Fic: My Bloody Valentine
Title: My Bloody Valentine
Fandom: Being Human US
Rating: PG
Pairing: One-sided Bishop/Aidan
Summary: No matter what gifts Aidan got, there was always a letter. They told stories or explained what he was being given or simply wished him a happy holiday. The envelopes bore his name in a simple, boxy script. Each one was signed with a heart formed out of two question marks.
Notes: The prompt was "Bishop/Aidan in the back of a car." Yeah. I think it deviated a bit.
Disclaimer: Blah blah not mine blah blah never mine.
It had been going on in secret for nearly 150 years. Gifts. Small things, big things, poems, money. He got them for his birthday, the anniversary of the day he had been turned, Christmas, Halloween, and even on ordinary days. He never knew when he would find one, but it was always nice to discover something sitting by the front door, waiting for him.
This one was on the table in the kitchen, and for a moment Aidan was afraid that his gift-giver had broken into the house. Then he saw Bishop standing by the counter, looking out the window.
“You have a secret admirer,” the older vampire remarked as Aidan turned over the heart-shaped box in my hands. “I don’t think she knows you’re a vampire.”
Aidan smirked. “She’s struck before.”
Bishop turned to look at him. “Recently?”
“For a century and a half.”
The older vampire whistled. “Maybe she does know.”
“Why’d she get me chocolates?” Aidan asked. “Can’t taste ‘em.”
Bishop shrugged. “Try one.”
Aidan opened the box and pulled out one of the chocolate squares. He took a bite and immediately spit it back out. “It’s blood.” He looked up at Bishop with wide eyes. “They’re filled with blood.”
“Then she definitely knows what you are.” He tossed something toward the table. “Found this with it.”
No matter what he got, there was always a letter. They told stories or explained what he was being given or simply wished him a happy holiday. The envelopes bore his name in a simple, boxy script. Each one was signed with a heart formed out of two question marks.
He pulled out the letter and frowned, tilting the envelope and watching as a set of keys fell out onto the table. He unfolded the paper and read over it quickly.
“What’s it say?” Bishop asked, taking a seat at the table and popping one of the chocolates into his mouth. He hummed in appreciation. “Genius.”
“It’s an address,” Aidan said. “In Montana.”
“She gave you a house?”
The younger man nodded. “I think so.” He picked up the keys and turned them over in his hand, grinning. “Want to go to Montana?”
It turned out to be the best gift he’d received.
-.-
Aidan had been taking the long way home from work for a week. He didn’t know why. There was nothing but factories and alleyways and things that would send a human running for a better-lit route. He supposed he liked it because it gave him the time and space to think. He thought about the past and the future and wondered how many vampires might be at his doorstep when he finally got home.
Sometimes, he regretted it. Things would be easier if he hadn’t done it, plain and simple. Nora would still be human, Josh would still have his secret, and the streets of Boston wouldn’t be flooded with barely-contained vampires that no one wanted. There had been order with Bishop. There had been a plan.
And then he saw it.
He’d passed the alley every day that week, but this was the first time he’d actually looked down into the darkness and seen what was there.
It was a car. Bishop’s car. And it looked like there was someone in it.
Aidan was moving toward it before he’d even thought about it. Someone was in Bishop’s car. The shadow was familiar, the glint of yellow reflecting off the streetlights… it couldn’t be, but he found hope swelling inside of him. He had no idea what he was doing, he was floundering, and it was possible that the one person who could truly save Boston had been hiding in his Honda the whole time.
The car was empty. It had been a trick of the light, or his imagination running wild. The back window was shattered, but still in the frame. It was splashed with blood. Blood usually meant there was a body involved, and a body meant that the car had been hidden in the alley on purpose.
He checked the trunk, which, surprisingly, was unlocked. There was no body hidden there, decaying, waiting to be found and identified and buried with dignity. There was just a box. It was a chest, really, big and sturdy, covered in what looked like leather. He hefted it out of the trunk and set it on the ground, sitting himself on the car’s bumper to go through it.
The lock broke easily enough; it must have been hundreds of years old. The things inside reeked of decades gone by. Sifting through them, he found an old cardboard box shaped like a Valentine’s heart, a spare set of keys to the cabin in Montana, a box of unused envelopes, a pen set from the early 1900’s that was missing a few pieces, a stack of journals, a book of pressed flowers, and a scattering of photos and papers.
He recognized the things. They were keepsakes, things that his secret admirer had given him, things that had disappeared slowly over the years so that he wouldn’t notices. Flowers and candy and houses and letters.
Aidan opened one of the journals and a photo fell out. It was old - black and white barely tinged with pastels - taken in the basement of the funeral home. In it, he was standing beside Bishop, who was holding an arm out, pushing Marcus - only visible from the knee and below - out of the frame. It had made them laugh at the time. He hadn’t known Bishop had kept it.
He tucked the photo away and began flipping through the pages, his fingers slowing as he realized what was written at the top of each.
“My Dearest Aidan.” The same salutation that topped every letter accompanying every gift. The journal was full of letters and poems and notes, all addressed to him. Some had been signed by name, some had the signature scratched out, and some had the question mark heart that had become so familiar over the years.
He felt his heart sink. His secret admirer, the woman who had given him clothing and cars and written breath-taking poetry, was Bishop. Had always been Bishop.
Bishop had been in love with him.
Aidan closed the chest and slid off the bumper, staring down at the box. He wanted to read those journals, to scour every page for an explanation, a reason, something to help him make sense of how things had gotten so bad. He wanted to take it home and surround himself with memories, with things he’d forgotten in the bitter haze of anger. He wanted to burn it and never think about the damn thing again, throw away years of happy experiences in favor of holding onto the hate. He didn’t know what to do. So he picked it up and started to carry it out of the alley, glancing into the car as he passed it.
There was something under the seat. It was a flash of yellow against the black interior of the car, and it was so out of place that Aidan set the chest back down and tried the door. Locked. He broke a window, unlocked the door, let himself in.
It was a manila envelope, half-hidden under the driver’s seat. He sat in the back of the car and picked it up. His name was written across it in that big, blocky script. Another gift.
He carefully tore open the envelope, squinting into the paper. It was an iPad. Bishop had bought him an iPad.
Aidan turned it on, not really sure what to expect. There wasn’t a letter with it, nothing to indicate purpose or intent. Not even a poem. When he looked at the screen, he realized why.
There was a video file at the center of the display named “My Dearest Aidan.” He clicked it.
The screen went black for a moment, and then he was looking at Bishop. The older vampire was sitting in a chair and must have used a tripod to film. It took him a moment to recognize the location of the film as the cabin in Montana, all wooden walls and antique furniture. There was a bookcase behind him filled with first editions - more gift from Aidan’s not-so-secret admirer that had turned up over the summers they’d spent at the cabin. It had been years since they’d gone up there, years since they’d been cordial enough to get along well enough to truly be alone together, and the realization hurt.
Bishop sighed, and began to speak. “If you’re seeing this, Aidan, congratulations. You won. I’m not bitter. Chances are, I let it happen. It was what you wanted, after all, and I was never very good at refusing you anything.
“You found the trunk, of course. You’re probably wondering why I’d hide it in some seedy back alley with no guarantee you’d ever find it. Let’s just say I gave you a little push.” He winked, and Aidan’s eyes widened with realization. That last touch, that final caress that was still haunting him hadn’t been a sign of affection. He’d been compelled, softly and subtlety, and he’d had no idea.
“I’ll let that sink in,” Bishop continued. “You’re smart. You’ll get it.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. “This is it,” he said. “The last letter. Of course, there are some in the chest that I never sent, little musings and limericks I’d kept to myself. I think it’s time you see them. It’s time you know.
“It was me. All the flowers and the letters and the movie tickets. I wasn’t sure I was doing it right, to be honest. I’m still not sure. But you seemed to like -” his lips quirked into a smile - “her well enough. I never did get up the courage to tell you the truth. Not until now. I doubt it would have changed anything in the end.
“I loved you. For a long time. You liked pretty girls. Living girls. I suppose I thought that giving you things might make you accept the idea easier, like I could soften the blow with material goods.” He sighed. “But you didn’t love me. I don’t think I ever really expected you to. What more could we have been, other than what we were? We lived together, we fed together, we even slept together on the rare occasion. It wasn’t like an admission would do anything more than make the whole arrangement awkward. So I was satisfied.”
He paused then, staring at the camera, as if trying to figure something out. He sat like that for a good minute, unknowingly gazing directly into Aidan’s eyes, holding the younger man in place, transfixing him.
Bishop leaned forward again, elbows resting on his knees, breaking the spell he’d cast. “If, by some random happenstance, you’re seeing this early, Aidan, I just have one thing to ask you. It may very well be the most important thing I ever ask of you. I know you hate following orders, thinking of our relationship as a hierarchy. So I’m asking you as a friend, as someone who was so completely enamored of you that I never could work up the nerve to tell you the truth. Please. Don’t make me leave. I’m afraid I’ll come back.”
The screen went black again. Aidan stared at it for what seemed like hours, refusing to meet his own eyes in the reflective surface. It was a lot to process, years of theories and fantasies shot down in a single night, and the final line of the video - Bishop’s last words, in a way - wouldn’t leave him.
He sat there until the sun began peeking over the tops of the buildings. The iPad was tucked away in the chest, and Aidan started home. If he felt someone watching him along the way, heard footsteps dogging his own, his name whispered into the early morning air, he ignored it. He was working on too little sleep and too much emotion. There was nothing more to it than that.
-.-
He asked Haggemann about it. About the ability of vampires to return from the dead and haunt the living. Haggemann had laughed at him. Well, he hadn’t laughed. He never really laughed. He just gave the younger man a condescending smile and told him that, no, vampires couldn’t become ghosts. You can’t kill something that’s already dead, so the mind or spirit or whatever just ceased to exist when the ash hit the floor.
The answer wasn’t as comforting as he’s hoped it would be.
Suren disagreed. She liked to believe that anything was possible. Ghosts were just human spirits trapped by strong emotion: fear, vengeance, love. Vampires felt those things. Vampires could come back. They weren’t all that different.
She had Aidan jumping at shadows, at noises, movements barely glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. She told him that if Bishop wasn’t truly gone, they would know. They’d both be dead.
Aidan wasn’t sure he agreed with her there. He didn’t think Bishop had it in him to do that, hadn’t ever had it in him. He could hurt and maim and manipulate, but never kill. Not the ones he truly loved.
So he wasn’t too surprised to wake up on the first Valentine’s Day after Bishop’s death to find a single rose and a letter waiting for him on the front porch.
There was no envelope this time, just a single piece of paper, folded once. The handwriting was no longer small and neat, but looked instead like something a five-year-old just learning to spell might scribble out. A single word: Aidan.
He unfolded the paper and blinked. The same big, shaky letters spelled out “I’m sorry.” Instead of the usual heart for the signature, there was an initial, a barely-visible B.
Aidan folded the letter back up and bent to pick up the flower. He gazed out at the street, looking for a familiar face, a lovesick ghost. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but that didn’t stop him from smiling.
“I forgive you,” he whispered, and walked back inside.
The door opened itself behind him.
Fandom: Being Human US
Rating: PG
Pairing: One-sided Bishop/Aidan
Summary: No matter what gifts Aidan got, there was always a letter. They told stories or explained what he was being given or simply wished him a happy holiday. The envelopes bore his name in a simple, boxy script. Each one was signed with a heart formed out of two question marks.
Notes: The prompt was "Bishop/Aidan in the back of a car." Yeah. I think it deviated a bit.
Disclaimer: Blah blah not mine blah blah never mine.
It had been going on in secret for nearly 150 years. Gifts. Small things, big things, poems, money. He got them for his birthday, the anniversary of the day he had been turned, Christmas, Halloween, and even on ordinary days. He never knew when he would find one, but it was always nice to discover something sitting by the front door, waiting for him.
This one was on the table in the kitchen, and for a moment Aidan was afraid that his gift-giver had broken into the house. Then he saw Bishop standing by the counter, looking out the window.
“You have a secret admirer,” the older vampire remarked as Aidan turned over the heart-shaped box in my hands. “I don’t think she knows you’re a vampire.”
Aidan smirked. “She’s struck before.”
Bishop turned to look at him. “Recently?”
“For a century and a half.”
The older vampire whistled. “Maybe she does know.”
“Why’d she get me chocolates?” Aidan asked. “Can’t taste ‘em.”
Bishop shrugged. “Try one.”
Aidan opened the box and pulled out one of the chocolate squares. He took a bite and immediately spit it back out. “It’s blood.” He looked up at Bishop with wide eyes. “They’re filled with blood.”
“Then she definitely knows what you are.” He tossed something toward the table. “Found this with it.”
No matter what he got, there was always a letter. They told stories or explained what he was being given or simply wished him a happy holiday. The envelopes bore his name in a simple, boxy script. Each one was signed with a heart formed out of two question marks.
He pulled out the letter and frowned, tilting the envelope and watching as a set of keys fell out onto the table. He unfolded the paper and read over it quickly.
“What’s it say?” Bishop asked, taking a seat at the table and popping one of the chocolates into his mouth. He hummed in appreciation. “Genius.”
“It’s an address,” Aidan said. “In Montana.”
“She gave you a house?”
The younger man nodded. “I think so.” He picked up the keys and turned them over in his hand, grinning. “Want to go to Montana?”
It turned out to be the best gift he’d received.
-.-
Aidan had been taking the long way home from work for a week. He didn’t know why. There was nothing but factories and alleyways and things that would send a human running for a better-lit route. He supposed he liked it because it gave him the time and space to think. He thought about the past and the future and wondered how many vampires might be at his doorstep when he finally got home.
Sometimes, he regretted it. Things would be easier if he hadn’t done it, plain and simple. Nora would still be human, Josh would still have his secret, and the streets of Boston wouldn’t be flooded with barely-contained vampires that no one wanted. There had been order with Bishop. There had been a plan.
And then he saw it.
He’d passed the alley every day that week, but this was the first time he’d actually looked down into the darkness and seen what was there.
It was a car. Bishop’s car. And it looked like there was someone in it.
Aidan was moving toward it before he’d even thought about it. Someone was in Bishop’s car. The shadow was familiar, the glint of yellow reflecting off the streetlights… it couldn’t be, but he found hope swelling inside of him. He had no idea what he was doing, he was floundering, and it was possible that the one person who could truly save Boston had been hiding in his Honda the whole time.
The car was empty. It had been a trick of the light, or his imagination running wild. The back window was shattered, but still in the frame. It was splashed with blood. Blood usually meant there was a body involved, and a body meant that the car had been hidden in the alley on purpose.
He checked the trunk, which, surprisingly, was unlocked. There was no body hidden there, decaying, waiting to be found and identified and buried with dignity. There was just a box. It was a chest, really, big and sturdy, covered in what looked like leather. He hefted it out of the trunk and set it on the ground, sitting himself on the car’s bumper to go through it.
The lock broke easily enough; it must have been hundreds of years old. The things inside reeked of decades gone by. Sifting through them, he found an old cardboard box shaped like a Valentine’s heart, a spare set of keys to the cabin in Montana, a box of unused envelopes, a pen set from the early 1900’s that was missing a few pieces, a stack of journals, a book of pressed flowers, and a scattering of photos and papers.
He recognized the things. They were keepsakes, things that his secret admirer had given him, things that had disappeared slowly over the years so that he wouldn’t notices. Flowers and candy and houses and letters.
Aidan opened one of the journals and a photo fell out. It was old - black and white barely tinged with pastels - taken in the basement of the funeral home. In it, he was standing beside Bishop, who was holding an arm out, pushing Marcus - only visible from the knee and below - out of the frame. It had made them laugh at the time. He hadn’t known Bishop had kept it.
He tucked the photo away and began flipping through the pages, his fingers slowing as he realized what was written at the top of each.
“My Dearest Aidan.” The same salutation that topped every letter accompanying every gift. The journal was full of letters and poems and notes, all addressed to him. Some had been signed by name, some had the signature scratched out, and some had the question mark heart that had become so familiar over the years.
He felt his heart sink. His secret admirer, the woman who had given him clothing and cars and written breath-taking poetry, was Bishop. Had always been Bishop.
Bishop had been in love with him.
Aidan closed the chest and slid off the bumper, staring down at the box. He wanted to read those journals, to scour every page for an explanation, a reason, something to help him make sense of how things had gotten so bad. He wanted to take it home and surround himself with memories, with things he’d forgotten in the bitter haze of anger. He wanted to burn it and never think about the damn thing again, throw away years of happy experiences in favor of holding onto the hate. He didn’t know what to do. So he picked it up and started to carry it out of the alley, glancing into the car as he passed it.
There was something under the seat. It was a flash of yellow against the black interior of the car, and it was so out of place that Aidan set the chest back down and tried the door. Locked. He broke a window, unlocked the door, let himself in.
It was a manila envelope, half-hidden under the driver’s seat. He sat in the back of the car and picked it up. His name was written across it in that big, blocky script. Another gift.
He carefully tore open the envelope, squinting into the paper. It was an iPad. Bishop had bought him an iPad.
Aidan turned it on, not really sure what to expect. There wasn’t a letter with it, nothing to indicate purpose or intent. Not even a poem. When he looked at the screen, he realized why.
There was a video file at the center of the display named “My Dearest Aidan.” He clicked it.
The screen went black for a moment, and then he was looking at Bishop. The older vampire was sitting in a chair and must have used a tripod to film. It took him a moment to recognize the location of the film as the cabin in Montana, all wooden walls and antique furniture. There was a bookcase behind him filled with first editions - more gift from Aidan’s not-so-secret admirer that had turned up over the summers they’d spent at the cabin. It had been years since they’d gone up there, years since they’d been cordial enough to get along well enough to truly be alone together, and the realization hurt.
Bishop sighed, and began to speak. “If you’re seeing this, Aidan, congratulations. You won. I’m not bitter. Chances are, I let it happen. It was what you wanted, after all, and I was never very good at refusing you anything.
“You found the trunk, of course. You’re probably wondering why I’d hide it in some seedy back alley with no guarantee you’d ever find it. Let’s just say I gave you a little push.” He winked, and Aidan’s eyes widened with realization. That last touch, that final caress that was still haunting him hadn’t been a sign of affection. He’d been compelled, softly and subtlety, and he’d had no idea.
“I’ll let that sink in,” Bishop continued. “You’re smart. You’ll get it.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach. “This is it,” he said. “The last letter. Of course, there are some in the chest that I never sent, little musings and limericks I’d kept to myself. I think it’s time you see them. It’s time you know.
“It was me. All the flowers and the letters and the movie tickets. I wasn’t sure I was doing it right, to be honest. I’m still not sure. But you seemed to like -” his lips quirked into a smile - “her well enough. I never did get up the courage to tell you the truth. Not until now. I doubt it would have changed anything in the end.
“I loved you. For a long time. You liked pretty girls. Living girls. I suppose I thought that giving you things might make you accept the idea easier, like I could soften the blow with material goods.” He sighed. “But you didn’t love me. I don’t think I ever really expected you to. What more could we have been, other than what we were? We lived together, we fed together, we even slept together on the rare occasion. It wasn’t like an admission would do anything more than make the whole arrangement awkward. So I was satisfied.”
He paused then, staring at the camera, as if trying to figure something out. He sat like that for a good minute, unknowingly gazing directly into Aidan’s eyes, holding the younger man in place, transfixing him.
Bishop leaned forward again, elbows resting on his knees, breaking the spell he’d cast. “If, by some random happenstance, you’re seeing this early, Aidan, I just have one thing to ask you. It may very well be the most important thing I ever ask of you. I know you hate following orders, thinking of our relationship as a hierarchy. So I’m asking you as a friend, as someone who was so completely enamored of you that I never could work up the nerve to tell you the truth. Please. Don’t make me leave. I’m afraid I’ll come back.”
The screen went black again. Aidan stared at it for what seemed like hours, refusing to meet his own eyes in the reflective surface. It was a lot to process, years of theories and fantasies shot down in a single night, and the final line of the video - Bishop’s last words, in a way - wouldn’t leave him.
He sat there until the sun began peeking over the tops of the buildings. The iPad was tucked away in the chest, and Aidan started home. If he felt someone watching him along the way, heard footsteps dogging his own, his name whispered into the early morning air, he ignored it. He was working on too little sleep and too much emotion. There was nothing more to it than that.
-.-
He asked Haggemann about it. About the ability of vampires to return from the dead and haunt the living. Haggemann had laughed at him. Well, he hadn’t laughed. He never really laughed. He just gave the younger man a condescending smile and told him that, no, vampires couldn’t become ghosts. You can’t kill something that’s already dead, so the mind or spirit or whatever just ceased to exist when the ash hit the floor.
The answer wasn’t as comforting as he’s hoped it would be.
Suren disagreed. She liked to believe that anything was possible. Ghosts were just human spirits trapped by strong emotion: fear, vengeance, love. Vampires felt those things. Vampires could come back. They weren’t all that different.
She had Aidan jumping at shadows, at noises, movements barely glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. She told him that if Bishop wasn’t truly gone, they would know. They’d both be dead.
Aidan wasn’t sure he agreed with her there. He didn’t think Bishop had it in him to do that, hadn’t ever had it in him. He could hurt and maim and manipulate, but never kill. Not the ones he truly loved.
So he wasn’t too surprised to wake up on the first Valentine’s Day after Bishop’s death to find a single rose and a letter waiting for him on the front porch.
There was no envelope this time, just a single piece of paper, folded once. The handwriting was no longer small and neat, but looked instead like something a five-year-old just learning to spell might scribble out. A single word: Aidan.
He unfolded the paper and blinked. The same big, shaky letters spelled out “I’m sorry.” Instead of the usual heart for the signature, there was an initial, a barely-visible B.
Aidan folded the letter back up and bent to pick up the flower. He gazed out at the street, looking for a familiar face, a lovesick ghost. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but that didn’t stop him from smiling.
“I forgive you,” he whispered, and walked back inside.
The door opened itself behind him.