper was the one catching Guy in the act of checking him in, a quick humourless grin would escape him from across the room, then the drums in Guy’s mind would pitch higher and higher, forcing the boy to slam his hands to his ears, begging to an empty relief. That’s what you get for not being sneaky, trust me, the others won’t scold you as mercifully.
That wasn’t training or looking out for the bigger bullies reaction, it was play, dangling a mouse by the tail like a medal, watching it squirm and squeak for its life. What will you do next time, when it is a real cat who swings you around? He’d imagine Jasper whisper, squishing the critter and bleeding through its claws.
In these hours together, Guy had managed to square the type of person he was, his nuances, how far his ethics stretched, where the patience ended. Figuring he had enough time to wield the vampire at the corners, he let Jasper believe the broken kid who knocked at his door was now safe and helpless in his net. A minion of service, a human easy to manipulate, a wrapped up present on a golden platter.
Nonetheless, Guy was still in his net, willing prisoner as he was, sleeping in his guest room, his manor, barely a floor away from that chained rabid fiend of his crafting. Guy hears their training playing out now, picks up a slither of sound and follows its trail to the basement.
He gives up on trying to sleep, instead focusing on the blood drops spilling into the gravel, the wet impatient snarls of starvation of one— five, ten— no, one mouth only, before the whistle of obedience.
Click.
The bars rattle. The weeping blares loud enough to crack Guy’s skull in half, unbearable noise, the stretch of their jaws, the gnawing of teeth through rusty iron, deflation of their dry lungs exhaling what comes closest to a scream; intolerable in all its misery, how lucky for Guy to be gifted, so he can hear every last bit of it.
He tries to not stay too long, squishing the pillow he stuffs his ears with its ends and digs his nails in, praying to numb it down. It never works once he’s in, Guy remembers the first time it had gotten uncontrollable— at the church, sitting still on a pew afraid moving would deteriorate the pain. Rows of strangers, faceless figures determined by only the voices, some drowning in guilt, other in blinding faith; everyone’s sins seamlessly flowing right up in his mind, making him the vessel of human kind’s worst deeds. Pressing tighter to the sides of his head, speaking louder, begging for reprieve had never ceased the flow of their souls.
Only his mother, who would take his hands away from his ears, cradle them with that comfort only she could provide, served a remedy kinder than any medicine. It’s not a curse, it’s a gift, uttered as soft as a cloud. Only in that moment, the noises were to fade away, and Guy had no doubt this present was one worth preserving.
At least up until her death, where the only comfort left were the numbing pills and those useless therapy sessions for the next thirteen years, a stain on her memory.
The growls sound pained now. It is clear the beast is not feasting, but weeping.
Click.
Just like that comes respite, in the blink of an eye, it is over. Guy releases a shaky breath, his eyes sting with the strain of bottling the noise up. Settle down, Jasper comforts the thing huffing wetly at his feet, drooling inside the cage, though Guy still takes relief from it as if directed to him. S’right, very good. One more time.
Click.
Guy squeezes his eyes shut, clutching the ends of the pillow tighter, quickly hushing to himself. Whenever he gets too close, this is what happens. The ringing stains each corner, walls, floor and ceiling, sounds reverberate like malfunctioning speakers, beaming an high pitch which makes the room buzz with an overwhelming intensity. The basement’s shrieks bleed through the main mic, where Jasper’s voice comes forth again, drowning out Checkers’s growls, it manages to stand clear among the deafening chaos. Easy now, you’ll wake our boy.
Guy freezes.
He feels Jasper’s smile tug the corners of his lips, a sudden peak of curiosity overlaps the whirring. Unless—
He tosses the pillow off the bed with a panic that lands it far across the room. Hurrying out of the covers Guy staggers to the hanger, towards his jacket, frantically searching through the pockets. Nothing. Next he checks his bag, shuffling through the magazines, the decoder, the laptop—
“You’ve tossed them out the window, don’t you remember?”
The sudden voice startles him, Guy backs off and nearly trips on himself, turning around to see Jasper standing there, feline and peeving. “Breaking the chains binding you or something like that, if I recall. Very liberating act, shame you wanna take it back.”
Guy blinks, makes his nerves seal, his voice steady. Upon recalling, he owns the wind and fear of falling. “Were you listening?”
Jasper tilts his head, Guy swears he can see his pupils widen. “No, no no. I don’t do that much anymore, after a while every stream of thought is the same, so fucking boring. No use checking.”
Guy could not fathom this ease with his own gift. Each mind was packed with a story, actions and feelings not of his own and yet still intense enough to make him at times forget where he was.
“Of course I don’t have my head open twenty-four seven the way you do, so your nose is certainly more refined than this old mongrel’s.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Guy sighs. “It’s not a dog’s whiff, it’s—“
“Do you prefer the term gifted?”
The word sets him off. Guy shoves him out of the way, though the push is not strong, it is enough to make Jasper step back, intrigued. He genuinely looks amused with his lack of fear.
“Did you need something?” Guy asks, not watching his tone. “I was about to get to bed, you know I have work tomorrow.”
“Ah yes, your modest hooker marketing job. Hey, let me sit here for a moment, aight? I feel like we haven’t had a moment to connect on a deeper level, you and I. And I mean, if we’re going to be working together, what’s more sabotaging than a lack of chemistry?”
Tough. Guy takes a second to reply, but clearly it’s a moment too long as the vampire has already settled on the bed, a grin that speaks volumes, no way I’m leaving now that I’m here. With another little step back, Guy rubs his face with a shaking hand. He doesn’t have time to entertain his whims, the whistles have not yet faded, they leisure in the back of his brain now that his focus is on someone else, though no doubt they’ll awaken soon as he’s alone, along with the whispers of every passer-by in a mile.
“I’m not in the right state of mind for chatter,” Guy mutters. “The— without the pills, it takes some getting used to, I need to sleep.” It’s barely a lie to evade, murmurs fill up to the brim quickly, overlapping each other as if competing to win his attention; Checkers is still between them, huffing and choking on his drool. He tries to ignore it.
“Well, it’s your lucky night amigo. I figured you’d have trouble snuggling in bed after that scene back at the hotel, so I thought I could lend you a little help. Consider it my first contribution to our partnership.”
“Partnership,” Guy repeats flatly, arms crossed, weakly tugging at the fabric. “As if you’d want me lessening the one magic you need me for.”
Jasper contemplates this reply for a moment, unblinking, fitting a hand inside his pocket and musing over something. It’s in Guy’s instinct to try and break down that barrier of thought, see what they scheme, prevent or allow action. So he pushes, focuses on his eyes, through the whistles and breaths pushed forth by the outsiders, in the canal leading to the deepest layer, Guy meets a dead end within the room. Jasper’s mind is sealed out of reach.
The hand leaves his pocket.
“You’re not a prop kid, that’s not what this is about. We both get what we want out of those fuckers going down. We don’t need hassles between ourselves, they are using us, but you and I— we don’t need each other’s support through coercion. That’s all the Talamasca does, dissimulate their ill intents beneath buddy talk.”
And isn’t that what you’re doing?
It’s his first thought and yet, it finds no voice. Jasper sounds genuine, much so that Guy bites back a chuckle. His head feels lighter, and Jasper mirrors his smile on the spot.
“You know Guy, I think your problem is that you’re dying of boredom. So used to knowing what they’ll say and what they think of you beforehand, that acquaintance is not exciting to you. You know what to expect, you act accordingly, you adapt, and never will there be a path leading you astray. That’s no way to live.”
“Never had it, never missed,” Guy huffs and leans back onto the wall, the further Jasper talks, the more his head spins. When had the blaring got louder? It was silent some moments ago, he hadn’t even noticed there’s clatter now, Checkers, who had been shoved in the back of his head now takes center stage. His hand trembles as it steadies his body by holding onto a desk, flashes of brittle nails scraping dirt, digging up bloody mud to suck. He pushes into the pointy edge. Something solid. Something real. “My— My problems are others.”
Jasper stands, takes a step closer. “Oh yeah, but I still think you deserve to know a world without subtitles.”
“I—“
Murmurs pitch louder, they hiss like a fly’s wings. Guy blinks rapidly, looking down the floor, pressing his nails to his palm. “Have you done something?”
Jasper smirks, puts his hand back to his pocket. Just found the cure to all your ills.
Click.
Guy drops to the floor, overwhelmed by a wave of relief. The noise is gone, like it never even existed— not even the pills manage to shut it out so throughout. He breathes softy, his eyes fluttering, his body unwinding slowly after reaching the crest.
Jasper taps his foot. One. Two. Three. Four times.
Click.
“No!” Guy shouts— it’s stronger than his pride, it has never been so loud, so practised and controlled. He hears the basement, hears the ravenant and tastes the dirty blood going down his throat, the lust for more. He feels what it feels, and it does not waver for a moment. Guy covers his ears, his breathing growing laboured. “Fix this! Fix it! Please— Please!“
“Yes,” Jasper crouches down to where he sits, quivering and vulnerable to all that surrounds him. He grabs his hands, slowly lifting them away from his ears, watching every shift within Guy’s eyes change, from pain to stupor to fascination, and the pain again, unbearable noise staining his eyes red. “Here to the rescue, child.”
Jasper lets his fangs drop, holds back, just a little longer, watching how long the boy can resist without help. Guy takes well to the madness, but then again, his mother wasn’t always around to help, in that feeble spawn of time between her death and the pills, the boy had to make due; and how many sleepless nights had he endured, because no one had bothered to train him out of the pain?
Jasper hesitates a few seconds before settling on his throat, he knows Guy’s flinching, that little scrambled brain of his still knows what threat looks like. He grazes his fangs on his throat, slides his hands to his stomach, chest, shoulder—savouring the hitch of his breath, the fear in his body. Guy shoves, but his wrist is clutched and yanked out of the way.
“It’s okay,” Jasper whispers, tilting his head. “It will hurt for just a second.”
The fangs pierce through his neck with a practised restraint, sinking until they are fully lodged, while Jasper’s free hand holds him still, trailing down and resting on his leg, groping the flesh of his inner thigh. The child stops squirming soon, something to focus on, that’s the key to his rest. And so Jasper satisfies him.
His other hand leaves his now limp wrist and grabs the clicker, pushing on it. In that second Guy shudders, arching into his hand, his wound up body loosens at once, the tension clogging his nerves fires out, Jasper can taste the release on his blood, as sweet as the boy’s aftershocks, not unlike the heights of orgasmic bliss. He laps it up, starved as a revenant, and through the fog of relief, he hears Guy’s mind, an unmistakable huff of pleasure, his flesh pulsing and mimicking his heart.
Jasper beams thoughts into his head, words, his own and no one else’s, making a quick work of the button of his trousers, letting him grind on his palm.
Yeah. That’s right, you love it.
Guy chokes back a sob, it makes Jasper unlatch, caress the punctures wound with his fingers. He slowly rubs his cock through his pants, hushing each hiccup and twitch with a gentle edge. He beams rays of pleasure, to his mind, in his body to spread, his lips quiver, huffing a gasp that breaks into another cry. Almost worth preserving.
You make it worse on yourself if you make noises like that.
It works in the way it shuts him up, though that was not Jasper’s intent. He lifts the boy’s chin, makes him look through those glassy unfocused eyes, his bleeding neck framing the perfect picture of a martyr. Jasper plays into it, lets his eyes’s sclera be swallowed by the clearest irises, bares his fangs as his chin drips.
“You scared?” Jasper purrs, stroking his cheek. “Or is that excitement I taste?”
Guy remains silent, hypnotised on his features, yet he doesn’t fall for the taunt, the up and down of his chest the only indicator of life, of a creature with feelings and organs verging towards undoing. He plays the role of blank little soldier far too well, still as a puppet, soft as a plushie. For someone as young, whose main purpose should be to lose himself to hedonism, it’s saddening.
Jasper huffs, attempts to trail his hand up his chest instead, but at the first change of pace Guy smacks his arm with a quivering palm and shrinks back into himself, crossing his legs and fixing his buttons, his shoulders trembling. Defenseless little creature with no room to flee.
Jasper stands on his feet as he flinches, any movement a potential pounce
“We are done here,” Jasper allows, rubbing the back of his hand to his lips. He takes the clicker out of his pocket and tosses it to him. It lands on the floor. “Here’s the switch button, at your whims to activate. Since your smartass thought the pills were such an incarcerating option.”
Guy grabs the clicker in hand, quickly shoves it in his pocket. He doesn’t stare at him anymore, his eyes fix on his hand, wracked with tremors and touching his neck where the blood copiously oozes. It’s a waste, he doesn’t need his gift to feel Jasper’s disappointment over the flow’s loss, or how he licks his lips clean, looks elsewhere entirely, hungry for more than blood can provide.
After around a minute, Guy hears the steps, and knows the vampire has grown tired of the lack of attention. Gnawing on the toy that doesn’t squeak anymore loses the interest of every carnivore in the chain, and his partner is no different. Though it’s—
When he’s sure he won’t come back, without leaving the floor, Guy slides his hand in the pocket and clicks the thing, experimentally. It works, of course it works, so he lets the voices and uproars willingly crowd his skull with the likeness of a swarm of wasps. He clicks it on and off, alternates between silence and madness, each jump a further confirmation of a trainer’s wicked craft. They don’t cease entirely at the off click, where the voices would gradually go away, a tingling in his neck replaces the discomfort of the dying murmurs. The lack thereof, the success of Pavlov’s bell.
He’ll sleep through the voices.