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Chapter Text

As Christian comes to and his thoughts waft vague and dark in his throbbing skull, one piercing dread rings through to him, loud and clear: wrong. Something is wrong—he should not be able to—form thoughts, move his eyes, lift a finger. Should not be able to flinch and squirm when someone hoists him up, shakes Christian’s limp body. On the very edge of his consciousness, Christian’s ears regain purpose. Someone might be talking, but shrill ringing drowns out everything.

Christian must open his eyes, must—get away, something tells him, away , this is wrong, why aren’t you running for your life? But Christian lies frozen, lies paralyzed and—bleeding, right, he was bleeding, because… Oh, his ears…

“Yeah, I know,” comes a voice, close; Christian’s beaten body startles but has no means to carry him away from the threat, the arms around him, pulling. The touch to his face, wet fingers that slide across Christian’s even wetter forehead, and Christian tries to speak, a plea for mercy or death or to simply let out the whimper the mere effort to command his muscles draws out of a depth Christian hadn’t known could exist in a man—but none of it happens because Christian’s body is dead and the voice tells him, “I know; shhh. It’ll get better in a minute,” and Christian closes his eyes and exhales a breath he couldn’t have had in him.

Christian’s body dies again. His consciousness ebbs just out of his grasp, not his to possess anymore. No; surely, the Holy Father guides Christian’s soul, beckons it to follow Him into the light…but the world won’t leave Christian yet. Pushes back into his perception every now and then like the flame of a candle in a too-harsh draft (Christian’s eyelids flutter). Sounds and smells attack him without warning, multifold and rich—revolting, nauseating, both in their intensity and their palette. Fire. Blood. Wood, bowing and breaking at ear-shattering volume, as if Christian’s head itself was the beam snapping. Wood. The wooden beams of the stable… The granary.

Christian flinches alive, upside-down—carried, thrown over someone’s shoulder, uncaring of his wounds, the blood.

Christian heaves, but his lungs feel collapsed and his ribs broken, his tongue distended and fat like a slug blocking his airway, and he does not understand how but his body heaves again. He flails and is alive and yet he isn’t; someone claps him on the back (someone laughs).

They speak to him, but he cannot understand.

~

Christian’s eyes rise to Jeffrey’s face as he enters behind Kalen.

“Any luck?” Jeffrey asks. Kalen shakes his head, sends Christian another narrow glare. Christian swallows weakly. “Gimme that. You can go.”

Kalen says, “You’re wasting your time,” but, ultimately, bows to his master’s order.

As Kalen exits the cell, Jeffrey scuffles into his spot in front of Christian, the same untouched bowl cradled in his hands. Christian steels himself but the stench creeps into him regardless, of course. They hear Kalen climbing the dungeon stairs, murmuring to himself.

“He’s just trying to help, you know. He’s new to this just as you are.” Rotating the bowl in his hands, Jeffrey continues, “Isn’t that one of your lots’ virtues? Kindness to others?”

“Saint Michael the Archangel—” (Jeffrey sighs) “—defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil—”

“Come on, aren’t you tired of this by now?”

“May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of—!”

Christian splutters against the hand that smears the bowl’s content against his mouth.

Christian spits.

“Do not TOUCH me!”

His voice shakes and breaks but Jeffrey laughs at him, shakes his head as he gathers more liquid in his hand. He sinks to a proper sit where he squatted in front of Christian before. A smile skirts around his bearded mouth, his skin pale-pale-pale against the dark stone, the glimpses of moonlight that make it through the bars way out of Christian’s reach. Chained like a rabid dog, a hog about to be castrated, Christian sweats and screams and fights as best as he can. But the repetitions won’t end. All Christian can hope for is to stall the process. As shameful as it might be to accept: the hunger chips away at him, day after day. Night after night.

“‘By the power of’…? Do go on, love. I believe you’ve got some more lines to go.”

“Go to Hell…”

“Aw. Now, that is not very nice of you to say.”

Panting, twitching from the exhaustion and neglect, Christian’s fight eventually dies down to a meager splutter of his lips whenever Jeffrey scoops more into his mouth. The liquid has long cooled, thickens and thickens the longer Christian defies. He must close his eyes against the waves, against the bright overwhelm as it takes him over, trickles into his oh-so-empty stomach, his starved, brittle guts. (Christian has lost hope for rescue by now. Weeks, must have been. Months even, maybe. It is hard to track time, shackled in this cell as he is, left to rot. And yet, rot he does not. Despite the lack of water, of sunlight.)

“‘By the power of God, thrust into hell Satan’… Talk about old dogs not learning new tricks… Come on, you do it better than me…”

Christian swallows. The detested substance glues his throat shut, makes it click. Rises into his sinuses, probes the back of his head and his ears and his eyes and his bones.

It used to hurt, at first. Shrilled through his veins like needles and left him gasping, hurling. Now, it warms him. A warmth Christian hasn’t experienced in… Since that night. That massacre, where he was supposed to die. Or even prior to that.

Time has lost meaning down here. Where there is only emptiness and prayer, or fight. Or Jeffrey. The blood.

“S-Satan and…all the evil spirits…”

who prowl about the world

seeking the ruin of souls.

Yeah, that.

Christian’s body yearns to sigh and deflate into his chains so urgently that Christian cannot bring himself to waste his breath speaking the words.

~

The others detest him. Christian prefers this, really. Makes it easier for him to shun them, stay by himself. By Jeffrey’s side, when Jeffrey insists, which does not happen often (but does). As week follows week, the split grows and grows. They should have left him in the dungeon. There, at least, they would not have to avoid Christian.

“Pay them no mind,” Jeffrey would say, slow with the sun out, but Christian would be drawn into the lush gardens that reminded him so much of home, and he would slump and the sun would burn like it would in those first months of spring when Christian wouldn’t be used to it anymore, when he’d be pale and his hair would be darker—he’s lost quite a bit, now, with the malnutrition and the lack of sleep, feels lighter, too, but Jeffrey says that is normal, that is part of it—and Christian doesn’t necessarily believe the man, but he listens. Lets him speak, on his own, because Christian has nothing to say to someone like him. A murderer. A monster.

But, the garden. The garden, that is Christian’s weak spot, and Jeffrey seems to know all about those.

“They’re simply jealous. ’Cause I let you sit back, take it easy—some of them have forgotten that this is the way it’s always been. Say I favour you or something, which I think we both can agree is quite exaggerated.”

Christian knows it’ll happen before it does, and Jeffrey says that is part of it, too: especially since this is Jeffrey, and this is Christian. But Christian flinches, still, as he is reached out for by a limp hand, as Jeffrey thumbs some dirt out of Christian’s hair and tells him, “Tomorrow, maybe, you’ll have to join us. Or the time after. I haven’t decided yet. But I can’t let you sit around and watch the grass grow forever. Eventually, you’ll earn your keep, just like everyone else. It’s gonna be fine. You will be. I promise you that.”

There are others that Jeffrey turned; quite a few of the lot, really. As far as Christian understands, their hierarchy spawns from Jeffrey and trickles downwards from there. Some joined Jeffrey’s nest decades before Christian but find themselves below ‘the priest’, as they call him, despite the fact that Christian used to be a simple monk. They can’t possibly differentiate between such things, it seems, as it bores them just like everything aside from killing and fucking and leisuring does.

After nightfall, Jeffrey forces Christian to take his dinner in the great hall, which usually presents the singular unlucky opportunity: he has to endure the others’ presence. Or their leering eyes. Or their gossip.

The borrowed linens hide the crawl of Christian’s skin at the sights—scents—voices. Jeffrey will not let him walk off until he himself finished his meal, so Christian is forced to take his time. He focuses on the carvings in the metal cup he holds with both hands, the opening angled away so Christian can only smell the content, doesn’t have to see. He flinches as someone makes a joke and someone else slams their fist onto the long, long table as they laugh, loud and unabashed. Christian forces himself calm, forces himself not to glare, to reprimand. Animals. They are nothing but animals.

“Will the holy father join us tonight, or?”

“Hey, watch your tongue, or he’ll cut it out of you… Blasphemy, is it not?”

Christian stares back at the faces turned towards him, waiting for his reaction. They don’t tire of this game. A smirk skirts around the lady’s lips and she chews with her mouth open after snatching another grape, another sip from her cup.

“This one could cut me any which way, to be rather blunt with you…”

“Enough.”

“I’m just joking, just joking…! Of course, your precious pet mustn’t sully his pretty little hands with the likes of me, Jeff…”

Someone warns, “Tabetha,” and she laughs high in her throat like a child, shrill like a nail on chalkboard.

Christian’s ability to mask his disgust fades with each day (each night, huddled together with these…abominations). Jeffrey hasn’t commented on it so far. Christian treads a thin line. Everything seems a simple matter of time.

Jeffrey mustn’t provide details: Christian picks up enough conversation during his hours at this forsaken table, enough bragging and lamenting. Hunting, feeding—humans, blood, intestines. Christian rotates and rotates the bronze cup, slumped over even though the few sips he allowed himself pull at him, tear and roar and want him to run, to stretch, use all the muscles and every limb and appendix his body has to offer with this newfound burst of energy, this, this—madness. Surely, God is testing him. Stuck in Purgatory, Christian must resist the temptations waiting for him at every turn in this cursed castle. The wide plot of land, the stables with the stolen horses and the riches in the many, many bedrooms, it all calls to Christian, whispers. Every leaf, every blade of grass seems so alive. A living nightmare that mocks Christian in his paralysis. In his mourning.

“You will prepare the horses,” orders Jeffrey, after. Outside, with Christian not shivering because he is never cold anymore, because his skin holds the same dead mildness no matter what, no matter how long Christian exposes it to flames or drowns it in the well water. Christian doesn’t nod or speak, simply moves and does as he is told. But he is grabbed by the shoulder, yanked to turn back around.

Jeffrey adds nothing. The firmness of his night-black eyes tells Christian everything he needs to know.

“Yes, sire.”

(The word weighs odd on his tongue, crawls up the back of his throat.) Christian clears his throat, is let off. Someone nearby whistles; that forsaken giggling again. Christian drops his gaze to the tips of his boots and hurries. Jeffrey follows him after a bit, after addressing his flock and leaving them excited for the hunt, whooping and champing at the bit. Christian sweats as he works. His heart races regardless of what he does after a meal, and Jeffrey’s hands curling around his shoulders from behind, the press of his body against Christian’s makes it all that much worse. Has him gasping, nearly doubling over with how—

God help him, in this new world of cold and death, his sire seems to be the single thing capable of warmth.

“Tomorrow night. I have decided.” (Christian holds his breath; holds still. Wedged between Jeffrey and saddle and horse, and his head swims violently, and he wants to—scream, take me with you, don’t leave me here lest I go insane.) Christian’s heart beats into the roof of his mouth and Jeffrey’s hands squeeze, feel him. Really feel him. “…You are shaking.”

Christian says nothing.

“…Are you still mad at me? For…?”

“No,” gulps Christian. His voice doubles over the lie. His bones want to arch out of his skin and his nails dig into the leather of the saddle, and his stomach curls tight at the thought of—what he woke up to yesterday in Jeffrey’s bed, or today, or a week ago; it doesn’t matter… Jeffrey, Jeffrey’s hands as they… “No, just… It’s the, the blood. I’m still…”

“Still weak,” helps Jeffrey, his hands now sliding to Christian’s front, his beard against the back of Christian’s neck. Christian can’t see the smile he knows is there. The soft, pecked kiss to his hairline jolts him. Jeffrey chuckles. “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll see to that. Don’t even worry.”

They ride off without him. The castle is never deserted just like Christian is never truly alone, and even as the hollers and songs and the hooves digging into the damp dirt cannot reach even Christian’s magnified hearing any longer, the weight of Jeffrey’s presence and his hands and his voice ring in Christian as if the man is still with him. As if he still holds Christian, still speaks to him.

Jeffrey visits Jensen’s dreams, sometimes. In the blackness of nothingness and through the fire, the piles of corpses. In the gardens, when Jeffrey prefers to stay indoors because it rains or he has company and yet craves to torment Christian’s mind. Christian tried tuning him out, tried screaming to drown the voice in his head lulling him in, tried slicing into the skin whose tingling never seems to cease once Jeffrey touched him, or looked at him, or thought of him— get used to it. The others would laugh, watching Christian squirm in the dirt. Mocking, rejoicing.

Christian stands by the gates now, his arms limp and his eyes on the distant land, beyond the forest and the winding paths of Willow’s Creek. The night air shifts through his clothes and his hair. He has no need to breathe.

~

As if he knows—because I know, Christian hears, deep-deep in his skull—Jeffrey’s eyes snap to Christian across the hall. Christian stares back at him, eyes wide. The thought barely sprung into existence.

Nearby, Kalen clicks his tongue, gurgles his laugh.

“Cold feet, Father?”

“You don’t speak to him.”

Kalen rolls his eyes, rolls over into the puddle, the cold, precious puddle. Christian shakes, down on his knees, the night air colder than even him where he is soaked: his face, his front, his hands—and as Jeffrey rises to his feet, part of Christian rejoices. Part of him wants to fight, to tear, leave the monster a memento of a scar, of anything. The vampire makes his way through the feeding horde of his lot, the more or less delirious, writhing bodies mangling with the corpses of their prey. As Jeffrey grabs Christian by the throat, Christian does not fight. Shuts his eyes as it happens, braces for impact.

The sire thrums with energy. Drips with blood just like everything else in this godforsaken hall, the stone floor and walls of the castle sullied beyond what Christian was already used to because they are celebrating, this is for you, nestling—Christian can’t swallow but his mouth floods, and he rises to his knees because Jeffrey pulls at him, and Christian allows it. Arms limp, fingers twitching. Someone else’s skin is caught under his fingernails, between his teeth.

After everything I’ve done for you. We did for you.

Someone hollers, “Yes, put the bitch in his place!” and others half-join in before Jeffrey bellows, “SILENCE!” and they comply. Of course.

The hall is silent except for the thrum under Christian’s skin. The distracted slurp of someone’s mouth (not Christian’s), the sad thud of a limb, being discarded. Jeffrey glares down at Christian, still.

“You think of escape? Escaping what, exactly? The blessing I grant to you? Your nest? You insult me,”

Christian half-blinks. His stomach has never been this full, his blood never this warm. Where there should be regret, there is only…lightness.

Jeffrey continues, louder: “You insult all of us.”

“Are you better than us? Is that what you think, little monk?”

“Your virtues died with your pathetic, fat lot.”

“I drank your precious Father and trust me, he was just as foul as the next beggar…”

Tabetha’s childish-high voice sing-songs, “Where would you even run to, eh? Who out there would give a rat’s ass about you?”

“Maybe it was Master who drank your parents. Maybe it was me!”

“Who ate your unborn little siblings from your mother’s dying cunt!”

Jeffrey’s, “ENOUGH!” cuts through the dispersed laughter. Lower again, slow, for Christian: “You are part of us—of me. You belong here. With me.”

Kalen moans, “Just let us set him straight for you, Master… It’d be a pleasure, I bet…!” and Jeffrey’s eyes narrow, and to Christian’s horror and delight, he, too, can make out Jeffrey’s exact thought.

Sees it sparking alive as if it was his own, and he jerks in Jeffrey’s hold, jerks because he wants off, away from those eyes and those intentions but Jeffrey tosses him—tosses him into the nearest pile of bodies, into the midst of his now-yowling nest, and Christian wants to scream no, scrambles with his throat still tight as if Jeffrey was still choking him. Countless hands grab for him, mouths crane and teeth dig and Christian drowns in all the bodies no matter how hard he fights.

“Maybe you’re right, good boy,” muses Jeffrey, somewhere. Under-above Christian’s distressed moans, the muffled laughter and grinding skin; the slick squelch of bloodied grips, bloodied lips—everywhere. Surrounding, swallowing. Devouring. “Maybe we just haven’t shown dear Christian enough of our famous hospitality yet.”

~

The morning is cold, damp. Creeps into every pore, every house. As Christian stands by the dock, he watches: people, hurrying along. Stress and sweat and frightened eyes, their belongings tied into bags on their backs, children hand in hand. Christian watches, patient. Waiting.

The sky hangs gray and heavy and Christian wonders briefly if he should turn around, if he should grab one of the drunk sailors or the whores from the back of the pub over there and be done with it. He imagines this, how they would taste, how Kalen would complain about this questionable loot—are you getting old, Priest, must you settle for the palsied now?—and nothing interferes, no soft hum of a voice, no tired reprimand.

Maybe, he did wander further than usual. Much further. Or, maybe, and this is more likely: Jeffrey is busy with his newest pet.

Christian gazes upon the shore, the rocking-in-the-waves boat.

Like any unruly child, part of him wants to be caught.

But this world won’t grant him even this.

~

Christian had heard of America, of the boats and the opportunities and the politics (or the lack thereof), because of course, Jeffrey would be interested in these things. But as he stands on solid ground again after weeks and weeks on the sea and everything around him moves as if they were sailing, still, as the constant chatter of excited voices in strange languages melts into background noise to his overwhelmed ears, Christian is confronted with how far the world has moved on without him. How very little he knows despite his age.

“Hey, you! Name, occupation?”

“I… Jensen. Jensen Ackles.”

“Occupation?”

“Just—just a priest, sir.”

“Don’t look like a priest to me…”

“It’s been—been a rough journey, sir.”

‘Jensen’ earns himself more glaring from the clerk with the huge book open in front of him. There had been no means to shave or wash and maybe that is better, to blend in with the dozens of starving Irish he arrived with. Ultimately, the man waves him through. From the corner of his eye, Christian watches his new name being written down for the first time—one time too many, but he cannot change this now.

For the first few days, Jensen wanders the city in blind fascination, desperate to move his legs and breathe fresh air. The latter is denied him in the dirty streets, the sick and homeless left and right, blacks and Irish prowling and shouting. Jensen is that much more glad that his loyal coat has seen better days, that he chose one of the more worn-down pairs of boots when he left the castle all those weeks ago. He trades both in eventually, anyway. The clothes on his back are not worth tempting someone to jump him. To tempt him, in turn.

The first few months are tough. Months turn into years and rat blood turns tolerable. Or, tolerable enough. Jensen—and the name grows on him, aids him—learns that he doesn’t require much. The orgies back home seem that much more vulgar, now. The excess. (He dreams of it, though, sometimes. When the hunger is at its worst and he pushes the next feeding too far and the hallucinations take him back with Kalen, with Claude and Samantha and Tabetha and all the others. Back to the great hall, the familiar echoes of the corridors, Jeffrey’s chambers.) Away from the hustle and bustle of the castle and Jeffrey’s obsessive grandeur, Jensen may take matters at his own pace.

He makes his own rules. If he must drink, he makes sure to do it from one of the countless bastards, the do-no-goods beating and drinking and raping in a time where surviving another day already is a gamble. Jensen takes his time. He observes under the convenient cover of poverty, of too many people roaming or lingering in the streets. There are thousands like him. Well, on the outside, at least.

There are anchor points Jensen sets for himself: do they have a spouse, do they have children to feed? Many don’t meet these expectations, and kindness is rare. Thins out even more with the spread of cholera, with more and more Irish and Germans flooding the harbors and the streets and the little housing that is available is packed, and there grow new buildings on every street, more, and more, but it never seems enough. The city hungers, a beast with a bottomless stomach, ever-growing. Jensen must walk for days to truly be alone once more, outside the city limits where there is vastness and graves, or just pits. ‘Christian’ fades, becomes someone else, someone dead. Jensen listens to sermons, stands in overcrowded churches and steals a bible which he will end up returning the same night. His powers turn into a blessing in this new world. While everything around him perishes and replaces itself with new growth, with yet another handful of malnourished, infested bodies, ‘Jensen’ persists. Sickness has no meaning to a body already dead, a body that cannot waste and does not require sleep (not like a human’s does). Boredom seems impossible out here: Jensen can stand in the same spot, can haunt the same plaza for days on end, and nobody even notices him—watching the bustling of daily life, not one second the same.

Jensen helps, here and there. Points a lost child to their right way, carries the deceased to their grave. Quiet work, silent work. When people try to address him, he feigns muteness and they lose interest soon enough. The endless days and nights at Willow’s Creek, the riches and the comfort of the castle: they never meant anything but a burden, and Jensen finds himself devastated, some nights, at how little it all affects him. The others used to warn, described being away from the nest and their sire as being torn three ways, an ache nothing could soothe. And Jensen feels…well, mostly the hunger, but this is nothing new, and he doubts that will go away. The dreams, the faint and fainter images of this life he abandoned—but Jeffrey’s face remains a constant, as if Jensen laid eyes upon him only yesterday, a minute ago. As if, should he turn around now, Jeffrey might stand there, waiting. Smiling, welcoming him—I knew you’d be back, he’d say, the bastard, and Jensen cannot change this no matter how hard he tries, how low or high he lets himself become.

Jensen watches death after death, sobbing families and emaciated children, and as much as he yearned to be away from the casual cruelty of the nest, his emotions lie calm like a lake, unroused by what Christian could not have endured. Decades come and go, and with them, Jensen dissolves under the ravages of time. A fast-lived time, a time meant for the living, only to endure for a bit before they move on; not for eternity, not for a heart cold and a soul empty. Jensen requires less and less feedings. His body diminishes, eats him from the inside. This is just as well.

They put up a massive statue the other day at Ellis Island, but Jensen soon tires of it. He sleeps most days, now, too tired to do anything else, and if he sleeps, his dreams let him eat, let him bathe in all the blood he lets walk past if he were out in the street instead. The last drink he had left him emptier than he was before, and this put him off enough to fast for a week. He’s had a rat earlier, then another; that shall do. He rises after nightfall. His feet know where to take him.

The little pub around the corner, always nine PM. They are a little early today, already seated themselves and ordered their drinks. Jensen hears their familiar laughter all the way down the street, his hands deep in his pockets and his hat pulled low into his face. Joshua goes about his newest semantics and the other boys mock him accordingly while Jensen slips into his spot, hidden away in the darkness of the alleyway where the view is plain, is good enough.

Tristan sits with his left against the window, his smoke and his glass held lightly, distracted. He laughs. He always laughs.

“—so, you say, that we should just quit? Is that it?”

“Are you insane! Of course not, that would defeat the whole process…”

“He is mad! Ignore him; get us some more to drink…”

“No, no, now I am intrigued—my friend—”

Jensen scoffs, limp against the brick on his side.

Maybe he will die soon, after all. Would explain why he suddenly has the urge to indulge in entertainment.

As the night progresses, so does the alcohol, so do the discussions. Heated, as per usual, and Jensen enjoys this, how smart yet gullible these boys are. Their oh-so-high virtues, the big plans their party has for the city, for young men like them who are eager for money, power, justice. They should know better, Jensen thinks, with only their sheltered school education more fragile than their parents’ newly acquired, humble wealth to show—Jews, children of immigrants. Jeremiah blacker than the night and Tristan with a hint of his Polish accent his parents handed him down so generously, the strict lines of their young, hungry faces, barely having outgrown their milk teeth. They sit and smoke and drink like adults, like the world waits for men—boys—like them. It would be sad if Jensen himself lived not already in a darkness so thick he’d barely see his own hands.

Jensen fantasizes. About walking up to them, sitting with them. Maybe sitting at another table, not even interacting: how exciting that would be. Silly, sure. Reckless, sure. He can see and hear everything from this safe distance, after all, no need to show his face. To disturb them in their foolish joy. But, oh. Maybe tomorrow. Next week.

The night flies by as cruelly as always. Jeremiah pays, the rotation puts him up for it. He tips, Tristan lights himself another cigarette; they get up and leave. Jensen follows, secure in the darkness of the night with his worn-down powers sheathing him from any mortal thing’s senses. Yet, he keeps a generous distance. Just so their warmth, the teasing throb of their young, healthy hearts doesn’t corrupt him. Jensen’s hunger has been worse but he learned the hard way not to tempt his instincts.

“—little sister needs help with her readings,” and Tristan elbows his friend, and his overly long brown hair falls into his sweaty, drunk face, and Jensen can’t see it exactly from behind but he can imagine it just fine: the deep dimples in those cheeks, the airy shift of that shirt on that broad, skinny chest.

Jensen imagines the throb of that artery right before him, so cheekily hidden by all that hair but exposed from the collar of that shirt. How those long limbs would flail and those dark eyes would pop wide; how Tristan would grab for Jensen, maybe, would twist one of those skinny fists into Jensen’s rotten shirt and pull, push, fight… How he’d go limp, how Jensen would have to hold him, how he could hold him.

The blow comes so suddenly, out of nowhere and yet final that Jensen freezes, invisible and too far from the group to interfere. Screams, now, shrill and thundering and, “You had it coming, Jew!” and the boys are swallowed up by the frantic group, sticks and fists and a beat rips through Jensen, an imperative to—move, do something, but within the blink of an eye, those sticks slam where they must and Jensen hears every crack, every split of a bone and the sickening squish of the tissue on top.

The attackers flee before the boys stop gurgling, crumpled in the ditch.

The night hangs above them, unbothered. The streets shine slick from waste people must rid themselves of, the pipes underground overwhelmed, overflowing.

Jensen stands at their sides, closer than he’d ever dared: stands over them, mad and inconsolable because why them, why out of all the silly children must it have been them, Jensen’s? Jeremiah lies face-down and his blood pours onto the street, over his angled-wrong forearm and Tristan’s shirt; Joshua with his eyes wide open but not breathing, his skull smashed to bits and his mouth bloody where his teeth ripped into his lips when they beat him. Jensen ripples with the shudder that is his involuntary breath, the terror of the night, his—loss. For weeks, these boys had been the only thing that could rouse a hint of emotion in Jensen, and now, this, too, has been taken from him.

Jensen stands still and his senses stir, starved and thirsty and he loved these boys and now they are gone, the only sparks in this empty, cold time Jensen was able to find, and now, how bland it all seems—how meaningless, how revoltingly savage:

meat, blood. Splintered bones and the marrow within, precious vessels ripped open, all the life draining before it’s gone in a last heartbeat.

Tristan convulses. With what Jensen can feel will be the last, pitiful effort his brain is capable of, the boy tries to breathe through a ripped lung and his blood-shot eyes swim to the heavens, towards

Jensen.

Jensen’s face.

If Tristan could, he would ask—for help. Would beg, maybe, would cry or sob or cling to the leg of Jensen’s pants, but he can’t do any of this for he dies by Jensen’s feet.

Jensen falls to his knees and gathers the child in his arms, against his mouth, before he can form one coherent thought.

And oh, how—despite the roaring pain, the agony pulling at Jensen’s intestines and his dead-dead heart, how, despite all this, the instant his fangs and then his lips connect to this still-hot throat, he feels nothing but bliss, the surge of sweetness and salt. The pleasure only multiplies when he applies pressure, when the first rush fills his mouth and shoots down his throat. Tristan trembles, already doomed but at least Jensen won’t let him go to waste, will honor him, will…

A weak rise; a heatless hand against Jensen’s stomach. His chest.

Jensen groans, buried in the boy. Clutching him, squeezing—it must hurt. Must hurt with all those bones broken, his brains leaking; the poor boy, Jensen’s poor, poor boy…!

“Don’t leave me,” someone says, muffled and broken and Jensen sobs harder once he understands it is himself who speaks, who begs for something he cannot have, something that was taken from him. “Not you… Not you…!”

Panic hasn’t had a home in Jensen in so many years that the rise of it in itself intoxicates him, sends him shaking as he rips at the collar of his filthy shirt, digs into his neck until his nails have ripped deep enough; he must stop drinking for all this and that might be the worst of the pain. His breath pummels from him now and he sobs, bows down once more to feed, and then grabs the back of Tristan’s head, helps him latch onto—Jensen himself, the gaping wound that feeds Tristan’s blood back to him, the few, sick drops of the poor rats that didn’t know any better, who put up so much more fight than this dying boy.

“Drink… You must drink…! I beg of you…! Tristan!”

No noise. The heat subsides in Jensen’s hands. More of a trickle than the urgent move of a mouth, the effort of a throat, and Jensen rocks with his sobs, curled over the dead child in his arms, in the bleak loneliness of this street, this city. This godforsaken world.

“My dear Tristan,” sobs Jensen, and nobody hears him, and the dread of not having sat down with them, his little politicians, settles deep in him where Tristan’s blood barely has a chance to sink to with how plentiful it drips back into Tristan’s slack, slack mouth.

Tristan bucks.

As if he chokes. As if something got stuck in his throat and he wants it out.

Jensen starts. Stares, lifts just enough that—when Tristan pulls him back with one hand on the back of his neck, the force of it

rattles him.

The boy gasps, pressed against Jensen’s neck. Splutters his own blood, the sick elixir Jensen’s body turned it into just by entering him.

Arms and hands wring around Jensen, and nobody has touched him in so, so many years that he is helpless against it, against the feeble, frantic might of a young man on the brink of death.

They can’t stay here.

Chapter Text

As Jensen pushes to a stand, helps Tristan do the same—his mind races, stumbles. His once-more empty heart pulses weakly, trying to catch up. His tears shine cold on his face as Jensen huffs and puffs, the boy tight in his grip, delirious. But Tristan helps to hold himself up, shaking and deformed from the beating and he lets himself be directed, grunts in pain as Jensen ushers him along without a word—dark, darker. The darker, the better.

Oh, what have you done?

“Careful,” Jensen blurts, but Tristan collapses anyway, groaning like a house in a storm, cradling his head. Jensen lets him sink into a corner, hurries to grab a blanket. “Where am I?” moans the boy, and Jensen urges him to shush, just lay down. Around them, water drops from the pipes to feed into the stream of waste floating by. Jensen lays the boy out in the humble nest that serves him so loyally as shelter. He takes off his coat for Tristan to rest his head on it.

“It will be fine,” Jensen says because he needs to hear it. He nods, feels around Tristan’s forehead—the fractures remain agape. He tries to remember how long it had taken for him, back then. “You will be fine, I promise. I know it hurts.”

Tristan grunts. Flinches upon being inspected, but regained enough composure to grab Jensen by the wrist, yank on his arm.

Tristan growls, “Who are you?” Despite his clouded sight, his eyes focus somewhere on Jensen’s face; he squints and pants, and Jensen’s hand flexes, caught.

Jensen gawps.

“What—did you do to me?! Argh…”

“You will be fine. Just give it a minute…”

“A minute?!”

Tristan coughs wetly, violently. Jensen shushes, puts his hand flat on that heaving chest—most warmth is already gone, gone forever, but a thin ghost of it remains. Jensen swallows before Tristan shoves him off, attempts to push himself onto his elbows.

To Jensen’s surprise, he succeeds.

“What happened?” Tristan urges, brows drawn tight and his hand feels around his head, finds: where they beat him, where his skull is soft and his scalp torn and Jensen witnesses the realization, the horror taking over those young, young features—not that young, no, not a child because they don’t let children campaign for your party, these days, because Tristan was about to enter his second year of college and you have to finish school for this, as far as Jensen understands. “My friends,” Tristan gasps, pale and only growing paler, crawling backwards on the blanket, into the corner of Jensen’s hideaway. “They were with me—where…?” Those wide, wide eyes zero in on Jensen once more.

“…I could do nothing for them. I’m sorry.”

“…”

“It all happened so fast.”

“Who…?”

“I had never seen any of them. Probably out for violence, just happened to run into you boys…”

After slow consideration, Tristan asks, “Were you following us?” and Jensen blinks, taken aback.

He sits on his haunches, now, hands on his thighs and the boy who recently was dying sits on his own (albeit propped against the wall), thinks and talks and begins to stretch the ache out of the limbs that were shattered during the attack.

When Jensen talked about it ‘taking a minute’, he didn’t mean this quite so literally.

“Answer me!”

“I—for Heaven’s sake, I was worried; you need to calm down—”

Tristan pants, “You called my name,” and Jensen’s chest draws tight. “I heard you; I know it was you. I recall it now, your voice…! How’d you know my name?” and Jensen sighs, sits back.

“Well, if he can argue already, I guess he’s through the worst…”

“What did you say?!”

“Nothing, nothing… Look—”

“Your name, stranger! Before I forget myself.”

“Barely alive, but he starts threatening…”

“I warn you—!”

“‘Jensen’.” (The name feels more odd in his mouth than he expected. It pulls the air out of him.) “‘Jensen’, uhm… Stop moving so much, you’ll hurt yourself…”

The boy barks, “Don’t TOUCH me!” but the gesture that’s supposed to knock Jensen’s worried hand away slouches to nothing, and Jensen can pinpoint the exact moment Tristan feels it for the very first time—and Jensen dreads, right away, because he caused this, he sired this boy, doomed him—

Tristan’s eyes flash in the wet dark of the sewer, Jensen before him. Tristan’s chest heaves under Jensen’s hand, and he is not shunned from the contact again.

Yes, Jensen remembers how it feels to be touched by your sire.

This other side of it, though, not so much.

“I will explain. Once you recover some more. All right?”

Similar, yet not. Jensen must blink. Tristan nods, dumbly, helplessly—Jensen must pull away lest he drags the boy too deep. Neither of them is ready for any of this, there is a reason they keep the fresh ones in the dungeons to assimilate… Jensen swallows dryly, sits back again (when did he move closer to the boy?), gestures.

“I can explain everything. Just not right now. … No, I have no interest in harming you. I doubt I can, at this point…”

“H-how did you…?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Tristan deflates, finally. All fight evaporated, he cradles his arm against his middle, one leg angled and the other straight. His caved-in head reconstructs itself right before Jensen’s eyes. Tristan huffs, flinches, like something itches him. His eyes swim deep in thought, no longer preoccupied with the man blurting nonsense at his face.

As the silence stretches on and on, Jensen wishes the rudeness back, almost. But the boy must rest now, must let his old body heal into the new one Jensen oh-so-selfishly granted him. All those nights curled up in chains, nobody answering his calls, his screams of agony…! Jensen shudders. He quietly pulls the nearby water bucket close to start cleaning himself up, busies himself. Tristan dozes, eventually, exhausted but mostly fine. He will pull through, just like they all did—Jensen gazes, cringes. He didn’t think this through. He didn’t think, period.

A nestling—and Jensen’s first, too. Far from the nest, from protection and resources…from advice. Jensen’s mind races with all sorts of memories he regrettably must force back into his conscience. A century’s worth of misery, but it yields valuable advice, too: he’s seen it enough times with the others, it happened constantly, after all, Jeffrey was always so adamant about expansion… Jensen sighs, stiff, dips the ripped cloth into the small bowl of already-dirty water he poured from the precious supply, scrubs his mostly-reconstructed neck with it. Next to him, Tristan jolts again, a soft-soft grunt as he not-dreams, as he tosses. Jensen forces himself to let it be. He cannot help Tristan now, no matter how badly he would like to.

Hours. The sun rises. Jensen peers down the sewage, to the far back where the light falls through, where color bleeds into the dark and gives it a face. Tristan squirms next to him, curled up on his side now and sweating, gurgling. Jensen cards through his wet hair again. He knows what will have to come next. To say that he is not particularly thrilled for it might be a vast understatement.

“You are strong,” he murmurs, and the mostly-unconscious boy in question groans weakly, unaware. For now, at least. Jensen’s nails tickle along his temple, follow the shape of his ear. “That’s good. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up enjoying it all. The strong ones usually do.”

Unlike how he cared when it was only himself, Jensen sets out early. He returns with a body before Tristan has the chance to wake; there’s a tap Jensen keeps thanks to all the time he’s got available, and now it pays him well. Instead of persuasion, he must utter, “Slow,” for Tristan throws himself at the feast. Sweaty and frantic, he finds his mark without Jensen’s help, groans and groans as he drinks and drinks in big, messy drags that leave him soiled, dripping, while Jensen must watch. Jensen’s own hunger proves negligible opposed to the horror he created (and, again: “Slow, boy.”). The first feeding is both the easiest and the hardest—how ravenous you are for it, how you still remember that you are supposed to be disgusted by it. Jensen swallows.

Jared keeps drinking, obsessed.

By the time he lets up, there is nothing left. Only the heavy shell remains, and as the veil of ecstasy lifts, Tristan stirs and his brows draw tight where they had been lifted, soft: he gawps at the corpse he holds cradled in his hand, begins to sink into his body he once more has control over—all the new sensations, the maddening aftertaste of all those liters of blood his stomach cannot digest, that filter right into his veins and turn him more alive than he ever was, that makes his eyes itch from the inside. Jensen’s been there. He does not envy the boy.

Careful, “You got it?” because Jensen knows, and Tristan heaves as if on command.

His back bows and he gasps, and then he roars, sobs, and Jensen sits because this is his place; he has to answer for this.

“I know,” he mutters, flat. “I know. Next time will be better. You will get used to it.”

Tristan has questions. Of course.

He tries to listen but that’s hard when suddenly your ears point out a crawling bug from twenty feet away, when you smell scents and objects you never knew were comprehensible. Tristan pants, feverish yet cold, ice-cold and pale, and Jensen observes him with the growing distress of a helpless parent. Tristan’s hair sticks matted to his high forehead. His pupils consume his iris and his eyes blink rapidly, desperate to stay open. They flicker: to Jensen, past Jensen, through Jensen. Jensen, who speaks as slow and calm as he can. Quiet, because otherwise, Tristan might flinch. The boy has sweated through his shirt, the sleeves rolled up. His own blood and his meal soak the fabric heavy, ruined—it clings to the beds of his nails, the callouses in his fidgeting palms. Jensen sweats, too. His nestling in such pain, of course it wouldn’t leave him undisturbed.

“—do you understand, boy?”

Tristan nods, frowns. Rubs his knuckles with his other hand and murmurs, “Immortal, blood-drinking beast. Yeah, sure. Sure.” Quieter yet: “Jesus Christ,” and Jensen’s heart flinches at that, and maybe Tristan notices because he looks straight at Jensen, next, his frown deeper and deeper. Still rubbing his hand. “We gonna go up in flames at the name of God or something?”

“Not that I… No. What?”

“That’s how the stories go, usually,” Tristan says. “Demons. Upiór. Being cursed and all that.” The boy speaks with a solemnity Jensen hadn’t witnessed him using in the company of his friends. Not even after midnight, after too many drinks and the right topic of conversation. He sniffles; wipes his face. As he looks at the hand he used for this, he cringes. Jensen cannot take his eyes off him. After all these years of isolation, a jittery, young thing like this should be overwhelming. Would be, maybe, if they weren’t bound by blood, Jensen and this boy. “And would you stop that? I’m not a child anymore.”

“Stop what?”

“‘Boy’ this, ‘boy’ that… You’re not that much older than I am; you’re just being a dick…”

Jensen balks. “… Did you hear my voice just now?”

“Well, yeah? Of course?”

“I wasn’t saying anything.”

“… Oh.” Tristan frowns. “But… I heard you. … Am I going crazy? Is it the blood, or…?”

Jensen promises, “You’re not,” and, to overshadow his own thoughts, “This is quite normal, actually. Especially now, when you’re still getting used to everything.”

“Wicked. Great.” The sarcasm isn’t lost on Jensen. Tristan peers at him expectantly. “… And you can hear me, too? My thoughts?”

“If I wish to do so, yes.”

“… Great.”

They sit, glare.

Jensen’s own frown deepens.

“… My Polish isn’t as bad as you think.”

“Kurwa mać…!”

Jensen scoffs. “You’ll get used to it.”

“You keep saying that…”

“I went through the same. I have nothing to gain from lying to you.”

Jensen heaves himself upright, pats some of the wet dirt off himself. As he looks down to his nestling once more, Tristan is watching him closely. Jensen holds his hands out in defeat.

“You will need more, soon. So I will get you more. And they usually don’t roam around in these parts, so…!”

Tristan snarls, “You’re gonna kill again? Another innocent fella?”

“Would you rather starve?”

“If nobody else has to die, yes! Yes, gladly!”

Jensen sneers, “You haven’t known starvation as of yet, nestling,” and, for once, Tristan does not immediately bark something back at him. Jensen bends down to get his coat, slips it on. Straightens it, straightens his shoulders and orders, “You may not feel like it but you are acutely more dangerous than three Boston Borgia after a pharmacy run. Stay here until I make my return. I will not be long.” Jensen turns around a last time to point out, “I will find you if you run,” and Tristan kneads his hand, still, like it will help soothe his firing nerves, the pit in his stomach.

Trail of corpses or not, Jensen adds, unspoken, and with this, he leaves the boy to think.

~

The pace at which Tristan feeds and recovers is voracious. Not a single one of the many full-fledged vampires from Jeffrey’s nest required quite as much as this nestling, not that Jensen can recall—and recall he can, now better than he was able to in years, with so many fresh kills under his weathered belt and a nestling clinging to his every move, obedient in a way Jensen never was, and isn’t this cruel? That Jensen got exactly what he wanted: Tristan, the golden child, alive—but, through Jensen’s own hand bound to a walking corpse, dependent and weak? Whenever Tristan rests, when his eyes move rapidly behind the thin-thin, violet sheathes of their lids, Jensen keeps guard, as if it wasn’t he the beast in the woods.

The memories of the attack fade quickly in all the newfound thrills. With every dose of blood does Jensen also feed his nestling’s confidence, feeds the glossy layer in his dream-big eyes, the greed in his long-long fingers. Jensen senses that Tristan will ask to join him soon. Might hide his curiosity and his guilt behind silly precursors like wanting to help, earning his keep, isn’t Jensen tired of him yet? As, in the course of one of their bickerings, Jensen finally discloses his age—more than a century, yes, will you shut up now?—Tristan seems taken aback for only a moment, the reality of his fate apparently so agreeable with him that he simply accepts, shrugs with a bratty, “Oh,” and, for the first time, Jensen sympathizes with Jeffrey’s ironclad regiments. The thought passed as soon as it came. The shock of it though reverberates in Jensen’s skull to a point where he must forcefully knead at his eyes, the bridge of his nose— “Hey, are you all right? Is…?” And Jensen huffs, “No, yes, I… Goddammit.”

Jensen takes more time than he needs on that night’s hunt, lingers in the streets that once felt like freedom and have become hunting grounds, have become the enclosure of a beast that Jensen knows will not be satisfied, will break out eventually and doom them both. With his chest tight and his face numb, Jensen gazes upon the small strip of night sky his eyes can reach through the narrow labyrinth of this city, this bustling and buzzing birthplace of progress and life he had chosen so very long ago—and long ago it feels, right now, like an eternity since he rode through the fields and the villages of England, since he walked the endless corridors of the castle, smelled the intoxicating conglomerate of flowers and herbs in its gardens. A long-forgotten pain wells in Jensen as he leans against bricks and waste, as day-old newspaper catches around his boot as the wind carries it astray—someone’s laugh bellows from the nearby, brightly-lit and bustling pub and Jensen feels faint with hunger, with exhaustion and restlessness and, by God, if this was his fate all along, why did it let him leave Willow’s Creek in the first place?

Tristan sits calmly, his legs tucked under his slim frame that beams, nowadays, well-fed and so very, very frightening, and Jensen drops the body he carried all the way into these gutters and huffs, “You got sea legs, boy?” and Tristan says nothing, must not, because his eyes bore into parts of Jensen Jeffrey had to bite his way through. Jensen huffs more, wipes his ever-soiled coat sleeve across his dripping forehead, and he shivers. Shakes, for he knows, knows so horribly much that it tires him to think at all. And maybe, maybe this is all part of it, his Purgatory. Either way, there is nothing Jensen can do to stop the waves from rippling, now that he tossed the stone. “Well, you better. Where we’re going, there’s only one way to get there.”

~

Jensen expects…well, something. Everything at once, maybe, daggers and arrows flying his way, his sire’s voice booming in his skull until it explodes like overripe fruit. And in a way, that would be preferable. Is reasonable, really, because Jensen knew what he was doing, knew what the magnitude of his crime would signify. And yet, as he and his nestling set foot on English ground, as the sea turns murky with civilization’s waste once more after weeks of nothing but waves, and waves, and waves: Jensen does not hear his master, and he will not hear him for a long while. Which, out of all the possible emotions, devastates him—has Jeffrey died? Is there no longer a place for Jensen to return to, was the entire effort of getting Tristan into the safety of a well-established nest for nothing?

Jensen draws a breath so deep, so deeply moved that Tristan urges, “Are you all right?” and Jensen cannot even answer this, can not speak a word. Not to a boy who, upon being told he will most likely not see his family ever again (and, no, we cannot go see them before we leave, we really should not), stared only blankly at Jensen and must have decided the price was fair, was reasonable. No tantrums, no tears. Maybe when Jensen was not looking. (Then again, Jensen is always looking.)

They stay at an inn, mostly to regain their composure in privacy, less for the sake of sleeping. No, the sleeping they got done on the boat, confronted with the lack of anything else to do. Jensen orders them beer to take off the edge while Tristan unabashedly glares after everything that moves. Jensen grumbles, “Relax,” but Tristan does not hear him, not really. His stein clutched tight in both hands, he drinks his stout like it is water instead. Jensen drinks, coughs. He lets his eyes wander across the tiny tavern. The pressure in his chest hasn’t lifted.

First things first: his nestling must eat.

“We will pick one after nightfall. Stop craning your neck.”

“What?” Those pinprick-sized pupils dart to Jensen. “Are you insane?”

“I know, but we cannot cause a scene. We must travel for a while, still—”

“We can transform!” Tristan blurts, louder than he must. Jensen cringes.

“I am too weak.”

“Yes, because we’ve been at sea for nearly four weeks without a drop to drink! Are you not starving as of now?!”

“It is manageable—would you lower your voice, we’re not alone here…”

Tristan growls, “Jensen, I swear to fucking God,” just as a voice cuts in:

“Gentlemen, do you need a hand?”

A startled Jensen and Tristan turn towards the voice: a lady, tall and not painted per se but she’s not a farmer’s wife either—something about her…! Jensen deflates as his memory catches up with his shriveled brain. His arm wisely extends to pull Tristan back down into his chair before the boy can pounce across the tavern.

“‘Jensen’? How curious.”

“Samantha…”

“You know her?!”

Samantha chuckles; the plentiful coins in her purse chime as she makes her way over to Jensen and Tristan. “It has been a while,” she muses, her hands on her hips, scrutinizing the duo in front of her. Her lip lifts in what Jensen presumes is a fair combination of disgust and schadenfreude. Jensen holds her gaze until it pans to his nestling. “My, my, what have we here? You have to feed them, deary, didn’t we teach you anything?”

“What are you doing here? Did he send you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m working! You really are blind with thirst, are you not?”

Samantha scoffs, crosses her arms. She gives another pitying look to Tristan, fleetingly eyes the counter with the inn-keep behind it, pouring beer for customers who seem not yet suspicious—but that can change. Jensen glares at his fellow nest mate. Help us or leave us alone.

Samantha snorts.

Really, now? You are in a position to make demands?

Tristan urges, “Jensen,” and, “What is going on? Who is she?” and Jensen gestures for him to be quiet, but panic and dread tears at the little composure he has left so all he is capable of is looking up at Samantha, no reproach or anything on his mind, this time. Just waiting for her reply.

Samantha rolls her eyes; half-laughs.

“You are a bloody piece of work, priest. You are lucky I work today. Patrick—yes, I—something came up, I have to leave, I am truly sorry.”

“What?! You can’t just—hey! HEY!”

As Samantha pulls Jensen and Tristan with her on one arm each, the inn-keep roars behind the counter, but the loss of a bar girl apparently isn’t worth stomping right after her—especially after she tosses the coin purse onto the nearest table they pass.

Tilted towards a stumbling Tristan, Samantha murmurs, “Wasn’t here for folks’ coins, anyway,” and with that, they leave the inn behind.

~

Samantha watches, impressed.

Jensen leaves the still-softly-gurgling girl to a ravenous Tristan. Reeling, but with his barest necessity satisfied, Jensen stands next to his old companion, wipes his mouth clean with a ragged handkerchief he pulls from the depths of his coat. Samantha meets his eye.

“Hungry one you got there.”

Jensen huffs, shrugs. Wipes his hands, between his fingers—the urge to lick them, suck them clean instead throbs through him, but he mustn’t. He breathes, shakingly, and stuffs his hands into his pockets after his business is finished. He clears his throat. Unlike Samantha, he won’t lean against the old oak by their side. The sun sets in hues of gold and heat on this early autumn evening. The grass grows damp. Jensen looks at nothing.

“We were wondering where you slipped off to. The Americas, eh? Look at you, Mister International…!”

“Are you done?”

“Haven’t even started yet. What, you think you can just turn up with a nestling in tow after—how long’s it been? Forty, fifty years? And expect us to just nod you through, all is forgiven? He won’t be pleased, Christian.”

“That’s not my name anymore.”

“Oh, he will like that even less.”

“I don’t care what he thinks.”

“Who?”

Jensen and Samantha look down at Tristan—smeared with blood, mad with it, his eyes peeled open wide-wide and shaking, still. And yet, he heard them, apparently; Samantha laughs.

“Oh, deary, no need for you to worry that pretty head about that right now. Go on, finish your dinner. You’ll meet our master soon enough.” A fast one, eh?

Jensen grumbles, “He can hear you,” just as Tristan warns, “I heard that.”

Samantha—scoffs.

“Delightful,” she says, in that artsy way of hers that makes it clear that she is, in no way whatsoever, delighted.

Quiet, although that is useless because even a feeding Tristan will hear every word, every noise from around two river-bends over, Jensen huffs: “I am at my wits’ end. I would not have returned if I was not.”

“Bit off more than we could chew, did we?”

“Sam…”

“Let me joke at least for a little bit; it’s not every day that we have a lost lamb scampering back into our midst… Let alone have a lost lamb, period.” Samantha gives Jensen a narrow look. He cannot meet her eye for it. “You look terrible. Even by your standards.”

“Leave me be…”

“No, nuh-uh, you lost that fancy little privilege the moment you got off that bloody boat—you are aware everyone’s gonna be all up in your business, right? You know how we handle runaways. Your rank won’t grant you immunity, not this time.” Jensen ignores; she frowns. “You have no idea what he’s like, Christian. Things have changed since you left.”

Jensen mumbles, “Well, good,” and Samantha blurts more warnings that Jensen tunes out. He drags his gaze towards Tristan instead, hungry, panting Tristan—gulping, meeting Jensen’s eyes, before Jensen looks into the forest.

Jeffrey hasn’t made himself known, still. There is no need.

~

Despite it all—despite having wanted to end it, having wanted away to no matter where, just not here, Jensen cannot doubt the emotions that befall him upon the castle coming into view. The decades he spent away pour out of him, soak into the ground that remembers his footsteps, still, that seems to call out for him, you are back, our love is back—Jensen walks steady. He must not fear.

Things remained the way he left them: the tall iron gate, the taller stone fencing. Some of the overgrowth withstood the recent gardening attempts; the scent of freshly cut green hangs in the air, still, and Jensen’s heart yearns furthermore. It is true, had it not been for Tristan, he would not have returned. And as he does return, it dawns on him clearer than ever why he should not have. How deeply rooted he is within the confines of this place.

At Jensen’s side, Tristan walks: stiff, frightened. Born and raised in New York City, he wouldn’t know sights such as this, as old as this. Jensen thinks, distractedly, to tell his nestling: “All will be well, I promise. Just let me do the talking. Like we discussed.” Tristan does not respond.

As Samantha leads them towards the great hall, the low thrum in Jensen’s skull grows to a pounding. Years of malnutrition and isolation so far away from the nest left him a husk of what he once was, diminished his powers along with his body. While he cannot hear him speak, he now, finally, hears him: his sire. His master, most likely throning where he’d always be at the head of the long table, drinking, smiling… Someone asks for him but Jensen cannot listen, is drawn in on the pull of this bond he so long ago thought abandoned.

The corridor bleeds out into the hall, bleeds into chatter they heard all the way from the gates, miles before; and there are lights and there are countless faces, wine and meats, dirt and soap and earth and stone and fire, and Jensen shudders for he feels all of it sharper than he has in ages—again, his name, somewhere, but in the next instant he opens his eyes and there is Jeffrey, in the same spot he’s always been, amidst his followers, and he looks at Jensen, his cup in both hands and his expression aghast, much like Jensen’s must be, right now. Must have seen him long before Jensen saw him, miles ago. Might have sat like this the whole night, waiting. Waiting.

Jensen draws a breath.

Chapter Text

Samantha croons, “Look what I found,” and Jensen feels pushed, and she might have done that with her hands or without them. Tristan bumps into Jensen’s side and Jensen must focus, must remember why he’s here—this is not for him, nothing of any of this.

“Up east, relaxing over a beer stein.”

“Who, the priest? Wait, really, now?”

“Yes, didn’t you hear? And he’s sired a poor fool, can you believe?”

“What, run away to the Indians just to bring back a Polack? Now, that sounds like our priest…!”

Under the never-dying chatter, Jeffrey says, “Come here. Sit,” and he says it quietly but Jensen hears, hears like Jeffrey speaks right into his ear.

Jensen has no recollection of wading through the crowd to reach his sire, but as he sits down, Tristan does the same right at his side. Jeffrey doesn’t touch, doesn’t stir. His cup moves to Jeffrey’s mouth as he contemplates, slow and controlled. Jensen’s ears ring from the unperturbed party around them, of howling women and boots on the tables, the plates.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want to hear you, period. Boy—” and this is towards Tristan, who sits frozen and stiff and Jeffrey looks at him, now, past Jensen’s ear and the edge of his cup

“—boy, tell me your name.” Tell me the name of what broke our dear Father’s abstinence.

“It’s—Jared, sir.”

He calls you Tristan, though?

That would be my middle name.

I see. “I see,” repeats Jeffrey’s mouth. The ruckus around them fades, but Jensen does not dare look away from his master. “I see. Jared. The Polack from New York.”

Yes. Yes, the hall…quieted, for sure.

(An abundance of eyes bore through the three of them, through the back of Jensen’s head: this happened in his dreams before, countless times.)

“Did you not enjoy New York any longer, Jared?” Did they bore you, the riches of the new world? Your parents’ business?

Tristan’s voice echoes, “I did not leave by choice,” and some snicker, someone whoops—Jeffrey’s lip lifts in a subdued sneer, a grin. Jeffrey’s eyes soften as they pan back to Jensen. Tristan adds, “That’s not what I—he didn’t force me. He saved me,” and Jensen shivers, and Jeffrey tugs at all of him without laying a finger on him, drags Jensen into the deep, sullen core of him and twists.

“Hmm, would you listen to that! Salvation.”

“I was killed. I was attacked—”

“Our dear priest takes to blasphemy these days, I see? All those years of blaming me for your troubles, and now look at you. Look at what you’ve become, Jensen.”

Tristan blurts, “Stop it!” and Jensen is powerless to hold the boy back from jumping to a stand, ready to push Jensen aside to get to Jeffrey. Jeffrey laughs as a result and some of the other vampires chime in on it. Jensen strains to beg Tristan to calm down, sit down. But the mud of Jeffrey’s control keeps him glued to where he sits.

Jeffrey taunts, “Or what?” and Tristan strains and grits his teeth as he struggles with his courage. “Will you take a swing at me, boy? By all means, do not hold back—I think most of my dear folk here would adore watching you try…”

I tell you to stop it!

You’re strong, but not that strong, young one.

Jensen barks, “ENOUGH!” loud enough to startle himself. It was not meant to come out of his mouth. The hall is silent at this point. Everyone sits at the edge of their seat, ready for whatever sick show Jeffrey has in mind, whatever public punishment. Cold drips of sweat seep from Jensen’s hairline down his forehead, his temples. His hands are fisted into his pants.

Jeffrey simply smirks at him.

“I missed this one,” he stage-whispers to Caleb who demurely rolls his eyes. “Got some real fight in ’im. Feisty.”

“Enough,” Jensen repeats, and Tristan still stands, the heat coming off of him—alien, frightening, and Jensen shudders as he begs, “Jeff,” and, “Please,” and someone across the hall whistles, and someone else tunes in, and Jeffrey’s smirk widens under (or over) the growing giggles, the ridicule. Jensen repeats please and he feels Tristan looming, feels him hearing—everything. All of it.

Unfiltered. No matter the bond he interferes with. Not even Jeffrey’s powers can hold him off.

Jeffrey snorts, licks his teeth.

Snorts, “Fine,” and slams his cup onto the table just controlled enough not to spill a drop. “But the boy stays here. Let him get to know his new family.”

Jensen mirrors, “Fine,” and as he and Jeffrey get up, he reaches to squeeze Tristan’s arm, once, and the boy looks at him with barely-masked fury, with sorrow-narrow eyes. “I will be just a little while,” he promises, and more mouth-smacking and whistling dawns around them. “It will be okay, I promise.”

“Just leave already!”

“Yeah, let us play with him!”

Jensen snarls, “You disgust me,” and Caleb laughs in his face. Jensen is grabbed by the arm, dragged off. Jeffrey tuts, “Come on, now,” and, “he can take it,” but Jensen keeps eye contact with Tristan for as long as he can despite every stumbling, forced step. That this is the first time in weeks that they are more than a handful of feet apart dawns on Jensen only when he and Jeffrey slip into the unlit darkness of the corridor and up the stairs.

As the ruckus from the great hall dissipates, Jensen becomes aware of the pressure of Jeffrey’s grip on him. The familiar click of their boots on these stairs, the endless twist of the tower’s staircase. They climb forever. Jensen’s head spins something fierce by the time Jeffrey shoves him through a doorway, slams the door behind them—a candle, forgotten, flickers on the same set of drawers Jensen remembers from more than a lifetime ago.

Jeffrey refastens his fist, this time in the front of Jensen’s shirt. The back of Jensen’s head meets the wall rather abruptly—

Jensen swallows.

Jeffrey’s eyes bore into him. A trap, snapped-shut.

“Satisfied, hm? Are we proud of ourselves?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, you did.”

Jensen urges, “Jeff,” and the press of that mouth comes expected, albeit not any less unwelcome. Jensen’s face twists. He turns his head to the side as soon as he can, his hand flat against his sire’s chest. Jeffrey grunts, “Hm,” heavy with dissatisfaction. Jensen’s face burns; the back of his eyes.

“Not everything changes, I see.”

“Can you—let go of me, bastard…”

“And here I thought your little vacation helped pull that bloody stick out your arse. Silly me. I guess not even the devil himself could help with that. Let alone some American cock.”

“Let me up, I mean it!”

“So do I.”

Jeffrey steps back all at once, leaving Jensen breathless, tucking himself back against the wall. Jeffrey shakes his head, rolls his eyes. He drags himself over to the aforementioned drawers, the wine waiting on top. Jensen wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, huffs. Jeffrey continues to shake his head as he pours himself a cup.

“You sure know how to pick ’em.”

“We need your help.”

“A bit skinny though, don’t you think? Could’ve just said something, I’d leaned off the puddings for a while…”

Jensen sighs, “Would you stop it?” and Jeffrey shrugs, drinks. He turns so they can see each other in the laughable amount of light. The bastard hasn’t aged, of course not. Jensen’s guts knot up at the familiar sight. Jeffrey shrugs again, fumbles with his cup. His rear leans against the drawers.

“I’d love to help you chaps, of course I would. It’s just, eh…a shame that I can’t.”

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Well, that is beside the question.” (Jensen glares as his heart sinks further. Jeffrey smacks his lips dispassionately.) A beat. “That boy…he’s somethin’ else. I should be honored, really, that you bring him to me, out of all places…”

“You’re the only one who—”

“Oh, come on, I’m not that gullible.”

Jensen grits his teeth.

“There’s many ways to charm me and my nest, and you invented half of ’em! You should know better, love.”

Under his breath, Jensen grumbles, “Do you not have enough whores at your whim yet?” and Jeffrey snorts, sips. He rotates one of the many, heavy rings on his fingers. Yet another shrug. Like a dumb child. “I am serious, Jeffrey. I will do what it takes, but you must guide this boy, for I cannot.”

“Did thy Holy Trinity tire of warning you of the consequences of your actions? Do the fancy ghosts not speak to you any longer to save you from temptation? What a shame. What is an old fool like me supposed to do, then? Are we finally good enough for you? That’s it, isn’t it? Our poor little monk gets himself into troubles and, just like that, he comes a-running. No more—God, and all that nonsense—no. No, all of a sudden, good ol’ Jeffrey is just good enough to clean up your mess.”

Jensen swallows. Jeffrey sneers. Jensen’s turn to shrug, albeit less playful. Jeffrey’s pinkie extends as he sips more wine.

“That sounds about right, don’t it?”

“I was weak. I am not afraid to admit it. I was mad with hunger, with…madness, really.” Jensen meets Jeffrey’s eye. “He wasn’t supposed to die like that. To die, period. You should have seen him.”

Jeffrey snorts. “Touching.”

“He deserves your attention.”

“Nobody deserves jack-shit.”

“He will go rabid like a dog if you don’t—”

“And whose fault will that be, that he can do all these monstrous things in the first place, hm?”

“He will endanger all of you! People will find out—that we exist, what we do. His havoc won’t go unnoticed. He will kill hundreds, Jeff,” and Jeff rolls his eyes for this, “thousands!”

“This whole…America nonsense turned you into such a dramatic thing.”

Jensen replies nothing. Just glares and lets his statement stand. Jeffrey’s middle finger taps his tightly-held cup.

Jensen warns, “You know I speak the truth.”

Jeffrey huffs and puffs like someone who is expected to clean out the stables at an inconvenient time. Jensen lingers where Jeffrey had grabbed him, still. He wrings his hands. Ultimately, he knows what is required of him: not an ounce less than everything of what’s left of his dignity. And he knows that Jeff knows this, too.

“Please.”

Jensen takes a first step towards the man.

It’s easier from there on.

“You want me to beg? To pray to you?”

Jeffrey shifts his legs as Jensen sinks to his knee in front of him—he hums, playful, and he reaches to cup Jensen’s head and his ear as Jensen’s palms slide up Jeffrey’s thighs. Jensen’s gaze stays firm on that face, the darkness in those eyes.

“I’ll do it,” promises Jensen, soft. “I will. Whatever you ask of me.”

Jeffrey smirks. “You love him that much?”

“Yes.”

“Now, you’re giving me goosebumps, here. And I am flattered, you know I am.”

“If it’s about the others—”

“Yes, it is. And you know this, love.”

Jensen tries not to blink as Jeffrey’s knuckles graze his cheek, as his fingers slide into Jensen’s hair. Jeffrey speaks soft, like he sometimes can. Jensen forces himself to endure it.

“Imagine what they’d say—and rightfully so, I must add. You bound my hands. The moment you went on that boat, you knew you couldn’t come back.”

“I am not asking for myself.”

Jeffrey clicks his tongue, chuckles. Jeffrey’s thumb smudges the tip of Jensen’s nose before his hand retreats altogether. Jeffrey beckons Jensen to stand up, but Jensen remains in his very spot.

Jensen continues, “Won’t you help him, sire?” and Jeffrey splutters, waves him off. “Won’t you claim him into your midst? Recruit him for your means? You, better than anyone else, can sense his potential, I am sure he’d—”

“Enough now.”

Jensen’s mouth closes.

He keeps looking up at his sire.

Jeffrey sighs long and heavy through his nose. He is back to rotating his cup, his cold loins still at eye level with Jensen, who won’t move.

“That bloody new world. Breaking our good, English clergymen. Frankly, I am disgusted. Look at yourself.”

Jeffrey gestures, and for once, his features distort just-so—not with the aforementioned disgust, no, and Jensen swallows hungrily, half-blinks. Jeffrey sighs again, kneads his beard. Sighs again, and Jensen must suppress a smile.

“One cruel mother you are. They’ll pick him apart, your precious boy. Won’t let him have a moment’s rest, yap behind his back…”

“He’s durable. He’ll be fine.”

Jeffrey grits, “Bloody politicians,” and Jensen rolls his lips between his teeth so as to not give away his delight.

~

“Come,” Jensen snaps, walking in long, strong steps through the crowd, reaching for his nestling through all the bodies, the whistles and howls. “Would you—bloody bastards, off him!”

Some girl Jensen does not recognize pulls her tongue out of Tristan’s mouth to laugh at Jensen. Jensen kicks at the arm whose hand adamantly remains stuffed into the front of Tristan’s unbuttoned trousers. Someone gets him by the arm, yanks him down—Jensen growls, elbows someone’s face. The wet-cold pile of bodies pulls him in despite his struggles, too many hands and limbs and mouths to fight.

Enough.

Jeffrey’s order cuts through the writhing chaos. Jensen struggles upright with his robes half-pulled off him in the wake of the collective shock (and scattered booing). Hoisting Tristan up by his arm, Jensen does his best to button his shirt back up with his other hand.

“Wh-what…?”

“Get up.”

Closer than Jensen would like, Samantha croons, “Oh, he’s up all right,” and Jensen yanks his boy all the way to his feet with renewed determination.

“This—hey, hey, easy—”

“Have you not learned to control yourself?! What, they climb you and you just let them?!”

“I, uhm,” Tristan stammers, his hair wild and his whole face and neck kissed, at least one of the buttons of his shirt ripped off. Once more, Jensen must face how young this boy is. “I—was I not? Supposed to…?”

“You’re a vampire now. I suppose you can do whatever the bloody hell you want.”

Jeffrey finally makes his way back to his ‘throne’ in person. Jensen throws the man a glare while, in the corner of his eye, a flustered Tristan does his rather unsuccessful best to tuck his genitals back into his pants.

Now in person, Jeffrey chuckles, “Enough, Tabetha,” and the vampire in question giggles as she lets off the front of Tristan to pat the side of his rear instead. Jensen swats at her for that and earns himself a stuck-out tongue. Jeffrey sinks into his chair like an old cat sinks into its favorite sunny spot. “I know how excited new flesh gets all of you. But remember, this is our dear Jensen’s pet—”

“‘Jensen’? Bloody hell…”

“We change our names now? Can I be ‘Elizabeth’?”

“You sure that isn’t a sin of some sort, Father?”

“‘Christian’ no longer strikes your fancy, eh?”

“—and you are to obey what rules he proclaims for it.” Jeffrey puts his elbows on the table and beds his chin on his weaved-together hands. “Himself, on the other hand? That is my business, and mine is everyone’s, of course. Do with that truth as you wish.” Whistles. Jensen swats at a too-curious hand. “Maybe not this very night, though. Our dear Father requires some time to reflect. Upon what it means to be back home. Where he belongs.”

Someone rumbles, “This is not fair, sire,” and someone else whispers, “He can just waltz back in? Just like that?”

Jensen’s eyes narrow, still on Jeff. Jeff, bathing in the attention of the entire hall, dangling Jensen’s fate like a treat. The illusion that Jensen had been prepared for these humiliations fades with every dreadful moment back in the midst of these monsters. These vulgar, bottomless vultures.

Jensen hadn’t realized how tightly he had clutched Tristan’s forearm until he lets go—his nails left hollows in the boy’s skin. Jensen recoils before he can collect himself; he meets Tristan’s distressed gaze with less reassurance than he’d like. Tristan’s earlier excitement for the bodily attention leaves him with every huff and puff of his still-mostly bare chest.

“Now, you make it sound like I don’t know how to put a proper example of a man. Of course, nothing about any of this will be ‘easy’. Don’t be silly. My word goes, end of story.”

Jeffrey’s eyes pan to Jensen, to Tristan. Jensen watches that chin wobble, those jaws churning.

“Leave the details up to me. And now, leave, period. I don’t wish to see that dirty face of yours again until sunrise. Take my chambers.”

“Yes.”

Jeffrey raises a brow.

“… Thank you, sire.” (Whistles. Jensen doesn’t blink.)

“That’s what I thought.” Jeffrey gestures, his eyes fixed on Tristan—because it’s not Jensen, and it must be one of them. “Go, put the fear of God in ’im, or whatever it is you lot do with the youngins that sets their backs so nice and straight in church. Hush, hush! Hop to it, I say! See you tomorrow, young lad! Do what the nice man tells you, all right?”

Jensen feels his eyes and cheeks burn as he pulls Tristan along by his undamaged arm, along through the clapping and whooping crowd of monsters strewn across every bench, every tile of stone on the floor. As the racket fades the further they hurry away from it, Tristan frees himself from Jensen’s pointedly loose grip. Jensen turns to look back at his protegee, the unmasked helplessness in that too-fresh face. He can barely stand it.

Tristan’s mouth opens—to demand, to scold, surely, and so Jensen cuts him off: “This is all part of it, I’m afraid. I told you that it would not be easy. But the least you can do is—show some self-restraint, yes? Don’t fall for them like a gullible little girl? They will eat you alive, Jared Tristan, if you can’t watch out for yourself for five consecutive seconds—”

“You have no idea what this is like. And ‘five seconds’, really? You have any idea how long you were gone?”

Jensen snorts. Tired of explaining himself, he walks on to the stairway leading up to where he came from with Jeffrey. Where, if Jeffrey is anywhere close to as cruel as he was before Jensen ran away, Jensen will be forced to share quarters with the head vampire, his own nestling in tow or not. Jensen shudders at the implications and shakes off the hand that grabs for him—turns, already on the stairs, to glare at the stubborn boy, the set determination of his thin, foul mouth.

“I have every idea, actually, but thank you for reminding me. Would you hurry it up, now, please? I’d rather not give him a reason to send anyone after us.”

Tristan’s brows knit tighter, but at least he doesn’t talk back anymore whilst following after Jensen.

The castle is old, much older than even Jeffrey. He has had work done where it would be needed, century after century. Some pack members were turned solely for this purpose: to upkeep the property, tend to the buildings, the logistics. Whilst Jeffrey used to turn victims on a fleeting passion or cruelty, as time went on and the pack grew in numbers and the castle turned out the centerpiece of the operation Jeffrey eventually would decide to run, his little ‘empire’—as time went on, even a hedonist like Jeffrey had to adjust to more reasonable recruitings. Judging by the state of the property, Jeffrey perfected this craft while Jensen was away. The halls never looked as spic and span, the walls as straight, the floors as even. New paintings, new riches (of course). Jensen leads Tristan straight past the various agape or shut doors of Jeffrey’s other closest younglings’ chambers. And, even if only to not anger Jensen further, Tristan only slows slightly to gawp at the poorly hidden treasures. Jensen grimaces as he lets Tristan into Jeffrey’s room and swiftly closes the door behind them. He locks up solely for the fleeting peace of the click of a turning key.

“Please let us just rest,” Jensen sighs, cradling his forehead as he gestures blindly, makes his way straight to the waiting bed. “My head pounds and I feel sick to my stomach, so just—I promise I will explain more tomorrow.” Jensen gets two seconds of blissful silence that he uses to drop himself face-down onto the laid-in sheets. The stench is barely outweighed by the comfort, but the slow click of Tristan’s shoes on the stone floor and then the softness of the luxurious carpets and pelts mixing with the anxious whisper of his voice is, by far, the worst assault on Jensen’s already-tortured conscience.

Jensen groans in pain.

“I just don’t… I mean, the most important part is that they let us in at all, right? You said they might not let us in. And we’re in. So that’s one step done, right?”

“Please, for the love of… Shut up.”

Tristan babbles, “I’m just trying to get my bearings—I can’t just—flop down and sleep now! Aren’t you…? Doesn’t any of this…affect you?” Jensen doesn’t have to raise his face out of the sheets to know exactly what excited, childish expression sits on that darned face. The twinkling eyes, the flushed cheeks—Tristan must have had some blood, had it offered or poured down his throat or just took because it was available. “I, I mean… I get that they’re playing with us; I do get it, believe it or not, but… I mean, at least part of it is genuine. I, that—that girl, how she kissed me, that…!”

Jensen groans, “You have no idea where that mouth has been, boy.”

A beat.

Jensen deflates with a further, deep sigh, while he feels his nestling’s thoughts scrambling to justify his emotions.

“I’ve just—I’ve never, Jensen. I’ve never as much as—thought of a girl! And now, they’re throwing themselves at me! I’m just a man—”

“A boy.”

“—a young man, my friend, who is suddenly surrounded by a flock of very willing women—a-and, men, apparently, but, uhm—Christ.”

Dispassionately (yet habitually), Jensen warns: “Language.” Tristan huffs; Jensen hears those long arms slapping down against those lean sides. How Tristan paces, restlessly, in the room that now has a stained glass window, thick velvet curtains. The fireplace across the room gleams with faint remaining warmth. Jensen has no desire to bask in it. He just wants to lie here and die. Or sleep. Sleep would be a passable alternative. Tristan keeps pacing. Keeps picking up small objects here and there, just to put them back down. To keep his aching, prickling body moving as he mumbles. Restless; yes. Jensen remembers this. All too well, really.

“Never even as much as… Hell, you expect me to see their bare breasts and not…? I’m just a man. Where I come from, we don’t…! We’re proper people, in America, we don’t… Sodomy, or what? What, just men and women and nobody bats an eye? Is that what this is, what you and—and this, this ‘Jeffrey’…? Hey, are you sleeping? … Jensen? … … Wow. Yeah, okay. Screw you, too. Unbelievable, seriously… Huh, I wonder what… Do you…? Huh, m-maybe… Like this? … Hm, I’ll just…put that back down, now that I can’t stop wondering about all the ways this could have been inside someone, actually; uh.”

Jensen sighs through his nose while Tristan half-clears his throat, puts whatever he picked up back down.

Hours pass. Jensen blurs in and out of sleep, or whatever rest his emaciated body allows him. Fragments of days past tug at him, here and there, memories of warmth and pain and voices, one voice—one pain—one pair of hands, and lips; I’m here… I’ll always be here with you, right with you…

Jensen gasps suddenly enough that, even though Tristan was the one nudging him awake in the first place, he startles right along, eyes wide. His body blocks out most of the view Jensen would have from where he’s buried in the pillows, his coat still on, his boots.

“You’re shivering,” the boy explains, dumb, soft.

Long fingers inevitably bump against Jensen’s that lay curled up in front of his face to protect himself from the inescapable threat of his not-dreams; they brush hairs out of Jensen’s eye he didn’t even know were stuck there. Jensen’s nostrils strain to get him enough air. Air he doesn’t need. Doesn’t want.

Tristan must have calmed down, finally, or he just felt enough pity to join Jensen’s miserable side. Jensen can’t remember crawling all the way up the bed, so maybe Tristan did that for him, his good boy. Jensen’s lamb, the laughter with his friends still so clear in Jensen’s memory that it warms him even in the clammy beginnings of fall in this damned, old castle. Jensen curls in on himself some more, but his knees meet Tristan’s thighs and his forehead threatens to meet Tristan’s arm, so he stops that. His childish play of hiding (as if there ever was or will be hiding from Jeffrey, or the world), and Jensen only feels that much more devastated with it, falling and falling and there never is an end. There never will be.

Tristan moves, so Jensen croaks, “Stay—s-stay, please,” the begging so easy on his tongue and Tristan’s blouse so coarse in his grip, and—Tristan’s hand layers gentle and warm over Jensen’s shoulder, bleeds through the coat and the shirt as if they were not there at all. How frightening. How frightening all of this—is. Jensen swallows. He can’t bring himself to let go of the boy just yet.

A chuckle, mocking. Mocking, but not like them, downstairs, like the others. Nor like Jeffrey. Because this is Tristan. Jensen’s Tristan.

“Of course,” and, even quieter, “Where would I even go?” and Jensen ignores the bittersweetness of that last part and just curls in deeper, smaller, and closes his eyes against the stillness of his nestling’s body.

Chapter Text

“Up with ’im!”

“Up and at ’em, Father!”

They pull him out of bed. At least Tristan is not around to see it.

Jensen’s head throbs, still. They drag him by his hair and the collar of his shirt, out of Jeffrey’s chambers and down the hall, down the stairs. Every time Jensen manages to straighten and walk, they kick him down. Sunlight, bright and clear of sky. Not a cloud to be seen.

Jensen meets the ground under general amusement. Those who haven’t joined Kalen’s little parade dribble out into the court with them, open the windows to hang out of and enjoy the view. Jensen glares as he pushes himself up—Kalen’s wild, brick-red mop of curls seems more like flames than ever, up against the sunlight like this. His teeth shine with his wide, excited grin. The tip of his boot misses Jensen’s eye by that much. His cheek, though, not so much.

Clapping and howling as Jensen goes down, as Kalen’s boot keeps looking for soft spots. He works up a sweat, Jensen can tell: Jensen waits it out, curled in on himself in the dirt. They always tire of it, eventually.

From the general conglomerate of insults and enjoyment drones Samantha’s, “Why is he still dressed?” and they jump to that, naturally, while Jensen still gasps and spasms from the damage Kalen inflicted. So, so many hands, and Jensen squeezes his eyes shut harder, tries not to fight, not to give them ammunition, satisfaction. His loyal robes are ripped from him, these mementos of America he allowed himself to keep—gone within moments, and someone kicks him in the stomach, in the throat, and someone else grabs his chin and his cheeks so they can spit on his face with more precision. Someone else joins in on that.

A bucket hits him in the face after they threw fresh well water at him with it. Laughter, whistles. Jensen blinks, tries to rub the wetness out of his eyes, his drenched hair. They loom over him, a group of them. Block out the sun, their boots toe to toe around Jensen’s shivering body.

“How ’bout a shave?”

“Yeah, let’s see that pretty face.”

“I dunno. I kinda like him that way. Grizzly.”

“Got skinny, didn’t ya, chap? Cocksuckin’ don’t pay well overseas?”

Jensen spits in the general direction of that last one. Despite the kick that finally breaks his nose, it feels worth it.

The fragmented split shoots through Jensen’s face, and if he had blood in him, he’d choke on it now. Without it, he just grunts, empty, blind. Someone’s boot grinds down on the side of his face not pressed into the court mud, beds Jensen deeper. He splutters, clenches his teeth. Clenches every muscle that still can listen.

Other than Kalen and Zahin, Jensen does not recognize any of the ones encircling him. All-new pets Jeffrey acquired in Jensen’s absence. Well-fed, eager to pounce on anything vaguely below their own status. Young, some of them. Strong.

They drag him to the stables while their discussion continues. The horses are unbothered by Jensen in their hay. Used to the ruckus, like anything around here. To shrill, overexcited voices. Even in the daylight. Yes, well-fed indeed.

“Let the horse fuck him.”

“Ew, no; the poor horse!”

Jensen’s facial muscles spasm as his nature desperately tries to heal the fractured bones underneath. But he is too weak, and so the process only adds to the agony, feeds from resources Jensen’s body does not have available. Jensen grunts, trying to find his footing. Warmer than outside, at least, here in the stables with the animals. Another bucketful of something, much less agreeable to the nose than water—Jensen suppresses dry-heaves while Kalen’s posse snickers with delight. Jensen doesn’t even attempt to wipe the waste out of his eyes as it will only make them want to add more.

“Jeffrey’s precious favorite. Take a good look, fellas.”

“Nothin’ too special,” one of the new ones says, shrugging. “I dun see it.”

Zahin says, “It’s more the inside that counts, really,” and earns himself a good, snorting laugh. “No, really, Catholics are somethin’ fuckin’ else, mate. He’s crazy. Just, fuckin’ bat-shit.”

“And Jeff likes that?”

“Apparently.”

“Huh.”

“Bloke’s always had exotic taste.”

“Oh, sweet Zahin, you’d know about that, wouldn’t ya?”

“Shut ya filthy trap.”

More laughter. Jensen uses the distraction to get a moment’s rest since there will not be much of that, not anytime soon.

“I’m kinda excited for the American, to be honest.”

“What, the Polak? Eh, I dunno.”

“Carries his nose pretty high, if you ask me. Needs some puttin’ in his place.”

“Right. That’s what I’ve been sayin’.”

“Kinda young, isn’t he? Fuckin’ Catholics, I swear.”

Kalen’s voice seems to distort. To pull thin. Jensen’s head spins.

Someone else adds, “Jeffrey will want a piece of that. You seen the way he looked at him across the hall last night? I’m tellin’ ya…!”

A snort. “When does he not want a piece of anything?” Stray chuckles.

A pause. Just the animals, feeding. Hooves in the hay, stray noises from the workshop across the court, the anvil.

“Hey, priest. Hey.”

A nudge. Jensen remains unmoving.

“Don’t you zone out on us yet.”

“You’re far from done.”

“Jonah, deary, would you be a pet and fetch some more water from the well? And get one of those nice pokey irons from the workshop, yes? The glowing ones. Ah, what a doll you are.”

‘Jonah’ grumbles, “Screw you,” but drags himself out of sight.

Jensen shifts in the hay, the animal waste. Someone steps into the box with him. He doesn’t bother to check. The one with the French accent, as it turns out. Jensen holds his cracked ribs with one hand, keeps the other one palm-down in the hay. If he just stays still, if he doesn’t move or talk… Oh, well. Tristan would simply have to follow the laughter.

“Master’s favorite, huh? And yet, here you are. Tough kinda love he’s got, don’t he?”

Jensen focuses on tuning out the shift of clothing, of buttons being thumbed open. This is just his vessel, albeit immortal. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything to him.

Zahin cuts in, “I recommend the end without teeth, mate,” and the French one chuckles. Jensen can feel his eyes—ignores the heavy thwack of skin on skin, ignores the shackles someone takes off the wall and tosses his way.

“I mean, if those turn out a hassle, why not invest five short minutes into removing them?”

“I like him. I like you, mate!”

More French chuckling. Someone clicks their tongue.

Kalen hums, “Put that on for us, beautiful. Come on,” and Jensen stays where he is. Throbbing, numb. Not here. “It suited you so well, back in the dungeon. Let’s see if my memories hold up to the real thing. Jensen.” The sing-song fades from Kalen’s tone. “Put. The bloody. Collar. On your fuckin’ neck.”

Jensen’s shoulder complains as he obliges. Or his ribs. Oh, what does it matter?

The iron weighs heavy; it has seen better days. The surface crusts thick with rust and irritates Jensen’s sweaty, grimy skin as soon as he manages to lay the object over the back of his neck. The chain got lost in the hay and the Frenchman’s boot finds Jensen’s hand before Jensen’s hand can find the chain. That heel grinds down and Jensen grits his teeth. The pressure doesn’t let up. For the first time today, Jensen groans—through his teeth, barely-there, but he does, and they hear him. It’s quiet. The show’s on.

Jensen hisses as one and then two of the most fragile bones in his palm finally snap. The iron chain scrapes over the hay and dirt as the Frenchman shoves Jensen’s crushed hand against it, rolls it underneath.

As his self-control makes way for agony, for the animal madness that tends to come with it after a certain degree, Jensen’s eyes draw open to pan up to the Frenchman. His sleek, satisfied grin.

“Come on, then,” the Frenchman coaxes, soft. Juts his chin out, his prick hard in his meaty fist. “Nice and tight, chèr.”

Kalen’s throat is only halfway through forming his yell by the time the crush of Jensen’s fist separates the Frenchman’s testicles from the rest of his body.

The horses freak out, now, with Jensen’s and the Frenchman’s roars, three of the others jumping in to pin Jensen back down, keep him there. Someone who’s not Jensen gets his head kicked in by the nearest animal and the part of Jensen that is not quite yet paralyzed by the repeated punches to his own skull—that part basks in utter, perfect satisfaction.

~

Jensen’s consciousness remains a fleeting thing, that day. Better this way, probably. He wishes they’d bash his head in some more. Would save him the embarrassment of memories.

Tired, blind, he waits it out. After all, time is meaningless. Even more so, now that his tolerance for hunger has grown stronger than ever. The bed is old, the room dusty. Small, clearly meant for this type of punishment and not much else. Every now and then, a breeze whistles through the cracks in the facade and underneath the tightly shut door, the glass-less window.

Jensen rolls his head to the other side when he hears them downstairs.

The chorus of them, chanting that name. The name Jensen dreads most, now. They know this.

“—red, Ja-red—!”

Tabetha shrieks, “Enjoy!” and Tristan barks, “Hey!” but they throw him into the room anyway, barricade the door.

Tristan throws himself against said door several times before he bothers to repeat, “Hey! HEY! Let me OUT!” but all he gets is laughter, imitations of lewd noises. Jensen hasn’t moved a muscle and maybe that’s why Tristan shouts, “Jesus—CHRIST!” when he notices him, bound to the bed.

“Jensen,” he babbles, stumbling over his own feet; Jensen feels the bed dipping, gushes of air where Tristan sets it in motion with his frantic movements. “Jensen, my friend—my good friend, hey, you alive? What in the… Holy shit, oh my fucking God…!”

Jensen is too tired to reprimand even after Jared removed the belt that kept Jensen’s severed fingers in his mouth.

“Oh—SHIT!”

Tristan flings himself to the window just in time. It takes him a moment. Behind his blindfold, Jensen waits.

From behind the door, someone croons: “Yeah, that’s the stuff, eh?”

“He’s got a certain effect on all of us, lad, no need to feel ashamed…”

Tristan spits a last time before he wipes his mouth with his arm, judging by the noise. Jensen blinks weakly to show at least some sort of reassurance to his nestling after Tristan removed the stained cloth from his eyes.

“Oh, holy…shit, man! What the hell!”

Finger after finger gets extracted, tossed aside. Jensen would offer to help, he would, but his hands are bound, and Tristan is too panicked to think of a proper order of steps.

The poor boy is nearly as pale as he’d been that dreadful night all those moons ago, and his eyes swim with tears as he keeps cursing under his breath in Polish, in English, and everything in between.

Jensen’s well-intended attempt to speak up gets cut off with a brisk yet shaking, “Shut your goddamn mouth!” Whooping from the hall outside ensues.

“Yeah, tell ’im!”

“You’re the boss, hoss!”

Tristan continues, “I will kill every single one of ’em,” and Jensen could tell him not to say such foolish things, but he doesn’t. The sun is about to set, outside. Jared’s sweat gleams surreally on his skin, his wind-matted hair.

Jensen croaks, “Fancy coat.”

“… What?”

“It suits you.”

“Really? That’s what you feel is worth pointing out in this situation?”

Jensen’s throat tears itself with his voice but he continues, “He gave it to you, didn’t he?” and Tristan’s eyes narrow, and he shakes his head, and continues to cut Jensen loose. Not that Jensen can physically move any further without the bindings that pull him spread atop the bedding.

“You’re unbelievable,” mutters Tristan. Jensen cannot argue with that.

All the obvious measures to free his sire taken, Tristan sits back, his boots on the ground and Jensen still where he found him. Jared’s features distort once more as he catches sight of the minimal stumps of Jensen’s regrowing fingers in the carnage of his knuckles.

Jensen helps, “Don’t look.”

Those eyes pan to Jensen’s face instead. Jensen doesn’t recognize that shirt, either, now that he looks closer. Jared’s brows draw tighter together yet. With the pressure of the bindings gone, Jensen feels that much heavier.

“What the fuck…is wrong with your eyes? Did they pluck out your…? Oh, fucking hell, Jesus, Mary and Joseph…!”

Jensen’s coarse, “Would you please not?” finds itself dwarfed further by the explosive force Tristan’s entire body puts into the emphasis of his, “SHUT UP!”

A whistle from behind the door. Jensen huffs, annoyed.

Tristan ebbs with his too-quick breath, looms by the bed covered in too many fluids to distinguish by the human nose. Monsters like them, though, they can, and Tristan’s eyes jump across the carnage Jensen’s body was left festering in, how they prepared Jensen for him. The young man’s fury wells like a forest fire right in front of Jensen’s dry eyes, and for the first time all day, shame catches up with Jensen. Tristan says nothing more, which only worsens the moment, simply stands and clenches his fists and Jensen turns his head the other way again, and as he swallows, the iron collar welded shut around his neck embeds itself deeper, and the chain attached to it chimes, just-so.

Quiet, not exactly from only Tristan’s mouth: “They will pay for this. Every single fucking one of ’em.”

Someone hollers, “Less talkin’, more screwin’, boy!” and Jensen begs, “Jared,” as Tristan bolts for the door, slams his fist so hard into it that its fist-thick surface splinters under his knuckles.

Tristan roars, paces. Shakes out his hand, the now-open skin of his knuckles spiked with thick splinters, and he shouts, “FUCK!” and paces more, and shouts, and paces. There is not much space to tread, so he relents soon enough.

His back turned, Tristan whimpers, cradles his hand. Jensen can only see: the width of his back, how pristine the leather of that new coat shines in the early evening light. Jensen blinks against the beauty of it. The lack of lashes poses no problem, no, not with all the grime long dried, long crusted on Jensen’s skin. No need to be upset, really. But Tristan is new to all this. Of course he would be…sensitive.

“I will kill them all.”

“Oh, would you stop it already…”

“How can you not—? How can you just—?! Do you think this is right?! That this is how things are supposed to BE?!”

Cringing, Jensen grunts, “Stop yelling,” which, of course, only gets him an even louder, “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BLOODY FUCKING DO THAT, HUH?! HALF YOUR FUCKING FEET ARE MISSING!”

Through his teeth, Jensen growls, “And they’ll take the rest, too, if you reward them with such rich performances, you bloody bastard,” and Tristan’s mouth opens again before it—snaps shut, and he paces again. Punches the wall, this time, and if his hand wasn’t broken after the door, it sure is now. “Would you—stop that, you fool; you’re not helping anyone with your hysterics!”

Tristan sobs, “I can’t even look at you,” and there comes the according mocking baby-crying from the corridor, and Jensen cringes, and he tries to sit up—forgot how short the chain was and gets choked back down. Despite his words, despite the tears rolling freely down his grayish cheeks, Tristan doubles over to rush to his sire’s side, desperate to lift some of the agony they share. He fumbles with the chain, tests its weight, its durability, the length. All whilst bawling like a babe. Jensen watches him, frowns despite the stretch this puts on the cut across his scalp where the razor slid in a bad angle.

“… You are such a child.”

“Shut up.”

Tristan forgoes everything else once he zeroes in on the chain links he apparently decides are the weak spot of this contraption. He weighs them in his open palm, rubs them between thumb and forefinger.

Jensen’s upsetness finds a new level.

“Will you stop this,” he mumbles, every wound still gaping, unable to close, bare and filthy and every orifice of his body defiled—his bones caved in or bent weird or cut off, and Tristan cowers by his side, fighting the urge to run. Or throw up once more. And Jensen cannot do anything about it. Cannot heal himself, make it easier.

Jensen is so preoccupied panicking over the settling certainty that he will have to beg for food in this very state that he almost misses the first, subtle snap of the chain link between Tristan’s squeezing fingers.

Or, he does, because the link splits right open with the next pulse of what Jensen can only describe as—heat, wafting off Tristan as if he was a steam engine.

Tristan exhales like he was holding in a breath, sweat pearling on his forehead in huge, plentiful drops. He flings the broken chain aside and wipes his already-mostly-healed hand through his face before he slides it under Jensen’s shoulder to help him sit up.

“Oh, that’s… That’s in there, huh.”

Jensen forgets to try and keep his composure. Thankfully, Tristan is too busy examining just how deeply the tissue of Jensen’s neck has fused with the iron collar.

“Oh, uh—oh, shit, sorry—! Fuck, that hurts, doesn’t it? … Jensen? Hey, are you with me?”

Jensen’s blood-crusted forehead sags further against the lapel of Jeffrey’s welcome gift as his vision and hearing faze out, and he blinks, and he tries to laugh, but he cannot do even that.

~

Jeffrey considers the boy over the rim of his cup. Another glance to Jensen; back to Tristan.

“Hm, he looks fine to me, really.”

“Sir—”

“He’s fine, Jared. Now stop it.”

Jensen doesn’t have to look their way to see—smell—taste—the blood in the goblet Jeffrey holds out for Tristan to take. How it ebbs, tantalizingly thick, rich… Jensen blinks, slowly, where he kneels in his corner, facing the wall two inches from his face.

Tristan’s exasperated, “No!” cuts through the otherwise exuberant chatter.

The immediate, absolute silence lets every last hair they left on Jensen’s body stand straight.

“No, I will not stop it! Are you crazy?! He will die from this!”

Jeffrey splutters before he stops himself.

Snorting, Samantha helps, “A little late for that, love.”

Jeffrey croons, “My, my,” and Jensen swallows, and the pressure on his amputated toes throbs odd, throbs worse than the weight around his throat, the rusty remainder of the chain dangling down his chest. The hall is still entirely quiet, all attention on Tristan and Jeffrey up front.

“My, my,” Jeffrey repeats, low and indulgent and Jensen hears (and feels) him scratching his bearded temple, sees (feels) him batting his lashes up at a standing, tense Tristan. “Aren’t you just the most adorable thing. You know, I get it… With a face like that, I, too, would be too distracted to teach you a damn thing. Poor Mommy over there can’t be blamed.”

Tristan snaps, “I—I know that. I know he can’t—die. Not like that, at least.”

“‘Like that’?”

“For real.”

“Hm, hm, yes. You get one point for that one. No. No, not for real, no.”

Jensen’s skin crawls like it always does when Jeffrey’s eyes draw in on him. He stares ahead, unblinking, unseeing.

Jeffrey’s, “Would you like to trade places with him? Is that it?” overlays with Jensen’s barked, “You will NOT, Jared Tristan; I will NOT allow it.”

“I—what?! Why?!”

Jensen growls, as loud as he can through his clenched teeth, and with his eyes fixed on the stone wall, “You will NOT accept, I do NOT allow it, and that is the END of it. As your sire, I forbid it!” and, of course, that gets the crowd cackling again, but Jensen cannot care. His fingerless hands strain with the urge to curl, to release any of the building pressure. All it does i s send him more lightheaded. He pants through his nose, refuses to repeat himself any further. His order stands, and his nestling must obey. That is his right. Tristan belongs to him.

“What, I—”

“Nuh-uh-uh, you heard Mommy loud and clear, so be a good boy and sit that perky arse back down at my table. I said to sit down, Jared.”

Jensen’s features flinch with the sudden thud and rattle of the bench as Tristan’s weight slams itself into his earlier seat. Not by his own command, of course.

Sweat beads on the blank halo atop Jensen’s head, the barely-patching layer of his scalp. On the back of his shoulders, his whipped back. He holds himself from swaying where he kneels; this is all he must—and can—do.

Please… Just stop.

Tristan stops looking at him, finally.

Jensen exhales too-thin. Dizzy.

“You’ve got balls, kid. I’m starting to catch on to what he sees in ya.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘yeah, sure’.” Belated, “Sir,” and Jeffrey scoffs in response, begins to laugh. Nobody else joins in.

No begging is involved, after. And maybe that is worse, maybe Jensen would have preferred this over Jeffrey heaving him upstairs all by himself, Tristan craning his neck but staying put with the women, the wine and the blood, and Jeffrey mumbles, “Let him stretch his wings a bit. He deserves it, don’t you think?” and Jensen whimpers despite himself. Despite his pain, and his pride, and his burden that he must carry. That he chose, hand-picked. For himself and Tristan equally. For Jeffrey, too, in a way.

In a way, Jensen forces it all to be the way it is.

Jensen cranes his neck eager like a babe as soon as Jeffrey helps him into bed, climbs over him with the goblet he brought, nearly gone but it’ll be just enough.

“Shh-shh-shh… Here, shh, my love. Lay down, be still, now. Ah, look at you. How I missed that look on your face…”

Jensen gurgles, “Please, please,” and he puckers his mouth up proper for Jeffrey’s gentle lips, the sick, careful press of them.

Jensen’s arms and legs strain to curl around his sire, unwashed and bare, still, while Jeffrey loosens silks and cottons, clasps and buttons. Jensen kisses, kisses—feels Jeffrey’s excited breath, because he, too, is easy to manipulate. He, too, aches.

“Tell me you want it—”

“I want it, Master, I want you, I, I want…!”

Jensen swallows around his moan hard enough to remind himself of the ingrown iron weighing him down as Jeffrey sits back to take a mouthful from the goblet—only to lean down and kiss Jensen again, share it with him.

Jensen misses fingers but his bare palm finds Jeffrey’s head regardless to wrench him even closer, their noses wedging into each other and their teeth clashing. Jensen swallows and licks after every hint of a smear and he is so insane with it that he can barely stand to let Jeffrey come up and get more to provide him with. Senseless. Irrational, when he is at this point.

Jensen nearly topples Jeffrey over to straddle him when Jeffrey laughingly points out, “Wait, wait—you’ll make me spill it all, you silly thing; here… Here, wait, I’ve got you… Hm, my beautiful… Yes… Yes, that’s it. That’s what you need, isn’t it?”

Blindly moaning, Jensen drinks. Drinks and drinks with the cup held to his slurping mouth, and his thoughts flash back downstairs, to his nestling, his Tristan, turning to look over his shoulder where Jensen—he whimpers, knocks the cup out of Jeffrey’s hand, finally rolls them over to get on top, kiss his fill. Jeffrey laughs, his cheeks squished in Jensen’s useless hands, his palms cupped over Jensen’s bare shoulders as the collar pops in the back where they wielded it shut this morning in the barn, where it seared and scarred Jensen and turned his voice useless with how he had screamed, and now it’s gone, replaced with Jeffrey’s hands—

they roll over once more, a struggle with the sheets, Jeffrey’s robes. Jeffrey laughs, light and excited and under his breath, and Jensen grunts and pulls his knee to his chest and spits into his hand, fumbles between them, fumbles—Jeffrey inside, and grunts more, louder, and Jeffrey moans like a woman, unabashed and from deep down his throat, and Jensen can’t see, doesn’t want to; won’t.

Jensen squeezes his eyes shut through the first, worst pains, his insides still mangled from earlier, from all the atrocities they made him do in that bed, and Jeffrey groans as he fucks through it, as he makes Jensen take what Jensen deserves and offers because he deserves, he does. Jeffrey grits, “Fuck, yeah,” and grabs Jensen by the throat, and Jensen feels himself moan for it, feels the pressure of his too-thick voice stuck in his throat as his master thuds into him, steadier than any heartbeat. “Fuck, yeah, feel it. Feel me.”

Jensen gurgles, “Yes,” unthinking and slipping and his face strains with how hard he squeezes his eyes shut, and thankfully Jeffrey kisses him again, kisses him hard and with tongue and knocks into him wetter and wetter, so Jensen can just fall, can sink and drown and wrap his legs around Jeffrey and weave his growing fingers into that curly, thin hair, and not think. Not think about—anything, at all. Himself. The world. Jeffrey. The boy, downstairs.

Hovering, here, right now.

Jeffrey lets him scowl, after. He usually does as long as he got it his way, first. Is sweet, then, too. Nearly not-repulsive.

“Come back to bed,” he sighs, but Jensen remains by the window, gazing out into the night. Over the gardens, the stables. They extended the stone wall encircling the property; added to its height. Jensen blinks, unbothered by Jeffrey’s coos. The snaps of his fingers.

Only when Jeffrey groans and lets his arm flop onto the bed like the rest of his body already is, does Jensen turn and leave the window be. He sits on the bed with his back turned. One of his old blouses hangs off of him, now, hopelessly too big. Jeffrey curls his fingers so their hands intertwine in Jensen’s lap. Jensen thinks of nothing in particular. Pushing the boy out of his head posed impossible. But now, Jared is just…gone. Has seen enough, probably. Jensen huffs. He swats away Jeffrey’s other hand as it attempts to play with his ear.

“Stop it.”

“I like it. Lookin’ like a proper monk again with your hair like that. Even though they did a whack job of it.”

More strained, “Don’t, Jeff,” but Jeffrey cards through his choppy hair regardless, tuts at him to hold still. So Jensen does that. Looks to the window again, sighing through his nose. Jeffrey hums a tune Jensen’s dumb heart recognizes, unfortunately. It only makes him shrug his shoulder that much harder when Jeffrey’s fingers tickle into his neckline, when he picks up Jensen’s hand to kiss his knuckles.

Barely-there: “I said don’t. Please.”

“Lay with me.”

“Jeff—”

“Lay with me or I’m fetching the boy.”

While Jensen obliges, he grits, “You are insufferable,” but Jeffrey just clicks his tongue, shuffles to make room for Jensen to lay in bed all properly. Jensen tucks his head the other way as his sire pulls himself against him, beds his bearded cheek against Jensen’s breast. Jensen folds his arm to curl around Jeffrey in a stiff (yet obedient) embrace. They lay like this, for a while. Regret sets into Jensen’s gut. Not for the first time this past hour, he wishes the branding iron back.

Jeffrey slurs, “Stop being so bloody Catholic, love,” into Jensen’s shirt. “Calm down. Relax.”

“I am calm.”

“The iron? Really?”

“…”

Jeffrey sighs. “If it at least got your prick excited… But this is just pathetic. Even for your standards.”

“If you want to sleep, sleep. I won’t stop you.”

“You’d smother me…if you still had those perky bosoms of yours, but you starved them off, because you hate me… You hate me, don’t you, Christian… You can admit it, I won’t judge you… Everyone hates me, after all, how would you be any different…”

Jensen’s eyes roll as he patiently recites, “I don’t hate you, Jeff,” and the man nestled against his chest makes a grumpy noise, and cuddles closer. Huffs like an old dog. At least he doesn’t smell like one, too. … Not tonight, at least.

Jensen huffs, frowns. Turns his eyes up at the ceiling, the damask draping from the bed posts in heavy, suffocating bows. How often he’d imagined himself back here. How easy it had been, no matter the number of miles between Jeffrey and him. This place and him. And now, here he is. And yet… And yet, nothing is quite…

“… like before, hm?”

“Yeah,” mumbles Jensen, soft. Carding through Jeffrey’s hair, watching the ceiling—watching Tristan, upside-down, kissing one girl and humping between the spread legs of another, a cup of blood offered up on each side but he rather sucks it off a bare cleavage, Tabetha basically drenched with it, dripping with it… Jensen huffs, put off by the rhythmic bobs of Tristan’s back of the head, his entire body sawing with his thrusts. Jensen hums, closes his eyes. The ache stays.

Chapter Text

Jeffrey used to sleep in, if he ever did indulge in it at all. This morning, Jensen wakes to his sire already half-dressed, humming to himself. By habit, Jensen runs his hand across his face, through his hair. He doesn’t think anything of the full beard and the missing tonsure until his overall soreness trickles past the thick fog of the early morning drowsiness and—reminds him. About yesterday.

Jeffrey admits, “I do enjoy a beard. It just never was your thing.”

Jensen scoffs, sits. He climbs out of Jeffrey’s massive bed and goes through the overflowing contents of those drawers for: a pair of pants, boots. He puts those on, stuffs his shirt into his pants to feel a little less naked in the mild morning breeze drafting in through the gap in the window. When he checks, Jeffrey is still busy putting his jewelry on. Jensen doesn’t remember him taking it off. Maybe just changing it out. Plenty to choose from, after all.

“And the hair… Well.”

“Your nostalgia is over with.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Jeffrey sighs, examines a particularly heavy ring. “I just thought it spooked the youngin’ a bit, wouldn’t you say?”

“I doubt that was the hair’s fault.”

“Hm.”

Jensen sighs. He snatches one of his old coats from the cabinet and pulls it on. As deep as the exhaustion haunts him, still, he prefers that over the other side of things. Fully dressed, Jensen turns to his sire, silently inquiring to be left off. Jeffrey keeps playing with his jewelry, though.

“… Can I go? Are you done?”

“To be very honest with you, I think I just didn’t want them to see you lookin’ like that. That was our special time, our special moment…”

“Put a ban on my hair then, next time you let your hounds loose.”

“You know what?” Jeffrey claps into his hands and lifts off the bed. “Maybe I will.”

Jeffrey escorts Jensen to the great hall. Most of the nest snores, strewn across the floor, sick after another excessive night. Jensen would bound towards the predominantely female pile over by the wall with the banners, but Jeffrey beats him to it (keeps him from stepping up, one arm reached back).

Covered in more women than clothes, Jared flinches with the kick to his bare calf. His waking process speeds up remarkably once he realizes who is standing in front of him.

“Aye, scallawag, up with ye!”

Jensen’s eyes refuse to leave the kiss-shaped bruises on Sarah’s neck and breasts even after Jared shoves her off himself, hefts himself to a stand to go find his clothes. Jared offers nothing but a weak curse under his breath. In the corner of Jensen’s eye, while Jared rucks his pants back up his skinny hips, that shirt slips halfway off a shoulder. That hair, well-run-through by fingers more slender and elegant than Jensen’s could ever be, stands chaotically from Jared’s pale head. The stench is…a stale memory to put with the others. Jeffrey steps to Jared’s side, helps him into the coat he was quicker to pick up than Jared could have cared to go find it.

“Let those poor girls rest for now. Walk with us for a bit—don’t give me that look, Christian, yes, you’re coming as well… Don’t you mind him, good boy, he can be a little uppity in the mornings, it is nothing to be taken personally. But you’ve learned this already, haven’t you?”

Jared replies nothing. Lets himself be pushed along by Jeffrey who looks back at Jensen and snorts at whatever face Jensen might be making (or the lack thereof). Jensen follows. As he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his coats, Jared does the same.

Their breath would fog. Dew wets the soles of their boots after they waded through the puddles in the court. Jeffrey took his hand off Jared’s back a while ago but Jensen cannot stop staring at the very spot—he does not mean to, and he feels stupid for it. But next to the sight of Jeffrey and the tips of his own boots (and the entire rest of the boy), this is the lesser evil.

Jensen’s imagination leaves out no detail on what Jeffrey did with the time he had young Jared all to himself, ‘showing him around the property’.

Most damages those savages dealt Jensen have been healed, but a third of a cup of blood is only capable of so much. And, of course, Jeffrey would rather fix exteriors before he would bother with a sore knee, a limp. They walk past the gardens before Jensen quite notices where they are.

“Did you enjoy my girls, Jared?”

Quietly, Jared admits, “They were nice.”

“Hm, yes. They can be quite fetching when they try. You still with us there, love?”

Jensen grumbles, “Yes,” and begrudgingly picks up his step to walk next to the pair when Jeffrey gestures him to. Jensen’s stomach aches even before Jeffrey tucks him under his arm, squeezes him like a toy.

“Well, at least someone appreciates them. Dear Christian here, he never quite got the hang of ’em.”

“Jeff…”

“And we tried, trust me.”

Jensen grunts, pushes off from under that light-light arm, the cruel smirk. Jensen looks away from the fleeting pan of Jared’s eyes over to him; Jensen pops the collar of his coat, pulls it tighter around him. Walks. Walks.

“Are you cold, love?”

“Fuck off.”

“Need someone to warm ye?”

Before Jensen can tell him off himself, Jared mumbles, “Quit it. Come on,” and Jensen’s mouth drops for the—impunity of it all. Of this, this—nestling, ordering Master around after drinking his fill in his halls, fucking his fill with his women—! Those eyes flicker to Jensen and snap forward again before Jensen can even think of what to say. Jeffrey clicks his tongue, enjoying the show. Jensen snorts, shakes his head. Walks. Walks.

“Where in the world are we even—”

“We’re here.”

They stop. In the middle of the orchard, apples and pears adorn every twig, nearly ready but not quite. Jensen frowns but Jeffrey’s expression is unreadable as ever. Jared might be either too hungover or clueless to get impatient like he usually so quickly does.

Finally, Jeffrey demands, “Show him,” and as neither Jensen nor Jared jump to action immediately, Jeffrey looks up at Jared to clarify, “Show him what you showed me yesterday.”

Jensen’s frown deepens as Jared Tristan’s eyes flinch to the sire, then back to the ground where he has been hanging his head for the entirety of their walk. He pulled his hair back earlier but it fell apart again, drapes off his skull in uneven tangles. He blinks, boyish at best, and his lips part a bit, and he looks—older, in a heartbreaking, horrible way. Jensen aches.

Jensen asks, “What?” but Jeffrey shushes him, extends his arm to sign him to stay where he is.

Jared’s nostrils flare as he grants his sire one long moment of eye contact, and his mouth presses thin as he takes a step forward. He briefly looks up front before he drops his head, forces a deep exhale.

Jensen shifts his footing. Jeffrey stays where he is.

“You turned him, what, six weeks ago? Anytime now, sweetheart.”

Jensen mumbles, “I—yeah, something like that,” as they stand on and watch.

The orchard’s vermin forgoes its hiding and feeding. Countless feet skitter, wings unfold and flap. The grass crawls like an anthill in the matter of moments with Jared, their beacon, in the eye of the maelstrom. The boy allows them to climb him. The winged ones bump and kiss his hair and face before lifting off again, too irritated to settle.

Jared turns to face his human company, and his eyes squint slightly with how he must focus to create all this loud an uproar—but his expression is the same as it was back at that table in the pub with the hour late and the ideas a-plenty: such a small, small smile, half-tucked away like he’ll be beaten for it, those dimples settled in deep.

Jensen swallows.

“That is all him,” Jeffrey points out. “I’m not involved. All your boy.”

Jared’s grin rises a bit higher while Jensen cringes.

“Tipped me off when we were riding out yesterday, and one of my most stubborn steeds just let him climb on. Didn’t even bat an eye.”

Jared supplies, “And I’ve never ridden a horse before.”

“Yeah, and that.”

“I asked if he could fetch me a hawk. And would you know it, a moment later, what sits on his arm?”

Jensen mumbles, “I told you,” crossing his arms. He tries not to stare at Jared too hard, the irritating pulses of the coat of insects buzzing around him—on him. Tries not to meet Jared’s excited eyes, because they will drag him along; he knows this. “Told you he’s strong.”

Jared exclaims, “Ha!” and, with the focus of the conversation shifted away from his fancy trick, he ends it, shakes off the bugs that don’t lose interest on their own. Jensen watches on in horror. He doesn’t dare look at Jeffrey. “‘Strong’, eh? Really?” In the corner of Jensen’s eye, Jared looks to Jeffrey for approval. Jensen dispassionately pats the sleeve of Jared’s coat to send the last few stubborn bastards loose. “Why, was that special? I thought everyone can do this?”

“Not quite this early on, usually,” Jeffrey says. He helps clean up, swats Jared’s chest. Jared lets him. “Takes years. And training.”

Jared huffs, “Huh.” Those eyes are on Jensen, again. Who grits his teeth, recrosses his arms.

Jeffrey leans back and gives Jensen a look.

Jensen snaps, “What was I supposed to tell him? It wouldn’t have helped a thing.”

“So you knew?” (Jensen forces himself to look his nestling in the eye. He regrets it.) “You knew this whole time that I am different? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“It wouldn’t have helped.”

“Not yourself, maybe! You think I wouldn’t have liked to—w-what, what if I had hurt you?! Or myself?!”

“Oh, as if I would have let that happen—”

“‘Oh’, you—you would’ve stopped ME? How? How, Jensen?!”

Jeffrey calmly interrupts, “That is enough,” but Jared barks, “I TRUSTED you!” regardless. Stops shouting, then, at least, but he huffs and puffs and Jensen can only look on, can hold onto his middle and count on the fact that Jeffrey is here, that nothing can happen to either of them. Jensen shakes his head, staring at the grass. The confused insects, returning where Jared called them from.

“He did the right thing—no, listen, boy—he did. He brought you to me so I can help you. And help you I will.”

Jensen looks at his sire for this only to be met with determination in those dark, old eyes. Jeffrey’s hand lays around the side of Jared’s neck. Jared winds out of it to pace, to pull at his own hair.

“Your sire is weak, Jared, but his thinking is sharp as ever. He can be clumsy with these things. You will forgive him.”

Jared snorts.

“I order it.”

Jared snorts again.

“Oh, I advise you get used to taking my orders. Otherwise, this will turn rather strenuous.” I order it, boy.

“You can talk in my head all you want, old man, I ain’t letting anyone tell me how to feel—”

“Sorry,” Jensen mumbles. “I’m sorry. You would have deserved to know, that is right.” Jared is glaring at Jensen when Jensen dares to glance his way. Back to the grass. The struggling insects. “I had to decide for you whilst fear clouded my thinking. That is no excuse. But I needed to keep you safe, and I only knew so much about how to do that.”

He did the right thing, Jared.

Get out of my head.

“You want power, do you not?” Jeffrey croons, Jensen by his side and Jared trembling with emotion, still, a few steps away. Glaring. Struggling. Jensen did this to the boy. All of this. “I can teach you—guide you—like he never could. The world is at your fingertips, Jared. Be a bloody man and grab it by the throat.”

After Jared goes through the lasts of his tantrum and allows himself to be ushered off with Jeffrey, Jensen is finally free to…well, ‘free’ might not be the right word. But nobody jumps him as he makes his way to the gardens. And why would they: a cloudy, damp day. They had their fun with Jensen all day yesterday and topped it off with a long night in the great hall. Jensen shivers, walks. The weak skin of his new fingers rubs uncomfortably against the inside of his coat pockets, but it is better than leaving his hands out for the cold to find.

How long it has been: how deep the gardens still linger in the aftermath of an apparently wet, warm-enough summer. Jensen’s heart swells at the sight. How long he had forbidden himself to think back to this place. How powerful the memories, the longing. Jensen’s feet refuse to walk on, not for the pressure on the sprouting ten of his toes, but simply—for the flood of impressions. These old, familiar smells. Jeffrey left everything the way it was. As if these plants had the power to draw Jensen back into his arms, his castle, despite everything. Despite how despicable. How irredeemable his Christian has proven to be.

“Jen—”

“CHRIST in—! Bloody hell, boy!”

Jared’s brows and hands lift in unison. Jensen knocks the latter away from his shoulders regardless.

“Did you not hear me? I wasn’t exactly quiet.”

“Fuck off.”

“Is it ’cause you’re still healing? That’s it, isn’t it?”

Jensen grumbles, “Aren’t you supposed to be riding out?” and Jared shakes his head, closes the little distance Jensen put between them. He cups Jensen’s left in both of his hands and inspects it. He only grays a bit.

“In a minute,” the boy mumbles. Jensen pulls his hand away. Jared looks straight at him, then. “You’ll be okay. I ordered it.”

Jensen scoffs. “You ‘ordered’?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I didn’t ask—”

“No, you didn’t, but that doesn’t matter.”

Jensen’s brows lift high as his eyes peel wider. And wider.

But Jared continues, “What happened yesterday—it won’t happen again. Ever. If anyone so much as looks at you wrong, there’ll be consequences.”

“And he lets you go through with this? From the goodness of his heart?”

“Are you stupid?” Jared frowns. He follows Jensen yet. “Of course not. I said I won’t complain, no matter the hardship—that I’d be loyal. But he understands, Jensen—” Jensen snorts “—Jeffrey understands me. Why I can’t endure seeing you tortured—for no other reason than you feeling sorry for yourself, by the way.” Jared catches up to Jensen to grab him by the arm. The first try doesn’t pull Jensen free. Neither does the second. “You think he ever enjoyed that? Seeing you getting ripped apart by his fucking dogs, your flesh getting flayed from your bones? Do you know this man you trust so much at all?”

“You wanna go ahead and make deals with the devil, fine by me, but don’t pull me into it! You know bloody damn well—”

“You BROUGHT me here!” bellows Jared, spit flying. Still wringing Jensen’s arm. “What the fuck did you EXPECT?!”

Jared pants through his nose. Jensen holds their mutual glare until he is finally let go—just to be regripped, to get his back slammed up against the nearest pillar, Jared—Tristan, bold and tall and terrifying, Jensen can see that now: this new, pained twist to his features. Jensen forces himself to keep looking at his nestling, to let it sink in. Jensen shakes with the effort to put up any resistance at all to Jared’s pushing grip. The pressure of Jared’s chests against his.

More contained, Jared repeats, “You brought me here. You knew this would happen. So don’t fucking try to twist this into anything else—this isn’t about him, or me. This is about you, going belly-up the second someone gives you the chance. Like a bloody piece of dirt. Like a maggot, deaf and blind—even though you’re anything but that.” Jared fastens his hold. Jensen grunts. “He told me, you know. About the things you did. The damage you’ve done.”

Jensen grits, “Oh, I’m sure,” but unfs and blinks his eyes shut as his nestling’s elbow knocks deeper into his stomach. He forces himself to look up to that blank, deeply furious face. The stone set of that mouth, the half-quiver of only one corner of it.

Jared says, slow and quiet, “You could’ve stopped them, yesterday. Killed them. But you didn’t.”

“Let go of me.”

“You’re just as strong as he is, so why—?”

Jensen growls, “I said to let GO,” and Jared flinches, withholds the imperative of Jensen’s force—before he caves with a sharp inhale, a roll of his shoulder. Free to breathe once more, Jensen steps away from the pillar in his back, circles his nestling. Who glares at him, now, betraying the calm, sympathetic nature of his words. His intentions. Jensen can see him—squirming, inside. Yelping like a drowning kitten, helpless in the dark. Grasping for anything that will save him. That he thinks will save him.

You can’t keep me out forever. “I’ll be strong enough, soon.” Very soon.

“Sure. Sure you will be.”

I will tear down those walls in your head and you won’t be able to stop me. Is that what you want? Because it will happen, Jen.

Jensen swallows, grits his teeth.

He spits, “If you wanna sink that low, who am I to stop you?” You’d rather I crawl inside your head than give me a single inch, wouldn’t you? “Just look at how easily you let him mend you. What a joke you are! I expected more of you.”

Jared says out loud, “You don’t mean any of that,” as he steps up to Jensen once more, his hands down. Jensen’s boots dig deeper into the ground. “Don’t even have to climb into you to know that. It’s written all over you. Now, who expects more of whom? No more secrets, Jensen,” Jared says. “None. I don’t care. I don’t care what you think I deserve.” I deserve everything.

Jensen scoffs.

He can’t allow himself to shiver. He shan’t.

“Well. I guess that’s settled, then. Since you get to decide every bloody thing.”

Without another word, Jared nods, once, just to turn on his heels and stomp up the path winding from the heart of the gardens back out to the court.

~

The weeks rush on, so very detached from Jensen. His wounds heal and his temper recovers. Aside from sitting together in the great hall, his nestling proves a phantom—or, well, a shadow. Someone’s.

Jensen blames himself. Jared was right: handing Jared’s training to Jeffrey had been the plan. During the days, when those two sleep or ride out or are wherever, doing whatever, Jensen finds himself slumped over the many benches in the gardens, contemplating. Not quite praying, no, for he feels not quite confident enough to address anyone. Soon, though, perhaps. Maybe that would help. It always used to help.

Whenever Jensen lays eyes upon his nestling, Jared seems—alive. Restless, exhausted, excited. All those emotions that had drawn Jensen to him, back in New York City. And something tells Jensen that Jeffrey handles this boy differently than he had handled Christian; maybe different than anyone. Despite the gruesome matters of the teachings, the hands-on approach Jeffrey always preferred with those things, Jared Tristan remains the striking image of an untamed horse, ready to throw you off any second. Jeffrey keeps his distance—or, for now. Has not yet figured out how to break this one. Or, this is simply different. Different from what Christian experienced.

Holding the memories at bay becomes easier with time, with the decades melting away like wax. No matter how haunting. How painful.

Rain again, and Jensen sits sheltered and gazes upon the drooping heads of those last stands of color. Most greens wilt away at a rapid pace with autumn galloping on. Soon, all Jensen’s nostalgia will be able to cling to will be bare stems. Will be the rotting leaves on the ground.

Back inside the castle, Caleb croons, “Look who decided to join us,” while Jensen fully ignores him, peels out of his soaked coat to hang it by the fire. “Did thy precious feet get wet, Priest? Too bad your lap dog isn’t here to kiss them.”

“Doesn’t he bore you?” Jensen asks the Frenchman by Caleb’s side who carves a figurine and snickers to himself. Those pale blue eyes draw up to Jensen. A shy shake of the head, a split to his grin. “I would have stabbed him ten times over by now.”

Caleb slaps his nestling over the back of his head for the mumbled, “Who says I haven’t?”

He’s bulky, the Frenchman. Has yet to acquire the posh taste for robes everyone falls for, sooner or later: shabby pants, old linens. A peasant, maybe. A worker, for sure. Rough-looking hands. Good with that knife.

Those eyes meet Jensen’s again before Jensen can make up his mind and turn away from the group.

Jeffrey had granted Jared a room of his own, up in the tower with Jeffrey’s closest. But said room lays barren. Jensen passes it without much dread. Jared had insisted on being housed elsewhere, down in the dungeons. Had insisted it helps, because he runs so very hot after a feeding, because the thick layers of stone and earth around him keep his spinning thoughts contained better than when he’d be hoisted high into the air. Of course, bringing his countless mistresses for the night is a more discreet business within that arrangement. Of course, this way, Jared cannot accidentally get glimpses of what Jeffrey executes in his chambers.

Jensen sits on the same bed Jeffrey had extorted the one or other confession from him with a cup of blood at both their lips, with Jensen’s very heart in his ugly, scarred fist. Most of the mud Jensen dragged in coats the corridors, but the satisfaction of the remnants staining the velvets and pelts warms thick in Jensen’s stomach, helps him to sink into the bed’s embrace. He closes his eyes. Jeffrey is busy, lately. Barely bothers to harass Jensen anymore, and when he does, it involves feeding him. A perverted mother-child bond, intentional or not—Jensen grimaces, rolls to his side. How easy it is to imagine—Jared in his stead. Jared’s small, dark eyes turning up high, because he’d kneel. Jeffrey would make him kneel, for sure. Would let him know his place. Would make him strip, as if he couldn’t be bothered to do it for him. As if he didn’t care that much; not really. Couldn’t be bothered.

Maybe, Jared would give it up easy. Would turn off his head like Jensen does, sometimes. Would maybe hold out longer with it against Jeffrey’s efforts to tear that down. Would grunt and hold his breath through the worst, would try to keep his face in check—would claw, pinch. Jeffrey, or himself. On his back. Jeffrey would definitely take him on his back, so Jared would be forced to look at him.

Jensen huffs, winces. All he wants is sleep.

Night has crawled over the land when Jensen wakes. A shadow, on the bed, and Jensen blinks through the foggy dark. Jeffrey reeks of intestines, so Jensen rolls over, pretends. Pretends not to hear that old song humming through his sire’s chest, the shrill pulsations of his powers. The worst of his blood trance is already done with. This is the mere aftermath.

Jeffrey says, “I never wanted this for you. This bloody broodiness of yours. The misery,” and Jensen swallows against the urge to throw up, or run out. To flee anywhere where the corona of Jeffrey’s energy doesn’t crawl into every fiber of him. But that would be useless. He should know this by now. “I wish I could have seen it sooner. I could have saved you.”

“Bullshit.”

“No; I could have.”

Jensen feels the shift of Jeffrey towards him. The heavy weight of his hand on Jensen’s side. Filled to the brim, fat with blood.

“I did everything wrong, didn’t I? Every last bit. Look at you. You hate me.”

“You talk nonsense. Sleep it off.”

“I could have made you love it,” Jeffrey says, and Jensen stares at the shut door, his head bedded on his arm. “So much talent, and I threw it away. I pushed you past every single limit. You tried to show me, but I was too blind to see. But now, I see. Through him, I see you clearer than I ever had.”

Jensen forces himself to hold that hand, kisses heavily ringed knuckles. He looks not at Jeffrey but through him, but it has the same effect: this room is Jeffrey.

Jeffrey’s eyes are nearly black, like spilled ink, racing to take over. Jensen softly shakes his head. Kisses again, rubs that arm.

“He does you good, the boy.” Jensen scoffs. “No; he does. He stirs you like I never could. You needed something like him. A babe. Something to adore, to give a damn about. I can feel it.” Jeffrey nods, solemn. Jensen holds his gaze. He cannot dare not to. “You would do anything for that boy. All those years I tried to pry it out of you, and he as much as blinks at you and you throw yourself to his feet. After abandoning me, us, just to get away from it all, you didn’t hesitate to kill for him. You kept him fed, all by yourself.” Jeffrey hums, “All those years. All those long, painful years. And all you ever needed was to sacrifice yourself.”

Jensen has no reply. Jeffrey doesn’t force it.

~

Like with blood, keeping his distance from his nestling is a matter of willpower. Of restraint. Is a constant pull at every seam Jensen’s mind and body have left to offer, and it aches. Every second. Every stolen glance, every cursed thought beginning with ‘what if?’. The agony of it all helps maintain Jensen’s restraint. Helps Jensen to reassure himself that, yes, this is necessary, because look at what it does to you.

A girl sits in Jared’s lap and if Jensen tried, he’d hear them. Would taste her through Jared’s lips, would feel her playing fingers on Jared’s chest. But he doesn’t. He cannot.

“Leaving already?” Jeffrey grabs for Jensen’s wrist but releases him nearly right away. Grumbles, “You’ll waste away, one of these days,” and someone else sneers about priesthood and starvation for God, and they don’t know anything.

Jensen leaves the raging feast behind in favor of the deafening silence up in the tower. If he sleeps, he cannot think and cannot hurt. Jensen blames the dizziness for the shock that bolts through him for the sudden grip and press he didn’t see coming—he reels, still, from all that blood on the table he didn’t drink, and he stammers, “Leave me alone,” even though he knows who folds him up against this wall. That he won’t be listened to.

Jared tells him, “You’re starving,” and Jensen shakes his head, unwilling, brings his hands up to protect himself. With his eyes squeezed shut, he can still feel the shove of that knife handle, the tear of fabric; Tabetha’s perfume. Sick and undying, and Jensen gurgles, “No, no,” and Jared orders, “Hold still,” and Jensen can barely stay on his feet. Let alone after that blade rammed itself into

the side of Jared’s neck.

Jensen’s eyes fly open as the blade clatters to the stone ground somewhere, as a wild-haired and tight-eyed Jared widens the rip on his already-ruined shirt and grits his teeth and snarls, “Drink, goddammit; it’s getting—everywhere!” and Jensen’s so, so empty, and Jared is so, so warm.

The myriad of tastes explodes on Jensen’s dead tongue the second he latches onto his nestling’s throat, the bubbling fountain of what must be two corpses’ worth of blood—maybe more. Jensen’s hands scramble to get a grip, find—hair, an exposed neck, and Jared growls, “Careful; slow,” and Jensen understands the words, but he has no means to listen to them.

Jensen’s thirst turns him into its puppet. Has him hollowing his cheeks and swallowing, and swallowing, and he might moan or it’s Jared, and they bump the wall in Jensen’s back because Jensen pulls the boy with him, holds him and feels him panting, straining with the pleasure-pain of giving up what his own body so requires. Jared’s ear grazes Jensen’s as he turns away to crane his neck better, as he gives Jensen more—more, and more. Jensen drowns himself in it. Everything in him works to keep him going. Albeit tainted with vampirism, Jared’s blood intoxicates Jensen deeper than any human’s. Is fuller, richer. Jensen gulps and coughs upon being shoved off. Jared’s cooling palm wrenches across Jensen’s feverish forehead. They lock eyes and Jared strains with the pain his selfless stunt caused (and causes) him—and he frowns, and Jensen does not know what to do with himself, with all the joy springing up in him. All this love.

“Now that I see how much the others have, every night, compared to how little you…! You thought I wouldn’t see through it?”

Jared huffs. He wipes Jensen’s hair back over his head. The rush from his wound dies down to a dribble and begins closing up right in front of Jensen’s wet eyes—over, as soon as it came. Jensen trembles, throbs. His head is light. If it wasn’t for the wall and Jared, he’d be on the floor.

Jared babbles, “This is better, right? If you don’t have to drink them yourself,” and Jensen pulls him closer yet, beds his face—against the unscathed crook of that neck, where that girl had kissed, where so many others, Jeff—!

Jensen sobs. Jared holds him, quiet as he catches his breath.

Chapter Text

Jensen cannot remember the last time he was this full. The overwhelm, though, he remembers. The drunkenness.

Jared helps him outside, and there is no moon, but Jensen can see just fine. Dragged over to the garden, his attention refuses to stay in one place at a time. Shaking, Jensen continues to hold onto his nestling. What an image they must give off. (Jensen can see it—from above. Every angle: the distorted-close huff of Jared, blinking through the exhaustion of having been drunk from this voraciously.) With Jared’s help, Jensen sinks to a bench. The boy stretches and rubs his various aches before he sits.

The garden echoes with sounds. The critters underground and the various trickles of water; on the far edge by the fence, a bird rummages through the dirt for his meal. Jensen smells the earth, the various herbs, ripe seeds, the compost over by the gate, the iron-rich soil—the hall, the others. Jared and the exact grape that was distilled into the wine he shared with Tabetha.

“I still don’t get what you see in this place. A pile of rotting cabbages…and all the while, the halls are filled with gold…”

“It reminds me of home.”

“Does it?”

“Aye.”

Shuffling. Jared’s new shoes in the dirt.

Jared says, “Hm.”

Maybe Jeffrey is right about some things.

“I was brought up in a monastery,” Jensen says. A stray ant works hard to climb a rotting sunflower’s hairy stem. Jensen watches her, unblinking, yet the peak in Jared’s interest is not lost on him. “Tended the gardens. Day in, day out. I was mighty good at it, too. The Bishop praised the place when he visited us—‘a mighty fine garden you’ve got here’, he said.” Jensen nods. He sniffles, wide awake. Oh, how the usually so cold air brushes his skin like warm butter. How smooth every joint in his body moves.

After a beat: “You, a monk? Really?”

“Yep.”

“I thought that was just…”

“In a way, I suppose it is a joke,” Jensen says, elbows on his knees, turning towards—Jared. Tristan. His boy. The lanky Polack from America. Jensen can’t help but smile. “To be fair, we were farmers more than we were men of God. We prayed a lot, but everyone did back then, y’know.”

Jared’s brows draw together. He joined in on watching that one ant, it seems. His shoulders poke high with his hands flat behind him, his body a curved hook in the cloudy night. His hair is so long, nowadays. Do the women not talk him into cutting it into somewhat of a shape?

“A monk,” Jared repeats.

“Indeed. Not a priest, by the way, that is something different. But those vermin of course don’t care about these things.”

“You never told me this.”

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

Jared has nothing smart to say to that, so he just sits and broods. Jensen feels—the thoughts in his nestling, racing after one another. The nervous flutter and chitter of them in that too-thick head. Jensen’s lips curl further with amusement. Any effort to keep them in line fails. Jensen elbows the boy and gets nothing in return.

“That hard to believe?”

“No, just…” Jared huffs. His feet fall outward in the dirt. “All these months, everything we’ve been through together, and… Nevermind.”

Jensen laughs. “What does it matter? That was so many lifetimes ago. Nowadays, I’m as close to being a monk as any of them are.”

Jared points out, “Everyone knew, except for me,” and Jensen’s hilarity leaves him as fast as it came.

He joins in on that shuffling. Oh, how warm his feet are. The boots are too much, really.

Christ, is he awful at these things.

“Didn’t Jeffrey…?”

Jared grumbles, “He tells me nothing about you,” and Jensen looks forward, into the garden. The cobblestone paths and the damp beds. Jared’s blood is trapped under his fingernails. Jensen plays with those. Digs his thumbnail into the pad of a finger just to feel the resulting tingles. It’s been so long. Terribly, wonderfully long.

“He’s horrible at that,” Jensen hums. “Truths. Even halves of ’em.”

“Oh, not really. I mean, he’s been teaching me all those things you didn’t bother to share with me, so.”

“Hey.”

Jared decides, “No, he’s really just—about you, that way,” and Jensen doesn’t dare glance—he mustn’t. With his powers intact, well-fed as he is, Jensen’s sight isn’t bound to meaningless rules such as physics. As Jared leans forward to mirror Jensen’s posture, nearly elbow to elbow with him, he huffs and puffs some more. Will he ever bore of that useless habit? His lungs haven’t filtered air since that night in the alley.

“He’s a rightful bastard is what he is.”

“I can agree on that.”

“Right?” Jensen turns. But Jared is looking straight ahead, still. Jensen’s mouth is doing things again. Oh, that stomachful of blood. Jensen’s shoulders sit high. Feels like they’re about to touch his ears any moment, now. “… But he’s not too bad with you, right? I mean, he doesn’t…?”

“… No. Not like that.”

“Okay.” Okay. Okay.

“Did you think…?”

“What? Oh, no. No, just—asking. Wondering.”

Jared says, “I can look out for myself, you know,” and they lock eyes for the first time since Jared cut his throat open for Jensen, and Jensen swallows for there is too much in that face for him—he’d like to watch it a moment longer, but he cannot. Drops his gaze to the ground, his boots. His damn hands. Damned, dirty hands. “Do you reckon he’d…?”

“I don’t,” Jensen snaps. Cringes. Tries again. “You’re right. I’m sure you got it under control. Whatever that fucking means.”

“You could make him stop if you wanted.”

Jared’s mouth visibly presses shut as Jensen grants him an according look for that sentence.

“Just sayin’,” he adds. The bastard.

“So, ‘no more secrets’,” Jensen sighs, scratching his knee, his arm. Gazing up at the sky, wondering—if he asked, would Jeffrey share what he and Jared do when they go out for lessons? Would any of it be true? “Anything else you’re aching to know about me? Since that is apparently the only thing the old man won’t let you in about. Come on, no holding back. This is your chance.” Jared’s shoulder is tense where Jensen pats and squeezes it. His back, where Jensen pats him like the foal that he is. Jensen blinks, hazy. How beautiful Jared is. Especially like this: turned inwards, struggling. The words on the tip of his wicked tongue, sour like unripe fruit. Jensen scents it. All of it. “It’s all right,” Jensen helps, almost-sincere. “Blood for truth. Fair and square.”

All hesitations gone, Jared asks him, “How did you die?” and Jensen hears the words before Jared speaks them, but the rushed, childlike stumble of Jared’s voice through the syllables punch that much sweeter as they sink for real.

Jensen scoffs. He shakes his head.

“You said I could ask.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think his character would rub off on you so well this early… No, it’s fine, just… … It’s been a while. Since I talked about it. Uhm, ever. Never, actually.”

“Take your time.”

Jensen snorts. “How generous.”

While Jared fidgets, Jensen attempts to focus. Which proves troublesome with all the ruckus banging around in his heightened senses, the turmoil of all that is Jared so very close to his side. Jensen fumbles with his fingers again. The few meaty parts of his palm.

“The nest attacked us,” he manages, finally. “We stood no chance.”

“Jeffrey?”

“Aye.”

“…”

“There wasn’t much to be had, really. Out of principle, they burned the place down.” Jensen nods, reminisces. Foggy images flash before him. Distorted. Rushed. “There were no weapons. I think I grabbed—a pitchfork, or something.” He shakes his head. Jared is quiet. “Didn’t do me any good, as you can see. They came with daggers, swords. Not that they’d need those, but I guess it looked quite scary. Jeffrey enjoyed that, back in the day. I hear he’s toned it down a bit nowadays. Less dramatics.”

“He drank you? Or killed you, first?”

“I don’t think it was him. I think I heard him chastising—maybe Sam, but I don’t know. I wasn’t planned.”

Jared insists, “But he turned you?” and Jensen nods, and Jared’s frown deepens. He nods along, wipes his mouth. Keeps his hand over it.

“It was messy. It’s all rather foggy for me. The fire; yeah. The smell of that, and the overall agony of…you know, dying.” Jensen peeks at his nestling. “I think they got me in the back. Stomach, intestines. You know how fast that one goes. I went down, they didn’t even care. No clue how Jeffrey noticed me: I was face-down in the dirt, just another torn-up clergyman he was so set out on eradicating altogether. But next thing I know is I wake up in his arms, and he talks to me like a babe, and they drag me here and throw me in the dungeon, and… Yeah.”

“… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s been ages. And you wanted to know, so. You’re welcome.” Jensen sighs, drags his hand across his face. It comes away damp. He absently wipes it on the leg of his trousers. He sits straighter, shrugs. “So, conclusion: tried to fight, like a damn fool, got stabbed in the spine, hit the dirt—the end. Not as romantic as you assumed, I’m sure.”

“You don’t have to try and be funny about it.”

“Why, what is death but a good reason to laugh? Just ask your dear Jeffrey, he likes to remind me—y’know, ‘someone who dies that ugly, how could I have resisted that?’”

Jared snaps, “Don’t,” and Jensen shakes his head. Complies, though. Grits his teeth a bit, but the pressure will dissolve as it always does. The sting will go away. Will make way for something mellower. Soon. Soon.

“You asked.”

“Yes—for the truth, not your damn cynics.”

“Those two coexist on occasion, like it or not.”

“You’re doing it again. Fobbing me off with your platitudes…”

“Oh, spare me—this is who I am, have you not figured this out yet? What a brilliant child you are, indeed!”

“It’s perpetually—one goddamn step forward and two backwards with you, isn’t it?!”

“You got eternity to figure that one out, so you’re welcome to take your bloody time, boy.”

Jared warns, “I won’t fall for it this time, Jensen. I won’t play your games. You can’t push me away that easily,” and Jensen snorts, and he glares, but Jared glares right back. Shoulders hunched, and yet so wide. Jensen’s eyes roll. He picks at his nails again. Still all that blood. That dirt. “I’m sorry all this happened to you, I sincerely, really am. And I know it doesn’t make a difference that I do, thank you very much, but it matters. And if you cannot appreciate it with your head all the way up your own arse, then don’t pretend that’s my problem.” Jared grumbles, “Not everyone is as far removed from their humanity as you are,” and Jensen snorts again, clicks his tongue.

“Just give it a century or two. You’ll come around.”

“Well, good thing you’ll be there to witness that.”

Jensen laughs.

“You can give me tips and everything. It’ll be grand. We can argue and hate everyone, like old folk.”

“Isn’t that what this is?”

With a smile, Jared decides, “We’re getting there,” and Jensen snorts some more, wipes at his eye. He averts his gaze once Jared won’t stop grinning at him like a dumb child.

The damn blood rush never fails to promise that everything’s so much easier than Jensen knows it to be.

~

Either Jeffrey knows how Jensen came to that feeding and doesn’t mind it, or he does not care for the semantics. All that matters, ultimately, is that he gets Jensen at his weakest, his most depraved. Long ago, he learned not to ask too many questions around Jensen unless he wants it rough, wants Jensen resisting. It used to be his favorite game. Nowadays, though, Jeffrey apparently either grew lazy or sentimental—bold to assume which one would be worse. But Jensen, too, knows not to ask too many questions. Things show themselves by their own accord, eventually. Impatience is one of those first flaws to go as the years pass you like a rainy afternoon.

The blood stays with Jensen longer than usual. Might be the amounts of it; might be how long he managed to stave himself beforehand. Jensen prays again, under his breath. Out in the gardens, the rain. All those old verses return to him once he manages some kind of starting point for his memory to grab onto. The same, crisp images return along with his prayers: the angels and the saints, a garden Eden and a world long passed. Whoever would have the misfortune to sit next to him in the evening would eventually get up and leave—our priest is doing his things again. Jensen sips from a cup here and there but finds the contents lacking. The fresh memory of what Jared let him have outshines it all, no matter how fresh, or young, or virtuous the body the blood was supplied from.

Jared might be inclined to give Jensen more, eventually. If he sees him too starved once more; if Jensen—asked. The more favorable option is obvious. Then again, forcing Jared’s hand seems more and more like the worst possible reinforcement.

How strong he has become, lately. How even Jeffrey’s closest begin to drop the sneers, grimace differently: they begin to believe it, too. That whatever cursed beast Jensen brought back from the New World is so much bigger than what they are. (Maybe bigger than Jeffrey, even—and although they do not use this sort of vocabulary, of course, thoughts like this run under ‘blasphemy’ and get shoved to the very pit of everyone’s conscience, everyone’s drunken heads.) Pride’s demons never quite courted Jensen before. Seems like even a thing as old as he can learn something new.

Jensen groans, again. The bed creaks.

Jeffrey kisses his ear. Just-above.

“He—fucking Hell…!”

Jeffrey doesn’t seem too surprised to be shoved off. He pouts though and pulls the covers around him while Jensen struggles back into his earlier clothes, wipes roughly at the sweat his forehead was allowed to collect. The lacing of his pants infuriates him further; he drops it midway, grabs his coat. Jeffrey yawns, turns. Jensen glares at nothing. The wall—the fire.

Jeffrey hums, “He’s starting to take the role of a babe a bit too serious.”

“Five minutes,” Jensen grumbles, already by the door. “Stay where you are.”

“Sure thing, Mama.”

Jensen ignores that in favor of the unrelenting call and draw from downstairs pulsating in his head like a tumor.

Stairs; more stairs. Jensen’s irritation isn’t lifted with the added flurry from inside the great hall, the setup of yet another of those grand evenings he never felt he belonged with. Only when Jared Tristan comes into view, all dolled up with that silly hat and the gifted leather coat by the entrance hall, does Jensen’s anxiety allow to make way for something different: deeper, sharper irritation.

“What is it? What is so important, huh?”

“I never even see you anymore—”

“If you think calling me like that for no reason is the way to go about it, that will not change—”

Jared blurts, “Let’s ride out,” and Jensen scoffs. Turns away from his nestling to wipe his face, his beard. Jensen’s free hand stems into his hip. “Just you and I, I—you never, so far. You haven’t stepped foot outside of this goddamn place since we arrived. Never went on a single hunt with ’em, or me. Come on.” Jared closes in on Jensen and cups his elbow and does all those things like he doesn’t know exactly how Jensen despises them. The softness of his voice, like there actually is a choice for Jensen, here. “Please, man.”

“… Couldn’t you have picked…a bloody better time?”

“You’re always up in that fucking tower.”

“Fine. Fine, then! Bloody Christ.”

Jared mumbles, “You’re not supposed to say that,” and Jensen knows the boy is grinning to himself even after getting punched in the shoulder rather heftily.

The horses are tired from the haul. Jared’s favorite dutifully raises its head to be saddled and led outside, though. Jensen gets one of the rested, left-at-home ones (one of the older, soon-to-be-replaced ones). Not far, Jared says, just the next town over. Jensen makes a face for he knows the place.

The forest is as thick as ever. With night comes frost, comes a crisper crunch to hooves in the dirt of this well-traveled path. The cold bites at every inch of them and yet, Jensen fails to feel it. Jared looks straight ahead, too, unbothered by the world around him. No, he is—occupied with the colorful contents of his thoughts.

Jensen glares. Speeds up his steed.

“You do that often, now? Heading out on your own like that?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

Jensen scoffs.

“He encourages it. It’s fine.”

“Aren’t you a bit young for that?”

“He says it’s fine.”

Jared shrugs. Their eyes meet before Jensen has the right sense to look back up front.

“… Does it bother you?”

“You can do whatever the bloody Hell you want.”

“You’re always welcome to join me.” (Jared is by Jensen’s side once more. Jensen looks straight ahead.) “But you know that.”

“What, to watch you? Hold your hand? I reckon you’ve outgrown that phase by now.”

“I mean—if you ever tire of… You know. Rutting like a rabbit—ow! What? It’s not my fault you’re doing it!”

“You’re one to talk!”

Jared’s sheepish expression looks worse out in the settling night, the muddy-dark blue of the forest swallowing up the two of them. The glint in those eyes despite all that, an undying flame spurred on by that ruthless tyrant. Jensen regathers the reins in both his hands once more, straightens—eyes up ahead. The city border that comes into view; the flickering lights of homes, pubs. Jensen pushes the sinking feeling in his stomach aside. The pull in his heart ordering he turn around and rejoin his master in their bed. The itch under his skin, demanding the very same. (That other pull into the very opposite direction: towards where Jared wants him, where Jensen’s rawest instincts want him. Despite the humans. Because of the humans.)

“You were curious,” Jared says, distantly. “About what I do. How I do it—”

Jensen snorts, “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“—so I thought I’d bring you along, show it to you. You don’t have to do anything.” Unless you want to.

“I’ve seen enough murder in my time.”

Not my way, though. And that bothers you. “He says it’s unconventional. The way he taught me, it doesn’t… Well, depending on the situation, of course, it works for me. But I know you dislike it, and I can tell why you would feel that way. His ways are…”

“…barbaric,” Jensen helps.

Jared nods, looks at him. That glint, still, the smolder beginning to gleam brighter, hungrier. They pass the city gate, unbothered by the guards who don’t know any better, who are so easily distracted by fancy robes and healthy, expensive horses. Jared keeps eyeing Jensen. Like he is waiting for something.

“I ain’t saying mine ain’t. By your standards, at least.”

“Blood is blood,” Jensen mumbles, shrugging to relieve some of that creeping tension. “Nothing civilized about it, no matter how you twist and turn it.”

Jared’s hum resembles agreement.

They stop the horses in front of a restaurant. Fancy enough; big hall and all that. A sign outside mentions a wedding, closed reception. Jensen gives his nestling a wavering look. Jared ties the horses, unbothered.

“… Seriously?”

“‘Nothing civilized about it, no matter how you twist and turn it.’”

Jared straightens, removes his hat. He fixes his hair while Jensen glances past the wide-open doors, the reception abandoned since, surely, everyone who belongs is already inside. The horses drink in greedy, messy slurps. Jensen’s eyes narrow; his hands shove deeper into his coat pockets.

“Lots of unmarried girls in there. Young. Drunk.”

Jensen huffs. Shifts his weight on his feet. The pat to his shoulder feels anything but reassuring.

“You can wait here if you want. I’ll bring one out, move her somewhere else. Somewhere more private.”

Jensen grunts, “Not a back alley kinda guy, huh?” and as he dares to look Jared in the eye, he finds something resembling…aversion. Jensen swallows. Jared’s hand is still on his shoulder.

“Just stay here,” Jared repeats, and slips up the stairs. Out of sight.

Jensen pulls his coat tighter around himself and shudders in the damp cold of the street.

Minutes. He must hold out for—minutes, he decides, until he caves. Until he searches out that wild head of hair, that bell of a laugh.

And, sure enough: a dainty hand in Jared’s, the poor thing all enthralled by—well, charm, and Jared is handsome, could fool you into believing he’s a rich child gone rebellious, which women always seem to be drawn in by, it seems. Young, although no child anymore: her not-so-humble dress fills out in all the right places, her hair in artistically pinned-up curls and her cheeks pink with wine (and Jared’s presence). He plays with her fingers while they talk, while he dishes out some kind of lie or flattering that will ensure her abiding by his ensuing bidding. Jensen does not bother to pick up the actual words. Is too taken aback by the glow in this girl’s eyes as Jared finds nothing, absolutely nothing more to focus on than her. A building full of people, and he chose her. A stranger; she must know what she is doing is wrong. Where are her parents, her mother? Is she spoken for, perhaps? Is this a game for her, too?

Jensen fades into the background, fades into a shadow on the walls and gutters the pair passes—her drunk stumble, the light giggle of her voice, Jared’s coat so heavy on her lithe shoulders. An inn, and Jensen balks, but Jared manages with confidence and only a tad of his powers, mostly to ensure the anonymity of his company—as if it will matter what people call her aside from ‘dead’. Jensen’s third eye follows the pair into the room they enter, the kissing and the hands finding their way past fabrics and buttons, past lacings. Jared has the girl sighing and shivering before he’s put her on her back. Before he exposes her heavy breasts, brushes all that lace and hair away from her precious, perfumed neck—how gently his big hand removes that necklace. How wild her breathing, how wet with his spit her lips.

Jensen winces for the bite, for the girl—moaning, bucking. But there is—no blood. Jared’s arm keeps flexing and her head keeps tossing, her legs wring around—his hips, and she babbles yes, yes, and Jensen reels. Jared lets go of her throat to leave it wet with spit, irritated with suction but nothing more, no torn skin and no fangs in his mouth and he huffs, “You sure? You want it?” and she nods because of course, of course she does.

How quickly Jared gets himself out, shoves himself into her—like he needs it, too, like he’s been truly waiting for her to moan and clasp at him; he grunts and ruts, so gentle despite his size. Maybe because. God, does she look tiny underneath him. Right now, Jensen has no hands to clutch his throat with, remains thin air in this room and fills it out and pulsates with it, with how Jared groans and pleasures himself and her as well, one hand under the skirt of her dress, still, frantic and focused and her voice rises and rises and Jensen sees the exact moment, the moment Jared decides to—yes, the gulp of her breath and then he surges for her throat again, that same spot he had marked so heavily on her bright-bright skin. The girl seizes in his arms, the cheap, paid-off bed, and Jensen knows it, feels it ripping through her, that sharp, horrible pain lacing with pleasure, and he thinks—how cruel, to mix this, to show her this new world just to empty her of it in the very same beat.

Jared groans as he drinks, tightly sealed to the girl and every fiber of him expanding with the fill he gets—she continues to moan, to writhe around the bulk of him, the choppy shoves of his hips. “Please,” she babbles, “Please, please, oh,” and he fucks her some more while she faints, while her world turns black in the cradle of his arms.

Her heart slows, slows. A too-calm sleep, and Jensen hasn’t stirred since they entered the room, as Jared pulls off too-soon, leaves her horribly alive and licks around the wound he left like—a dog: in long and strong laps that make her skin drag with his tongue, her breath thin-thin yet there, her nipples stiff and flushed in the darkness of the room. Against Jared’s cupping hand.

Jared’s head lolls, buries itself against the girl. Jensen feels with him how her blood fills out what was threatening to go empty. How stickiness makes way for wetness, brittle to flush under the renewed efforts of a dead heart kicking back alive, if only to nurse the oh-so fleeting indulgence of this stolen treat. Jensen’s chest contracts along with his nestling’s, so bound to him he feels the girl’s cunt around him, feels the girl’s skin under his palm. Where he stands by the horses, two miles from the room in the inn, he lets out a shaking breath while Jared does the same into all that hair. The old, many-times-over-ruined linens of the bedding.

~

Jared’s cheeks show a healthy glow as he trots into view. Jensen rolls his eyes and hands him his horse’s reins.

“‘Unconventional’, I see. I can’t believe you make me agree with him.”

“But it works,” Jared insists, muffled. Jensen finds his nestling’s eyes just to grimace some more. He mounts his steed to escape the moment. “It tastes so much better that way, too. And they live! I thought you’d be in favor of that.”

“You crippled that poor girl in more ways than you can imagine—”

“I wiped her memories of tonight, of course! Brought her home, they’ll just think she took badly to the wine—”

“You sullied her! Now she’ll never—”

“What?” Jared scoffs. His brows knit together. “I don’t take virgins. You can calm down, ‘doctor’.”

“You—!” Jensen huffs. He glares right back at his boy. He overtakes him just a bit. Hisses, “I know what I felt,” and Jared snorts.

“Did you?”

“You sentenced her to a life worse than death. If you want my approval for such crimes, I fear you are barking up the wrong tree… … What, no more smart rebukes?”

Jared calls, “I’m not entertaining that silly speech of yours,” and Jensen rides even further up front.

How quickly it all got out of hand—Jared and his women. How soon the blood woke his appetite. Jensen’s guilt grits deep in him, grits sourly. The cold night air does nothing to revoke the lingering ghosts of sensations that continue to crawl along his skin. Jensen rides that much harder, faster.

Back at the estate, by the stables, Jensen prematurely dismounts whilst his steed slows to a stop. His soles meet the ground and Jared, somewhere, hollers hey and, “Where are you going? Your—your horse! Hey!” Jensen’s pace towards the castle hastens as he hears the boy dismounting, too; the hurried jumps of his steps. “Hey, wait; hey—Jensen, come on, man.”

Jared’s eyes might go wide for Jensen trying to shove him off but his grip on his shoulder fastens, too. Abandoned so close to home, the horses stand and watch.

Despite the resistance, Jared rucks Jensen a bit closer with his grip on Jensen’s jacket.

“You’re not really—you’re not serious, right?” Jensen’s face burns. Jared won’t let him look away. (He’s sweet, Jensen’s boy; innocent as a child simply not aware that ripping off wings and little legs causes harm.) “I know you’re—it’s the faith thing, I get it—but, seriously? Virginity? That’s where you draw the line?”

“You have no right to say you ‘know’ me—”

“Would you rather I starve? Would you rather I take children, mothers, fathers? Would—”

“I’d rather you stick to taking their blood!”

Jared exclaims, “She wanted it!” loud and half-smiling, fighting Jensen’s half-hearted attempts to break free. He lets him, finally, just for Jensen to stand there, sway with the impact of his effort. Jared adds, “You felt it. She wanted me,” and Jensen scoffs, turns. Begins walking, again. Behind him, Jared calls, “If you wanna believe it’s either sewer rats or bleeding people like cattle—fine! But at least admit you’re being a fool for it!”

No stop for Jensen until he’s halfway up those stairs: a grunt, a moment to collect himself—a moment to remind himself that even if no eternal Hell or Paradise will ever open up to him, he shall still not start cursing like a sailor. He punches the wall instead, continues his ascent while he shakes his hand out. As Jensen throws the heavy wooden door shut after himself, Jeffrey doesn’t look up from the book he’s reading on his side of the bed.

“Did you know? Of course you knew.” Jensen rips his coat off, his boots, to toss them into a random corner. The noise of a turning page.

Jeffrey sighs, “My poor little lamb. Poor, poor little lamb.”

“How can you condone that? He lets them walk, after, Jeffrey; who does that?”

“Isn’t that what you always wanted? A more ‘humane’ way of doing things?”

“What he did in that room had nothing to do with humanity—”

“She will be fine, priest, calm down. A good fuck can do wonders to one’s constitution. Not that I expect you to know this.”

As Jensen struggles to unbutton his shirt sleeves, his and Jeffrey’s eyes meet over Jeffrey’s book. Jensen huffs with emphasis.

Jeffrey pats the empty space by his side. Jensen grimaces, turns. Rubs both hands across his face, into his hair.

Stone, pelt, different pelt. Perfumes, oils; the rustle of the heavy linens. Jeffrey tuts for Jensen planting himself face-down, just-within reach. The gentle touches to his hair leave Jensen wincing.

“There, there.”

That book, and Jensen would smell the rich ink and the paper if he were not as empty as he is now. Nowhere near ‘bad’, but enough to make things fray around the edges. Weakening, dwindling. Jensen closes his eyes, ‘breathes’ in the heavy jasmines and roses and whatnots that would deafen his senses had he full access to them. Down to a whisper, now, their calls. Stomachable.

“It’s hard seeing ’em grow up, I know. Imagine how I felt when you turned out a dainty Victorian wife whose only joy is staring at goddamn flowers all day.”

Jensen sighs, decides to play dead. Or asleep. Or pissed off.

He avoids Jared over the next few days. Stays up in the tower, mostly, because that tends to do the trick. Jeffrey insists Jensen join a dinner in the hall, so Jensen does that, has half a cup of something horribly stale he forces down just to bide his time, keep his symptoms at bay. Jared is nowhere to be seen. Down in the dungeons, probably. Some of the girls are missing, too.

Movement is a constant in the hall at this hour, of course, but it usually stays a few inches from Jensen. His irritation when someone sits right next to him, close enough on the bench that their knees knock together, shows itself that much harder.

The Frenchman clinks their goblets together, drinks. Jensen snorts, eyes him with a wary curl to his lip. An old scar; Jensen sees it now, in this light. Small eyes. An easy smile.

“Your stomach ain’t that small. I’ve seen it,” the man says, nodding towards the cup Jensen holds in both palms, his forearms long on the table. “Your stomach, I mean. You ain’t as dainty as you think you are, chèr. Here, drink up.”

Softly, Jensen says, “Touch my cup and lose your hand,” and the Frenchman halts mid-reach, the messy carafe Jensen had been ignoring for the better part of half an hour now already in his other, meaty hand—he laughs, retreats. There is a distinguishable pause in the swing of that arm into the space behind them when Jensen adds, “Touch me and lose your face.” The Frenchman considers his options for a moment. He ends up placing his elbow on the table, grabbing his own cup. Another toast before he drinks. He remains seated where he is, though. Jensen considers his options, too.

“Daumier, by the way,” eventually. A purse to that smile when Jensen checks. Jensen blinks—snorts, looks into his cup again instead of into that too-close face.

“You’ve got some balls, Daumier, I’ll give you that.”

“Oh, well, yes—they grew back.”

“Congratulations.”

“They’re doing well. I’ll let you check for yourself, if you are so inclined.” Jensen snorts. “What, don’t act coy now. The whole place knows what kind of man you are.”

“You can get lost, that’s what you can do.”

“You doubt me? Why? Have I not been sincere about my intentions in every instance so far? You think I sit down with la chatte favorite du grand patron for shits and giggles? I ain’t judging. We’re not so different in what we want.” Jensen’s grimace prompts that smile to grow into a grin. Again, “I am not here to tease. I am asking you, sincerely. I know what you get up to with Him. And rumor has it you’re quite enthusiastic about it.”

“If you are dumb enough to care for gossip, another thing you must have heard is that I don’t entertain degenerate offers such as yours.”

“Well, things change. You changed. Or so I’ve heard.” Daumier leans closer, just a hair, but he does. Jensen’s eyes narrow. “Le prêtre pacifiste, bringing back a boy. A toy. And such a pretty one at that.”

“You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“Well, enlighten me then, père. What does it take, what is it that gets you hot and bothered? What does Jeffrey have—what does the boy have that I don’t have, that I couldn’t give you—right now, tonight, tomorrow? We’re all just animals, Jensen,” Daumier says, reaching below the table—and Jensen does not, despite his warnings, rip into skin or cause a scene, but he does shove the too-warm hand from the gap in his robe, shoves the whole man off and spits, “Maybe you are,” and he gets laughed at, gets a grope to his backside that he ignores for he is already up and maneuvering himself off the bench, down the crammed walking path between the rows and rows of drunken, singing bodies. Daumier calls after him, something Jensen decides not to hear. If Jeffrey saw any of this, it apparently causes him no disdain—he observed, surely, and decided it harmless fun, and nothing did happen, indeed, and Jensen stomps and hurries and feels sick with rage. All his hair stands on end. He rounds the corner towards the stairs just to get yanked aside by his arm.

“Don’t yell,” Jared helps, while Jensen barks, “Off of me!” before his nestling’s features even fully register. Nausea only faintly mixes with ‘relief’. Jensen’s arm gets freed with another pull. Jensen half-turns, fixes his robe.

“… What even are you wearing?”

“Shut up.”

“Why a dress?”

“It’s not a—what the bloody Hell do you want?”

“You, alone.” Jensen balks. Jared’s features falter with irritation. “What, do you want me to feed you out in the hall or something? Make up your damn mind—let’s go, follow me—”

“I ain’t—Jared, Jesus,” and Jared blurts what because he’s just like that and doesn’t know better but to grab and lead Jensen however he wants, is blunt and ruthless with him because that’s how Jensen taught him, how Jensen allowed it to happen from day one because he was weak, and he still is weak, and even as he huffs and puffs and winds with how upset he feels, Jensen cannot separate his wrist from the boy’s grasp, he simply cannot. He doesn’t want to.

The usual ruckus, close by. The indecency of too many men and women crammed together with no long-term consequences for health, or the salvation of their souls. Jensen huffs again and Jared, sweet Jared asks, “What?” and, “Are you doing all right? Did I frighten you again?” and the walls are close around Jensen but he’d rather bump into those than into the boy, and he shakes his head no, and murmurs, weakly, “Not down there. Not in the dungeons.” Jared exhales, somewhere. Silly. Candles line the hallway, dripping and old, new. Well-treaded-on rugs, woven in countries none of them ever traveled to, because Jeffrey keeps all of them here, keeps them well and tight.

“Well,” Jared says, huffing. He must feel Jensen’s weak pulse. “Where else, then? I ain’t climbing that damn tower, I told you that. So, where?”

Chapter Text

The less blood you imbibe, the less your senses work. The less you feel pain, pleasure; anything. The less you crave—except for more blood, of course. Jensen’s eyes fix on his nestling’s throat as he steps deeper under the canopy—the grapes hang thick and purple over their heads, so plentiful the vines sag. Nobody here cares enough for the tough labor of winery to make anything of them and so they rot, out here, a feast for lucky birds and crawlers of all shapes and sizes. Sweat shines in the hollow of Jared’s throat and Jensen swallows. The moon stands bright in the sky. Jared’s wearing white, again. He might not ever learn.

“Same side?”

Jared pulls that horrible knife from the sheath that slings from his belt, by his hip. His free hand rolls the sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow and Jensen swallows again, nods. Steps closer yet, close enough to touch—

Jensen cups that bare elbow. Has it escaping because Jared needs that arm, of course.

Jared grabs Jensen’s hand to flatten it out so he can wrap it around his other hand, the one with the knife gripped tight.

“Do you wanna do it?” Upon Jensen’s expression, Jared shrugs, fidgets. “I just thought—dunno, forget that I asked. Ready?” Jensen nods. Jared nods back.

He rams the blade into the same spot as last time. Again, he’s so full that the pressure makes the mess shoot out as if he was human once more, and again, Jensen dies with it a little more, seeing it, remembering—“Anytime now,” Jared grunts, and Jensen finds himself launching himself at that throat, and he wrings his hands around where his mouth isn’t already—Jared’s throat jumps with his noises, the muscle contractions from the clear, draining pain.

Hands, on Jensen’s back. Tucked around-under his arms, restless—due to the pain, Jensen knows, but being held always only meant such a different thing to him that it’s impossible to separate the two. Jensen doubles down, and vulnerable as he made himself, Jared stumbles back just a bit, so Jensen pins him against one of the pillars while he drinks, and drinks. Jared hisses, murmurs. Not words, not any that mean anything, at least; roaming hands on Jensen’s back upset the thick, silk-lined robe. Jensen’s heart beats so fast. Beats again (at all).

Jared grits, “Easy,” and Jensen groans in response, jaw wide and his mouth still locked because it decided it belongs where Jensen put it. The tight line of Jared’s body shifts against Jensen’s front and the boy huffs, labored, and his leg angles out a bit and Jensen presses right into the newfound space, not an inch between them but there is give for him to drive all that aching want against, Jared’s bare skin under his fingers, his sweat and blood on Jensen’s palms… “Easy,” again, so close to a please that Jensen’s guts shoot hot with it.

When he finally, finally can let go of the boy, they are both shaking: tall, strong Jared pale and with his head lolling and his fists loosely (barely) bunched in Jensen’s robe, and Jensen—Jensen, panting and drooling and blinking through the waves of ecstasy; Jensen, staring—at the dents his digging fingers continue to probe into Jared’s skin, the flutter of that half-exposed chest with the lick of hair he was allowed to develop before his life found its end in that alley back in America. Jensen is hard. He feels that, now, how tight he’s pressed it against Jared’s hip, the leg that moved aside to let him right there. Jensen stares at the smeared mess he kissed against that throat, the lack of a trickle from that wound because he had been that voracious, and he thinks how easy it would be. How horribly, hellishly easy.

Jared says nothing; might sag in Jensen’s grip just to escape. He does feel terribly light as Jensen catches him, though, so maybe not an act after all. That bench, nearby. Jensen feels like a caged animal, feels like pacing and fucking and eating all over again. Standing, sweating, he fixes his robe—the damn, stupid robe—and mumbles under his breath since of course he can only be so successful in his current…state. A noise, and Jensen’s head whips around—nothing, nobody. He pants, knotting the belt again, again. Stupid. Stupid, stupid.

Jensen’s nestling groans his name and Jensen blurts, “I’m right here, yes—stay where you are, don’t move,” and he leaps because of course Jared wouldn’t listen, even if he was fully conscious. “Rest, love—just rest. It’s all right. I’m right here, not going anywhere.” The robe exposes Jensen—again—but Jared cannot possibly be disturbed by it for he is busy exclaiming a wrung-out noise with Jensen’s palm cradling his cheek. His eyes won’t open quite like he seems to tell them to. (Good; although Jensen feels himself caring less and less for his arousal. The shock passed. Here comes the bittersweet aftermath.) Jensen finds himself smiling, doting on his boy, petting his cheek, his trembling chest. Most of that warmth gone, and yet—and yet.

“Warn…a guy…next time… Christ, man…!”

Jared coughs; Jensen scoffs and pets his cheek encouragingly. He can’t stop smiling. Jared’s exhausted face frowns at Jensen in the moon-bright dark like this is the first time he sees his sire, his searching grip on Jensen’s wrist (again).

“Maybe…maybe we do more but…smaller…much smaller feedings…from now on…! Kurwa mác… …”

Jensen laughs, “Stop whining,” and Jared groans and winds with the agony of needing to cough.

The new wound has long closed up.

~

“I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you…”

“Hmm.”

“On your knees, in the stables? Mon Dieu.”

Daumier’s eyes roll theatrically. Jensen snorts, cuffs him. Rolls halfway onto him, stays up on one elbow; rubs that hairy, bare chest. Blinks, huffs. Daumier’s looking at him once more, one arm behind his head. He thumbs under Jensen’s eye, wipes away a thing Jensen didn’t even feel was there. The sun rises, outside. Her winter-dulled warmth draws a strip along the floor and wall it can hit in this corner of the castle, in the small, humble room Caleb’s nestling found and claimed as his own. Clever. Barely anyone would want to sleep in the east wing.

Jensen hears, “You’re so beautiful,” and snorts, only puts up the utmost polite amount of resistance against having his head pulled against Daumier’s for that kiss, the grating dig of that bearded chin, that warm, big tongue. Daumier smiles sweet when they part, when he orders Jensen: “Fuck me again,” and Jensen laughs, spluttered and sudden and Daumier nods against Jensen’s shake of the head, says, “Yeah, oui, mon chèr, pas d’excuses… I know you can, I know you can…”

It’s so different from Jeffrey. Jensen isn’t sure what to make of it—not that it matters.

Daumier is half-asleep once Jensen finally manages to crawl out of the mountain of sheets and linens someone with bad eyesight might be able to call a ‘bed’ when Jensen gathers the pair of pants he dropped a good half-day ago just to sit down with the man again to struggle into his boots. Daumier hums behind Jensen, draws huge circles on Jensen’s bare back. Jensen chuckles, less and less light-headed. The night is over. The thrill makes way for…well, the usual emptiness.

“Will you get in trouble because of me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Hmmm. Am I in trouble?”

Jensen tells the man, “I’ll let you think on that one,” and Daumier hums for that last kiss Jensen presses to his mouth, cups his hand over Jensen’s neck to keep him just a little longer, makes their tongues meet. Jensen pulls back with intention, finally. Doesn’t turn back after pulling his shirt on, opening and closing the door.

As Jensen rolls up his sleeves and fixes his belt as he walks, Daumier calls across the growing distance, from behind the well-shut door: well, something French, which Jensen does not speak, but it sounds silly and love-sick and dramatic, so he might be better off not knowing. He grins, shakes his head. Poor, poor fool.

Jensen walks, walks. Through the castle and outside, across stone and dirt and grass, to the well. The cold water stings like bites—good.

I’m not mad.

I know you’re not.

I’m just… Well.

Slicking back his hair and wringing out his beard, Jensen mumbles, “So, leave it. There’s nothing to talk about,” and as he walks back towards the castle, his sire sighs heavy inside the small—yet surprisingly clear, this morning—cavern of Jensen’s skull. No; nothing. Lightness in every inch of him, for the first time in… Hell, in a century, maybe.

Was he that good? It didn’t look that good!

“Jeff…”

I do that exact same shit every other week, ain’t nothing special to it.

“Exactly,” Jensen grunts, shouldering past the heavy castle doors. “So leave it, Jeffrey.”

I don’t get you. I give up, I just don’t get you. And a Frenchman, too, out of all things! Is it that? Is it the French charm?

“Have you considered that I despise you?”

Jeffrey huffs and puffs.

Don’t be ridiculous. The best love is founded on hating each other’s guts—ah, here we go…

Jensen doesn’t slow down for the lingering Caleb by the next doorway. Why he even is awake at this hour is—ah, well. Seeing it coming from a mile away, Jensen evades that grab for his arm. He faces the beast, though. The fiery glare in those eyes. Jensen stands tall as Caleb’s spit hits the ground a few feet from Jensen’s boot.

That young face, not much older than Jared was. Now older than most who walk these grounds, though; nearly as old as Jeffrey himself. The decades hardened Jensen. Caleb long, long ago lost the iron grip he once was allowed on Jensen’s spirits. Just like anyone else did.

A cup still in hand, a nearly empty carafe where he sat. Caleb’s eyes narrow before he speaks.

“You’ve got some balls, don’t you.”

“You should be aware, the way you kept ogling them all night.” (Caleb sneers. Jensen wants to lever some of those teeth from that jaw.) “Keep him leashed, then, if he’s so special to you. I don’t give a rat’s ass, mate.” With that said, Jensen continues on his way. From behind his back comes Caleb’s voice:

“No leash on your Polack, is there?”

Jensen turns back around.

He gives Caleb a look.

He gently shakes his head.

“We’re not doing this, boy. Not here, and not in the future.”

“I hear he lets you drink from him?” Caleb says, leaning. Cradling his cup, pursing his mouth whilst Jensen doesn’t break the eye contact, doesn’t move. How small Caleb looks in his ratty clothes. How well hidden all the scars and the years. “Mother and daughter. How darling. Too bad all those cunt juices in her system only seem to heighten your appetite for cock, don’t they?”

Don’t say it.

“How long till you lose it, you reckon? Till you cave and rape your precious kid, too?”

Mmh. (Jeff clicks his tongue.) You said it.

Caleb is still mid-spitting, “’Cause that’s what you really want, isn’t it,” when Jensen’s fist collides with the center of his face, when his nose fractures with a sickening crack and is followed up by the blunt thud of his skull careening back against the stone wall—Jensen straddles the thrashing body once it hits the ground, keeps them coming. Left, left, left—one of them kicks the carafes and they clatter, at least one breaks. Blood and tissue smears between Jensen’s fingers, ripped linen and hair. Caleb’s roar comes strangled, curdling.

“SAY IT AGAIN! SAY IT AGAIN, BOY, COME ON! SAY IT, I DARE YOU TO SAY IT—”

That is enough, Jensen.

“NO!”

Yes—drop it, Jensen. Now.

No. No, no.

Now, boy.

NO!

That hollow Jen comes too late. Mangles with the sound of Caleb’s skull cracking open like an egg, comes with the spill of his brains and Jensen’s feral growl—with the frantic tingles in his shattered hands, the bones already fixing themselves thanks to all the feedings Jensen’s had, lately—that damn, wicked blood. The curse of it, the damnation of it.

More corporeal, Tristan gulps, “Jensen,” and maybe he’s here, right there by the entryway to the hall—Jensen cannot turn to look, can only get to his feet and spit on what he left of his comrade. He shakes, the quiver of muscles strained too far, of a body following instincts and nothing else, void of all humanity. Jensen spits again because some got caught in his beard, mingles with the blood and sweat and whatever else he’s ripped and punched out of the fella, and he doesn’t see but he doesn’t look up from the ground and says nothing, and pushes past whoever tries to put a hold to him—out. He needs—out. Away.

There is no running. Eternal, all this: Purgatory, Sisyphus.

Jeffrey finds him, naturally. Mid-day, quiet. A coat layers over Jensen’s hanging-stiff shoulders. He doesn’t look up from the frozen-brown dahlias.

Jeffrey huffs as he takes a seat next to Jensen in the icy dirt. Jensen hears him playing with his rings, his nails, maybe. Jensen blinks, tired. A few feet away, a bird tries its luck turning wet, rotting leaves. A fleeting emotion of pity fades unnoticedly. Jeffrey clears his throat. The coat doesn’t make much of a difference.

“Will you just stop the dramatics and come back inside, please,” and Jensen knows his sire is not mad, despite everything—because this is not the first time, and it won’t be the last, and others have done worse and none of it matters, anyway, not with eternity waiting. Eternity. Until the world ends, maybe. Maybe even longer than that. “I said to stop, Christian; you’re scaring the boy. Won’t you think of him, hm? Your dear boy. Who you dragged to my feet, if I may remind you, and now he’s useless to me because every other word out of his mouth is your name… And I cannot teach warfare to a scared, motherfucking child, my love… I know you know little of such matters, but this principle you must be aware of.”

Jensen feels himself murmuring warfare and Jeffrey huffs, annoyed. Impatient, cold. Jared, in that room with the huge round table Jeffrey cluttered full of maps and papers and the like. Drawings, books. Jared, twiddling his thumbs. The little perk in him, knowing he’s being watched. “Warfare,” Jensen says, blinking.

“Yes. It is useful.”

“He’s not even—a year.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? He moves furniture, he moves living objects…”

“Christ…”

“His flying requires more practice yet… Hell, who am I kidding, loads of it, but…well, he’s got the basics down.” (Jensen feels Jeffrey’s glance as he covers his face, rubs it. Stays like that, chin tucked.) “Aces telepathy like he was bottle-fed with it. But you know this.”

Weak, Jensen says yeah. Doesn’t look up, not yet. Just another minute of sitting curled up on himself, cradling his heavy, too-empty head.

In that room, under Jensen’s eyes, Jared’s ears pinken with all that praise. With Jensen, flustered. His boy. Yes.

~

Jeffrey pulls the door shut behind them. Jensen flops into the chair with the most distance to Jared Tristan (perked and wringing his big hands). Jensen rubs his eyes with stiff fingers. The heavy tapestries and maps hung across every available wall do nothing to muffle this utmost sun-flooded room. Jeff takes a seat.

“My dear Jared—how does one go about killing a vampire?”

“Wooden stake to the heart, lead by a human hand. Or beheading.”

“Correct,” Jeffrey says. Jensen grumbles something under his breath but is ignored. “So, what do you reckon a good whacking to the head will do? Other than lifting the aggressor’s violent urges, of course.”

Jensen grumbles more.

“It debilitates the victim. For a while.” (So much fumbling in the corner of Jensen’s eye.) “With enough time to rest, there should be no hint eventually that the attack even happened. No scars, no impediment whatsoever.”

“Correct.”

When Jared’s knee begins to bounce, Jensen growls from underneath his hand for him to stop it.

Jared freezes obediently.

“Knowing all this, would you say executing such an attack holds any sort of long-term reward for the offender?”

(Even with his eyes shut, Jensen sees Jared shaking his head.) “No,” soft, hesitant. “No, just—they’d be incapacitated for a bit, the victim. But other than that…no.”

“‘Momentary relief’,” Jeffrey sing-songs. Jensen knows he is being watched clicking his tongue and withdrawing his hand. Slouched in his chair, he glares at his sire. The barely-hidden grin of him. “It is an art, keeping so many tempers at bay, Jared Tristan, I will tell you that. You try your best picking, let’s say, only certain breeds of people… The hungry ones… The desperate ones.” Jeffrey looks away from Jensen, finally. His neck cranes a bit as he tilts his head, his cheek on his knuckles. “Make good, loyal fighters, those ones. Though the head-butting, I could do without.”

“Has anyone ever…tried? Inside this flock, I mean.”

“To kill someone? Oh, naturally. Happens all the time.”

Jensen watches Jeffrey’s features melting to a smile as Jared asks, “What… What do you do with ’em?”

Jeffrey rolls the words around in his mouth for a moment, it seems. His legs uncross, recross.

Jensen sniffles.

“That depends,” Jeffrey says, finally. “The obvious measure would be death, but you could argue one would welcome that, given the dread of spending eternity as a blood-suckling monster that has driven one or the other to more…drastic emotions.” (Jensen’s stomach turns. He tries not to make a face.) “Every character requires an individual approach, really, there is no set of rules. You figure out what gets to them, and that very thing shall be their punishment.”

Jensen’s, “Don’t,” overlays with Jared’s, “What, for example?” Their eyes meet—Jared looks barely sheepish. Jeffrey turns to Jensen.

“Answer him that one, would you? Since you seem incapable of keeping your mouth shut.”

Jensen growls, “Jeff,” but his sire just clicks his tongue, gestures for Jensen to proceed as ordered—Jensen huffs, sinks back into his chair. Two hands in his face, rubbing: the blood Jared fed him last night reconstructed them already, no ache left behind. “Fine,” Jensen growls, tossing his hands. “Fine. Fine, fine.”

“Well, go on, then.”

“You’ve seen her,” Jensen says in the general direction of Jared. A floppy gesture because otherwise, he’d cover his face again, his mouth. Would cup his stomach. “Down in the—we keep her in one of the cells.”

“Ah, dear Maria,” Jeff says. “Good one, love. Good one. Do go on, go on…”

“But there’s—nobody.” Jared looks back and forth between Jensen and Jeffrey. “No other soul but me, most nights. I would have heard her, wouldn’t I?”

“I doubt that,” Jeffrey says, and Jensen hears his grin in it and wants to get up, wants to leave. “Nobody’s heard her voice for about, uh…three centuries? Was it three?”

Jensen helps, “Yeah,” and Jeffrey nods, gestures for him to continue. Jensen sighs through his teeth. “We keep her—small. In a bucket.” Jeffrey shouts, “Ha!” and Jensen must look for devastation in Jared’s face, for there seems to be merely a shadow of it. “A small piece of her, struggling to reconstruct.”

Jared nods, a little grayer around the mouth. But that is all. “I was wondering why they’d bring…blood to that bucket.”

“And you didn’t immediately run to check? I’m impressed.”

“Why’d she…?”

“Jealousy.” Jeffrey grins. “You know, women and their feelings—it can get to their heads.”

Jared nods like he understands. Like the magnitude of Maria’s torment is that easy to grasp in the matter of a few simple phrases. Jensen’s skin crawls with it—Jared might notice, the way his head jerks towards Jensen, his eyes a little wider than before. Jensen glares without explanation, his head heavy on his hand, his elbow on the armrest of the chair.

Watching them, Jeffrey continues, “Just because our bodies die, our emotions keep on kicking, don’t they?” and neither Jensen nor Jared affirms or deflects this. Not that their input matters in Jeffrey’s rhetoric. “Dear Jensen, here, he’s among my favorites: excellent with those pesky things. Keeps ’em bottled up nice and tight—” Jeffrey’s fist clenches in the air “—ready for the occasional detonation. Put him in the right situation, give him a drop of blood—and watch him go.”

“Jeff…”

“It’s beautiful, really.” Jeffrey beams at Jensen for another moment before he turns fully back to Jared. “Blood strips your inhibitions, lays bare what’s brewing inside of you, like it or not… We all take to it with a different tune, but the song remains the same. Jensen, here, he wouldn’t hurt a fly with a knife to his throat, now would you?” Jensen says nothing. Jared’s eyes jump between Jensen and Jeffrey. Jeffrey scoffs. “You should have seen him, boy. Should have seen what your saint is capable of, once let loose. Once he truly lets himself go.” Jensen remains silent. There is nothing to say.

In the corner of Jensen’s eye, Jared fidgets on his chair. Redistributes his weight and huffs, his brows furrowed just so. Jensen swallows. The damn blood is still pumping through him.

“So, keep that in mind. Because as wonderful as he is all warm and juicy, he can get…overzealous.” (Jensen cringes. Jared is looking at him, now, but Jensen cannot bare to return the gaze.) There is no way Jeffrey doesn’t know what they’ve been up to. No way he doesn’t know exactly where the thrum in Jensen’s otherwise so quiet cardiovascular system stems from. “There’s a healthy balance to everything,” Jeffrey says, clear. “And risks in whatever we grasp for. Jared.”

“Yes.” (Embarrassment; quiet. Jared’s woven-together fingers, the heavy weight of his eyes, the drape of his hair along his temples, down his slender neck—Jensen couldn’t take it, not right now.)

“Since your thoughts are somewhere entirely else right now, I will go ahead and dismiss you.”

“I, uh, I wasn’t—”

“Poor Caleb must be looked after, anyway,” Jeffrey sighs, getting up—glancing at Jensen, whose knuckles grind against his own chin as he stares at the uneven stones making up the floor. “Thanks for putting that on my already-full plate, sweetheart. You shouldn’t have.”

Jensen gets up from his chair after giving Jeff a reasonable head-start. His nestling scrambles after him, shoves the door shut after himself only superficially, uncaring; stumbling. Catching up. Once he no longer is caged in a room together with Jeffrey, Jensen feels himself undulating once more. With the weight of his master’s presence lifted, every step seems to carry him lighter. Muted sunlight streams through the windows.

“I—I didn’t watch. You and the Frenchman. Just so you know.”

Jensen turns around to give Jared a glance. The boy squirms whilst adamantly staring Jensen in the eye.

“I want you to know that. I didn’t.”

“I have no clue how that has any meaning whatsoever, considering you’re in Jeff’s bedroom every other time. But whatever keeps your mind at peace, I guess.”

Jared snaps, “That’s different,” and Jensen snorts, asks, “Is it?” and Jared nods frantic, like a child, catches up with Jensen. Doesn’t bump his shoulder, but could. Jensen glares. Christ. “Jeff’s something else,” Jared decides, and Jensen scoffs. “This time, you…well, you sought him out, the guy. It was different. You wanted it.”

“You think I don’t want Jeffrey?”

“Not like that, no.” Jared still isn’t looking at Jensen. Jensen knows because he checks: mumbling to himself, the kid. Some color high on his cheeks, wild gestures. Flustered, and it’d be sweet if not so infuriatingly clumsy. “You were…passionate. Unashamed. I’ve never seen you like that.”

“I thought you didn’t watch?”

Jared admits, “Not all of it,” and that pink begins to deepen in his face. He glances at Jensen just to grimace like his demise is Jensen’s fault, somehow. “Once I figured, I fucked off.”

“Would you like a medal for that? A pat on the back, perhaps, for your nobility?”

“Jen…”

“Look, I don’t care what you think you saw, because fucking is fucking and that’s all there is to it.”

“But you’re clearly attracted to him,” Jared insists. Jensen walks a bit faster just to make Jared hurry along—it doesn’t stop the boy from his ramblings. “You must—like him, in some way, do you not? Something about him?”

“I don’t like anyone!”

“The accent? Is it the accent?”

“I don’t—do you ‘like’ all those girls, Jared? Are you really trying to tell me—”

“Well, of course I do, that is the whole point of it, isn’t it?”

Jared frowns, huffs. Comes to a halt because Jensen does and considers him warily, unbothered by Jensen’s stoicism. He’s grown immune to it, hasn’t he? Oh, woe is Jensen.

“You can tell me. There’s nothing shameful to it. Just because you’re both men—”

“Would you shut it already? I told you, it meant nothing, he means nothing, I could as well continue the rest of my life not looking at him ever again or never having slept with him in the first place—and who are you, trying to teach me about the morality of sodomy? You don’t know the first thing about sodomy!”

Jared begins, “Well, I know a little,” but Jensen barks, “Bullshit!” and lets Jared stand where he is, just to return after a few steps to poke his stupid chest with his pointer finger. Jared winces. He hasn’t looked quite this miserable since that night his Jew friend recounted the time Jared wet himself when they lost track of time playing in the street as little kids.

Jensen hisses, once and for all: “Stop. Watching. Me. Fuck.” Jared makes a face. Jensen lets up on him, huffing. Shuddering. He grimaces. “The fact that I…even have to tell you that. Christ in Heaven. How would you feel, huh? If I started doing that with you. Watching you.” Jared gives him a sad look. “Oh, right, you prefer to do it in public, anyway. Probably get a rise out of it. People cheering you on like a—a racehorse or whatever… You should be ashamed, you know that? Dignity, Jared Tristan; you should give it a try sometime.”

Jared mumbles, “It’s just fucking,” and Jensen yells, “Oh, is it?! Is it, Jared, is it? So you do know how it is, yet somehow you believe that for a swine like me, it must be somehow different?”

“I’m just trying to understand—”

“No, don’t! You quit that, right now!” Jensen gestures accordingly. Jared’s mouth opens and closes. “No,” Jensen repeats. “It is none of your business. I forbid you to press this nonsense any further.”

“I think I’m starting to get it,” Jared says, airily as if still in thought, and Jensen wants to strangle him. He truly, really does. Jared ignores this for he wrings his stupid, skinny hands and just keeps babbling, his cheeks in a rosy glow. Jensen wants to throw up. Wants to just leave the boy here. Wants to hide in bed and lock him out, force him to find another science project to sate his curiosity with. “I’m, just—I mean, I’ve never met men like…well, like you, or Jeff, and. You’re different, but not…not quite as much as I thought. Yes, I’m starting to… I mean, I’m trying.” Fluttering lashes. Fumbling fingers—Christ. Christ, Jesus. “I want to understand. I sincerely do, Jensen.”

Jensen grunts, “Good for you,” before he can say anything considerably more stupid. Or cruel. “Would you—don’t just stand there, would you get a move on? If we want to head out, we better do it with the sun still up.”

With his back turned, Jensen only hears Jared hurrying after him without further objections.

~

“How long do you suppose you’ll keep doing that with him?”

Jensen freezes mid-lift. Behind him on the bed, Jeffrey’s eyes weigh on him. He makes it up all the way and continues to fetch his clothes off the floor.

“Yes, it is my goddamn business, Jensen.”

Jensen snaps, “Tell me to stop, then,” and, as expected, Jeffrey just glares at him from his throne of pillows, arms crossed. Jensen throws his arms, shrugs. Goes to grab his coat. “Blood is blood, I don’t have to teach you that. And he’s my nestling. I can do with him as I bloody please.”

“Oh, sure you can. So, when are you gonna start putting your mouth where you actually want to put it on him?”

Jensen glares. He pulls his coat on.

Jeffrey scowls, scoffs. “Come on, get over yourself. How much longer do you think you can hold yourself off?”

“I’m not entertaining your tantrums tonight, Jeffrey.”

“Yeah, you got what you wanted, and now you’re scurrying off for dessert…”

Jensen rolls his eyes. Jeffrey calls after him, but he ignores that, slams the door. He huffs, irritated. The last feeding has only been days ago, but as his stomach grows used to these new volumes he lets it have, it grows demanding sooner, too. Jared and some others had been out, just returned midway through Jensen paying his due with Master. Downstairs, Jensen clears his throat, rakes his hair back over his head. The posse hollers and cajoles, still high on the hunt. On the fresh blood. Jared Tristan stands out, as always. Among the tallest, even taller with the stupid hat. His features soften when he spots Jensen from afar, but he cannot yet leave the others’ attention and praise—he looks away again, laughing. Jensen huffs, shoves his hands into his pockets. He can wait just a little bit longer.

Hmm, I bet. The way you worked yourself over for me.

Shut up.

He must reek of that kitty cat, though, the way he buried his entire bloody face in it. Careful if you wanna get it up.

Jensen grumbles, “Fuck off,” under his breath, and after a last round of shoulder claps and the such, Jared separates himself from the group, finally. As soon as their lines of sight slot into the direction Jared is sauntering off to, the whistling and mockery begin. “Animals,” mutters Jensen. If he had enough blood in him, his cheeks would burn.

Jared’s steps are light, long. He pulls his hat off like Jensen is respectable company and the hunt clearly left him exhausted, but, oh, is he as dear as ever. That small, sheepish smile of his. Jensen gives him a look that lets Jared know exactly what mood he’s gonna get if he lets out the comment he keeps so dutifully tucked behind his tongue. He ducks his head a little as he closes in on Jensen. Oh, oof. Yeah. That’s a smell.

“Would it kill you to wash up every once in a while?”

“Oh, uhm…”

“You still got… Nevermind.”

“On my…?”

Jared scratches at the flaky residue in the corner of his mouth. He, obviously, has more than enough blood pressure going for his cheeks to heat up in the otherwise freezing corridor as he sporadically cleans himself with his own spit. Jensen makes a face (but keeps watching).

See? Told ya.

Get lost, Jeff.

Jared mumbles, “Are you two fighting?” and Jensen’s, “No,” layers with Jeffrey’s naturally. Jared’s brows quirk together. He’s still licking his thumb. “I guess I don’t wanna know, huh?”

“No,” Jensen sighs, crossing his arms. He nods to their left, towards the south exit of the castle. “So…?”

“Oh, sure. Yeah.” Jared pats himself down (Jensen can see the outline of his knife from here, though). “Now, or?” Jared balks, realizing. “Uh, again? Already?”

“If you’re busy with something else…”

“No—no, of course not. No, it’s fine. Just…surprising, s’all.”

Jared huffs, his cheeks still hot. Not anywhere as hot as they were an hour ago with that girl, but Jensen can ignore that (forgive that). He keeps holding Jensen’s gaze, fumbles with his weapon belt.

“What?” Jensen grunts.

“You’re just… Nothing.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Boy…”

Jared blurts, “I’m happy that—that you’re getting better. That I can help. That’s all,” and somewhere, Jeffrey stifles his laughter. Jensen’s body does find some leftovers to distribute to his face, finally.

“Can we just go? Please?” and of course, his nestling grants him this wish.

Jared leads the way, as per usual, and Jensen must swallow.

Out in the fresh snow, Jared unsheathes the knife. He turns to check if Jensen is by his side yet, and of course Jensen is. The snow crunches under his boots as he comes to a halt, and Jared’s lashes flutter when Jensen’s hand finds his arm. A heat radiates off the boy that Jensen grew sensitive to after so many feedings: the lingering glow of having fucked something, of having gotten one’s fill. Jensen ignores the persistent echo of Jeffrey’s touch.

Jensen asks, “Let me.”

Without hesitation or comment, Jared hands over the blade. His eyes slide shut as he bares the side of his throat, as Jensen turns him to fully face him, that arm lean and warm in his grip.

Jensen’s mouth chases the rush which follows the strike which made Jared flinch only a little, surprised apparently by Jensen’s finesse with a blade. Jared’s moan stops itself under the cup of Jensen’s hand over the unharmed side of his throat that wrangles him tighter against Jensen’s mouth. Jensen angles his knife arm away, crowds in on the boy—feels him inhaling, sharp, chest against chest. Jensen slurps, swallows. The effect is immediate. His eyes close. He presses closer yet.

Oh, how soft Jared makes himself. Roams one big hand from Jensen’s shoulder to the dip that leads up to his neck, and the other…the other traces the curve of Jensen’s bicep, the shirt in the way but it doesn’t feel like it is, not with the blood intensifying everything. Ribs, flank, and Jensen holds himself where he drinks, lets Jared feel the weight of his bite. His tongue presses forward to milk the already-closing wound further. Jared might feel this, for he swallows. Tilts his head—away, so Jensen can have at it. Can have him.

He makes a noise on a particularly strong draw; Jensen grunts. Shudders, because bare fingers trace the waistband of his trousers, slide under and then up, under his shirt and across his skin and Jensen twists with the thrills. The blade drops into the snow and Jensen steps his feet wider, fists the front of Jared’s shirt and pushes the other—down a hip, up a skinny stomach, and is not stopped. (Hastily shouldered out of, Jared’s coat lands in the snow, next to his long-forgotten hat.) The linen of Jared’s shirt slides against Jensen’s damp palm, fails to hide the nervous kick of all those well-hidden intestines, the coarse, dark line of hair trailing all the way to Jared’s navel. Jared melts and then tenses when Jensen’s mouth lifts off him just to return, to smear up tight and to dig its teeth in anew, viscous. The boy grunts. His grip closes over the back of Jensen’s neck, the fingers of his other hand fanned wide between Jensen’s shoulder blades.

“Jen,” Jensen’s boy sighs, small and strangled, and it goes straight to where it shouldn’t. Jensen replies by shoving harder against the boy, pinning him between the canopy beam and the beast that is Jensen—Jared glugs as a result, stifles another, deeper noise. He’s stroking Jensen’s hair, now. Jensen must stop. He should stop.

He stops. Lifts off that throat just to stare at it after licking at the residue of his own spit, the stolen blood. Has Jared trembling and hot against him, puffs his chest out. He fails to tear his eyes off the mark of his own making.

“Are you happy with yourself? Are you proud? You always get what you want, don’t you? No matter what. You make me this way.”

Jensen hears himself blabber all this, but he hears even more: the rush of blood in himself, in Jared. The pummel of the heart in that chest pressing against him, the ebbs of that stomach and rib cage; the clumsy fingers stroking his neck, into the neckline of his shirt. Jensen blinks, stiff, thumbs Jared’s wound. Jared hisses in response, so Jensen’s thumb digs deeper. The proof of Jensen’s sick enjoyment presses rock-solid into the discomfort of Jared’s right hip. His rambles continue.

“You want me like this, aye? A feral monster. A demon. Is that what you thirst for? Is this the master you desire?”

Jared mustn’t say a thing for he moans as Jensen’s mouth closes over a new spot and his teeth ram deep (but not deep enough to draw more blood). Jared scrambles to yank more of Jensen’s shirt out of his trousers, to cover more of his back. His sanity swooping further and further from his grip, Jensen does the same to the boy—rucks and rucks and then humps forward, hurries open two, three buttons that would have kept him struggling to shove his hand into those trousers—Jared’s knees buckle, then, for real.

“P-prosze…! J-Jen, Jensen…”

Jensen’s teeth kiss under a jaw, a chin. His entire body feels wild, feels on fire and too small and too big at once. Jared’s cheek slides against Jensen’s to meet him just when Jensen ducks his head and drops to his knees, the heavy weight of a long, thick cock in his hand and then on his tongue, in his throat—Jared whines, grabs hair, two fistfuls of it. Jensen forces through the gagging, forces until his nose presses into coarse hair and he can’t sense, taste or smell anything but Jared, the thick, incredible swell of him and his desire and the desperate whine of his voice calling Jensen’s name. Jensen swallows in response, sends his throat milking the boy so tight it hurts. Jared moans and Jensen pulls back just to bump forward again, and again. Jared gulps, somewhere above; he straightens his legs and tilts his hips out before he adjusts his grip on Jensen’s skull. Jared’s thighs flex under Jensen’s hold and Jensen imagines those eyes rolling along with his as Jensen must invest less and less initiative to saw himself on all that cock. Soon, Jared fucks more than he gets fucked, and Jensen feels him swelling thicker yet. Nearing fulfillment, too soon (not soon enough).

Jared’s voice blabbers on in an unintelligible blend of Polish and English and sighs and sniffles, and Jensen hears his own heartbeat and the violent glugs of his throat as Jared pounds it out, feels the tension of Jared’s careless grip in his hair and the ache of it all, the insistent throb between his own legs—and when Jared’s hips stutter and lock in deep, and he groans and his cock flexes hard with his spend, satisfaction rushes Jensen as sweet as if it was his own. And in a way, it is: their connection gleams bright like a flame right under Jensen’s skin, in every single one of his cells.

Jared’s fingers slide through Jensen’s sweaty hair and Jensen must not even swallow, has it poured right in the pool of what he already emptied the boy of. A thick blurt of slick follows what he unearths from the confines of his throat, strings wet between the tip and Jensen’s mouth as he lets it flop out, coughs once and wet and then gags again, blinks.

Tears hang plentiful in his lashes and the air might freeze them if he’s not careful, if he doesn’t clean himself up. So Jensen wipes his face and his beard with the back of his hand. If Jared wouldn’t grab his shirt and pull him up, he might have dropped right on his arse into the snow. But Jared does grab him, and Jensen finds him hot, still, sweaty and slick and pawing at Jensen’s neck, his cheek, into his hair—Jared kisses Jensen, long and hot and good, and his tongue is as big as the rest of him. Jensen melts around it, sucks on it and laps after it, and presses their faces together so close he couldn’t breathe through his nose if he had to. Jared sighs, pants. Jensen gets his throat kissed, gets his crotch kneaded at.

Jensen tips his head back, towards the sky. One hand on Jared’s wrist, holding him off. Urging him on. Both.

“N-no, there’s…no need—”

“Yes, there is.”

Jensen groans. He hides his forehead against Jared’s neck. The heel of Jared’s hand digs hard and artlessly up and down the trapped length of Jensen’s erection. Too-rough, but then again, Jensen might love it that way. Might love whatever Jared’s willing to give, and the realization of this kicks him where he can barely take it. His arms wind around his boy. His precious.

Jared marvels, “It’s so hard,” and Jensen groans, can’t speak. Sucks for air he doesn’t need but which adds a different rush alongside the one pulsing in his loins, his head (in every inch of him that’s pressed against the boy), and greedily, he takes it all. “Is, is this okay? Can I…?” Jensen might nod, or Jared might just make up his mind by himself.

Nothing anyone ever did to Jensen compares to the sensation of Jared Tristan’s palm folding around his prick. Of all that skin and might, choking it up, tugging it out of Jensen’s trousers—Jensen goes a little more insane with it, so aware of—everything. All of it. The salt on Jared’s skin, the girl’s leftover juices. The breathy, clumsy noise catching in that throat.

Jared works him ruthlessly too-fast, too-hard. Might want it over with, or might think Jensen needs it this way. Jensen’s body seems to agree. Jensen stays where he is buried into the crook of this neck, Jared’s pulse against his cheek, his eye. Jensen kisses, licks—Jared’s rhythm falters for that, so easily distracted. His boy. Jensen’s boy.

Caleb’s words echo in Jensen’s head, send him grimacing, send him— “No, just—stay with me. ’M right here, Jen…!” Jensen grunts, clings. Shakes, pathetic like a dog. Jared’s cheek slides against his; that other hand settles on Jensen’s lower back, his coat, keeps him right where he is straining into. Quiet, under the frantic slap of skin on skin between them: “Won’t you give it up for me? I want you to.” And softer, hotter yet: “I’m telling you: I want you to.” The permission whips Jensen. All these months, every stolen glance and dream come to fruition now, here, in his nestling’s arms: with a wild, choked-off moan, Jensen convulses, pressed hard against Jared’s hip, into his wringing, slick grip. Jared’s jaw ticks under his fingers as he feels its shape that his eyes had drunk countless times but never his skin, his lips… Ecstasy dampens Jensen’s sight, but his Tristan is so close, is right there. Lets Jensen paw at him and holds his gaze and wrings every last drop from him until Jensen flinches, overwhelmed.

Jensen shudders, spent and stupid and Jared’s not letting go, keeps him. Kneads at him, still. With a fluttering sigh, Jensen allows his hands to slide off that face. Down that neck, where they settle like a loose collar. An inch or two is what he pushes between their chests, and it was too much because Jared takes it as a sign to discard his hold, and Jensen wishes to tell him: no, stay. You said you’d stay. You promised.

And just like that, Jared’s fingers return. Pet wet around the vulgar mouth of Jensen’s open trousers, the wildness of Jensen’s pubic hair.

Jared blinks only halfway like he, too, cannot bear to let Jensen out of sight.

You can just ask, you know.

No, I cannot.

In the otherwise silent white-black-blue of the snowed-in garden, Jared mumbles, “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bloody piece of work?” and Jensen scoffs, insane, molding his forehead against his nestling’s shoulder.

They stay like this for a while. Must be a while, because when Jensen pulls back and straightens himself, clears his throat and begins to fix their clothes, plenty of snow has collected atop Jared’s hair. The boy’s eyes are still blown black, still high on the feeding. The sex.

Oh, Christ.

Yeah. Aye, definitely enough blood in Jensen now to swoop into the knotted pit that is his stomach.

Jared’s chuckle comes short and dismissive. Jensen’s eyes fix where his nails desperately attempt to scratch the gunk from the leg of Jared’s trousers. Jared’s hand layers over Jensen’s, too-warm.

“Leave it. I’ll wash up later.”

“If you think I’ll let you walk around like that…!”

Jared squeezes his hand, chuckles more. Dips down to fetch his coat, his hat, his knife. Jensen follows to grab a fistful of snow to smear into the offending mess. Jared’s laugh only makes Jensen’s ears burn that much hotter.

“Nobody will care, Jensen—”

“I care!”

Jensen purposefully does not look up at the boy’s face for that heatless, “Should’ve done it in my mouth, then. Look at you, all spotless.” If this was anyone but Jared, Jensen would leave them standing. But this is Jared, and he does paw where Jensen had halfheartedly tucked himself back into decency. Jared snorts for Jensen’s hissed, “Stop it,” the knock to his wrist.

Jared’s mouth keeps a smile tucked around it like a blanket, all night. Or as long as Jensen stands to be in his company, at least. Maybe even beyond that, but Jensen dares not check.

Jeffrey is still in bed, but Jensen does not join him.

Chapter Text

The nearby forests are deep. Serve as a grave for many, and just like everything in proximity to Willow’s Creek, there is history to it, are wild rumors about it. The worst times are over, though, with civilization pulling closer together and grounds being inhabited that once laid so wonderfully bare. Jeffrey and his flock must be cautious lest they be discovered as what they are. Jensen wades through thickets in which he’d have stumbled upon half a dozen bodies by now, back in the day. His boots meet only snow now; frozen thorns. The stream trickles by his side, unrelenting.

Jensen has not stepped foot within the castle grounds for several days now. The thought of meeting Jared—or Jeffrey—or anyone, really, because surely, word of mouth has long completed its due—keeps him preferring solidarity. Of course, he will have to return, eventually. But a few days won’t hurt anyone. A week, or two. What is a month, is half a year, in the face of immortality?

Jeffrey’s voice drones: you can stop being silly now, love; come back. There’s ice in your beard. Well, maybe. It was just a matter of time before it’d happen. Younglings and their masters—you know how the song goes. Well, yes, Jensen does know. So, stop it. You’re a pig like everyone else. If you truly used to believe in being better than us, you might be an even bigger fool than even I. That’s not my issue. You should hear yourself think, then. Will you just leave me alone? I’m not going anywhere. Why, no more trips across the ocean? But sure, sure… ‘You always get what you want, don’t you; no matter what’…

Jensen grimaces with the force it requires to bump Jeffrey away (if only momentarily). And it works, or Jeffrey allows it to work—either way, all sound that filters into Jensen’s thick skull is once more his steps in the deep snow, is the wildlife, the water. The bugs, the ground, the sleeping plants and amphibians: their voices dulled out and away over time along with the soothing weight of blood in Jensen’s corpse.

(Jared hasn’t inquired. Has kept away except for the brief glimpses when he’d check if Jensen was still alive, still brooding.) As Jensen lifts his gaze off the snow and towards the endless trees, a group of deer passes by in the distance. They stare back at him briefly, and, after deciding he is too far to be a threat, continue their journey at a leisurely, grazing pace.

He’s quick: just enough in him for teleportation across those few yards, and the group scatters while one of them squeals with Jensen’s teeth ripping into its jugular, and its struggle is strong but short-lived. Together, they sink into the snow. Jensen drinks, drinks. He wipes his mouth once he finishes. The animal’s thick winter coat shines scarlet where the feast’s excess smeared.

Jensen staggers upright. His vision blurs as colors intensify and shapes gain multi-dimension. And in the midst of it, between two birches off in the distance, stands a figure. Jensen sways, blinks. The fresh meal sloshes uncomfortably, dirty, in his spoiled insides.

Jared Tristan watches, unblinking, as Jensen wipes at his mouth again, the crusted beard, holding his gaze. Tristan’s hair shivers soft and long in the stray breeze. Jensen scoffs. He rubs at the stickiness that coats both his hands.

“I was angry with you, at first. Because you wouldn’t explain a damn thing. You kept me guessing like a dumb child, and part of me wanted to hate you for it. But I couldn’t.”

Jensen hums, rubs at the blood. Feels the hair on the back of his neck shivering straight; grimaces.

“I don’t blame you, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t force such a responsibility on you. But it kept me wondering why you wouldn’t tell me.”

Jensen mutters, “Please leave me be,” as Jared Tristan sets himself into motion. As he strides through the trees not any less awkward than the deer, his legs so long and his eyes so dark. Of course, Jensen’s words have no effect on the boy.

“It wasn’t even Jeffrey who told me. Just a random fella during one of the hunts, because he was curious, wanted to gossip. Surely, you can imagine my surprise when I learned I was bound to love my master. And as that sunk in, I wondered: why didn’t you tell me? Not to manipulate me, that much is true. You wouldn’t do that. Not with me. So, maybe, to protect me? Sure. That sounded right.”

Jensen cradles his hand to his chest. Jared is now only a few feet from him, closes in yet. Jensen turns towards him, wincing. He has nothing to offer, nothing to say. Jared knows it all, anyway.

Jared speaks slowly as if he strings the conclusions together for the first time just now. His brows furrow and as he steps within reach, his hands come up to layer onto Jensen’s shoulders. The boy pats away accumulated snow and ice, distracted. Pondering. Studying Jensen’s face, the lapel of his dirtied coat. Jensen cannot look away.

“But now, I’m beginning to realize…the one you were protecting was yourself. Your own heart, not mine.” Jared’s eyes flicker back and forth between Jensen’s. Jensen’s eyes must shut as those wide, warm palms cup his face, cradle it. Hold it. “If I went along with all this, thinking my emotions were genuine, surely, I wouldn’t reject you. Is that what you thought? I don’t believe so. I believe that you… You hoped, by not bringing it up, that I would be able to resist our bond. By giving me a choice, you hoped to achieve the same for yourself. Isn’t it so, ‘Master’?” (Jensen aches. He cannot answer.) Jared’s thumb caresses the icy skin below Jensen’s eye. Jensen feels the weight of that gaze. “You complain about Jeffrey’s romantics non-stop, and yet you are far worse than him. Do you not feel foolish, sometimes?”

“I see it brings you joy to torture me. How heartwarming to know I made the right choice by bringing you two together.”

Jared continues, “This silly habit of hiding hasn’t lost its spell on you,” and Jensen steels himself, resists the pull of those hands. His hands grasp Jared’s wrists. His boots shift in the snow. “I bet it pleases you to tell yourself how clueless I am. How innocent the nature of my adoration for you must be. That nothing could possibly be as rotten and ugly as you see yourself.”

A whimper escapes Jensen as Jared wrangles their foreheads together despite Jensen’s resistance. His wrists strain in Jensen’s brutal grip.

“You are far, far crueler than you’d admit, forcing my hand in such a manner. Forcing me to take the lead, lifting this responsibility from yours onto my shoulders—”

“I, I never meant—”

“To hurt me? No. No, I know. I know.”

“To make you love me,” Jensen blurts, wild, shivering in the snow. In Jared’s hands, against his chest and face. The blood fills him wrong. Fills out corners of his heart he’d prefer frozen like the snow instead, dead and forgotten like the rot under all the white. “If you hated me, it’d be easier—if you never knew I needed you, if you’d grow sick of me and abandon me, surely, I could make myself forget about you, too—!” The bundle of them jolts with another effort of Jensen to break free. Oh, how his heart races. How sick to his stomach he is. “Had I told you about the bond, my dream would have finished! How could I have imagined—imagined you’d love me if I saw in your eyes that you know I forced it?!”

Jensen hears, “Oh, Jensen,” and if it wasn’t for the boy holding them up, he’d fall—they’d fall. Like a dead tree, down into the snow, and Jensen’s face grinds against his love’s as he kisses, kisses;

how painfully tight Tristan holds him. Like he knows, knows, and aches, too. Beyond the pact Jensen sealed so foolishly, so selfishly, even. Ah, what a dream. What a nice dream it had been.

“You are the maddest idiot in the entire place. Bloody hell,” he hears, muffled because he will not let go, and he is aware, yes. Yes, he is that, and worse.

~

Jensen avoids anyone’s eye. Only when Jeffrey pulls him aside, pulls him until they’re horribly alone and Jensen must look at his sire, does part of Jensen realize that all this is, in fact, true. That he said all those things to Jared in the forest and that he can no longer avoid the consequences, that there will be no more hiding.

Jeffrey snaps, “Your narcissism is so very unmatched that I am inclined to lock you away somewhere just so I don’t have to SUFFER from your constant BULLSHIT, Christian!” Jensen’s arm gets discarded. Jeffrey stalks to the nearest window.

“I didn’t even do any—”

“One more word and I’ll have your tongue!”

Jensen settles. His hands find the insides of his pockets. Jeffrey continues to grumble with his back turned.

“Why did you even bring him here? Your bloody God knows it ain’t to gain my attention.”

“He needs you…”

“Then why do you keep drawing him out? Distracting him?” Jeffrey turns, and so does Jensen’s stomach. Jeffrey grimaces along with him. “Quit the bloody foreplay and get it over with so I can whip that monster-babe of yours into somewhat of a shape before he screws all of us over. Yes, it is that serious.”

Jensen shakes his head. “You said he’s doing well. Aren’t you…?”

“Raising a child comes with the annoying side effect of them growing up. He’s earning more power with every new ounce of it he gains knowledge of. And control over.” Jeffrey sighs, frowns. “He’s wickedly smart, your boy. And fast. And I’m good, but I’ve grown old and comfortable, and he and I are sorely aware of that. And that’s risky.”

“I know,” Jensen says. “I know all this, Jeff.”

“And so does he.” Jeffrey sighs more. “Don’t tell me you didn’t figure him out from the start. You must have seen it, how strong he was. Felt it.” Jensen says nothing. Jeffrey eyes him. He mumbles, “Your taste in men remains questionable to say the least, but you certainly have a type.”

“Can I go?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“Jeff—”

“I need him sharp, not infected with your delicate lady-sicknesses!” Jeffrey barks. The objects on his table rattle as he slams his hand flat down on it. “Fuck your fill, fine, do what you must! But not for one bloody second will you let him forget whom he owes his life to, not the other way around!”

“Is that what this is about? About you being—”

“Oh, it’s never about bloody ol’ me! And now fuck off!”

Jensen welcomes the command. Jeffrey grimaces behind his back, but Jensen could not care less. His face burns as he hastens down the stairs. Of course, he knows. He knows all this. Every last word rings true.

“Oof, hey, bastard—ah, look who it is!”

“Aww, did Master whip that perky little arse of yours?”

Jensen grumbles, “Fuck off, Zahin,” and the man’s teeth show with his grin, and if it wasn’t for several of his men grabbing Jensen by the shoulders and arms, Jensen would have relieved the fellow vampire of some of that weight. As is, Jensen just jolts with the fruitless attempt to ruck himself free.

“Quite the show you and the Polack gave us out there.”

Jensen glares as Zahin brings his hand to brush along Jensen’s cheek. Jensen’s teeth clench to keep from snapping like a dog’s. Daumier has Jensen’s left shoulder. Jensen does not look at him.

“How naughty of you, Priest, to be defying your dear husband like that.”

“Screw yourself.”

“I’d ask you to lend me your precious for that, but seeing how that went for poor Caleb…!”

“Let him go.”

A ripple through the group. Not even Jensen had sensed Jared coming.

The boy just stands there, larger than life in the threat of his passiveness. His face and hands look just as stiff and cold as earlier, in the snow. Jensen meets Jared’s eyes.

Zahin snarls, “Convenient—we were just talking about you—”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Whistles.

Jared blinks, once.

“The balls on this one! You let him gargle ’em after shutting us out, huh? Bloody tease.”

“Only because Master wants to please this one are you getting away with all of this. Have you no pride?”

“Says the man who needs four others to hold down a single fella.” More whistling. Jared has not moved an inch since appearing out of thin air. “I will not ask again. Hands off him, or I will make them come off.”

Daumier scoffs. “Is that supposed to scare us?” Someone else joins in, “The teacher’s pet thinks it can make demands around here!” and Zahin muses, “Don’t mind this cunt here turning on the blarney. He just wants to get into your pants, laddie; you’re not any more special than anyone’s fart, trust me on this.”

Jensen grunts as the group shoves him forward in silent unison. He throws a glare over his shoulder—not specifically at Daumier, but he grazes him for long enough to witness the lack of sympathy on that face—and must free his arm from the next, possessive grab right away. “Stop it,” he hisses, while laughter behind them erupts. Jared does not blink, does not consider the group. Only stares at Jensen who rubs his own arm, shoulders past his nestling. He feels the others’ glares, their hollers and whoops directed at him. He can’t leave them behind fast enough. Jared follows at his heels, naturally.

Zahin shouts, “What a pair you are! Sissy cowards!” Jared does not in the slightest seem affected by the words.

Only when they are out of hearing range, when that particular laughter no longer echoes along the walls but is replaced with other, more anonymous murmuring from other rooms, other halls, does Jensen grab his boy.

Grabs his shirt by the shoulder and hisses, “What is wrong with you!” and he still burns, and it might not leave him for a while. How much easier it was when it was just about him. Jared holds his master’s furious glare with such indifference that Jensen discards his hold with an annoyed huff, rubs his face instead. “… I had it under control.”

“Yeah, that much was obvious.”

“You—”

“No, hold it. I’m not interested in another of your self-loathing rants.”

“You—!” Jensen balks. His brows rise high on his forehead in disbelief.

A faint wrinkle of disgust poses the first hint of emotion on Jared’s face since the forest, and Jensen feels so violently, so shamefully sick with it that he must spin around and face the window instead, kneading his beard. One hand on his hip, he waits it out.

After a torturous moment: “How much longer do you suppose you will allow all that? Is this part of your elaborate penance?”

“I—”

“This will not stop unless you stand up for yourself, can you not see that?”

Spinning around, Jensen insists, “I will rather set myself ablaze than hand them the satisfaction of gaining the one thing not a single one of them has gotten from me, ever!” and Jared continues to look at him like he has three heads. Jensen scoffs, shakes his head.

“They will not stop, Jensen.”

“Then they won’t. That is not on me.”

“You cannot possibly mean that.”

“You wanna bet? Why? Why on Earth would you care about what this scum thinks?”

Those words—for once—seem to reach through the thick fog that seems to have befallen Jensen’s nestling. Jared’s features distort further into those of a small child having its deepest, oh-so-young beliefs questioned.

“Exactly,” he says, deeply frowning. “They aren’t worth the space they take up. So why should they be allowed to abuse you any which way they deem fit? Why should they be allowed to even talk to you? To look at you?”

Jensen scoffs, “Yeah, that’s why I—” but Jared cuts in, “That isn’t good enough.”

The wall, the window at Jensen’s back. He does not quite press up against it, not yet, but if Jared takes another step, he might.

Jared gleams with such determination that, if Jensen didn’t know any better, he’d assume was supposed to intimidate him.

“What are you…?”

“You heard me,” Jared says. He towers. “Throwing yourself on your back got you nowhere, and it will get you nowhere. You crawl on all fours for this nest of degenerates when all the while you could make them worship the ground you walk on. So, no, you are not being the bigger person here, old pal. You are what they see you as: a coward.”

Jensen doesn’t dare swallow.

“What are you afraid of?” Jared murmurs, so close that if he drew a breath, Jensen would feel it. Jared does not touch him, and for once, Jensen doubts he’d want him to. “You are so strong. It would cost you nothing to put them in their rightful place while it’d grant you…!”

“‘Nothing’?”

Jared’s frown deepens yet before it dissolves, and his eyes close and he shakes his head oh-so gently.

“Try ‘everything’. Try—everything I’ve got left: my honor. My bloody dignity.”

Jensen does not defend himself from getting his hand cupped but it sits so stiff in Jared’s hold that the boy discards it soon enough. Jared turns away. The relief in Jensen’s chest sours as soon as it wells up.

“Just imagine,” Jensen breathes. “If I acknowledged them. If I fought, if I’d let them get to me, that would just prove them right…”

“Forget I said anything,” Jared mumbles. “I do not mean to fight. I just wish you’d… No, never mind.”

“Out with it, now.” Jensen gestures. “You wish ‘I’d’? That ‘I’d’ what? Demand their respect? Make them cower before me?”

Small, “Yes.”

“I might be some monster, but not of that brand.”

“It’d help.”

“What? Help? Whom?”

“Everyone,” Jared says, facing his sire once more. Upon Jensen’s scoff, Jared adds, “That’s how it works, Jen. Once there is order, when the strong and capable step up and take the lead…!”

“Oh, they will just fall along? They would bend over for me?”

“Seeing you finally taking claim of what you’re owed? Yes, they would.”

Jensen scoffs more. Jared doesn’t reach out for him again.

“… I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“Obviously.”

Jensen sighs, “Tristan,” and the boy lets him lay his hand over his shoulder, lets it slide to the wide neckline of his shirt. That same, blackened linen, still, nowhere near as black as Jared’s eyes had been in all that snow. No hint of the many scars Jared has caused himself for Jensen. All the sacrifices. His sweetness. Jensen’s eyes swim back to Jared’s face. Jared’s lips.

“You could have everything you want and more if only you’d ask,” he hears, cringing. Lord.

“Sometimes I think you just say things to torture me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jensen closes his eyes against the hand that comes to cradle his cheek.

Its touch mirrors the dead stiffness in his own skin.

~

“There is nothing to talk about.”

Daumier mumbles, “And yet you let me drag you here,” while he pulls the door to his chambers shut. Jensen shrugs, gets tugged around by his arm, his hands in the pockets of his pants. Daumier kisses him whisper-soft. Jensen’s eyes remain open and his hands remain in his pockets while Daumier cradles him. Daumier makes their foreheads rest against each other.

“You did what you had to.”

“Hm.”

“He says ‘jump’, you ask ‘how high’. That’s how these things work.”

“Doesn’t mean I must enjoy it.”

“You think I care? That much? Or at all?” Jensen warns, “Don’t give me that look,” and the day shines bright, outside, freezing. Daumier’s hand is just as stiff and cold as the air when Jensen holds it. “I have long grown accustomed to the cruelty of this place and I suggest you do the same.”

“It is important to me that you understand that I didn’t mean—”

“Nothing means anything in this place,” Jensen tells the man he then kisses. Daumier’s hand finds Jensen’s cheek and so they stand, hold on to each other. Daumier’s lashes tremble when Jensen’s lips move from the center of his mouth to the corner of it, the whiskers and the bearded cheek and back, such a tease that Daumier must pull Jensen by the neck of his shirt, must press up against him so tight Jensen must in turn put up resistance. Daumier’s eyes swim as they drink Jensen in. Jensen allows it.

“To me, you mean—”

“Don’t! Don’t.”

Jensen kisses, kisses. Daumier’s back meets the wall and Jensen’s palms roam across that thick chest, tug at linen and trousers and the leather of a belt, and his thigh presses forward, and yet, Daumier insists.

“Chèr, je suis—”

“Another word and I’m gone!”

“You sure make a scene for someone who claims he does not care—let me APOLOGIZE at least, mon Dieu!”

Jensen throws the door closed after himself, fuming. Daumier is smart enough to not run after him; a disproportional relief. Jensen wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he stalks down the sun-flooded corridors. Stupid, to have expected anything remotely mindful from Caleb’s cattle.

Only a few of them roam the halls at this hour. Eager to replenish what last night’s hunt asked of them, you’ll find them in their quarters, in the great hall and the stables where they fucked and drank themselves to sleep. Jensen wrinkles his nose as he passes snoring pile after pile, the occasional half-awake drunk. The consistent murmur in the back of his head leads him: southeast, out in the yard, where the snow might blind you with how recklessly it soaks up all that early sunlight.

Jensen’s boots stomp through the high snow and he sniffles, ignores that pair coming into view and the voice echoing not only inside of his head alone anymore; ignores so he can focus, can guard himself. They know he’s there, of course, sense him like he sensed them, see and smell and hear just fine but Jensen keeps his insight to himself: how slender Jared stands in the snow with that sword, how old Jeffrey looks next to him, huddled under his heavy fur coat.

Jared’s eyes lift off Jeffrey’s hands and Jensen grants him a tuck of his chin, not more, not less, and Jeffrey folds his other hand around Jared’s on the grip and does not halt his explanation, and does not pay much attention to Jensen, finding a spot to lean and watch comfortably. Jared seems to gleam in the sun, his hair and shirt disheveled like they’ve been out here for a while already, like Jeff had him fussing about enough to bring some sweat to the surface—his eyes remain on Jensen and his chest puffs out with every useless, shallow breath, and Jensen crosses his arms and thinks of nothing. Nothing at all.

“—and now you try. Let’s see it.”

Jeffrey pats Jared’s arm and, like any well-trained horse, Jared sets into motion for that. He steps backwards so he won’t endanger his teacher and then proceeds to raise the sword above his head to swivel it around. Jensen scoffs.

“Like you’re any better,” Jeff points out, his back still turned.

“Better than whatever that is.”

“Make yourself useful or shut the fuck up.”

Jensen scoffs more, digs his heel deeper into the snow. Jared has zoned in on the sequence he performs, looks at nothing and everything, not even at the blade he guides. Give him a task and he’ll dedicate himself to it with everything he’s got. Jensen is surprised that Jeffrey didn’t supply the boy with fine porcelain to balance atop his head.

Jeffrey grumbles, “Is he making fun of me or of you?” and Jared does not miss a beat to tell him, “He thinks you’re too easy on me,” and then Jeff huffs, stuffs his hands deep into his coat pockets and says nothing more. Too early for him. Jensen cannot blame him. Young Jared is a sight to behold.

Jared must know where Jensen just was and what he had hoped to get up to with Daumier, yet he does not throw a single glance to his sire. Jared must be aware of Jensen outright staring, must be, for there is no other reason to move and hold himself like he does: a show horse, prancing. There is no other way to perceive him.

“Now he compares me to a horse again,” Jared mumbles, stiff with focus, and Jeffrey snorts and Jensen’s mouth quirks, but he keeps it small. Keeps it detained.

Would you rather I saw you as something else? Would you rather I drew your image from my memory, from all those nights you climbed those girls? Or from when you were so stiff against me, in my mouth, that whatever your muscles are doing right now seems like a sad attempt?

Jared doesn’t look at him for this, either. Blinks more than he’d need to, but then again, the sharp wind blows his hair into his eyes. No sound out here but Jared’s boots in the snow. The cut of his sword through the icy air, the shift of his clothing. Jensen must be vigilant to continue to keep Jeffrey out, or at least blur their connection. There is no such thing with Jared anymore (if there ever was).

Jensen accuses you enjoy me watching, well aware, while Jared ends his show to be corrected, to start it all over again. A fleeting glimpse for Jensen, then, while Jeffrey condescends and puts his ugly hands on Jensen’s perfect boy, shows and leads, and Jared’s hair sticks to his face, and Jensen watches with unbridled pleasure how that Adam’s apple bobs with that small, timid swallow.

I wonder—which one might you prefer? Being the watcher, or being watched?

Jared Tristan blinks right at Jensen and wets his lip, nods to whatever Jeffrey advises. Jensen feels heavy with it. Feels dark.

That night in the garden, or out in the forest—if Jared does not desire Jensen, he at least entertains his own curiosity through messing with him, and this is good enough—is more than Jensen deserves, really, and it humiliates him how badly he craves these morsels. How badly he’d like to just waltz over, capture Jared in another of their insane embraces that crack bones in Jensen’s brittle body… (Or how badly you’d like to kiss me.) Yes, and that. (On my mouth? Or elsewhere?) Yes. And yes.

Jared swallows again and lifts his eyes together with his sword arm.

Jensen hollers, “Can I borrow him tonight?”

Jeffrey snorts. He calls over his shoulder: “Depends.”

“Hunting, old-fashioned.”

Jeffrey turns around for this. Even over the remarkable distance, Jensen can see that sneer.

Jensen tells him, “Gotta see what I can salvage, seeing how you’re obviously spoiling him rotten.”

Jeffrey snorts more and, after consideration, turns back around, shaking his head. Jensen grins to himself, bouncing his knee.

“You know, dear Jared, I always thought I wanted him this bold with myself…but now I’m starting to think I might have been spared.”

Jared does not laugh, but his mouth trembles like he almost did.

He glances at Jensen one last time before returning fully to his practice.

Chapter Text

They head out once the sun lowers herself past the horizon. No horses because Jensen prefers not to bother with them. Just enough blood pulses in him from the last feeding that shifting and flying is an option. Once above the desired spot, they fall out of the sky, out of their obscured shapes; Jensen catches his stumble just-so. Jared presses up behind him, calm and alert like any predator and, unlike Jensen, not shivering from exertion. Jensen puts his finger to his mouth and leads them silently across the snow. The royal guards in the humble wooden outpost keep smoking and mumbling through their game of cards.

As briefly as it lasts, as satisfying slashes the violence.

Jensen is the one to barrel through the door, and the men—three, three corrupt bastards—draw quick but not quick enough to parry invisible forces that slam them up against the wall or to parry the whiplash of a young man jumping right to one of their throats. Jensen shakes from the strain but the wall is near and a throat easy to grab, to wring, and there are shouts until there aren’t. Until Jensen’s world is blood and nothing but blood.

Its warmth, comforting and sickening just like the weight of a hand, a body pressing up against his back and Jared Tristan’s familiar smells, the texture of his fingerpads so distinct through two layers of clothes with Jensen’s senses so heightened, a texture clear like a prayer he’s known all his life. Jensen shudders with the corpse still in his arms, its former weight so light now that the liquids changed holders.

Jensen pants heavy like he must, like his lungs work again and the dead cells in his body gasp for oxygen. His head lolls into Jared’s sticky palm and the world behind his closed eyelids dances in multifaceted colors, bursts and waves and oceans of lights and sparks. The slide of Jared’s mouth (his teeth) along the bared curve of Jensen’s neck only adds to this, adds a darkness threatening to swallow Jensen right up.

The boy reeks of blood and intestines and Jensen must not open his eyes to know just where bits of livers and pancreases and uniforms and teeth are strewn across walls, chairs, playing cards: Jared’s meal coats the entire, crammed hut. Two whole soldiers—Jared still could use another.

Jared helps, “Could use you,” and Jensen writhes for the hand that pushes under his shirt, feels where his cursed heart pumps the generous meal into all the nooks and crannies Jensen so carefully let wither all these years. “Jared,” he says, somehow, and the boy kisses his neck and Jensen shoves the dead man off his lap so Jared’s hands can get to his trousers more easily—he’s so quick. It’s that urgent.

Jensen groans with his whole body, down on his knees, the icy wind playing with the heavy door; the last stubborn candle dies and they’re alone with the snow, the night. Jensen bucks and curls and grasps but the weight on his back remains oppressive, remains this one constant he cannot dig through to. Jared’s hair bunches so soft in his fist, the thick sleeve of his coat wet-cold in the other, while Jared works him rough and fast. Jensen grunts and shudders like any other animal would. Jared is as quiet as the flesh he ripped into (as stiff and warm and everywhere, too). Jensen careens towards completion. There is nothing he can do to hold himself off.

Jared presses kiss after kiss below-behind Jensen’s ear as he groans through it, pulses through it—Jared wrings him painfully tight at the base, swivels over the head with his other hand. With the ebbing pleasure comes the dreaded aftermath, the bite of awaiting emptiness. That horrible clarity. Jensen pants open-mouthed, oversensitive and bucking from every still-coaxing pull. Jared does slow his hand, though, lets Jensen crumble, lets him sink deeper onto his haunches.

Somewhere: “You’re still hard.” Jensen snorts, swallows. The boy’s fist keeps moving up and down, a ghost of a grip before it lifts entirely. Another, pressing kiss. Jensen wets his lip, cranes his neck—

if you say I wanted him , then what is this ?

“It’s the blood,” Jensen croaks, after finishing their kiss. Jared hooks his chin over Jensen’s shoulder, wipes his hand on the inside of Jensen’s shirt.

“Hmm. Of course.”

“I can’t help it.”

Jared whispers, “I wish I could have you like this. Always,” and Jensen helps him wringing his arms tighter around his middle, and he swallows more. Jared’s body is one stiff, hot line against Jensen’s back. Fresh blood surrounds them, and yet Jensen cannot be aware of anything but the boy.

They don’t speak. They mustn’t.

The stairs down into the dungeon have not grown any less steep or any more welcoming, but Jensen’s love makes it bearable for it turns his senses blind to anything that isn’t the boy walking in front of him, occasionally glancing as if to be sure Jensen hasn’t spontaneously discorporated. His eyes grow more and more sheepish every time Jensen earns yet another peek. The ceiling is so low, opens like a maw the further in you go. Dripping water, always, somewhere; slick, unwashed stone. Mold and coldness, and Jared beams like a torch, like smoldering, white-hot coal.

“Almost there,” promises Jared. Jensen swallows. He’s thrumming, still, again. So many years since he’s been down here. It must speak volumes of his character that, of course, the only motivation capable of dragging him down here would be a pretty boy. - ‘Pretty’, huh? - Shut up.

“I hope you’re aware that I’ll never shut up about any of this, ever,” Jared says, turning—for they reached whatever destination he had in mind, and he pulls Jensen close. And there is a hesitation before he presses his lips to Jensen’s, and Jensen watches in the dark how those eyes slide shut, how they flutter back open and Jared mumbles, “Come. Careful,” and Jensen feels too big, too old. Too much drags along the chains the decades tied to his ankles, and Jared lights a candle over in the corner of what must be his quarters. As the illumination grows and grows, Jensen must swallow with the sight.

Books, papers. Weapons and the good clothes Jeffrey had gifted, a cot because this used to be a cell, and maybe Jared catches Jensen narrowing his eyes at it for he slides to his side after discarding his coat, cups one big, soothing hand over Jensen’s hip.

“It’s not too gross, is it?”

“I’ve had worse.”

Jared snorts. Blinks, wets his lip.

That mouth tugs to the smallest possible smile and Jensen feels the inside of his ears burn as he mumbles, “Is there a bet I should know about? I feel like a hare being bated into a beheading,” and Jared lifts his hand to brush a snow-wet strand of hair out of Jensen’s eye, and Jensen wants to bite it. To lick it, eat it. Gnaw it to the bone.

“I love that you can’t stop being like that,” Jared tells him. “Not even now.”

“What if you hate it? You might hate it.” Jared shakes his head. “Don’t be a brat with me. Not now. I beg of you, not now.”

“There has never been a better time, actually,” and Jensen surges to wrench their mouths together, for he can’t take another word. Can’t take yet another proof that this is, in fact, Jared Tristan. Months of waiting, months; more than a year, counting the time Jensen merely hovered in the darkness of New York City. Even back then he dreamed of this: Jared’s face in his hands, the hard dig of his beardless chin against his own.

The boy walks backwards, into the corner where the cot awaits. Jensen is right there, throws off his coat before he goes in to unlace Jared’s trousers. Yanks them open, discards a belt. Watches: Jared, sinking onto the slim bed. Those elbows shove back so Jared will be propped up like a doll, ready to kiss; his thighs fall open in his beltless trousers with their lacing undone. Boyish and bold, horribly, horribly aware of what it does to Jensen. (Jared’s eyes gleam wet in the candlelight. Under Jensen’s shadow, the tremble of Jensen’s shoulders.) The soldiers’ blood cakes patches of skin, hair, linen, but the boy is licked-clean around the mouth.

“Your defenses are slipping. I can read you like a book right now, you know.”

“What am I thinking, then?” and Jared’s eyes tremble a bit as he wades deeper into Jensen’s mind, and then his nostrils flare and he blinks, soft, as he sees. He leans back some more.

Jensen straddles him, on the bed. Pushes both hands up Jared’s stomach, lays it bare from the thin cotton. The flushed, long line of Jared’s prick lies soft over his hip, pushing longer yet as he swallows, as he grabs Jensen’s wrist and mumbles about unnecessary teasings. Mumbles, “You love me, so be nice. You’ve gotta be nice with me or I might not let you keep touching it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

Jared sighs, sweet. Guides Jensen’s hand, folds it around where he so selfishly wants it: motions how he wants it, firm and slow. Coaxing. Once confident to have given enough pointers, Jared sinks into his bed for real, one arm bent behind his head, the other light on Jensen’s knee. He wets his lip, watches. His eyes flicker to Jensen’s for a shy second when Jensen’s other hand joins the first.

Jared opens his mouth to say something but stops to swallow for getting his sac cupped, tugged. Jensen burns for the heavy weight of it. All of Jared is just so…much. Jared sighs thinly but his fingers cringe on Jensen’s leg as Jensen’s fingers slide lower, past the sensitive swell of his testicles. Jared swallows again. Exhales slow and controlled and Jensen strokes all those hairs, the thick swell of that taint and into the furled-tight, hot dip below. The ring of his fingers parts further and further around the growing girth of Jared’s cock; Jared’s foreskin bunches less and less loose. Jensen can’t stop staring. - You’ve seen it before… - No, not like this. Not when it’s mine and nobody’s but mine.

“He’s trying to get in,” Jared says. “Do you want me to…?”

“Keep him away.”

Jared hums, flattens himself further. His belly jumps and tenses as his skinny hips shift and Jensen still stares. In sudden urgency, he rids Jared of his pants altogether. The boots must go for this, too, and Jared helps, must sit and his head is so conveniently close for a kiss so Jensen takes that, too. Rewraps that cock with one hand while his other follows the shape of a hairy shin, a knee—which he kisses, next. Jared splutters for this. His hands hover over Jensen’s shoulders.

“That tickles,” Jared explains, barely-there. Jensen kisses the top of a thigh, the inside. Jared’s fingers slide to cover the back of Jensen’s neck. Another soft noise, because Jensen quickly loses his inhibitions.

“And this?” he asks, his nose nudging and his mouth kissing, licking. Jared is still sitting. Would be easy to push back down. “And what about this?”

Jared moans softly but Jensen only gets a few bobs of his head in before the boy pulls him off.

“This’ll be over before it even starts if you do that…”

“Don’t be silly… All that blood, you’ll be ready once more in no time…”

“No,” Jared sighs, pulling at Jensen. Pulls at his shirt until Jensen reluctantly stands, his arousal clear as day. Jared paws at it once he catches sight of it—Jensen grabs that wrist with a groan, shakes his head. “Let me,” Jared pleads, and Jensen huffs because, oh, the push of that palm has him aware of just how much he needs. “Let me, Jen, I want…! Let me.”

Jensen grabs into all that hair instead of defending his trousers further. His heart pummels him insane; the greedy tugs and yanks of Jared’s beautiful fingers…! Jensen groans when he’s pulled out, finally, when Jared loses no time to stroke him root to tip and ducks his head, too—! “J-Jared,” Jensen blurts, steadies his knees. Quick kisses press to its side, the fat head. Jensen does not mean to shove his hips forward but they fight him for it regardless, even more so when Jared braves his mouth open, braves Jensen inside.

Jared chokes, but Jensen only fastens his grip in his hair.

The heels of Jensen’s boots shift audibly on the uneven stone floor.

Jared recovers (Jensen feels him swallow). Allowed to pull back, he does so, iron grip on the base so he can hold the whole thing straight to familiarize himself with it: its weight on his tongue, its girth forcing him to pry his jaw wider to spare it from scraping teeth. He’s clumsy with it, so artless that tears threaten to well in Jensen’s eyes—Jensen forces that away, though, rocks carefully so as not to make the boy lose his rhythm. Gentle, if anything. Jared, learning what is required of him.

“Has he ever…? Love, if he ever laid a finger on you like this, tell me now…!”

Jensen already knows the answer but he must hear it. Must hear it so much he pries the pretty thing off his cock so it can speak, that big tongue out and silly, still, wet-blinking eyes. Jensen grunts with old pain and even older cruelty as Jared shakes his head, his hand still working because he wants—yes, I want you—and Jared’s throat makes a good noise upon being forced into anew, one that Jensen instantly knows he will never be able to forget or not-desire. Jensen holds the boy’s head stiff while he fucks into the crammed back of that beautiful, long throat. Jared does not fight it. His hand stays right where it is (where, on the upstrokes, it wedges hard into Jensen’s pelvis and against Jared’s lips). Even if Jeffrey—if anyone—was watching, Jensen would not be able to hold back anymore. The realization gleams like a brand in the turmoil of all that blood.

“No man but me,” Jensen grunts, grinding in and keeping himself there—and Jared gags around him, but he’s not going anywhere. This—this is my love for you. This is what you do to me. “Swear it. Swear no other man gets to…!”

Jared comes up to cough, “No man but you,” and, “Kochanie,” and when Jensen pushes him down to kiss him, to climb him, one long-long leg grabbed and hooked over his hip and those hands in his face, cradling and pulling. Jared kisses like Jensen’s still in him, like all of Jensen is the same to him. Jensen’s hair hangs into both their faces and he pants between kissing and spitting into his hand, brings that—to Jared’s stiff-as-a-board prick and works that good and quick, and Jared shudders and moans hard for that but his arm slings out to reach over-behind his head. Jensen snorts upon that tiny flask getting pulled into view, for Jared uncorking it with his big thumb and the boy so sweetly scowling up at him.

“Don’t you laugh at me.”

“I have not laughed in all my life. And what do you think you’re gonna do with that, huh?”

Jensen kisses a cheek, a temple. Lord, the familiar scent of that oil. The familiar texture of it as he gets it massaged onto his prick, the full, twisting pulls that send his sac tight.

“Jared,” Jensen says, kissing. Blanketing, shifting—against the long line of this body. This boy. His. Who makes another of those small, debilitating noises, somewhere between a huff and a grunt and a ‘get over here’ beckoning that even a man more restrained than Jensen could not withstand if he wanted to. “My dear Tristan,” whispered, begging.

Jared could tell him ‘I want it’ or could just think it, too, but all he offers are his eyes, the blank passion of his face as he helps sliding Jensen’s prick where Jensen can then—oh, it feels impossible. Jensen can’t—

“You can… I’m not—”

Jared shuts up again, then.

Jensen trembles, clutched up so tight that discomfort nearly trumps pleasure (but not quite). Jared gasps with his entire body for the next shove, and Jensen imagines sensing regret. But Jared stays wrapped around him so fast with arms and legs and the imperative of his (now slightly blurring) stare that his monster could not pull off him if he tried. If he wanted to.

As Jensen rocks, he kisses a slack mouth, receives an absent motion in that jaw, that tongue. Jared huffs and the grip Jensen reapplies to his prick—still hard as a rock; Lord—sends him fluttering so sweet inside that Jensen nearly forgets himself. Jared moans, kisses, holds… Rocks with Jensen, eventually, grateful for the distracting hand.

“I love you,” Jared sighs, full to the brim with blood and Jensen will not hold it against him later, he vows this to himself—kiss, kiss. “I love you… I love you, it’s okay. I’m yours. It’s—yours, Jen…!”

Not even with Daumier was it like this. Was it this lustful, this fulfilling.

Jensen groans harder than the ancient cot. His hips fall into a chase he can only win, and Jared’s mouth tastes so, so good. Tastes like iron, still, like raw meat and Jensen’s genitals and Jensen groans into him while he punches him out inside, while he carves the space he was meant to hold from the moment he laid eyes on this boy. And Jared moans like he agrees, like yes, yes, “Yes,” whined and frayed around the edges because Jensen knows how it feels even when it’s good, like you’re really giving it up, when they’re so far up inside you that you feel like you’re gonna break… “G-God, you’re so…! Don’t stop… Fuck, don’t you dare to fucking stop…!” Jensen doesn’t. Lays into it, repercussions be damned… Let him be damned, it does not matter anymore, he did his deed, he paid his price over and over and over, all those years… More, “Yes,” and swirling tongues, hands in Jensen’s hair, nails that rake up and down his still-clothed back, the linen damp and damper from building sweat… Jensen loses part of himself, right here. Inside this lovely boy who might only want to please him, bound by blood and forces beyond their understanding. But Jensen owns him, now, owns every noise and shudder from this body he fed back to life and that quivers on every harsh slap of a thrust, teeth gritting and that prick so stiff in Jensen’s fist, drooling wet-wet-wet and thick, that knee nearly kissing that shoulder, so effortlessly, so vulgar…!

Jensen comes with a shout, a whole-body sob. Locks in to grind and feels himself melting up, the cramp just-behind his taint that sends shudder after shudder, sends Jared full with… Oh, how darling he gulps for getting worked off. How effortlessly Jensen may pleasure himself by making this arse milk him in and up with every involuntary clench…!

Jensen’s dear boy whimpers, “Jen,” and then he follows, just like that—spills plenty and hot and Jensen groans along with him, feels every wrung-out gush from the inside. Feels that wonderful, thick prick pulsing in his grip, the desperate kicks of it as the pressure bolts through it. Jensen’s lashes flutter; he cannot stop kissing this wet, open mouth that so incessantly whines and whispers his name. Whispers Polish and English and no words at all, until it all melts into one, melts into something so wonderfully Jensen’s that this, beyond everything, proves Jensen’s biggest treasure. Something nobody else will get, ever, no matter what will happen. He knows this for sure.

They roll off the bed, almost, too caught up in each other and their joined pleasure to care for anything else. But they don’t, and Jared laughs a bit like he’s drunk, and Jensen’s still in him and he blinks

as he watches Tristan settling. The slow, deep swim of those dark-dark eyes. The flush to those cheeks, deep and so horribly fleeting, so Jensen simply stares until his old head refuses to forget, until this can never be taken from him. Jared huffs, lets his teeth peek out below his lip. His hair sticks to his face. Jensen does not move an inch for getting some of it peeled out of the corner of his mouth. Jared chuckles.

“Are you just gonna stare at me like that?”

“If I kissed you instead, would you prefer that?”

Jared mumbles, “I would not mind that,” and gets that. Gets his gums licked because Jensen delights in hearing (and feeling) him chortling. Jensen is still stuffed into the boy to the brim. If Jared says nothing, he might just stay right there. Jared tells him, “I would not mind that, either,” and, with a groan (and a yelped laugh), Jensen rolls them over anew.

How odd, not to fall. Not to lose your footing, just be…held. Kept.

“Hmm, all that blood surely does you good…!” And then Jared grunts, jostled, and his eyes roll, and. Yes.

Yes.

All night, Jensen forgets who he always thought he was. What this place is; who they are. It simply does not matter.

Chapter Text

Ten winters pass.

Willow’s Creek finds not much change unless you count the little things. Little things such as Jeff continuing his lessons for Jensen’s nestling or Jensen frequenting the dungeons so often his long-term hatred for them seems cured. The line of ‘little things’ however finds an abrupt end one wet autumn morning. It had started raining the prior afternoon and refuses to stop.

Jensen’s memory catalogs: how deep his boots sink into the mud where he stands out in the yard. How Jared avoids his eyes, and how heavy this slim boy hangs in his arms. The downpour soaks Jensen to the skin by the time he can follow them inside. Nobody joins him despite the many eyes from every window, every roofed spot. The yard and castle are silent but for the incessant hammer of rain.

“What is this, Tristan?!”

“I had to. I had no other choice!”

Down in Jared’s quarters, Jensen’s fists tremble at his sides as Jared oh-so-gently puts the young thing down: young indeed, not a child by any means but young and Jensen stammers, empty, while Jared rushes to light a flame, the candles, everything he has. “Would you help me?” he utters, nearly as pale as the boy, dripping like a dog. Jared’s black shirt clings to his skin. If Jensen didn’t know any better, the boy Jared wrapped in that coat might still be dead. Gaunt. Sick. “Jen—Jensen, I beg of you—!”

“Off me!”

“He’d have died had I not—”

“SO WHAT?!”

Over on the big, wide bed, the blond thing’s lungs try to breathe so desperately that the resulting sound takes up the entire cell. By the door, Jensen yanks himself loose. Jared stumbles back.

“You don’t mean that.”

Jensen leaves with a scoff.

Jared remains downstairs with the boy for a week, comes up only to hunt. Jensen prefers that. He’d like to raise an idea for if they ran into each other, but whenever he allows anything but paralysis, he boils with rage. Jeffrey complains about a broken mirror, a trashed vanity. Jensen throws another out the window and isn’t reprimanded again. Jeff might scowl, but Jensen is not at fault. No, no, he is not.

Alexander—Jensen learns his name from the gossip, the whispers.

Jared has the nerve to bring him up that first time with the great hall packed to the brim. Jensen leaves promptly. It’s raining again.

“This is your fault,” Jensen tells the darkness around him, the thick aroma of rain on cold, dead leaves. That bench, unshielded from the rain but Jensen needs to sit, or he’ll pace. “You and your bloody…! I told you to stop putting ideas into his head…”

Jeffrey hums, “You overestimate me,” and does not sit with Jensen, remains under the canopy. It will need some tending next summer or it will collapse altogether. Jensen wrings his wet and wetter hands, elbows on his knees. He shakes his head in slow, continuous swings. “I had nothing—”

“‘Survival’. Isn’t that what you preach?”

Jeffrey sighs.

“‘Them or us.’”

“You suffer, I get it…”

“‘Not any better than cattle. They require a strong hand. Permanent guidance.’”

Jensen rises as Jeffrey grumbles, “Plucking a sickish pup out of the gutter, is that not your spiel?” and Jensen snaps, “This is different,” and Jeffrey snorts, has the guts to roll his eyes and lets Jensen stomp up to him, lets him wring his throat.

“You had it coming,” Jeffrey gurgles, indifferent to the choke-hold. “You let ’em be soft around you, this is how they repay you.”

Jensen releases him. Walks the other way a few steps to roar, to fling his fist at the nearest thing. It happens to be a fence post. Rotten wood bursts under and into his knuckles but the satisfaction is gone even faster than it came. Jensen growls as he shakes his hand out, paces. Jeffrey’s deprecatory stare burns into the back of his neck.

“He—”

“DON’T! Don’t. Please, just…”

Jensen finds no more words. Jeffrey, bless him, does not supply him further.

As much as Jensen would prefer not to, he counts the days it takes Jared to muster up his courage. Every time his nestling’s attention dips into Jensen’s conscience, Jensen lets it have nothing but the bare, ugly truth: you hurt me, and I am hurting. There would be one way only to set things right (truly right). They both know there is no way for that measure to take place. Just as much as Jensen sees nothing but ugliness in it, is Jared enthralled with his pet. He would not give him away.

Tuberculosis, and Alexander looks the part: small, skinny. He loses the rattle of coughing fits over time as his eaten-away lungs recognize they have finally been released of the cruel slavery of vital function. He cleans up nice enough and, after a sizable meal, you might find his face supple and his complexion less anemic. But the brand of sickness remains, forever contained in a body that will not age. For as much as Jared freed the boy, as much did he burden him. Jeffrey would have never allowed this—only the healthiest, the strongest specimen may be added to his flock. (But Jared is Jensen’s, and so Jared’s is…just enough of not Jeffrey’s business. The others would argue if this wasn’t Jared Tristan.) After centuries of the unspoiled sight of a mostly-proper-looking-crowds, everyone’s eyes inevitably fall on Jared’s chosen prize. Alexander stands out like a thorn. And Jensen hates to admit it, but the boy stands up for himself well enough. (And, again: Tristan’s prize is off-limits. Nobody would contest this.)

Jared must not reprimand except for a stern look here and there, until everyone looks the other way. Jensen’s guts turn at the sight of the two of them, side to side. Jared takes his boy everywhere. By the time Jared finally corners Jensen in an unguarded moment, Jensen has turned blind to his accessory. So much, in fact, that he does not recognize that Alexander is not with Jared.

“You never talk to me anymore,” Jensen hears, sweet and boyish exactly how it’ll get to Jensen best, and Jensen makes an according face. Jared foresees this, of course, and Jensen must put a hand to the stomach that threatens to push against his own. “Have you gotten over yourself by now or must I miss you any longer?”

Jensen tells him, rightfully, “I detest you,” and their first kiss after exactly thirty-one days only worsens Jensen. Jared might sense it because he doubles down, presses Jensen so hard into the corner of this corridor that, to break free, Jensen would have to put up more honest effort than he has available. Jensen’s fingers wind into Jared’s hair, the darling lengths of it that bunch and string just right. (Jensen does not think on how he saw Alexander try the same. How out of place his small hand looked where Jensen’s fits perfectly.)

The tower lays asleep at this early hour, snoring or the absence of it, cold bodies piled on and around the many beds in the many chambers. Jensen nearly stumbles over a crease in a carpet, and Jared bangs the door on accident because his pants are already loose and Jensen’s trying to get on his knees although the bastard blabbers, “No, wait, wait; not yet, not so fast, love—!” Jensen grunts under the harsh tug on his scalp because that fist is still there. Jared’s trousers are no match for the two-handed yank and Jared’s teases fall flat the moment Jensen drops to eye-level with his crotch. A groan for the first, whole-faced kiss, scrambling hands in Jensen’s hair for the tilt and rub of Jensen’s mouth along that stiffening length. Jared hisses Jensen’s name and Jensen swallows him to the hilt, the capacity of his throat be damned, and even without Jared’s enthusiastic help, he’d saw himself silly on it. Bubbles of stale spit string between Jensen’s chin and Jared’s balls by the time Jared forces him off, so pulsing that Jensen is surprised neither of them finished yet.

“Let me in,” Jared grits, like he wasn’t just now (like he isn’t, still, since that first night Jensen caught sight of him and his friends at that bar in New York City). His prick stands long from his body; Jensen’s mouth can’t quite reach it despite his struggles against Jared’s iron-grip on his hair. One boot steps between Jensen’s legs and he grunts for it, jolts with it. Jensen’s hands dip to undo his own belt and trousers without his input. Jared strains with the effort. “Off with ’em, all of it. I must see you.”

Jensen’s back meets the abandoned, dusty bed with an embarrassing shriek of said bed, and Jensen’s legs struggle to assist in Jared pulling his boots and trousers off whilst folding up and in, exposing where Jared shoves himself despite either of them being ready for it—Jensen groans. One fist secures a twisted grip in the back of Jared’s shirt while the other rubs the oil Jared dispenses between them, the same little flask as ever, not quite full despite them not seeing each other for… Oh, Jensen sobs, bites back the yell that wells from the rough, too-soon shove, and then Jared drowns him in another kiss, licks so far into the back of Jensen’s mouth that the world could end around them and Jensen would not pick up on it.

Jensen’s boy skips any useless kindness and lays into him. Jensen thrashes, has every wail suffocated and replaced by Jared’s urgent animal-grunts. The boy slaps into him like nothing was ever between them in the first place, and Jensen sobs, tucks his face into the crook of that neck, arms and legs wound around his Tristan. There is not much talk, after. Jared owes not a thing, and Jensen does not feel like reminding him of it.

“I did what I had to,” Jared reminds, again, on the edge of the bed as he pulls his boot back onto his bare foot. Jensen continues to roam that equally bare back where he slipped his hand under Jared’s ever-loose shirt. Jared eyes him over his shoulder. “We talked about the possibility so many times. I assumed you knew how I felt. And then Alex just…happened.”

Jensen hums.

“You’re not listening, are you?”

Jensen hums again.

Jared scoots to face him, leans down to kiss and cradle Jensen’s face. Jensen’s thumb traces the curve of Jared’s lip. Jared kisses it, too.

“Nothing has changed. Not a thing.”

“I wish that were true.”

“It can be. It is.”

Jensen sighs, “Just the thought of the two of you…!” and Jared kisses him for it, so eager to drive his point home. Jensen scowls regardless. Maybe Jeff is right about him and his nature. Maybe more so than Jensen would like to admit.

Jared vows, “Everything he gets, I double for you.”

Jensen grunts.

“Every kiss… Every night. … What? Don’t you trust my word?”

Jensen grumbles, “I trust you are an incurable fool of a boy,” and makes note of the little smile Jared tucks behind the kiss Jensen pulls him into by the front of his shirt.

~

“You should meet him. Might change your mind about him.”

Jensen snorts.

Jeffrey continues, “For someone so insistent on calling themselves virtuous, you surely are a bloody prick, my love,” and Jensen rolls over to swing his legs off the bed. Jeffrey grabs his wrist. “I am not done with you.”

“We were done the second you brought him up.”

“Your issues are beyond me. What is it with you? Is your beloved Tristan not at your feet, same as before? The little plague rat is no competition. Not for you!” Jensen dresses swiftly. Behind him, Jeffrey upsets the sheets as he complains with his entire body. “He’s doing your boy well, yes—is that what repulses you so? That he’s finally gathered some actual focus, is starting to take things seriously around here?”

Jensen gets up without another word; one pointed glare at his sire is enough. Jeffrey flings his arm, so the colorful silk robe tugs looser yet around his distended middle. Jensen is not stopped on his way to the door.

“I don’t know why I still try to understand you.”

“That makes two of us.”

Jeff yells, “At least quit the damn nursing! My poor Jared is gonna be emaciated at this point, with two stupid mouths to feed! You’re his sire, not the other way around!” and Jensen’s hand rests on the door for a moment before he can make it through. Arguing is not worth it. Jeffrey is right: there is no understanding this.

As Jensen descends the narrow spiral of stairs on this cold afternoon, the castle begins to rouse. Heads poke out of doorways here and there, yawns and dull eyes and stiff limbs. With the sun hiding soon and sooner every day, their lot rules more hours respectively. An excellent time to raise a nestling: plenty of hunts, plenty of weak prey. The streets overflow with corpses. It will only worsen from here on.

Jensen must not search to know where the two boys are. Must not stand close to witness Alex’s soft-soft mumbles and the lack of Jared’s response for there is no need for one with how close they are with each other already. Like Alexander has always been there with his small, blue eyes that sometimes flicker just-off to where Jensen’s invisible sight looms and suffers (yet unable to stay away). Despite the plentiful feedings, strength takes its time to supply itself to the faint little thing. Potential, yes: Jensen spotted its flimsy twinkle just like Jared must have. But shining it will take time and effort. Of course, Jared chose a challenge for his first turn.

Alex gulps yes, flushed and his hands on—Jensen turns away then, just in time. His legs refuse to carry him further so, for a moment, he simply stands in the middle of the hallway. A variety of options stand out, each more unpleasant than the other. Jensen ends up gritting his teeth and not doing a thing, just like every day before.

Jensen joins the crowd in the great hall that night after everyone trickled back from their various missions. So many bodies, it’s a wonder nobody has caught up with their nest yet. Jensen wrinkles his nose at the strewn and not-so-strewn pairs, or triples. Men and women in whatever combination one could imagine. Jared sits just far enough off-center for Jensen to slip next to him onto the bench. A cup; Jared fills it from a nearby flask. Jensen fetches, drinks. No questions asked. Jared tops his own cup off.

Elbows on the table, Jensen mumbles over the rim of his cup: “Your pet didn’t make it out of bed?”

Jared’s pinkie finger curls off the cup to point in the vague direction of the crowd. Jensen follows its line. His brows rise on his forehead with his surprise.

“… Well, not too far off, then, my suspicion.”

“So much flesh in this place, I figure he should get to sample whatever strikes his fancy.”

“How generous of you.”

“I was the same,” Jared reminds, and Jensen drinks. Keeps watching the writhing bodies, Alex’s little mouth and the vulgar, wide stretch of it around… “You let me roam free as well. I don’t think you ended up with regrets.”

Jensen mumbles, “No,” and sips more. The bounty lacks Jared’s signature sweetness, but then again, hunting for three stomachs leaves you with only so much time for finesse. Jensen has no right to start being picky. Jared’s hand finds Jensen’s thigh under the table.

“You didn’t stay, earlier,” Jared recounts, soft. It’s loud around them, even close to the oh-so-dignified head of the table. Jeffrey’s seat is empty. Somewhere in that pile over there, the old man, looking for someone who will scratch that itch Jensen denied to stand in for. Jensen could not care less. Jared’s hand cups between his legs. Jensen drinks. “But now you can’t take your eyes off him.”

“I don’t mind that it’s him.”

Jared scoffs.

“I mind when it’s you with him.”

Jared hums. How warmly his face fits against Jensen’s neck, his shoulder.

Jensen sips pointedly. Over on the table, Sam folds Alexander flat on his back so she can lift her skirt and find a comfortable seat. Someone else sucks Alexander’s prick down in one go. The fresh meal allows Jensen’s hearing to zero in—on Alex’s delighted whimpers. His slurping mouth.

Jared has nearly climbed into Jensen’s lap, now. Rubs up and down and plucks at the lacing of Jensen’s trousers with his other hand, lets the cup be. Overflowing with blood as he is (as per usual), he doesn’t require it.

Jensen swallows for the kiss to his clavicle. Alexander’s arousal stands out stark as day. It would be fainter if this wasn’t his nestling’s nestling, if he and Alex were not, in fact, connected through Jared. Jensen’s stomach pulses hot, sick. He leans back just a bit so Jared can duck between Jensen and table.

“He’s pretty. I’ll give you that.”

In response, Jared hums around Jensen’s prick. Pops off just to offer, “If you wouldn’t have my head for it, I’d say he reminded me of you,” and then he’s back down to the base, and Jensen can only shudder and knot his fingers into all that hair. Can help along where Jared hasn’t needed assistance, ever. The chap who had been sucking Alexander off now licks him lower, and Jensen feels that. Feels that huge tongue lapping at him while Jared’s throat milks him so gently, and any other day, he’d ward himself against it. But he is weak today. Stale blood for days while Alex… “I could be mounting you right on this fucking table and you’d still worry about him, wouldn’t you?”

Jensen states, “The moment you instigate partaking in this godless party, I’ll have that bloody head of yours,” but as Jared licks into his mouth and strokes him with all the spit he left between Jensen’s legs, Jensen’s stoicism wavers. As the blood seeps past stomach lining and intestines, as it filters through capillaries and arteries, Jensen’s senses fill along with his lust. The dullness of the hall makes way for a sea of moans, friction of skin on bare skin, tickling of hairs and textures. Jensen experiences Jared’s kiss as clearly as he does Alex’s mouth on Sam’s mound, as the prick sawing into Alex’s arse where he’s still slick with Jared’s spend from earlier today.

“What if I want you right now?” Whether this is said in or out of Jensen’s head is impossible to say. Jared kisses the words home, rises to get his knee under himself. He sweeps the table with one arm. Nobody even seems to notice the clatter, the spills. “Will you still have my head, then? To get yourself a new hole to screw me in, is that it?”

Jensen groans his love’s name as he gets rucked off the bench with one fist in his shirt, knuckles under his chin. Their following kiss comes closer to a fight than a pleasantry. Jensen’s head pounds with the overwhelming sensory input racing up to him from every corner and focusing on only one thing at a time proves a lost cause. Jared growls against Jensen’s teeth as he forces him onto the table. A shirt button rips and another threatens to—Jensen gasps all the while his legs part on their own account.

“Don’t tell me this hall has never seen you on your back before. Don’t you lie to me, love.”

Jensen moans. A mouth joins the hand around his throat, sucks a bite right below his ear—the awkward position bars Jensen from getting at Jared’s trousers like he wants (needs). He swallows heavy, shakes his head.

“No. No, I…”

“Don’t tell me our grand master didn’t show you off right on this-here table before. I would have, in his stead…”

“No,” Jensen babbles. “Of, of course.”

“So, have you or have you not?” Jared’s eyes shine darkly. The lights blur whenever Jensen tries to focus on a single point. (Jensen tastes Jared’s heartbeat.) “Not a single time? Not even when you were young, and starved?”

Jensen whispers, “Of course I have,” and his prick strains between his hip and the back of his own hand, the weight of Jared’s so close yet so far, now pressed firm into Jensen’s palm. Jared leans onto Jensen with his whole body and the crowd around them pulses on, unperturbed. Someone breaks into song and some others join; an old sea shanty, the kind that would make men like Jensen cross themselves and turn the other way. Jared does not blink, does not let Jensen off. With one uneven gasp (and kneading fingers), Jensen discards the shred of dignity tying up his tongue.

“After the dungeons, they would rarely let me leave this hall… Kept me here or at the stables, the courtyard… And I was glad for it, because at least it wasn’t that bloody cell anymore… I was weak—Jeff made it a point to dangle all these new ways my body worked in over my head. I’d— … I didn’t want to, at first. But nobody seemed to care. That what we did was against God, was against…everything.” Jensen wets his lip. Jared does not interrupt. “I’d spent all my life in that monastery. We lived a pious life, not… Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined I’d ever get to… That anyone… That any man would…!”

Jared tells Jensen, “You delighted in it,” and Jensen whispers, “Yes,” and the next kiss he gets; oh. Oh, has Jared ever kissed him so deeply? So completely, utterly consuming.

“I had not dared to even begin imagining such…such acts, and suddenly, my experience was overflowing… I reeled, I doubted… In the face of all those pleasures, I doubted Him. I doubted God, myself, the devil…! They made me do things… Made me say things that I…!”

Alex’s, Sam’s, Jeff’s, Jared’s pleasure: it all culminates into one deep echo. Jensen cannot swallow enough against all the saliva, cannot writhe through all the sweet tremors. Jared meets his grinds; they pull his prick free in joined clumsiness.

“Keep talking,” Jared grunts, and Jensen spits and spits onto his fingers although he knows it will not suffice, and that it will not matter to either of them that it won’t. He rubs them deep; Jared chases them right away, forces in alongside them. Jared groans just as hurt as Jensen. “Keep talking, Jen, I—!”

“I, I was—by God, I swear, I wasn’t myself until after I lived through all that!”

Jensen manages this much before all vocabulary falls out of reach under Jared’s thrusts. Jensen groans like he’s dying all over again. Jared wrenches his shoulder under one of Jensen’s legs and the other stays tucked tight to his side as he works like a man possessed—Jensen cradles his boy’s face and his heart aches for the amount of restraint he finds, despite everything. The deep, everlasting control every muscle of this body keeps itself in. Only in the whirling depth of those eyes may one spot a hint of what lies below: that fire, unrelenting. This darkness that knows no limit.

The hall around him, the others, sunk into their own games: it all melts into the urge already itching under their nails, crawling under their skin. There is no telling them apart.

Chapter Text

“—and then he had the gall to—”

“Chèr.”

“Not even a year and he’s telling me how to take care of myself? Who even would—”

Daumier’s kiss starts belittling but, by the end of it, Jensen finds himself reduced to a less aggressive grumble. Those lips press more and more along his cheek, his beard, down his neck—Jensen huffs, grimaces.

“Forget about him, mon amour, if only for as long as it takes me to make you think of nothing but me.”

Jensen grumbles but, under the next kiss, folds his arms around the warm body on top of himself. He rolls them over effortlessly. Summer stands hot over the castle grounds. Jensen’s skin prickles with the cold from down in the dungeons, Daumier’s sheets under his knees or not.

“You’re so relentless in torturing yourself…”

Jensen ignores, kisses down a sternum—closes his eyes, although that only emphasizes the sight of his inner eye, the ridiculous size of Jared’s hand on the side of Alex’s face as he—

“Love, come on.”

“I am! What else does this look like to you?”

Daumier chuckles, “Jensen,” and Jensen could strangle him for the heavy accent alone, but kissing is better. Tongue, the shift of their bodies… And Jensen wants to forget, he does. But it’s easier said than done. The temptation of a peek here and there, of slipping into the boy’s or Jared’s body just for the fragment of a second…! Daumier gets a hold of both their cocks and jacks them together. Jensen hovers with his arms straight, his knees dug into the sheets. He rocks, helps. His head hangs low. Daumier hums as he worms his free hand to Jensen’s backside.

“There we go,” Jensen hears, and fails to discern its source. Jared’s mouth? Daumier’s?

Alex gags. Jared’s second hand joins the first for more pressure, more weight. Jensen’s throat contracts alongside Alex’s while Daumier’s tongue and fingers rub Jensen out.

You’re welcome anytime. He won’t mind. I promise.

Jensen grunts into the oh-so-available mouth—cradles a throat, kisses. Daumier and he, that has not let him down so far. And if Tristan didn’t exist, maybe they could have something good. But as is…

Whilst pushing himself up and off, Jensen says, “This isn’t working,” and Daumier chuckles, still, with two fingers up Jensen’s arse and Jensen’s straining prick in his other fist. The Frenchman’s brow cocks and Jensen draws another big sigh, rubs his face and into his hair. Daumier’s hands refuse to still.

Jensen sits through it for another moment before he winds out of the attention. As he climbs off the man and grabs for the pile containing most of his clothes, Daumier clicks his tongue. Jensen deserves that glare.

“I am sorry.” He is. “You know I am.”

“What more do you want?”

“It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“That much is clear,” Daumier sighs. Jensen hears him ruffling his hair as he pulls his shirt back over his head, stumbles upright to get into his boots. Daumier runs his knuckles along Jensen’s furry calf. Daumier begins, “Sometimes I wish…” and then, “Forget I said anything.”

“Gladly.”

“You know what? Screw you.”

“I agreed with you, so what is your issue?”

Daumier warns, “Would you really like me to detail? Now?” and Jensen snorts, laces his trousers only superficially—enough to hold up until he makes it downstairs from this boiling tower, and it is then that Daumier curses and sits up in bed. He barks, “Let I put you through one minute of this bullshit, you’d have quit me years ago!”

Jensen snaps back, “Nobody forces you to put up with anything!” and Daumier scoffs again, and as Jensen turns to see, he finds his affair scowling like a little boy. Like Jeff does whenever Jensen finds the audacity to have a need of his own, and this, more than anything, supplies Jensen with the spite to walk out that door, to slam it behind himself.

His guts burn hotter than the stale air outside. Daumier’s frustration and the weight of Jared’s peripheral attention follows him down all those stairs. If it wasn’t for that damn boy, if Jared had just stuck to his mistresses on the side…! You said it’s natural for a vampire to want to turn others. “I say too much to you, constantly.” And Jeff agreed, for once. That, out of everything, took me by surprise. Jensen grumbles, “Should have tipped you off, then,” and then Jared falls quiet since Jensen comes into hearing range, anyway.

Come echoes through the corridor, the narrow walls, unspoken. Jensen’s steps slow and his chest pulls at him to just turn back, apologize to poor Daumier whose only mistake lies in nothing but him simply not being Jared Tristan…but, Jensen has come so far already. He finds the door ajar and Alexander’s eyes glassy and hooded, the whole meager weight of him collapsed in Jared’s lap. Jared’s gaze rests on nothing but Jensen, the tremble in his chest as he enters his boy’s chambers.

Jensen closes the door behind himself.

“We just finished an early lunch. But we can come up with some leftovers, I’m sure.” Jared cards through Alex’s only mostly-clean hair. Stray, dark-red crusted strands stick to Jared’s fingers. “Come, Jen. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

Jensen says nothing as he obliges. His knee finds the edge of the bed and as throbbing with fresh blood Alexander is, his irritation fades rather quickly once he notices the lingering passion in this rude intruder. His delicate brows pull together just-so and he says, “Took you long enough,” and Jensen would get up and leave for this alone if Jared didn’t tighten his hand to a fist in all that blond, didn’t click his tongue and make Alex look

like that.

Debauched. Like the fellatio lasted much longer than Jensen knows it did. Jensen does not give Jared the satisfaction of staring but he does make note of those slender thighs squirming, the obvious tent in those ill-fitted trousers.

Jared hums, “Good things take time.” He hasn’t blinked once since Jensen joined them, and part of Jensen sighs with relief when those eyes slip shut for the ensuing kiss. Jensen is done with talking, with explaining himself. He grabs a rousing Alexander by his shirt and wedges their mouths together, next, and as stubborn as the boy has proven himself so far, this might just be the way to have him docile. His cold hand grasps Jensen’s wrist and he grunts, the kiss too hard and fast-paced for his hazy state to keep up with. Jared keeps staring, brings one hand to the back of Jensen’s neck, into his hair… Jensen doubles down on the boy whilst straddling the thigh Alexander isn’t hanging over. Jared hums. His hand dives down Jensen’s back to cup his arse. Linked as they are, Alexander gropes into the loose front lacing of Jensen’s trousers. Alexander’s noise of delight comes so easy that Jensen cannot help but smell sarcasm.

“Someone came prepared.”

“His plaything didn’t quite cut it, I’m afraid.”

“I felt you watching,” Alexander sighs, licks. Jensen groans under stroke after artful stroke… So little time, and Jared already has the boy trained so well…! “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Jensen kisses him more if only to shut him up. Compared to Jared’s, Alexander’s hair barely bunches in his fist, is too thin, too short, too… “Not mine,” Jared helps, and Jensen grunts and returns to his nestling’s mouth only to be met with teeth and tongue. Alexander busies his mouth further below and Jared chuckles over Jensen’s tongue as Jensen groans loud and sharp, twists his fist harder into all that stubborn, dark blond. Alexander’s slender limbs struggle to rearrange—as much as he wants an angle that won’t break his neck, he does not want to give up a single inch of Jared, either. Who says, “I want to see you fucking him,” so Jensen groans more and straightens so he can saw into the fluttering back of that throat, can make Alexander’s face twist up like—yes, exactly like that. “And then I want to see him fucking you. And then I want him to sit on your face while I fuck you.”

Jensen shudders, unable to reply. Jared’s and Alexander’s hands roam every inch of his body, strip him of all the clothes he so hastily had pulled on to come here…right here…where he wanted to be, needs to be. How stupid he was, thinking that anything could come between them.

“You’ll grow to love him. Just like I did,” Jared hums between deep licks. Between dipping his fingers into his mouth and back between Jensen’s cheeks, barely any resistance left after Daumier’s sensible attention—Jensen bucks forward into Alex’s throat, is getting pulled off of in retaliation. The boy scowls but wrestles his shirt off regardless, lets Jensen climb him, push him down into the bed.

How white he is; like milk. Jared seems that much darker against him, pressed to his side, roaming a chest, a sternum. “What’s mine is yours,” Jensen hears, and he looks at Jared for that for a moment before Alexander pulls him back into their embrace, against his ever-feverish mouth—oh, how clearly Jensen can taste the sickness, still, in this rotten body. How brittle this boy feels under a rough handling, how dewy his eyes get once the pants have been yanked off just enough, when Jensen gets to finger where… “Jesus Christ,” and he doesn’t mean to, but nothing happens. Nothing but Alexander sucking at his tongue and Jared continuing to rub Jensen out from the inside, Alexander’s raw-raw body melting open so horribly easy around Jensen’s fingers he almost feels reverent about it. That Jared was so thorough. That it isn’t Jensen’s body he violated in such a thorough way.

“That can be changed. If you were so inclined to give me more of your time again, my love… I missed you, you know.”

Jensen and Alex groan in unison as Jared pulls his prick from the messy lacing of his trousers. Jensen’s mouth waters but Alexander holds him where he is, clamps his leg tighter over Jensen’s hip. Jared smirks in the half-dark. His shoulder flexes as his arm works. The wideness of him blocks out most of the sparse candlelight. The three fingers he keeps tucked deep into Jensen curl up with cruel definition. Jensen humps forward on them, a mere puppet on a string.

“Go on,” Jared tells them, both of them. He wets his lip and Jensen strains to climb off the cold little thing and tend to his love instead, to impale himself on what Jared handles so teasingly, a mere play for him, knowing how rough he prefers it to be handled… “I’ll let you suck it if you stick yours into him,” and Jensen apparently only needed so much motivation—Alexander keens but all that complaint melts quickly as Jensen drives home over and over, beats him even softer where Jared ruined him, night after night… “D-day after—day,” Alex grunts, chopped-off and wet, and Jensen falls along without needing to try. Is met with such tenderness, such silken insides to rut himself into—and Jared’s fingers stay right where they are, although the boy has to contort a bit to keep that up as he pushes up to his knees, his half-hard prick too heavy to stand straight from his body but Jensen noses it past his lips regardless, swirls his tongue under-around a halfway peeled back foreskin until he tastes nothing but—oh, Jared, his breathy little stutter that never changed, ever, and his big hand on Jensen’s skull, like the world is small enough after all, small enough to fit into whatever space the two of them choose to share. Under Jensen, Jared’s boy groans and moans, and everything turns liquid, turns slick and good and hot and Jensen is one long line of pleasure, of stiff joints and tender muscles, and by the time he gives it up inside Alex, Jared is pounding his throat just as insistent as Jensen had been doing it a second ago.

He holds himself deep as he unloads, as he groans around the perfect, thick weight blocking where no breath must flow to keep him present. No, he is: aware—of everything. The texture of Alexander’s insides, the taste of his mouth. The bitter-slick dribble Jared has been fucking into the pit of his throat and now smears it all over Jensen’s tongue as he unearths himself, as he pulls Jensen nearly inside-out and says, “Lick me open while he fucks you,” and both Alexander and Jensen moan for that, and Jensen could not point out which one of them sets into motion faster, better.

What matters is that Jensen has Jared on his back on the bed and that those legs bend back and away, and that Jensen can—Lord, can worship, can make his amends… A strained grunt as Alex works himself up Jensen’s arse, but those two have plenty of oil stashed away and Jensen curls his hips out to make it easier, better. Alexander shows no remorse or patience with how he slaps into Jensen right away, no adjustment to be granted. And Jensen wouldn’t want to have it any other way. No amount of pain or discomfort exactly matters as long as he can have his face buried right here.

Jared groans, one hand on Jensen’s head and the other kneading what Jensen wishes to have two mouths for—if only he could have everything at once, have Jared filling him everywhere at once, to the brim, nothing else…! Jensen tries to alternate between Jared’s sac and his rim but Jared pushes him into place with no room left to argue. Whimpering and groaning, Jensen gags himself with what he can. Tristan’s body lets him in so easily.

Alexander calls, “Master,” and Jared grunts in response, and Jensen feels the stutter of those hips through the heavy veil of everything, through the pressure and musk of Tristan’s arse and the settling soreness of his jaw and tongue, and Jensen grunts as those hands wring his hips hard, pinch him into place so the boy on his back can press himself as deep as he will go. Not anywhere as deep as Jared will, but…Jensen shudders for the spreading, creeping heat regardless. Jared hisses in sympathy; his balls bounce against Jensen’s tongue with the fervent rhythm he jacks his cock with.

“So hot, you two. Knew you’d be.”

Alexander sobs, “Jared,” and Jensen is empty before he knows it, is sore and throbbing and his head flops over the edge of the bed as he groans, as Jared’s lips wrap around his still-recovering prick and suck, three fingers fucking at the mess Alexander left and oh, how Jensen feels the overwhelming shock through Alex as he folds himself over Jared’s back, how on-fire his nerves scream and writhe as Jared helps to thread that prick up his arse, next. Jensen gasps, “Tristan,” but only gets a pulse to those fingers, finds hair to hold onto, and fucks up into his boy—feels Alexander humping Jared like it’s Jensen’s backside all over, like Alexander is still in him alongside Jared’s huge fingers. That rhythm stammers greatly, too close to the release. Jared darlingly laps and slurps where it squelches around his fingers, and Jensen can’t think. Can’t guard or consider beyond the pressure, the desire Tristan always so effortlessly plucks from him… Alex pants and moans like he, too, shares Jared’s and Jensen’s entire map of sensations. The three of them, one unit. One writhing snake, devouring its own tail.

Jensen is hard as a rock by the time Jared rolls him to his side, yanks him further onto the bed—pulls Alexander with him until they’re all down, and Jared applies some more oil and kisses Jensen’s sweaty neck and groans about see, I promised, and then he pushes into Jensen and whatever was left of ‘Jensen’ dissolves into the shape of this room, this bed. Those six hands of theirs, the thirty fingers and the three mouths, the same raw throat and the winding bodies, and Jensen is pulled so close and he is shoved into so deep. He scrambles to get away just as hard as he pushes back to have more, have it forever. Oh, what a dream that would be! To never have to leave this bed, ever again. Never leave his love.

Tristan grunts, “Come for me,” not a single finger on Jensen’s prick, just the pure, violent pressure of his fuck to the already-slick pit of Jensen’s guts, and with a pained roar, Jensen does.

Tristan does not stop.

The scene does not turn stale as soon as it usually does with, for example, Jeffrey. Jensen lies on his side, still, his back to the other two and he feels them shifting in the sheets, hears their soft talk and the possessive presses of mouths to each other’s skin. And the dread waits, it does, it lingers and waits and Jensen stares it right in the eye but it just won’t quite reach him, and while that should make him upset, it just…doesn’t. No irritation. Nothing.

It is not exactly ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Just ‘new’.

Alexander chimes, “So, that wasn’t so bad, now was it, old man? Are you scowling over there?” and Jared snorts, softly, like his child just did something endearing, and Jensen snorts along.

~

Jensen tries to tell himself he handles this better than the last time, considering he sits through Jared Tristan’s whole sob story without feeling much at all, and not bashing any heads or objects in, after. In fact, the lack of emotion seems an emotion in itself, hollow and just as dark as it is light. The new boy, even blonder and even thinner (but at least long, like Jared himself) lurks behind his new master, and Jensen can meet those big, distrustful eyes and not remove them with his bare hands.

Only later does something rouse in Jensen: when the marsh of whispers ripples with Tristan’s voice, when it proudly proclaims to someone who is not Jensen how Colin was ‘begging for it’. Not the poor orphan, hooked on booze from childhood and doomed to a life in the gutter; no, willing. Teasing. The fact that Jared does not care to keep his bragging much of a secret (he must know Jensen could have heard) aches maybe the worst. Jensen’s numbness poses a welcome surprise. He dares not imagine what other realms he would experience otherwise.

“I told you,” sing-songs Jeffrey, the old dog licking his chops at the sight of someone other than himself bathing in disappointment, and Jensen does not give him a glance until Jeffrey pulls him close, his chest against Jensen’s back, his lips whispering into where Jensen’s hair grows around his ear. “I told you, my love—he’s a hungry little one. All the strong ones are.”

Jensen says nothing as his master undresses him, sleeps with him. Jared keeps his distance for he senses he upset something he cannot turn back from, and yet Jared eyes the lovebite Jeffrey left on Jensen’s neck like that is the source of all the recent trouble.

Jensen sits with his boy in the mostly deserted great hall. Jared’s knee bobs until Jensen’s hand layers itself onto it.

Jensen adjusts the flimsy robe and mumbles, “This cannot continue,” and, more honest, “I cannot,” and Tristan opens his mouth before he thinks better of it, starts somewhere else. That big, murder-warmed hand finds Jensen’s to swallow it up. Hides it away.

“I never meant to disappoint you, my friend.”

“You haven’t called me that in a while. I did not miss it.”

“I would call you my heart, but I fear you’ll rip my face off if I do.”

“Stop changing the subject,” Jensen says, and his boy pulls straighter yet. Those animal-eyes of his, always searching. And Jensen begins to fear that whatever that prey is lies beyond what Jensen can offer. “The turning, it must stop. It has only been five years since Alex, how many more do you…?”

Jared insists, “You would have done the same,” sweet and soft but Jensen snaps, “Don’t you dare!” Quiet, then. If only for a beat.

Jared begins, “Jensen. My love,” and Jensen shakes his head, tries to pull away. How useless, all of it. How many more times will he attempt to jump this fence, only to get tangled in these damned roses? “My love, I promise you, no more. No more, not a single one, no matter what. If that is what you ask of me, it shall be my will, too.”

“You said that last time…”

“But now, it is different.” (Jensen grimaces for the kiss to his knuckles. To Jared Tristan’s oh-so horribly clear, dark eyes.) “I have never seen you like this, and I don’t wish to make it a habit. See—you cannot even look at me!” Jensen scoffs. “What sort of life is this supposed to be for me, then? I would rather get rid of them both if only I could make you love me again as you used to.”

Jensen snaps, “Oh, please!” and Jared kisses his hand again after asking, “Do you doubt my word?” and then he kisses more, again, until Jensen must blink away irritation and the splutter befalling his old, old chest. He wrenches his hand away from the brat to wipe it on his barely-covered leg and huffs, “One great sire you are. You should hear yourself talk.”

“You think I care what they think? Jensen?”

(Jensen’s head whips around against his will. His teeth won’t grit like he wants them to.)

Jensen glares at his nestling. Barely twenty years ripened this nestling into something so much bigger than anything this country has seen since one humble Scottish farmer by the name of Jeffrey Dean (and maybe before that—was there a ‘before’?), and who is Jensen against all this power, all this drive?

Jared says, “I asked you a question,” and Jensen blinks, firm, and does not offer an inch.

Jared sighs.

His hand slips to Jensen’s thigh, the gap in the robe.

“You are all I have ever wanted. Or needed,” blabbers Jared, like the dungeons do not echo with the moans all the hours with his playthings bring him— “Oh, don’t be silly—they have nothing on you; you know this.” Jensen cannot interfere with the touches, the lighthearted flap of fabric to expose him further. The noise from around them drowns out, like a trickle running low. Jensen finds himself alone with his love. Just how it should be.

“No,” says Jensen, somewhere. Maybe he imagines it.

Jared eyes him sweetly, like you would gaze upon a loved but limping pet. This is not lost on Jensen, no.

“You overthink again, love,” Jared reminds, and his kiss is as light as it is maddening. It could rip Jensen apart if it wanted, and they both know this. “I never intended to hurt you. And I mean it,” Jared vows, again, withdrawing his hand. He squeezes Jensen’s thigh before he cups Jensen’s bearded cheek. “No more boys. You have my word.”

~

The sun crawls oh-so-slowly past the horizon this morning, slower yet than even Jensen drags himself down all those horrible stairs. In the sheets, Jared rises halfway but does remain buried under the tangle of his two birds. Jensen removes his coat and finds a spot to hang it.

“… Are you mad at me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Jensen busies himself with sorting out the destroyed room—with fresh blood in his veins, Colin tends to lash out. Another pair of perfectly good trousers, torn at the inseam. Jensen shakes his head and tosses them towards the door to be taken upstairs later.

Soft and hungover, Jared asks, “How are you doing?” and Jensen’s shoulder slump, and he puts one of the candle holders upright once more. The wax got everywhere.

“Just fine. I don’t assume I must ask you in return.”

After being stuck upstairs with Jeffrey for most of the night, Jensen had been free to watch, at least: Jared, feeding and being fed, an orgy between the three of them that trumped what some orchestrate up in the hall. Jensen wrinkles his nose at the fresh memories, the flaking wax under his nail as he tries to free the once so pristine dresser from this one threat it could have been spared from if only Jared’s birds would show respect. The mold was eating away at the wood, anyway, so maybe this new damage does not matter much in the long run. It does for Jensen, though.

Jared shifts in the sheets some more and begins, “You don’t sleep much, lately, do you?” and Jensen flees their quarters before he can be embarrassed further. Before not only his third eye mapped the many love marks on his boy.

How quiet the castle can be at this hour. This sweet spot between the last ones giving in and the first ones rising up, it has always been Jensen’s favorite: a world of in-between, where he can be invisible, truly invisible. When Jeff sleeps off the blood and the fucking and his tantrums, when Samantha and Caleb and Kalen and the others have returned to their respective rooms like the master-pleasing pets they are. It is almost like the castle belongs to Jensen.

He passes through corridors, long and decorated. Dust gets cleaned away by whichever poor souls someone deemed useless enough, and say what you may, but they do a bloody good job at it. In their nightly business of blood and mud and other substances, the polished furniture, paintings, wall hangings—they cradle Jensen like a ‘there, there’, like it all ain’t so bad after all. Jensen skips the great hall in favor of the yard. Spring and winter have been battling for a while now. A winner is yet to be decided.

The well has been rebuilt lately upon Jeff’s orders. Its newfound uprightness puzzles Jensen, still. After splashing his face and scrubbing his hands (why? There was not much blood on the dresser, and the wax won’t come off with this ice-cold stuff), Jensen resigns and heads back inside. The east tower it is.

As per usual, lately.

Stay away, boy.

Daumier’s sleeping form stirs only upon Jensen talking for a minute straight. Upon an elbow into his ribs, and he declares, “I am awake, you bastard,” with his voice still gruff. He rolls to his side, then his back. His hairy arm attempts to shield his eyes from the sun. He squints so hard that he might not see Jensen at all. Jensen keeps his icy boots stacked on Daumier’s bed, keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Then what have I been talking about?”

“The same as always. There, did I pass your little test?”

Jensen grunts, “Stop it,” as the Frenchman tries to pull him prone, half a laugh because—oh, how easy it is with Daumier, always. “Yes, yeah—fine, I’ll shut up.”

“Promise?”

“That would not get us far, I’m afraid.”

“Fair.”

Daumier huffs and leans back. His arm remains slung around Jensen’s hips, though. He absently pets Jensen’s leg while he ponders.

Jensen snorts. “Did I wake you?”

“You are allowed everything in this room. I stand by my word.” Daumier yawns. His bare chest flexes as he moves his arm. Upon a gaze to Jensen’s marred neck, he asks, “Long night?” and Jensen nods, so Daumier can say, “I see,” and then close his eyes once more, this time with his face buried in Jensen’s lap. Jensen’s fingers run through Daumier’s hair and the man sighs accordingly. “Poor thing. The moment they have you, they turn on you. I really wonder what powers you upset to earn this cruel curse.”

“Would you do the same?”

“I wouldn’t know. Probably! That’s how curses work, as far as I know.”

Jensen hums. Daumier rotates his head and sighs some more.

“I would be nice about it, at least, I think.”

Jensen snorts.

“Wouldn’t put my hand on you like that. Wouldn’t get any soft, new playthings for you to agonize over.”

Jensen tells him, “How sweet,” and Daumier hums. He nuzzles Jensen’s hand, kisses Jensen’s knuckles.

“For you? Of course.” More kisses. “Anything.”

Daumier kneads at Jensen’s thigh, now. He looks up at Jensen mid-kiss when Jensen shoves that hand away.

“It is amazing to me how you for some reason find no joy in humiliating me like they do. Maybe you are immune to the curse.”

“Maybe,” says Daumier.

“I appreciate you, old friend,” says Jensen, and Daumier does not make a face for it like he would have years ago. Jensen cups that hand, holds it sweet. Daumier does not press any further.

Chapter Text

Their youth makes them agile. Maybe that was what drew Jared in. Jensen doubts he ever was that quick to pick up on a new move, vampirism or not. Jared shouts, “AGAIN!” out here in the yard, the orchard with Jensen hiding in it right by their side, and the boys pant and glare but they listen. They do.

“Yeah, it was more about the obedience part that impeded your progress. Or, the lack thereof.”

“Get lost.”

“Charming,” Jeff says, now fully materializing. That horrendous robe again. Jensen turns even further the other way. “Sure, it’s about the robe! Not about the view out here, no…”

“I heard you. I was gonna head upstairs in—”

“No, no; don’t rush on my behalf… I have only been yelling for an hour… Clearly, you have found something better to do… Your favorite pastime: torturing yourself.”

Jensen wants to moan but Jeffrey cuts him off.

“You know you can’t control everything, right? They aren’t yours. They will want to please him. If Jared teaches them certain ways, they’ll resist anything that goes against those. They’re newborns.”

“I told him no more. That I’ll leave.”

“And you’re ready for that? He’s still so young—bloody Hell, let that boy breathe! He picked those kittens to have something to play with, so what? He’s strong, he can handle it. You keep brooding and flashing your teeth like that, they’ll end up resenting you. And that will impact how he feels for you, ‘eternal love’ or whatever or not. I don’t want you to lose your family, Christian.”

“How sweet that you worry about me that much.”

“Worry is the only thing of mine that you let close to you, these days.”

“Oh, please. We were together just last week.”

“Yes, last week! You used to be at my beck and call all day and night… Your boy is busy with his fledglings, he won’t mind me borrowing you for a bit…”

Jensen finds himself in no mood to fight further. Once up in the room with the first layer of clothing gone, Jeffrey at least stops running his mouth. Jensen lies back like all those decades before, lets it happen. Kisses back; roams his hands. Pent-up as he is, Jeffrey does not demand beyond these crumbs.

“‘Crumbs’. Like anything you have to give could possibly be titled so minuscule…”

Jensen sighs, “Screw me already,” and Jeffrey chuckles, “See?” and kisses deep into his mouth. Jeffrey slicks himself up and presses inside with no further circus—a surefire way to help Jensen hug him. Jensen groans. His eyes stay firmly shut.

The sheets whisper. Jeffrey bites back a noise as he crams in to the hilt. (Full, greedy shoves, just like… No; Jeffrey has always done it this way.) Jensen scrambles for the following, rushed thrusts. It has nearly gone good when he, for some reason, feels compelled to open his eyes and check the door, only to find young Colin standing there.

The word that blurts out of Jensen’s mouth is rather far removed from Christianity.

While Jeffrey laughs, Colin shoots back, “The door wasn’t locked or anything,” and he has the gall to step closer yet as if unspoken-of rules of respect and privacy have no meaning for him. Jensen shoves his master off and out and struggles back into his trousers, stumbling but not quite falling to his face. Oh, Colin—that gaunt face, the small, dark eyes…! “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” the child says—Jensen snorts. “I wasn’t.”

“Jensen, love—”

“Unbelievable.”

“—come back to bed. Come on. Don’t be silly.”

Jensen’s face beams hotter for the beckoning snap of fingers. The oil smears uncomfortably between his cheeks. He can’t grab his coat off the floor fast enough.

His voice still laced with his grin, Jeffrey tries, “He made the whole trip up this tall tower. Where is your hospitality?”

The door bangs into its frame and jumps right back open on Jensen’s way out. Too busy with the buttons of his blouse, Jensen walks straight into the next offender on the spiral staircase. He grabs Alex’s sleeve to pull him back up and regrets it right away. Pale, tender Alex says nothing. He mustn’t.

Jensen’s eyes narrow just like his fist tightens in Alex’s unlaced shirt.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Alexander helps, one hand on the wall for stability. One leg stepped forward, the darling offer of a knee, the soft brown leather spanning it, the dirt from the courtyard still caked on him. His chest rises against Jensen’s knuckles, and as this leaves him without reaction yet, the softness in his face falls flat, just like that. “I’m serious. I need to fetch something, that is all.”

“Sure. And I’m the Pope.”

“He didn’t send us.”

“No, I know. He wouldn’t do that to me.” Jensen lets the brat go. Alexander scowls accordingly. Jensen glares right back.

“What is it with you? You’ve shared our bed just two nights ago—”

“That is different.”

Alex scoffs. “Oh? Is it?”

Jensen repeats, “Yes,” sharper this time. Alas, Alexander moves into the gap Jensen spotted to squeeze past him. Jensen tries with his eyes, first. When that does not impress the lad, Jensen’s shoulder squares forward. This, too, fails to make a dent in Alexander’s defense.

Alexander drawls, “Jeffrey fucks everyone, you know. You’re not special.”

“All those sword lessons, yet he hasn’t taught you when to keep your mouth shut.”

Alexander scoffs. “If you’d at least get off on it. But you suffer for suffering’s sake.”

“I’m warning you—”

The kiss shouldn’t have come out of nowhere like it did. Jensen recoils that much harder.

And Alexander’s mouth follows, as does his tongue—his hands.

Jensen falls backwards onto the stairs.

A struggle ensues. What Alexander lacks in strength he packs in flexibility and wickedness. And when that is not enough, his powers press Jensen’s spine harder against the stairs. Only in a bout of clarity does Jensen manage to get the upper hand: this is a nestling and you have raised its master—he does not fling the boy off the stairs, but Alexander glares as bitter as if Jensen did, wiping his mouth.

“You suck cocks left and right! What’s it matter to you whose it is? You enjoyed mine. And Colin’s!” A smirk finds Alexander’s mouth while Jensen finds his footing. “We’ve seen you on your back often enough, love. Who do you think you’re fooling?”

Jensen flees this scene, too. Jared’s critters, taking over the entire damn castle… No space seems safe anymore. Jensen stands with his back to the wall. There is nowhere to run but forward.

Jensen’s, “I’ve had enough,” echoes more brittle against the wet, bare stone walls of the dungeon than he intends to. Jared looks up from his book, folds it closed to put it away upon Jensen’s sight, no hesitation. He rises off the bed to welcome him and Jensen is too tired not to meet the offered embrace. “Enough,” he sighs, here, buried against his love. Clinging. Jared pets him. “Your boys, they…! They should be kept on a bloody leash. I mean it. They are out of control.” Jared chuckles. “Is that funny to you?”

“They deserve to get their fun in now that they finally can. Their lives were hard enough. Sickness, poverty…”

Jensen barks, “They came onto me within minutes, one after the other! Both of them!” and as he pushes off Jared to see him right, the amusement leaves that face.

“… I told them not to push it with you.”

“Well, they decided not to listen, then.”

“Are you all right?” Jared cups Jensen’s face. Jensen cringes. He fails to writhe away from his nestling. “Do you want me to tell them to leave you be? I just assumed that, recently, you had warmed to them, so I didn’t think to…but I will if you ask me to.”

Jensen grumbles, “‘Warmed’, you say. You think and do as you want, as per usual, so why not keep it at that,” and Jared kisses him, then, pulls Jensen’s face into it.

After parting once more, after leaving Jensen trembling, Jared tells him, “I’d do whatever you want. You know that. Whatever you wish.” Jensen’s face scrunches up. “I’d snap their necks if you told me to. I’d burn down the world for you. You must know that, Jensen. You know it in your heart, don’t you?”

Jensen croaks, “Yes.”

Jared pulls them apart just enough to be able to study his face. “Tell me. Tell me you love me.”

“Of course I do. And I’d love not to, every damn second of it.”

Jared draws him up in a deep, loving kiss. Jensen had wanted the world to burn, but that was so very long ago. So long he can barely see the surface anymore, and maybe that’s for the best.

~

Into the awkward silence, Jeffrey supplies, To be fair, he had said: no more boys.

Jared mirrors Jensen’s rising off the bed, albeit with decisively less intensity.

“How far do you want to TAKE this?! How many more must be CURSED because of you?!”

Jared blurts, “I don’t know,” with the usual play-pretend stammers and fumbling, like Jensen hasn’t figured him out long ago. “And what does it matter?” Jensen scoffs, grabs his coat and stomps out, upstairs. Jared follows at his heels, his trousers and shirt still wide open. Jared’s bare, long feet slap crudely on the stone floor. “If anything, I’m doing them a favor! Look at Colin, at Alexander—where do you think they’d be if it wasn’t for me, for us? Six feet under, wasting away! All that potential wiped out—”

“‘Potential’!”

Jensen stops, spins around. The great hall booms with festivities just a few doorways over. Jared’s chest puffs out. So tender he was with Jensen in bed mere minutes ago. Sending the boys up, go enjoy the night somewhere else, and Jensen should have seen the plot then and there.

“‘Potential’,” Jensen repeats, scoffing, and Jared’s features flicker like the candlelight which illuminates them off to his left. The many eyes upon them stay invisible. The many whispers stay quiet, waiting. “You should hear yourself talk.”

“So what?”

“What happened to the bright-eyed boy I brought here? The humanitarian politician with the talent to stay level-headed? Did all those virtues lose their charm once you found yourself faced with easily-accessible debauchery? With Jeffrey’s bloody obsessions?!”

Hey, keep me out of this.

“Yeah, keep him out of this!”

Jensen scoffs. Jared steps closer yet, his finger pointed.

He says, “You think I’m losing it,” and Jensen can’t even look at him anymore. Isn’t forced to, but Jared follows like a shadow, like the stench of rot that, once in your nose, stays there. “I’m me. Always been, always will be. Nothing and nobody will change that. Not Alex, not Colin, not Jeffrey—not even you. And not Abigail.”

“Don’t you dare mention her! That poor girl, I should have known the moment you took her to that inn all those years ago—”

“Listen to me,” Jared urges, and now, he does grab Jensen: by the wrist, and Jensen lets him. Lets himself be turned to face the boy, lets Jared see the fury in his face. The betrayal he caused. But Jared’s eyes stay cold, determined. It only fires Jensen further. “I’m doing this for us. For them. Just because you prefer to stay devoted to a life that you were never cut out for—”

“You keep turning them at this rate, you’ll be so busy sating this harem of yours that you’ll lose yourself in the process!”

“Jeff’s dealing just fine with it, isn’t he?”

Jensen fights himself free for this. Jared allows it. Just stands there, the ghost of a smirk on his thin mouth. A reminder for Jensen that he created this. That he was the one who preserved a flame too bright to be held, to burn at such rates. A glimpse that should have stayed as such.

Jensen snarls, “You disgust me.”

“Oh, please! Quit it. You’re not fooling anyone.”

Jensen stomps off. Alas, he finds himself unable to rest or think, and his mind returns to his nestling along with many others. Jared has grown popular. The voyeurism flatters him. He hasn’t shut himself off from curious glimpses in weeks. He grows careless, Jensen sees this. (Have you considered I have nothing to hide?)

“You let him walk all over you! I cannot bear it,” Colin moans, indifferent to the unconscious girl in Jared’s other arm. Jared squeezes Colin’s forearm harder, soothes with a kiss to his ear. Abigail swallows what drips into her agape mouth. Colin winces. He bites his lip, paler than the freshly undead. Nearly run dry. “He’s not worth worrying about… Alex and I, we understand you better than he ever has…!”

“Stop it right now.”

“But—”

“No,” Jared warns, releasing that wrist—Colin’s hand immediately finds Jared’s chest, rubs into the neckline of his shirt. Jared does not protest, for he tends to his newest lamb. His thumb pushes what hasn’t crusted past the plush of Abigail’s absently moving lips.

Colin babbles, “Master, please,” pressed up and writhing, bare and pale. Old-old scars mar his skinny back and he unfs as, for the next needy noise, he gets pushed off the bed for good and lands on the hard floor.

Jensen’s schadenfreude only lasts so far under Jared’s, “You are to respect my sire.”

Colin hurries through the yes as much as he hurries back onto the bed.

~

The girl makes her first kill two weeks later. The great hall is in an according mood.

In this depth of summer, the incessant rainfall turns glasses and brains foggy, turns every dryness into muck, bends what should hold strong. Jensen rises off the bench after sitting through song and dance for half an hour (half an hour too long). That Jared and Jeffrey both come after him is not a coincidence. If anything, Jensen is surprised that they listen to him.

Once having arrived upstairs and after Jared closes the door behind them (and separates them from the nest’s eyes and ears, too, with his powers now mightier than ever), Jensen crosses his arms and announces, “I am tired of your bullshit. You two figure this out. Tonight! Or something horrible is going to happen.” Jeffrey, of course, has not much left for this but a scoff, a cock to his brow. Jared moves in the background like a shepherd dog. “I’m not talking about myself. It’s this place that has been a powder keg for far too long already.” Jared’s turn to scoff. Jensen throws him a glare and receives a smirk back.

Jeffrey’s eyes follow the boy circling Jensen. “You think he’ll ever grow out of this kind of foreplay?”

Jared chortles. “Negative.”

Jensen points out, “You’re gonna kill each other,” and if he only imagines a flicker of emotion on Jeffrey’s face, so be it.

Jared fumbles with something behind Jensen’s back. Jensen has not moved since he found his footing and neither has Jeffrey, six feet off, by the bed. Those shoulders slump despite the amount of blood in him. Jensen doesn’t have to see it with his eyes to know that Jeffrey’s gaze is meeting Jared’s right now.

“That will be the end of us. Of the entire nest. Times are changing–we can all feel it. Humans develop so fast, we’ll have to adapt to survive. We need both of you. I need both of you. Make up your fucking minds.”

An according silence ensues. Jensen finds it in him to turn around, finds Jared where he expected him, playing with the jewelry in the top drawer of Jeffrey’s treasury. The boy clicks his tongue, shrugs. His eyes stay just-off Jensen’s face, somewhere past Jensen’s shoulder.

“Were you gonna tell him?” Jared asks Jeffrey.

Jensen turns right back around to the man in question.

Jeffrey half-rolls his eyes. He crosses his arms. His hesitation to get a single noise out of his stubborn mouth rouses Jensen’s nerves further.

“Out with it!”

“All right, all right—yes, yeah. We hear you. Believe it or not, we do.” Jeffrey corrects, “Have had for a while, now,” and Jensen whips back to Jared. Jared grants him a glimpse from underneath his lashes, three of Jeffrey’s most precious rings stacked on his middle finger. He rotates them with his thumb. “We talked,” Jeffrey says, behind Jensen. “Weeks ago. Figured it all out. And, no, this is no farce. I mean it, Christian. I speak the truth.”

Jared helps, “He does,” as if Jensen already spoke the demand that only now shoots up his throat. “I thought… We agreed that it’d be better to keep you out of it at first. Until we had gained some sort of footing in this matter.” Jensen’s mouth stands open. Jeffrey’s features soften with guilt once Jensen returns his attention to them.

“It had to be done. I’m sure you’ll come to see that.”

Back to Jared. Jensen’s child. His fledgling, his… “We knew you’d perceive this as betrayal,” Jared mumbles. “You’re emotional and you’re biased. And that kind of thinking wouldn’t have helped our negotiations.”

Jeffrey tries, “It was less ‘keeping you out’ and more ‘protecting you from your own temper’,” and Jensen raises his hand to let him know to stop. A coil has unfurled inside of him; he struggles to speak.

Too many truths come clear in Jensen’s head, all of them affirming Jeffrey’s and Jared’s words. If it wasn’t for the dead silence in this chamber, Jensen would think someone whispers all of them to him. But Jared’s lips are unmoving when Jensen checks. (Yes. Yes, and even if they tried to include you, would you have let them pry you out of the rotting gardens? Would you have listened to anything not denouncing Abigail, Colin, Alexander? You spent your days and nights scowling, barely showing your face… Would you have trusted a word coming from such a furious place?)

Jensen snaps, “So—so, what is it you decided?” and his voice trembles more than he’d like. Jared’s brows tick together sweet for this as he puts two of the three rings away to close in on his master while Jeffrey does the same.

“You mustn’t worry.”

“Nothing is gonna change for now. Not for a while.”

Jensen chokes, “That is not what I asked.”

They surround him. Had him surrounded since they entered this room, but they tighten the noose now. Unsure who to focus on, Jensen swallows. Arms wind around him. Hands settle on his hips and shoulders and he writhes to keep them off, but there is only so much resistance he knows to put up against these two.

Jeffrey, in front, repeats, “Don’t worry about it,” and seals the order with a kiss to Jensen’s turned cheek.

Jared, at Jensen’s back, puts his mouth to Jensen’s ear to whisper, “You always wanted for us to get along—now you got it,” and Jensen once more tries to wind himself free, once more gets himself nowhere but exactly where they want him. Caught up in their lies. In their schemes; their puppet to bend and toy with as they please— “Now, don’t try and act like this isn’t exactly how you prefer to be handled.”

“You wanted no part of leadership. You made this clear with every fiber of your stubborn being right from the moment I made you a home here… And that is no sin, love, but don’t go blaming us for treating you according to the place you chose…”

“We love you,” Jared says, tracing Jensen’s jaw. The tense line of his neck. “We only want what’s best for you. Don’t you agree that there was more love than cruelty in saving you from all those hours of negotiation? All that stress, all that fighting?”

Jeffrey chuckles, “You would have stormed out after five minutes.” His hands roam underneath Jensen’s coat, find the curve of his lower back where Jared’s stomach rests. Jensen’s hands slide to Jeffrey’s waist to shove him away. The man pushes closer, instead. “As you can see, we didn’t kill each other. Nobody wants that. You know we can be…agreeable with each other. Your boy and I.”

Jared whispers, “I thought you’d enjoy this surprise. No more worries. All has been settled, you can relax now,” and Jensen can’t help but insist, “Why won’t you tell me?” and Jared seals his mouth with a kiss, then, long and full and hot, his hand cupped on Jensen’s cheek to keep him, turn him into it. Jensen’s knees weaken. He clings to Jeffrey who pins him against Jared, who kisses a curved line along Jensen’s bent, presented neck. Jensen swallows, reels. None of those phrases meant anything. They do not intend to tell him anything.

Jared mumbles, “Stop it,” like he’s chastising his nestlings and Jensen winces for it, the humiliation of it. But he has no means to either oblige or speak up, he is stuck now like he always was, and isn’t there some consolation in this? Is there no peace in this familiarity, love, don’t you like it here?

Jensen warns, “I know what you’re doing,” and Jeffrey chuckles, and Jared muses from behind, “Of course you do. It is not intelligence you’re lacking,” and then it is Jeffrey’s turn to kiss Jensen. He pulls him up and in and crowds the three of them into an even tighter coil, Jensen in the middle, groaning. Clasping. Decompressing.

That’s right. Just give in. “N-no…” There is no harm in this. No lies, no false illusions. - You love us back, don’t you? Or, at least, in whatever twisted version this pious little heart allows you to. “Of—why are you doing this,” and Jensen sobs this, and a tender, tender sore so so deep in him aches like it hasn’t in forever, and he wants…oh, how Jensen simply wants to be able to give in. How he wants to let them keep him up, wants to give every thought over to them, even Jeffrey, yes, whoever asks… They are one, Jensen feels this; there is nothing to denounce, no lie to uncover about it. Again, “Stop,” and they keep kissing him, his neck, his face, collarbones and chest, behind his ears and into his hair and Jensen growls, “Please,” but they pull him under. Pull him onto the bed, pull his clothes off him. Jensen does not cry. They won’t let him.

“I would, if you actually needed to.” Jeffrey paws Jensen’s prick in a mirror to what Jared does to him, helps the boy to unlace his trousers, gets that hot mouth kissing his hip, his pubes. Jeffrey hums, buries his hand in all that hair—Jensen feels this in his own fingertips, on his own scalp. “But you need something else. And although you continue to fight, we will gladly provide it.” Jensen thinks he makes a noise, but this could as well be Jared’s throat, Jeffrey’s. Someone holds him down with a hand on his bare chest and as Jared gets his mouth on Jeffrey’s prick at last, it is Jensen who moans loudest for it. His hands roam the silken sheets, bare skins. Hair, fingernails. “That’s right,” Jeffrey hums. His fist turns in Jared’s hair and Jensen’s lashes flutter together with his nestling’s. His testicles pull tight like Jeffrey’s. “You’re so good at that… Letting yourself fall for us like this…” Jensen finds his leg lifting and tilting outward to give Jeffrey’s fingers more room to play. They rub down his taint and someone else’s (Jared’s?) fingers pet around his mouth, dip inside, give him something to work on, focus on. Jensen’s eyes draw shut with his next, deep moan. His hands are on both men and vice versa. The meager amount of blood in Jensen—Jared has been so busy with Abigail, and all Jensen ever tasted on him anymore was her—should not be able to suffice in making the thrum between them so intense, and yet Jensen wades. Sinks, and sinks, with no hope to climb out. Unless they let him. Or if you choose to. - Which you won’t. - No, he won’t. Jeffrey smiles. “Of course not.”

Jensen is himself and both of them at once and fails to distinguish any sort of barrier. There is none, and as horrifying as that is, it is soothing, too—yes, see? We’ve got you. There is no judgment in this bed, nowhere you choose to go with us. - So did you decide to…? Jeffrey groans, “You’ll see soon enough,” and Jensen’s head jolts back with the next harsh thrust, and his arms wind tighter around Jared’s shoulder as the boy grinds on top of him, kisses and bites and drinks and Jeffrey is here, too, holds deep inside Jared so he is in Jensen, too, a shared, open line with no discernible beginning or end. How it was always meant to be – how we always have been – how you’ve wanted it. Don’t you remember? Jensen? Christian?

Summer mingles with them in the overturned sheets, burns under Jensen’s skin and under Jared’s nails, sits thick like a maggot in the back of Jeffrey’s throat. Jensen bites and tugs and fucks, three pairs of limbs in a tangle and three laughing, moaning mouths. Jared’s voice climbs like he’s dying all over again as Jensen pounds him so hard any bystander would mistake it for cruelty. But there is no one. The usually-so-bustling-castle is easily tuned out in this turmoil, in this bed. Nothing exists but the lust they share, the three of them, the constant of their bond. No worries, no guilt. No consequence, no dread.

Jensen comes apart and is rebuilt on the shivers of it. As the same effect reverberates through his master, his nestling, it matters less and less what came before this or what will come after this. Jensen knows: this, he wants this. To be one, unapologetically and unconditionally. Wants to be held, to be taken as he is, not despite but because of his flaws, his terrifying, ugly core. The core that feeds and feeds until it consumes every thought, every cell. Until neither God nor the devil has any more power over Jensen. He is above them. Yes, soon. I will take you there.

Jensen does not spot the point of falling asleep, only being already deep inside this dream. An old one, a bittersweet one: back at the monastery, the humble habit and the sun beats down on him as he tends the garden by Austin’s side. Good brother Austin who took to Jensen like blood when he was first brought here, when he was scared and just a child who didn’t know any better. Austin, whom Jensen prays with day in and day out, who he eats with, sleeps next to. Who laughs when their eyes meet and who holds Jensen’s hand tender in prayer, sometimes. The estate has not burned just yet. It will be several summers before that dreadful night. Before all that oil, all that blood. As they joke and playfight, Austin wraps Jensen up in his arms and kisses him, spins with him. Overwhelmed with joy, Jensen laughs, unafraid of who might hear, who might see. Yes, here—this is where he belonged, all this time.

“I love you more than anything,” Austin says, beaming. “More than myself. I know it’ll take time for you to understand, but don’t worry, I’ll prove myself to you. You’ll see, soon! Soon, all will be set straight.”

Jensen laughs, but as Austin keeps him clutched tight, slowly stops to spin for he might get dizzy, Jensen’s laughter fades with it. Out of breath, he clings to his brother, cradles a face that is not yet split in half, those warm eyes that have not yet dulled. Jensen blinks against the sun in his eyes, the sweat creeping in, burning. Austin has yet to blink at all.

“I’m almost strong enough. You won’t have to wait much longer. All will be well, then. We will be free!”

“Jared,” Jensen blurts. If he wasn’t held so tightly, surely, startling like this would have made Jensen fall. But he remains where he is, cradled tight. Both hands on that face, in the wild dance of all that hair, chasing the bumps of those beauty marks, the shape of that lip. Again, “Jared,” flailing, laughing (shivering). “My love. What are you doing?”

“Everything I’ll have to, of course. So don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”

Jensen is kissed, and he kisses back.

The nearby creek trickles by, soaks fields and crops and wells. And it is not quiet in their garden, no, it crawls with life and the sun smiles unperturbed, determined. Oh, how light Jensen is. What a joyful, sacred day this is.