Chapter Text
We've got forever
Slipping through our hands
We've got more time
To never understand
Guy is dying.
The jumbled call for help comes from across the city, slamming into Jasper like an arrow through the sternum.
He finds Guy a slumped heap in a back alley in Hell’s Kitchen, stabbed repeatedly in the gut, bleeding and bleeding, except the sluggishness and the amount tell Jasper that Guy’s laid here for some time before he called to him. Panic is a second arrow, piercing straight into his heart, and Jasper slaps on Guy’s cheek to a lack of coherent response. Guy’s blue eyes are glassy, disoriented, his breaths coming shallow, quick, his skin clammy and cold, body gone into deep shock.
Guy isn’t just dying; Guy is going to die.
There’s no alternative; Jasper slices his wrist open and drips his blood directly into Guy’s mouth. Guy sputters, choking on the blood rather than swallowing, confused as to what he’s supposed to do.
Drink, Jasper has to push the command hard to make Guy’s throat work. Jasper has cut himself too fucking deep; it’s a goddamn mess; Guy half-gulps, half-drowns. The reality is that Jasper has never tried to save a human life like this, and maybe he should fully commit to the deed, except Guy would never ever ever forgive him and besides, he can’t. He just fucking can’t. There’s a too much, Jasper knows, just as there is a too little, Guy having bled out but not drained, Jasper’s too weak blood, and too copious an amount of it. Jasper knows this but Guy is going to die so he keeps pouring. Somewhere deep down, a memory wants to crawl out – sterile room, neat bodies, blood and blood and blood – which he very decisively pushes away. Not now. Not when Guy is now writhing, turning his head away from Jasper’s still gushing wrist, his blood-smeared face etched with pain.
The scream is a sonic blast, soundless but a drill straight into the brain. Jasper reels from the force of it, propelled backwards onto his ass, possibly even actually shoved back rather than his own recoil. Guy is curled into a ball now, convulsing and convulsing. Alarmed, Jasper climbs back to a hover over Guy and tries to shake Guy out of it, needs to see whether the stabs – such a mess that he couldn’t even tell how many times – have healed. Guy resists, self-protective, until he gasps, throwing his head back and eyes flying open.
A ring of gold blazes around each of Guy’s pupils, near overtakes the blue, the sight mesmerizing and terrifying, then it recedes, fades, and finally non-existent. Guy blinks, blinks again, unseeing for a moment before his too-bright gaze settles on Jasper.
Jasper.
Relief, gladness, gratitude. Adoration.
Then, Guy’s eyes slip shut, and he passes out.
*
Guy dreams.
He flares periodically, flashes and snippets thrown like trash out of a passing car, too quick to make out before they dissipate, and Jasper isn’t sure if it’s a product of his blood or the fatal wounds that have now healed completely without a trace, or perhaps both.
It wasn’t much effort to haul Guy back to his safehouse in Hunts Point. It’s a long way on foot but vampire speed came in handy. Guy at least had the courtesy of getting stabbed at three in the fucking morning, otherwise he would’ve just plain fucking died if the sun had been out, which Jasper doesn’t want to think too much about. He decidedly didn’t think about it when he cleaned the both of them up, trashing the ruined clothes, wiping the frankly absurd amounts of blood from their bodies, and depositing a naked Guy onto the shitty twin bed rather than attempt to redress him for the sake of a modesty Guy hasn’t shown him for their past meetings.
Jasper sits in a chair now, next to the bed, watching Guy sleep, watching Guy dream. Should’ve gotten a nicer pillow, maybe, the lumpy thing Guy’s head is resting on unbecoming, but this is a shitty safehouse, interim lodging, the only upgrade being heavy duty blackout curtains, which is a necessity and not an aesthetic. Much needed now as the sun rises, as Guy sleeps on.
Even now, save for those little puffs of smoke out the window, Guy’s brain is a locked box. Discipline, something that Jasper continues to behold in Guy, surprised by, a surprise that Guy is infinitely insulted by.
You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?
Which isn’t true, and unfair. Jasper’s awe having nothing to do with Guy’s capacity. After Marseille, Jasper caught up with Guy in Barcelona, where they tangled midday in another swanky hotel room of Guy’s doing – the boy’s gonna learn sooner or later that credit card fraud can be a bitch if you don’t do it right – Jasper lazy from the crowding sun and Guy taking advantage, riding him slow, wanting and wanting, so much that it seeped from edges and corners. Jasper couldn’t help but peek only to shoulder solid wall.
“Bopping around my porridge bowl, hm?” Guy said afterwards, playful like they were reminiscing over past good times even as he paired it with a cut of a smile.
After Barcelona, it was Madrid. That time, they spent a solid day together. Like a scratched up record, a favourite that you just couldn’t bear to throw away, they banter, they tease, they fuck, all of it half-sincere and half-filled with recriminations and acrimony. Guy has a well of spite to rival most oil reserves. Jasper had seen it, of course, responded to it, why he had pulled the boy in close in the first place despite knowing better, yet still he was surprised when the knife came back to slice his hand.
Perhaps a knife analogy is ill-suited at the moment.
Jasper leans forward, sweeps the curls off Guy’s forehead only for them to fall right back in place
“You said you knew what I was going through. You said you won’t let me down. And then you had the audacity to tell me that I don’t take you at your word? Because I did, Jasper. I really fucking did, like a fucking moron.”
Jasper could only take so much. The first few times, sure. But he got tired of the push and pull.
“You don’t want me to be sorry. You want me to be fucking sorry.”
“You’re goddamn right I do! You tried to kill me, you fucking psychopath. Just because I wouldn’t answer one fucking question. I think I’m entitled to hold a grudge.”
Jasper was nearly at full strength then, not like in Luxembourg, and still Guy overpowered him, the knockout command sucker punching him hard. At least he was out for only maybe thirty seconds rather than three fucking hours but that was all Guy needed to book it, taking the chickenshit way out of the argument.
Jasper had half the mind to leave things at that, fuck Guy and fuck the chase. He owes Guy for breaking him out of Amsterdam but it’s not as if Guy hasn’t taken his pound of flesh. Jasper has entirely better things to do, a fucking purpose beyond chasing after a puppy who keeps nipping him, even if it’s because he was the one who kicked it.
don’t let me down
But that goddamn fucking text message haunted him alongside I really fucking did, like a fucking moron so Jasper followed the trail despite himself to New York.
And if he hadn’t… well, they’re even now, aren’t they?
Guy mutters a little on the bed, no more than a twitch of his lips, a whisper of a thought. Jasper slowly strokes his fingers through Guy’s hair until Guy settles once more. He thinks of the look on Guy’s face when Guy saw him, the sound of his name uttered in his mind. All guard was gone in that moment. It wasn’t just naked adoration. It was–
Jasper stops himself; he isn’t sure either of them is ready for that.
*
Jasper wakes to find Guy pilfering from his closet. He dozed off when the sun was at its zenith, his strength more or less recovered since Amsterdam but he still easily tires, especially when he hasn’t fed, when he chose to be an impromptu blood bag. It’s probably still mid-afternoon even if there isn’t a peek of sun through the curtains. Guy is half-dressed in a pair of Jasper’s jeans, about to pull one of his t-shirts over his head. Jasper wouldn’t have been able to follow once Guy stepped out into daylight.
Guy follows through with the motion despite being caught, finishes dressing, feet already in a pair of Jasper’s boots, ready to go. He’s cut off but there’s significant effort involved that Jasper can feel. Jasper drowned Guy in at least a pint of his blood, probably more, definitely more than enough for a connection to thrum for the time being no matter what. As it is, Guy’s control is wavering, no doubt spurring the antsy desire to put distance between them.
“Don’t go,” Jasper softly requests, not wanting to make it a plea.
Guy shakes, quiet and silent for a long time.
“She’s dead, okay?” he finally says, voice hard, gaze even harder as he looks at Jasper from across the room. “You wanted to know what happened. That’s what happened. My mother’s dead. She’s been dead this whole time. Died, two years ago.” He takes a step, then two, closer to Jasper. “She left me a letter. Wrote that she did what she had to do, that she hopes I’d find her, that I’d forgive her. And I do but I don’t. She thought she was doing the right thing, she thought she was doing right by me.” Guy steps ever and ever closer, until he is right in front of Jasper, forcing Jasper to look up to maintain eye contact, those blue eyes of Guy’s burning. “She meant it. I could feel it. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, I don’t know. But I could feel it. Her sincerity. But what does that even matter. What do I do with that. She knew I had this thing that needed training, that would put me on the radar, and she left anyway. She left and then she left, got herself killed but I don’t even know for what. Doris left, too. The girl I wouldn’t tell you about. The girl who set you on fire. Not that it isn’t abundantly obvious that she isn’t around anymore. She helped me. She really did. Got me my fucking closure with my mom, whatever little there is of it. But you know, she had to go, she had to do her own fucking thing, on her own. Can’t put me in danger. So she left, too.”
Guy shakes and shakes, his shields vibrating from containment, to keep blood from singing to blood.
“They all fucking leave in the end,” he snarls. “They leave or they throw you in a pit with a shovel and tell you to dig.”
“Things are a little different now, don’t you think?” Jasper aims for reasonable, falls short, badly short, tension flung from Guy bunching up Jasper’s shoulders, tightening his back, making him want to snarl back in defense.
“How?” Guy snaps.
“You almost fucking died, Guy,” Jasper snaps back. “That’s what’s fucking different.” He takes an unneeded breath, tries to calm, not an inherently reasonable man. Takes fucking effort. I want what you want. Their shared thought from Luxembourg, a moment of something resembling unity.
Instead, Guy laughs, and it’s not the laugh from Marseille, gorgeous and bright. This one is ugly, scornful.
“I don’t know what I want, and neither do you. Look at you,” Guy spits out, peering down at Jasper with disdain. “You can’t even bite and you’re a goddamn vampire. They neutered you.”
Jasper flinches. The hit scores deeper, harder than he could ever have prepared for. “You’ve gotten really fucking mean, you know that?”
Guy bares his teeth and it’s not a grin. “You think that’s mean? I haven’t even gotten started. You want me to stay? You want all those lovely things you showed me? Two against the world, lovers on a mission of revenge? I don’t need you, Jasper. The first time I ever came to you was because I was forced to. Then I saved you because it was the right thing to do. We fuck because you give it to me really fucking good, and I can’t deny that we have a lot of chemistry but this is all we are. This is all we’re ever going to be. You can stop chasing any time, sweetheart.”
Jasper should be furious, should be outraged, should be consumed with rage at being spoken to this way, by a pup, by a child, but it is exactly that youth that Jasper sees through. Guy’s mind may be shut but it’s all there on his face, it’s all there in his voice, if Jasper were willing to see, willing to listen. This time he sees, this time he listens, willing away the tension, pushing past his own goddamn pride that’s already been trampled and barely been salvaged.
Guy is vicious, not like an animal on the hunt but one whose leg is caught in a trap, lashing out and lashing out and lashing out. If he says the right thing, if he carries the right tone, if he shuts it all off a sufficient amount, then he could prove himself right. They all fucking leave in the end.
Grace, Jasper thinks once more, is what he should’ve given this boy. What he can still give.
“Stay,” Jasper says, and opens himself. Let Guy feel the sincerity of it. Let Guy know how much he means it. “Don’t go.” Don’t leave.
Guy sucks in a breath, and he looks ready to cry, as if he’s heard the one thing he’s longed to hear his whole life. His hand reaches for Jasper, but halts halfway there. Guy takes a step back. Then another. Then he turns and heads out the door.
Guy leaves, because he won’t be the one left behind, never again.
Jasper closes his eyes, feels the call of his blood that Guy denies, feels it fade further and further and further away until there’s nothing.
They all fucking leave in the end.
Yeah, pup, I know, Jasper thinks. After all, he just might know a little something about that, too.