Fic: Once Bitten; Twice Shy, Part Two
Title: Once Bitten; Twice Shy
Fandom: Being Human US
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bishop/Aidan
Summary: Legend says that a wish made on the Christmas Star will come true. So Bishop wishes that Aidan loved him. Aidan wishes they had never met. There's no way anything could go wrong, right?
Notes: Characters aren't mine. Titles is from that "Last Christmas" song. I'm afraid this may have turned into a massive headcanon dump, but there's a plot and I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. Happy Whatever Offends You The Least, guys!
There was a city roughly fifty miles northeast of Golden Gulch that had a big box store. Aidan knew this because he had asked Bishop. Bishop, of course, never ventured too far from his home, but he knew enough about the surrounding area to help Aidan get there without too much trouble.
It had been nearly three months since he’d last seen civilization, and it was almost overwhelming. He was glad Bishop had chosen to stay back at the shack. There were people milling around everywhere, babies crying, carts blocking aisles.
The last of the snow had finally melted and Aidan was finally able to get out of the cramped cabin for some much needed shopping. He needed clothes - more than the few shirts and pairs of jeans he’d gathered on his way to Montana. They both needed coats and gloves, hats and scarves, heavier layers to keep out the cold that was sure to come back at the end of the year. The bed needed new sheets so that they weren’t sleeping directly on the mattress, and some new pillows wouldn’t hurt, either.
The windows needed some new curtains, and maybe he’d pick up a mirror or painting to make the walls seem a little less bare. He might get a hammock if he could find one that early, start preparing for the summer.
And light. He wanted light. Some flashlights and battery-powered lanterns, anything to brighten the night without the use of electricity or fire.
He got more blankets, warmer ones, ones that matched the new sheet sets and pillowcases.
There were clothes for Bishop, shirts and pants and socks and shoes and jackets that would fit him better than the few things he’d somehow managed to steal for himself over the years. Scissors for hair cuts. Razors for beards. A pack of cards to pass the time.
Aidan took a page out of Bishop’s book to pay, also compelling the cashier into giving him the easiest way out of the store not guarded by elderly greeters or anti-theft devices.
He’d been gone for nearly six hours when he pushed the door to the shack open, struggling under the multitude of bags he’d draped over his arms. Bishop was sitting on the dirty mattress, flipping through an old book. He looked up as Aidan stumbled in.
“You came back.”
Aidan stopped with the bags lowered halfway to the floor. “What?” Bishop had actually sounded shocked, surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting the younger man’s return.
The blond shrugged. “I just… I didn’t think you were coming back.”
Aidan stared at him for a long moment, still frozen in place. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”
Bishop shrugged again. “This place. It’s small and dark and dirty and it smells funny. And I won’t even try to pretend that I’m a catch. Honestly, I figured the only reason you’d been here so long was the snow blocking you in.”
The younger man set the bags down. “I told you. I love you.”
“Because of some magic star, yeah. But how long do you think that’ll last?”
He had a point. Things had been different lately. That burning need to be there, to see and touch and taste the older vampire was slowly ebbing away. It was dull. It wasn’t a need anymore, wasn’t something Aidan felt he had to do. It was something he wanted to do.
He dug around in the bags for a moment, pulling out the scissors, a razor, shaving cream, and a bottle of water. “Do you trust me?”
“Not with those specific items in your hand, I don’t.”
Aidan smiled and joined the older man on the bed. “Well you should. Come here.”
It was strange, shaving another man. Different angles and unpredictable movement. But as the stubble was scraped away a familiar face emerged. Maybe a little thinner and paler than Aidan was used to, but it was closer to the man he’d known before, the one who kept his hair short and his nails shorter, who tried so hard to keep that innocent and professional air about him.
It had been hundreds of years since he’d last had to cut anyone’s hair, but Aidan figured that anything he did would be better than the tangled ponytail Bishop had been sporting since - apparently - the seventeen hundreds.
And maybe he cut it a little too short, shorter than he was used to, short enough to make the man sitting across from him look impossibly younger than he had the day before.
Aidan ran his fingers along the smooth jawline, tangled a hand in the soft, clean locks, and smiled. He retrieved the mirror from the bag and held it up so Bishop could see his own reflection.
“You look like a catch to me.”
The older man stared into the glass for a moment before reaching up to touch his face, his eyes wide. “I haven’t seen myself in… that’s me?”
“Yeah,” Aidan said, settling behind Bishop on the bed and wrapping his arms around the older vampire’s waist. He rested his head on Bishop’s shoulder, gazing into their reflection. He turned and pressed a kiss to the older man’s cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
---
The most disturbing thing about his wish was that Aidan had no idea who he was anymore. His entire life was a mystery. Two hundred years were unaccounted for, two hundred years that should have been filled with murder and mayhem and Bishop were suddenly blank.
But he dreamed. And in his dreams, the new life came to him. It came in flashes, in snapshots, in feelings and smells and tastes.
Her name was Annabelle and she had loved him. She had coveted him. A thirty-five year-old man from Boston with a wife and a grown child, grandchildren, the life he’d never imagined he could live.
She had met him at the well, dragged him into the woods, ripped out his throat and made him her own. She had killed his wife, would have killed his son, his grandchildren, every last human connection in his life if he had let her. If he hadn’t convinced her they were long gone, lost to him, moved more than a street away.
They had travelled. The two of them, together. Maybe he had forced himself to love her once, to make the pain and the torture stop. There were years, flashes of smiles and laughter and joy, jumbled up in the horror and sickness and hopelessness of his life with her.
She didn’t approve of his diet. His attempts at being human. Where Bishop had tolerated him, Annabelle had disowned him. When he took up with a pretty nurse - Jane, his mind provided, her name was Jane and you didn’t love her, but you loved what she was - Anna had torn her apart, scratched and bitten and made Aidan bleed in so many ways. She wasn’t subtle or cunning about it. She was cruel.
Carlo had saved him, had given him instruction and help and the guidance he needed when trying to find his feet in civilization after such a savage existence.
He had watched his family, his grandchildren, his grandchildren’s children, all the way down the line until Carlo had pulled him away, had told him it was useless. They would never know him, could never know him. He was a monster.
He had no friends that he could remember, no close acquaintances with whom he could share his darkest secrets. It was just him. Sometimes Carlo, but less and less since his official exile from Boston. Still, he’d lingered. He’d waited. Thought maybe he could find a kindred spirit, someone to waste the everlasting time with.
Then he’d woken up with a different set of memories and a singular goal. He’d found Bishop.
He rolled over, pulling the sheets with him, and wrapped his arms around the older man, burying his nose in the space between Bishop’s shoulders. The other vampire responded by leaning back into him with a soft moan.
“I was so lonely,” Bishop whispered, barely loud enough to hear.
“So was I,” Aidan responded.
Outside the shack, the crickets chirped and the first summer breeze blew through the branches of the trees. He’d never felt more at home.
---
Summer was in full swing and Aidan had cabin fever. The frequent walks through the woods with Bishop and the
occasional trip into town did nothing to relieve the itch of being stuck in the shack most days.
“We should see a movie,” Aidan suggested. He was sprawled across the bed, his feet propped up on Bishop’s lap as the older man read a book. “You’ve probably never seen one, right? Like, a real movie, up on the big screen, surround sound and CGI and the works?” He raised his head to look at the older vampire. “Do you even know what I’m talking about?”
Bishop frowned at him and set his book down on the bed. “Just because I live in the woods doesn’t mean I live under a rock. I know what a movie is, Aidan.”
“But have you ever seen one?”
“No.”
“Would you like to?” He sat up. “There’s a town a few miles over that has a small theater. I bet they’d be playing something cool. What are you into?”
The older man shrugged. “Whatever you like.”
“Ok. You up for it?”
“Sure. It’ll be fun.”
Aidan grinned. He’d been waiting for the chance to get Bishop out into the world, to show the other vampire that times had changed and people weren’t so quick to anger, that there was nothing to be afraid of.
The only movie playing was the latest installment of the Twilight saga. Aidan spent the half hour they had before the opening credits explaining the backstory to Bishop, laughing as the older man wrinkled his nose in apparent disgust.
There were only a handful of people in the theater, mostly teenage girls giggling about the shirtless werewolves and shiny vampires. Fifteen minutes into the film, Aidan tangled Bishop’s fingers with his own.
Hand holding was never really his thing, never something he actively did, but Bishop seemed to enjoy it, seemed to read more into the contact than was ever intended, but Aidan didn’t mind. There was something about the look on the older man’s face when they did it, something that affirmed for him the importance of touch to one who had been alone for so long, that made Aidan want to reach out.
Bishop pulled away, wrenching his hand off the armrest and into his lap. He actually glared at Aidan, narrowed eyes and thin lips.
Half an hour later, he stretched just wide enough to throw an arm around Bishop’s shoulders, frowning as the older man ducked out from under him.
It went on for the rest of the movie, rebukes for small touches, ducking and dodging, even growling at one point.
“You wanted to watch a movie, so watch the damn movie,” Bishop hissed at him with fifteen minutes left in the film. Aidan obediently tucked his hands into his lap for the remainder of the flick.
The short car ride home was quiet, Bishop unusually tense beside him. Aidan couldn’t think of a time when the older man had ever acted that way, shying away from touches and even getting angry about it.
As soon as the door to the shack was closed, Bishop was on him, pressing him up against the wall, hands tangled in Aidan’s hair, ripping at his shirt, tongue down the younger vampire’s throat.
Somehow, Aidan worked up the resolve to push Bishop back, glaring at him. “What the hell?”
Bishop was panting, staring back with wide black eyes. “What? You started it.”
“In the theater. What is with you?”
The older man blinked, eyes fading back to blue. His shoulders slumped. “What if someone saw us?” he whispered. He shuffled backward, sitting down when the backs of his knees hit the side of the bed. “Why would you do that in public?”
Aidan leaned back against the wall. “Is that why you stopped me? You thought someone would see us?” Bishop nodded. “So what? Let ‘em watch.”
Bishop shook his head. “You weren’t scared?”
“Why would I be -?”
It hit him hard, the realization popping up from the back of his mind. This wasn’t his Bishop, as much as it may have looked like him since the haircut. This wasn’t the guy who would corner him in the bathroom, push him into a stall, palm him through his jeans, and leave him wanting more. It wasn’t the guy who pulled him into back alleys, into spare booths at the blood den, supply closets at the hospital. It wasn’t the man who got down onto his knees in the dirt, who twined their fingers together on the street and squeezed tight before Aidan inevitably pulled away.
This was a man who had snuck into the woods with another man and been burned for it.
Aidan sat down beside him on the bed and took his hand, holding it tight. “Things are different now. People like that, like the ones who hurt you, they’re vocal, but they’re a minority. You and I, we could walk down the street holding hands and no one could stop us. There are laws against that kind of thing now.”
“Against it?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Believe it or not.” He leaned into Bishop’s shoulder, resting his head against the other man’s. “People are good. Somehow, I’m gonna prove that to you.”
---
Bishop was sitting on a log outside, his eyes turned to the night sky, face lit in wonder as the fireworks exploded above him. “They’re beautiful,” he whispered, sensing Aidan standing in the doorway behind him.
It was hot out, even after the sun had set for the evening. Golden Gulch was having a celebration, the whole town gathered outside the single small school, faces turned to the heavens. Kids were running around with sparklers, parents eating hotdogs and talking, animals spooking.
They could have gone, tried to fit in with their t-shirts and shorts. Maybe made some friends, become a little less lonely. But Bishop was still wary of people, enough so that Aidan was starting to think it had become a permanent personality trait exacerbated by years alone in the wild.
So they sat in the woods and watched the pyrotechnics through the trees.
Aidan joined Bishop on the log, just close enough that their shoulders barely touched. “Did I ever tell you how we met?” he asked.
“Don’t think so.”
“American Revolution,” Aidan said. “I was walking through the woods after a nasty attack, looking for my friend. I’d promised his wife and daughters I’d look out for him, and I lost him in the gunfire. I walked into this clearing, and he was just lying there. Dead. Looked like he’d been shot in the neck. Then I looked up, saw some of our own rifling through the bodies, looting guns and ammo and whatever they could find.” He sighed. “You turned and looked at me over the body of my dead friend and your eyes turned black and the next thing I knew I was waking up on a pile of corpses. On top of my friend. You were sitting there waiting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, it wasn’t you. You didn’t do it. You were a hundred years gone by that point.”
A silver palm tree exploded overhead, bathing the trees in bright light. “We didn’t get along, did we?”
“I killed my wife. My son. I did it, but I blamed you. Because you made me this way.”
“So you wished we’d never met.”
“And the hilarious part is that my family is still dead and I am still a monster. I just look older.”
“But you got time,” Bishop argued, “years more with your family. That’s got to be worth it.”
Aidan turned to look at him, illuminated in bright red and blue flashes. “I’m not sure it was, actually.”
---
They told each other everything. There wasn’t much else to do. They would curl up under the covers and just talk, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. It was an intimacy that Aidan had never really known before, laying his heart and memories bare like that.
There was a lot Bishop didn’t know about him, little things that he’d never told another soul, things that his Maker had seemed to know intrinsically before. When he was born, what his family was like, his interests and desires. He told Bishop about his old life, about the new memories that he dreamed.
He told Bishop about them, about the way they had been with each other, the bond stronger than any friendship that had chipped away and broken after time.
Bishop, in turn, told Aidan about his life. There were things Aidan wouldn’t know, of course, having never met the older man, but he was surprised by the amount of stories that he’d never heard before, the facts that he’d never bothered to learn.
He wanted to know more about Bishop, more about the forty-some years before Carlo had found him, back when he’d been human. His relationships, his family, his friends.
He was an outcast. Only child. Single mother. Poor farmer who spent most of his time tending sheep. Few friends in the village. His mother, he said, hated him, knew there was something wrong with him. People avoided him. The man he loved was killed protecting him.
Aidan hadn’t known any of that, hadn’t ever thought to ask, to wonder what Bishop’s life had been before they’d met. Why the older man would chase him without ever going in for the kill, following him without ever trying to catch him. The fear was there, buried so deep that Aidan never even bothered to look for it, to see the history, what it must have been like to be Bishop, to be vulnerable and human and to know that death was only a whisper away if his friends and neighbors got word of what went on in his private life.
No wonder he’d freaked out at the theater.
It was amazing, the things he didn’t know. The things he’d never thought to ask. A whole life that he’d assumed was all the same, days spent plotting hostile takeovers and killing innocent bystanders. A whole life of pain and struggle and sadness that he’d never even considered.
The worst part was the fact that Bishop had been human. He’d been forced to watch the man he loved murdered, had even had to take part in the stoning. It had happened before they had met, before their timelines had split, which meant it had happened regardless of the wish.
It had happened to his Bishop, too.
It had happened to his Bishop and he’d had no idea because he’d never cared, never wanted so much to crawl inside of another living being and know every last detail about him, keep him warm, make the hurt go away.
They wound up tangled in the sheets, spilled over onto the floor. They’d started in the bed, covers over their heads, flashlight and whispers shared between them like a slumber party. Shared words had led to shared kisses, which had led to them tumbling to the ground, laughing and panting.
They’d spent more than half a year together, all soft touches and featherlight kisses, arms wrapped around each other, bodies curled in the dark. Aidan reached down and popped the button on Bishop’s jeans, his tongue distracting the older man as he closed his fingers around the zipper.
Bishop stopped him. Pulled away. Grabbed his wrist and pushed.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan asked.
“This isn’t you.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is.”
Bishop shook his head. “No. This is whatever happened last Christmas.”
Aidan blinked, confused. Maybe whatever Bishop had done to him was what had led them here, but the need had faded long ago, leaving only the want, something that felt entirely too familiar, too Aidan to be anything else. No, this was all him.
“It has to be you,” Bishop continued. “Not some wish. Not some star. It has to be real. It has to be special.”
“Why? It’s not like we’ve never -“
But they hadn’t, had they? Not as far as Bishop was concerned. They’d never gotten so blood drunk they couldn’t see straight and wound up passed out naked in bed wrapped around each other. They’d never gotten so mad at each other that they’d lashed out in the most primal way, mingling screams of pain and pleasure. They’d never gotten too sad or too lonely or too anything and lost their heads (and their clothes) for a night that they would never mention again.
They’d never actually slept together.
“It has to be special,” the older man emphasized, as if it would be. As if it wasn’t some run-of-the-mill thing for either of them, as if he’d never had sex before.
And the thought hit Aidan as so many realizations had since Christmas morning. Maybe he hadn’t. Not with the human from his old village, not with the man in Salem, not with anyone. Certainly not with Aidan.
And if this Bishop had never slept with anyone, what did that mean for his Bishop, the man he’d thrown down on a bed after fifteen years together? The man he’d stripped down and thrust into hard enough to draw blood? What did that say bout the first time they’d had sex?
“Ok,” he said softly, backing away. “We’ll wait. It’ll be special.”
Bishop smiled at him and pulled him in close, burying his face in the juncture between Aidan’s neck and shoulder. “I knew you’d understand.”
And he did. He understood everything. Now.
---
They hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving, but they each knew what the other was thankful for. That didn’t stop Aidan from wanting to do something special, to show Bishop that there was so much more to the world than the life they’d carved for themselves out in the wood.
“We’re taking a walk,” he announced, dangling the car keys in front of Bishop’s nose.
“The car kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
“We’re driving to where we’re taking the walk.”
“Why?”
Aidan smiled. “Because we’re walking in public. In town. Down the street. Holding hands.”
The older man shook his head. “No.”
“Trust me,” Aidan begged. “Please. I want to show you that things are different. You just need to trust me.”
They were in Golden Gulch half an hour later, walking down the main road through the year’s first dusting of snow, hand in hand. Bishop was still nervous, he could tell by the shaking fingers that were twined together with his own, but the older man was keeping his composure as they walked past the few storefronts, stopping and looking in at a few of the items already on display for Christmas.
Aidan had been nervous at first, too. The Midwest wasn’t known for its acceptance, but no one had bothered them. In fact, they’d gotten a few smiles since arriving in the town.
It was making Aidan feel bold, making him feel secure enough to stop them in front of the used bookstore. He turned to face Bishop, smiling, taking both of the older man’s hands in his own. “See,” he said, “ nothing to worry about.”
He leaned forward, eyes closed, and stumbled when he didn’t meet Bishop’s lips. The other vampire was leaning away, pulling back, eyes darting through the streets, wide and nervous as he glanced into windows and at the few other people milling around them. He squeaked out an “I’m sorry” and ran, leaving Aidan alone.
The younger vampire stood in silence for a moment before mentally kicking himself. He’d pushed it too far, tried to slap a band-aid over a wound that clearly needed stitches, and now Bishop was gone. Maybe he’d gone back to the shack, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he was on the run again, too scared to think straight, too scared to try and stay in the town where so many people had seen them together.
Aidan shoved his hands in his pockets and walked into the bookstore. He still had Christmas shopping to do and Bishop needed a cooling down period, some time alone to clear his head.
He spent nearly an hour in the small shop, gathering up books and even finding a used chess set he thought the older man might enjoy. Nervous about what he might find when he returned to the shack, Aidan left Golden Gulch, loading up Carlo’s car and driving until the road ended.
There was a light on in the cabin, a tiny glow that barely showed through the curtained window. Bishop was sitting on the bed, his shoulders slumped, eyes turned to the cracks in the floorboards.
“I’m sorry,” he said as Aidan walked in.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Aidan said. “I pushed you too far.”
“It’s been centuries,” Bishop argued. “I should be over this.”
Aidan dropped his bags and joined the older man on the bed, taking Bishop’s still-shaking hand in his own. “What those people did to you, there is no getting over. I understand if you’re afraid of people.”
Bishop scoffed and pulled his hand away. “It’s not just people, Aidan. It’s everyone. Humans, vampires. They both betrayed me and now I’m alone and I can’t stand the thought of losing you, too.”
“Why would you lose me?”
The older man finally looked up at him. “You deserve so much better than this. So much better than me. I can’t give you what you need. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m just too damaged.”
“Don’t say that.”
Bishop shook his head. “It’s true, though. I can’t keep you warm, I can’t go out with you, I can’t even be with you in public.
I can’t make you happy. You’re going to leave.”
Aidan frowned. “Is that what you think?” It was a scary concept. The fire months before, the movie theater, the walk through town that night. The idea that Bishop thought the only way to keep him was to make him happy, even if it meant being terrified himself. “That’s not how this works.”
“Then how does it work? Tell me, because I’ve never done this before. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m terrified that one day you’ll see that, you’ll see that you’re so much better than me. I don’t deserve you.”
That hit him hard. Harder than it should have. It resonated in the way that certain things did, certain stories and ideas and phrases that made him think about Boston and Bishop and the way things had been before Christmas. It made him think about Christmas carols and a tree and Bishop standing in the window, waving him in. Blood dens and blood bags and Rebecca. Roommates. Tolerance the likes of which no one else would dare extend him. Trying to make him happy to make him stay.
That was not how it was supposed to work.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “I’m gonna find a way to fix this. I swear.”
---
There was only one solution he could find, one way to fix the mess he’d made.
“Are you sure?” Bishop asked.
He wasn’t. But he’d thought about it, spent the weeks since their hand-holding fiasco wracking his brain for ways to rectify his mistake. This was the only one he’d found that made sense, that wouldn’t have any kind of drawback.
“We just need to undo what we did,” Aidan assured him. “We need to make sure those wishes never came true.”
“What will that accomplish?”
“Well, you won’t be living in a one-room cabin in the middle of the woods, for one.”
Bishop shook his head. “I won’t do it. I’d rather be tortured for a lifetime and then find you, than find you and be tortured for a lifetime.” He reached out across the table and took Aidan’s hand in his own. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m not giving you up without a fight.”
“You won’t. I’ve got a plan. Trust me. You still trust me, right?”
The older man sighed and squeezed his hand. “What do I need to do?”
“You need to wish that those wishes never came true. If the legend’s right and the star is magic, it should undo the last year and send us right back to Christmas Eve.”
“And you and I will never meet here.”
“You won’t even exist out here. You’ll have gone to Boston instead of staying in Salem, we’ll meet during the war, and everything else will fall into place. You won’t even remember this happened.”
“And neither will you,” Bishop pointed out. “Like it never happened.”
Aidan smiled. “I’ve got that covered.” He stood up, pulling Bishop with him, and walked outside. There was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, twinkling under the light of the moon. And shining bright right next to the moon was the most beautiful star Aidan had ever seen, pulsing with a soft glow that illuminated the woods and made everything sparkle.
He turned to Bishop. “Ready?”
“No.” He squeezed Aidan’s hand and closed his eyes. “I wish our wishes had never come true.”
“And I wish I could remember this whole year anyway.” Aidan squeezed back.
Bishop turned to look at him with wide eyes and the world exploded in a flash of light.
---
Aidan jumped awake. His hands were tangled in the sheets, pajamas twisted around his body.
It was his bed. His old bed in his old house. It smelled like dog. Dog and blood, and he’d never been so happy for the smell. He was home.
He jumped out of bed and pulled on some clothes, glancing out the window at the fresh snow before he raced down the stairs. He stopped at the landing, movement catching his eye in the living room.
Sally. It was Sally. “What are you doing?” she asked. “It’s four am.”
“I need to talk to Bishop. What are you doing?”
She smiled. “Waiting for Santa. Maybe he’ll bring me a pulse.”
Aidan chuckled, so happy he would have kissed her if he could. It had worked. He was back. Back to Christmas Eve, back to Boston, back to the life he hadn’t realized he’d missed so much. And he remembered.
He shut the door as softly as he could so as not to wake up Josh, and sprinted down the sidewalk, sliding on the packed snow starting to form. He reached Bishop’s house in record time and pounded on the door until an upstairs light flipped on.
The door opened. There was Bishop, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes sleepy and dull, but alive and well and in the city. “Aidan, what are you doing here? It’s four in the morning.”
He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face, couldn’t help the urge to step forward and wrap his arms around his Maker - his rightful Maker - and pull the older man close.
Bishop relaxed into him instantly, slowly bringing his arms up to return the embrace. He buried his face in Aidan’s shoulder, and the younger could feel him smile. “It actually worked,” he whispered.
Aidan pulled away then, just enough to see Bishop’s face, to read the happiness there, the sudden sparkle in his eye. He was whole, well-fed, socialized, and so, so overjoyed that Aidan couldn’t help but smile back.
He leaned back into his Maker’s arms, nuzzling his nose into the older man’s t-shirt, memorizing the smell of him, fresh and clean and so familiar in spite of the year they’d spent apart. “Yeah,” Aidan said. “It did.”
Fandom: Being Human US
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Bishop/Aidan
Summary: Legend says that a wish made on the Christmas Star will come true. So Bishop wishes that Aidan loved him. Aidan wishes they had never met. There's no way anything could go wrong, right?
Notes: Characters aren't mine. Titles is from that "Last Christmas" song. I'm afraid this may have turned into a massive headcanon dump, but there's a plot and I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. Happy Whatever Offends You The Least, guys!
There was a city roughly fifty miles northeast of Golden Gulch that had a big box store. Aidan knew this because he had asked Bishop. Bishop, of course, never ventured too far from his home, but he knew enough about the surrounding area to help Aidan get there without too much trouble.
It had been nearly three months since he’d last seen civilization, and it was almost overwhelming. He was glad Bishop had chosen to stay back at the shack. There were people milling around everywhere, babies crying, carts blocking aisles.
The last of the snow had finally melted and Aidan was finally able to get out of the cramped cabin for some much needed shopping. He needed clothes - more than the few shirts and pairs of jeans he’d gathered on his way to Montana. They both needed coats and gloves, hats and scarves, heavier layers to keep out the cold that was sure to come back at the end of the year. The bed needed new sheets so that they weren’t sleeping directly on the mattress, and some new pillows wouldn’t hurt, either.
The windows needed some new curtains, and maybe he’d pick up a mirror or painting to make the walls seem a little less bare. He might get a hammock if he could find one that early, start preparing for the summer.
And light. He wanted light. Some flashlights and battery-powered lanterns, anything to brighten the night without the use of electricity or fire.
He got more blankets, warmer ones, ones that matched the new sheet sets and pillowcases.
There were clothes for Bishop, shirts and pants and socks and shoes and jackets that would fit him better than the few things he’d somehow managed to steal for himself over the years. Scissors for hair cuts. Razors for beards. A pack of cards to pass the time.
Aidan took a page out of Bishop’s book to pay, also compelling the cashier into giving him the easiest way out of the store not guarded by elderly greeters or anti-theft devices.
He’d been gone for nearly six hours when he pushed the door to the shack open, struggling under the multitude of bags he’d draped over his arms. Bishop was sitting on the dirty mattress, flipping through an old book. He looked up as Aidan stumbled in.
“You came back.”
Aidan stopped with the bags lowered halfway to the floor. “What?” Bishop had actually sounded shocked, surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting the younger man’s return.
The blond shrugged. “I just… I didn’t think you were coming back.”
Aidan stared at him for a long moment, still frozen in place. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”
Bishop shrugged again. “This place. It’s small and dark and dirty and it smells funny. And I won’t even try to pretend that I’m a catch. Honestly, I figured the only reason you’d been here so long was the snow blocking you in.”
The younger man set the bags down. “I told you. I love you.”
“Because of some magic star, yeah. But how long do you think that’ll last?”
He had a point. Things had been different lately. That burning need to be there, to see and touch and taste the older vampire was slowly ebbing away. It was dull. It wasn’t a need anymore, wasn’t something Aidan felt he had to do. It was something he wanted to do.
He dug around in the bags for a moment, pulling out the scissors, a razor, shaving cream, and a bottle of water. “Do you trust me?”
“Not with those specific items in your hand, I don’t.”
Aidan smiled and joined the older man on the bed. “Well you should. Come here.”
It was strange, shaving another man. Different angles and unpredictable movement. But as the stubble was scraped away a familiar face emerged. Maybe a little thinner and paler than Aidan was used to, but it was closer to the man he’d known before, the one who kept his hair short and his nails shorter, who tried so hard to keep that innocent and professional air about him.
It had been hundreds of years since he’d last had to cut anyone’s hair, but Aidan figured that anything he did would be better than the tangled ponytail Bishop had been sporting since - apparently - the seventeen hundreds.
And maybe he cut it a little too short, shorter than he was used to, short enough to make the man sitting across from him look impossibly younger than he had the day before.
Aidan ran his fingers along the smooth jawline, tangled a hand in the soft, clean locks, and smiled. He retrieved the mirror from the bag and held it up so Bishop could see his own reflection.
“You look like a catch to me.”
The older man stared into the glass for a moment before reaching up to touch his face, his eyes wide. “I haven’t seen myself in… that’s me?”
“Yeah,” Aidan said, settling behind Bishop on the bed and wrapping his arms around the older vampire’s waist. He rested his head on Bishop’s shoulder, gazing into their reflection. He turned and pressed a kiss to the older man’s cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
---
The most disturbing thing about his wish was that Aidan had no idea who he was anymore. His entire life was a mystery. Two hundred years were unaccounted for, two hundred years that should have been filled with murder and mayhem and Bishop were suddenly blank.
But he dreamed. And in his dreams, the new life came to him. It came in flashes, in snapshots, in feelings and smells and tastes.
Her name was Annabelle and she had loved him. She had coveted him. A thirty-five year-old man from Boston with a wife and a grown child, grandchildren, the life he’d never imagined he could live.
She had met him at the well, dragged him into the woods, ripped out his throat and made him her own. She had killed his wife, would have killed his son, his grandchildren, every last human connection in his life if he had let her. If he hadn’t convinced her they were long gone, lost to him, moved more than a street away.
They had travelled. The two of them, together. Maybe he had forced himself to love her once, to make the pain and the torture stop. There were years, flashes of smiles and laughter and joy, jumbled up in the horror and sickness and hopelessness of his life with her.
She didn’t approve of his diet. His attempts at being human. Where Bishop had tolerated him, Annabelle had disowned him. When he took up with a pretty nurse - Jane, his mind provided, her name was Jane and you didn’t love her, but you loved what she was - Anna had torn her apart, scratched and bitten and made Aidan bleed in so many ways. She wasn’t subtle or cunning about it. She was cruel.
Carlo had saved him, had given him instruction and help and the guidance he needed when trying to find his feet in civilization after such a savage existence.
He had watched his family, his grandchildren, his grandchildren’s children, all the way down the line until Carlo had pulled him away, had told him it was useless. They would never know him, could never know him. He was a monster.
He had no friends that he could remember, no close acquaintances with whom he could share his darkest secrets. It was just him. Sometimes Carlo, but less and less since his official exile from Boston. Still, he’d lingered. He’d waited. Thought maybe he could find a kindred spirit, someone to waste the everlasting time with.
Then he’d woken up with a different set of memories and a singular goal. He’d found Bishop.
He rolled over, pulling the sheets with him, and wrapped his arms around the older man, burying his nose in the space between Bishop’s shoulders. The other vampire responded by leaning back into him with a soft moan.
“I was so lonely,” Bishop whispered, barely loud enough to hear.
“So was I,” Aidan responded.
Outside the shack, the crickets chirped and the first summer breeze blew through the branches of the trees. He’d never felt more at home.
---
Summer was in full swing and Aidan had cabin fever. The frequent walks through the woods with Bishop and the
occasional trip into town did nothing to relieve the itch of being stuck in the shack most days.
“We should see a movie,” Aidan suggested. He was sprawled across the bed, his feet propped up on Bishop’s lap as the older man read a book. “You’ve probably never seen one, right? Like, a real movie, up on the big screen, surround sound and CGI and the works?” He raised his head to look at the older vampire. “Do you even know what I’m talking about?”
Bishop frowned at him and set his book down on the bed. “Just because I live in the woods doesn’t mean I live under a rock. I know what a movie is, Aidan.”
“But have you ever seen one?”
“No.”
“Would you like to?” He sat up. “There’s a town a few miles over that has a small theater. I bet they’d be playing something cool. What are you into?”
The older man shrugged. “Whatever you like.”
“Ok. You up for it?”
“Sure. It’ll be fun.”
Aidan grinned. He’d been waiting for the chance to get Bishop out into the world, to show the other vampire that times had changed and people weren’t so quick to anger, that there was nothing to be afraid of.
The only movie playing was the latest installment of the Twilight saga. Aidan spent the half hour they had before the opening credits explaining the backstory to Bishop, laughing as the older man wrinkled his nose in apparent disgust.
There were only a handful of people in the theater, mostly teenage girls giggling about the shirtless werewolves and shiny vampires. Fifteen minutes into the film, Aidan tangled Bishop’s fingers with his own.
Hand holding was never really his thing, never something he actively did, but Bishop seemed to enjoy it, seemed to read more into the contact than was ever intended, but Aidan didn’t mind. There was something about the look on the older man’s face when they did it, something that affirmed for him the importance of touch to one who had been alone for so long, that made Aidan want to reach out.
Bishop pulled away, wrenching his hand off the armrest and into his lap. He actually glared at Aidan, narrowed eyes and thin lips.
Half an hour later, he stretched just wide enough to throw an arm around Bishop’s shoulders, frowning as the older man ducked out from under him.
It went on for the rest of the movie, rebukes for small touches, ducking and dodging, even growling at one point.
“You wanted to watch a movie, so watch the damn movie,” Bishop hissed at him with fifteen minutes left in the film. Aidan obediently tucked his hands into his lap for the remainder of the flick.
The short car ride home was quiet, Bishop unusually tense beside him. Aidan couldn’t think of a time when the older man had ever acted that way, shying away from touches and even getting angry about it.
As soon as the door to the shack was closed, Bishop was on him, pressing him up against the wall, hands tangled in Aidan’s hair, ripping at his shirt, tongue down the younger vampire’s throat.
Somehow, Aidan worked up the resolve to push Bishop back, glaring at him. “What the hell?”
Bishop was panting, staring back with wide black eyes. “What? You started it.”
“In the theater. What is with you?”
The older man blinked, eyes fading back to blue. His shoulders slumped. “What if someone saw us?” he whispered. He shuffled backward, sitting down when the backs of his knees hit the side of the bed. “Why would you do that in public?”
Aidan leaned back against the wall. “Is that why you stopped me? You thought someone would see us?” Bishop nodded. “So what? Let ‘em watch.”
Bishop shook his head. “You weren’t scared?”
“Why would I be -?”
It hit him hard, the realization popping up from the back of his mind. This wasn’t his Bishop, as much as it may have looked like him since the haircut. This wasn’t the guy who would corner him in the bathroom, push him into a stall, palm him through his jeans, and leave him wanting more. It wasn’t the guy who pulled him into back alleys, into spare booths at the blood den, supply closets at the hospital. It wasn’t the man who got down onto his knees in the dirt, who twined their fingers together on the street and squeezed tight before Aidan inevitably pulled away.
This was a man who had snuck into the woods with another man and been burned for it.
Aidan sat down beside him on the bed and took his hand, holding it tight. “Things are different now. People like that, like the ones who hurt you, they’re vocal, but they’re a minority. You and I, we could walk down the street holding hands and no one could stop us. There are laws against that kind of thing now.”
“Against it?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Believe it or not.” He leaned into Bishop’s shoulder, resting his head against the other man’s. “People are good. Somehow, I’m gonna prove that to you.”
---
Bishop was sitting on a log outside, his eyes turned to the night sky, face lit in wonder as the fireworks exploded above him. “They’re beautiful,” he whispered, sensing Aidan standing in the doorway behind him.
It was hot out, even after the sun had set for the evening. Golden Gulch was having a celebration, the whole town gathered outside the single small school, faces turned to the heavens. Kids were running around with sparklers, parents eating hotdogs and talking, animals spooking.
They could have gone, tried to fit in with their t-shirts and shorts. Maybe made some friends, become a little less lonely. But Bishop was still wary of people, enough so that Aidan was starting to think it had become a permanent personality trait exacerbated by years alone in the wild.
So they sat in the woods and watched the pyrotechnics through the trees.
Aidan joined Bishop on the log, just close enough that their shoulders barely touched. “Did I ever tell you how we met?” he asked.
“Don’t think so.”
“American Revolution,” Aidan said. “I was walking through the woods after a nasty attack, looking for my friend. I’d promised his wife and daughters I’d look out for him, and I lost him in the gunfire. I walked into this clearing, and he was just lying there. Dead. Looked like he’d been shot in the neck. Then I looked up, saw some of our own rifling through the bodies, looting guns and ammo and whatever they could find.” He sighed. “You turned and looked at me over the body of my dead friend and your eyes turned black and the next thing I knew I was waking up on a pile of corpses. On top of my friend. You were sitting there waiting.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, it wasn’t you. You didn’t do it. You were a hundred years gone by that point.”
A silver palm tree exploded overhead, bathing the trees in bright light. “We didn’t get along, did we?”
“I killed my wife. My son. I did it, but I blamed you. Because you made me this way.”
“So you wished we’d never met.”
“And the hilarious part is that my family is still dead and I am still a monster. I just look older.”
“But you got time,” Bishop argued, “years more with your family. That’s got to be worth it.”
Aidan turned to look at him, illuminated in bright red and blue flashes. “I’m not sure it was, actually.”
---
They told each other everything. There wasn’t much else to do. They would curl up under the covers and just talk, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. It was an intimacy that Aidan had never really known before, laying his heart and memories bare like that.
There was a lot Bishop didn’t know about him, little things that he’d never told another soul, things that his Maker had seemed to know intrinsically before. When he was born, what his family was like, his interests and desires. He told Bishop about his old life, about the new memories that he dreamed.
He told Bishop about them, about the way they had been with each other, the bond stronger than any friendship that had chipped away and broken after time.
Bishop, in turn, told Aidan about his life. There were things Aidan wouldn’t know, of course, having never met the older man, but he was surprised by the amount of stories that he’d never heard before, the facts that he’d never bothered to learn.
He wanted to know more about Bishop, more about the forty-some years before Carlo had found him, back when he’d been human. His relationships, his family, his friends.
He was an outcast. Only child. Single mother. Poor farmer who spent most of his time tending sheep. Few friends in the village. His mother, he said, hated him, knew there was something wrong with him. People avoided him. The man he loved was killed protecting him.
Aidan hadn’t known any of that, hadn’t ever thought to ask, to wonder what Bishop’s life had been before they’d met. Why the older man would chase him without ever going in for the kill, following him without ever trying to catch him. The fear was there, buried so deep that Aidan never even bothered to look for it, to see the history, what it must have been like to be Bishop, to be vulnerable and human and to know that death was only a whisper away if his friends and neighbors got word of what went on in his private life.
No wonder he’d freaked out at the theater.
It was amazing, the things he didn’t know. The things he’d never thought to ask. A whole life that he’d assumed was all the same, days spent plotting hostile takeovers and killing innocent bystanders. A whole life of pain and struggle and sadness that he’d never even considered.
The worst part was the fact that Bishop had been human. He’d been forced to watch the man he loved murdered, had even had to take part in the stoning. It had happened before they had met, before their timelines had split, which meant it had happened regardless of the wish.
It had happened to his Bishop, too.
It had happened to his Bishop and he’d had no idea because he’d never cared, never wanted so much to crawl inside of another living being and know every last detail about him, keep him warm, make the hurt go away.
They wound up tangled in the sheets, spilled over onto the floor. They’d started in the bed, covers over their heads, flashlight and whispers shared between them like a slumber party. Shared words had led to shared kisses, which had led to them tumbling to the ground, laughing and panting.
They’d spent more than half a year together, all soft touches and featherlight kisses, arms wrapped around each other, bodies curled in the dark. Aidan reached down and popped the button on Bishop’s jeans, his tongue distracting the older man as he closed his fingers around the zipper.
Bishop stopped him. Pulled away. Grabbed his wrist and pushed.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan asked.
“This isn’t you.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is.”
Bishop shook his head. “No. This is whatever happened last Christmas.”
Aidan blinked, confused. Maybe whatever Bishop had done to him was what had led them here, but the need had faded long ago, leaving only the want, something that felt entirely too familiar, too Aidan to be anything else. No, this was all him.
“It has to be you,” Bishop continued. “Not some wish. Not some star. It has to be real. It has to be special.”
“Why? It’s not like we’ve never -“
But they hadn’t, had they? Not as far as Bishop was concerned. They’d never gotten so blood drunk they couldn’t see straight and wound up passed out naked in bed wrapped around each other. They’d never gotten so mad at each other that they’d lashed out in the most primal way, mingling screams of pain and pleasure. They’d never gotten too sad or too lonely or too anything and lost their heads (and their clothes) for a night that they would never mention again.
They’d never actually slept together.
“It has to be special,” the older man emphasized, as if it would be. As if it wasn’t some run-of-the-mill thing for either of them, as if he’d never had sex before.
And the thought hit Aidan as so many realizations had since Christmas morning. Maybe he hadn’t. Not with the human from his old village, not with the man in Salem, not with anyone. Certainly not with Aidan.
And if this Bishop had never slept with anyone, what did that mean for his Bishop, the man he’d thrown down on a bed after fifteen years together? The man he’d stripped down and thrust into hard enough to draw blood? What did that say bout the first time they’d had sex?
“Ok,” he said softly, backing away. “We’ll wait. It’ll be special.”
Bishop smiled at him and pulled him in close, burying his face in the juncture between Aidan’s neck and shoulder. “I knew you’d understand.”
And he did. He understood everything. Now.
---
They hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving, but they each knew what the other was thankful for. That didn’t stop Aidan from wanting to do something special, to show Bishop that there was so much more to the world than the life they’d carved for themselves out in the wood.
“We’re taking a walk,” he announced, dangling the car keys in front of Bishop’s nose.
“The car kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”
“We’re driving to where we’re taking the walk.”
“Why?”
Aidan smiled. “Because we’re walking in public. In town. Down the street. Holding hands.”
The older man shook his head. “No.”
“Trust me,” Aidan begged. “Please. I want to show you that things are different. You just need to trust me.”
They were in Golden Gulch half an hour later, walking down the main road through the year’s first dusting of snow, hand in hand. Bishop was still nervous, he could tell by the shaking fingers that were twined together with his own, but the older man was keeping his composure as they walked past the few storefronts, stopping and looking in at a few of the items already on display for Christmas.
Aidan had been nervous at first, too. The Midwest wasn’t known for its acceptance, but no one had bothered them. In fact, they’d gotten a few smiles since arriving in the town.
It was making Aidan feel bold, making him feel secure enough to stop them in front of the used bookstore. He turned to face Bishop, smiling, taking both of the older man’s hands in his own. “See,” he said, “ nothing to worry about.”
He leaned forward, eyes closed, and stumbled when he didn’t meet Bishop’s lips. The other vampire was leaning away, pulling back, eyes darting through the streets, wide and nervous as he glanced into windows and at the few other people milling around them. He squeaked out an “I’m sorry” and ran, leaving Aidan alone.
The younger vampire stood in silence for a moment before mentally kicking himself. He’d pushed it too far, tried to slap a band-aid over a wound that clearly needed stitches, and now Bishop was gone. Maybe he’d gone back to the shack, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he was on the run again, too scared to think straight, too scared to try and stay in the town where so many people had seen them together.
Aidan shoved his hands in his pockets and walked into the bookstore. He still had Christmas shopping to do and Bishop needed a cooling down period, some time alone to clear his head.
He spent nearly an hour in the small shop, gathering up books and even finding a used chess set he thought the older man might enjoy. Nervous about what he might find when he returned to the shack, Aidan left Golden Gulch, loading up Carlo’s car and driving until the road ended.
There was a light on in the cabin, a tiny glow that barely showed through the curtained window. Bishop was sitting on the bed, his shoulders slumped, eyes turned to the cracks in the floorboards.
“I’m sorry,” he said as Aidan walked in.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Aidan said. “I pushed you too far.”
“It’s been centuries,” Bishop argued. “I should be over this.”
Aidan dropped his bags and joined the older man on the bed, taking Bishop’s still-shaking hand in his own. “What those people did to you, there is no getting over. I understand if you’re afraid of people.”
Bishop scoffed and pulled his hand away. “It’s not just people, Aidan. It’s everyone. Humans, vampires. They both betrayed me and now I’m alone and I can’t stand the thought of losing you, too.”
“Why would you lose me?”
The older man finally looked up at him. “You deserve so much better than this. So much better than me. I can’t give you what you need. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m just too damaged.”
“Don’t say that.”
Bishop shook his head. “It’s true, though. I can’t keep you warm, I can’t go out with you, I can’t even be with you in public.
I can’t make you happy. You’re going to leave.”
Aidan frowned. “Is that what you think?” It was a scary concept. The fire months before, the movie theater, the walk through town that night. The idea that Bishop thought the only way to keep him was to make him happy, even if it meant being terrified himself. “That’s not how this works.”
“Then how does it work? Tell me, because I’ve never done this before. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m terrified that one day you’ll see that, you’ll see that you’re so much better than me. I don’t deserve you.”
That hit him hard. Harder than it should have. It resonated in the way that certain things did, certain stories and ideas and phrases that made him think about Boston and Bishop and the way things had been before Christmas. It made him think about Christmas carols and a tree and Bishop standing in the window, waving him in. Blood dens and blood bags and Rebecca. Roommates. Tolerance the likes of which no one else would dare extend him. Trying to make him happy to make him stay.
That was not how it was supposed to work.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “I’m gonna find a way to fix this. I swear.”
---
There was only one solution he could find, one way to fix the mess he’d made.
“Are you sure?” Bishop asked.
He wasn’t. But he’d thought about it, spent the weeks since their hand-holding fiasco wracking his brain for ways to rectify his mistake. This was the only one he’d found that made sense, that wouldn’t have any kind of drawback.
“We just need to undo what we did,” Aidan assured him. “We need to make sure those wishes never came true.”
“What will that accomplish?”
“Well, you won’t be living in a one-room cabin in the middle of the woods, for one.”
Bishop shook his head. “I won’t do it. I’d rather be tortured for a lifetime and then find you, than find you and be tortured for a lifetime.” He reached out across the table and took Aidan’s hand in his own. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m not giving you up without a fight.”
“You won’t. I’ve got a plan. Trust me. You still trust me, right?”
The older man sighed and squeezed his hand. “What do I need to do?”
“You need to wish that those wishes never came true. If the legend’s right and the star is magic, it should undo the last year and send us right back to Christmas Eve.”
“And you and I will never meet here.”
“You won’t even exist out here. You’ll have gone to Boston instead of staying in Salem, we’ll meet during the war, and everything else will fall into place. You won’t even remember this happened.”
“And neither will you,” Bishop pointed out. “Like it never happened.”
Aidan smiled. “I’ve got that covered.” He stood up, pulling Bishop with him, and walked outside. There was a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, twinkling under the light of the moon. And shining bright right next to the moon was the most beautiful star Aidan had ever seen, pulsing with a soft glow that illuminated the woods and made everything sparkle.
He turned to Bishop. “Ready?”
“No.” He squeezed Aidan’s hand and closed his eyes. “I wish our wishes had never come true.”
“And I wish I could remember this whole year anyway.” Aidan squeezed back.
Bishop turned to look at him with wide eyes and the world exploded in a flash of light.
---
Aidan jumped awake. His hands were tangled in the sheets, pajamas twisted around his body.
It was his bed. His old bed in his old house. It smelled like dog. Dog and blood, and he’d never been so happy for the smell. He was home.
He jumped out of bed and pulled on some clothes, glancing out the window at the fresh snow before he raced down the stairs. He stopped at the landing, movement catching his eye in the living room.
Sally. It was Sally. “What are you doing?” she asked. “It’s four am.”
“I need to talk to Bishop. What are you doing?”
She smiled. “Waiting for Santa. Maybe he’ll bring me a pulse.”
Aidan chuckled, so happy he would have kissed her if he could. It had worked. He was back. Back to Christmas Eve, back to Boston, back to the life he hadn’t realized he’d missed so much. And he remembered.
He shut the door as softly as he could so as not to wake up Josh, and sprinted down the sidewalk, sliding on the packed snow starting to form. He reached Bishop’s house in record time and pounded on the door until an upstairs light flipped on.
The door opened. There was Bishop, hair sticking up at odd angles, eyes sleepy and dull, but alive and well and in the city. “Aidan, what are you doing here? It’s four in the morning.”
He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face, couldn’t help the urge to step forward and wrap his arms around his Maker - his rightful Maker - and pull the older man close.
Bishop relaxed into him instantly, slowly bringing his arms up to return the embrace. He buried his face in Aidan’s shoulder, and the younger could feel him smile. “It actually worked,” he whispered.
Aidan pulled away then, just enough to see Bishop’s face, to read the happiness there, the sudden sparkle in his eye. He was whole, well-fed, socialized, and so, so overjoyed that Aidan couldn’t help but smile back.
He leaned back into his Maker’s arms, nuzzling his nose into the older man’s t-shirt, memorizing the smell of him, fresh and clean and so familiar in spite of the year they’d spent apart. “Yeah,” Aidan said. “It did.”