Work Text:
Jasper’s all-night dive bar is not for vampires. That isn’t to say vampires don’t stumble in occasionally – the blacked-out windows are naturally appealing – but it isn’t for them. There’s no browsing allowed of human customers. No blood exchanges. No biting. Just a good, old-fashioned, country-blues-and-rock’n’roll dive bar situated in downtown New York.
In any case, the most interesting person to have crossed the threshold so far isn’t even a vampire.
The boy’s a psychic. Knows how to block his thoughts, too, pushing benign and boring ones to the surface to avoid suspicion. Jasper may never have worked out what he was had he not felt the kid needling his mind, attempting to see what the old-timer behind the bar was thinking.
In that first fateful visit Jasper thought the young man would turn tail and leave, perturbed by a mind he could not read. Instead he strode right up to Jasper, an angelic smile upon his absurdly beautiful face, and ordered a beer – dealer’s choice.
Jasper supposes he fell for Guy Anatole on the spot.
Guy is a stripper, he thinks, or even a hooker. Flashy clothes. Works late hours – never shows up at the bar before 2am. Always pays in cash from a wallet stuffed full of bills. But even after a month of regularly visiting Jasper’s bar most weekends, Jasper is no closer to understanding Guy’s profession than on the first day they met. He’s no closer to knowing anything about him, truth be told.
Yet every night Jasper sees him Guy grows drawn and sad and weary. There’s an anvil tied around his pale, pretty neck that he just can’t shake off. That all washes away during his time in the bar – Jasper takes damn pride in that – but the moment the bell rings for last orders all those negative feelings weigh back down upon the boy once more.
Jasper wants to know why. He wants to make it all better for him.
So when Guy asks Jasper one cold December night, “Do you like your job?”
And Jasper huffs yes and jokes, “Why, you wanna come work for me?”
The last thing he expects is for the boy’s gorgeous blue eyes to light up, mind and voice both replying, desperately eager, “Please.”
And so this is how the vampire Jasper, owner of a nondescript New York all-night dive bar, hires his first and only employee.
The bar doesn’t have set opening and closing times, opening when Jasper feels like it and naturally closing just before sunrise. But Guy – conscientious telepath Guy – arrives exactly when Jasper needs a hand to carry casks of beer up from the basement.
“Have you ever handled anything this heavy?” Jasper asks, when the boy rushes into the bar and drops his bag on the closest table. His breath rushes in and out, in and out, like he ran to make it here on time. Jasper never gave him a time to be late for.
Never expected Guy to show up, full stop.
“I can handle more than you think,” Guy pushes back, forcing Jasper to drop the cask in his hands to regard the younger man with his full attention. Because Guy’s outfit is ridiculous.
Ridiculously distracting.
It’s one of Guy’s regular-on-rotation outfits from his previous job. Blood red shirt, unbuttoned to an obscene location halfway down his navel, with tight, black ripped jeans and shiny black boots. Guy has a smattering of earrings – little hoops, studs, one dangling sickle moon – adorning both ears; a lick of iridescent glitter accentuates the curve of his eyelids. His curly hair is perfectly styled to sit exactly where he wants it.
Honestly? Jasper thinks he’s never laid eyes on someone quite so mesmerising.
But he says, “Stop looking like a whore and get over here.”
Jasper feels the thrill that creeps up Guy’s spine as the words take effect. Notices the flush slowly spreading across Guy’s cheeks, the tightening of his muscles. The shame. The rebelliousness.
Mutely Guy does as he’s told. Jasper relishes in it.
A few days later Jasper gifts him three good quality black T-shirts, a thick red plaid flannel overshirt, and a pair of jeans that fit the boy like they were made for him. Honestly, Guy’s ass looks so good in the jeans that in many ways Jasper finds them more distracting than the slutty outfits Guy wore before. But it’s better to have Guy in a uniform. Something regular; something Jasper can expect.
Right?
Of course, it transpires that Guy Anatole doesn’t know Jack shit about working in a bar.
“Watch the foam!” Jasper seethes, when Guy ruins the fourth pint he’s pulled in an hour. Jasper rushes to commandeer the job, fingers sliding over Guy’s. It does not escape his notice that Guy doesn’t pull his hand away – nor recoil when Jasper crowds around him to save the pint. How natural it feels, to have Guy trapped between the length of his body and the front of the bar.
His hair smells like damn strawberries.
Jasper’s next words are low, melodic, spoken directly into Guy’s ear. “Don’t you know anything about pouring the head of a beer?”
“...know plenty about giving head…” Guy mutters, gaze hidden beneath errant curls. His cheeks are blazing.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I’m sorry.” Guy swoops beneath Jasper’s left arm and walks backwards until a respectable – agonising – distance develops between them. But Guy’s line of sight flickers from Jasper’s eyes to down, down, down. Lingers on his crotch. He cocks a thumbs up gesture with both hands. “I’ll work extra hard on my head game, okay?”
Jasper thinks of nothing else for the rest of the evening. He’s smart enough to understand that was the point.
“Is he even old enough to be here?” Darryl, a regular who’s in here most nights, asks after Guy’s first week. He’s coming on seventy-five, wife dead two years, always wears the same woollen sweater and faded jeans combo, and has found his community in Jasper’s bar. He’s generous with his money – must have had a good job before retirement – but he spends more time playing cards than he does drinking.
Guy plays up his indignation. Jasper can feel it, the performance of it, as Guy slips into the seat beside Darryl. Basks in how flustered the balding old man gets when Guy knocks shoulders with him, ‘guilelessly’ taking the playing cards straight out of Darryl’s hands. “I’ll have you know I turned thirty this year,” he huffs, pouting for additional effect.
He needn’t bother.
“…they get younger every year, Jasper,” Darryl says in an undertone, but he doesn’t shy from Guy’s proximity. If anything Darryl blushes. “Gimme those back,” he says, clawing at Guy’s hand, enjoying the fight Guy puts up before obediently returning the cards.
Guy blinks his long doe-eyed lashes. Jasper can’t actually see this from where he stands but he knows, damn it. “What were you playing?” Guy asks, fawning over Darryl. “I don’t know much about card games.”
You know he’s getting ready to play canasta with Rob and Joe, Jasper directs at Guy from his position behind the bar, cleaning glasses. He’s been cleaning the same glass for ten minutes now.
This is the first time he’s pushed a thought into the boy’s head.
Guy doesn’t even look at him as he replies, He just wants my attention. He’s wanted it all week. Jasper knows he’s right. When Darryl mutters under his breath by way of an explanation, Guy softly – deliberately – touches the man’s hand and asks, “Could you teach me how to play?”
By the time Rob and Joe arrive Jasper is under absolutely no illusion that Guy Anatole didn’t know how to play canasta before tonight: he can see it in the boy’s calculated, collected thought pattern that this is not new ground for him. He should wipe the floor with his opponents yet Guy deliberately loses many, many, many times.
For days on end, in fact.
“So when’d you learn how to play?” Jasper eventually asks, when Guy deigns to return to his actual job of helping behind the bar after three solid hours of gambling with the customers. It does not escape Jasper’s notice that the old-timers, especially Darryl, acutely feel Guy’s loss. The man’s going to order more drinks than usual tonight just to have the excuse of talking to the boy. It’s been that way all week.
When Jasper catches the twinkle in Guy’s eye he realises that was his intention.
“Oh come on, Jazzy—”
“Don’t call me that—”
“You know everyone in here just needs some young blood, right?”
Jasper finds himself unusually at a loss for words. He tongues his fangs – they hurt. Focuses on pulling the pint in his hands, though Guy is quite literally bouncing beside him. But the regulars hear Guy’s quip loud and clear.
“Hell yeah we need some young blood in here!”
“Would love to meet a nice girl in the bar one night.”
“Hey, pretty boy, do you have a girl waiting at home?”
“Oh hell if he has a girl at home! My guy, how do you feel about setting this man’s heart on fire?”
Even Guy has a limit. Jasper feels the boy tense beside him, the mens’ humour evolving into something toxic, dangerous, wrong. Jasper pushes Guy behind him. “He’s spoken for,” Jasper says, voice low. In truth he has no idea if this is true, but when he glances back and catches Guy blushing furiously, face hidden behind his hands, suddenly Jasper does not wish to know if this is accurate beyond the spurious claim he has on the younger man.
Jasper handles all front-of-house matters for the rest of the night, and pays for Guy’s taxi home.
“You hafta watch the young’uns,” Darryl says the next day – Saturday – when Jasper tries to settle into weekly admin work that makes him want to die. Again. Every week he ignores that it will invariably come upon him like a wave, and every week it swamps him.
“Watch them how?” Jasper asks, not really listening. He knows Darryl comes here more for the company than he does the contents of Jasper’s head.
“They circle him like a shark.”
“Who?”
“Guy.”
“…he’s flirting to make them spend more money.”
“Maybe so. But he’s in over his head.”
Jasper crumples the sheet of paper beneath his hand. At that exact moment Guy is out of sight and earshot, a tendril of thought confirming he’s in the unused second room of the bar – once more questioning why it’s empty. He is yet to ask Jasper why this is the case, though the answer is simple and boring: Jasper doesn’t want to deal with a bar handling twice the capacity it does now.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Jasper relents, and he isn’t lying. Darryl heaves a genuine sigh of relief and god, it’s so obvious now, that the old man has it down bad. Not in the same way as Jasper, necessarily, but Guy Anatole has become genuinely precious to his favourite bar-fly.
“Jazzy!” Guy calls, making his presence abruptly known as he swans into the main room. He’s wearing a pair of little circular reading glasses that Jasper knows are practical but that he nonetheless considers a deliberate attempt at warfare. Guy looks over the top rim of the lenses, endlessly patient as he offers Darryl a hello before returning his attention to Jasper. “You have a finance problem.”
God, doesn’t Jasper know it. But he wants to humour the kid so he asks, casually leaning over the bar as Guy bounces into orbit to face him, “How so?”
Is it just Jasper or does Guy cluck his tongue at him? “This isn’t a profitable business,” Guy explains, dropping a pile of papers in front of Jasper. Spreads them out, deliberately, and Jasper is almost completely certain the boy intends for them to do something unprofessional across the reams of paper.
When Guy pings Jasper’s forehead he grabs for the boy’s wrist on instinct, just a little too hard. But Guy is unperturbed – is thrilled, really, by Jasper’s manhandling. “You need more business,” Guy just barely manages to utter.
Jasper scowls. “And who made you expert on all things financial and contractual?”
At this Guy chokes. And not for any of the good reasons, no. The look on his face is pained, hurt. “Didn’t you…I sent you my resumé. I’m a qualified lawyer.” His gaze casts downward; following Guy’s line of sight Jasper finally notices the content of the pile of documents dumped in front of him. “Um, that’s your – that’s your paperwork done for the week – well, for the month, really. I went overboard, maybe, but I—”
“Good job, pup,” Jasper rasps, squeezing down on Guy’s wrist once more before he can make a hasty retreat. Holds Guy there, iron on flesh, until the boy looks Jasper in the eye once more. He’s almost in tears, god fucking damn it.
I didn’t know you sent me anything.
—Weeks ago. Don’t you ever check your business email?
Truthfully? Never. But the thought that Guy Anatole had reached out to Jasper weeks ago, and Jasper had unknowingly ignored him? He might as well combust in fucking shame. Jasper soothes soft circles into Guy’s wrist, not really caring if anyone is watching, only caring that Guy feels his touch and knows that he is sorry.
Guy backs away. “Um, the dishwasher…I’ll empty it.”
From then on, in the run-up to Christmas and New Year, Jasper watches as Guy finds a natural routine with the regulars of the dive-bar. He learns how to play cards and gamble with Darryl – though Jasper can tell Guy is truly well aware of every trick in the book Darryl could teach him. But the two men both enjoy their time together and, honestly, it warms Jasper’s heart to witness Guy allowing Darryl the grace to pinch his cheek and swat his back, demanding Guy pay attention as he instructs him on the rules of a new card game.
Guy doesn’t shirk his duties, either. Despite his rocky start Guy is a quick learner; faster than Jasper had wanted him to learn, truth be told. The boy has flown from the proverbial nest, capably and independently serving customers without the need for Jasper looming over his shoulder.
The customers love him. Of fucking course they love him.
But it’s the men who seem too fond of watching Guy bend over the pool table when a customer asks to play against him that Jasper is wary of.
Suddenly it’s New Year’s Eve, and Guy shows up to work with a twist on his uniform. The T-shirt has been replaced with a black crochet polo unbuttoned to his chest, the flannel shirt abandoned entirely. Just a hint of glitter shimmers over his eyelids and in his hair, too, forcing anyone in Guy’s vicinity to glance back at him just so to glimpse how beautifully he catches the light. A pair of hoops hang from his earlobes.
Jasper isn’t stupid. He sees how everyone reacts to Guy – his Guy – dressed up and glowing beneath the low, coloured lights of the bar as he saunters from table to table, hips swinging in perfect time to every song that plays. It sets Jasper’s blood to boiling even as he acknowledges that he’s guilty of reacting to Guy in the exact same pathetic way as everyone else.
There isn’t a soul in the building not drinking, even Jasper and Guy. This, of course, only adds fuel to the fire. It’s New Year’s Eve, for Christ’s sake; everyone’s allowed to get wasted. But wasted leads to horny, and Jasper is no less immune to this most basic of instincts than his customers.
Close to midnight someone hilariously plays The Final Countdown on the jukebox, just as Guy for the first time that night comes within arm’s reach of Jasper behind the bar. It’s dark enough that nobody sees Jasper dart out for him like a snake, clutching the boy to his chest, an instinctive hand clamped over Guy’s mouth to silence his surprise. In truth all Jasper wants to do is kiss him.
No, that’s a lie.
Jasper wants to fuck Guy Anatole right there and then for all the world to see. Wants everyone to know that Guy is his.
Guy’s shock quickly melts into something else entirely; he grinds his fucking ass against Jasper’s dick before sloppily licking the course hand over his mouth. Jasper releases him pretty quickly after that.
“Watch your behaviour,” he warns when Guy spins to face him, raising a flirtatious eyebrow in Jasper’s direction. His cheeks are flushed crimson – just how drunk has Guy managed to get tonight? Dully Jasper tries to count the shots both of them have necked back in playful camaraderie with their patrons so far, and it’s at least nine. Likely more.
Damn it: in his afterlife Jasper is simply not built for the intense level of self-control required to keep his hands off Guy.
He leans against the bar for moral support, his very presence crowding the object of his desires. “Have a heart, Guy. Most everyone in here is dying for a pretty young thing upon which to lavish attention. A pretty young thing they very much hope will lavish attention on them, too.”
Playfully – horrendously – Guy worries his full bottom lip between his teeth, eyes never leaving Jasper’s. Knocks his hip against the vampire’s; lingers there, when Jasper dares not move. Then the clocks begins to toll midnight – new year – and Guy Anatole ‘trips’ into the stock room, hauling Jasper in with him. Jasper would be concerned except Guy hushes assurances in his mind, telling him that nobody is fucking watching.
“Sorry,” Guy breathes, wicked, not sounding sorry at all, “I’ll be less clumsy in future.” His fingertips graze between Jasper’s jeans and his Henley shirt. A bare sliver of skin, but Guy finds it. Slides a fragile touch beneath the fabric, growing more assured when Jasper tenses, crawling up Jasper’s stomach, over his ribcage, his chest—
Jasper is on him in a second. Slams Guy against shelves of spare glasses and bottles of whisky, the sound of the bells outside masking the resultant discordant rattling they make. Guy shivers, delighted, when he realises the only thing holding him upright is Jasper.
His eyes are more pupil than iris, blown wide from alcohol and something that is clearly, patently, desire. “Kiss me,” he breathes, so Jasper does. Deep, guttural, Jasper’s left hand caressing Guy’s slender neck as his right thumbs a hard nipple through the crochet fabric of Guy’s polo. Guy bucks against him, moaning into Jasper’s mouth when he hits an unrelenting hardness.
And, fuck it, Jasper makes quick work of the button and zipper of Guy’s jeans, long fingers sliding down to grip the boy’s cock to work him into a frenzy. Guy’s spine arches; his hands clutch at Jasper’s shoulders for balance as he shudders and cries.
—Jasper, slow down, I’m gonna—
That’s the point, pretty boy.
Guy’s orgasm hits him too hard and too fast, rolling out of his body so violently even Jasper is surprised. He collapses into Jasper’s arms, breaking from their kiss to breathe ragged and fucked into the crook of Jasper’s shoulder.
Jasper wants to continue so badly a low growl forms in the back of his throat. His entire body is taut with possessive, jealous desire for Guy Anatole. But Guy is a mess, the bells have long since stopped chiming, and Jasper still has a bar to fucking run.
He can’t let anyone witness his boy in such a state of…ruin.
With a regret that is physically painful Jasper gently places Guy on his feet, fixes his jeans, and kneels down in front of the safe to stab in the password and pull out a wad of cash.
“Go home, kid,” he commands, forcing the bills into Guy’s slack grip. “January is quiet; I’ll be closing up shop for the first two weeks. Rest up and take things easy for a while, okay?”
He ruffles Guy’s glittery hair, nails scratching against his scalp, avoiding the boy’s gaze. Because Jasper can’t bear to see the look in his eyes: confusion. Betrayal. Humiliation.
…something else?
Guy’s chest heaves, close to hyperventilating. Then he hurls the money at Jasper’s face and bolts from the stock room. The sound of the front door proper slamming shut moments later confirms that Guy has left the building. It’s only as Jasper stares at the money fluttering to the floor that he realises his fatal error.
He treated Guy Anatole like a whore.
He fully expects Guy never to return – why the hell would he? Two weeks of radio silence pass with only Jasper’s bitter sense of guilt keeping him company. He dreads reopening the bar knowing it will be utterly empty without Guy in it, but he does. It’s all Jasper has, after all.
Guy shows up right on time.
“I’m gonna handle the books,” Guy announces in lieu of hello. He’s dressed in his proper uniform, not a hair out of place, no glitter or earrings in sight. His voice sounds chastened, almost. Respectably distant.
But he’s here. Still here, with Jasper.
The distance will be good for the both of them.
“So I’m going to start organising monthly events in the back room,” Guy says out of the blue, after a further two weeks pass in blissful peace. Well, not quite blissful – there is a carefully constructed load-bearing wall between Jasper and Guy that must not be touched under any circumstances – but Jasper will take this version of reality over one where he fucks things up and has to watch Guy vanish from sight forever.
“What kind of events are you thinking, pup?” The pet name rolls out of Jasper’s mouth before he can remember he promised not to use them any more. Tries to ignore Guy’s accelerated heart rate when he joins Jasper where he lounges over the bar, laptop in tow. A complicated spreadsheet fills the screen; Jasper doesn’t even pretend to look at it.
He only has eyes for Guy.
But the younger man resolutely keeps his gaze firmly on the spreadsheet. “Well, it makes sense to do themed events,” he says. “The back room is pretty big; we don’t even need to interfere with regular business. We could host bands or hire—”
“That seems like a lot of trouble.”
“Did I say you had to deal with this?”
Oh, that stops Jasper in his tracks. He can see, now, the shape of qualified-lawyer-Guy, and it thrills him.
Jasper risks patting Guy twice on the shoulder before turning to cut some lime wedges. “I’ll leave it in your capable hands, then.”
He feels Guy at the edge of his mind, wanting to relay his thanks, but Jasper doesn’t let him in. He hasn’t since the ‘incident’, though it pains him like sunlight on his skin.
There is nothing to do but grin and bear it.
The middle of February rolls in, days passing in a flurry as Guy fastidiously organises a Valentine’s Day event that Jasper has kept a wide berth from. He likes watching from a distance Guy working hard at something he himself is terrible at: negotiating deals, sweet-talking on the phone, pouring over contracts wearing those ridiculously endearing glasses.
When they slip down one night just after closing Jasper finds himself sliding them back up Guy’s statuesque nose. The boy stills from his position on the opposite side of the bar, stooped over his laptop as he swivels to attention on his stool. It grants Jasper a peak down the back of Guy’s T-shirt, following the bumps and grooves of his spine for several inches before the sight is lost to shadows.
Jasper gulps down his hunger. His thirst. But he knows Guy must sense it: goosebumps mar the tender flesh on the back of his neck.
“You never asked me what I did for work before this,” Guy says, very quietly, shutting his laptop and removing his glasses in the process. He sits up straight; works a kink from his shoulder. Silently accepts the beer Jasper uncaps and hands over before Jasper settles opposite him. Jasper opens another beer for himself simply to have something to do with his hands.
The dynamic is nostalgic in its familiarity: Jasper the bartender, Guy the customer once more.
“I’m all ears, Guy,” he says, clinking their bottles together. “Always have been.”
The for you is left unsaid.
For a few moments Guy worries the rim of the bottle with his tongue, considering his exact words before saying, “I was a broker…of sorts. Kind of. They found me when I was working contract law. Ugh, this is too hard. Can you let me in, please?”
Jasper blinks, slowly realising Guy means into his mind. And though Jasper has kept it firmly, definitively locked up for the past few weeks, he is helpless to obey Guy’s request. With a sigh the walls come down, and Guy Anatole floods Jasper’s head with the rest of the story.
Guy, drugged to his teeth on benzodiazepine, spent one year as a lawyer before happening upon a vampire during a standard contract agreement. The vampire clocked Guy for what he was, and therein saw an opportunity. He would help Guy train his mind so he no longer needed the drugs, and in return Guy would work for him.
The next scene Jasper is privy to is a bombardment of colour and noise and sweat and desire. A club. Guy dancing in the middle of a throng of similarly beautiful, healthy, virile young things. Guy was paid to literally go out and party, using his powers to scope out the very best, most attractive blood donors for the hungry New York vampire elite.
With all the charm and sway and persuasive powers Guy possessed, he lured in potential donors to sell them on a deal too good to pass up. A hefty wad of cash. Drugs. Sex. Euphoria the likes of which they’d never before experienced. Nobody Guy sourced was ever killed – Guy reiterates this three times in Jasper’s head. There was always consent. Always a fair trade. Well, as fair as can be argued when one’s life force is quite literally on the line. Still, there was something about the work that felt like it was destroying Guy’s soul.
Jasper’s bar, and Jasper himself, felt like salvation from that path.
So Guy Anatole accepted Jasper’s half-joking job offer.
Neither of them say anything. Silence stretches out, uncomfortable and suffocating, and Jasper realises too late that Guy is waiting for him to say something. Instead Guy lurches to his feet, grabs his jacket and makes for the door. Hand on the handle Guy turns his head to stare Jasper down. There’s a fire in his eyes that the vampire has not seen since New Year’s Eve.
“I’m not a whore. I never was.”
—And even if I was, what does it fucking matter?
Guy slams the door behind him, hard, the sound ringing in Jasper’s ears. More than one glass smashes to the floor. But he deserves it. Oh, Jasper deserves it all.
The vampire had once told himself that none of this mattered. That Guy didn’t matter. He was a pretty distraction. Something intriguing – entertaining – to help Jasper pass through a sliver of eternity. But Jasper was lying to himself; he knew it then and he knows it now.
More than anything Guy Anatole matters.
Some primal part of Jasper understands that this intense need to be close to the boy – to be important to him, to be a vital part of his life – cannot be dismissed. This isn’t just an old man, vampire or otherwise, pining after a pretty young thing.
This is something else.
He has to shut it down. For the boy’s sake, for his life, his future, Jasper has to lock his desire up tight.
When Jasper arrives to set up for the dreaded Valentine’s Day event he is shocked to discover that not only is Guy already there but that everything is set up and ready to go. It’s only then that Jasper regrets not investigating exactly what Guy had planned for the evening.
The back room is completely taken over by a crimson Bucking Bronco surrounded by a wide, cushioned crash-landing zone painted in the same garish hue.
“...what happened to not interfering with regular business?” Jasper asks through gritted teeth. He doesn’t trust himself to look at Guy; the boy is literally crying with laughter, slapping his thighs in glee at Jasper’s reaction.
“This is what you get for not checking your email,” he gasps between sobs. Guy waves a dismissive hand at Jasper as he heads into the office. “I need to go change. Tonight will be fun – you’ll see. Just trust me.”
Trust him? Jasper is opening the doors and dozens of young folk are pouring in, dressed in cowboy hats and glitter riding boots, and Jasper is supposed to trust Guy?
Just as the press of bodies at the bar becomes too much Guy finally appears to help out. He’s dressed in a ridiculous lilac fluffy coat, ripped black skinny jeans from his first day on the job making a reappearance, black cowboy hat matching the kohl smudged along his lash lines.
Beneath the fluffy coat Guy wears nothing at all.
Well, fuck.
Jasper’s sentiment is shared by most of the regulars, but then they’re distracted by the hoard of beautiful girls – and boys – that filter inside the bar. Briefly Guy leaves Jasper in order to finalise the set-up for a band, then before Jasper knows it the air is ablaze with live country music.
And it’s…good. Great, even. He thinks he should probably hire more staff, if Guy is determined to fill the bar like this.
“First one to survive Bill the Bronco gets a shot!” Guy yells, suddenly leaping on top of the bar, fucking microphone in hand. The crowd woos and cheers and yells, filtering over to the back room to witness the action. When Guy catches Jasper’s scandalised gaze he winks at him. “I dare the old-timers to prove there’s a reason I still find them so hot.”
That does it.
Jasper graciously allows Guy to bring up some tipsy twenty-somethings to try the mechanical bull first. Watches them fail with increasing satisfaction. Twenty minutes pass, then Jasper yells out, “Get on the bull, pretty boy!”
It doesn’t take long for the crowd to realise that pretty boy relates to Guy, and that yes, yes, yes, they want to see it. Only Jasper notices the slight widening of his eyes – the horror – as Guy laughs and hauls himself onto ‘Bill’, as he so affectionately named the machine.
“Um, okay,” Guy says, still holding the mic as the Bronco stutters into action, “this is dedicated to Jasper. When I fail spectacularly please know I bought this; it isn’t a hire. It’s here to stay!”
“I WILL KILL YOU,” Jasper yells over the crowd, only feeding into the rapturous energy of Guy’s adoring audience. But, really, how can Jasper hate this? Everyone is having a good time – the old-timers are loving it – and Jasper gets to watch Guy, ostensibly topless, struggle to navigate a mechanical bull.
And for close to a minute, Guy Anatole does a bang-up job of looking like he can control a wild beast. Jasper watches the boy tense his abdominal muscles, sweat dripping from his brow, trying to move his hips in sync with the monster beneath him. Truly an admirable effort. Horndog that he is, Jasper thinks that he’d rather prefer Guy ride his dick like this instead of a Bronco. And oh, that's the killing blow. Guy darts his attention towards Jasper, mouth a silent o of surprise.
One wrong move, and Guy is lobbed to the floor.
Jasper closes the distance between them as subtly as possible; ensures he’s the one to hold out a hand with which Guy can stumble upright. When Guy takes his hand his vision is hazy from the bull. Unfocused. He looks fucked, but for all the wrong reasons.
“Lemme show you how it’s done, amigo,” Jasper croons, and as he leaps onto the bull the audience goes wild. Scrambling Guy finds his forgotten microphone abandoned on the floor.
“A-and now we have the owner of the establishment, Jasper, to apparently show us how it’s done!” Guy yells out for the benefit of the crowd. Jasper can feel his genuine concern on the edge of his mind:
—Can you actually do this?
—It’s funny if I fail but if you…
—Don’t leave me on READ you asshole!
Jasper indeed leaves Guy on ‘read’. He’s wrangled more bulls in his life than he can count: it’s time to show off those skills.
At first Jasper takes it slow. Assured. Confident. Preens under Guy’s devoted gaze even as the boy amps up the difficulty of the Bronco. Jasper is in control. This is easy. This is like breathing.
A smirk paints Guy’s lips, and he fiddles with the settings even more. “I think my favourite old man has an inflated sense of his own abilities!” Guy calls out. The bull begins to jerk this way and that, violent, senseless, impossible for a mortal man to handle. But Jasper does. Of course he does. With a careful handle wrapped around the support rope he follows the bull’s movements, letting himself move with it, not against it. Like water. Like something supernatural.
—Jasper.
—Jasper.
—JASPER! Guy literally screams in his head. Jasper slants a heavy-lidded gaze in his direction; Guy is coming undone at the seams. The dark fabric of his jeans isn’t nearly enough to hide his raging hard-on. Good. But there is unfortunately more at play than whatever the fuck Guy and Jasper have going on – the crowd is going insane and there’s nowhere left for them to go.
Jasper needs to fall.
He could go on forever, but eventually Jasper puts Guy out of his misery and graciously falls like an elegant soldier in battle. The noise the audience makes could topple an empire.
Okay, maybe Jasper could get used to this. Maybe Guy was right about bringing in fresh blood. He’s never felt so alive; so impassioned; so human.
The next few hours pass in a delirious haze. But when the clock chimes 3am – most of the young, pretty things having moved on to whatever underground club fits their fancy that night – Jasper notices Guy worrying over his phone. He wraps an arm around Guy’s shoulder, the action so natural. He immediately regrets it when Guy flinches.
Jasper pulls away.
“I—” Guy begins. Bites his tongue, shifts his feet, glances at the time on the clock above the bar. “Um, I need to deal with something urgent. Is it okay if I—”
“Have at it, pup,” Jasper cuts in, ruffling Guy’s hair without looking at him. Because, really, how could Jasper have been so stupid? Of course Guy was over whatever infatuation the boy had first been possessed with. Jasper had made damn sure of that – with his actions, his words, his closed-off mind. “You’ve more than paid back my investment in you.”
Jesus fuck. That sounds so much worse out loud.
But before Jasper can correct himself – before he can utter a fervent apology – Guy Anatole is gone.
The rest of the night is constructed of Jasper cleaning up, his old regulars uncharacteristically helping him do so until it’s time for even them to go. The vampire is left with a hollow feeling in his chest as he stands in a clean, empty bar.
…Guy?
Jasper gets no response, but he moves through to the office to sit and continue calling out for him. He knows, in his soul, that Guy would not deliberately leave him in the dark like this if he were truly in trouble. Jasper worries at his thumb so badly he pierces skin. Tastes his own bitter anxiety in the blood that pools beneath his canine. And then—
—Jasper.
Nothing else. No ‘help’ or ‘I need you’ or any other sentiment. Just Jasper’s name directed into his head, in Guy’s voice, with Guy’s need. More importantly: not far away.
In the parking lot, in fact.
Jasper rushes out in a second. The sun is on the horizon – dangerous – but he doesn’t care. A burly vampire is wringing Guy out by his neck, Guy gone limp and prone beneath the man’s fingers, face blue and close to passing out. When Guy notices Jasper his frantic mouth curls into a smile. A snarl, almost.
Jasper is looming over the vampire before he’s noticed by his doomed prey. Rips the man’s head off, dousing himself and Guy – tossed to the pavement – in blood, but that’s better than the boy being dead.
“Jas-Jasper!” Guy coughs, just as Jasper’s skin begins to painfully tingle as the sun seeps red across the already bloody scene. Jasper doesn’t need telling twice: the sun will destroy all evidence of Guy’s attacker; no need to clean up. He corrals Guy under his arm and rushes into the confines of the bar in the nick of time.
Once inside Jasper slams Guy on the nearest table, fury overwriting concern. The boy is covered in bruises.
“What the fuck were you doing?” Jasper demands. He doesn’t even attempt to sound calm. Spit dribbles from his mouth, landing on Guy’s face. Good. The boy’s eyes are frantic on his.
“Jasper—”
“No excuses! Just fucking explain.”
“That was my old boss!” Guy cries out, wincing when Jasper’s hand pressed onto his shoulder more than exceeds an acceptable level of pressure. Jasper lessens his hold but not by much. Rather, his nails claw across skin, revelling in how Guy squirms beneath their edges, no fabric dulling the sensation.
“You quit,” Jasper says plainly. Softly. “Why was he here?”
“Clearly he didn’t like that.”
“And that’s it?”
“What else is there?”
Jasper investigates Guy’s body, crawling over exposed and hidden skin alike, and frowns. “…no bite marks.”
Guy shifts uncomfortably beneath him. “You saved me just in time,” he says, rolling his eyes, but the humour doesn’t land. “My hero.”
“Don’t sass me, kid.”
“I’m not.” Guy gulps down a shaky breath, shudders with the knowledge of what could have been. “I’ve never been bitten before. I didn’t want my first time to happen like that.”
“…you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Your line of work, and you’ve never—”
“Part of the agreement I had.”
Jasper’s fingers linger over the developing bruises on Guy’s pale skin – proof the decapitated vampire dared to touch his person. He presses into tender flesh with just enough force to confirm there’s nothing worse going on beneath the surface, Guy fighting the urge to writhe beneath his touch, doing his level best to remain stretched and still across the table despite Jasper’s eagle-eyed attention.
Curved spine, diaphragm moving in and out with deliberate care. Slow breathing. In for one-two-three-four-five, out for one-two-three-four-five.
In one fluid motion Guy raises an arm over his forehead, shifting his ridiculous fluffy coat just enough that one brazenly hard nipple is fully revealed to Jasper. His hands grip Guy’s hips, shaking, too hard, much too hard. Surely forming newer – better – bruises.
The look Guy gives Jasper is too much for him to take.
“Nothing broken,” Jasper confirms, whirling around and heading back behind the bar before he does something he’ll regret. His fangs are throbbing in his gums. Behind him Guy scrambles to his feet in dogged pursuit.
“Jasper, wait! Wait,” the boy pleads, pulling at Jasper’s sleeve in a useless mortal attempt to force him to stop. Jasper closes his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his noise between two fingers, breathing deeply. Then he turns to face Guy, standing a bare handful of inches away from him.
The boy’s eyes are full of frustrated tears. “What do I have to do, Jasper?” Guy demands. Runs a hand through dishevelled curls as he laughs a bitter, humourless laugh. “How much more obvious can I be? I’m in here every damn night working beside you, prodding at your head, hoping for a sign that you want me. The slutty clothes don’t work—”
“I don’t hate them,” Jasper interjects despite himself. He shifts, just slightly, until Guy’s back is almost flush with the bar behind him.
Guy flips him off. “Well isn’t that so great. Fat lot of good it’s done me, though, hasn’t it? You kiss me at New Year—”
“You demanded it, if I recall—”
“You pinned me to a wall and made me come.”
A foot firmly planted between Guy’s legs, and Jasper has the boy similarly pinned between his body and the bar. Guy’s breath catches, hands reaching back to seek balance on the counter-top as Jasper leans into his personal space. “What else have I done, Guy, to get you so worked up?”
Jasper watches a swallow slide down Guy’s throat. Continues lowering his gaze to take in every physical sign that Guy is turned on and hyper-aware of Jasper’s undivided attention. But when his eyes return to Guy’s face Jasper is almost completely crushed by the uncertainty trembling his lip.
“Y-you look at me like this,” Guy breathes out. “When you think I can’t see you looking – sometimes when you know I can. You touch me all the time. And – fuck – when I was up on that stupid Bronco you were thinking loud as hell, ‘He should be riding my dick like that’. I mean come on. What do I have to do, Jasper? Just tell me and I’ll do it!”
And here it is: the crux of the matter. Jasper wants Guy and has made no secret of hiding it. Never, even in the beginning. Knew Guy wanted him, too, all this time. Allowed Guy to turn half-crazed with want. And yet…
I can’t do this, Jasper thinks, but he reaches out to cradle Guy’s face. Thumbs the line of his jaw; massages his earlobe.
Guy’s voice is like music in Jasper’s head. Why not?
“Because you’ll leave.”
—I won’t.
You will.
“How are you so sure?”
“Why would you ever stay? There’s a whole world out there, Guy. You’re young. You should experience it.”
—But it doesn’t—“It doesn’t mean anything if you’re not with me!” Guy fires back out loud. Jasper’s hand has moved to Guy’s hair, threading through curls, keeping his head a steady, careful distance from his own. So why is that distance becoming less and less and less? The boy’s sharp inhales are warm and wet on Jasper’s lips. “I don’t wanna experience the world if you’re not in it. With me. Don’t you get it?” Guy waves emphatically around before slamming his fist against Jasper’s chest. Stretches out his fingertips only to clutch at Jasper’s shirt like a man drowning. “This is home. You’re home – to me. What use is there in exploring the world if you don’t have a home? Am I not – do you not think of me like…”
Guy can’t finish his question, but Jasper hears it in his head. Vibrating through his entire body, in fact.
—Am I not home to you, too?
Something snaps.
“Of course you are, Guy,” Jasper soothes, pressing his entire being against him, soul singing when the boy practically sobs in relief.
“Then why—”
“Just look at you.” Jasper’s face moves closer, closer, closer. Drags his nose along Guy’s cheekbone; feels long lashes flutter against his skin. “Look at you. Who am I to claim you as my own?”
Their eyes meet in the middle, blue on blue.
“I was always yours,” Guy says, brushing his lips against Jasper’s. Jasper slips his other hand beneath Guy’s fluffy coat, around his waist to the small of his back, long fingers spanning across as much of the boy as he can reach. Holding him there, savouring the moment.
Calm before the storm.
Then Jasper reciprocates the kiss, slowly, forcing down the urge to quite literally jump Guy Anatole’s bones. Gently he bites Guy’s lower lip, tugging it out a little before diving in for more. The sigh that leaves Guy’s mouth as he relaxes his jaw – tilts his head for a better angle, allows Jasper’s tongue wider access – is nothing short of heavenly.
It is with all the effort Jasper can muster to keep the kiss shallow, especially when Guy’s wanton tongue darts out to flick against Jasper’s teeth. He realises, then, that Guy is unbuttoning his shirt and rolling his hips against him, the boy’s clearly aching hard-on finding some kind of release in the granite of Jasper’s body but not quite enough. No, not nearly enough.
But Jasper is determined not to rush this. How long has he wanted this? How long has Guy? They deserve to take this punishingly, deliriously, inexorably slow.
“Jasper—” Guy gasps, but Jasper deepens their kiss, tongue claiming every inch of Guy’s mouth until he’s almost choking on it. Guy is bowed backwards so far Jasper knows he’s going to hurt in the morning, but they both know Guy doesn’t care. Jasper could fuck him on top of the pint glasses until they smashed and stabbed Guy’s unmarred flesh and he’d say thank you.
—I wouldn’t.
You would.
—Can we try something less violent first? Please?
It’s the ‘please’ that does it.
The kiss becomes chaotic, needier, then Jasper’s shirt is on the floor and the two of them similarly sink down, down, down. Thank god Jasper swept and mopped already.
“Don’t think about cleaning,” Guy scorns, tearing away from Jasper’s mouth to nip at his ear. Jasper responds by yanking down the boy’s jeans and underwear, cock twitching with want as Jasper finally – finally – cups the bare skin of Guy’s ass in his hands. Both Guy’s thoughts and voice stutter to a stop when Jasper grinds against him, rough denim against swollen, needy flesh.
“We wouldn’t want your pretty coat to get dirty, though, would we?” Jasper responds through snarling teeth, feeling for all the world like the wicked wolf finally pinning Red Riding Hood beneath him. The two of them are panting, air heavy with lust and longing, and fuck it Jasper doesn’t care if it might hurt Guy when his fingers crawl over his ass to press inside him and—
Meet little resistance.
The noise Guy makes is nothing short of pornographic. “A-again,” he begs, rutting against Jasper’s fingers when he pauses. “Please put them in again.”
“…tell me why you’re already raring to go first, pup.”
Guy quirks an infuriating eyebrow. “Why, you jealous?”
Guy—
—I wasn’t gonna let you keep ignoring me, okay?
“So maybe I planned to jump your bones,” Guy mutters, turning his head to pout with a scarlet blush across his cheeks. Then he reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket – why does he still have it on? – and pulls out a sachet of lube in a holofoil packet. “See? I came prepared.”
It takes Jasper a moment or two to process this.
“So you…organised a Bucking fucking Bronco Valentine’s Day event at our bar to seduce me?”
He loves the way Guy leaps at the word our.
Guy hitches a leg around Jasper’s waist to urge his body back against him. His lips curl into a satisfied, hazy smile. “Did it work?”
Jasper doesn’t need to reply. He removes his jeans, rips the packet from Guy’s hand, slathers his cock in its contents, then plunges inside the boy with reckless abandonment.
Guy comes the moment Jasper enters him.
“Fuck me, sweetheart, you really are a little whore, aren’t you?” Jasper groans, the sight of Guy weeping and shaking beneath him too much to bear.
“Y-you just feel so good, Jasper.”
With a sure hand Jasper cradles Guy’s head and curves his neck back, back, back, as far as it will go, and places a kiss on the hollow of his throat.
“Magnificent,” he murmurs against skin, breathing in Guy’s scent, focusing on his thrashing heart and red-hot blood. “You’re a work of art.”
Guy’s entire frame trembles with the compliment, lips quivering into a smile that’s so lovely Jasper swings them into a sitting position, the boy straddling him, so he can bring Guy’s sinful mouth to his once more. Guy threads his hands through Jasper’s hair, rolling on his cock with increasing intensity despite the fact Jasper can literally feel how over-sensitive Guy’s body is.
He locks Guy in tighter and draws out his thrusts, slow, deliberate, until Jasper’s cheeks are wet with Guy’s tears and Guy is almost sobbing into his mouth.
And Christ, that does it. Jasper’s fangs slide down, eliciting a different kind of cry from the angel on his lap when Guy feels their sharp edges against his tongue.
“Please,” Guy spills out, too crazed to feel pathetic. “Please, please, please.”
Jasper leans his back against the wine fridge, repositioning Guy on his lap for the long, long haul. Guy Anatole doesn’t know it yet but he will soon: there is no tapping out from this.
The boy trembles, clinging to Jasper for dear life – he hasn’t stopped fucking him for even a moment. But when Jasper buries himself into the crook of Guy’s neck, breathing in the scent of want emanating in waves off his skin, Guy manages to still his shaking frame just long enough for Jasper’s fangs to pierce his flesh and latch onto him.
It’s excrutiating, Jasper knows. Torture. He draws it out for a reason.
Guy Anatole, for his part, takes everything Jasper gives him, and takes it well. Their bodies mould together as Jasper leeches from Guy all that the boy willingly surrenders. But he does it slowly, slowly, so slowly.
They fuck, kneeling on the floor, for long enough that Jasper loses count of how many times the two of them have come. Because there can be no trumping this feeling: Guy’s blood spilling into Jasper’s mouth, millilitre by agonising millilitre, whilst Jasper drives ever deeper into Guy with everything he can take.
It is painful when Jasper forces himself to wrench away from Guy’s flesh. He wants him, more than anything he’s ever wanted. Wants him forever. But that is a decision for Guy, and Guy alone, to make.
“We don’t have to stay here,” Jasper says, whispering the words across Guy’s lips. He crushes Guy against him. “We can go anywhere in the world. Anywhere you want.”
Guy merely laughs, the sound a bell, touching the weeping puncture wounds driven into his neck like they’re a trophy. Plants a kiss on Jasper’s lips, taking extra care to tongue his fangs for good measure.
“I think here is just fine.”