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It was perhaps a bit worryingly easy to sneak onto the castle grounds to the point that it felt like a trap. That didn’t stop Martyn from doing it over and over again.
Within a mere week of the masquerade he had started casing out the place to try and meet Apo again. In his teen years he had done quite a few robberies before he realized it was easier to get people to willingly open their doors for you, but he still retained the muscle memory. What he had discovered was that the castle seemed more like it was designed to keep things in as opposed to out. Less a castle and more a prison, which was… concerning, but that just made him more determined to flounce all over that and slip in and out with ease.
Point being, the first time he had scaled the wall to Apo’s room she had nearly punched him right back out the window, but now they had a nice little thing going on. Martyn would help her sneak out, they would run the streets for a few hours, and then he would return her before her stepfather suspected a thing.
Martyn dropped quietly off the outer wall and made his way through the garden to just below Apo’s window. He raised a curious eye at the scattered rose petals on the ground, following them up to where Apo was staring out into the distance with a deep frown on her face as she pulled apart a white rose with her fingers. Something about her looked a bit different but he couldn’t quite tell from down here.
It took him a few seconds to hear the words she was mumbling to herself. “Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” She ripped off another petal and let it float to the ground. “Fuck, what was the next line again? Or if thou wilt not be my… No…”
Martyn couldn’t help himself as he quipped. “What do you mean where am I? I’m right here.”
Apo’s head shot up in shock and she leaned out over the window sill. “Jesus- And that’s not what wherefore means. It means, like, why.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. You coming down today or tomorrow?”
They mumbled something he couldn’t hear and disappeared from the window. A few seconds later a bat flew out and landed on the grass in front of him with a slight stumble. Martyn grabbed their arm to help them steady themself.
“No offense, but you kinda suck at flying.”
Apo stuck out her tongue at him. “I’m not exactly allowed to practice usually.”
She smoothed a hand over her skirts. Now that she was on the ground he could see a new white streak in her hair. He nodded towards it. “What’s that about?”
“What’s what-” Apo froze. “No. It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Aight, we won’t.” Martyn shrugged and a brief look of shock passed over Apo’s face before it disappeared. He held out a bundle of cloth. “Your cloak, madam.”
“Don’t call me that,” Apo said, even as they took it. They clasped it around their shoulders. It was a simple brown wool thing, but it did its job of covering up her fine clothes and made her look just like any other random peasant passing by.
Apo followed Martyn through the garden, eyeing the wall like she did every time he helped her sneak out. He had put a heavy rug over the silver spikes lining it but she still moved gingerly past them like a single touch might be poison. Martyn didn’t know enough about vampires, so maybe it was? The second they were outside Apo visibly relaxed. A bit later they found themselves in Martyn’s bar of choice, also known as one of the few he hadn’t been banned from yet. Apo laughed high and giddy at something as she leaned on him heavily.
“I think we need to cut you off,” he said and she made a tiny noise of complaint.
“Noooooo. ‘M having fun.”
She swatted in his general direction but missed by a mile and a half. Martyn rolled his eyes fondly. “At the very least you should get some air.”
Apo pouted but didn’t complain as he grabbed her arm and helped her stumble outside, sitting on a nearby bench. A brisk breeze blew through the city streets and sent leaves and trash tumbling down the road. She shivered but her eyes looked a little clearer, the cold dissapating a bit of the haze from her mind. He sat next to her and Apo immediately tucked against his side. He laughed as he wrapped an arm around her.
“I didn’t take you for a clingy drunk,” he teased.
“Mm. You’re nice and warm though.”
She practically rubbed her face against his shirt like a cat with a hysterical giggle. However it quickly transformed into something that sounded like a sob. Martyn jerked back in concern and tried to look at her but she just buried her face even more.
“A-Apo?”
“Don’t… please don’t make me go back. I don’t want to go back.”
Martyn was too buzzed himself to deal with this. “What… did something happen?”
Apo just clutched him harder. “I don’t want to go home,” she whispered in a tiny wobbly voice, so unlike her. “I hate every single one of them. I want to kill him so bad.”
He assumed by him she meant Scott. “I’m not sure I can, like, recommend trying to kill a lord, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it happen.” The joke felt flat in his ears, but it did still manage to get her to give a tiny watery laugh.
“You’re so dumb.” They finally emerged from his shirt, wiping the tears off their cheeks. Apo took a deep steeling breath, more for the effect than any actual need to breathe. “I’m sorry, I’m a mess. I…” They shook their head weakly. “Today was the anniversary of when I got ‘adopted’.” That last word was spit like venom.
Martyn blinked. “Oh, yeah, you never really did tell me the story about all that.”
Apo tucked her legs up against her chest and rested her head on her knees. “Sometimes a vampire gets bored and decides they want to have a kid. He found me after my real family had died and now tries to say I agreed to… to all this, like I had a choice to refuse him as some street urchin kid. I hate playing pretend at his stupid family. I miss being human. It’s been so long I barely even remember…” She cut herself off and buried her face in her skirt. “This is stupid. I should just go home.”
“Hey, look at me.” She turned to him and he gently brushed the hair out of her face, pieces stuck to the moisture on her cheeks. “We’ll… we can figure something out, surely. Just uh… maybe not right now, but after we sober up.” Martyn blinked and then cursed under his breath. “Fuck. The owner probably thinks I ran off without paying my tab again, we’ve been out here so long.”
Apo slowly grinned, and then laughed, genuinely, not the sad one like before. “Oh my god, Martyn.”
“No this isn’t a joke, this is one of the few bars I haven’t been banned from yet-”
She cut him off with a kiss. “Stop rambling and go pay your tab, idiot.”
Martyn stared owlishly at her for a few seconds. “Oh. Right, right, okay.”
“I said go.”
Martyn stood and offered him her arm. Her eyes were still lined with red but she smiled as she took it gratefully, letting him lead her back inside.