I'll Be a Park, You Be My Deer - 2/2

[morgaine22]

Morgan took him to a different room. Different décor, but similar use. A bed, a lounge area, a washroom. He wondered how many other people came in it to be drank from.

“Can I ask you a question?” Reid started. Morgan cast a look at him as he strode to the washroom.

“You can ask...” He smirked a little before disappearing in the next room.

“Do you have a room?”

“Why?” Morgan volleyed back from the washroom.

“Curiosity,” he quickly answered, desperate to keep up the casual conversation.

“Not really,” he replied, reappearing with supplies.

“Where do you… keep your things? Do you have things? Are you allowed to? Where do you sleep? Does the sun really hurt you?”

“Whoa.” Morgan came to a stop, hands up in a ‘slow down’ gesture.

“Sorry,” Reid smiled a little embarrassed. “I’m just really curious. There’s just so much I don’t know. I’m not used to that. I usually know everything about a subject or I’m at least able to study it. This is all a big mystery. It’s a little disorienting.”

The confession drew the side of Morgan’s mouth up as he took a seat on the bed. “Yeah, I can tell you’re not used to being ignorant.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘ignorant’,” Reid quickly disputed. He didn’t like that word at all. “Uninformed would be more accurate.”

“That too,” the dark vampire agreed. Reid frowned and Morgan grinned, a white shining line of teeth that brightened his entire face. He pushed at Reid lightly with a laugh. “I’m just messing with you, man.”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the ribbing. He’d never really had a friend that did that.

It was kind of nice.

“We don’t have rooms; there’s too many of us,” Morgan dutifully answered. Reid nodded with encouragement and took his place nearby on the foot of the bed. Morgan eyed him warily but admitted, “We sleep downstairs. In secure containers.”

“Coffins?” he blurted.

A real smile reluctantly crept up the dark man’s mouth and he glanced away. “Something like that.”

“And the sun?”

Morgan nodded slowly. “The sun hurts us.”

Reid pondered then asked, “Crosses?”

“No,” the vampire huffed an almost laugh.

“Garlic?”

He shook his head. “Just the sun. And a stake, of course.”

“Through the heart?”

Morgan concurred. “A beheading always works good too.”

Reid was fascinated. The older man could tell and he turned serious. “I’m telling you all this because you need to watch your back.”

“Me? Why me?” His voice went higher than normal.

Morgan’s hand settled on his shoulder soundly. “Because you’re part of our clan. You don’t have to be one of us to be with us. And our enemies - other clans - might use that against us.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t freak out about it,” Morgan squeezed at the muscle connecting his shoulder and neck. It was meant to be comforting; a solid presence next to the slender man’s nerves edging toward panic. Reid was surprised it was working.

“They can’t come in your house unless they’re invited. Remember that above all else.” Reid nodded as the vampire instructed, “Give me your phone.”

His touch fell away much to Reid’s regret. He handed the archaic candy bar cell over and Morgan grimaced. “Boy, I grew up in the fifties and even I know this thing is outdated. Are they not paying you enough for a PDA or what?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess I should…um.”

“You’re hopeless,” Morgan muttered with an air of amusement as he punched in some numbers in the phonebook. With another glance at Reid’s pink patterned button-down shirt and loose maroon tie, he added, “That goes for in the fashion department too.”

The slender man restrained the urge to cross his long limbs over himself.

“I’m an accountant,” he mulishly retorted. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothin’,” Morgan smiled something private, as he finished with the phone and handed it back. “It suits you.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, dripping with sarcasm as he pocketed his phone in his brown pants.

“Hey. I meant that you’re unique,” he explained. Reid watched the dark eyes roam over his shirt and exposed arms from the rolled up sleeves. “I like that you’re yourself.”

A wave of shyness rushed over him from the look and if his vampire senses could hear Reid’s heart beating, surely he heard it pick up. The older man looked away.

Clearing his throat, Morgan straightened. “So. Shoulder again?”

“Actually, I was thinking of trying the elbow,” he answered a little too eagerly at the new experiment. “The vein’s close to the surface there. Does it hurt?”

“A little less than the wrist. More meat there,” he answered, picking up the flimsy arm to feel at the crook with a thumb. His fingers went entirely around the elbow like an armlet. He chucked, “More meat on normal people, I mean. Kid, you got to eat something.”

“I eat,” Reid defensively replied. The words tied knots in his stomach. People had judged his body and its awkward angles and thinness ever since he hit his growth spurt at thirteen and never stopped studying to grab a meal or two. But the criticism felt worse coming from Morgan.

He snapped, “And I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-six.”

“To me, you’re a kid. I’m in my seventies.”

Straightening with new information, Reid quickly calculated, “So you were born in the 30’s.”

The cocoa-skinned man eyed him with naturally onyx orbs that lit from within. Reid’s own liquid brown eyes surely sparkled with interest; he leaned forward a little and every new scrap of information was like a reward for his attention, spawning a dozen more questions behind his lips, waiting to spill out.

“Yeah. Look, we better move this along, kid; I got a meeting soon,” he said just as casually as reporting the weather.

Reid tried not to let the wave of disappointment show. He began, instead, unbuttoning his shirt and Morgan watched with confusion.

“Why’re you…?”

“Oh, I just don’t want to get any blood on it. It’s impossible to get out.”

It was true; the shirt he wore when JJ bit him was ruined. It was just practical to protect what clothing he had from further futile scrubbing.

Morgan looked at the expanse of his pale skin with intense reluctance, though, and it made something flutter inside his chest at the inspection. Talking. Talking filled the silence.

“So do you ever get those moments of nostalgia where you reminisce on the ‘good ol’ days’?” he asked, pulling his right arm out of the long sleeve, leaving himself naked from the top down.

Morgan asked, “Like from when?”

“I don’t know,” Reid shrugged, “Like, the 40’s or 50’s?”

He extended his right arm across his body so he faced the vampire, carefully keeping a safe distance and not pressing into the thick shoulder directly in front of him. Morgan took the rail-thin wrist in his strong palm, lifting it out so the elbow crook waited directly at mouth level but he looked equally amused and bitter.

“Between the segregation, factory labor and race riots? Not so much.” Reid shrank a little with embarrassment until Morgan cast a hazy smile at him. “But I do miss warm, homemade biscuits.”

His mouth softened the delicate muscle just above the elbow crook and sank in with practiced ease. A wave of heat spread through Reid with just as much practiced reaction. He was right - the pain was potent and focused on such sensitive skin and muscle - but just as each bite before with Morgan, the pain drifted away as the overwhelming desire took over.

Reid watched him and that only made it worse - or better, he couldn’t tell. It sent his erection from interested to must come now in seconds. Watching Morgan’s scratchy jaw work at the bite, milking him, sucking more out, was enough to send Reid flying over the edge. A cry of desperation ripped out of his throat, his lungs working to keep oxygen flowing. His body seized, he groaned from the bottom of his gut and Morgan’s grip tightened when the jerk of his muscles jarred him.

Reid lost most control of his body, sinking against the solid anchor of Morgan’s side. His forehead lolled on the wide shoulder, pressed into the tight bicep. He was swimming in afterglow, dizzy with it, letting himself revel in what he’d been craving for weeks. Morgan warmed, whether from his own body heat or the blood, Reid didn’t know or care. His strong body held him up, a pillar of warmth and comfort Reid wanted to lean into forever. He sighed with content, ear-length hair falling haphazardly across his eyes. He vaguely realized the incisors had been extracted while he was floating on air.

When Reid ventured to look through his foggy vision, he almost wished he hadn’t. Morgan held his arm still, but delicately, and a soft tongue carefully licked at his pale skin, cleaning and kissing at the wound.

Oh God; Reid’s cock gave an interested twitch at the mouth, wet with saliva and his own blood, lapping at him with something akin to adulation. He didn’t realize he’d made a noise to accompany the jolt of arousal until Morgan stopped and cast a heated look over.

There… Reid didn’t know much about people but he knew intensity and he knew fear. Somewhere in the black eyes that focused on his own, he saw both.

Reid’s gaze roamed down to his arm, nearly cleaned with light smudges of quickly drying blood, and then further down and… Oh. An unmistakable bulge highlighted Morgan’s lap and Reid’s breath caught. He couldn’t even stop his eyes from shooting back to the vampire’s in shock.

But Morgan immediately looked away, dropped the slender man’s arm unceremoniously and twisted to grab the towels. He moved with quick, practiced efficiency. Reid barely even felt the damp cloth clean the wound or the dry one finish it past the pounding in his ears. He didn’t know what he was feeling. Confusion, fear, absolute terror and definite arousal all swirled through his mind and body. He didn’t dare even look in Morgan’s direction, his head turned away while the vampire rushed through a bandaging and shoved off the bed with haste.

“I’ll see you later,” he muttered, barely audible.

“uh okay,” Reid managed to stutter before Morgan was completely out the door.

/ / /

He tried not to think about it. The only times he let himself remember were probably the worst: early, when he woke up too vulnerable and careless with his morning erection demanding attention, he’d let himself remember the only time he’d been touched so intimately by another person. He’d feel the long, tapered fingers curled around his thin arm, not when they gripped hard, but soft and sweet in the beginning. His own hand would slide under his boxers and lazily stroke his own length as he recalled the hand carding through his hair at the back of his head, directing and posing him as he pleased. Then the thick hand running down his neck and around his chest to cradle him.

Reid’s own grip would speed up when he remembered the hold, the security. Being taken in every way.

His cock would spill forth and that was usually around the time he remembered he probably shouldn’t be masturbating to another man’s hands on him.

If he caught himself, some nights, he tried to remember JJ. She held him down too. It was their unnatural strength that made his blood run faster. The idea of being captured and taken... It was the vampire thing.

But even as he stroked himself and it was good to remember her soft body writhing over him, biting into his skin, he couldn’t finish until he thought of Morgan’s hard chest, rigid at his back or his wide mouth licking at pale skin.

Still. Reid also couldn’t discard the fact that he’d been attracted to girls all his life and it was only now, only with vampires, that this other attraction had sprung up. The only logical explanation was that it was the bloodletting that spawned the new temptation. Something about that comforted him. He wasn’t gay; he was just a ‘fang banger’.

And if his fantasies began wandering into new territory of attempting to satisfy the dark vampire in other ways than just bloodletting, well. It was all part of the exchange, really. Maybe daring a hand on the other man’s thigh, feeling his way along the taut muscle that often clenched and trembled, as he held himself back. Or imagining Morgan maybe even grasping his head and crashing their hot mouths together.

Reid came in the shower from the imagery and leaned his head against the tile tiredly. Two weeks was long enough to wait. He absolutely had to be fed on again.

/ / /

Morgan wouldn’t see him.

Or, more exactly, he was avoiding him.

He repeated his reasoning - it was just the bloodletting, it was because he was a vampire - as he made his way back to The Bureau on a Saturday night of all things. The club was naturally full of young, beautiful people. Some knew what kind of club it was, clearly; they were the hardcore clientele Reid came to recognize; but some were just the cool kind of people that teased him mercilessly when he was growing up. Judging by the foul looks he still got from them, not much had changed.

Reid scritched nervously at the exposed skin through the unbuttoned top of his shirt. He scanned the crowd, the music so loud it reverberated through his chest. That’s when he saw it.

Morgan, on the dance floor, with three scantily clad women circling him. He moved with a muscled grace, the red and yellow lights casting down on a body that rolled naturally into the women surrounding him.

Reid stared. He couldn’t not. A knot of something heavy formed in his stomach. He watched the black man slide his hand up one girl’s neck (like he had along Reid’s) and smoothly separate her from the rest. He watched them glide to the edge of the dance floor, watched Morgan’s shoulders shift under the dark t-shirt as he backed the girl up against the wall. Through the crowd, all the way across the club, Reid could barely make out the two silhouettes that flashed into being through a rotation of unnatural lightening. The vampire pressed closer. His head dipped to her long, slender neck.

“He’s good.”

Reid heard the cool voice in his ear as if they were standing in a coffee shop and not a bass-pounding night club. He whirled to see a young man watching the same thing at his shoulder. His hair was dark and unkempt enough to match his full beard. He was pale, more so than even Reid, and the rings of black eyeliner only accentuated the contrast. When his nearly silver-light eyes slid to Reid and he twitched a smile, the human knew he was a vampire.

“They come looking for him,” he continued, a lilt of bitterness coloring his words. “Ask for him a lot of the time. I swear, he’s got to have half a dozen regulars who think they’re his girlfriend. He doesn’t exactly tell them otherwise. Even sends them flowers couple times a week.”

Girlfriends.

The knot in Reid’s stomach wound further and turned into a cold unease akin to nausea.

“Hey,” the guy gently said, still supernaturally soft in Reid’s ear even through the cacophony of the club. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Reid’s legs tingled with agitation but he followed the vampire through the familiar side door. He noticed the tall man’s dark attire, a long, tailed coat and trousers. He was sleek and mostly what Reid always imagined vampires would look like. Not beefy, muscle-bound black men who gyrated with half a dozen willing floosies.

They came to a passage he’d never seen before, past yet another security guard and then down a solid, spiral staircase. By the time the pale vampire pushed open the heavy double doors, Reid suspected where they were. The two lines on either side of the long room of coffin-sized metallic containers on the ground only confirmed it.

“Come on,” the vampire gestured with a twinkle in his eye when Reid’s feet stayed glued to the ground outside the door.

He reluctantly edged in but the vampire was already past several containers until he found the one he was looking for. By the time Reid got near enough, the man was knelt next to and opening the coffin.

“This one’s his.”

Reid’s mouth fell open. It looked plush inside, actually. Soft and maybe comfortable. But the lid and walls were made of metal, solid and seemingly impenetrable. He imagined Morgan lying back in the box, pulling the top closed and sinking into complete and utter darkness. Then, what? Sleeping? Dying?

The vampire huffed while watching his reaction with thinly veiled amusement and closed the coffin, settling on top of it. He pat the wide open space next to him for Reid.

The slender man slowly approached.

“It’s what he does,” he explained. “I mean, he knows he’s hot. This is how he gets his kicks: he seduces people and drops them. I’ve seen it over and over again. He must be trying something new with you, though. Haven’t seen him do it to a guy before.”

Reid swallowed thickly.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. There are plenty of us here who value you for who you are. You’re not just a toy to dick around with,” he said. “You’re special to us. Your kind understands what we need. And the fact that you give it willingly… We treasure that.”

Reid hazarded a quick glance over. The vampire had leaned closer, his shoulder now slightly pressed against Reid’s own. His words were starting to sink in.

“Do you know what we call your kind?” he softly murmured and Reid could feel his eyes on the exposed line of his neck. “Pomme sucre. Sweet fruit.”

The vampire’s arm lightly draped over his shoulder and Reid stiffened when his long index traced along his jugular. Emotions warred in him - fear and worry, but also with the memory of Morgan’s deep bite, a bloom of excitement.

“Mmm,” the vampire hummed, breathing in his scent. He leaned in so close, Reid could feel his exhale against his skin. “Do you know what I’d like to do to you? I’d like to drain you till you were almost dry; until that little heart was on its last, sluggish beats, and you were so empty you couldn’t move…”

What?

Reid’s stomach sank with cold dread and he tightened to move but the vampire’s grip suddenly clamped down, a hand on his shoulder and the other snapping onto his neck beneath his jaw.

“And then, when you’re lying there mostly dead, I’d fuck you until you began to feel again.”

Reid whimpered in his gut as he thrashed but quickly quieted when the vampire’s nails dug into his thin flesh.

“The first thing you’d feel is pain,” the vampire breathed into his cheek. “Then I’d fuck you some more.”

“Help!” Reid called out on a broken cry. “Please, please don’t...”

“I bet you’d come anyway,” he went on, his teeth clenched together even past the long fangs. “You get off on the pain, right? Like all you slut fang bangers.”

“No!”

“I’m going to bleed you from every hole, you fucking whore-”

“Ethan!”

When Reid saw Morgan standing in the door, a relief so great flooded into him, he got lightheaded. The vampire still practically crawling onto his side remained frozen.

“You’re done with him, Morgan,” he intoned with much boredom. “I’m just having some fun.”

Reid begged the darker vampire with a pleading look, the tears lining his eyes threatening to break down his cheeks. Morgan remained shadowed in the doorway.

“Let him go.”

Ethan exhaled and Reid almost gagged at how close the monster still was to him.

“We both know he’s fair game, Morgan. So unless you want to make some kind of claim-”

The dark man stepped forward and Reid saw his face finally. It was a mask of barely contained fury.

“Yeah, I do,” he growled, so terribly low, the human almost couldn’t hear. “He’s mine.”

Reid’s stomach turned over. Ethan blinked apathetically.

“I don’t see any marks on him.”

“Then stand up, motherfucker, and we’ll see who walks out of here with the pomme sucre,” Morgan bit out.

The pale man loosened his grip but hadn’t completely released Reid. He squinted spitefully at the other vampire.

“I would tear your throat out before you could make your first strike.”

“I’m waiting,” he replied.

Reid held his breath. Ethan slowly stood, edged aside and stalked away. Reid touched at his neck hesitantly and Morgan knelt before him once Ethan left the chamber.

“Let me see,” he murmured and gently angled his head with a hand to inspect the damage. “Some bruises. You’ll be all right.”

Reid nodded and roughly wiped the wetness from his face with a thick sniff.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to go anywhere with strangers?” Morgan remarked.

“I was here. I thought I was safe,” he answered, his throat scratchy.

The dark vampire sighed. “No, kid. No place is all safe. Sometimes even in your own clan.”

He stood and it took Reid a few moments and some deep breaths before his nerves came back from the edge.

Morgan cast a sidelong look at him then concluded, “Let’s take a ride.”

~ / ~

“Yeah, Vietnam was some kind of shit storm, man,” Morgan sighed from across the table. He idly sipped the glass of water then noticed Reid staring, waiting for more. And ignoring his plate of the diner’s biggest breakfast.

“Eat.”

Annoyance flashed over him but he took a bite of scrambled eggs and chewed.

“Anyway,” Morgan muttered. He was tired of talking about himself for the past hour. But every time he tried to take a break, the kid would ask something else and just wait. Not to mention the fact that he looked completely enthralled every time Morgan opened his mouth. He could admit it was kind of nice to have someone to talk to. They didn’t do a lot of caring and sharing in the clan.

However it was past 4am; he had to be getting back soon.

Reid sipped at the mug of steaming coffee to wash down the eggs. Morgan missed coffee. He thought. It’d been almost forty years since he was turned. He hadn’t tasted a drop of food or drink since. He tried not to think about it.

The skinny kid chewed on his lip instead of his food then, his eyes skating around the table. He was like an open fucking book.

“What is it, kid?”

“Oh. Nothing…” His big, brownish eyes lifted and Morgan gave him a look. “Well… I was wondering. What did Ethan mean by marks on me? Did he mean scars?”

It was a question Morgan didn’t especially look forward to answering. But it was unavoidable.

“No, not scars,” he murmured then resolved himself. “He was talking about human servants. When a vampire is strong enough, he can mark a human and bind them to him. Human servants act as a vampire’s own personal pomme sucre; someone they can feed off of any time.”

Reid’s brow rose with interest and Morgan felt something nervous stir inside of him. He hurried on.

“Both vampire and human feed off the others’ life force; they become stronger through each consecutive mark - four in all - until the human is fully bound to the vamp. At that point, their connection is so strong, they can’t even be separated; one will die if the other does.”

The kid’s stunned jaw slacked a little. At least Morgan was making his point.

“The vampire gets stronger and the human gets immortality. That’s a fully bonded pair, though; most vampires won’t take that risk. Sure, they’ll put one or two marks on a human, just to have a servant to feed from, but they don’t want to tie themselves down to one human completely. They’re too much of a liability, no matter how resistant to injury the servant becomes.”

“Do you have any servants?” the kid ventured a question.

Morgan met his inquisitive look head on. “No. You can only have one at a time and I just never found anyone… Look, it’s like a marriage, okay? It’s being bound to one person, possibly forever. It’s not something you do just for shits and giggles. And once a mark is on someone, it can’t ever be taken off. Only death will break the connection.”

Reid nodded, eyeing his mostly full plate of food again. Morgan sighed.

“Ethan was saying it because once a human’s marked, they belong to that vamp. In fact, a vampire could kill another that touched his servant.”

His own words came back to him - He’s mine - and Morgan probably would blush if he had normal blood vessels under his skin. He didn’t know what came over him but seeing Ethan with his hands on the skinny kid made every ounce of anger flare up in an instant. He would’ve torn the son of a bitch’s head off if he’d made one more move on the kid.

He kind of still wanted to.

His hands fisted on the table and Reid noticed. A pink warmth bloomed on the man’s peach skin and Morgan could actually hear his heart pump a little faster. Fuck, he could even smell the kid, a soft musk of almost-sweat wafting across the table, just reminding him what the ivory skin tasted like.

“Do you have half a dozen girlfriends?” he blurted suddenly.

Morgan would’ve choked if he had taken the drink he was lifting to his mouth. It was for show; they were other diners around, after all. It looked strange enough that he was dining on a glass of water while his friend had a full plate.

“Excuse me?”

Reid bit the inside of his mouth with downcast eyes but attempted casual when he went on. “You were dancing with some girls earlier. I was just wondering if they were your girlfriends. I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising, of course. Women probably flock to you.”

Morgan studied him a moment and weighed his options. He could tell the kid he did have a few women he fed off of and fucked on a semi-regular basis. He could tell him that the women were beautiful and sweet and spread for him at the drop of a hat because it was all true. Or he could tell him what was also true: he wasn’t satisfied by any of it and hadn’t been for a long time.

“I don’t take them out to dinner, if that’s what you’re asking,” he answered then immediately wished he hadn’t as the kid looked down at his plate of food. His pink lips tightened a little in a mostly awkward smile.

Fuck. He hadn’t meant it like that. But even seeing that relieved tilt of Reid’s mouth made something loosen inside Morgan and he told himself it was just taking care of the naïve kid that gave him a sense of ease. That’s all it was.

“C’mon, kid; I gotta get back. Sun’s on its way.”

He set money for the bill on the table and slid out of the booth.

“It feels like your Cinderella,” Reid said as they made their way out and Morgan snorted.

“What does that make you?”

“Well-”

“If anything, you’d be Cinderella, princess.”

That suddenly sparked something else in the kid’s mind entirely and Morgan was thankful because they were getting into dangerous territory with the whole Reid-is-a-girl theme.

“Did you see Star Wars when it first came out??” the accountant asked excitedly.

“Shit yeah,” he answered, unlocking his black Mercedes with a button. “It was pretty badass when Vader turned out to be his father too. Saw that opening day.”

“Did you know that the second Death Star was far superior in its design than the first? It didn’t rely on vulnerable thermal exhaust ports but, instead, on a series of millimeter-wide heat dispersion ducts. The sheer level of surprisingly accurate designing in Star Wars is-”

“How did I know you’d be a geek?” Morgan interrupted, settling into the driver’s side and the kid sank into the opposite leather seat.

“Look who’s talking, ‘opening day’,” he fired back. Morgan grinned.

“Yeah, so we’re both geeks. Don’t tell anyone.”

/ / /

It could’ve been any other night as Hotch gave Morgan directions to which club needed extra patrolling when he mentioned Reid, like a passing thing, and stopped the younger vampire in his tracks.

“Under no circumstances are you allowed to mark Spencer Reid.”

Morgan blinked.

Hotch looked up from his papers. “Are we understood.”

“No- I mean, yeah; no, it’s not like that. I’m not- I mean, that kid isn’t even-” He shut his mouth and collected himself. Morgan definitively told his superior, “It is not like that.”

“You told Ethan it was.”

“Ethan was going to tear into him! I didn’t think terrorizing our staff was a particularly good idea.”

“Do you want this man?”

“No!”

“Then you’ll stop seeing him.”

Morgan’s insides tightened up. Who the fuck was going to look after the kid then? No one else gave one good goddamn about him. It would be different if he had an ounce of common sense but Hotch didn’t understand just how socially inept the kid was. He was like a sitting duck without Morgan to watch his back.

Then again, Morgan could always do that from afar. And he couldn’t exactly go against a direct order anyway.

He nodded a decisive, “Yes, sir.”

It was so decisive, Morgan couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing a few hours later on Spencer Reid’s doorstep. It was just news better delivered firsthand. If nothing else, Morgan considered Reid a friend and at the end of the day, he deserved more than a phone call.

He rang the doorbell to the modest apartment door, checking his watch to see it was only just past 12am. A shuffling of feet through the door announced Reid’s approach. If that wasn’t enough, his bedraggled hair and squinting eyes under an oversized bathrobe told Morgan the man had been good and asleep.

“Hey; sorry for waking you.”

“No,” he quickly replied, clearing his throat. “No I wasn’t sleeping. I mean I was a little but. It doesn’t- um. Hi.”

“Hi,” Morgan restrained his smile at the babbling. “Look, I just wanted to come over and talk to you for a sec.”

“Yeah. Okay, yeah.”

He moved aside to open the door wider. Morgan saw the hallway, the living room near an entryway and a kitchen further within. All from the other side of an invisible barrier he couldn’t breach.

Reid waited. Morgan watched him, his brow rising, expectantly. He was supposed to be a genius, for Christsakes.

The moment it hit the kid, Morgan had to hold back a full blown grin.

“Oh! Sorry. Come in,” he invited the vampire with a small smile of embarrassment. The broader man shook his head, eternally amused.

The house was exactly what Morgan expected. Littered with books and papers, no family pictures, a few art pieces, but nothing too decorative or showy. The furniture screamed ‘used’ and ‘practical’. The vampire wondered if the kid had just gone to a resale shop and picked out the first things he saw.

“Where’s your TV?” Morgan questioned.

“oh, there’s one in the bedroom. I don’t watch a lot… I find it kind of mind numbing.”

“Yeah, most of it is,” he conceded, strolling around the living room. Lining the kitchen counter, he noticed boxes of bandages, ointments and vitamins. The life of a pomme sucre, he thought absently. Always mending themselves, trying to stay healthy and strong for their masters. A roll of hunger washed through Morgan at the thought of his own pomme sucre, standing not five feet away, warm with sleep and sure to be lazily compliant in his hands. No - fuck; not his.

“Listen. I’m not going to be able to be your go-to guy anymore, okay?”

“What? Why?”

“Boss’ orders.”

Reid’s round, too full lips gaped like a floundering fish. “I don’t understand.”

“Either Hotch or the master just doesn’t want us… attached to anybody right now. The master always controls who’s allowed to have servants and who isn’t. It’s just how it is.”

“But I’m not your servant! And. I wouldn’t be,” he trailed with far less certainty. He regained momentum, though, and added, “We’re not even… I mean, we’re not…”

“-like that, I know!” Morgan finished his thought, relieved to be in complete agreement with the kid. See, he got it. They knew how they were and how they weren’t. And they absolutely were not… that.

“Yeah!” Reid agreed just as vehemently.

“I know. But. It’s their orders.” Morgan shrugged heavily. It sucked all around.

Reid’s face reminded him of some kind of kicked puppy’s. Morgan couldn’t even look at him that long. He wanted to hug him or some shit just to get that look off his face.

“But. I don’t want some stranger… pawing at me. It was… uncomfortable.”

The vampire’s shoulders moved again and he found himself saying something he probably shouldn’t have.

“So… Don’t let anyone feed from you.”

It was that simple. A small voice in Morgan’s head tried to argue that his suggestion had more to do with his own wishes: he just plain didn’t want anyone else tasting him.

Morgan stamped that voice down fast.

Reid’s doe eyes rose to his. He mulled it over, probably weighing his instincts as a fang banger. Probably wondering if he’d even enjoy it with someone else; someone rough or too thirsty. He must’ve realized that it could be Morgan himself that made his experiences so satisfying because a fresh bloom of pink spread over his high cheekbones.

Fuck, but that looked good. So warm and vibrant, flushing with life beneath the immaculate peach skin. He remembered the hot skin that tasted like sugar to Morgan’s ravenous tongue. He didn’t even know what came over him that last time except he wanted to taste every inch of skin stretched out before him. Then hearing Reid’s whimpering cries, feeling his body slumped against Morgan’s, a sheen of sweat scenting the air with an intoxicating musk.

Shit. Morgan knew he was hard in his dark jeans but the kid was so involved in his own embarrassment, he didn’t even notice. The vampire made for the door before he did.

“I’ll see you,” he muttered.

“Wait! Okay,” Reid blurted, drawing the vampire to a stop so near the door. He didn’t turn back to face him and the slender man clarified. “I won’t let anyone else. I mean, I don’t really trust them so. I’ll just. …wait?”

Morgan’s eyes slid shut with regret and relief.

“But,” he continued, “um. Do you think maybe just… uh. One more time?”

He should say ‘no’. Morgan repeated it in his head - no, no, no - but his body was trembling with the hunger. And not even for his blood. It was the damn kid, waiting, offering everything of himself just for Morgan; like he was something special. He wasn’t but Reid treated him like he was something more than a creature that couldn’t breathe or feel the warmth of the sun. A creature that lived off the small deaths of others.

Reid gave himself so completely, Morgan felt humbled by it. Who was he to deserve that kind of devotion? He was just a street kid from Chicago. Reid was the special one.

And now he was asking for something. As much as he knew he should, Morgan couldn’t deny him.

“Yeah all right,” he murmured and finally turned. Reid’s long, bony fingers were clutched in the lapels of his dark bathrobe. Morgan watched the anxiousness slide away at the acceptance only to slowly rebuild when he met the vampire’s dark gaze.

“Where this time then?”

The man’s Adam apple bobbed when he swallowed.

“I was thinking, maybe, here…,” and his long fingers pressed against his pectoral, at the place he’d set his hand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Morgan stared at the spot he’d indicated aside his heart. So close to that pulsing center of life. How could he not know how personal that place was? That to let a carnivorous creature like a vampire that near to the only organ keeping him alive meant he would literally put his life in Morgan’s hands.

The darker man nodded before he could let himself get carried away with the idea. He couldn’t lose focus.

He started to speak but found his throat too hoarse and had to clear it to start again. “It’ll be awkward sitting,” he informed after a glance at the couch. “Just steady up at the wall.”

Reid nodded a little too quickly. Morgan could hear his pulse in his own ears, calling to him like a siryn’s song. Blood flowing through every vein so quickly; for him. Only for him…

The other man began to shrug off the bathrobe, left in an oversized t-shirt and boxers. He only moderately attempted to hide the growing tent in his shorts, hurrying to pull the shirt over his head to return the hands to his groin.

Morgan stepped closer as Reid stepped backward. He made a soft thump of contact with the wall and Morgan focused on the narrow expanse of lily white flesh before him. A beautiful shade of rose colored his chest, so warm and inviting, Morgan had to touch. His hands smoothed just under the ribcage and Reid’s long arms slacked at his side, leaving himself laid open for the vampire.

Morgan was swimming in it; his scent, his hot skin beneath his hands, the tufts of lightly panting breaths, all surrounding Morgan, pulling him in, urging him on. His mouth pressed wetly onto the soft muscle above a racing heart and Reid’s instant whimper shot through him like a jolt.

He tasted like everything Morgan had ever wanted. Sweetness and purity. An openness he hadn’t known in a person for over forty years. And something real beneath his fingertips. Everything Morgan wished for but didn’t deserve.

He lapped and kissed at the flesh, needing as much as Reid would allow. Reid’s hands shook with indecision until they settled on his solid shoulders and held on, clutching tighter. Pulling the stronger man closer.

Morgan could barely think through the exhilarating rush of his own arousal and when he kissed lower, moving toward his knees before the man, he wanted only more.

Reid stiffened the moment Morgan sank lower, his long fingers digging into the thick muscle of the vampire’s shoulders. On panting breaths, he cried desperately, “Wait! Wait, please - I’m gonna-”

He cut himself off with a thick swallow, his eyes squeezed shut and his head hitting back into the wall.

Morgan realized then just how close he was to the now impressive tent in his shorts. He almost damn near smiled - it’d figure the kid would have a hair trigger. He was all excitement and anxiousness and eagerness rolled into a vibrating ball.

The vampire pushed to his feet but didn’t remove his hands from the soft, milky skin. One slid up a side, another around to the back of the thin neck he protected so fiercely.

Morgan looked on him - really looked. His jaw line was perfection, smooth and defined. His high cheek bones were a work of fucking art. And, Jesus, those lush, full lips, parted and just begging to be used…

Reid’s eyes finally relaxed open only to catch Morgan gazing intently on his pink lips.

“It’s okay,” Morgan said aloud but mostly for himself. He couldn’t look at the pupils-blown eyes pleading with him; he dipped his head to the crook of the slender neck, kissing wetly at the skin.

Reid cried out, his fingers digging into the broad shoulders and leaving light lines in the wake of their pressure. His body surged. The moment Morgan felt that lithe muscle pressed against him, thrumming with energy and life, he could do nothing else but draw it nearer. His thick arm banded around the small of his back, so lean but tensed like whip chord under his hold. Reid thrust into his unyielding body and found the rock-hard wall of muscle he was searching for.

Morgan shoved them both back into the wall and Reid whimpered helplessly, his leg rising up the strong thigh to welcome the vampire between his legs in such a wanton display, Morgan nearly came that instant.

“fuck,” he dragged out on a growl, finally feeling the line of hard cock against his thigh. Judging by Reid’s broken cry, he seemed to enjoy the slow roll of his hips the vampire pressed into him. His jeans were restrictive, dulling the sensation and with abandon, Morgan’s unfastened them with one hand, the other still curled possessively around the long neck.

Reid moved without thought, hips rocking forth, seeking contact while Morgan jerked his dark jeans down. A high whine at being denied contact escaped his beautiful, wide mouth.

“I know,” Morgan breathed, finally free of the jeans, his cock springing forward eagerly. “I know, baby.”

The pale man’s body writhed with another moan and Morgan discarded the intrusive boxers then his own shirt. He straightened, determined to just fucking absorb every sound, every burning touch Reid was offering with his sinuous body. He pressed in, flush, and the man’s long limbs immediately encircled him with welcome.

Morgan kissed at the closest skin he could find, the muscle connecting shoulder to neck, and Reid hooked a leg around his thigh for leverage. Reid’s cock slid against the crease between his thigh and hip and Morgan gasped. He’d never… But Jesus, to hear that self-restrained muffle Reid held back from the rub-

The darker man reached between them and took Reid’s blood-red cock in hand. The man’s head thumped heavily against the wall with a guttural groan as Morgan’s thumb carefully spread the drop of precome around the perfect head. He fisted the length, over and over, just to see the writhing body falling apart in his hand.

On stuttered breaths, he begged. “Mor- Morgan… please… please…”

The vampire sped his ministrations, studying every cringe, every gasp and moan that Reid couldn’t control. Watching Reid come apart was the sexiest thing Morgan had ever seen and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

He saw the end near, though; the cries reaching a desperate peak, and Morgan’s fist tightened, urging him to get there.

“Yeah, come on, baby,” he breathed into the heated space between them. Reid keened from the back of his throat, his body coiled and ready. Morgan whispered finally, “Come on, baby boy.”

Reid fucking broke. A wail filled the room and Morgan stroked the hot come from his pulsing cock. The vampire slowed his caress, staring at the mess on his hand and his own taut stomach. The thin body started quaking through aftershocks and Morgan let him slump against him.

As Reid came down, Morgan carefully spread the warm excretion onto his own dick, still full and desperate for attention. He stroked himself with the perfect lube hard and fast, just as he liked it. He only absently felt Reid edge back, his forehead resting on Morgan’s free shoulder, to watch the muscles in his arm pull roughly at his cock.

If he hadn’t heightened senses, he would’ve never heard the soft voice murmured at him.

“come on.”

Morgan’s body rushed with awareness; the kid was watching, pleading, needing to see him finish just as much as he had of him.

His free hand ran through the back of Reid’s hair, so fucking soft and pretty, and the slender man curled closer with encouragement.

“please,” Reid whispered on a small voice and that was it.

Morgan’s climax racked through him, from top to bottom he felt the ecstasy of release. And all with the kid’s hair carded through his clenched hand, his body pressed hot and sated against the vampire’s.

“wow,” Reid murmured, voice scratchy from his recent overuse. “So you do…”

Morgan’s waves of pleasure subsided and he idly rubbed the combined come off his dick. His and Reid’s.

“yeah,” he exhaled lazily.

Reid’s head rose with great effort, his expression already curiously confused. “But how-”

“I don’t know,” Morgan interrupted him. “So don’t ask. We’re not exactly given a medical handbook when we become vamps.”

“right.”

The realization that they’d kind of had sex - and without the bloodletting, no less - seemed to hit them at the same time.

Reid’s lowered lashes covered his averted gaze.

Morgan started tucking himself back in his jeans, cleaning his hand on the discarded bathrobe.

“Listen, I…”

“It’s okay,” Reid added as he pulled his own boxers back on.

“What?”

“I mean…” The kid’s arms defensively crossed over his bare chest. “…It’s okay.”

The timid air that enveloped the kid snapped Morgan back to reality.

“It’s not fucking okay,” the darker man bit back. “I’m not even supposed to be here talking to you and I’m here acting like you’re…”

“Like I’m… what?” Those round eyes held something Morgan couldn’t quite decipher. Eagerness? Hope? Jesus, no way could the kid actually…

“Nothin’.”

Reid pulled his lower lip between his teeth then asked, “Like… I could be your human servant…?”

“Don’t you say that,” Morgan snapped, his pointed index emphasizing how outrageous the idea even was.

The kid nodded, though, seemingly with understanding. “No, I know. Because I’m a guy and you don’t- We’re not…”

Morgan took a deep breath. Looking at Reid at that moment, the soft, milky skin that yielded so gracefully to his touch, the press of his supple form against Morgan’s own… he knew he wanted it again. And again and again.

“I wish it was that simple, kid,” he sighed. “I really do. But you’re a little more than that now, pretty boy.”

A small smile flirted at Reid’s lips even as his gaze cast down.

“They’ll kill me,” Morgan stated. Plain and simple. “There’s no going against the master.”

The hierarchy was strict. It’s how they kept order. When one went against the master, there was rarely any other sentence handed down.

Reid looked crushed. His big brain started working, though; Morgan imagined the neurons firing away at high speed.

“We could run away.”

God, he really loved the kid. Willing to drop everything - his entire life - to be with him. He’d never had anyone who’d do that for him. He felt warmed through with affection and humbled by it at the same time.

Morgan grinned. He edged closer, his hands running past the smooth jaw line and through the rumpled, wavy hair.

“No, Reid,” he answered gently. “We can’t. It doesn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean? Can’t you survive on me alone?”

“Of course I can. And I would love that,” he reassured but added just as quickly, “But it’s my clan. That’s my family. Hotch took me in when no one else would. The master took me under his wing too. I owe them my life. And my loyalty.”

A shine began to gather in Reid’s eyes and Morgan felt his fucking heart break. He never thought he’d have to protect the kid from himself.

“Hey, you’re gonna be fine,” he softly cooed, his hand smoothing down the silken hair. “You were fine before you knew me and you’re gonna be fine after you know me.”

Reid’s mouth tightened, holding back his emotion, and noted, “I was no one before I knew you.”

“That’s not true.” The kid looked unconvinced so Morgan made him look him in the eyes with thick hands run through his hair. “Listen to me, Reid. That’s not true. And even if you don’t believe it about then, you are someone now. You’re someone to me.”

Reid listened and Morgan saw the hint of it getting through to him with the fierce certainty the older man conveyed. He still looked so damn lost, though, and Morgan didn’t even want to pick apart his motivations; he just wanted to touch Reid until he couldn’t anymore.

He leaned forward, nearly the same height as the tall kid, and took his soft mouth with his own. It was chaste, as innocent and unassuming as Reid himself. But Morgan needed him to know how special and how wanted he was. He deepened the kiss and Reid just opened for him. The hot dip inside the man’s mouth was what he remembered honey to be like. Smooth, comforting and sweet, dissolving on his tongue slowly. Reid whimpered into his mouth and Morgan took it, a cry for him alone that he could hold onto.

When he drew away, Reid tried to follow. Morgan’s wet lips pecked at the kid’s only, his insides twisting with regret.

He gathered his shirt and shrugged it on without meeting the too-round eyes tracking his every move.

On a low voice, he said, “Be good, kid,” and left before he could respond.

~ / ~

Spencer Reid did everything right in his life. He paid his taxes, he did his job well and he always minded his superiors. It was with that spotless record that he rallied his confidence; he told himself he was doing the right thing standing before the ornate double doors that lead to the Master of the City. It was the right thing to go to challenge not only authority but the authority.

When he had requested the meeting, Hotch’s dark eyes had narrowed. He’d turned thoughtful, though, then conceded, “Yes, I suppose it was time you met him.”

Spencer’s knock sounded as tentative as his curdling stomach. He had no idea what was behind the oversized doors. Only the most powerful vampire in the entire city… And he was there to ask something of him. The master could just dispose of him rather than be bothered. Spencer could be heading for his own death.

“Come in,” an easy, slightly absent voice floated through the door and Reid swallowed one last time before venturing in.

The cathedral ceilings echoed his slow footsteps. The wide expanse of the room intimidated him completely despite the fact that over half of it was empty. Near the far end, furthest from the door and from outsiders, sat the actual living area. A desk stood at attention while the soft leather sofa chairs facing the massive fireplace waited for occupants.

Yet the most staggering element of all was the walls. Lined, top to bottom, every square inch of shelf with books.

The fire crackled with life and nearby, a hardback book spread in hand, stood the Master of the City.

He appeared solid. Not at all waify or frail as Reid suspected the oldest of their kind would be. His salt and pepper hair, cut short and neat, his dark sweater and trousers and strong form beneath both - all modern. He wasn’t a lurking monster with withering skin and a floor-length white mane. He could be anyone. Reid felt oddly comforted by it all.

“ ‘Affection is a coal that must be cool'd’,” he said suddenly. “ ‘Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire.’ ”

The master twisted slightly, a smile spread over his gentle expression and bright, sharp eyes meeting Spencer’s. He waited and the young man suddenly rewound the words in his head, familiar and lyrical, then straightened.

“Venus and Adonis.”

With a side nod, the master returned to his book, strolling idly as he spoke. “The tale of a goddess who falls in love with a man only to have his stubbornness end their affair. And, subsequently, his life.”

The older man faced him with direct and complete attention.

“Spencer Reid, I’m Jason Gideon,” he stated, his eyes glittering with something akin to delight. “And I hear you have intentions towards our Adonis.”

Spencer gulped.

/ / /

“What do you mean he said ‘it’s okay’,” Morgan demanded.

“Well, he didn’t use the word ‘okay’, strictly speaking, but we talked in depth for several hours. Did you know he knew Joseph Johnson? He was a radical publisher in the late 18th century - Gideon even went to some of his legendary dinners!”

“Focus, Reid!”

“Right. Sorry,” he sobered from the rush of excitement and settled to sit back onto the arm of his couch. Morgan waited with impatiently crossed arms over his broad chest in his living room. “He said it was mostly Hotch’s call and Hotch could sometimes be ‘overly cautious’.”

“No kidding,” the vampire snorted.

“But he said he was willing to be ‘indulgent’. For us.” Spencer legs went a little tingly when he even thought of them as ‘us’. The intent look Morgan sent at him doubled the feeling.

“anyway,” he murmured to cover his own awkward reactions. “He liked me. And you wouldn’t believe the first editions he has!”

“Wait; hold up,” Morgan stopped him from launching into another excited rant. “ ‘Liked’ you? Liked you how?”

Spencer observed a stern tone, aggressive posture and a definite frown on the vampire. He quickly deduced Morgan was jealous. He fought down the bashful smile but knew he wasn’t completely successful when Morgan shot him another hard look.

“Not like that.”

“Good,” he grumbled. Spencer glowed beet red but Morgan ran his hands down his own face and didn’t notice. He said, with some awe, “I still can’t believe you walked in there.”

“Me either,” he admitted then joked, “Kinda brave, right?”

“And stupid,” Morgan added.

Spencer wilted a little. The broader man softened.

“And brave.” He reached forward and gently folded a curl of the silky hair behind an ear. When his thick hand rested tenderly on the column of his neck, Spencer warmed over and leaned toward the touch like a bloom toward the sun.

Morgan’s far away gaze floated over him. He looked lost.

“You know I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, right?” he quietly made clear.

Spencer smiled without teeth. “What, and I do?”

Morgan exhaled his own relief then smoothed his second hand up the other side of the slender man’s neck. Spencer shivered from the solid contact, edging closer as the vampire spoke.

“Well, at least we’re both fucking clueless.”

Morgan’s lips brushed against his and he flushed from head to toe. With his nerves already trembling with anticipation, he tried for more, tipping forward and tasting the lush mouth only a few times before the vampire carefully slowed him.

He remembered what Morgan said as he licked his lips. “Not completely clueless,” he noted. “We know what we want.”

Morgan’s strong fingers carded through his too-long hair, the sensation of the touch crackling down his neck, through his shoulders and down his body. He cradled Spencer’s head and asked with a warm gaze, “What do you want, baby boy?”

Spencer’s shy smile curled while an uncontrollable flutter rang through his chest.

“Want you,” he murmured.

Morgan sighed with content. He hummed a final, “Yeah” before tilting Spencer softly, taking his wet mouth with his own and marking him with every ounce of his being.

Spencer had never done anything so right in his life.

Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain
Then be my deer, since I am such a park

- Venus and Adonis, William Shakespeare