Fve People St. John Allerdyce Has Never Slept With: First
The truth is that when he met Erik, he'd just been so absolutely grateful for someone who recognized what he was (What's your name, what's your real name, not the face you show to the world but who you are when it's just you and that warm little square of metal, what's your name then, St. John) he hadn't cared what the man was about. He hadn't known he was a politician or anything else; he'd just been a well-dressed, dignified older man on a subway. At first St. John had thought he was hitting on him - it happened a lot in New York, maybe because he looked so damn young.
And in his way maybe Erik was, although St. John didn't think he wanted sex as far as that went - What got Erik off was power. He was all about its accumulation and preservation, the dynamics of it and how quickly it could change. How the strings were passed and pulled and tugged back and forth.
There had been a night when the older man worked until the sun stained the sky, making phone calls and plans and drawing diagrams for something he wouldn't tell St. John about, would just smile that thick liquid smile, like pooling mercury, and tell St. John it was 'for the future.'
The next morning a non-descript clinic in Brooklyn had been vaporized. But that wasn't what St. John remembered about that night, it was seeing Erik reach for a cup of coffee, long sleeves rolled up, always so elegant, always poised - and the string of numbers etched into the lean forearm there in stark relief, the blueblack of old ink on white skin.
He thought: Yes, Erik certainly knew something about power. And what could happened when it accumulated in the wrong places. He didn't know much about where it was accumulated now, but he knew, knew to his bones that the Shop couldn't do what they did if someone didn't know about it. That he could cheerfully have extended his hand to destroy, no matter what it turned him into afterwards.
And Erik had looked at him looking at the numbers, something fleeting across his face, something like amusement, benevolence, the sort of expendable fondness a person shows a pet right before they leave it at the side of the road. His hands were always long and delicate - because he didn't need physical strength, he was metal and fluid and flowing motion like heated steel - and when they brushed St. John's cheek, they were warm.
It was the only time he could ever remember Erik touching him. He kept his distance, respectful, cool, that polite society politician side of him so conveniently layered over the fact that St. John was, and would always be, a means to an end.
"Get some sleep, my boy. All this will be here tomorrow."
It wouldn't, not really.
When he slept, he dreamed of glowing embers, sparks on steel.