Right before the sun sets, Jonathan wakes up. Faint orange light bleeds around his heavy curtains turning his room into some hellish rendering of reality. It is not very far from how he feels when his mind starts to catch up to what he has to do. One more night running around town with death and misery nipping at his heels.
As the day dies outside, Jonathan stands up, stretching his muscles as if this is a perfectly normal night. He washes up, gets dressed and, when he swallows, he does it ignoring how tight his throat feels.
Truth is, this staying up all night and sleeping during the day thing isn't that much of a change to his lifestyle. He has, after all, worked some crazy shifts in his life. It's everything that comes along that makes it nearly impossible for him to live with himself.
"Are you already leaving, Mr. Jonathan?" Avery, the butler, asks when he spots the Ekon hanging around the entrance hall of the house as if deciding whether to venture outside or not. "Aren't you going to eat?"
"Not tonight, Avery. I'm sorry," Jonathan replies with a faint smile. It does not reach his eyes, but it's there, a nibble of kindness. He is perfectly aware that Avery misses having a family to cook for, but there isn't much Jonathan can do. "I'm just waiting for someone."
The older man nods with tired, bleary eyes. He's probably been crying, Jonathan thinks.
"For whom, if I may ask," mumbles Avery.
"Geoffrey McCullum, from the Priwen Guard?" Jonathan promptly replies. He worries about Avery, sometimes, all alone in the mansion, day in and day out. Were his mother still alive… "He and I are assisting with that horrible murder at the docks…"
"Terrible, terrible thing, Mr. Jonathan," Avery pronounces. "In all these years, rarely have I heard of something so horrific…"
Jonathan can't help but agree. Sure, he remembers the ripper, so many years ago, but this doesn't feel like the same thing.
"I hope you find the ones responsible, sir."
"Thank you, Avery," Jonathan darkly replies. The butler looks like he's about to go away, but changes his mind halfway.
"If I may overstep a bit, sir…"
"Yes?"
"It might not be wise to trust this Priwen gentleman." Jonathan face twists into a confused frown before he manages to school his expression into something neutral. Avery, bless his heart, notices nothing. "This event… really sounds like something the Priwen rejects would be involved in…"
"Rejects?" inquires Jonathan. This is the first time he is hearing about such group. Avery nods.
"Oh, yeah. The ones who got kicked out of the guard." He explains. "Insane, horrible men, Mr. Jonathan. You be careful around them."
Jonathan is about to ask for more information when a sharp knock at the door snatches his attention. As Avery moves to answer it, Jonathan stops him. "I'll get it. Thank you, Avery."
Opening the door, Jonathan comes face to face with a very uncomfortable-looking Geoffrey McCullum. Jonathan inhales. He is dressed in a very clean uniform and he smells…
Jonathan almost forgets to greet him, that's how good he smells.
He's shaved clean, so it's probably his aftershave, Jonathan thinks. Or shaving cream? Cologne?
Jonathan swallows, mouth dry as a desert.
"How did you sleep, princess?" Geoffrey pokes with a teasing smirk. He seems to be in a better mood tonight. Jonathan shuts the door and follows the hunter onto the street, replying:
"Fine. You?"
"Just fine, but I had the weirdest dream…" Geoffrey speaks. Jonathan raises his eyebrows, waiting for him to proceed, and the hunter does not disappoint, "I might have officially lost it, I'm telling you… In this dream, I was trapped inside this round silver room – this reflective domed room. And I couldn't get out, you see? So I started knocking on the walls. They were made of metal, the walls, so they sounded… odd. Then the entire room sort of… lifted? And I realised I was on a tray. In the middle of a dinner table… people staring at me with knives and forks in hand."
"That's… quite vivid," Jonathan drawls. Shocking as it is to have Geoffrey talking so much without trying to threaten or offend him, the Ekon can't help but smile. "You have a surprisingly active imagination, Geoffrey."
"You tell me!" Geoffrey responds with a suffering sigh. "But I suppose that's to be expected, after last night. I swear, I was so grossed out, when I got to the headquarters I almost boiled myself alive in the bath."
Jonathan's smile dies. He has no idea if Geoffrey is referring to their visit to the Ascalon club, Dawson or just the events they are investigating. Yet, he says, "I'm sorry about that."
Geoffrey waves a dismissive hand at him, murmuring, "It's not your fault." Then, suddenly as if the thought has just occurred to him, he probes: "Hey, Jonathan, do you… dream?"
Geoffrey sneaks a glance at Jonathan just as they reach the marketplace. He looks sad.
"Not really. I haven't since I was, you know… turned," Jonathan responds. "Which I guess is a good thing, considering…"
"Oh, yeah. Definitely. I kind of envy you…" Geoffrey promptly replies. He lets out a heavy sigh, hands going to his hips, and asks, "Shall we go to Whitaker or what?"
Jonathan shakes his head.
"I should stop by the morgue, actually," He should have told the hunter the night before, but only when he was already in bed it occurred to him that the bodies were waiting.
"I'll come with," Geoffrey offers. Jonathan shakes his head again.
"You don't have to."
"I know," the hunter replies. "But we need to talk, anyway. I'm warning you, though: I'm not going to watch, all right?"
-x-
Geoffrey was not joking when he said he had no intention to watch the procedure. While Jonathan works on the bodies, the hunter stares at the walls, at his own feet, at Jonathan's handsome face twisted in concentration while they banter and talk about their ideas on the case.
"Listen, Avery mentioned something today," Jonathan begins to say halfway through his examination the second body. Gabrielle Arnaud. She can't have been more than eighteen years old.
"Oh, yeah? Who is Avery?" Geoffrey asks.
"Well, he's the… butler."
"Of course you have a butler," The hunter says with a huff that is entirely too fond. Jonathan doesn't smile, though. He can't stomach it when he is elbow deep in guts.
"He's worked for my family… ugh… for a very long time," Jonathan explains. "He said something about… Priwen rejects?"
"Oh, of course! That's brilliant!" Geoffrey exclaims, abandoning his examination of an anatomical diagram of the human heart just in time to see Jonathan begin to close the girl's body. He immediately turns back around. He is usually much better than this at handling gory visuals, but the whole case has him so outside his comfort zone he almost regrets coming along. He does not want Jonathan to notice, though, so he carries on, "It's just the kind of thing those arseholes would… I don't know. Bunch of fuckers... I'll go talk to them later. You needn't worry about it."
The amount of profanity coming out of Geoffrey's mouth on a regular basis should be off-putting and not endearing, Jonathan ponders before immediately thinking that, whoa, this is not something he wants to think about now.
"I'll come with you," He offers, but Geoffrey instantly turns him down:
"Ooh, no, you won't." Jonathan looks over to the hunter's broad shoulders, stretched as he abandons the heart model for one of a head. "These are not the Ascalon vampires, Johnny-boy. I can't protect you from them."
Jonathan laughs aloud at the nickname. His mother used to call him that when he was no more than a boy, but those memories carry some bitterness to them as they feel like they belong to a different person, living in a different world.
"I really don't like the idea of you going alone," Jonathan considers, trying and failing not to sound concerned. Geoffrey snorts.
"Good thing I'm not asking for your permission, Reid."
Jonathan steps away from the bodies to wash up.
"You can't really stop me from coming," he challenges and can hear the smile on the hunter's voice when he stubbornly replies:
"I'll go during the day."
Jonathan dries his hands off and pulls a cover over the bodies. He avoids looking at them and, in doing so, catches Geoffrey looking at him with a thoughtful look. He'll have to let people know the bodies are ready to be buried or whatever their destiny is going to be, but right now he takes a moment to feel glad he's not alone in the morgue.
"I won't insist," he says, approaching the hunter with slow, measured steps. "But you be careful, okay?"
Geoffrey nods, eyes going soft. "I'll be." He then nods towards the bodies and asks, "Did you find anything?"
Jonathan shakes his head. Holds the morgue door open for Geoffrey to come through.
"There's nothing unusual about the bodies," he says, following the hunter outside. "There were a couple of punctures on Gabrielle, though, but I reckon that's to be expected."
As soon as he finishes his sentence, Jonathan's face turns hot. Gabrielle was involved with a vampire and it took very little effort to understand what the marks on her body meant. Lady Morrison had been drinking from her.
It is quite difficult, however, to drink from a human in moderation. Jonathan knows that from experience.
He has been able to, however, when he fought Geoffrey.
"Where?" Geoffrey asks. Jonathan blinks at him. "The punctures you mentioned…"
"Oh. Her wrist and inner arm… her inner thigh. Her… breast," Jonathan chokes out. Geoffrey stops on his tracks.
"What were you looking at her breast for, you pervert?" he teases, clearly missing the point that caused the vampire's embarrassment. Punctures on such intimate locations. Made by fangs. Fangs that are inside mouths.
Fuck, Jonathan's hungry.
"It was a clinical look, Geoffrey," the doctor replies very seriously. "Get your head out of the gutter."
At that, Geoffrey lets out a hearty laugh. Together, they make their way into the hospital. Before they reach the front desk, though, Geoffrey comments, "You look relieved."
Jonathan shrugs. The whole nature of the crime, the careful way the girls were mounted together… it all raised suspicions that the examination thankfully proved wrong, so Jonathan shares with the hunter, "There is no sign of sexual assault." The silence that follows could be cut with a knife. Geoffrey nods, shoulders gradually relaxing. He hadn't even realised how much he dreaded that conclusion until Jonathan spoke. "Whoever did this, didn't rape them."
"It doesn't make it okay, though," Geoffrey mumbles.
"No, it doesn't. But at least…" Jonathan begins, not really knowing how to articulate what he means. "At least weren't hurt in that way, you know?"
"Yeah… No, I understand," Geoffrey reassures him as they resume their walk towards the hospital's front desk. Behind it, Nurse Branagan stops writing on a clipboard in order to greet them. When she notices Geoffrey's presence, she does a double-take, but thankfully says nothing as Jonathan asks her to notify the police or whomever will take the bodies.
As he waits, Geoffrey wonders how many victims Jonathan has seen through his years of experience as a doctor. How many survivors. The doctor knew what he was looking for during his examination. The relief in his eyes was a sort Geoffrey is almost too familiar with. He has, after all, seen his fair share of victims himself. It never gets easier.
"Are you quite ready to go, Jonathan?" Geoffrey says when Jonathan steps away from the desk.
"Yeah," Jonathan replies. He sounds distracted, but his face is all determination and Geoffrey thinks about reaching out. About comforting him. Instead, he asks:
"Should we go talk to that nut-head Whitaker then?"
