- fandom: VAMPYR
- 7800 words
- oneshot
- PRE-SLASH
- Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
- Enemies to friends to almost lovers, hurt/comfort, explicit language, violence, blood, bad flirting, pacifist Jonathan Reid, protectiveness
-----
Oh. Oh, that fuckin’–
He’s going to kill him. “I’ll kill you, Reid!” Oh god. “Next time we’ll meet, I’ll end you!” His voice even breaks a little bit at the end. Like a little kid that got his ass handed to him on a silver platter and now screeches at his bullies from behind his mother’s skirt. Death would be so much kinder. His blood boils, and he wants the bastard’s head.
He swings his arm in anger as if trying to punch the leech subsequently. The vampire is walking away, calmly and slowly, and Geoffrey wills him to stop and turn on his heels, blink himself closer, and break his neck. For the good of them both. Oh god, this cannot end like this. This isn’t ending at all. This is a– a disgrace, a beginning, this...
He now almost feels sympathy for the leeches. He finally knows what it feels like to thirst after someone’s blood, and he doesn’t need to be one of them. “You think this changes anything?” he screams again, and the doctor – the leech, the monster, the blood drinker – is still walking away, still at that frustratingly calm pace, and Geoffrey both wants to kill him and provoke him into another fight. “Finish this!” And he even accepted the hand and let the man – not a man, not a human, not a person – pull him to his feet as if he accepted his right to exist and be a goddamned menace.
He can try and stake him from behind, of course. But even considering his non-existent strength at this moment, that would be too desperate. He is feeling desperate, but not enough. He has only enough breath to screech in fury.
Reid walks over to the gate and sighs. “See?” he calls over his shoulder. He doesn’t even turn around. Not worried about Geoffrey, not worried about his back. Because that man behind him is a good-for-nothing threat. He is a fucking disgrace, that’s what he is. “Progress already! You called me by my name!” And god above, did Geoffrey think he wanted to kill that leech a few seconds ago? That was nothing compared to what he feels now. This is what it feels like to have fire in veins. “Until the next time. Goodbye, hunter.”
Cheeky little bitch.
Geoffrey waits until the leech is gone, and only then does he stop swaying on his feet, instead opting for spreading all over the floor like a fallen angel. Feeling sick to the stomach, out of the fucking disgusting blood he just drank like a lunatic, or out of his anger, he can’t tell. He did this only because he thought it was the only way to defeat the leech. And he thought that if that failed, he would be dead, therefore consequences could be damned. He doesn’t know what makes him feel worse, but he can’t stand either way. Oh, he is going to kill him next time.
***
He does not, in fact, kill the leech the next time they meet.
It’s raining and Geoffrey is on his patrol, walking through the cemetery, when he feels a cold presence at his back. He only huffs; his blood cooled down a bit. It’s been days. His wounds are healed, but his pride took some beating.
“Good evening, hunter,” says the leech. What a polite little ambush. Stupid fang-having freak.
“Are you here to end me, leech?” he snaps. “You’ll find I will not be killed easily.” Not much more than the fucking last time, at least. Goddammit, that will sting as long as he lives. He won’t go down without a fight, albeit an embarrassingly short one.
Reid only inclines his head a little. Like a curious bird. “Not at all, McCullum,” he replies, pleasant enough. “I’m here because I need you.”
Geoffrey barely manages to swallow the snort that would have sent him coughing. “Oh really?” he drawls and actually likes the way the vampire’s eyes narrow at the tone. Geoffrey knows what he sounds like, and how irritating it is. “I’m intrigued.”
“I need the blood of a king.” There we go. A vampire toff who asks for blood now. Fucking incredible. “The blood of Arthur. I’m certain you possess it and I must have it. “
“Yes. The blood of Arthur. That blood. The Guard’s most sacred and precious relic.” Oh, Geoffrey would have loved to kick his own ass if he had to face himself right now. But then, the pleasure of acting like a pain in the ass fluttered into nothingness as the words landed and his brain kicked into action. “Why the hell would you– ah.” Now he sounds disgusted. “You found Marshal’s memoirs. I should have destroyed that book.”
“I need the antidote to save this city, McCullum.” Geoffrey only raises his eyebrows. “Do you not understand we wanted the same thing all this time? A means to end this vampire epidemic? We are not enemies.” So he keeps saying.
“Not enemies,” Geoffrey laughs. But there is still something calmer in his chest, the fire in his veins long gone. He is tired, and he cannot fight this alone. He never could. Time to be fair, for a few precious seconds. “Maybe that is so. It is within me to take your words as truth. I want to, but I must know more. What precisely are your plans?” And how can I fit in?
“A creature called a Disaster is about to be unleashed. It falls upon me, as once it did Marshal, to stop it before the whole country is ravaged.”
He really, really should have destroyed that book.
“I really, really should have destroyed that book,” he repeats weakly. “And yet… I wish I could join this battle alongside you.”
Alongside. He really is growing desperate. Siding with a leech to stop a leech epidemic. Speak of two evils. And Reid has always been the lesser one.
“This crusade is not yours to fight, hunter,” the doctor answers, shaking his head. His eyes are almost human-like in his show of sympathy. A good actor, this one. And he is right. Even if this is Geoffrey’s city, his responsibility, and his failure, it is also his lack of other options.
“Take it then. I see no other hope for this city. If this is some trick, you will be damned, Dr Reid.” He is too bitter and exhausted to notice he acknowledged the vampire’s title. He regrets it now because the leech seems to take it as an invitation for more unnecessary words.
“What will the Guard of Priwen do now?” he asks as he pockets one of the most precious relics Geoffrey has ever had in his possession. “Will you stop the Great Hunt?”
Geoffrey grits his teeth. “Yes. But we shall continue to protect innocents from beasts like you.”
“Like me?” He sounds almost offended. Still thinking he is special then?
Geoffrey snorts. “I am indebted to you for sparing me at Pembroke.” Indebted may be a bit too strong of a word. “But this won’t always be the case. I’m no coward like those Saint Paul’s Stole brothers. Make no mistake; there comes a time of killing you, I won’t hesitate.”
In the end, he truly didn’t fit into Reid’s plans. Judging by what he saw when Reid fought something made of pure blood, it would have been his funeral.
***
Turns out, he hesitates. He is again in the cemetery, a few weeks later, only now on his back, trying to catch his breath the goddamned Skal managed to knock out of him, and suddenly, there is another presence, taking apart the monster and kneeling beside Geoffrey on the ground.
The leech. That one particular leech. Worried. Geoffrey can’t breathe. The vampire reaches out to him, grabs his arms, and tries to pull him into a sitting position. “Let me–” But a choked gasp leaves his lips, and his eyes widen in surprise. Geoffrey’s eyes follow the same trail Reid’s do. A little down, a little left, where the tip of an arrow is sticking out of his shoulder. It must hurt like bitch. But the doctor doesn’t scream. He only stares, his gaze clouded.
“No,” Geoffrey says. Whispers. Screams. He doesn’t make a sound. There are more archers in his party tonight. His arms shoot out as if trying to stop the arrows soon to be coming. Another one buries right under Reid’s ribs. “No, wait, wait, no!” Geoffrey finally finds his voice, but it hardly does anything. It’s swallowed up by another sound. Because this time Jonathan screams. A sizzling sound reaches Geoffrey’s ears, and the odor of burning flesh hits his nose. He gags. Must have been an orichalcum arrow. Reid drops down on his hands but stops himself before he falls on Geoffrey.
“We got him!” someone yells in victory, and Geoffrey’s eyes are burning, and so are his lungs. Another arrow hits the target, but the doctor can barely open his mouth, let alone scream in pain. A normal arrow again, somewhere in his thigh. Probably nothing compared to the orichalcum one.
“Stop!” Geoffrey wheezes out. “Stop shooting!” But it’s as if he said nothing at all. He scrambles to his knees so he can shield the figure on the ground at least partially. How the tables turn. “Guard of Priwen, you fucking pricks, I order you to stop!” And then, because he sounds insane and very shootable, he adds: “He’s mine!” That should do it.
That does indeed do it.
But before he can sigh in relief, the leech – now under him, frozen in pain and fear – disappears; melts into the shadows, and Geoffrey can track only the direction the doctor went by the smell of blood. “Let hi–” Geoffrey chokes as he staggers on his feet. “Let it – I’ll get it–”
“Boss, are you quite–”
“We should–”
“Jusss-” he waves his hand, “jus’,” for fuck’s sake, “jus’ winded, tha’s all,” he huffs out as he goes in the direction of the vampire’s escape. “We have a bill to settle,” he adds, darkly.
That much is true. At least he can breathe again, although he sounds like an old man recovering from a seven floors climb.
He has no idea where to go, but he thinks the first abandoned-looking house with boarded-up windows is a fairly safe bet.
And it is.
The leech is lying on the ground, wheezing, and bleeding. He is trying to get a grip on the orichalcum arrow under his ribs. “Come on,” Geoffrey says, “you of all people have to know how bad of an idea that is.”
To Geoffrey’s disbelief, he hears a sob, and he fucking hates how real, how heartbreaking it sounds. “It burns,” Reid whispers, his voice raw. He must have spent the last few minutes screaming himself hoarse. “It burns so much,” he adds, weakly. Then he snarls, “Don’t come any closer!” and Geoffrey stops, raising his hand in a complacent gesture.
“I am not a –” Oh? He is not a fucking what? A threat? An enemy? He is all that and then some. He settles on, “I am not here to hurt you,” in the end.
Reid lets out a mirthless laugh. “I do appreciate you want to make it painless,” he replies, with a touch of the sass he used the last time they met… and the time before that. And the time before that. They’ve met and both survived more than a few times now. Contrary to Geoffrey’s promises. He still keeps his hands up.
“Even if I were here to end ye,” he says, slowly letting his hands fall, “this isn’t how I would do it.”
Reid growls deep in his throat as he moves the arrow slightly more out of his body, but it’s stuck alright, and it must burn like fucking hell. That’s why they use it. That’s why they make it. To slow down the leeches, to take them down, to make them scream, to make them suffer.
Geoffrey hates those things now. Is the doctor even paler than usual now? Is Geoffrey noticing things like that with a lurch in his stomach now?
Must be the tomato soup for lunch. And the smell, oh the smell. And maybe the guilt a little bit. He kneels, mimicking the posture Reid did before, above him, reaching out to help him, unaware of the danger behind his back. Geoffrey didn’t need help at the time, not really, but he had no breath in him to inform the doctor that he wasn’t alone, and the leech was not paying attention to the Guard surrounding him, shooting from behind. It was Geoffrey’s fault as much as anyone else’s.
“Look, I didn’t—” Order this? Obviously. “I didn’t want this. This isn’t how…” And how much comfort could his next words bring, anyway? Oh, we kill differently, I kill differently, I just don’t like the way you are dying now, because– because what? “This isn’t fair,” he says, sounding a little lost, and a little confused. In the end, that is what this is about, right? This isn’t fair, this isn’t how the leech should go. Not when trying to help, not when being harmless, however harmless a vampire could ever be. The doctor spared Geoffrey when he could have done – many things, one worse than the other. He wasn't crossing any lines now.
Geoffrey warned him though. Geoffrey told him that there would be no gratefulness, no regard, no excuses. But the weight of the debt he didn’t agree to is still on his shoulders, and it doubles now when he towers over the injured m— leech. It was hardly a good thing for his head to start thinking of the creature as a living being, a human, a breathing man who needs help. Who is injured and suffering.
But Reid is trying to catch his breath – although he doesn’t need to breathe in the first place. He is probably slipping back to the human coping mechanisms; trying to breathe through the pain. And the sounds he is making are just as distressed as those of an injured human, and there are tears of pain streaming down his cheeks, and his fingers are slipping, not able to get a grip on the burning arrow, and it’s doing more damage with every second.
Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
Geoffrey’s hands hover above the arrow. He really doesn’t want to pull it out. But Reid is right. This is not an ordinary human with an ordinary arrow stuck in him. This is a leech, an allied and freakily friendly leech, and that arrow is made of orichalcum, and that stuff is nasty and burns until the target rips it out or dies in agony. He lays his hands on Jonathan’s stomach, not sure whether he is bracing the vampire or himself, and then pulls the arrow out. He screams at the same time Reid does. And then, the doctor goes limp, and Geoffrey may be panicking a bit. Because the next thing he knows, he is holding the man in his arms and shaking him, knowing it’s the last thing one should be doing to an injured person.
“Reid? Reid. Reid,” he keeps repeating. The vampire doesn’t stir. The arrow in his shoulder is gradually getting out of the wound, the flesh already healing and pushing it out. An invasive wound, but not invasive enough for a leech. This other one, though. This other one is still bleeding and not healing, not even a little bit. Geoffrey checks himself for any open wounds, even the minor cuts on his hands whether there is a risk of having that blood infecting him. But he wasn’t injured in the fight. Aside from his pride and his lungs, he came out just fine.
Do leeches feel cold? he wonders as he uses his coat as a blanket for the unconscious man.
Is he unconscious? He isn’t breathing, not anymore. Geoffrey can’t tell whether he is holding a dead vampire or a live one. He doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry and ashamed. He doesn’t know which emotions belong to which alternative.
But then the smell of burnt flesh is clearing out, even though there is no draft that could have taken care of that, and the wound underneath the clothes is starting to mend a little. Very slowly, painfully slowly, but it is doing its supernatural fucked up and very useful thing. Geoffrey finds he can breathe a little easier. Probably only now finally walked off the Skal’s attack.
When the leech opens his eyes, they are unfocused and glazed over, too pale, too colorless. Geoffrey knows the man still has no idea what is happening, so he holds the damned idiot for a bit longer. Then he lays him on the ground and takes his coat off him. “Well,” he coughs. “Too much drama for nothing, Reid. You almost had me hoping this was the end of ye.”
Reid smiles at him, softly, gently, relieved. Geoffrey wants to wipe it off with his fist.
***
“Do you come here often?” says the stupid voice. Stupid, because it is smiling, and Geoffrey can tell it’s not the too-many-teeth smile, it’s not the I-will-annoy-the-living-lights-out-of-you smile, it’s not the I-told-you-so smile, and not even the please-bitch smile. And he can tell without turning around. The fact he didn’t immediately turn around the moment he could tell there was a presence behind his back, is rather unnerving.
“You know my routes,” he says. “Leech.” So the doctor doesn’t get any ideas.
“I do.” There is still a smile in the voice. Still no eye contact. “But this doesn’t look like a patrol.” He is having a vampire right behind his shoulder, right next to his neck, and he still isn’t turning around. Having a death wish lately, perhaps. Maybe he is provoking a bit. Maybe he wants the leech to finally snap, so Geoffrey doesn’t hate himself more and more with every passing insult he hurls at the man, with every flinch Reid cannot quite hide in time.
“It isn’t,” he replies quietly. “My mentor. He is buried here.”
Short silence. “Oh.” Yeah, oh. “Do you have anyone else?” He bristles at the question. What is the walking annoyance even doing around here? He is not here to eat Geoffrey alive, that much is clear. He is not here to fight, for there are no other enemies. Why ask, was he fishing for weaknesses to explore? Well, Geoffrey doesn’t have any. Not anymore.
“Nope,” he pops the p, because he noticed it makes Reid wince. “Did the same thing you did, actually. Killed me own blood.” He is half expecting to feel fangs on his neck.
The silence is getting longer now, and it’s Geoffrey who is wincing. He curses under his breath and turns around, a very disgruntled ‘sorry’ on his lips. But there is nobody behind him, and the coldness is different now. Coldness of something missing. Like his fucking filter.
Yeah, that was no good.
That’s why he wants the leech to snap and bury his fangs into him. So he can finally settle this. Whatever this is. He wants the leech to either snap and prove him right, or prove him he won’t snap, and therefore prove him wrong. He is doing the latter now and Geoffrey isn’t sure he likes it. He will say sorry the next time he sees the man.
***
He doesn’t manage to say sorry because he is too busy bleeding out. The sewer beast got too close, and Geoffrey has a new lovely soon-to-be-scar in his collection. Only it would have been his last one for sure if not for the doctor who turned up just in time to break a) the beast’s hold on Geoffrey, and b) the beast’s neck.
So there he lies, bleeding like a pig, and mumbling something that is supposed to work as an apology. His mam would have smacked him dozen times for the excuses he kept repeating to himself, thinking he was a fool for trying to befriend his sworn enemy. He sometimes watches his reflection and scowls at it. You ever wonder why you have nothing in your life, the mirror asks. Cause you fucking kill everything that gets a bit close, he answers and then doesn't look into the mirror for a few days.
Fuck the vampire and his silent disappointment. He could literally radiate that stuff. His eyes are supposed to be dead and yet they hold so much – feeling, he supposes. Because whatever this is in his pale – greenish? – eyes, it isn’t dead. It is feeling, it is alive, it is – fucking livid. “Stupid, irresponsible, mulish, hotheaded, idiotic, moronic,” the doctor keeps talking to him, to keep him awake or make him fall asleep, he can’t tell. The voice is half calming, half irritating. It has a touch of something disturbing, of something anxious and sad and angry and scared. It smells strange. Geoffrey is smelling feelings now. Vampire’s feelings.
He starts laughing hysterically, and then he notices how painful that is. He doesn’t know what happens after. He knows that when he wakes up in a room at Pembroke, there is his crossbow on the nightstand, a glass of water, and a touch of someone’s cold presence in the room, strangely calming. He says sorry and he says thanks, and then he repeats it over and over because there is still not enough blood in his body. He feels light-headed and he wants to puke. His head is on fire.
The fever makes him say sorry even more, and he stops counting. Only once does the doctor ask, “But for what, Geoffrey, for what?” The voice snappish, tired, miserable. Hungry. Is that where the blood went from Geoffrey's body?
As if, his reflection would say. Or would it be him instead? They were both right sometimes. “For not calling for backup? For not waiting for help when running into a sewer beast?” The irritation fades from the voice, and it trembles slightly.
“For the stupid thing I said about killing my own blood. I didn’t want to do it any more than you did,” Geoffrey tries to say, and he does, he thinks, only the words are slurring a little. “My brother. He turned, and I had to kill him. There was no stopping him. Tried. Tried talkin’. Wouldna listen.”
And the tremble in the voice is still there, only now it softens, and a big palm covers his hand. “Oh, Geoffrey. I am so sorry to hear that.”
This was supposed to go like, “Okay, but fuck you anyway.”
“No right to say that shite,” he tries to add. Tries to give the leech a hint on how to behave. How to send him to hell and give up on whatever he is trying to do with him.
“No. But – I forgive you.”
“Of course you do. You freak.” That’ll show him. He did it again. Only it sounds too good-natured even to his own ears. There is no tremble in the voice the next time it speaks. There is a smile, though. The told-you-so smile. Geoffrey can’t stand that one. Well, the leech told him many things. Too many, in fact. Like ‘we are not enemies, Geoffrey’ and ‘you’ll thank me for these painkillers one day, just you wait” and “we may even become friends” and shite like that. Geoffrey rarely listens.
***
It comes to him weeks after, when he actually waits for the backup, and the backup is the doctor himself. Apparently, his anxiety levels spiked so much and so high upon walking into the group of Skals that the doctor was basically smacked over his face with them, so he knew where to go. From the other side of the city at that. “You could have eaten me alive.” He was bleeding all over the man back then. He doesn’t remember much but he remembers that.
Reid only gives him a look, raised brow and all, cheeky son of a bitch as always, and, “You are not my type,” he says, tone wry.
Geoffrey’s inner self slaps him before he speaks up and says something unnecessarily cruel. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have bothered. Is he getting better? Or is the leech getting closer?
Closer to fucking what?
He nearly gets beheaded when he realizes he just spared a vampire’s feelings. He recovers fairly quickly, decapitating the screeching monster in turn. “How did you survive for so long, hunter?” comes another call, and Geoffrey smirks at the light tone. He likes it that way. Not burdened with some heavy shite, not quiet, not sad and disappointed and hurt. The doctor is insufferable, but it’s always better than the opposite.
He does a double take when Reid invites him for a drink after. They are both a little worse for wear, but alive. Geoffrey narrows his eyes and looks at him for a long time. “Who’s your drink then?” he asks. He is still sane enough to keep his voice neutral, maybe on the friendlier side to show that he doesn’t really think the doctor is planning to drink him.
Reid only chuckles. “I can have tea. It’s not as pleasant as it used to be, but I still enjoy the aroma.”
Hmpf. “You paying?”
“That is the usual outcome of inviting someone.”
“Well then,” Geoffrey grunts. “As long as it’s booze.” He still keeps his eyes narrowed. “Why today?” Not a particularly successful hunt. They have been working together for months now, and this is a regular night. Aside from the invitation.
Reid blinks slowly at him, like an overgrown cat. “This is the first time in some time you have gone without painkillers for your headaches,” he says, matter of factly, as if it is a perfectly normal thing to notice and say. “I haven’t seen you go for a drink for a while. I assume it was because you listened to your doctor and didn’t mix the medication with alcohol.”
Geoffrey opens his mouth like a fish. His doctor. His doctor? His doctor is being a dick. He doesn’t have a fucking doctor.
“You can tell–” he wants to ask, but stops himself. Sounds stupid.
“There’s this strain behind your eyes when you have a headache. I would have been able to tell without,” Reid waves his fingers of all things as if he could describe a vampire’s freaky powers with it, “because you frown a lot more, and you flinch at loud noises. But being able to tell whether someone took the medicine or not, that is new.” He looks at his tea, a crease forming in between his eyes. Something dark passes over his face, and Geoffrey knows what it is. The man is learning to live with his condition. Has been for a year or so. But he still doesn’t like it. The next second, the dark shadow is gone, and Reid lightens up again. “I am glad you listened. Are you feeling better these days?”
Geoffrey takes the beer and frowns at it. “You know I do. Apparently.”
Reid smiles, content, proud, smug, and Geoffrey still wants to wipe it off that face. His hand doesn’t form a fist at the thought, this time. The night must have drained him more than he thought.
***
The next time Geoffrey doesn’t kill Reid is when they are both on the floor, in a cell reeking of piss and sweat and blood and desperation. Geoffrey is still trying to breathe through the pain pulsing in his temples and ribs. He can feel he’s bleeding from a few cuts, although he would have expected ending up in a worse shape, judging by how many they were outnumbered. He’s trying to bandage those cuts anyway, because—
Because the doctor snapped just a minute ago when Geoffrey tried to turn him on his back. He lashed out like a terrified cat, cornered in a dead-end street, surrounded by rabid dogs. “Stay away from me,” he snarled, wild-eyed.
“Fuck, okay,” Geoffrey said and sat back, slightly – what? Offended? Hurt? It’s not like he is going to stake the man, is it? It would prove to be rather counterproductive. They were in this mess together. Taken by surprise, outnumbered, and captured together. Nervous from the silence that follows the breakdown, he blurts, “What the hell they waiting for? Why keep us like this?” And why in one cell? There are plenty of those around.
It’s only after a few more seconds of the smell of blood getting heavier in the air that he realizes it’s not only him who’s bleeding. And that he is actually the one better off. “Oh,” he says because that’s pretty much the only thing one can say in a situation like this. ‘Fuck’ cannot even begin to cover it. “I am not going to hurt you, Reid,” he says, quieter, calmer. “Just – they… this must be uncomfortable as hell, especially when you are injured. I’ll try to take those shackles off, okay?” Any other day, it would have made him grit his teeth that they didn’t bother to shackle him. As if he wasn’t any threat. He can't regrow limbs like vampires and he can't name the bones like the good doctor here, but he can chop limbs off and break the bones alright.
“No,” whispers Reid and shakes his head. He is huddled in his corner, curling in on himself.
“Fucking bastards,” swears Geoffrey and spits on the ground. “Are they burning you? Just let me help, for god’s sake–”
“They didn’t shackle me, hunter. I did,” the doctor breathes out, slowly, through the nose. He sounds as if he has his mouth full of cotton. Or – fangs.
“Oh,” Geoffrey says again, like a fucking idiot.
“Please keep your distance. I– I do not want to hurt you.”
“I’ve bled all over you before,” Geoffrey argues. “These are just a few cuts and I already bandaged them. Hey. Look at me. Lee– Reid. Reid, look at me. You won’t eat me, I trust you.”
He can't believe what he's saying. There comes a chuckle in response, and it isn’t his. “You must be out of most of your blood. You usually are, when you speak like this.” The words are quiet, the voice fragile. The moment between them feels somehow sacred. Between one damned Geoffrey and one cursed vampire. Stranger things have happened.
“Stop being difficult or I’ll find a way to gag you, I swear,” Geoffrey grumbles as he shuffles over. A little closer, but still not close enough. “I bandaged it tight. Nothing to worry about. That smell of blood – that’s all you, you know.” Only now it clicks. “How…” he swallows, but his throat only tightens at the motion. It’s too dry to have anything to swallow, anyway. “How bad is it, Reid?”
“Bad enough,” comes the quiet answer.
Suddenly, a wave of anger washes over Geoffrey. “And what, so you just huddle in the corner, hug yourself and give up, is that it? So you are being stubborn only with me. To piss me off.” Silence. “Tell me what you need. Tell me.” More silence. “I need you to say it, Jonathan.” His voice breaks a bit. Did he say his throat was as dry as a desert? Whose voice wouldn’t be breaking?
Jonathan moves a bit, and turns his head, trying to keep in the shadows, but failing in the end. The fangs are huge, and the eyes are red, and the face is pale as death, paler than ever before. “See? Progress,” he says. Geoffrey hates this act.
“Do you need blood to heal, Jonathan?” The name drops more easily the second time, somehow. Why is he asking? Of fucking course he needs blood to heal. That’s why they are in the cell together. A gravely injured Ekon (gravely, gravely, how gravely can a vampire be injured and still survive), and his food. Geoffrey. Even if not bleeding, he would have made a good tempting meal. That’s why they didn’t shackle Reid. That’s why Reid shackled himself. Because they want him to eat Geoffrey, and Jonathan doesn’t want to do that. He never has. “Stop being a self-sacrificing little bitch,” he snaps.
“I do not– I do not want–” Pity? Blood? Saving? To live? To admit what he needs? What else is there to do?
“Look, either you die because of those wounds. Or we both die because they come and see their little game didn’t work and they finish me off anyway. Or you snap and I am the one who dies. But right now, having these options, I would bet my money on the last one – that you take my blood, enough to save yourself but let me live if you don’t mind, and we fight our way out of this shithole.”
“I cannot be trusted with this,” the doctor says, shaking his head again. So very calm in the face of his own death. Well, it isn’t his first time, but still – it should be more disturbing than that.
“Do you want to die?” Geoffrey asks. It’s only his own tiredness, so deep in his bones, that keeps his voice level.
“No,” Jonathan admits.
“Do you trust me?”
The silence should have been longer, Geoffrey thinks. “Yes.”
“Then trust me when I say I mean this offer. I would write it down but I left me pen in me other trousers.” Silence. Jonathan’s eyes are fluttering closed. It’s worse than Geoffrey thought. So he shuffles even closer. Still not close enough. The floor is dirty and disgusting, and so is he. He is glad his senses are only those of a human. “Doc, I swear to god that I will force-feed you if I have to,” he threatens, and somehow, he manages to sound like his mam sounded when she used his whole name, hands on her hips. He shivers.
Jonathan’s eyes open a bit more. “You don’t understand,” he whispers, his words slurring. Whether from the wounds or the fangs, Geoffrey cannot tell. “I would literally drain you. I wouldn’t– I don’t think I would be able to stop in time.”
“Don’t think I forgot that time you force-fed me,” Geoffrey replies. Jonathan scowls at him, narrowing eyes like a pissed off cat. “I wasn’t being difficult. I just hate corn soup, you dick. Nearly choked to death. Now,” he stands up and the vampire’s eyes widen for a change, “come here.”
“Geoffrey,” Jonathan cries, choked up, as he flattens his back against the wall. “Are you insane? Don’t come any– please,” he begs, and Geoffrey nearly stops right there. Maybe even turns around and goes back to his own corner. But the options are the same. There is only one chance of him surviving, and that’s if the leech gets strong enough to rip those bars apart and get them free. Even if Jonathan fails to stop in time, Geoffrey is dead either way and if the success means he may end up dead anyway, well, what is there to lose? Those assholes are gonna die at least. “I don’t want to kill you! Geoffrey! God, please.” And now Geoffrey truly stops.
There he is, a vampire in the corner, suddenly so incredibly small, and Geoffrey feels like a monster. The doctor is genuinely terrified. A leech that is scared of a man who is coming at it with the full intention to feed it his own blood.
This isn’t even funny.
The leech, and nothing but a leech, would have never shackled himself in the first place. This is Jonathan who is begging him to not come any closer. This is the human in him, the one he fights tooth and nails to keep as intact as he possibly can with the beast in him trying to wrestle control from him.
“You won’t kill me. And if you do, well, you have my blessing to make them pay.” He tries to shrug it off. His death, and Jonathan’s self-hatred at having failed.
“I vowed to never take a life again. I made a promise. I swore an oath. I cannot, I will not take a life ever again like this. And especially not that of a friend. If I survive this just because you do not, I will– please. Do not make me do this. Do not make this decision for me.”
Geoffrey’s brain short circuits. But he is too much of a little bitch to analyze why, and what part of that sentence caused that he almost tripped over his own feet. The doc is right. This is not going to work. “How about I make it fair? In its own fucked up way, that is.” Fucked up situations and fucked up resolutions and all that.
Jonathan listens. “How?”
“I take this,” Geoffrey says and pulls out a stake. The doctor flinches. “And I will hold it against your chest as you take what you need. If you take too much, I will stop you. Told you that once you cross the line, you are dead. And this isn’t fair because I am the one making you cross it, but there is nothing else we can do. You know that.” I am sorry, he doesn't add.
“That is… how can you offer something like this and mean it?” Jonathan looks close to tears.
“Do you see any other way how to get out of this? Dead or alive."
He doesn’t even blink when he sits on the doctor’s chest, holding the stake tight. He rips off the bandages from his cuts and digs his fingers deep into them. Jonathan’s eyes widen even more, and he seems to hold his breath for a moment. Joke's on him, he doesn't need to breathe to smell. Suddenly, Geoffrey feels awful. If this backfires, Geoffrey will die right on top of the doctor. And he has known him long enough to know he is a bleeding heart. Takes hard deaths of strangers, let alone of those he – cares about. Geoffrey is pushing him into possibly killing one of the few people in his life who keep in touch with him despite knowing what he is.
Geoffrey nearly snarls at all those names he has heard Jonathan mention over the last few months. The friends lost. The friends who couldn’t take the news and continue. Some of them lashed out. Some of them tried to turn the doctor in. Some of them even came to Geoffrey. Despite knowing what he is. What is he?
Geoffrey waits for the blood to flow more before he lowers his hand to Jonathan’s lips. They are not touching. The blood drips very slowly, and Jonathan starts breathing again. This is going to be slow and painful. For both of them.
What is he? Geoffrey wonders as Jonathan flinches so hard he nearly rips the shackles out of the wall. After that, he is holding himself deathly still. His eyes are still huge and terrified, and red. Then, out of an impulse, or maybe tiredness of the position that is now more uncomfortable than awkward, Geoffrey lowers his hand even more.
“You are shaking,” the doctor says, quietly.
“Am I,” Geoffrey asks. He is. He is shaking like a leaf. He has never let a leech so close. He is one of the few in Priwen who got never bitten. Even with his brother, even when Geoffrey couldn’t hold up his hand with the stake without nearly dropping it, even when he couldn’t see over his tears, he was never this close to a vampire’s fangs. The beasts never surprised him. It’s a bit ironic, really. The only time he was close to getting bitten and drained dry was in the attic when they fought. The leech who could get a jump on him didn’t take the chance.
It is a bit of poetic justice, isn't it? To offer it to him in the end. He is a jester of the universe, he's known that for a while now. “These drops won’t help,” he says through gritted teeth. “Do it.”
And no matter how against the idea initially, even Jonathan has his limits. He doesn’t argue anymore. He takes the wrist into his mouth and bites. Geoffrey nearly stakes him right there, instinct almost kicking his limbs into action. But he holds out, unmoving. Jonathan could hold still with a bleeding human just a few inches from him, so he can do this. When Jonathan closes his eyes, Geoffrey tosses the stake just out of reach. A dick move regarding the doctor’s bleeding heart. But he can’t risk staking him for real. Either they both leave this cell or at least Jonathan does.
A stupid name. Leech is much shorter.
After that, it doesn’t take very long. At one point, Jonathan begins to toss around as if in seizure, and in one swift motion he grabs Geoffrey as if he isn’t at least three stones heavier than him, and throws him aside. Then he rips the shackles out of the wall, and for a moment, the hunter thinks this is it.
But Jonathan only laughs, it’s a maniacal sound, bordering on hysterical, and Geoffrey never heard the man make such a sound before. It’s half amusing, half disturbing. “I did it.” His eyes are shining in the dark.
Geoffrey now sits on the ground and watches him in disbelief. “Your parents never taught you that you should finish your meals?” he hears himself say. For fuck’s sake, honestly.
“I told you that you are not my type,” Jonathan says. He sounds… stronger. Healthier. He looks like shit still, of course. But he is on his feet. And although his stomach is still bloody and his face taut and pale, he stands straight. The wounds are probably healing. And here is Geoffrey, alive and well, if only a little light-headed.
“So you keep telling me,” he says and shuts his eyes for a moment or six. “Mind if I sit this one out?”
He feels a hand on his forehead, and then his neck, and then his face. It’s cold, and it feels heavenly. “Thank you, hunter. I will take care of the rest.”
***
He yawns so hard it nearly dislocates his jaw. The whole room is so incredibly still that he can’t help but feel like he will fall asleep any minute now. The surgical tools are still, the furniture, the plant that looks like it wants to give up on life, the bed in the corner, even the air, and the…
He turns around. Still no change. Of course he didn't expect there to be a major one only seven seconds since he last checked, but still.
The body is also unmoving. Not a body. A person. A man. A doctor. A friend. There’s been an outbreak of violence in London. It was as if everyone in the city went insane at the same time. Human gangs, Vulkods, Skals, Ekons, even goddamned nurses. Jonathan has managed to make Geoffrey think that vampires do not need sleep. Even if they welcome it, they don’t technically need it, he kept saying. And Geoffrey kind of believed him when it turned out the doc could go days without rest.
Well, then the collapse happened. So Geoffrey doesn’t really trust that idiot’s bullshit anymore. Jonathan dropped in the middle of an attack plan. Trying to sneak into a meeting consisting of a few Skals, and two strangely non-territorial sewer beasts. Geoffrey planned to take them by surprise, as always. It generally worked in one’s favor, after all. So he wasn’t glad when the only one who got any surprise was him. One moment checking his crossbow’s mechanism, the next moment with an armful of a lanky vampire doctor. He grunted under the unexpected weight and – turns out, that is not a good sound to make when trying to tiptoe around a few bloodthirsty monsters. They ran at them, and Geoffrey had to throw a fucking explosive at them (and damn the consequences – the collapsing ceilings in this case) to slow them down for long enough to make it through the tunnels back outside with an unmoving figure draped over his shoulders.
He didn’t know if the man was still alive.
He shook him like a rabid dog when they were outside. Then he brought him to the hospital, of course. After that, he had to listen to Swansea’s reprimands, of fucking course. And then he went and put the idiot in his own bed and sat down to watch a half-dead plant in the meantime. As if he had nothing better to do.
He couldn’t remember the last patrol he made on his own, honestly. He got used to the company.
“Oh, hell,” Jonathan rasps out an understanding of the century, and Geoffrey turns towards the bed.
“No shit,” he snipes.
“I could have– I mean to say, I–” Jonathan clears his throat and sits up on his bed. Probably trying to say he knew what he was doing or some other shite.
“Save it,” grumbles Geoffrey and turns back to the plant. “You know plants need water?” he asks, mildly, bored. “Can’t take care of a plant, can’t take care of himself,” he huffs. “You’re pathetic.”
Jonathan sighs. “And you were here watching my pathetic self sleep? To what do I owe the privilege?”
“Don’t get cheeky, Jon,” Geoffrey smiles, and his grin widens when he feels how the air shifts, how there is disbelief written all over the room, not only on the doctor’s face. “Not your type, remember?” He pokes the plant with his finger.
Silence. Oh god, he is tired. Maybe he should find a bed to fall in if he doesn’t want to pass out and embarrass himself even more. Who would be pathetic then, eh?
“I meant your blood,” he hears and has to shake himself to get back on the track. He turns his head and narrows his eyes at the vampire.
“What?” The finger poking the poor plant’s leaves slips and buries in the soil. It actually is slightly damp, now that he thinks about it. And it’s not even that interesting, or that funny, but he still feels his mouth going wide in an idiotic grin.
“I meant your blood type, Geoffrey,” Jonathan says and clears his throat again. Then he stands up. He passed out in a sewer and got dragged through the muddy streets and yet he still looks as if he had a shower and a good night's sleep. “The rest of you, that is something entirely different.” Oh.
Oh.
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