Written by pr0nz69 the younger (otherwise known as WillfulAbyss on Tumblr).
This was my gift to lemaskadra on Tumblr for the Pandora Hearts Secret Santa 2015, based on a prompt requesting a dark Jack/Oswald vampire AU. The vampires in this story are entirely of my own imagining, so they're a little bit different from their more traditional counterparts, but I promise their bloodsucking essence is still there! The story line basically follows canon in an AU setting, but I apologize if there are any glaring inconsistencies - it's been awhile since I last read PH!
Rated M for non-explicit sexuality, blood and violence, and lots of sexy licking.
O
He wonders if Lacie does this to torture him, because she knows how he worries about her, and she must think this is a good way to punish him for – what did they quarrel about? he can't even remember anymore – and that's why she runs off whenever they've had a row. He thinks she doesn't really consider herself, or the danger she puts herself in just to hurt him. There are slavers and silver outside the confines of the manor, and both are deadly to them.
"Oswald," Master Glen says, tugging on his ear, "you don't need to fret. Lacie is too spirited to fall into trouble."
Not even Master takes this seriously anymore. Oswald almost tells him that spirit is not a safeguard against trouble, but he feels too sick to speak. The carriage trundling along uneven ground, muddy from last night's rain, turns his stomach even more. He grips the velvet of the seat cushions in his fists, part to steady himself and part to keep from leaping out the door and dashing off to Lacie's side himself.
When they find her, in an open clearing outside the slums of Sablier, she's singing and twirling before three blood-soaked corpses. Her white dress, far too thin for early winter, is stained with muck and blood, though it seems not to bother her. She doesn't even notice Oswald till he scrambles from the carriage and calls her name.
"Big brother!" she cries, abruptly cutting off her movements and her song and staring at him in astonishment. Her surprise quickly twists into annoyance, and she bitterly says, "I'm not going back until you apologize!"
"I'm sorry," Oswald says in earnest, catching her off-guard. "Please come home now."
Lacie looks behind her at the three corpses – and Oswald realizes then that one of them is not a corpse at all. Beside the bodies of two scruffy adult males, a gold-haired child, close to Oswald in age, raises himself up off the ground and onto his knees. He has blood on his face and clothes, but it must not be his, for Oswald can't discern any open wounds on his person. The boy has green eyes, blunted by exhaustion, though through them, he stares at Lacie with an unsettling rapture.
"Jack," Lacie murmurs, crouching low in the mud and lifting his face to hers with her cupped hands. "Remember the name 'Baskerville'. Come find me some day." She strokes hair from his eyes and then releases him. To Oswald, she turns and says, "Alright. I'm ready."
Oswald's eyes linger for a moment longer on the boy on the ground. It's hard to make out from this distance, but there is a wound, on the top of his left ear, and it's bleeding into his hair, matting it. Oswald looks to Lacie. There's blood on her lower lip and chin.
Baskerville servants shepherd them into the carriage while Master Glen stoops to retrieve something off the ground. Oswald fiercely whispers, "Lacie – you didn't bite him, did you?"
"Of course not, big brother!" Lacie says, and she smiles, revealing bloody canines. Oswald sucks in a breath.
"He'll be bound to you!" he hisses. "Haven't I warned you? You're too young for a bloodmate – and you know we're not to interfere with humans otherwise!"
"I didn't bite him," Lacie repeats, still smiling. "I just had a taste." She licks her lips.
At that moment, Master Glen steps into the carriage and seats himself beside Lacie. Between his long fingers, he has by the grips a pair of bloodstained silver shears. Lacie claps her hands together in delight; Oswald pulls away distastefully. Master says, "Lacie, I'm quite certain you had something to do with these."
Lacie beams. "I cut his hair!" She takes the scissors from Master. "And took just a little bit off the top – of his ear!" She sticks out her tongue, making to lick the blades. Oswald grabs her wrist to detain her.
"Those are silver!" he cries, alarmed. "If you touch those, you'll –"
He's cut off when she jerks her hand away and places the shears between her lips. Master Glen laughs. Horrified, Oswald tries to take them back, but she eludes him.
"So sweet," she says, pulling the shears from her mouth. Her lips have already blistered. She touches them gently with her tongue but is otherwise unperturbed "I want to taste him again."
Oswald recaptures the scissors, thrusts them out the carriage window, and hopes that's the end of that boy Jack.
OO
By the time Jack shows up again in his life, Oswald has all but forgotten him.
It happens in winter again, and there's a disturbance on the manor's grounds that's summoned him and Master Glen to the foyer with a smattering of servants and guards. An intruder has been captured, explains one of the latter, and they are awaiting Master's opinion on what ought to be done with him.
When they bring him in, Oswald recognizes him as if they last met yesterday, despite how much he's changed. Jack's no longer a boy but a full-figured man, much like Oswald himself. He's smiling in this uncanny way, even though he's dragging with him tangles of iron chains, from his hands down to his bare feet. There's a gash across his left forearm, torn clean through his clothes, and it's red and deep and jagged, like a pit staring straight into the Abyss. The perfume of blood is thick and sweet in the air; Oswald's nose twitches at the smell, but he makes no move to approach the bleeding prisoner.
"We found this man skulking around the manor," says one guard, thrusting Jack forward with a tremendous clattering of chains. "He claims he is acquainted with Miss Lacie and demanded we take him to see her."
The look that passes over Jack's face at the mention of Lacie is disarming: Dissonant contentment with a possessive sort of hunger in his eyes that makes Oswald, perhaps irrationally, fear for his sister. He can't bring himself to maintain eye contact with Jack. Somehow, those murky eyes on his feel violating.
"Of course, the lady declined any knowledge of this man," the guard continues, "and we were going to be rid of him in the usual way until we discovered"—here he glances at the wound, a certain hunger of his own gleaming in his eyes—"that his blood is of an unusually high quality. And so we brought him here, for Master to decide his fate."
Oswald looks up at Master Glen, who's smiling crookedly and probably isn't taking this seriously at all, because rarely does he take anything seriously anymore in his old age.
"Perhaps this was all meant to be," he says, stepping up to Jack and lifting his chin with an index finger. "What is your name, boy?"
"Jack," is the prompt reply, and he's far too calm – even cheerful – for one in his precarious situation. Before Master can speak again, he hastens to add, "Can I see Lacie yet?"
Master Glen seems to find this absolutely delightful, and chortles; Oswald can feel chills passing over his spine. "Master," he says, stepping forward, though not within several feet of the prisoner; "in my opinion, it would be prudent to remove this man posthaste. I"–he glances at Jack, catches those unsettling doe-eyes–"don't think we should associate with him further. I sense he is dangerous."
"Now, now," laughs Master Glen, turning now to his protégé, "I didn't raise you to be such a stick in the mud, did I, Oswald?"
Oswald hesitates. "I speak only with the Baskerville clan's best interests in mind," he insists. When he glances this time, Jack's eyes are like disturbed water – constantly moving, obscuring something deeper down. "This man may be more than he appears."
"Indeed," Master Glen agrees, though not with the hard finality Oswald is hoping for. "I think he would make a very good first bloodmate for you, don't you? And it's about time, you being so close to taking my place…"
"Master Glen, with all due respect!" Oswald objects, a vague sense of dread settling over him at the proposition, but he's soon interrupted, though it's not by his master.
"I don't want to be his blood slave," Jack snaps. "I want to see Lacie!"
Oswald is stunned into silence. Master Glen says, "Perhaps you will yet." Then he turns to address the guards. "Am I correct in assuming none of you have bitten him?" That this wound"–he gestures to it–"was the sole means by which you tasted his blood, and that no teeth have penetrated his skin?"
"Of course, Master," says one guard earnestly. "In accordance with our sworn oath as Baskervilles, this man has not yet been marked with a vampire's venom."
Oswald's last hope – the disloyalty of his own clan – vanishes along with Master Glen's stern demeanor. "Excellent," that man exclaims, clapping his hands together. "Then prepare him immediately to become Oswald's bloodmate. We'll have the initiation this evening."
Jack, his face unreadable as ever, is then escorted from the room while Oswald can only stare helplessly after him.
OOO
On entering his bedchamber that evening, even knowing what he will find there, Oswald is surprised. The servants have cleaned Jack up beautifully – polished him like he's an emerald – and left him on the bed with a shackle and a length of chain on his right foot, which he's folded underneath him. He's helped himself to a book from one of the shelves in the corner and has it open on his lap, and Oswald sees it's a collection of fairytales, one he and Lacie used to read when they were young. The corners of the pages with the stories they liked best are still folded down, just like they left them – he can tell because Jack's stopped on one now.
"Always women," he sighs, without looking up. He must know that he's not alone in here anymore, that he's talking to someone. Oswald takes a few steps toward the bed to announce his presence anyway.
"What do you mean?" he asks. Jack closes the book with a snap.
"That one had a woman with long, golden hair who was imprisoned in a tower," he says, lying back against the pillows, rattling his chain. He's surprisingly well-adjusted here, or at least acts like he is. Oswald isn't sure if that unnerves or impresses him, though perhaps it's a little of both.
"Are we in a tower?" Jack asks. Oswald glances to the curtained windows.
"This is the ground floor," he says.
Jack turns onto his side. His golden hair has been undone from its braid, thoroughly washed, and trimmed of dead ends, and now it splays across his back in a simple ponytail. It looks like silk, like the girl's in the story, and for a moment, Oswald is tempted to put his fingers through it, if only to test its softness. But he restrains himself and instead orders Jack to sit up.
"Is this the part in the story where you're going to ravish me?" Jack asks suddenly, pushing himself up but looking past Oswald, toward the window. "Like the maiden in the tower?"
Oswald doesn't entirely understand his meaning, and he can't even remember what happens to the maiden in the tower at the end of the story. He thinks now that if Lacie liked it so much, it might have come to some bad end, but what he says to Jack – perhaps in an attempt at reassurance – is, "Nothing of the sort."
When Jack finally looks at him, he's pulling that ridiculous smile again. His eyes are a muted green today, like a forest grove drowned by rain and just as treacherous. "At least you're handsome," he says, brushing his hair back from his cheek with his curled fingers; Oswald notices how attractively long and slender they are, imagines them gliding gently across his own face. "So I might even enjoy it." He sets the book aside, leans back onto his palms, and widens his thighs just a little bit.
"I'm going to bite your neck and drink from you," Oswald flatly tells him, to clear the air before misunderstanding takes root. "That is how a bloodmate is marked by his master as his and his alone."
Jack frowns. "What a waste," he murmurs, drawing his knees together. "If you're going to use me, at least do it properly." He looks up at the canopy, staring into scarlet, and all at once, that eerie smile is back. "Lacie would use all of me."
Oswald closes the distance between them and takes Jack firmly, though not roughly, by the shoulder. Underneath his robe, he's even thinner than he looks; his sharp collarbone pushes up into the pads of Oswald's palm. It's uncomfortable, even distracting, so Oswald lets him go almost at once. Still, he addresses him sternly.
"I am your master and Lacie's brother," he says, though he's feeling altogether more brotherly than masterly at present. "That means you are to obey me absolutely. You are to do whatever I ask of you without question or complaint." He won't let this man – this mysterious, dangerous man – get the upper hand on him, the future head of the Baskerville clan. "And you are to forget about Lacie."
Jack gazes up at him, still smiling vacantly, as if most of him – perhaps all of him – isn't even really there.
"Forget about Lacie," Oswald repeats, this time almost in earnest. "That is my first order to you as your master."
Still, Jack appears unruffled. "Are you the prince?" he asks suddenly.
Oswald falters. "What?"
"Or are you the witch?"
He doesn't much care for mind games, or whatever other form of shallow deceit Jack is engaging in at present, and he's determined not to go along with him. "Neither," he says. "I am a vampire."
"But that's not in the story," Jack counters.
Oswald sighs. "What makes you think this is like some fairytale?"
Jack's grin only widens, and Oswald realizes then that he's played right into him, in spite of his own warning. "Isn't it, though?"
It's become clear that pretty words will get them nowhere with each other, and so Oswald abandons them entirely, as he so often did with Lacie all those years ago when she, in her childhood stubbornness, became unreasonable.
"Sit up," he orders again, nodding toward a spot at the edge of the bed, surprised when Jack obliges in spite of his apparent desire to hinder him. But Jack doesn't stay silent.
"Is this going to turn me into a vampire?" he asks, though he sounds more casually interested than afraid for his life.
"Of course not," Oswald says, taking off his overcoat and draping it over an armchair. Then he raises his hands to his throat to loosen his cravat. It won't do to get blood on it if Jack turns out to be a heavy bleeder. "You'll still be human, you'll just produce more blood more frequently to meet my feeding needs. That's all."
He tosses the cravat onto his coat and returns to the bed, sitting gingerly beside Jack. It feels strange to be this close to someone who isn't Lacie or Master.
"It will be easiest if you tilt your head to the side," he says, and, smiling, Jack does, exposing his white, unmarked neck.
Oswald can feel his heart thrumming in his chest. Truth be told, he's never done this before – after all, Jack is his first. He wants to reassure him even though he's probably the one needing the reassurance. What if he bites too deep and kills him? As little as he cares for Jack, he certainly doesn't want to be responsible for ending his life for no good reason.
So he takes his time running his nose along Jack's neck, searching for the optimal spot to make the first bite. His hands have found Jack's shoulders and are holding them tight so that he doesn't pull away and end up hurting himself. He can hear Jack's breaths, deep and constant, and he wonders why his own heart can't settle down. He's feeling more confident now that he's this close, but just being beside Jack makes his heart beat faster.
Finally, he settles on a spot just below Jack's chin and to the side, and he gives it an experimental lick. Jack shivers, and Oswald holds his breath, but then he's motionless again.
"Go on," he urges, still calm. Oswald opens his mouth, taps the spot with his teeth. Then he bites.
The guards are right – Jack is wonderfully, satisfyingly sweet, and once he's had his first taste, Oswald drinks from him hungrily. But he remembers Master's caution not to drink too deeply the first time, and he lets up. Jack is an ordinary human yet, and his scant amount of blood won't do to sate a fully grown vampire. So, reluctantly, Oswald pulls himself away.
Jack looks paler than before, though Oswald is certain he only took what was necessary to initiate the change. The venom from his teeth should have entered Jack's bloodstream; if all goes well, Jack should be a fully realized bloodmate within a day.
"You are not to let any other vampire bite you now," Oswald warns him, thinking specifically of Lacie. "If another vampire's venom mixes with mine in your blood, it will likely be fatal for you."
Jack smirks, bringing his hand up to rub at the wound. "That almost felt good," he says, though Oswald isn't sure if he's mocking him or not.
"I have to leave you alone in here for a day to wait for the change to occur," he goes on, citing Master's order while choosing to ignore Jack's comment. "I'll be back for you tomorrow evening."
He turns to leave, but Jack's airy voice stops him before he can.
"So this is a fairytale for a vampire."
Oswald silently closes the door behind him.
OOOO
There's something nagging at him throughout the next day and while he's perfectly aware of what it is, he refuses to admit it. Even so, he finds himself glancing at his pocket watch more often than he should, letting his thoughts wander more than usual, and having a hard time paying attention to what Master Glen is saying to him when instructing him and giving him orders. Eventually, Master checks his own pocket watch and says with a sigh, "It's a few hours short of twenty-four, but you're entirely useless when you're preoccupied, Oswald, so hurry along and check in on your bloodmate."
Oswald flushes; he hasn't been so transparent all along, has he? But humiliating as it is to be caught worrying about some foolish, inconsequential human, he has to concede that Master is right and that the only way he can feel relief again is by going to see Jack. Without a word, he makes for his bedchamber, his stomach roiling with unease and something else – something almost painfully pleasant, if that makes any sense at all.
But when he enters the room, he finds his fears realized; Jack is on the floor, surrounded by his own dark blood, his hands and face pale and trembling, his chain stretched as far as it will go from the bed. His fingernails are broken and ragged, and there's more blood, brown and dried, stuck beneath them. All over his neck, where the puncture wounds are still red and leaking, are fresh scratches.
"What did you do?" Oswald demands, though he's more fearful than angry. Is this a natural reaction to the change? Why didn't Master Glen tell him? He would have covered Jack's hands to keep him from scratching had he known! He would have stayed beside him!
Jack tilts his head, stares up at Oswald, then offers him a bloody smile – he's bitten his tongue. "You're really killing me, huh?" he mutters, and his eyes are hard, somehow betrayed. He hacks, then spits up a mouthful of blood and saliva.
"N-no," Oswald says, frozen in place, feeling, for the first time in his life, perfectly helpless. "That's not – I didn't –!"
"Lick it up," Jack interrupts, silencing Oswald at once, and then, startlingly louder, "It's hot – the wound. And it stings. So cool it off with your tongue, Oswald!"
It's an order, and Jack doesn't call him "Master" like he's asked, but Oswald instantly stoops to kneel beside him, then lifts him carefully into his lap. He gently pushes his head to the side to expose his neck, and, with only a moment's hesitation that's terminated by a pained grunt from Jack, begins to lave the bleeding scratches with his tongue.
The blood is delectably sweet, like before, and he can feel Jack shivering in his arms at the contact. The taste and the contact excite him as well, and soon he's licking harder, like a thirsty dog drinking from a rain barrel. Jack's making contented noises in the back of his throat, though they quickly escalate into something rougher, something far more primal. Just listening to them incites something base in Oswald as well, spurring him on.
"Oswald, drink," Jack demands suddenly, and his hand moves up to grip a fistful of Oswald's hair and drag his head down. "You were right – it's too much blood for a human. I feel sick, so drink."
Oswald knows he should be correcting Jack, probably even punishing him – for not calling him Master, for ordering him around and not knowing his place – but his mouth finds the puncture marks instead, and his teeth start to scrape away the beginnings of scabs. Before he can even think to regain command of himself, he's sucking the wound long and deep in an intoxicated haze. Master Glen was right about Jack – about the quality of his blood, and about their compatibility in regards to taste. Oswald has always had a sweet tooth.
He doesn't know how long he's been drinking from Jack. He's lost control of himself in a way he never has before. It's only when the hand in his hair pulls and his neck arcs back that he becomes aware of what he's done. And as he stares at the torn, bloody wound at Jack's throat and then at the man himself, exhausted and red-eyed, he's overcome by another sensation he's never encountered before – a strong, humbling bout of shame.
"You didn't tell me it would hurt so much," Jack says after a moment passes in silence. Oswald hangs his head.
"I didn't know."
"I don't believe that."
Oswald exhales. "It's the truth, whether you choose to believe it or not."
On shaking arms, Jack sits up in his lap. He presses a hand against the wound, then touches it to Oswald's face, leaving a smear of blood. "You did this to me," he whispers, and Oswald looks up but can't find the words to respond. Jack leans forward and presses his lips against the bloodstain on his cheek.
"Remember that."
OOOOO
Despite his words, Jack doesn't appear vengeful in the days that follow his marking. His demeanor is false, as Oswald has come to expect, but never unpleasant. Perhaps he does a poor job of reading people, or perhaps he's just lonely, but with each day that passes, Oswald finds himself wanting to trust his bloodmate with increasing urgency.
"Oh," Jack says one morning, over a week after the change, as Oswald enters the bedchamber with a tray of food. "It's my prince – no, my vampire. Hello." He smiles and gives a pretty little wave, which Oswald can tell means nothing.
"I'm your master," he reminds him, long ago accepting that Jack won't ever take it to heart, but needing to exert his authority anyway, if only for show. "How are you feeling?"
Jack presses his hand against his neck, gently fingers the pink-brown scabs that have formed there and are beginning to flake away. "Better."
Oswald quietly expels a breath. "I'm glad." He moves to set the tray in front of Jack, then backs up to give him space. "Eat it all," he tells him. "You need to recover your strength."
Jack doesn't need coaxing anymore and digs into the stew – a hearty affair of meat and broth and vegetables that the chef promised would revitalize any human in a heartbeat. Oswald needs to keep Jack strong for his own sake, but he'd be lying if he were to make the claim that that is his only reason. Keeping Jack strictly for his blood-product wasn't what Oswald wanted in a bloodmate from the start, after all, and he'll be damned if his first one ends up as nothing more than a milking cow.
"I want to trust you, Jack," he says aloud, voicing his thoughts without meaning to. He blushes at the curious look that's crested Jack's brow but continues anyway, "I want to be able to give you more freedom. I don't want you to feel as if this room is your prison." It's enough for Lacie to be confined to her tower all the time. Oswald can't stand the thought of putting another through what she's already suffered.
"And this"–he gestures to Jack's chained foot from where it's dangling off the side of the bed–"is just a temporary precaution. Once I can trust you more, I'll–"
"Remove it?" Jack chimes in, wooden spoon still in hand and broth dribbling down his chin like a child.
"Yes," Oswald says. "But only when I can trust you."
"You can never trust me," Jack says, and he gives a laugh like the rattling of a broken bell; it's not a pleasant sound but discordant, and it doesn't at all suit the man uttering it.
"Come here," Jack says suddenly, and again, for some reason he can't discern, Oswald obliges him, stepping wordlessly up to the bed, as if awaiting his next order – as if he were the servant. Perhaps it's second nature; he's been Master Glen's servant for far longer than he's been Jack's master.
His obedience, though, causes Jack to smile, and he asks, "You've never tried human food before, have you?"
"Of course not," Oswald says, surprised. "Why would I?"
"Well, I've tried blood before," Jack says, and then he points to his chin and neck, where the stew has left a wet and glistening trail. "Lick it," he commands, and Oswald is so stunned that Jack repeats himself and adds, "It's only fair, isn't it, Oswald?"
This man is warped – probably beyond repair. Oswald noticed it a long time ago, and maybe he doesn't want to admit it anymore. Maybe he even likes it, that utter lack of rules and structure that's so foreign to him, because at that moment, he can't stop himself from climbing onto Jack's lap and licking him from the chin to far below the neck.
OOOOOO
Even while knowing he shouldn't, Oswald finds himself removing the shackle not a week later and taking Jack out into the frozen rose garden. It's a sight to behold in spring, but now, in the dead of winter, it's a graveyard of empty, gnarled bushes and bare trees. Still, Oswald thinks, it has its own admirable sort of character: A cold, forgotten beauty.
For a long while, the two walk in silence, Oswald uncertain as to what he should say. Despite the freedom, Jack seems as nonchalant as ever.
"Do you spend a lot of time here?" he asks, pausing to lift up the ice-crusted branch of a rose bush with his gloved fingers.
Oswald stops, too, and looks around. The place is familiar, even in winter, but he can't say he's been here often as of late. He recalls building a snowman atop the frozen fountain at Lacie's behest one year, when they were much younger. It stayed until the weather warmed enough to melt the ice, and then it sloped, agonizingly slowly, into the water.
Lacie had wondered aloud, as she often did back then, if getting cast into the Abyss might feel something like that snowman's torturous descent.
"No," Oswald admits to Jack, staring off into the white, barren expanse. "I haven't in some time."
Jack moves closer to him and follows his gaze. "Then why did you bring me here?"
Oswald falters. It isn't what he expected Jack to ask, and he doesn't have an answer manufactured for him, not one that will satisfy him, at least. "I don't know," he says quietly, then adds, "Do you not like it?"
Jack, to his ever-constant surprise, laughs. "It reminds me of you, Oswald," he says, cheerfully. "So cold and distant – yet in spite of that, beautiful."
Oswald feels his cheeks heat. "That's foolish," he mutters, turning away.
Jack slides up beside him, suddenly takes his hand between both of his. "You know, I hated you when we first met," he says, squeezing it. Oswald stares into the snow at their feet. "You took away my freedom. You wouldn't let me see Lacie. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to break you apart so you couldn't even recognize yourself anymore. I tried to humiliate you, but you liked it."
Oswald jerks his head up, tries to pull his hand free, but Jack doesn't let go. "That isn't–!" he starts, but Jack interrupts him.
"But it turns out you can be cute, too." He lifts Oswald's hand to his mouth and kisses it. His lips are cold but soft, and Oswald shivers a little. "Master."
Oswald can't tell if Jack is lying or not. He knows he should be on his guard, that this man is duplicitous and charismatic and perfectly untrustworthy. But, he realizes now, ever since he met him, for reasons he can't entirely understand himself, he's wanted to trust him. That's why they're here now, alone in the rose garden. It's why, much later, as Glen, he trusts the word of his child protégé, and keeps Jack by his side. It's why he lets Jack's pretty flattery warm him enough to burn, and why he takes him then and bites his neck until he's moaning with pleasure, and why he himself isn't far behind.
OOOOOOO
When Lacie goes missing from her tower, Oswald knows something's wrong. She hasn't done this since she was a child – he thought she was through with this routine. He's on his way to his bedchamber to grab his coat – not for him, but for her because what if she's run off in an unseasonable dress again? – when the door opens by itself, bringing him to a halt. He's expecting Jack, but it's Lacie who slips out, still in her nightgown, only now it's spattered with blood.
"Oh!" she says upon seeing him, and she smiles sweetly. "Big brother! I was just talking about you!"
Oswald clenches his fists because they've started shaking, and he doesn't want her to see. "Lacie. What are you doing in my room?" He tries to keep his voice steady, but he's not fooling anyone, least of all her.
"I was playing with Jack," she says simply, like she has nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. "You were right – he tastes so sweet!"
She lifts her arm to her face and licks blood from her wrist like a cat.
Oswald's mind is in a state of utter disarray, but before Lacie can waltz off, he manages to ask, "Did you bite him?"
She stops and glances over her shoulder. "Relax," she says. "I'm not that stupid. He's fine. He wanted it. Ask him."
Then she skips off, loudly humming her namesake tune.
Oswald doesn't want to enter that room. He's afraid to. Lacie said Jack was fine, but he doesn't trust her definition of the word. Still, there's only one way to determine its veracity. He pushes open the door and steps in.
The first thing he notices is how the blood's soaked into the sheets. It's pooled all around Jack like some kind of gruesome shadow, even started trickling down the side of the bed and vanishing into the burgundy carpet. Possessing that amount of blood is impossible for a human, and Oswald realizes that he's seeing his bloodmate at his full potential, that Lacie, like with everything she does, has pushed him to the very edge of his limits.
The second thing Oswald notices is the pair of bloodstained scissors lying abandoned on the floor by the bedpost. If there's any relief to be had, it's that she didn't have to have bitten him – and he prays that she hasn't.
Oswald then raises his eyes to Jack himself and sees that Lacie has cut him violently and with little restraint. He's still conscious, a hazy grin shaping his lips, but Oswald, on impulse, has to curl his fingers across his mouth and struggle to keep from vomiting. The sweet scent of blood in the air is overwhelming, but for once in his life, like a human child drunk on sugar, he has no appetite for it.
"Jack," he murmurs, rushing to the man's side, casting away Lacie's comment that this – whatever this is – was consensual.
"Oswald," Jack says faintly, turning his head very slightly to the side to look at him. "I... got to meet Lacie again. At long last."
There are tears blurring his eyes now, leaking down his cheeks and joining the blood on the sheets. Oswald ignores the mess and shifts onto the bed beside him, then pulls his head into his lap.
"This is why I didn't want you to meet," he says, clearing the tangles of blood-matted blond hair from his face. "Do you understand?"
"No," Jack responds, with surprising vigor. "I'm glad, Oswald. I'm so happy I got to see her again. Thank you."
Oswald has to consciously force down his anger – and another hot emotion that feels suspiciously like jealousy, though he won't admit that it is. "Don't be a fool," he chastises Jack, but he lets the subject drop because he isn't in the mood to argue or be angry.
Once he's neatly arranged Jack's hair back into its ponytail, he dips his head toward Jack's still-bleeding throat and presses his lips to one of the wounds there. Then he starts to suck. The coagulant in his saliva will stem the bleeding, keep Jack alive, so he's careful to clean each wound meticulously. Once he finishes with his face, he lifts him up against his chest and moves his tongue lower.
Neither speaks, though Jack occasionally makes soft, encouraging noises. They're both getting hot, which is only intensified by their close contact, and it doesn't take long for the licking to morph into first tender, then passionate kissing. Jack's clothes are already largely cut into nonexistence, and Oswald's don't take much prying to get off, and soon they're under the covers together, one holding the other.
"I'm sorry," Oswald whispers after awhile. He buries his face into Jack's hair, feeling both ashamed and afraid. "I shouldn't have done this to you. This is all my fault and mine alone."
Jack pushes himself closer, rests his cheek against Oswald's chest. "Who's the fool now, Oswald?" he asks, his warm breath tickling Oswald's stomach. "You know, I'm glad I met you, too." He kisses his collarbone.
Oswald exhales softly into his hair. "I thought you said I couldn't trust you?" he asks, and he wishes Jack would refute that, take it back. Wouldn't everything be so perfect if he did?
But Jack only holds him tighter and says, "Then love me as hard as you can, Oswald. Change my mind about who I love best."
They're not the words he wants to hear, but Oswald won't back down.
"I will," he says.
O
After Lacie's gone, and the Baskervilles are mostly dead, and Sablier is in ruins, Jack sits amidst the wreckage and holds Oswald's head tight to his chest, running his lips over silky, blood-tangled hair. He doesn't really know why he's crying – he wishes he would stop, because it isn't like he's lost something. After Lacie left this world, he had nothing else worth losing.
He had nothing worth losing.