Courage (Part 2/2) for spidergloss
Courage (Part 1/2)
His mom called him that night. "I just wanted to warn you, Roy's coming out tomorrow. I was trying to make them give you some more time, but you know how he is, he still thinks he can run this family like we're some sort of paramilitary organization." He could hear his mom curl her lip up in distaste, the way she always did when she was talking about uncle Roy.
Evan froze. "Thank you," he got out after a moment. His mother sighed.
"I know you wanted to do this on your own, Evan. But maybe it's not the worst thing when someone with more experience takes over for now. There'll be other chances. It's only your first time, and you can watch and learn."
"..Yeah," Evan said, choked. He sat down on the couch with a thud, putting his head in his hands. Watch and learn while Roy tortured Johnny. Oh God. He couldn't.
He went downstairs on stiff legs, feeling numb, as if he were somewhere else, watching himself root around the dresser for the key to the ankle chain. "You need to get out of here. There's a professional hunter coming over tomorrow," he said, wondering how his voice could sound so steady when he felt like he was betraying his entire life, everything his family stood for.
Johnny stared at him for a second and then he moved with a burst of freaky, inhuman speed; suddenly Evan was on the bed, pinned under Johnny's body, and Johnny was sinking his fangs into his neck. Johnny hadn't prepared him at all this time, just bit down, and it hurt, a bright, stabbing pain. Evan yelled and instinctively started struggling, trying to buck Johnny off, but he wasn't a match for vampire strength. Johnny's hands were like steel bands around his wrists, immovable, effortlessly holding him down.
The pain subsided quickly after that first terrible moment, and apparently at some point some wires in Evan's brain had gotten terribly crossed. Nothing about this should be hot, neither the way Johnny was stretched out above him, nor his inhuman strength, and certainly not the way he was hungrily drinking Evan's blood. This was maybe the most dangerous situation Evan had ever been in. Johnny was starved and angry, and even if he still looked like the guy Evan had known for half his life, he was a deadly predator now and there was no one here to stop him from drinking Evan dry.
And yet, Evan was getting hard. He froze, pinned like a butterfly by his own embarrassment. Johnny's thigh was between his, holding him down; there was no way he could miss it. Johnny was laughing, muffled against his neck, with his fangs still inside Evan's skin; it was the weirdest thing Evan had ever felt in his life and it was turning him on even more. He closed his eyes in abject humiliation. Maybe Johnny would take mercy on him and kill him quickly and then this would all be over.
Johnny shifted his grip and pulled Evan's arms above his head. Evan felt the cuffs snap closed around his wrists and then Johnny slowly pulled his fangs out. He gave the wound a quick, perfunctory lick before he lifted his head, running his tongue over his bloodied lips, smug as a satisfied cat. "God, I needed that," he said, and then he slid two fingers into the pocket of Evan's tight jeans, half an inch away from brushing his aching cock. Evan drew in a surprised, shaky breath. Johnny wouldn't - he wasn't going to -
Johnny was pulling out his iPhone. He gave Evan a smirk that said he knew exactly what Evan had been thinking, and then he started dialing with flying fingers and jittered while it rang, so focused on the phone Evan might as well have stopped existing. Someone answered and Johnny's entire body relaxed.
"Mom! It's me, I'm okay," he said, breathless. "Don't cry, I'm okay, I swear, I'm so sorry you were worried." Evan thought he could faintly hear Patti sobbing down the line. Johnny had tears running down his face. Evan turned his head away, swallowing hard. "Mom, can you come and get me? I'm at, uh - Evan? Where is this place?"
Evan hesitated. Johnny snarled at him warningly. "Tell me. You fucking owe me," he said, his eyes flashing, and Evan took a deep breath and betrayed his family once again.
"Where are you? …That's, like, a two hour drive, right?" Johnny said. "No, it's okay - mom, really, it's okay, I'm safe here now, you don't have to worry anymore. Just hurry up, okay? And… could you bring Paris?"
Evan blinked. Johnny brought Paris along to competitions and shows fairly frequently and seemed pretty attached to him, even though he'd always struck Evan as a bit of a freeloader. But he wasn't really the sort of guy Evan would have picked to join a rescue expedition. He was kind of high-strung and over-dramatic.
Johnny put the phone down on the bedside table after one last round of reassurance and wiped his hand over his wet face. "That hunter isn't getting here until tomorrow, right? I don't need to disappear right this second?"
"Yeah, you've got some time," Evan said unthinkingly, and then could have smacked himself. He was way off his game. He hardly wanted Johnny hanging out in here with him any longer.
"Great," Johnny said, giving him a slow, malicious smile. "I was really angry and really fucking hungry just now," he said in a low voice. "And I still didn't kill you. Something to think about, the next time you decide we're all ruled by our killer instincts."
He was playing with the buttons on Evan's shirt, slowly flicking them open one after the other to bare more of Evan's throat. "But I think you can spare a few more mouthfuls for me, can't you? I think you owe me, after everything you've done." He stretched himself out above Evan's body, his thigh hovering half an inch above Evan's hard cock. Evan swallowed and wordlessly bared his throat. Johnny had to know what this was doing to him.
Johnny mouthed his skin, breathing hotly against him. Evan shuddered. Johnny laughed. "You're so eager for it," he said mockingly. "I wonder what your great hunter family would think about that." Evan snarled and tried to buck him off again, but Johnny easily pinned him down. He knew Johnny had to be able to feel his cock twitching when Johnny slid his fangs in.
Johnny didn't contain himself to just the one bite this time. He kept pulling out and finding new places to bite, drinking in dainty little sips while Evan shivered helplessly underneath him.
Evan was honestly worried that he was going to come without anyone even touching his cock when Johnny finally pulled off him with one last regretful lick. "I think that's all I can safely take for now," he said, levering himself off Evan's body and getting off the bed without so much as a look for Evan's obvious, painful erection.
Johnny had finally stopped limping, Evan noticed with relief when he walked out the door. Evan could hear him rooting around upstairs, curious. He was holding a bottle of orange juice when he came back down. "God, you people are freaks," he said. "Everything full of weapons. It's like some redneck house in a horror movie."
He opened the bottle and held it to Evan's lips. "Drink, you just lost a lot of blood," he said, grinning maliciously when Evan gave him an angry look and tried to turn his head away. "Don't you like being helpless? Think about how I felt." He tilted the bottle a little more, prompting, and Evan glared but opened his mouth before he ended up with orange juice all over his chin.
Johnny made him drink half the bottle, and he did actually feel better afterwards. There was a crash upstairs just as Johnny was setting it back on the bedside table. "Johnny?" Patti yelled.
"Down here, mom!" Johnny ran towards the door, but Patti came barreling down the stairs before he was even halfway there. He launched himself into her arms and she caught him effortlessly, holding him tight to her chest while he wrapped his legs around her and clung. They were both crying. Evan looked away, feeling awkward, like he was intruding on a private moment, even if it wasn't his fault they were having their reunion in the room where he was chained to the bed. It wasn't like he could leave to let them have their privacy.
Paris came downstairs, too, his eyes going wide when he saw Evan. Johnny finally pulled away from Patti and Paris immediately pulled him into a hug. "We thought you were dead! Don't ever do that again, asshole," Evan heard him mumbling, and Johnny made a sound that was half laugh and half sob and crushed him in a hard hug. After a moment he started nuzzling Paris' neck and Evan abruptly realized why he'd wanted Paris there.
It didn't look intimate and sexy, the way it had felt when Johnny had done it to him - or, no, it was intimate, but in a friendly, platonic kind of way. Paris held Johnny in a loose hug while he drank, and at some point he flinched, punched Johnny lightly in the shoulder and complained about him being greedy, and Johnny made a mocking "whine, whine, whine" sort of noise without actually taking his teeth out of Paris' neck. Somehow, they were making the entire thing seem light-hearted, friendly, when to Evan it had felt more like... well, like feeding a large, dangerous predator; like sticking his arm into the lion's cage.
Patti had been watching them with a smile on her teary face, but then Evan tried to sit up, making the chains clank, and she finally seemed to become aware that there was someone besides Johnny in the room. "You," she said, in a tone that made Evan flinch back and then she stalked over to him and slapped him so hard he crashed down to the bed.
He blinked up at her, wide-eyed, his cheek already starting to feel bruised and swollen. "You know, I had my suspicions about Tanya, but I can't believe you would - I know you boys don't get along anymore, but you used to be friends, Evan! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"It's his entire family, they're all hunters," Johnny said, pulling away from Paris.
"So? He's old enough to make his own decisions," Patti said, still glaring.
Evan cringed, feeling all of five inches tall, but he had to at least give it one last try. "Mrs. Weir, please, there's another vampire out there, the one who turned Johnny. He's killing people. I really need to find him before he does it again and Johnny wouldn't tell me-"
"I'm the one who turned Johnny," Patti said.
"Mom!" Johnny yelled. Evan stared up at her, stunned silent. It was obvious the moment she said it, of course. She'd picked Johnny up as if he weighed nothing at all when she'd come in, when Evan could barely lift him, and by all rights he should have bowled her over. It was just…pretty hard to believe. She was a mom! She looked like a mom! Evan had never met a vampire who looked so little like a creature of the night.
"Why would you tell him that!" Johnny said, staring at her incredulously.
She put an arm around him, pulling him close. "They know who you are now, there's not much use hiding anymore. If we don't put a stop to this now, it'll be open season on you forever, and I'm not letting that happen."
She took Evan's iPhone from the table and started scrolling through his contacts while Evan watched her, wide-eyed. "Tanya? This is Patti Weir. I'm taking Johnny home now. The next time you think about doing something like this, you might want to remember that I know where to find Evan too," she said in a voice that sent shivers down Evan's back. "If any of you people ever go after my son or any other member of my family ever again, we'll start going after yours. We'll keep Evan with us for a while. Don't worry, nothing's going to happen to him, as long as nothing happens to Johnny."
She hung up the phone without waiting for an answer. Evan blinked. Patti had always seemed so motherly and nice, even when he knew that she didn't like him much. Five minutes ago, he couldn't have imagined her threatening someone, but right now, he was willing to believe that she'd rip his throat out with her bare hands if he hurt Johnny again. Maybe it was a mom thing. Tanya didn't seem very dangerous, either, after all, and no vampire had ever had the chance to underestimate her more than once.
"But - wait, if you turned Johnny, then who's killing those people? The one who turned you?"
Patti laughed. "I've been a vampire for a lot longer than you've been alive, Evan. No. An old vampire who went crazy. It happens sometimes. God knows why he's been following us around. Maybe there was enough left of him to be lonely and he was trying to reach out to us somehow." She shrugged. "It's been taking care of. There won't be any more deaths."
Evan stared at her. Okay, no, turned out he still couldn't imagine Patti killing anyone, not even a crazy serial killing vampire. "She means they've taken him to an asylum," Johnny said, sounding amused, as if he'd guessed what Evan was thinking.
"You have an asylum? Like, a vampire asylum?"
"We have prisons, a few asylums, a couple doctors who know what's up. There's tens of thousands of us, all over the world. We've got some infrastructure."
"Huh," Evan said. He'd never really thought of the vampires having an organized society before, but he guessed it made sense that they would. Patti didn't seem crazy, or aggressive, and she'd said she'd been a vampire for a long time. Maybe they didn't all go crazy after all; maybe the experts were wrong. Evan took a deep, shaky breath. This was all a bit much to take in all at once.
"Can we go home now?" Johnny asked, a little plaintively.
Patti pulled him close. "Of course, sweetheart."
They put Evan in the backseat of the car with Paris, who kept glaring at him hatefully. Johnny was sitting up front and Patti would glance over at him every couple of seconds, as if to reassure herself that he was still there.
They left Evan and Paris in their hotel room while Patti and Johnny went first to the police and then to a press conference. Paris spent the day calling a million people on his cell and watching Evan like one of those of those pointy, aggressive little dogs, the ones that always looked like they were thinking about biting you in the calf. As if he wasn't half Evan's size and there was anything he could do about it if Evan just decided to walk out of here.
Patti and Johnny where still clinging to each other when they came back to the hotel that night, pale and exhausted, obviously unwilling to leave each other's sight. Both Patti and Paris wanted to keep an eye on Evan, and Paris crossed his arms and stubbornly refused to pay for a room of his own, "Since I'm mostly here as a free meal, anyway," he said, which was how they ended up crammed four people to a double room.
Patti and Johnny shared one bed, Paris took the other one, and Evan ended up on the crappy little cot the hotel staff wheeled in for them, despite the fact that he was easily the biggest of the four. There were a bunch of broken springs poking out and his feet hung off the end, but he was pretty sure he shouldn't be complaining just then.
*******
Evan wasn't even sure what Johnny ended up telling the press; some long and involved lie about a kidnapper who'd gotten cold feet halfway through. He claimed he'd been drugged most of the time and he could barely remember anything. Even tried his hardest to stay away from all of it: Johnny's tearful reunions with all his desperately worried friends, the crying, hysterical fans, the press descending on him in droves. Every glimpse he got just made him feel more guilty.
They mostly seemed to buy the story, anyway, even the police. It helped that Johnny looked like a kidnapping victim; thin and tired, dark bruises around his wrists and ankles. Evan didn't think he was drinking enough.
Evan ended up hiding in their hotel room again, sitting around with Paris in hostile, awkward silence. He surfed the internet for a couple hours on his iPhone, until his eyes hurt and the boredom became unbearable, and then started cleaning the bathroom out of sheer desperation. The hotel staff had done an okay job, but the grout could always be whiter and at least it was something to do. Not to mention an excuse to not be in the same room as Paris.
Johnny came in late in the evening, followed by Patti, both of them looking exhausted, loaded down with so many gifts they could barely see over them. Johnny dropped it all on his bed and hugged Paris, and then blinked down at Evan, who was stretched out on his stomach underneath the sink, fighting a stubborn black spot. "What are you doing?"
"Cleaning," Paris answered for him. "He's been doing that all day. It's like living with you."
"Huh," Johnny said. "Okay, I really need some peace and quiet now. Evan, give me that sponge and get out of here."
"Can you please wait until I've got this spot out?" Evan said, a little irritated. He'd been trying his best not to rock the boat until now, doing whatever they wanted him to do, but he'd started this now and it was going to bug him all night if he left it half-done.
Johnny sighed, loud and put-upon, but he climbed over Evan and into the bathtub, pulling the shower curtain half shut behind himself, and started scrubbing at the water stains. Evan got a little distracted attacking a thin line of mold in the grout directly under the sink and then suddenly it was half an hour later, and he'd forgotten Johnny was there until their hands brushed when they both reached for a rag at the same time.
They both flinched. Evan was pretty sure Johnny had forgotten about him, too. "I… sorry. I'll leave you alone now," he said awkwardly.
"Do that," Johnny said, not quite as hostile as he usually was with Evan now. Cleaning was clearly his Zen place.
********
Evan was trying not to toss around too much, because his cot creaked loudly every time he moved, but the springs kept poking him and he just couldn't seem to find a comfortable position. Paris was snoring and there wasn't any sound coming from Patti at all, which meant she must be asleep, too; unlike Johnny, she stopped breathing in her sleep. Evan wondered how much time you had to spent as a vampire before those unconscious reflexes started wearing off. Could your mind really stay human while your body changed on you like that? He didn't know what to believe anymore.
Johnny's sheets rustled, and then he was tapping over quietly, pushing Evan's shoulder until he slid to the side, blinking at him in confusion. Johnny fitted himself into the narrow cot with him. The springs creaked loudly and Evan froze, but neither of the other two woke up. There wasn't really even enough room for Evan on his own, never mind the two of them, so they were pressed together tightly. They'd both worn shorts and t-shirts to bed. Johnny's legs were mostly naked where they pressed into his. Evan held himself very still, hardly daring to breathe.
"I'm hungry," Johnny whispered.
"Oh, um. Go for it," Evan said awkwardly. Johnny hadn't asked him for this since he'd gotten out of the basement. Evan tilted his head back, baring his throat. The springs squeaked again, a loud, grating sound that made both of them flinch.
"Shh, don't wake them," Johnny said quickly. "I was drinking from Tara earlier, they'd wonder why I'm hungry again. I wouldn't need this much if I wasn't still healing. I haven't told them about that, I don't want them to worry."
He had such a natural talent for making Evan feel like pond scum. Evan swallowed and shifted, very carefully, offering himself.
"How's your leg doing?" he whispered.
"Almost healed, I think. But I really need it to be fine tomorrow," Johnny said.
They were going back to training tomorrow and resuming the tour in a week. Everyone had tried to talk Johnny into taking a while off to recover, but he wasn't having it. The last thing I need right now is more time lying around in bed by myself, he'd said. He wanted to be out there, spending time with his friends and fans.
Evan had seen Johnny drinking from his friends several times now, both Tara and Paris, and it had never been anything like this. Johnny spent way more time than necessary mouthing Evan's neck, pressing his lips softly against the tendons, slicking his tongue over the sensitive skin, and when he finally bit down, he did it slow and deliberately. Penetration, Johnny had called it once, and that's what it felt like: intimate and sexual. He had to know what this was doing to Evan.
Evan tried desperately to keep his breathing even, acutely aware of the other two people in the room. Johnny finally pulled off and then spent another minute delicately lapping at the wound until it closed. He climbed off the cot, silent as a cat, his hand brushing Evan's painfully hard cock on the way.
"Sleep tight," he whispered, mocking, the malicious pleasure obvious just under the surface of his voice, and left Evan lying there with his cock hard enough to hurt, his face burning, on his creaky little cot in their overcrowded room, where he could do absolutely nothing about it.
*******
Official tour practice started the next day, so they moved into the hotel the other skaters were staying at, and Evan finally got a room of his own again. Patti and Paris didn't seem all that comfortable about leaving him on his own, but none of them could think of a single plausible explanation why the four of them should be staying together.
Practice was a madhouse that day. The other skaters were flocking around Johnny and fans kept sneaking in even thought the rink had been closed to the public. Evan kept his head down and tried to concentrate on his training. He hadn't been on the ice in a week and it showed. Johnny was in even worse form.
Evan didn't usually have a hard time ignoring other skaters, but somehow he couldn't seem to tune Johnny out. He flinched every time Johnny fell, even if he hadn't been looking, and he kept finding himself glancing over to check how he was doing. Johnny's leg seemed to be holding up okay, but if you were looking for it, it was pretty obvious that he didn't feel entirely secure on it.
********
Evan was stretched out on his bed - his beautiful, private, large, real bed - trying to work up the motivation to get up and brush his teeth so he could go to sleep, when someone knocked on the door. "You guys don't have to keep checking on me. I am so over the hunting thing right now, I can't even tell you," he said when Johnny stuck his head in.
"No, uh, I wanted-" Johnny gathered himself, squaring his shoulders. "I'm hungry," he said, giving Evan a challenging look, as if he was daring him to say no. Evan hesitated. He kind of felt like telling Johnny to go fuck himself, if he was only going to use this to fuck with Evan again. But he could still see the way Johnny had crashed onto the ice when his bad leg had twisted out from under him.
"Okay. Fine," he said, and then he closed his eyes and held still while Johnny sucked and bit and teased, fighting the desperate urge to yank him down and make him finish what he started. He jerked off twice afterwards, his face burning, knowing that Johnny knew.
********
Apparently the vampires had this network of people all over the world who knew about them and didn't mind serving as a snack and, unlike Johnny, who mostly took Paris or Tara with him when he traveled and fed from them, Patti used it frequently. She took Evan with her a couple of times. Evan had expected an army of creepy Goths with a vampire fetish, but actually, there were all kinds of normal people:
A motherly lady who seemed great friends with Patti and pressed a piece of cheesecake on Evan after they'd finished; a college girl with three cats, who talked wistfully about how much she missed her vampire boyfriend, who was in Europe for the year; a guy with some weird iron overload disease, who chattered enthusiastically at Evan about his disease in way too much detail, and how much nicer this was than sitting around the clinic for bloodletting all the time, and it had even cured his cirrhosis!
That last one brought Evan up short. He'd known that he was getting some advanced healing out of the biting, of course, from the way the puncture wounds always closed up instantly; but he'd thought it was just a local effect. But now that he thought about it, his bruises had been healing faster recently, too. He'd smashed into the boards yesterday evening, and what had been a livid, swollen bruise on his ribs was already fading to yellow.
He'd realized what Patti was doing, of course, trying to show him that there was a way to live as a vampire without hurting people; but he hadn't realized that at the same time, Johnny was changing him physically. That was… he wasn't sure if he was okay with that. Just thinking about what his mother would say if she knew what was really going on was making him nauseous. Their phone calls these days were always short, terse, and full of lies.
*******
"Can I stay for a while? Paris is having a party in our room and it's a little overwhelming," Johnny said, after he'd finished drinking, and for a moment Evan seriously thought about punching him in the face. Johnny knew exactly how much this turned him on. Evan desperately wanted him to do something about it; to hold him down and fuck him, the way he still sometimes held Evan down while he was drinking, even though Evan never tried to resist anymore. But if Johnny was just planning to sit here and watch him suffer, both of them knowing how desperate Evan was to jerk off, well, fuck him.
Johnny yawned, blinking tiredly, and Evan actually considered for a second whether it might have been a genuine request, and not just another power play. He could hear the bass beats through the wall from Paris' room next door, and Johnny got exhausted pretty easily still. But, okay, no. If he just wanted some peace, his mom's room was right on the other side of Evan's.
This was just another move in the game of "Make Evan so uncomfortable he'll regret ever laying eyes on Johnny." Evan was kind of sick of it. "You know what? Fine. Stay, or go, or do whatever the hell you want. I'm cleaning my bathroom." He got up from the bed without even trying to conceal his obvious erection and slammed the bathroom door shut behind him.
Evan spent an hour disinfecting everything someone else might have touched at any point. He always felt better about hotel bathrooms if he'd personally made sure there weren't any germs left over from the other guests, although he knew that it was kind of neurotic and usually didn't indulge the urge like this. He felt a lot better at the end. His erection had gone down at some point, and that desperate, shaken feeling Johnny always left him with when he drank was under control again.
When he came out, Johnny was curled up on the edge of his bed, fast asleep. Evan blinked. Okay, maybe it had been a power play and a genuine escape. The music was still playing next door. Evan took the path of least resistance and slid under the sheets at the far side of the bed, careful not to wake Johnny up. He didn't really want to send him back over to his noisy room, but he didn't really feel like dealing with him just then either. Johnny could let himself out if he woke up in the middle of the night.
*******
Of course Johnny couldn't just leave well enough alone. The next day he found a different way to mess with Evan.
"Maybe we should give your neck a bit of a rest. That spot's been bitten a bit too often recently, don't you think?" Johnny said, tracing his fingers lightly over the artery. Evan shivered. He was already hard with anticipation, and his skin felt oversensitive, eager for even that light tough.
Johnny was shifting down on the bed, and then his hands went to the button of Evan's pants. Evan froze while he flicked it open. "There's a nice big artery just… about… here," Johnny said, pulling Evan's jeans down on one side, stretching them tight over his cock and baring a patch of skin in the crease between his body and his thigh. He put his mouth there, inches from Evan's cock, and Evan forgot to breathe.
He was pretty sure that Johnny was fucking with both of them now. Evan could see that Johnny was hard, could tell by the way he was breathing how turned on he was; he obviously wanted more than blood at this point, too, even if he wasn't going to let himself have it.
It was driving Evan crazy. He couldn't even tell himself anymore that he was doing this out of guilt, or because Johnny needed it. Johnny was done healing, he'd do just fine with the blood he was getting from Tara and Paris. Evan wasn't doing this for any reason other than that he wanted it. It felt almost right, the Johnny was teasing him, like a punishment he deserved for how much he got off on this fucked-up thing.
He thought Johnny probably hated himself for being into this just as much as Evan did. He'd started this to fuck with Evan's head; he couldn't be happy that it had gotten to him, too. Evan wondered if Johnny wasn't punishing himself as much as Evan, at this point.
God, they were one fucked up pair.
********
Johnny was running through his new exhibition, something slow and wistful that Evan found totally hypnotic to watch. Evan had started training before him and was mostly done for the day; he was really just fucking around at this point, half-assedly going through an old short program just to see if he remembered it. They ended up in a spin at the same time, syncing up for a couple of rotations by chance; Evan bet it looked cool, with the two of them spinning in opposite directions. He came out of his spin at the same time as Johnny did and followed him across the rink, trying to see if he could sync up a jump like that.
It helped that Johnny telegraphed his lutzes pretty clearly; Evan jumped almost exactly when Johnny did, the two of them flying through the air towards each other. Evan had even managed to position himself so they wouldn't collide on the flow out. He grinned triumphantly.
Johnny whirled around so quickly there was a shower of ice spraying up from his blades and slammed Evan into the boards like a hockey player. "This isn't a competition, so I don't really get why you're trying to psych me out, but cut it out!" he hissed.
The impact had knocked the air out of Evan. "I'm not - I wasn't trying to -" he gasped, trying to figure out how to explain. He'd done that in practice before competitions a few times, skating too closely, following Johnny around, and, okay, he could see how what he just did might have looked kind of similar, but he hadn't meant it that way.
"Wait, were you trying to skate pairs with me? You've got to warn me when you're not going to be an asshole, Evan, I don't expect that sort of thing from you," Johnny said, but he was grinning a little, and he kept his hand on Evan's elbow until he'd gotten himself sorted out and could breathe properly again.
"Oh, go fuck yourself," Evan said. "I just thought it would look cool. Like a mirror."
"A funhouse mirror," Johnny said. Evan glared at him. He tried not to be sensitive about his height - he wasn't built like a typical figure skater, but he thought he made it work for him - but he still didn't really like to be teased about it. "Want to try again? It could look kind of interesting," Johnny said grudgingly. Evan decided to take his victories where he could find them.
They did a bunch jumps both towards and away from each other, and ended up with an audience of fellow skaters, who entertained themselves by calling out conflicting helpful suggestions. Evan rolled his eyes and ignored them. He was good at ignoring people when he wanted to.
"You should throw me," Johnny said after a couple of minutes. "You know how to do that, right?"
"Sure," Evan said, a little uncertainly. He hadn't really done that in years, not since the last time he'd done it in a closing number with Jeff, but he was pretty sure he remembered how, more or less.
They got into each other's way trying to skate close enough that Evan could get a decent grip, Johnny fumbled the take-off, and Evan's hand slipped on his waist while he was trying to launch him up. He overcompensated by using too much force and ended up throwing Johnny totally off-balance. He landed on the ice in a graceless tangled heap and Evan had to swerve abruptly so he didn't run him over.
"Um," he said apologetically, bracing himself to get yelled at. Johnny looked up and started laughing at his expression.
"God, you're bad at that," he said happily. Oh, of course Johnny would enjoy the opportunity to gloat. "Want to try again?" he said, holding out his hand so Evan could pull him up.
"Um. Okay?"
It went a little better this time; at least Johnny didn't fall, although he wobbled alarmingly on the landing. "For God's sake, Evan, I'm not a sack of flour. A little less brute strength next time, please."
It took them three quarters of an hour until they actually managed a proper triple without one or both of them falling over. The take-off was still kind of shaky, but Evan had finally figured out how to support him without getting in his way too much and Johnny got amazing height and speed on it. He whooped with joy in mid-air.
It did look really fun. Evan kind of wanted to try it, but he was really too tall for a normal guy Johnny's size to throw him, and while Johnny could probably toss him halfway across the rink with vampire strength, they couldn't exactly do that in front of everyone else.
He gave Johnny a triumphant grin and slung an arm across his shoulders. "We did it!" he said happily.
Johnny instantly stiffened, pulling out from under his arm. "Don't," he said. "We're not friends, Evan. Do I have to remind you what happened the last time we tried that?"
"That was different. We were competitors then," Evan said, feeling his good mood evaporate.
"And now I'm a monster and you're in the monster killing business. That's not exactly a better situation. We're skaters, we just skated together, it's what we do. Don't try to make this into anything it's not."
Johnny turned and started skating towards the exit. Evan stood and stared after him, and then realized what a pathetic picture that had to be, him watching Johnny leave like a jilted lover or something. He started doing laps around the rink, pushing himself forwards with big, angry strokes. It wasn't like he wanted to be best friends for life. They were stuck together anyway, until this while situation settled down; things would be a lot more tolerable if they could be friendly with each other.
*******
The door slid open almost soundlessly. "Get away from him!" someone yelled.
Johnny startled and tore his fangs out of Evan's neck. "Ow!" Evan said indignantly, clapping a hand over the wound, and then looked up. "Oh shit, don't! Roy, put that down!"
Fuck, this was the worst possible moment for anyone to walk in on, never mind the most militant of the family's hunters. Johnny's mouth was smeared with blood and the wound on Evan's neck was bleeding in a steady trickle between his fingers. Roy had a crossbow pointed at Johnny, taking a few steps to the side so he could aim for his heart without hitting Evan.
"Don't shoot, it's not what it looks like, I can explain this!" Evan lied frantically, shifting his body between Johnny and the weapon. "He wasn't hurting me. Johnny, stay behind me! Quit it, both of you!"
Johnny was making an angry sound between clenched teeth. Evan could feel him tensing up. He grabbed Johnny's shoulder and pulled him firmly behind his back, before he could get any crazy ideas about attacking Roy. He wasn't a fighter, he didn't have the training or any killer instincts to speak of, vampire speed wasn't going to save him against an experienced hunter.
"What are you doing, Evan? Tanya was so sure you had to have some kind of plan or you would have asked for help already, but that's a damn stupid risk to take, letting it drink from you. I know you want to get the older one, too, but you've gotten in over your head there. I think it's time to let the professionals take over."
God, Evan had absolutely no idea what he could do to get them out of this. His head was just blank, filled with white noise. Some of his desperation had to show on his face. Roy pulled a sympathetic grimace. "Don't get me wrong, kiddo, I think it's great that you're trying to prove yourself. You've been fucking around with your hobby long enough, huh? What say you get out of the way and let me dispose of that one, and then we'll go for the Maker together?"
Fuck. Okay. He obviously wasn't getting out of this without picking a side. The only way out is through. Just get it over with, he told himself, but the words still stuck in his throat, raw and painful. "Leave him alone. Both of them. They know who you are, and if you kill them, you'll have every vampire in North America going after the family in an hour. They're not hurting anyone."
Roy was frowning at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you, kid? You didn't seriously fall for their bullshit, did you? That's what they all say, you know better than that. And what do you mean, they know about us? You didn't - for the love of God, Evan, tell me you didn't tell them about us."
"I'm sorry," Evan said. His voice shook. "They aren't hurting anyone. You need to leave now."
"I can't believe you betrayed the family to that bunch of bloodsuckers," Roy spat. "Tanya's golden boy. I always thought you were an idiot, but that's a new low."
"Leave, please," Evan said again. Johnny was coiled tight with tension behind his back.
"What do you think your mom's going to say when she hears about this?" Roy said, one last attempt to make Evan reconsider.
"I don't care," Evan lied, swallowing hard. "Please."
Roy was a lot faster than him. If it came down to it, he could probably take Johnny out before Evan could react. He only hoped his mother had taken Patti's threat seriously and warned the others off.
Roy didn't shoot. He cursed and whirled around, slamming the door behind him. Evan let the gun slide to the floor, taking a deep, shaky breath, trying to bite down on the tears. Johnny put a tentative hand on his arm. "Thank you," he said quietly. "That was pretty brave." The tone of surprise in his voice hit Evan like a punch to the gut. This was what he'd betrayed his family for: Johnny, who didn't even like him.
"Could you leave me alone, please?" Evan whispered. He curled up on the bed, drawing his knees up tight against his chest.
"Okay," Johnny said. He brushed Evan's shoulder. "Knock if you need anything, okay?"
Evan needed his mom, but that wasn't ever going to happen again. He'd made his choice, and he'd make it again if he had to; he couldn't let them kill Johnny and Patti. But right now, he regretted it with every fiber of his being.
********
Evan spent the next two days in miserable anticipation, flinching every time his phone rang. It was never his mother. Maybe she wasn't going to call at all, Evan tried to tell himself; maybe she just wasn't going to talk to him ever again. Not talking to each other was how most people in their family dealt with their problems.
He threw himself into training, working out for hours, until his body and his mind were numb with exhaustion. But both the gym and the rink were full of their tour mates and he knew they could tell something was wrong. People kept staring at him. He'd trained almost as hard as this before the Olympics, but he'd had an actual reason then. You couldn't push yourself this hard in the middle of a show without making people wonder, and the last thing Evan needed was anyone trying to ask him what was wrong. He needed a better distraction.
"Hear me out before you start yelling," he told Johnny, and then immediately regretted starting that way. He could see Johnny bristling already. He forged on ahead. "There's going to be an open spot in the show in two weeks, when the Turkish guy goes home."
"What Turkish - wait, Denis? Evan, he's from Kazakhstan!" Johnny interrupted. Evan blinked. That was so not the point right now.
"Okay. Kazakhstani guy. The point is, he's going home, and he's leaving a three minute slot in the middle of the second half. I want us to do an exhibition program together. No, hear me out, I know you don't want to be friends, that's not what this is about. You know the fans are going to be thrilled to have us doing something together and it's going to be good press for both of us. Former rivals, working together, it'll be a great story."
Johnny hesitated, giving him a weird, searching look. "I get to design the costumes," he said after a long moment.
Usually, Evan wouldn't mind - he didn't care about costumes that much, he'd worn what his coaches told him to wear for years, and then he'd mostly let Vera make those decisions for him - but this was Johnny. Worse than that, it was Johnny with a grudge. He might do anything. "Nothing pink and nothing with ruffles or tulle. And I get to veto anything I really hate."
"Okay," Johnny said.
"What, really?" Evan said, surprised. He'd expected a lot more resistance than that. He had eight more good arguments prepared why this would be a good business decision for the both of them, in neat bullet points inside his head; he hadn't thought Johnny would just say yes. "I mean, great! Awesome! When can we start?"
Johnny shrugged. "I've got like an hour now. We can talk choreography, if you want."
It was a good distraction. Neither of them had ever done much choreography before, although they both had seen it done often enough to know how to construct a basic program. Their different styles clashed pretty much immediately, of course; ten minutes in, Evan had to fight the urge to start shouting and Johnny skated over to the far end of the rink, standing at the board with his back to Evan, taking deep breaths.
But even though Johnny kept trying to steal the spotlight, and add all kinds of lyrical moves that Evan knew he wouldn't be able to pull off without looking ridiculous, they got more done than he'd thought they would.
********
"I can't believe I let them talk me into this," Johnny muttered, kicking sullenly at the gravel path. Tour management had dragged all the skaters on a photo op/team building activity to the zoo. Johnny's hackles had gone up at the first mention of the words "team building" and didn't seem to have gone down any since then. He was trailing a couple of steps behind the rest of the group, arms crossed and baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.
There were lots of people on this trip that Evan knew he liked perfectly well, but apparently he refused to have fun with them if it was done in the spirit of team building. Evan remembered him like this from Champs camp, sulking crankily around the edges of the group, visibly resenting every second he was forced to stay and frowning in all the pictures.
"We could at least have gone to the aquarium instead," Evan said. He'd ended up trailing behind the group as well, unconsciously dragging his feet. He didn't actually like the zoo that much, although he always felt silly about it; he was pretty sure guys past the age of ten or so weren't supposed to worry this much about how all the animals probably hated living in cages. At least fishes were too dumb to mind. It was hot as hell, too. Evan didn't mind the heat, but Johnny kept glaring up at the sun as if it was personally insulting him by shining.
"There's a Ralph Lauren down the street from the entrance," Evan said slowly, shooting Johnny a tentative sideways glance.
"I don't even really like Ralph Lauren," Johnny said, but he was eyeing the growing distance between them and the rest of the group, as if trying to decide whether they could slip away unnoticed.
"But do you like it less than team-building activities?"
"You know what, you're right, fuck this," Johnny said, turning a sharp left, so he was shielded by a row of bushes as he started walking back the way they'd come.
"Text your mom," Evan said after a couple of minutes, the two of them walking silently side by side, two feet of careful distance between them.
"What?"
"You can't just disappear, everyone's going to freak out and think you've been kidnapped again. At least tell your mom you're leaving."
"It's sweet how you're suddenly worried about her feelings, Evan," Johnny said sarcastically.
Evan clenched his teeth. It wasn't like he'd wanted Patti and the others to worry. He'd thought he was doing the right thing at the time. "I've apologized already. My family isn't talking to me. What else do you want from me?"
"Oh, excuse me for still being pissed about this shitty thing you did a few weeks ago! It's not like this is ancient history." Johnny sighed, and slowly uncrossed his arms. Maybe he was imagining it, but Evan thought he looked pretty tired of this fight. "She already knows," Johnny finally said, in a slightly more conciliatory tone. "She's seen us walking off, and she knows I hate these sorts of things."
The Ralph Lauren was air-conditioned to just above freezing. It gave Evan goose bumps, but Johnny sighed with relief the second he stepped inside. "Now this is more like it."
Evan left him to his browsing. He really needed a couple of new shirts. "Here, try this on," Johnny said, appearing at his side to press a shirt into his hands. "Oh hell no," Evan said, taking one look at it. "I don't feel guilty enough to let you talk me into a ruffled shirt, are you kidding me?"
"At least try it on," Johnny said. "They're really subtle ruffles. Look at that cut, it's going to make your waist look amazing."
"Why do you care? You don't even like me."
"I like you fine when you're not being an asshole. Plus your style is a train wreck, I live to fix that sort of thing." He shoved Evan into the dressing room while Evan was still reeling a little from the first part of that sentence.
Evan walked out of the store with a nice pair of jeans, three perfectly serviceable black shirts, and a shirt with ruffles that he'd never, ever find an opportunity to wear, even if it did make his figure look amazing and the ruffles were pretty subtle.
He let Johnny drag him into a vintage store on the way back home and then watched in horror as Johnny tried on a black cape with blood red lining and a huge collar. "You can't ironically wear a cape that makes you look like Dracula if you're actually a vampire," he hissed, trying to make sure the intrusive sales lady wouldn't crowd in close enough to overhear.
"Watch me," Johnny said happily, and then he actually bought it. He'd totally been about to put the ridiculous thing down when Evan had opened his mouth, too. Served him right if he ended up looking like an idiot just to be contrary.
Weirdly enough, it was the most fun afternoon Evan had had in a while; he didn't even end up thinking about the horrible mess he'd made of his family life more than every five minutes or so. Johnny looked pretty cheerful, too.
********
Johnny was sprawled in the middle of Evan's bed, shuffling various papers around: the giant flowchart Evan had made to settle the argument over the order of jumps, and a bunch of sketches for the costumes Johnny wanted. Evan had surprised himself by not hating the design, dark grey and black, with thin streaks of silver like lightning; it was a little more formfitting than he usually liked, and they were still arguing about some of the detailing on the chest, but Johnny had clearly actually tried to come up with a workable compromise between their different styles.
"My mom called this morning," Evan said abruptly and then immediately regretted bringing it up when Johnny turned to look at him. But it had been in the back of his mind all morning, crowding all the other thoughts, and somehow it had just popped out.
"How did it go?" Johnny asked, almost gently, propping himself up on an elbow to listen. "Was she very mad?"
"More like very disappointed," Evan said, which had been worse. "You know how mothers are, when you really mess up and they're blaming themselves."
Johnny didn't really seem to know how to respond to that and Evan abruptly realized what a stupid thing that had been to say. Of course Johnny didn't know. Patti always seemed to think Johnny was great, no matter what he did, even during those seasons when he'd been kind of a crazy fuck-up and sabotaging himself left and right. Probably she'd never lain awake and wondered where she'd gone wrong with him, the way Evan knew his mother was doing right now.
"Anyway, you and Patti are safe for now. She's going to make sure the family doesn't mess with you."
"You know Patti was bluffing when she threatened you, right?" Johnny said, sounding a little guilty. "She wouldn't actually…"
"No, I know," Evan said quickly. "I don't think my mother realizes that though, and I'm not going to tell her otherwise."
"So what's she going to do now?"
"Nothing, I guess. I mean, she's expecting that you guys will go on a crazy killing spree eventually and I'll see the error of my ways and come crawling back home. Right now she isn't talking to me."
"I'm sorry," Johnny said.
Evan shrugged. "It's okay. We weren't as close as you and Patti are." His voice cracked a little, embarrassingly. He reached hastily for the first sheet of paper he could find, feeling the edges crumple a little under his clumsy grip. "I still think this would look better with white piping on the - ow, fuck." He'd managed to give himself a paper cut on his thumb, a small drop of blood welling to the surface.
"Here, let me," Johnny said, taking Evan's hand and sucking his thumb into his mouth, licking the tiny cut until it closed.
"Thanks," Evan said, a little shakily.
"Any time. Ugh, now I've made myself hungry," Johnny said, poking his tongue at the edge of his fangs and grimacing.
"Have at it," Evan said, pulling his collar down. He could certainly use the distraction. Johnny didn't drink a lot this time, just a mouthful or two, but Evan was still panting by the end of it, more than halfway hard. Johnny drew back slowly, licking his lips, their faces just inches apart; Evan was almost dizzy with how much he wanted him. He didn't give himself time to think about it, just reached out and threaded a hand through the hair at the nape of Johnny's neck. For a moment, both of them froze.
Evan slowly leaned up, hardly daring to breath, and pressed his lips to Johnny's. Johnny didn't pull away. After a moment he started kissing back, hesitantly, as if he still wasn't sure this was a good idea, even if he obviously wanted it; his cock was pressing against Evan's thigh. "Please," Evan said desperately. Johnny hadn't retracted his fangs, so Evan had to be careful, cautiously licking into Johnny's mouth around the sharp edges; he probably shouldn't find this quite so hot.
He tried to pull Johnny down next to himself, and then hesitated, realizing that they were going to crush the sketches. People didn't like it when you stopped in the middle of sex to clean up, but the thought of crumpling up all their nice neat sheets of paper was making Evan kind of twitchy with discomfort.
"Sorry, hang on for a second, let me just -" Johnny said, pulling out of his arms and gathering the drawings into a stack on the bedside table. "They were going to get crumpled. Sorry," he said, and Evan laughed against his mouth.
Evan lay back with his legs spread, letting Johnny fit himself between his legs, rubbing their cocks together through two layers of fabric. Johnny was nuzzling his neck, not biting, just dragging his fangs lightly against the skin. Evan grabbed Johnny's ass, thrusting up hard against him, already frustrated with how little stimulation he could get this way. "I want you to fuck me," he panted.
Johnny abruptly stopped, propping himself up on his arms so he could look at Evan. "Actually, I was thinking you should fuck me," he said, because of course nothing could ever be easy with Johnny.
Evan groaned. "I'm already going to let you drink my blood while we have sex, you can't be a little considerate in return?"
"Actually, I don't like mixing food and sex," Johnny said, and then burst into laughter. "Kidding! You should have seen your face. Don't try to pretend you're doing that for my benefit, you're totally into it."
"Okay, fine, whatever," Evan said, a little crankily. He didn't even usually care that much about who did what in bed, but he'd spent so much time fantasizing about it; Johnny holding him down and just taking what he wanted, the way he'd taken Evan's blood.
"No, I'll do it, if it means that much to you," Johnny said, more grudging than gracious. "Roll over."
"Don't do me any favors," Evan snapped, and Johnny glared at him.
"Stop being an asshole. Will you just -" he was prodding Evan's hip, trying to get him to turn over while Evan made himself as heavy as possible. Johnny's grip went tight and he flipped him, effortlessly overwhelming his resistance, wrapping one hand around his wrists like a steel band and, okay, that worked. Oh God. Evan made a whimpering sound and tugged one hand out of Johnny's grip, slowly, trying to make it obvious that he wasn't fighting, and then scrabbled frantically to get his pants open.
Johnny was fighting with his own zipper, one-handed. When Evan started struggling again, his grip went bruisingly tight on Evan's arm and he set his teeth against the back of Evan's neck like a warning. Evan stilled a little and Johnny finally managed to get both their pants pulled down, shoving himself between Evan's legs.
"Oh God, Johnny, please," Evan said, his voice coming out low and broken, tilting his head to offer his neck. His face was burning and he felt shaken, ashamed; he shouldn't want this at all and he couldn't even stop himself from begging for it. Johnny was rubbing his cock against Evan's ass, nudging up against his hole. Johnny could do anything to him right now if he wanted to, he could push in dry just like this, and Evan wouldn't be able to stop him; the thought turned him on so much he felt dizzy with it. "Do it, Johnny, please," he gasped, hardly aware what he was begging for; he'd take anything Johnny wanted to give him right now.
Johnny sunk his fangs in hard, a bright sting of pain through the haze of pleasure. Evan came with a scream, his hand clenching on his cock, almost crying with how good it felt. He collapsed to the bed and Johnny shifted and got a hand on his own cock, jerking himself off with his fingers brushing Evan's ass. He came on Evan's back, and Evan's cock twitched at the mental picture.
Evan shifted a little, finding a cool spot on the pillow to press his overheated face against.
"You okay?" Johnny asked. He nodded automatically, despite the anxious feeling in his chest. He'd scared himself a little, with how much he'd wanted it; he wasn't sure if he liked thinking of himself as quite that much of a freak.
But the worst had happened already; even if he settled down with a nice girl and had nothing but cuddly missionary sex for the rest of his life, he wasn't getting his family back as long as he wanted Johnny to live. Maybe he could let himself have this, then; maybe it would be okay.
Johnny wiped his come off Evan's back with a corner of the bed sheet and then settled down next to him, spreading his hand on Evan's back, cool against his overheated skin. He was stroking him a little, just with his thumb. Evan shifted into the touch, tentative, a little worried that Johnny would realize what he was doing and stop; but Johnny just kept petting him, firmer now, smoothing his hand over Evan's skin.
In ten minutes or so, at least one of them was going to get bothered enough at the mess they'd made of the bed that they'd have to get up and strip the sheets, and then they'd probably argue about the costumes some more. Tonight he could probably talk Johnny into drinking from him again; maybe he could actually get fucked this time.
None of that seemed like the sort of thing Evan thought normal people were supposed to look forward to. Somehow he found himself smiling anyway.
-END-
His mom called him that night. "I just wanted to warn you, Roy's coming out tomorrow. I was trying to make them give you some more time, but you know how he is, he still thinks he can run this family like we're some sort of paramilitary organization." He could hear his mom curl her lip up in distaste, the way she always did when she was talking about uncle Roy.
Evan froze. "Thank you," he got out after a moment. His mother sighed.
"I know you wanted to do this on your own, Evan. But maybe it's not the worst thing when someone with more experience takes over for now. There'll be other chances. It's only your first time, and you can watch and learn."
"..Yeah," Evan said, choked. He sat down on the couch with a thud, putting his head in his hands. Watch and learn while Roy tortured Johnny. Oh God. He couldn't.
He went downstairs on stiff legs, feeling numb, as if he were somewhere else, watching himself root around the dresser for the key to the ankle chain. "You need to get out of here. There's a professional hunter coming over tomorrow," he said, wondering how his voice could sound so steady when he felt like he was betraying his entire life, everything his family stood for.
Johnny stared at him for a second and then he moved with a burst of freaky, inhuman speed; suddenly Evan was on the bed, pinned under Johnny's body, and Johnny was sinking his fangs into his neck. Johnny hadn't prepared him at all this time, just bit down, and it hurt, a bright, stabbing pain. Evan yelled and instinctively started struggling, trying to buck Johnny off, but he wasn't a match for vampire strength. Johnny's hands were like steel bands around his wrists, immovable, effortlessly holding him down.
The pain subsided quickly after that first terrible moment, and apparently at some point some wires in Evan's brain had gotten terribly crossed. Nothing about this should be hot, neither the way Johnny was stretched out above him, nor his inhuman strength, and certainly not the way he was hungrily drinking Evan's blood. This was maybe the most dangerous situation Evan had ever been in. Johnny was starved and angry, and even if he still looked like the guy Evan had known for half his life, he was a deadly predator now and there was no one here to stop him from drinking Evan dry.
And yet, Evan was getting hard. He froze, pinned like a butterfly by his own embarrassment. Johnny's thigh was between his, holding him down; there was no way he could miss it. Johnny was laughing, muffled against his neck, with his fangs still inside Evan's skin; it was the weirdest thing Evan had ever felt in his life and it was turning him on even more. He closed his eyes in abject humiliation. Maybe Johnny would take mercy on him and kill him quickly and then this would all be over.
Johnny shifted his grip and pulled Evan's arms above his head. Evan felt the cuffs snap closed around his wrists and then Johnny slowly pulled his fangs out. He gave the wound a quick, perfunctory lick before he lifted his head, running his tongue over his bloodied lips, smug as a satisfied cat. "God, I needed that," he said, and then he slid two fingers into the pocket of Evan's tight jeans, half an inch away from brushing his aching cock. Evan drew in a surprised, shaky breath. Johnny wouldn't - he wasn't going to -
Johnny was pulling out his iPhone. He gave Evan a smirk that said he knew exactly what Evan had been thinking, and then he started dialing with flying fingers and jittered while it rang, so focused on the phone Evan might as well have stopped existing. Someone answered and Johnny's entire body relaxed.
"Mom! It's me, I'm okay," he said, breathless. "Don't cry, I'm okay, I swear, I'm so sorry you were worried." Evan thought he could faintly hear Patti sobbing down the line. Johnny had tears running down his face. Evan turned his head away, swallowing hard. "Mom, can you come and get me? I'm at, uh - Evan? Where is this place?"
Evan hesitated. Johnny snarled at him warningly. "Tell me. You fucking owe me," he said, his eyes flashing, and Evan took a deep breath and betrayed his family once again.
"Where are you? …That's, like, a two hour drive, right?" Johnny said. "No, it's okay - mom, really, it's okay, I'm safe here now, you don't have to worry anymore. Just hurry up, okay? And… could you bring Paris?"
Evan blinked. Johnny brought Paris along to competitions and shows fairly frequently and seemed pretty attached to him, even though he'd always struck Evan as a bit of a freeloader. But he wasn't really the sort of guy Evan would have picked to join a rescue expedition. He was kind of high-strung and over-dramatic.
Johnny put the phone down on the bedside table after one last round of reassurance and wiped his hand over his wet face. "That hunter isn't getting here until tomorrow, right? I don't need to disappear right this second?"
"Yeah, you've got some time," Evan said unthinkingly, and then could have smacked himself. He was way off his game. He hardly wanted Johnny hanging out in here with him any longer.
"Great," Johnny said, giving him a slow, malicious smile. "I was really angry and really fucking hungry just now," he said in a low voice. "And I still didn't kill you. Something to think about, the next time you decide we're all ruled by our killer instincts."
He was playing with the buttons on Evan's shirt, slowly flicking them open one after the other to bare more of Evan's throat. "But I think you can spare a few more mouthfuls for me, can't you? I think you owe me, after everything you've done." He stretched himself out above Evan's body, his thigh hovering half an inch above Evan's hard cock. Evan swallowed and wordlessly bared his throat. Johnny had to know what this was doing to him.
Johnny mouthed his skin, breathing hotly against him. Evan shuddered. Johnny laughed. "You're so eager for it," he said mockingly. "I wonder what your great hunter family would think about that." Evan snarled and tried to buck him off again, but Johnny easily pinned him down. He knew Johnny had to be able to feel his cock twitching when Johnny slid his fangs in.
Johnny didn't contain himself to just the one bite this time. He kept pulling out and finding new places to bite, drinking in dainty little sips while Evan shivered helplessly underneath him.
Evan was honestly worried that he was going to come without anyone even touching his cock when Johnny finally pulled off him with one last regretful lick. "I think that's all I can safely take for now," he said, levering himself off Evan's body and getting off the bed without so much as a look for Evan's obvious, painful erection.
Johnny had finally stopped limping, Evan noticed with relief when he walked out the door. Evan could hear him rooting around upstairs, curious. He was holding a bottle of orange juice when he came back down. "God, you people are freaks," he said. "Everything full of weapons. It's like some redneck house in a horror movie."
He opened the bottle and held it to Evan's lips. "Drink, you just lost a lot of blood," he said, grinning maliciously when Evan gave him an angry look and tried to turn his head away. "Don't you like being helpless? Think about how I felt." He tilted the bottle a little more, prompting, and Evan glared but opened his mouth before he ended up with orange juice all over his chin.
Johnny made him drink half the bottle, and he did actually feel better afterwards. There was a crash upstairs just as Johnny was setting it back on the bedside table. "Johnny?" Patti yelled.
"Down here, mom!" Johnny ran towards the door, but Patti came barreling down the stairs before he was even halfway there. He launched himself into her arms and she caught him effortlessly, holding him tight to her chest while he wrapped his legs around her and clung. They were both crying. Evan looked away, feeling awkward, like he was intruding on a private moment, even if it wasn't his fault they were having their reunion in the room where he was chained to the bed. It wasn't like he could leave to let them have their privacy.
Paris came downstairs, too, his eyes going wide when he saw Evan. Johnny finally pulled away from Patti and Paris immediately pulled him into a hug. "We thought you were dead! Don't ever do that again, asshole," Evan heard him mumbling, and Johnny made a sound that was half laugh and half sob and crushed him in a hard hug. After a moment he started nuzzling Paris' neck and Evan abruptly realized why he'd wanted Paris there.
It didn't look intimate and sexy, the way it had felt when Johnny had done it to him - or, no, it was intimate, but in a friendly, platonic kind of way. Paris held Johnny in a loose hug while he drank, and at some point he flinched, punched Johnny lightly in the shoulder and complained about him being greedy, and Johnny made a mocking "whine, whine, whine" sort of noise without actually taking his teeth out of Paris' neck. Somehow, they were making the entire thing seem light-hearted, friendly, when to Evan it had felt more like... well, like feeding a large, dangerous predator; like sticking his arm into the lion's cage.
Patti had been watching them with a smile on her teary face, but then Evan tried to sit up, making the chains clank, and she finally seemed to become aware that there was someone besides Johnny in the room. "You," she said, in a tone that made Evan flinch back and then she stalked over to him and slapped him so hard he crashed down to the bed.
He blinked up at her, wide-eyed, his cheek already starting to feel bruised and swollen. "You know, I had my suspicions about Tanya, but I can't believe you would - I know you boys don't get along anymore, but you used to be friends, Evan! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"It's his entire family, they're all hunters," Johnny said, pulling away from Paris.
"So? He's old enough to make his own decisions," Patti said, still glaring.
Evan cringed, feeling all of five inches tall, but he had to at least give it one last try. "Mrs. Weir, please, there's another vampire out there, the one who turned Johnny. He's killing people. I really need to find him before he does it again and Johnny wouldn't tell me-"
"I'm the one who turned Johnny," Patti said.
"Mom!" Johnny yelled. Evan stared up at her, stunned silent. It was obvious the moment she said it, of course. She'd picked Johnny up as if he weighed nothing at all when she'd come in, when Evan could barely lift him, and by all rights he should have bowled her over. It was just…pretty hard to believe. She was a mom! She looked like a mom! Evan had never met a vampire who looked so little like a creature of the night.
"Why would you tell him that!" Johnny said, staring at her incredulously.
She put an arm around him, pulling him close. "They know who you are now, there's not much use hiding anymore. If we don't put a stop to this now, it'll be open season on you forever, and I'm not letting that happen."
She took Evan's iPhone from the table and started scrolling through his contacts while Evan watched her, wide-eyed. "Tanya? This is Patti Weir. I'm taking Johnny home now. The next time you think about doing something like this, you might want to remember that I know where to find Evan too," she said in a voice that sent shivers down Evan's back. "If any of you people ever go after my son or any other member of my family ever again, we'll start going after yours. We'll keep Evan with us for a while. Don't worry, nothing's going to happen to him, as long as nothing happens to Johnny."
She hung up the phone without waiting for an answer. Evan blinked. Patti had always seemed so motherly and nice, even when he knew that she didn't like him much. Five minutes ago, he couldn't have imagined her threatening someone, but right now, he was willing to believe that she'd rip his throat out with her bare hands if he hurt Johnny again. Maybe it was a mom thing. Tanya didn't seem very dangerous, either, after all, and no vampire had ever had the chance to underestimate her more than once.
"But - wait, if you turned Johnny, then who's killing those people? The one who turned you?"
Patti laughed. "I've been a vampire for a lot longer than you've been alive, Evan. No. An old vampire who went crazy. It happens sometimes. God knows why he's been following us around. Maybe there was enough left of him to be lonely and he was trying to reach out to us somehow." She shrugged. "It's been taking care of. There won't be any more deaths."
Evan stared at her. Okay, no, turned out he still couldn't imagine Patti killing anyone, not even a crazy serial killing vampire. "She means they've taken him to an asylum," Johnny said, sounding amused, as if he'd guessed what Evan was thinking.
"You have an asylum? Like, a vampire asylum?"
"We have prisons, a few asylums, a couple doctors who know what's up. There's tens of thousands of us, all over the world. We've got some infrastructure."
"Huh," Evan said. He'd never really thought of the vampires having an organized society before, but he guessed it made sense that they would. Patti didn't seem crazy, or aggressive, and she'd said she'd been a vampire for a long time. Maybe they didn't all go crazy after all; maybe the experts were wrong. Evan took a deep, shaky breath. This was all a bit much to take in all at once.
"Can we go home now?" Johnny asked, a little plaintively.
Patti pulled him close. "Of course, sweetheart."
They put Evan in the backseat of the car with Paris, who kept glaring at him hatefully. Johnny was sitting up front and Patti would glance over at him every couple of seconds, as if to reassure herself that he was still there.
They left Evan and Paris in their hotel room while Patti and Johnny went first to the police and then to a press conference. Paris spent the day calling a million people on his cell and watching Evan like one of those of those pointy, aggressive little dogs, the ones that always looked like they were thinking about biting you in the calf. As if he wasn't half Evan's size and there was anything he could do about it if Evan just decided to walk out of here.
Patti and Johnny where still clinging to each other when they came back to the hotel that night, pale and exhausted, obviously unwilling to leave each other's sight. Both Patti and Paris wanted to keep an eye on Evan, and Paris crossed his arms and stubbornly refused to pay for a room of his own, "Since I'm mostly here as a free meal, anyway," he said, which was how they ended up crammed four people to a double room.
Patti and Johnny shared one bed, Paris took the other one, and Evan ended up on the crappy little cot the hotel staff wheeled in for them, despite the fact that he was easily the biggest of the four. There were a bunch of broken springs poking out and his feet hung off the end, but he was pretty sure he shouldn't be complaining just then.
*******
Evan wasn't even sure what Johnny ended up telling the press; some long and involved lie about a kidnapper who'd gotten cold feet halfway through. He claimed he'd been drugged most of the time and he could barely remember anything. Even tried his hardest to stay away from all of it: Johnny's tearful reunions with all his desperately worried friends, the crying, hysterical fans, the press descending on him in droves. Every glimpse he got just made him feel more guilty.
They mostly seemed to buy the story, anyway, even the police. It helped that Johnny looked like a kidnapping victim; thin and tired, dark bruises around his wrists and ankles. Evan didn't think he was drinking enough.
Evan ended up hiding in their hotel room again, sitting around with Paris in hostile, awkward silence. He surfed the internet for a couple hours on his iPhone, until his eyes hurt and the boredom became unbearable, and then started cleaning the bathroom out of sheer desperation. The hotel staff had done an okay job, but the grout could always be whiter and at least it was something to do. Not to mention an excuse to not be in the same room as Paris.
Johnny came in late in the evening, followed by Patti, both of them looking exhausted, loaded down with so many gifts they could barely see over them. Johnny dropped it all on his bed and hugged Paris, and then blinked down at Evan, who was stretched out on his stomach underneath the sink, fighting a stubborn black spot. "What are you doing?"
"Cleaning," Paris answered for him. "He's been doing that all day. It's like living with you."
"Huh," Johnny said. "Okay, I really need some peace and quiet now. Evan, give me that sponge and get out of here."
"Can you please wait until I've got this spot out?" Evan said, a little irritated. He'd been trying his best not to rock the boat until now, doing whatever they wanted him to do, but he'd started this now and it was going to bug him all night if he left it half-done.
Johnny sighed, loud and put-upon, but he climbed over Evan and into the bathtub, pulling the shower curtain half shut behind himself, and started scrubbing at the water stains. Evan got a little distracted attacking a thin line of mold in the grout directly under the sink and then suddenly it was half an hour later, and he'd forgotten Johnny was there until their hands brushed when they both reached for a rag at the same time.
They both flinched. Evan was pretty sure Johnny had forgotten about him, too. "I… sorry. I'll leave you alone now," he said awkwardly.
"Do that," Johnny said, not quite as hostile as he usually was with Evan now. Cleaning was clearly his Zen place.
********
Evan was trying not to toss around too much, because his cot creaked loudly every time he moved, but the springs kept poking him and he just couldn't seem to find a comfortable position. Paris was snoring and there wasn't any sound coming from Patti at all, which meant she must be asleep, too; unlike Johnny, she stopped breathing in her sleep. Evan wondered how much time you had to spent as a vampire before those unconscious reflexes started wearing off. Could your mind really stay human while your body changed on you like that? He didn't know what to believe anymore.
Johnny's sheets rustled, and then he was tapping over quietly, pushing Evan's shoulder until he slid to the side, blinking at him in confusion. Johnny fitted himself into the narrow cot with him. The springs creaked loudly and Evan froze, but neither of the other two woke up. There wasn't really even enough room for Evan on his own, never mind the two of them, so they were pressed together tightly. They'd both worn shorts and t-shirts to bed. Johnny's legs were mostly naked where they pressed into his. Evan held himself very still, hardly daring to breathe.
"I'm hungry," Johnny whispered.
"Oh, um. Go for it," Evan said awkwardly. Johnny hadn't asked him for this since he'd gotten out of the basement. Evan tilted his head back, baring his throat. The springs squeaked again, a loud, grating sound that made both of them flinch.
"Shh, don't wake them," Johnny said quickly. "I was drinking from Tara earlier, they'd wonder why I'm hungry again. I wouldn't need this much if I wasn't still healing. I haven't told them about that, I don't want them to worry."
He had such a natural talent for making Evan feel like pond scum. Evan swallowed and shifted, very carefully, offering himself.
"How's your leg doing?" he whispered.
"Almost healed, I think. But I really need it to be fine tomorrow," Johnny said.
They were going back to training tomorrow and resuming the tour in a week. Everyone had tried to talk Johnny into taking a while off to recover, but he wasn't having it. The last thing I need right now is more time lying around in bed by myself, he'd said. He wanted to be out there, spending time with his friends and fans.
Evan had seen Johnny drinking from his friends several times now, both Tara and Paris, and it had never been anything like this. Johnny spent way more time than necessary mouthing Evan's neck, pressing his lips softly against the tendons, slicking his tongue over the sensitive skin, and when he finally bit down, he did it slow and deliberately. Penetration, Johnny had called it once, and that's what it felt like: intimate and sexual. He had to know what this was doing to Evan.
Evan tried desperately to keep his breathing even, acutely aware of the other two people in the room. Johnny finally pulled off and then spent another minute delicately lapping at the wound until it closed. He climbed off the cot, silent as a cat, his hand brushing Evan's painfully hard cock on the way.
"Sleep tight," he whispered, mocking, the malicious pleasure obvious just under the surface of his voice, and left Evan lying there with his cock hard enough to hurt, his face burning, on his creaky little cot in their overcrowded room, where he could do absolutely nothing about it.
*******
Official tour practice started the next day, so they moved into the hotel the other skaters were staying at, and Evan finally got a room of his own again. Patti and Paris didn't seem all that comfortable about leaving him on his own, but none of them could think of a single plausible explanation why the four of them should be staying together.
Practice was a madhouse that day. The other skaters were flocking around Johnny and fans kept sneaking in even thought the rink had been closed to the public. Evan kept his head down and tried to concentrate on his training. He hadn't been on the ice in a week and it showed. Johnny was in even worse form.
Evan didn't usually have a hard time ignoring other skaters, but somehow he couldn't seem to tune Johnny out. He flinched every time Johnny fell, even if he hadn't been looking, and he kept finding himself glancing over to check how he was doing. Johnny's leg seemed to be holding up okay, but if you were looking for it, it was pretty obvious that he didn't feel entirely secure on it.
********
Evan was stretched out on his bed - his beautiful, private, large, real bed - trying to work up the motivation to get up and brush his teeth so he could go to sleep, when someone knocked on the door. "You guys don't have to keep checking on me. I am so over the hunting thing right now, I can't even tell you," he said when Johnny stuck his head in.
"No, uh, I wanted-" Johnny gathered himself, squaring his shoulders. "I'm hungry," he said, giving Evan a challenging look, as if he was daring him to say no. Evan hesitated. He kind of felt like telling Johnny to go fuck himself, if he was only going to use this to fuck with Evan again. But he could still see the way Johnny had crashed onto the ice when his bad leg had twisted out from under him.
"Okay. Fine," he said, and then he closed his eyes and held still while Johnny sucked and bit and teased, fighting the desperate urge to yank him down and make him finish what he started. He jerked off twice afterwards, his face burning, knowing that Johnny knew.
********
Apparently the vampires had this network of people all over the world who knew about them and didn't mind serving as a snack and, unlike Johnny, who mostly took Paris or Tara with him when he traveled and fed from them, Patti used it frequently. She took Evan with her a couple of times. Evan had expected an army of creepy Goths with a vampire fetish, but actually, there were all kinds of normal people:
A motherly lady who seemed great friends with Patti and pressed a piece of cheesecake on Evan after they'd finished; a college girl with three cats, who talked wistfully about how much she missed her vampire boyfriend, who was in Europe for the year; a guy with some weird iron overload disease, who chattered enthusiastically at Evan about his disease in way too much detail, and how much nicer this was than sitting around the clinic for bloodletting all the time, and it had even cured his cirrhosis!
That last one brought Evan up short. He'd known that he was getting some advanced healing out of the biting, of course, from the way the puncture wounds always closed up instantly; but he'd thought it was just a local effect. But now that he thought about it, his bruises had been healing faster recently, too. He'd smashed into the boards yesterday evening, and what had been a livid, swollen bruise on his ribs was already fading to yellow.
He'd realized what Patti was doing, of course, trying to show him that there was a way to live as a vampire without hurting people; but he hadn't realized that at the same time, Johnny was changing him physically. That was… he wasn't sure if he was okay with that. Just thinking about what his mother would say if she knew what was really going on was making him nauseous. Their phone calls these days were always short, terse, and full of lies.
*******
"Can I stay for a while? Paris is having a party in our room and it's a little overwhelming," Johnny said, after he'd finished drinking, and for a moment Evan seriously thought about punching him in the face. Johnny knew exactly how much this turned him on. Evan desperately wanted him to do something about it; to hold him down and fuck him, the way he still sometimes held Evan down while he was drinking, even though Evan never tried to resist anymore. But if Johnny was just planning to sit here and watch him suffer, both of them knowing how desperate Evan was to jerk off, well, fuck him.
Johnny yawned, blinking tiredly, and Evan actually considered for a second whether it might have been a genuine request, and not just another power play. He could hear the bass beats through the wall from Paris' room next door, and Johnny got exhausted pretty easily still. But, okay, no. If he just wanted some peace, his mom's room was right on the other side of Evan's.
This was just another move in the game of "Make Evan so uncomfortable he'll regret ever laying eyes on Johnny." Evan was kind of sick of it. "You know what? Fine. Stay, or go, or do whatever the hell you want. I'm cleaning my bathroom." He got up from the bed without even trying to conceal his obvious erection and slammed the bathroom door shut behind him.
Evan spent an hour disinfecting everything someone else might have touched at any point. He always felt better about hotel bathrooms if he'd personally made sure there weren't any germs left over from the other guests, although he knew that it was kind of neurotic and usually didn't indulge the urge like this. He felt a lot better at the end. His erection had gone down at some point, and that desperate, shaken feeling Johnny always left him with when he drank was under control again.
When he came out, Johnny was curled up on the edge of his bed, fast asleep. Evan blinked. Okay, maybe it had been a power play and a genuine escape. The music was still playing next door. Evan took the path of least resistance and slid under the sheets at the far side of the bed, careful not to wake Johnny up. He didn't really want to send him back over to his noisy room, but he didn't really feel like dealing with him just then either. Johnny could let himself out if he woke up in the middle of the night.
*******
Of course Johnny couldn't just leave well enough alone. The next day he found a different way to mess with Evan.
"Maybe we should give your neck a bit of a rest. That spot's been bitten a bit too often recently, don't you think?" Johnny said, tracing his fingers lightly over the artery. Evan shivered. He was already hard with anticipation, and his skin felt oversensitive, eager for even that light tough.
Johnny was shifting down on the bed, and then his hands went to the button of Evan's pants. Evan froze while he flicked it open. "There's a nice big artery just… about… here," Johnny said, pulling Evan's jeans down on one side, stretching them tight over his cock and baring a patch of skin in the crease between his body and his thigh. He put his mouth there, inches from Evan's cock, and Evan forgot to breathe.
He was pretty sure that Johnny was fucking with both of them now. Evan could see that Johnny was hard, could tell by the way he was breathing how turned on he was; he obviously wanted more than blood at this point, too, even if he wasn't going to let himself have it.
It was driving Evan crazy. He couldn't even tell himself anymore that he was doing this out of guilt, or because Johnny needed it. Johnny was done healing, he'd do just fine with the blood he was getting from Tara and Paris. Evan wasn't doing this for any reason other than that he wanted it. It felt almost right, the Johnny was teasing him, like a punishment he deserved for how much he got off on this fucked-up thing.
He thought Johnny probably hated himself for being into this just as much as Evan did. He'd started this to fuck with Evan's head; he couldn't be happy that it had gotten to him, too. Evan wondered if Johnny wasn't punishing himself as much as Evan, at this point.
God, they were one fucked up pair.
********
Johnny was running through his new exhibition, something slow and wistful that Evan found totally hypnotic to watch. Evan had started training before him and was mostly done for the day; he was really just fucking around at this point, half-assedly going through an old short program just to see if he remembered it. They ended up in a spin at the same time, syncing up for a couple of rotations by chance; Evan bet it looked cool, with the two of them spinning in opposite directions. He came out of his spin at the same time as Johnny did and followed him across the rink, trying to see if he could sync up a jump like that.
It helped that Johnny telegraphed his lutzes pretty clearly; Evan jumped almost exactly when Johnny did, the two of them flying through the air towards each other. Evan had even managed to position himself so they wouldn't collide on the flow out. He grinned triumphantly.
Johnny whirled around so quickly there was a shower of ice spraying up from his blades and slammed Evan into the boards like a hockey player. "This isn't a competition, so I don't really get why you're trying to psych me out, but cut it out!" he hissed.
The impact had knocked the air out of Evan. "I'm not - I wasn't trying to -" he gasped, trying to figure out how to explain. He'd done that in practice before competitions a few times, skating too closely, following Johnny around, and, okay, he could see how what he just did might have looked kind of similar, but he hadn't meant it that way.
"Wait, were you trying to skate pairs with me? You've got to warn me when you're not going to be an asshole, Evan, I don't expect that sort of thing from you," Johnny said, but he was grinning a little, and he kept his hand on Evan's elbow until he'd gotten himself sorted out and could breathe properly again.
"Oh, go fuck yourself," Evan said. "I just thought it would look cool. Like a mirror."
"A funhouse mirror," Johnny said. Evan glared at him. He tried not to be sensitive about his height - he wasn't built like a typical figure skater, but he thought he made it work for him - but he still didn't really like to be teased about it. "Want to try again? It could look kind of interesting," Johnny said grudgingly. Evan decided to take his victories where he could find them.
They did a bunch jumps both towards and away from each other, and ended up with an audience of fellow skaters, who entertained themselves by calling out conflicting helpful suggestions. Evan rolled his eyes and ignored them. He was good at ignoring people when he wanted to.
"You should throw me," Johnny said after a couple of minutes. "You know how to do that, right?"
"Sure," Evan said, a little uncertainly. He hadn't really done that in years, not since the last time he'd done it in a closing number with Jeff, but he was pretty sure he remembered how, more or less.
They got into each other's way trying to skate close enough that Evan could get a decent grip, Johnny fumbled the take-off, and Evan's hand slipped on his waist while he was trying to launch him up. He overcompensated by using too much force and ended up throwing Johnny totally off-balance. He landed on the ice in a graceless tangled heap and Evan had to swerve abruptly so he didn't run him over.
"Um," he said apologetically, bracing himself to get yelled at. Johnny looked up and started laughing at his expression.
"God, you're bad at that," he said happily. Oh, of course Johnny would enjoy the opportunity to gloat. "Want to try again?" he said, holding out his hand so Evan could pull him up.
"Um. Okay?"
It went a little better this time; at least Johnny didn't fall, although he wobbled alarmingly on the landing. "For God's sake, Evan, I'm not a sack of flour. A little less brute strength next time, please."
It took them three quarters of an hour until they actually managed a proper triple without one or both of them falling over. The take-off was still kind of shaky, but Evan had finally figured out how to support him without getting in his way too much and Johnny got amazing height and speed on it. He whooped with joy in mid-air.
It did look really fun. Evan kind of wanted to try it, but he was really too tall for a normal guy Johnny's size to throw him, and while Johnny could probably toss him halfway across the rink with vampire strength, they couldn't exactly do that in front of everyone else.
He gave Johnny a triumphant grin and slung an arm across his shoulders. "We did it!" he said happily.
Johnny instantly stiffened, pulling out from under his arm. "Don't," he said. "We're not friends, Evan. Do I have to remind you what happened the last time we tried that?"
"That was different. We were competitors then," Evan said, feeling his good mood evaporate.
"And now I'm a monster and you're in the monster killing business. That's not exactly a better situation. We're skaters, we just skated together, it's what we do. Don't try to make this into anything it's not."
Johnny turned and started skating towards the exit. Evan stood and stared after him, and then realized what a pathetic picture that had to be, him watching Johnny leave like a jilted lover or something. He started doing laps around the rink, pushing himself forwards with big, angry strokes. It wasn't like he wanted to be best friends for life. They were stuck together anyway, until this while situation settled down; things would be a lot more tolerable if they could be friendly with each other.
*******
The door slid open almost soundlessly. "Get away from him!" someone yelled.
Johnny startled and tore his fangs out of Evan's neck. "Ow!" Evan said indignantly, clapping a hand over the wound, and then looked up. "Oh shit, don't! Roy, put that down!"
Fuck, this was the worst possible moment for anyone to walk in on, never mind the most militant of the family's hunters. Johnny's mouth was smeared with blood and the wound on Evan's neck was bleeding in a steady trickle between his fingers. Roy had a crossbow pointed at Johnny, taking a few steps to the side so he could aim for his heart without hitting Evan.
"Don't shoot, it's not what it looks like, I can explain this!" Evan lied frantically, shifting his body between Johnny and the weapon. "He wasn't hurting me. Johnny, stay behind me! Quit it, both of you!"
Johnny was making an angry sound between clenched teeth. Evan could feel him tensing up. He grabbed Johnny's shoulder and pulled him firmly behind his back, before he could get any crazy ideas about attacking Roy. He wasn't a fighter, he didn't have the training or any killer instincts to speak of, vampire speed wasn't going to save him against an experienced hunter.
"What are you doing, Evan? Tanya was so sure you had to have some kind of plan or you would have asked for help already, but that's a damn stupid risk to take, letting it drink from you. I know you want to get the older one, too, but you've gotten in over your head there. I think it's time to let the professionals take over."
God, Evan had absolutely no idea what he could do to get them out of this. His head was just blank, filled with white noise. Some of his desperation had to show on his face. Roy pulled a sympathetic grimace. "Don't get me wrong, kiddo, I think it's great that you're trying to prove yourself. You've been fucking around with your hobby long enough, huh? What say you get out of the way and let me dispose of that one, and then we'll go for the Maker together?"
Fuck. Okay. He obviously wasn't getting out of this without picking a side. The only way out is through. Just get it over with, he told himself, but the words still stuck in his throat, raw and painful. "Leave him alone. Both of them. They know who you are, and if you kill them, you'll have every vampire in North America going after the family in an hour. They're not hurting anyone."
Roy was frowning at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you, kid? You didn't seriously fall for their bullshit, did you? That's what they all say, you know better than that. And what do you mean, they know about us? You didn't - for the love of God, Evan, tell me you didn't tell them about us."
"I'm sorry," Evan said. His voice shook. "They aren't hurting anyone. You need to leave now."
"I can't believe you betrayed the family to that bunch of bloodsuckers," Roy spat. "Tanya's golden boy. I always thought you were an idiot, but that's a new low."
"Leave, please," Evan said again. Johnny was coiled tight with tension behind his back.
"What do you think your mom's going to say when she hears about this?" Roy said, one last attempt to make Evan reconsider.
"I don't care," Evan lied, swallowing hard. "Please."
Roy was a lot faster than him. If it came down to it, he could probably take Johnny out before Evan could react. He only hoped his mother had taken Patti's threat seriously and warned the others off.
Roy didn't shoot. He cursed and whirled around, slamming the door behind him. Evan let the gun slide to the floor, taking a deep, shaky breath, trying to bite down on the tears. Johnny put a tentative hand on his arm. "Thank you," he said quietly. "That was pretty brave." The tone of surprise in his voice hit Evan like a punch to the gut. This was what he'd betrayed his family for: Johnny, who didn't even like him.
"Could you leave me alone, please?" Evan whispered. He curled up on the bed, drawing his knees up tight against his chest.
"Okay," Johnny said. He brushed Evan's shoulder. "Knock if you need anything, okay?"
Evan needed his mom, but that wasn't ever going to happen again. He'd made his choice, and he'd make it again if he had to; he couldn't let them kill Johnny and Patti. But right now, he regretted it with every fiber of his being.
********
Evan spent the next two days in miserable anticipation, flinching every time his phone rang. It was never his mother. Maybe she wasn't going to call at all, Evan tried to tell himself; maybe she just wasn't going to talk to him ever again. Not talking to each other was how most people in their family dealt with their problems.
He threw himself into training, working out for hours, until his body and his mind were numb with exhaustion. But both the gym and the rink were full of their tour mates and he knew they could tell something was wrong. People kept staring at him. He'd trained almost as hard as this before the Olympics, but he'd had an actual reason then. You couldn't push yourself this hard in the middle of a show without making people wonder, and the last thing Evan needed was anyone trying to ask him what was wrong. He needed a better distraction.
"Hear me out before you start yelling," he told Johnny, and then immediately regretted starting that way. He could see Johnny bristling already. He forged on ahead. "There's going to be an open spot in the show in two weeks, when the Turkish guy goes home."
"What Turkish - wait, Denis? Evan, he's from Kazakhstan!" Johnny interrupted. Evan blinked. That was so not the point right now.
"Okay. Kazakhstani guy. The point is, he's going home, and he's leaving a three minute slot in the middle of the second half. I want us to do an exhibition program together. No, hear me out, I know you don't want to be friends, that's not what this is about. You know the fans are going to be thrilled to have us doing something together and it's going to be good press for both of us. Former rivals, working together, it'll be a great story."
Johnny hesitated, giving him a weird, searching look. "I get to design the costumes," he said after a long moment.
Usually, Evan wouldn't mind - he didn't care about costumes that much, he'd worn what his coaches told him to wear for years, and then he'd mostly let Vera make those decisions for him - but this was Johnny. Worse than that, it was Johnny with a grudge. He might do anything. "Nothing pink and nothing with ruffles or tulle. And I get to veto anything I really hate."
"Okay," Johnny said.
"What, really?" Evan said, surprised. He'd expected a lot more resistance than that. He had eight more good arguments prepared why this would be a good business decision for the both of them, in neat bullet points inside his head; he hadn't thought Johnny would just say yes. "I mean, great! Awesome! When can we start?"
Johnny shrugged. "I've got like an hour now. We can talk choreography, if you want."
It was a good distraction. Neither of them had ever done much choreography before, although they both had seen it done often enough to know how to construct a basic program. Their different styles clashed pretty much immediately, of course; ten minutes in, Evan had to fight the urge to start shouting and Johnny skated over to the far end of the rink, standing at the board with his back to Evan, taking deep breaths.
But even though Johnny kept trying to steal the spotlight, and add all kinds of lyrical moves that Evan knew he wouldn't be able to pull off without looking ridiculous, they got more done than he'd thought they would.
********
"I can't believe I let them talk me into this," Johnny muttered, kicking sullenly at the gravel path. Tour management had dragged all the skaters on a photo op/team building activity to the zoo. Johnny's hackles had gone up at the first mention of the words "team building" and didn't seem to have gone down any since then. He was trailing a couple of steps behind the rest of the group, arms crossed and baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.
There were lots of people on this trip that Evan knew he liked perfectly well, but apparently he refused to have fun with them if it was done in the spirit of team building. Evan remembered him like this from Champs camp, sulking crankily around the edges of the group, visibly resenting every second he was forced to stay and frowning in all the pictures.
"We could at least have gone to the aquarium instead," Evan said. He'd ended up trailing behind the group as well, unconsciously dragging his feet. He didn't actually like the zoo that much, although he always felt silly about it; he was pretty sure guys past the age of ten or so weren't supposed to worry this much about how all the animals probably hated living in cages. At least fishes were too dumb to mind. It was hot as hell, too. Evan didn't mind the heat, but Johnny kept glaring up at the sun as if it was personally insulting him by shining.
"There's a Ralph Lauren down the street from the entrance," Evan said slowly, shooting Johnny a tentative sideways glance.
"I don't even really like Ralph Lauren," Johnny said, but he was eyeing the growing distance between them and the rest of the group, as if trying to decide whether they could slip away unnoticed.
"But do you like it less than team-building activities?"
"You know what, you're right, fuck this," Johnny said, turning a sharp left, so he was shielded by a row of bushes as he started walking back the way they'd come.
"Text your mom," Evan said after a couple of minutes, the two of them walking silently side by side, two feet of careful distance between them.
"What?"
"You can't just disappear, everyone's going to freak out and think you've been kidnapped again. At least tell your mom you're leaving."
"It's sweet how you're suddenly worried about her feelings, Evan," Johnny said sarcastically.
Evan clenched his teeth. It wasn't like he'd wanted Patti and the others to worry. He'd thought he was doing the right thing at the time. "I've apologized already. My family isn't talking to me. What else do you want from me?"
"Oh, excuse me for still being pissed about this shitty thing you did a few weeks ago! It's not like this is ancient history." Johnny sighed, and slowly uncrossed his arms. Maybe he was imagining it, but Evan thought he looked pretty tired of this fight. "She already knows," Johnny finally said, in a slightly more conciliatory tone. "She's seen us walking off, and she knows I hate these sorts of things."
The Ralph Lauren was air-conditioned to just above freezing. It gave Evan goose bumps, but Johnny sighed with relief the second he stepped inside. "Now this is more like it."
Evan left him to his browsing. He really needed a couple of new shirts. "Here, try this on," Johnny said, appearing at his side to press a shirt into his hands. "Oh hell no," Evan said, taking one look at it. "I don't feel guilty enough to let you talk me into a ruffled shirt, are you kidding me?"
"At least try it on," Johnny said. "They're really subtle ruffles. Look at that cut, it's going to make your waist look amazing."
"Why do you care? You don't even like me."
"I like you fine when you're not being an asshole. Plus your style is a train wreck, I live to fix that sort of thing." He shoved Evan into the dressing room while Evan was still reeling a little from the first part of that sentence.
Evan walked out of the store with a nice pair of jeans, three perfectly serviceable black shirts, and a shirt with ruffles that he'd never, ever find an opportunity to wear, even if it did make his figure look amazing and the ruffles were pretty subtle.
He let Johnny drag him into a vintage store on the way back home and then watched in horror as Johnny tried on a black cape with blood red lining and a huge collar. "You can't ironically wear a cape that makes you look like Dracula if you're actually a vampire," he hissed, trying to make sure the intrusive sales lady wouldn't crowd in close enough to overhear.
"Watch me," Johnny said happily, and then he actually bought it. He'd totally been about to put the ridiculous thing down when Evan had opened his mouth, too. Served him right if he ended up looking like an idiot just to be contrary.
Weirdly enough, it was the most fun afternoon Evan had had in a while; he didn't even end up thinking about the horrible mess he'd made of his family life more than every five minutes or so. Johnny looked pretty cheerful, too.
********
Johnny was sprawled in the middle of Evan's bed, shuffling various papers around: the giant flowchart Evan had made to settle the argument over the order of jumps, and a bunch of sketches for the costumes Johnny wanted. Evan had surprised himself by not hating the design, dark grey and black, with thin streaks of silver like lightning; it was a little more formfitting than he usually liked, and they were still arguing about some of the detailing on the chest, but Johnny had clearly actually tried to come up with a workable compromise between their different styles.
"My mom called this morning," Evan said abruptly and then immediately regretted bringing it up when Johnny turned to look at him. But it had been in the back of his mind all morning, crowding all the other thoughts, and somehow it had just popped out.
"How did it go?" Johnny asked, almost gently, propping himself up on an elbow to listen. "Was she very mad?"
"More like very disappointed," Evan said, which had been worse. "You know how mothers are, when you really mess up and they're blaming themselves."
Johnny didn't really seem to know how to respond to that and Evan abruptly realized what a stupid thing that had been to say. Of course Johnny didn't know. Patti always seemed to think Johnny was great, no matter what he did, even during those seasons when he'd been kind of a crazy fuck-up and sabotaging himself left and right. Probably she'd never lain awake and wondered where she'd gone wrong with him, the way Evan knew his mother was doing right now.
"Anyway, you and Patti are safe for now. She's going to make sure the family doesn't mess with you."
"You know Patti was bluffing when she threatened you, right?" Johnny said, sounding a little guilty. "She wouldn't actually…"
"No, I know," Evan said quickly. "I don't think my mother realizes that though, and I'm not going to tell her otherwise."
"So what's she going to do now?"
"Nothing, I guess. I mean, she's expecting that you guys will go on a crazy killing spree eventually and I'll see the error of my ways and come crawling back home. Right now she isn't talking to me."
"I'm sorry," Johnny said.
Evan shrugged. "It's okay. We weren't as close as you and Patti are." His voice cracked a little, embarrassingly. He reached hastily for the first sheet of paper he could find, feeling the edges crumple a little under his clumsy grip. "I still think this would look better with white piping on the - ow, fuck." He'd managed to give himself a paper cut on his thumb, a small drop of blood welling to the surface.
"Here, let me," Johnny said, taking Evan's hand and sucking his thumb into his mouth, licking the tiny cut until it closed.
"Thanks," Evan said, a little shakily.
"Any time. Ugh, now I've made myself hungry," Johnny said, poking his tongue at the edge of his fangs and grimacing.
"Have at it," Evan said, pulling his collar down. He could certainly use the distraction. Johnny didn't drink a lot this time, just a mouthful or two, but Evan was still panting by the end of it, more than halfway hard. Johnny drew back slowly, licking his lips, their faces just inches apart; Evan was almost dizzy with how much he wanted him. He didn't give himself time to think about it, just reached out and threaded a hand through the hair at the nape of Johnny's neck. For a moment, both of them froze.
Evan slowly leaned up, hardly daring to breath, and pressed his lips to Johnny's. Johnny didn't pull away. After a moment he started kissing back, hesitantly, as if he still wasn't sure this was a good idea, even if he obviously wanted it; his cock was pressing against Evan's thigh. "Please," Evan said desperately. Johnny hadn't retracted his fangs, so Evan had to be careful, cautiously licking into Johnny's mouth around the sharp edges; he probably shouldn't find this quite so hot.
He tried to pull Johnny down next to himself, and then hesitated, realizing that they were going to crush the sketches. People didn't like it when you stopped in the middle of sex to clean up, but the thought of crumpling up all their nice neat sheets of paper was making Evan kind of twitchy with discomfort.
"Sorry, hang on for a second, let me just -" Johnny said, pulling out of his arms and gathering the drawings into a stack on the bedside table. "They were going to get crumpled. Sorry," he said, and Evan laughed against his mouth.
Evan lay back with his legs spread, letting Johnny fit himself between his legs, rubbing their cocks together through two layers of fabric. Johnny was nuzzling his neck, not biting, just dragging his fangs lightly against the skin. Evan grabbed Johnny's ass, thrusting up hard against him, already frustrated with how little stimulation he could get this way. "I want you to fuck me," he panted.
Johnny abruptly stopped, propping himself up on his arms so he could look at Evan. "Actually, I was thinking you should fuck me," he said, because of course nothing could ever be easy with Johnny.
Evan groaned. "I'm already going to let you drink my blood while we have sex, you can't be a little considerate in return?"
"Actually, I don't like mixing food and sex," Johnny said, and then burst into laughter. "Kidding! You should have seen your face. Don't try to pretend you're doing that for my benefit, you're totally into it."
"Okay, fine, whatever," Evan said, a little crankily. He didn't even usually care that much about who did what in bed, but he'd spent so much time fantasizing about it; Johnny holding him down and just taking what he wanted, the way he'd taken Evan's blood.
"No, I'll do it, if it means that much to you," Johnny said, more grudging than gracious. "Roll over."
"Don't do me any favors," Evan snapped, and Johnny glared at him.
"Stop being an asshole. Will you just -" he was prodding Evan's hip, trying to get him to turn over while Evan made himself as heavy as possible. Johnny's grip went tight and he flipped him, effortlessly overwhelming his resistance, wrapping one hand around his wrists like a steel band and, okay, that worked. Oh God. Evan made a whimpering sound and tugged one hand out of Johnny's grip, slowly, trying to make it obvious that he wasn't fighting, and then scrabbled frantically to get his pants open.
Johnny was fighting with his own zipper, one-handed. When Evan started struggling again, his grip went bruisingly tight on Evan's arm and he set his teeth against the back of Evan's neck like a warning. Evan stilled a little and Johnny finally managed to get both their pants pulled down, shoving himself between Evan's legs.
"Oh God, Johnny, please," Evan said, his voice coming out low and broken, tilting his head to offer his neck. His face was burning and he felt shaken, ashamed; he shouldn't want this at all and he couldn't even stop himself from begging for it. Johnny was rubbing his cock against Evan's ass, nudging up against his hole. Johnny could do anything to him right now if he wanted to, he could push in dry just like this, and Evan wouldn't be able to stop him; the thought turned him on so much he felt dizzy with it. "Do it, Johnny, please," he gasped, hardly aware what he was begging for; he'd take anything Johnny wanted to give him right now.
Johnny sunk his fangs in hard, a bright sting of pain through the haze of pleasure. Evan came with a scream, his hand clenching on his cock, almost crying with how good it felt. He collapsed to the bed and Johnny shifted and got a hand on his own cock, jerking himself off with his fingers brushing Evan's ass. He came on Evan's back, and Evan's cock twitched at the mental picture.
Evan shifted a little, finding a cool spot on the pillow to press his overheated face against.
"You okay?" Johnny asked. He nodded automatically, despite the anxious feeling in his chest. He'd scared himself a little, with how much he'd wanted it; he wasn't sure if he liked thinking of himself as quite that much of a freak.
But the worst had happened already; even if he settled down with a nice girl and had nothing but cuddly missionary sex for the rest of his life, he wasn't getting his family back as long as he wanted Johnny to live. Maybe he could let himself have this, then; maybe it would be okay.
Johnny wiped his come off Evan's back with a corner of the bed sheet and then settled down next to him, spreading his hand on Evan's back, cool against his overheated skin. He was stroking him a little, just with his thumb. Evan shifted into the touch, tentative, a little worried that Johnny would realize what he was doing and stop; but Johnny just kept petting him, firmer now, smoothing his hand over Evan's skin.
In ten minutes or so, at least one of them was going to get bothered enough at the mess they'd made of the bed that they'd have to get up and strip the sheets, and then they'd probably argue about the costumes some more. Tonight he could probably talk Johnny into drinking from him again; maybe he could actually get fucked this time.
None of that seemed like the sort of thing Evan thought normal people were supposed to look forward to. Somehow he found himself smiling anyway.
-END-