Vassal [1/3] - The Social Network - Eduardo/Mark
Title: Vassal [1/3]
Pairing: Eduardo/Mark (mentions of assorted others)
Word Count: 8,840
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Implied dub-con.
A/N: Written for an au_bingo prompt. Sometimes my brain confuses me. While incubus is traditionally used to refer to a male sex-demon, I use succubus throughout the fic. WIP.
Summary: When Sean gave Mark a supernatural sex slave, Mark thought that was going to be the strangest part of his month. He never thought he'd end up in court arguing for his ownership rights.
i.
When Mark walks into his office in the morning looking like a man who has spent his life drinking, Chris knows that it's going to be a difficult week. He wheels his chair back from his desk but carries on holding onto the edge: something tells him he's going to need some support for this revelation.
"What happened?" he asks.
What he means is, 'what do I have to clear up now?', but that really isn't the best way to talk to your boss.
"Sean," Mark says. He tumbles into the chair opposite Chris's desk, sprawling onto it like he's been shot. "He got me a gift."
This story really isn't going to end well, is it? Chris crosses his arms over his chest when Mark doesn't seem too willing to continue. "What is it?"
"He," Mark clarifies. "Not an 'it', a 'he'."
"A dog? A puppy?" Chris guesses. It doesn't feel right. Although, Mark is exactly the kind of person that could be irritated by the presence of puppies.
"A person." Mark frowns. "Well, sort of. He said they're called vassals. They're not human. They look it, but they're not. I don't know - Sean said everyone has one these days."
Chris stares at Mark's blank face, purposefully zoning out so that he doesn't have to throw anything. He breathes, very calmly, in and out. "Tell me you've set him free," he says. He's heard about it (there was even an article in the New York Times last month about the trend) but that doesn't mean he has to support it or see it as even halfway ethical. "You cannot keep a person as a pet, Mark!"
"He's not a person," Mark says, before he frowns in confusion. "Or, he's not human. Maybe that means the same thing. The point is I can't 'let him go'."
Chris pinches the bridge of his nose, and peeks at Mark from over his hand. "Do I want to know why, exactly?"
"We bonded." Mark pauses, but continues speaking before Chris can start to lecture him about the rights of non-human entities. "Not sexually. I let him drink some of my blood to seal the deal. I was drunk. Sean said it would be a good idea."
"As a general lesson, if Sean thinks that something would be a good idea, don't do it," Chris says, even if on the whole that isn't true. "What kind of creature is he, exactly? Your - vassal?"
"He's a mixed breed. Vampire and succubus, I think, or maybe fairy and succubus. It's hard to tell. He looks really human."
Chris tries to remind himself once again that going to punch Sean really wouldn't be a good idea right now. "You haven't had sex with him, right?" he double-checks.
Mark shakes his head. "I'm not stupid."
"You are an asshole, though," Chris reminds him. "Just make sure you don't touch him too much. They say that's, uh, addictive." God, he doesn't want to be having conversations with Mark about the addictive qualities of supernatural sex. He hates his job, sometimes.
Mark promises that he has no intention of sticking his dick anywhere near his new ward. Chris is left with the intense desire to delete Mark's last sentence from his brain.
"Then I'll look into it," Chris says. "There must be a way of breaking the bond so that he can go free."
"That's not actually why I came to see you. I'm looking into that myself."
Chris's eyes narrow. "What?"
"I have work to do. Coding." Mark glances over his shoulder towards the door. "And I couldn't leave Wardo at home, so…"
He opens the door and hustles out before Chris can get out of the chair to stop him. In his place is an orderly-looking man, around his own age in appearance, dressed in a suit far neater than anything that this office has ever seen.
He watches Mark go with a sense of amusement. "Is he always like this?" Wardo asks.
Half-standing, half-sitting, Chris tries to pull his thoughts together. "Like what?"
"Presumptive. Rude." Wardo looks away from the door towards Chris, with a smile on his face that looks far too happy. His eyes are like warm almonds. Something about them gives away that he isn't quite human, but Chris can't put his finger on it. "Sexy as hell."
Chris snorts so hard it hurts the back of his throat. "Presumptive and rude, yes. I'll leave the 'sexy' part to your own judgement."
Wardo smiles, and it's more reassuring than it ought to be. "My name's Eduardo Saverin," he says, holding his hand out as he steps forward, closer to the desk.
As Chris shakes his hand and introduces himself, he thinks that Mark owes him a huge bonus come Christmas time.
*
Baby-sitting Eduardo is actually easy, especially since he's at least a hundred years away from being a 'baby' by any stretch of the definition. He makes himself useful around the office, and reads anything that he can get his hands on, but his eyes always drift in the direction of Mark's office as if drawn there inescapably.
"You don't have to do this, you know," Chris says as lightly as he can, once they've been working together in his office for a couple of hours. It's almost lunchtime, says the clock on the wall.
Reading his way through a monthly report, Eduardo's mouth twitches into a broad smile. He looks up, his large eyes filled with amusement. "Is this the part where you convince me to break the chains of servitude and rise up against the masters?"
"Well, I wasn't going to use those exact words." Chris swirls a pen around his fingers and studies the being on the other side of his desk. "I've never spent a lot of time around any supernaturals."
"Not many people have." Eduardo's smile never seems to falter. "It's okay. I know it's strange for humans."
"It's not okay." Chris wants to explain about civil rights and the Thirteenth Amendment, but he holds his tongue. For all he knows, Eduardo had been around to see it happening. "You don't have to do this."
"I know. I'm here because I want to be." Eduardo glances down at the report he's reading, but it seems mostly to be an excuse not to look at Chris. "My lineage has served the great men and women of history for centuries. I'm following in their footsteps."
"With Mark."
"He's changing the world; he's important." Eduardo shakes his head. "I don't expect you to understand. Being a vassal, it's more complex than you think. It's a two-way thing. I choose to serve him, but he has responsibilities too. He has to look after me."
"Mark couldn't look after a hamster."
"Thankfully I'm a little more self-sufficient than a rodent," Eduardo answers. There is still mirth shining in his eyes, and Chris can't escape the feeling that Eduardo is finding this entire conversation inherently hilarious. "Don't worry about it. If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be."
"You're bound to him," Chris says.
"By choice," Eduardo confirms. "I could have refused to drink."
Chris can feel his head pounding already. "So why didn't you?"
"Because I didn't want to."
"He's not going to sleep with you, you know," Chris says. Part-succubus: it must be what he's sticking around for. Sex. With Mark. God, he's twisted.
"Which is definitely disappointing, but that's okay. I'll find other ways to make myself useful." Eduardo gestures at the papers he's reading. "So I'm going to learn all about his business, all about his life, and then I'm going to work out exactly where I fit in. Okay?"
Chris just groans. He's starting to think that even Dustin would have been more suited to deal with this than him.
ii.
If Mark is going to keep Eduardo around (and, really, at this point he doesn't have a choice) he's going to have to get used to Chris side-eyeing him in disapproval. The problem, as far as Mark is concerned, is that Eduardo fits in easily. He gets on with his friends, he looks after him, and within a week Mark has already started to forget how he managed to survive before Sean's gift.
The other problem is that Eduardo is making it extremely hard to stick to the 'no sex' rule.
When Mark comes into the kitchen on Sunday morning to find Eduardo making breakfast in just his underwear, he has to stop in the doorway. He has to stop, because he has to stare. The radio is on, playing dreadful pop music, and Eduardo is half-humming and half-singing along. Mark's eyes are drawn inescapably down the curve of his back towards the waistband of his silk boxers. His skin holds a healthy glow, and Mark isn't sure if that's because of Eduardo's supernatural side or just a case of good living.
All he knows is that he's staring, and his mouth is dry, and that this really isn't appropriate.
Eduardo's body is slim and neat, and Mark can barely stand to look without touching. That's the point, he thinks.
He clears his throat, and Eduardo half-turns from the hob. His face lights up with a ridiculously large smile at the sight of Mark. "I'm making breakfast," he says. "You like eggs, right?"
"You aren't wearing any pants," Mark replies. He's finding it very difficult not to look at Eduardo's nipples, light brown against his chest. "You aren't wearing anything."
"I put my boxers on," Eduardo counters, still smiling, as if they aren't talking about the acceptable level of nudity in Mark's apartment. "And my socks, actually. I thought you wouldn't want me walking around naked."
"Do you sleep naked?" Mark asks, then shakes his head. "No, don't tell me that."
"I don't sleep," Eduardo reminds him.
Which means…
Nakedness. Pointless nakedness around his flat for unknown purposes. Mark can't respond to that.
He's still staring at the nipples.
"Take a seat," Eduardo says, gesturing towards the gleaming island. Mark's flat has become extraordinarily clean and tidy since Eduardo appeared. Every surface seems to sparkle like it belongs in a show home. Cautiously, he moves to hop onto one of the chairs. "I had to get the eggs myself. I'm not even sure what it is that's growing in your fridge, but it looks poisonous."
"How did you go and get eggs?" Mark asks. He looks down as Eduardo slides a full plate in front of him. His stomach grumbles in approval. "You said you couldn't leave without my permission. Those are the rules."
And they might not be good rules, or fair rules, but that's how it works, whatever this thing is. Permission is key. If Eduardo can just break the rules whenever he wants, they aren't rules at all. They're guidelines, and everyone always ignores guidelines.
"I didn't leave," Eduardo assures him. He sits down on the opposite side of the table and reaches for the newspaper. There's no food in front of him, but Mark is used to that. Eduardo doesn't seem to need to eat any more than he needs to sleep. "Fairy, remember?"
"Which means you can produce eggs?" Mark frowns, and decides that it might be best to avoid thinking about exactly how that happens. The eggs aren't sparkling. That probably means that they're safe to eat. He asks anyway, just to see Eduardo's grin. "Did you lay it?"
Stretching his hand out, Eduardo closes his palm. When he opens it again, like an expert slight of hand, there's a normal egg sitting there, waiting for Mark to take it. "I can use my powers if it's to serve my master," Eduardo explains.
Mark wrinkles his nose. "Don't call me that."
"What should I call you, then?"
There isn't really a good word for it at all, because it's not a good thing to be doing. It's the kind of situation that only Sean could get them into, and now it's Mark's job to deal with the consequences. Being given a vassal is considerably more complicated to clean up than drug use or sexual misbehaviour. It's a lot more fucking long term as well.
Also, cuter.
But Mark's not going to admit that to anyone.
"Just call me a friend," he decides eventually.
Eduardo smiles, in the way that makes his eyes crinkle at the sides. There's open glee in his expression when he smiles like that, and it makes Mark feel uncomfortable. Too much pressure. He's never been the sort of person that other people should rely on.
"Is that what I am?" Eduardo asks. "A friend?"
Mark shrugs with one shoulder and decides that maybe he ought to just shut up and eat his eggs. "I hardly know you. Ask me in another couple of weeks," he says when Eduardo's bright eyes demand an answer.
It's nothing definite, but the happy way that Eduardo settles into reading his paper makes Mark feel like maybe he's said something right for once in his life.
*
He has more energy these days, thanks to eating well and sleeping properly. He looks better; people have told him as much, but he can see it himself in the mirror. Because of Eduardo, he no longer looks like a ghost accidentally stuck on earth. An untidy, badly dressed ghost.
His flat is barely recognisable, and it never takes more than five seconds to find something he's lost.
Wardo seems happy enough, and Mark gives him a steady supply of books and work to keep him occupied. He's actually kind of cool to have around, as much as Mark likes having anyone around him.
A week turns into a month turns into two months, and before Mark knows what is happening he has a vassal implanted so deeply into his life that he wouldn't know how to function without him. "So how does this work?" he asks when they make it home from work especially late one night.
Wardo closes the door behind them and unbuttons his coat. "How does what work?" he asks.
"This. You being here." He frowns and walks further into the flat, turning lights on as he goes. "How long does it last?"
"Still trying to get rid of me?" Wardo asks. It doesn't come out quite as light as he probably means it to.
"No. If I was getting rid of you I'd go ahead and say so," Mark says. He doesn't mention that Chris is still looking into how to break the bond; it's a principle for him now. "I want to work out how this all works. You don't stay forever - you won't be here when I'm eighty, pushing my wheelchair for me. So how does it work?"
"I'm here for as long as I'm needed," Wardo says, which is really needlessly vague.
Mark plops down on his couch and reaches automatically for his laptop. His brow furrows in concentration and he uses it as a way not to pay attention to the creature in his house, the non-human that had carved a space for himself with no real permission at all.
When he next breaks away from his code and looks around, Wardo is sitting on the other end of the couch. He has a book open in front of him and his face is faraway and distant, like he's been transported away. Mark would shuffle to get a look at the cover, but he doesn't want to risk disturbing. It's not often that he gets the chance to observe Wardo without being noticed.
And, yes, it's totally something worth doing. He can't allow himself to do it very often, because when there is an openly willing and available incubus living under your roof the need to exercise self-control is heightened. But Wardo is -
He's amazing.
Mark can admit that to himself even if he's not going to say it aloud. He stretches out on the couch, inch by careful inch, until he's lying down with his toes nudging the edge of Wardo's thighs. Wardo looks away from his book, his eyebrows raised with a polite question, but it only takes him a second before he raises his book out of his lap and allows Mark to slide his feet there instead.
Wardo's hand settles onto his feet, holding the book with one hand now and holding it open with his thumb. In an absent-minded way he rubs at Mark's foot as Mark works on his coding. It's just a tiny little movement of his thumb along the centre of Mark's foot, but it feels a thousand time better than anything he'd ever done with Erica. Anything. Literally.
It's when Mark starts to moan in an embarrassingly needy way that Wardo puts his book to the side and really focuses.
It's magic. Actual, literal magic, which Mark in a logical way knows makes sense. Wardo is supernatural. Only, right now, with his feet feeling the effects of said magic, Mark isn't so much thinking of the logical side of thinking as he's thinking of the holy hell I'm about to come from a foot massage side of things.
Which is definitely the more embarrassing side.
He loses track of his laptop within a few seconds, and he has to look up the ceiling because the way that Eduardo is watching him is far too much to take, too intense, too real. He's hard in his pants within seconds, his hips half-thrusting into the air, while even the tiniest movements from Eduardo's fingers are enough to make his entire body melt and spasm in perfection.
In under a minute, he comes inside his pants with a strangled grunt, without Eduardo once having taken his hands off of his feet. Mark stains the front of his sweatpants, a wet patch spreading fast, while his fingernails are digging into his palms. His face is bright red.
Panting for air, he finally moves his gaze from the ceiling to look back towards Wardo. Wardo's eyes are dark and his lips are slightly parted. He's watching Mark like he's something worth watching: like he's special or important or something. It makes Mark's face flush even more, his cheeks heating up, before he puts his laptop to the side and starts to get to his feet.
He's supposed to speak now. Wardo is waiting for him to say something, he can feel it, but nothing will come up. Walking to his bedroom, he hears Wardo tell him to leave his clothes outside the door for him to wash. He pretends he doesn't hear.
If he slams his bedroom door, he tells himself it's an accident.
He's too old for tantrums.
*
The next morning, Wardo comes into his room to make sure that he gets up on time, as usual. He shakes Mark's shoulder through the heavy covers of his bed, and Mark can hear the amusement and affection laced through his voice as he tells him to wake up. It's a miracle they ever make it to work on time.
A cloud of uncertainty follows Mark throughout the day, wondering how a person is supposed to act after they've orgasmed from a foot massage and walked off without acknowledging it. It's annoying, because generally speaking Mark never cares about how anyone is 'supposed' to act. He does it. There's no point in worrying about stamping on someone's feelings.
Only, here he is. Worrying.
It's annoying. He can see why he doesn't usually do it.
He keeps glancing at Wardo, trying to gauge whether or not he's angry, until Wardo finally looks up and catches his eye in the middle of the office. "It's okay," Wardo assures him. "I get it. I shouldn't have done that."
Mark frowns. He's a half step from telling Wardo to do it again, right there in the office, with kissing involved preferably, when he remembers all of the reasons why Chris would kill him for giving such an order.
"It's alright," he says. "Let's just forget about it."
It's a lot easier said than done, especially as he spends most of his afternoon staring at Eduardo's magic hands. His productivity takes a dip and he can hardly pay attention to what he's supposed to be doing.
When his phone rings and Sean invites him out for the night, it's actually a relief. A distraction.
Even knowing that the repercussions of nights out with Sean can be high (and, sometimes, can end up with him agreeing to take a vassal as a gift) he agrees readily. If there's ever been a time in which he needs to be extremely, stupidly drunk, this is it.
*
The bar they go to is exactly the kind of place that Sean loves: loud, crowded, expensive. There are girls there to hang on their every word, the kind of beautiful women that Mark knows wouldn't be anywhere near him if it wasn't for Facebook.
Eduardo hangs around near his elbow, but as Mark strains to hear Sean's words over the pounding of the music it's clear that he isn't paying attention. His gaze is scanning the dance floor, and he only pays attention to the people he came here with when he has to reach out and refill Mark's drink with a single touch of his finger, magic sparkling for a moment through the air.
Mark has a pleasant buzz and he's enjoying Sean's company by the point in the evening that Eduardo leans in close against his ear. The gentle brush of Wardo's breath against the shell of his ear forces Mark to grip onto his bottle unnaturally hard. His eyelids flicker.
"Do you need me for the rest of the night?" Wardo asks.
Mark glances towards him, his eyes squinting as he tries to work out why he's asking. "You want the night off?" he asks. He didn't even know that vassal could take nights off. National holidays, weekends? Maybe he's never going to understand all the rules. He gives a half-shrug. "Sure, go."
Eduardo pats his knee as his way of saying thanks, and it makes Mark's spine go instantly straight. Wardo leaves, but the warm spot that he's abandoned is quickly filled by one of Sean's girls. It's not as good, and not nearly as warm.
Across the table, he can see Sean smirking at him.
"Stop it," he instructs, pointing at him around his beer bottle. "Don't."
"I didn't say a word," Sean protests, although his smirk turns into a full-on grin. "I'm trying to work out how my gift's settling in, that's all."
"He's fine," Mark answers. Sean is looking at him like he expects far more of an answer than 'fine', and Mark doesn't know what he's supposed to give him. "He does my laundry, cooks for me, gets me to work on time. I don't have any complaints."
"If that was what he was for, I could have got you a housekeeper." Sean leans forward, bridging the gap between them. "Have you two, y'know, gone there yet?"
"I can't see that being any of your business," Mark says.
That is, of course, more than enough of an answer for Sean as it is.
He shakes his head, and Mark can see him laughing at him. It's not cruel, exactly; it's not meant that way. It's the laugh people give when he's not understanding something socially important. It happened a lot in high school. Once you're rich enough to own someone, they tend to stop laughing at you.
"That is messed up. What's the problem? Did you want a girl? I can get him replaced if you want."
"It's - what, no. Why would that even be an option?" Sometimes, Mark thinks that someone like him was never supposed to end up in the side of the world he's in. He doesn't think like a millionaire; he doesn't act like one. Most of the people he's met that act like millionaires are idiots (most people he's met period, actually), and he doesn't want to be counted among them. "I'm not going to take advantage of someone I own."
"That's what he's there for," Sean says. "Seriously. They like it. You think we'd be allowed to keep them if it was slavery?"
Mark's response is cut off when a ripple of heat waves through the entire bar. A murmur follows it as people ask each other what's going on, and Mark feels a sudden wave of light-headedness. Across the table, Sean raises his eyebrows at him.
"Looks like trouble," he says.
They stand up and follow the crowd, nudging their way through to try to get a look. Mark glares at the back of people's head, and curses his lack of heat-vision. "What's going on?" he asks a stranger.
"Paranormals," she says. "They're, like, mating."
"Shit." It seems like the only appropriate response. With a little more liberal use of his elbows, he manages to get close enough to see what's going on.
It's a little less extreme than 'mating'. At least they're still wearing their clothes.
Wardo is wrapped around a short, Asian woman, his head bowed down as if he's murmuring into her ear. There's a tingly, orgasmic feeling pulsing out of the pair of them, as they move offbeat as if they've forgotten where they are. Mark can feel it like a caress over his body, and the reactions from the rest of the crowd say that they can feel it too. Everyone in the club is affected.
Mark's eyes are instantly drawn down to where the stranger is palming Wardo's ass. A possessive flare rushes through his chest.
Sean appears at his side and nudges him. "Dude, is she drinking from him?" he asks - and it's only then that Mark realises that Wardo isn't whispering at all. He's leaning down so that the woman can reach his neck. While one of her hands might be man-handling his ass, the other rests on the back of his neck, holding him in place while -
Yeah.
While she drinks from him. Drinks his blood. Vampire.
Appreciating that physically intervening with a pair of beings who both had the ability to squish him flat wouldn't end well, Mark goes for the next best option: he says Eduardo's name.
Not loud. Not shouting. Just Wardo's name, followed by an instruction. "Get over here." He allows his voice to go flat, allows his mind to fall into the steadiness he needs when making decisions. It's like coding. It's best to detach completely. It takes Eduardo a moment to pull back from the girl, longer than it should. His eyes are unfocused, but he makes his way towards Mark.
"Mark?" he says. Just being close to him right now is almost too much. It feels like Eduardo's hands are all over his skin, and Mark knows that if he isn't careful he's going to end up staining his pants again. "You said I had the night off?"
"I'm changing my mind. Go outside. Get us a cab. We're going home."
Eduardo stares at him, and for a moment Mark thinks that he's actually going to refuse. He can see the droplets of blood beading on Wardo's neck from the messy wound, and knows that they'll have to tend to it, but that can wait until they're out of this place and away from dozens of pairs of staring eyes.
It takes a moment of staring him down, but Wardo breaks, lowering his head and nodding before he heads for the exit - but not without looking back to offer a wave to the vampire that he leaves behind. Mark takes a breath from his nose, because he's seeing red. It's like a month of restrained emotions are trying to hit him at once. It's a struggle to maintain his calm façade.
"Do you need a hand?" Sean asks. The teasing smile has gone, replaced with genuine concern and a willingness to help, but Mark shakes his head anyway.
It's his mess; he'll clear it up.
First, he needs to work out where the hell to start.
iii.
Wardo tends to his wound himself while he's waiting for Mark to come and join him in the cab. The advantage to being part-fairy is never being without the small things you need: whether that is cotton wool, gauze pads or the exact right moment to hail a cab. The universe can always be tipped in the right direction.
Without Christy right there, his neck hurts like hell. When a vampire is around, it can cloud the senses. The bite doesn't feel as sharp. In her absence, however, he's beginning to wonder how he got into this mess again.
The door on the other side of the cab opens and Mark climbs in. Giving the address to the driver, Mark then sits back and looks out of the window.
The disapproval that fills the backseat is enough to make Eduardo twitch in uncomfortable misery. He's not used to being in trouble.
"Mark," he says, leaning across the gap between them. "I'm sorry, okay. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I wasn't thinking clearly." He'd hardly been thinking at all.
Mark looks towards him, and not for the first time Eduardo wishes that he had the ability to dip into his mind and see what he's thinking.
"How's your neck?" Mark asks. "Do you need to see a doctor?"
Eduardo raises his hand to the covered wound, and shakes his head. "I'll be fine. It'll heal."
Mark nods, and returns his gaze to the window without further comment.
"Mark, really. I'm sorry."
"We'll talk about it when we get home," Mark states.
There's no arguing with the tone of his voice. Wardo feels like a scolded dog, and closes his mouth with difficulty. It's his own fault, he reminds himself. The last few weeks with Mark have been enough to cause him to grow lax with his standard of behaviour. It's frustrating, belonging to someone that doesn't want to be a master. In Wardo's experience, people have tended to get over their hang-ups after a day or two.
Yet Mark is different, and that is why Wardo likes being here with him. It's also, unfortunately, why he finds him endlessly frustrating.
He follows Mark's lead and stares sullenly out of the window until they reach the apartment. Trailing inside after Mark, Eduardo doesn't know what to expect. That's the problem. Around Mark he never knows what to expect.
The apartment feels quiet in a way that makes his skin tingle with expectation. "Mark," he starts.
"I'll talk first," Mark says. Eduardo quiets himself immediately. "What you did tonight was incredibly stupid. If someone had linked you to Facebook, it would have reflected on us."
"You're making this about your company?" Eduardo asks. "Seriously?"
Mark blinks at him, lizard-like and cold. "Everything is about the company," he answers.
Eduardo thinks that maybe that's where they've been going wrong the entire time. He's supposed to be here to make Mark's life easier - but Mark doesn't have a life. He has a computer and a website and that's just about it. Eduardo can cook and clean around him, but in reality there's no need for him, no space for him to fit into.
"I'm not. Me, I'm nothing to do with your company. Does that even make sense to you?"
"I am the company. You were given to me. Therefore, you belong to the company. It's simple."
"It's stupid. I don't serve Facebook, Mark. I'm here for you. I'm supposed to be here for you."
Mark is giving him that face again, the blank one that Eduardo can't make any sense of. After over a hundred years of dealing with humankind, he still can't make sense of any of this.
"You're shouting at me," Mark states after an over-long moment.
Eduardo, once again, is filled with the desire to throw things at him. "I'm not shouting at you," he shouts.
"Why am I the one getting shouted at here? You're the one that screwed up."
"What did I do that was so wrong?" Eduardo answers. "C'mon, enlighten me. You gave me the night off. I was free to do whatever I liked. So what's the problem?"
Mark's jaw tightens and releases, just once, but it's enough. Eduardo steps forward, feeling stupidly brave and disobedient. He can remember how it had felt last night to have his hands on him, to make him feel good, and he knows that he could do so much better. He could make him feel so much more, if only Mark would let him.
"Were you jealous?" he asks - and he knows that there is something unfair about the smile on his face, something bordering on mean, but he's earned it. For months now he has been pushed away and told that he couldn't do what he wanted, what he was made for. He's been plunged into the dark and now he has proof that it's all been for nothing. "That's it, isn't it? You were jealous of Christy."
Mark stares at him steadily, and Eduardo refuses to let himself crumble until the analysis of his cold eyes. "You knew her already," Mark concludes.
"She's an ex-girlfriend," Wardo says. It's more complicated than that - with vampires, it always is - but for now it'll do.
There's something in the way that Mark's nostrils flare as he breathes in through his nose, forcing himself to stay calm, that makes Eduardo want to grab him and shake him. Only decades of trained propriety still his hands.
"You shouldn't have let her touch you," Mark says. He looks away, so that he isn't meeting Eduardo's eyes any more. His hand rises as if he's making a point, but the gesture is too vague to make sense of. "If you're supposed to be mine, then she shouldn't have been able to grab you like that. People don't just touch other people's property. It's - it's rude."
"I'm not your property," Eduardo corrects irritably. "I work for you, I serve you, and you own me. But I'm not a house or a car. She can touch me all I want her to, especially if you're not up to it."
Mark's dead eyes stare at him for far too long. Under their intensity, Eduardo can feel every inch of his skin prickling under observation. He feels like a puzzle that's being solved.
"You're trying to provoke me," Mark says. "Why?"
"Why the hell not?" Eduardo says out of desperation. Now is about the time that he ought to retreat to his room, maybe slamming the doors out of irritation, but he can't keep his mouth shut. He doesn't even want to, because he's been putting up with Mark and his shit for months. "Nothing else works. I'm doing my best, Mark, and I am good at my job. Trust me, I'm good at it. But with you - it's like I'm not even here. Do you even notice me?"
"Of course I notice you. You're right there."
Eduardo makes a sound not unlike a growl. "You honestly must try in order to be this obtuse."
"You're mad at me because I don't take advantage of you. It's confusing, so - yes - I'm obtuse about it. Would it be better if I forced you to have sex with me every night?"
"Yes! I'm a succubus, Mark. There wouldn't be much force involved."
"We're stuck in a power dynamic that makes it very difficult for anything to happen here without it reflecting on me. I'm trying not to be an asshole here."
"You're failing." Eduardo crosses his arms over his chest. "A lot."
Mark flops down onto the couch, as if Eduardo has managed to sap all of the energy out of him. He's done that to men a lot in the past, but not usually by arguing with them. He stays on his feet and looks down at Mark, fighting against the natural instinct to give in and let him win. Sometimes, it's worth breaking the rules.
"Are you even thinking about this from my point of view?" Mark asks. "They say it can be addictive for humans."
"'They'?"
"Chris. The internet." Mark scowls. "I researched it."
"Well, I suppose that's a start." Eduardo steps forward and perches on the arm of the couch. "You could have just asked me."
"I have issues with social interaction, even of the regular kind," Mark says. "Asking my newly gifted sex-slave if I was going to get addicted to fucking him wasn't a situation I knew how to tackle."
Eduardo nudges Mark's foot with his own, not quite a kick. "I'm not a sex slave. If you're going to be dismissive, at least use the right term."
"Alright. Vassal." Mark props himself up on his elbows. "So here I am. Asking. How does it work with you?"
"You won't get sick. I won't steal your life force. I'm not in league with the devil. And I won't make you get pregnant." Eduardo frowns as he tries to remember if there are any other significant myths that he should be debunking. That probably covers the bulk of them. "But the sex will be good. Very good. That's what people mean when they say it's addictive. It's not a supernatural addiction. It simply makes it difficult to want to do anything else."
Mark continues to stare at him in a way that Eduardo tells himself he doesn't find unnerving. Intense stare or not, this is still Mark. This is the man that he has had to drag out of bed every morning for the last month, grumbling and groaning all the way to the office. It should be impossible to be intimidated by someone once you've watched them fall asleep, drooling, on their laptop keyboard.
"Trust me," he says. "I can blow your mind."
"You're quite arrogant about this," Mark says.
And that makes Eduardo light up with a sudden spark of instant amusement, because for Mark to accuse anyone of being arrogant it must be bad. Mark set the worldwide standard for arrogance, after all.
"I'm not being arrogant. I'm being truthful. You deserve to have all the facts." Eduardo can't fight the soft spot that he feels when he looks at Mark, and he knows that it shows on his face. It stops him from being objective or smart about his behaviour. It even makes him forget the pain of the bite mark on his neck. Looking at Mark, sprawled, comfortable and questioning, it's enough to make the wider world fade away. "I'm not saying that you have to make a decision tonight. But, if you're not interested in me like that, I'd like to know."
Mark nods, and sits up on the couch. There's a moment, tense and sweet, when Eduardo can imagine how the evening might end, with Mark's lips gentle and awkward against his mouth and Mark's hands quick and eager as they pull away his clothes.
But the moment breaks.
Nothing happens.
Mark swings his legs around so that he can stand up, reaching for his laptop already. "I'll get back to you on that," Mark says, and it's as close to a dismissal that Eduardo is going to get.
He closes his eyes and tilts his head back as Mark retreats to his bedroom. Shit. Shit. For a while there, he'd really thought that tonight might be the night that the tension broke.
Stupid, so stupid.
He wonders if he's ever going to learn not to expect too much from Mark. With the yearning that aches in the centre of his chest, he doubts if he's ever going to learn that lesson.
*
The newspapers the next day carry a few small pieces about supernaturals gone rogue; a wild succubus reeking havoc in a popular club. It's mostly used as an inroad to debate the morality and dangers of the new celebrity trend for vassals, and Eduardo flicks past it with only a cursory glance. There's nothing in there to link him to Mark or to Facebook; they're fine. He'll have to be more careful in the future, but there's no major harm done.
On the other hand, the way that Mark keeps looking at him (or determinedly not looking at him) isn't exactly good news either.
Eduardo keeps his head and carries on with work, but he can't stop looking at Mark every few seconds. It's a slightly increased rate from usual. His eyes have always automatically sought him out, but this is more intense than he's used to.
It's the first Monday of the month, which means that they have a general meeting: all of the most important people to the running of the company crammed into a room together. Even ceiling-to-floor windows and white walls can't make this anything other than old fashioned, and Mark doesn't bother to hide how bored he is with it all.
Eduardo makes up for it by taking copious notes, staying focused even when Dustin leans over to whisper to him, teasing him about being such a swot. With a smile, Eduardo flicks him away, but as usual it has absolutely no effect. Dustin leans in again, and invades Eduardo's personal space in order to draw obscene doodles in the margins of his notepad.
It's a long way from 'professional', but that's what Eduardo has learned to expect from this place. It seems to work for them.
He still won't stop wearing a suit to work, however. It's only right.
He hides a laugh behind his hand when Dustin adds a ridiculously large appendage to his drawing of a unicorn. To his left, he's acutely aware of Mark glaring at them. If they're being unprofessional enough to annoy Mark, things are certainly getting out of hand.
When Dustin reaches out to deface even more of his notes, Eduardo reaches down and taps the back of his hand. A little nudge of power, just a zap and nothing more, shoots from his finger to Dustin's hand. He pulls back instantly, eyebrows raised in over-the-top surprise.
"Kinky!" Dustin mouths at him, and then Eduardo is giggling, and Mark is glaring, and the person giving the current presentation stops and stares at him, and even disguising it as a coughing fit doesn't seem to work.
Dustin, meanwhile, seems able to keep a completely straight face.
Bastard.
*
Following the meeting, Mark asks to speak to him in his office. Eduardo's heart sinks as he walks this way, because this doesn't sound like it's going to end well. Mark's voice is flat and stern, and he feels as if he's walking into a lecture.
As it turns out, he's no sooner walked in and closed the door behind himself then he finds himself pressed back against it, Mark's hands on his chest as he kisses him with studied thoroughness.
Mark's lips are thin and relatively inexperienced, but they glide in determination as if they know exactly what they want from Eduardo. Eduardo gives a satisfied, embarrassing groan, even while he's aware that he's the one that ought to be able to hold it together here. He's just waited so long.
Mark pulls back with a violent jerk, but his hands keep Eduardo trapped against the door. Eduardo's hardly struggling.
"I thought I made it clear last night," Mark says. "I don't - I don't want anyone touching you. They don't have the right."
Eduardo frowns and tries to piece everything together, but then Mark is kissing him again. Arguing seems pointless. There's something desperately violent about the way that Mark moves against him, as if he has a point to prove. Eduardo's hands come to rest on Mark's sides, hoping to soothe him into a calmer mood, but it seems to have the opposite effect.
Mark pulls back and stares at him for a moment, his eyes piercing and dark. "Close the blinds," he instructs, without letting Eduardo go. Eduardo swallows, but reaches inside for the spark of magic to make it possible. The blinds whistle shut, and the room fills with shadows. "Lock the door." Without a key, the lock clunks shut.
Mark finally nods and takes a step backwards, giving Eduardo enough room to move if he wants to. He gestures towards the desk, twitchy and uncertain in his movements again. "Over there. I want you - " For a moment, that statement seems to be enough to block him. He points at the desk again. "I want you there. Over the desk."
With an acceding nod and a gracious smile, Eduardo heads forward. He slips off his suit jacket and begins to undo the buttons of his shirt, before Mark shakes his head and reaches out to stop him. Eduardo doesn't ask why; he's good at following orders.
"Bent over or on my back?" he asks, purposefully blunt, just to see the way that Mark reacts, swallowing hard.
There's a businesslike air to the transaction, as if this is part of a contract that Mark needs to sign. Eduardo's had a lot of sex in his time, from urgent and violent to tender and loving. Businesslike, that's a new one.
Mark gets him to bend over his desk after pushing important files and papers out of the way. He steps close and his hand rests against the back of Eduardo's head, pressing him down until his cheek touches the wood.
Eduardo wets his lips as Mark pulls his trousers and underwear down, exposing his ass to the air. There's a long pause, and Eduardo twists in order to see what Mark is doing: staring down at him with his lips parted. He's Mark, so there's little open glee on his face, but Eduardo knows him well enough to see his delight.
Mark pulls himself out of his thoughts and starts to push his sweatpants down, but his expression stays intense. "I don't know what I'm really doing here," he admits. "I've watched some stuff online, but… Well. I don't know how accurate it is."
"I can steer you through it. Don't worry, I'm kind of an expert at this." Which is boastful and smug but also true. Succubus, hello.
The details don't seem to matter to Mark, because the reminder makes him give a small grunt of displeasure. Eduardo closes his eyes for a moment, reminds himself how to be tactful and that humans aren't big fans of sharing, and then opens them again.
"If we were doing this the other way around we'd have to be more careful, but since it's me we'll be fine," Eduardo says. He doesn't want Mark to end up hurting himself - some other time, some other place, some other person. It doesn't bear thinking about, any of it.
He talks him through it as quickly as he can, sensing Mark's frustrated impatience as surely as he can feel the tip of his cock smearing precome against his ass. With nothing more than spit and a quick stretch, Eduardo feels ready, bracing himself against the desk.
"Are you sure?" Mark asks. "I don't want to hurt you."
Smiling, Eduardo can't help but feel reassured. Under Mark's brisk attitude, there's still something there. "Trust me - I know my limits," he says.
Confidence or not, it still steals his breath when Mark takes him at his word and lines himself up against his entrance, the blunt head of his cock nudging its way inside. With the harsh light of the office shining down on him, Eduardo breathes through his open mouth as Mark gradually eases into him. The long stretch is welcome, his body accepting it readily. It feels like he's been waiting forever.
Mark pushes in until his balls are flush with Eduardo's ass, as deep as he can get. Leaning over him, chest pressed to back, Mark pants against the nape of Eduardo's neck. It sounds like he's already coming apart, just from this.
"Wardo," Mark groans. "Fuck, I…"
He trails off into a mindless groan, so Eduardo tightens his muscles around him to make him really lose his train of thought. It works, as Mark swears again, his blunt fingernails digging into the flesh of Eduardo's hips.
It seems to be all the encouragement that Mark needs to draw out and begin a steady thrust, the pair of them shaking Mark's desk with the force of it. Gentle at first, slow, it doesn't take long before Mark dissolves into fucking him as hard and raw as he can.
It hooks into that power at the centre of Eduardo's being and sends it spilling out through the room and beyond, primal energy that tingled over the skin and sent sparks through the groin. Mark slams him hard against the edge of the desk with renewed strength and Eduardo moans, half-pleasure half-pain, as he feels the bruises ready to form.
Through the building, strangers are locking lips and clothes are being shed. Eduardo needs to pull himself together. He's too old and too powerful to risk losing control like this, but then Mark slides across his prostate and all surviving rational thought shatters into pieces. He wants him too badly.
A rational part of his mind might realise that this is nothing special: in his lifetime, he has been with people a lot more experienced and inventive than Mark. His body doesn't care. Everything feels bright and new, as if he'd never known what he was for before Mark touched him.
God, that sounds sappy. He hopes he didn't say it aloud.
He isn't capable of forming any words at all right now, his mouth open and moaning. He sounds like a goddamn whore, but it makes Mark fuck him just a little bit faster, little bit harder. Worth it.
He closes his eyes as he comes long before Mark, losing control and spilling over Mark's messy desk. Mark takes him through it, piercing through the haze and drawing it out, grunting on each thrust with effort.
He finally holds Eduardo firmly against the desk and goes still as he orgasms with a strangled groan, pressing as deeply inside as he can get. Eduardo can feel him like an ache all throughout his body.
When Mark pulls out, Eduardo feels it like a physical loss, as though someone has punched him in his stomach and stolen something from him. His legs are shaking and he's depending on the desk to hold him up; he decides to stay where he is for a moment or two, for the sake of his dignity.
Mark quickly pulls himself together, barely out of breath for his trouble, as he walks around the desk to sit at his chair. His face is flushed and stained with sweat, and he looks positively pleased with himself, like an arrogant cat, as he stares at the wreck he's made of Eduardo.
"Are you okay?" Mark asks.
Gingerly, Eduardo nods and stands up, pulling his underwear and trousers back up. He gathers his thoughts together before managing to smile. "Yeah," he says, followed by a half-laugh that leaves him surprised. "I've been waiting for you to do that for a long time."
Heavy knocking at the door causes Eduardo to abruptly open the blinds and undo the lock, leaning against the desk as the door opens. He hopes that he looks half-way composed, but he knows that it must be perfectly clear to anyone not in need of thick glasses what they've just been up to.
Chris and Dustin burst into the office.
Dustin is wearing nothing but his boxers and his tie. Chris has the look of a man who has hastily pulled his clothes back on. Eduardo can already tell that this isn't going to end well.
"I am in so much trouble," he murmurs to himself - thinking not of Mark, not of Facebook, not even of the wider media. His superiors, the higher-ups, The Father. They won't stand for this level of irresponsibility.
"Guys?" Chris snaps. "How am I supposed to explain an orgy in the middle of our offices?"
"We're an alternative workplace," Mark suggests. It sounds less like a suggestion and more like a decree. "No shirts, no suits."
"No clothes?" Chris asks.
"I'm sorry," Eduardo says. "It was my fault. I lost control."
"I kind of guessed that," Chris snaps abruptly. He presses his fingers against his temples, lines forming on his forehead in concentration. "The entire building just started ripping off each other's clothes. We're going to have hundreds of sexual harassment suits on our hands, and that's if we're lucky. You could end up in jail for this, Wardo."
"No," Mark states categorically. "We won't let that happen."
"Mark, there are people out there who just had sex with their co-workers against their will. That's very much not-good."
Eduardo looks out of the blinds to the rest of the open-space office, where he can see people milling around in confusion. He wants to help in any way that he can, because he's the one that screwed up here. Not Mark.
"Go, do whatever damage control is needed," Mark says. "Keep the site and Eduardo out of trouble."
In the midst of his worry, it is still almost enough to make Eduardo smile to hear himself listed alongside Facebook on Mark's list of priorities. Chris and Dustin leave, and Dustin doesn't even have a smile or a thumbs-up for them on the way out. That means they've definitely done something wrong.
Mark gets up from his seat and heads towards the door as well. "Let's go home," he says. "We're not going to get any work done here anyway."
Scared glances follow them through the building as they leave, and Eduardo tries to pretend that he doesn't notice any of it. From the way that Mark carries himself, no different from normal, maybe he genuinely doesn't notice a single thing. Nothing seems to affect him.
At times like this, with the wrath of both human and supernatural law approaching, Eduardo wishes that he had that exact ability too.
Part Two
Pairing: Eduardo/Mark (mentions of assorted others)
Word Count: 8,840
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Implied dub-con.
A/N: Written for an au_bingo prompt. Sometimes my brain confuses me. While incubus is traditionally used to refer to a male sex-demon, I use succubus throughout the fic. WIP.
Summary: When Sean gave Mark a supernatural sex slave, Mark thought that was going to be the strangest part of his month. He never thought he'd end up in court arguing for his ownership rights.
i.
When Mark walks into his office in the morning looking like a man who has spent his life drinking, Chris knows that it's going to be a difficult week. He wheels his chair back from his desk but carries on holding onto the edge: something tells him he's going to need some support for this revelation.
"What happened?" he asks.
What he means is, 'what do I have to clear up now?', but that really isn't the best way to talk to your boss.
"Sean," Mark says. He tumbles into the chair opposite Chris's desk, sprawling onto it like he's been shot. "He got me a gift."
This story really isn't going to end well, is it? Chris crosses his arms over his chest when Mark doesn't seem too willing to continue. "What is it?"
"He," Mark clarifies. "Not an 'it', a 'he'."
"A dog? A puppy?" Chris guesses. It doesn't feel right. Although, Mark is exactly the kind of person that could be irritated by the presence of puppies.
"A person." Mark frowns. "Well, sort of. He said they're called vassals. They're not human. They look it, but they're not. I don't know - Sean said everyone has one these days."
Chris stares at Mark's blank face, purposefully zoning out so that he doesn't have to throw anything. He breathes, very calmly, in and out. "Tell me you've set him free," he says. He's heard about it (there was even an article in the New York Times last month about the trend) but that doesn't mean he has to support it or see it as even halfway ethical. "You cannot keep a person as a pet, Mark!"
"He's not a person," Mark says, before he frowns in confusion. "Or, he's not human. Maybe that means the same thing. The point is I can't 'let him go'."
Chris pinches the bridge of his nose, and peeks at Mark from over his hand. "Do I want to know why, exactly?"
"We bonded." Mark pauses, but continues speaking before Chris can start to lecture him about the rights of non-human entities. "Not sexually. I let him drink some of my blood to seal the deal. I was drunk. Sean said it would be a good idea."
"As a general lesson, if Sean thinks that something would be a good idea, don't do it," Chris says, even if on the whole that isn't true. "What kind of creature is he, exactly? Your - vassal?"
"He's a mixed breed. Vampire and succubus, I think, or maybe fairy and succubus. It's hard to tell. He looks really human."
Chris tries to remind himself once again that going to punch Sean really wouldn't be a good idea right now. "You haven't had sex with him, right?" he double-checks.
Mark shakes his head. "I'm not stupid."
"You are an asshole, though," Chris reminds him. "Just make sure you don't touch him too much. They say that's, uh, addictive." God, he doesn't want to be having conversations with Mark about the addictive qualities of supernatural sex. He hates his job, sometimes.
Mark promises that he has no intention of sticking his dick anywhere near his new ward. Chris is left with the intense desire to delete Mark's last sentence from his brain.
"Then I'll look into it," Chris says. "There must be a way of breaking the bond so that he can go free."
"That's not actually why I came to see you. I'm looking into that myself."
Chris's eyes narrow. "What?"
"I have work to do. Coding." Mark glances over his shoulder towards the door. "And I couldn't leave Wardo at home, so…"
He opens the door and hustles out before Chris can get out of the chair to stop him. In his place is an orderly-looking man, around his own age in appearance, dressed in a suit far neater than anything that this office has ever seen.
He watches Mark go with a sense of amusement. "Is he always like this?" Wardo asks.
Half-standing, half-sitting, Chris tries to pull his thoughts together. "Like what?"
"Presumptive. Rude." Wardo looks away from the door towards Chris, with a smile on his face that looks far too happy. His eyes are like warm almonds. Something about them gives away that he isn't quite human, but Chris can't put his finger on it. "Sexy as hell."
Chris snorts so hard it hurts the back of his throat. "Presumptive and rude, yes. I'll leave the 'sexy' part to your own judgement."
Wardo smiles, and it's more reassuring than it ought to be. "My name's Eduardo Saverin," he says, holding his hand out as he steps forward, closer to the desk.
As Chris shakes his hand and introduces himself, he thinks that Mark owes him a huge bonus come Christmas time.
*
Baby-sitting Eduardo is actually easy, especially since he's at least a hundred years away from being a 'baby' by any stretch of the definition. He makes himself useful around the office, and reads anything that he can get his hands on, but his eyes always drift in the direction of Mark's office as if drawn there inescapably.
"You don't have to do this, you know," Chris says as lightly as he can, once they've been working together in his office for a couple of hours. It's almost lunchtime, says the clock on the wall.
Reading his way through a monthly report, Eduardo's mouth twitches into a broad smile. He looks up, his large eyes filled with amusement. "Is this the part where you convince me to break the chains of servitude and rise up against the masters?"
"Well, I wasn't going to use those exact words." Chris swirls a pen around his fingers and studies the being on the other side of his desk. "I've never spent a lot of time around any supernaturals."
"Not many people have." Eduardo's smile never seems to falter. "It's okay. I know it's strange for humans."
"It's not okay." Chris wants to explain about civil rights and the Thirteenth Amendment, but he holds his tongue. For all he knows, Eduardo had been around to see it happening. "You don't have to do this."
"I know. I'm here because I want to be." Eduardo glances down at the report he's reading, but it seems mostly to be an excuse not to look at Chris. "My lineage has served the great men and women of history for centuries. I'm following in their footsteps."
"With Mark."
"He's changing the world; he's important." Eduardo shakes his head. "I don't expect you to understand. Being a vassal, it's more complex than you think. It's a two-way thing. I choose to serve him, but he has responsibilities too. He has to look after me."
"Mark couldn't look after a hamster."
"Thankfully I'm a little more self-sufficient than a rodent," Eduardo answers. There is still mirth shining in his eyes, and Chris can't escape the feeling that Eduardo is finding this entire conversation inherently hilarious. "Don't worry about it. If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be."
"You're bound to him," Chris says.
"By choice," Eduardo confirms. "I could have refused to drink."
Chris can feel his head pounding already. "So why didn't you?"
"Because I didn't want to."
"He's not going to sleep with you, you know," Chris says. Part-succubus: it must be what he's sticking around for. Sex. With Mark. God, he's twisted.
"Which is definitely disappointing, but that's okay. I'll find other ways to make myself useful." Eduardo gestures at the papers he's reading. "So I'm going to learn all about his business, all about his life, and then I'm going to work out exactly where I fit in. Okay?"
Chris just groans. He's starting to think that even Dustin would have been more suited to deal with this than him.
ii.
If Mark is going to keep Eduardo around (and, really, at this point he doesn't have a choice) he's going to have to get used to Chris side-eyeing him in disapproval. The problem, as far as Mark is concerned, is that Eduardo fits in easily. He gets on with his friends, he looks after him, and within a week Mark has already started to forget how he managed to survive before Sean's gift.
The other problem is that Eduardo is making it extremely hard to stick to the 'no sex' rule.
When Mark comes into the kitchen on Sunday morning to find Eduardo making breakfast in just his underwear, he has to stop in the doorway. He has to stop, because he has to stare. The radio is on, playing dreadful pop music, and Eduardo is half-humming and half-singing along. Mark's eyes are drawn inescapably down the curve of his back towards the waistband of his silk boxers. His skin holds a healthy glow, and Mark isn't sure if that's because of Eduardo's supernatural side or just a case of good living.
All he knows is that he's staring, and his mouth is dry, and that this really isn't appropriate.
Eduardo's body is slim and neat, and Mark can barely stand to look without touching. That's the point, he thinks.
He clears his throat, and Eduardo half-turns from the hob. His face lights up with a ridiculously large smile at the sight of Mark. "I'm making breakfast," he says. "You like eggs, right?"
"You aren't wearing any pants," Mark replies. He's finding it very difficult not to look at Eduardo's nipples, light brown against his chest. "You aren't wearing anything."
"I put my boxers on," Eduardo counters, still smiling, as if they aren't talking about the acceptable level of nudity in Mark's apartment. "And my socks, actually. I thought you wouldn't want me walking around naked."
"Do you sleep naked?" Mark asks, then shakes his head. "No, don't tell me that."
"I don't sleep," Eduardo reminds him.
Which means…
Nakedness. Pointless nakedness around his flat for unknown purposes. Mark can't respond to that.
He's still staring at the nipples.
"Take a seat," Eduardo says, gesturing towards the gleaming island. Mark's flat has become extraordinarily clean and tidy since Eduardo appeared. Every surface seems to sparkle like it belongs in a show home. Cautiously, he moves to hop onto one of the chairs. "I had to get the eggs myself. I'm not even sure what it is that's growing in your fridge, but it looks poisonous."
"How did you go and get eggs?" Mark asks. He looks down as Eduardo slides a full plate in front of him. His stomach grumbles in approval. "You said you couldn't leave without my permission. Those are the rules."
And they might not be good rules, or fair rules, but that's how it works, whatever this thing is. Permission is key. If Eduardo can just break the rules whenever he wants, they aren't rules at all. They're guidelines, and everyone always ignores guidelines.
"I didn't leave," Eduardo assures him. He sits down on the opposite side of the table and reaches for the newspaper. There's no food in front of him, but Mark is used to that. Eduardo doesn't seem to need to eat any more than he needs to sleep. "Fairy, remember?"
"Which means you can produce eggs?" Mark frowns, and decides that it might be best to avoid thinking about exactly how that happens. The eggs aren't sparkling. That probably means that they're safe to eat. He asks anyway, just to see Eduardo's grin. "Did you lay it?"
Stretching his hand out, Eduardo closes his palm. When he opens it again, like an expert slight of hand, there's a normal egg sitting there, waiting for Mark to take it. "I can use my powers if it's to serve my master," Eduardo explains.
Mark wrinkles his nose. "Don't call me that."
"What should I call you, then?"
There isn't really a good word for it at all, because it's not a good thing to be doing. It's the kind of situation that only Sean could get them into, and now it's Mark's job to deal with the consequences. Being given a vassal is considerably more complicated to clean up than drug use or sexual misbehaviour. It's a lot more fucking long term as well.
Also, cuter.
But Mark's not going to admit that to anyone.
"Just call me a friend," he decides eventually.
Eduardo smiles, in the way that makes his eyes crinkle at the sides. There's open glee in his expression when he smiles like that, and it makes Mark feel uncomfortable. Too much pressure. He's never been the sort of person that other people should rely on.
"Is that what I am?" Eduardo asks. "A friend?"
Mark shrugs with one shoulder and decides that maybe he ought to just shut up and eat his eggs. "I hardly know you. Ask me in another couple of weeks," he says when Eduardo's bright eyes demand an answer.
It's nothing definite, but the happy way that Eduardo settles into reading his paper makes Mark feel like maybe he's said something right for once in his life.
*
He has more energy these days, thanks to eating well and sleeping properly. He looks better; people have told him as much, but he can see it himself in the mirror. Because of Eduardo, he no longer looks like a ghost accidentally stuck on earth. An untidy, badly dressed ghost.
His flat is barely recognisable, and it never takes more than five seconds to find something he's lost.
Wardo seems happy enough, and Mark gives him a steady supply of books and work to keep him occupied. He's actually kind of cool to have around, as much as Mark likes having anyone around him.
A week turns into a month turns into two months, and before Mark knows what is happening he has a vassal implanted so deeply into his life that he wouldn't know how to function without him. "So how does this work?" he asks when they make it home from work especially late one night.
Wardo closes the door behind them and unbuttons his coat. "How does what work?" he asks.
"This. You being here." He frowns and walks further into the flat, turning lights on as he goes. "How long does it last?"
"Still trying to get rid of me?" Wardo asks. It doesn't come out quite as light as he probably means it to.
"No. If I was getting rid of you I'd go ahead and say so," Mark says. He doesn't mention that Chris is still looking into how to break the bond; it's a principle for him now. "I want to work out how this all works. You don't stay forever - you won't be here when I'm eighty, pushing my wheelchair for me. So how does it work?"
"I'm here for as long as I'm needed," Wardo says, which is really needlessly vague.
Mark plops down on his couch and reaches automatically for his laptop. His brow furrows in concentration and he uses it as a way not to pay attention to the creature in his house, the non-human that had carved a space for himself with no real permission at all.
When he next breaks away from his code and looks around, Wardo is sitting on the other end of the couch. He has a book open in front of him and his face is faraway and distant, like he's been transported away. Mark would shuffle to get a look at the cover, but he doesn't want to risk disturbing. It's not often that he gets the chance to observe Wardo without being noticed.
And, yes, it's totally something worth doing. He can't allow himself to do it very often, because when there is an openly willing and available incubus living under your roof the need to exercise self-control is heightened. But Wardo is -
He's amazing.
Mark can admit that to himself even if he's not going to say it aloud. He stretches out on the couch, inch by careful inch, until he's lying down with his toes nudging the edge of Wardo's thighs. Wardo looks away from his book, his eyebrows raised with a polite question, but it only takes him a second before he raises his book out of his lap and allows Mark to slide his feet there instead.
Wardo's hand settles onto his feet, holding the book with one hand now and holding it open with his thumb. In an absent-minded way he rubs at Mark's foot as Mark works on his coding. It's just a tiny little movement of his thumb along the centre of Mark's foot, but it feels a thousand time better than anything he'd ever done with Erica. Anything. Literally.
It's when Mark starts to moan in an embarrassingly needy way that Wardo puts his book to the side and really focuses.
It's magic. Actual, literal magic, which Mark in a logical way knows makes sense. Wardo is supernatural. Only, right now, with his feet feeling the effects of said magic, Mark isn't so much thinking of the logical side of thinking as he's thinking of the holy hell I'm about to come from a foot massage side of things.
Which is definitely the more embarrassing side.
He loses track of his laptop within a few seconds, and he has to look up the ceiling because the way that Eduardo is watching him is far too much to take, too intense, too real. He's hard in his pants within seconds, his hips half-thrusting into the air, while even the tiniest movements from Eduardo's fingers are enough to make his entire body melt and spasm in perfection.
In under a minute, he comes inside his pants with a strangled grunt, without Eduardo once having taken his hands off of his feet. Mark stains the front of his sweatpants, a wet patch spreading fast, while his fingernails are digging into his palms. His face is bright red.
Panting for air, he finally moves his gaze from the ceiling to look back towards Wardo. Wardo's eyes are dark and his lips are slightly parted. He's watching Mark like he's something worth watching: like he's special or important or something. It makes Mark's face flush even more, his cheeks heating up, before he puts his laptop to the side and starts to get to his feet.
He's supposed to speak now. Wardo is waiting for him to say something, he can feel it, but nothing will come up. Walking to his bedroom, he hears Wardo tell him to leave his clothes outside the door for him to wash. He pretends he doesn't hear.
If he slams his bedroom door, he tells himself it's an accident.
He's too old for tantrums.
*
The next morning, Wardo comes into his room to make sure that he gets up on time, as usual. He shakes Mark's shoulder through the heavy covers of his bed, and Mark can hear the amusement and affection laced through his voice as he tells him to wake up. It's a miracle they ever make it to work on time.
A cloud of uncertainty follows Mark throughout the day, wondering how a person is supposed to act after they've orgasmed from a foot massage and walked off without acknowledging it. It's annoying, because generally speaking Mark never cares about how anyone is 'supposed' to act. He does it. There's no point in worrying about stamping on someone's feelings.
Only, here he is. Worrying.
It's annoying. He can see why he doesn't usually do it.
He keeps glancing at Wardo, trying to gauge whether or not he's angry, until Wardo finally looks up and catches his eye in the middle of the office. "It's okay," Wardo assures him. "I get it. I shouldn't have done that."
Mark frowns. He's a half step from telling Wardo to do it again, right there in the office, with kissing involved preferably, when he remembers all of the reasons why Chris would kill him for giving such an order.
"It's alright," he says. "Let's just forget about it."
It's a lot easier said than done, especially as he spends most of his afternoon staring at Eduardo's magic hands. His productivity takes a dip and he can hardly pay attention to what he's supposed to be doing.
When his phone rings and Sean invites him out for the night, it's actually a relief. A distraction.
Even knowing that the repercussions of nights out with Sean can be high (and, sometimes, can end up with him agreeing to take a vassal as a gift) he agrees readily. If there's ever been a time in which he needs to be extremely, stupidly drunk, this is it.
*
The bar they go to is exactly the kind of place that Sean loves: loud, crowded, expensive. There are girls there to hang on their every word, the kind of beautiful women that Mark knows wouldn't be anywhere near him if it wasn't for Facebook.
Eduardo hangs around near his elbow, but as Mark strains to hear Sean's words over the pounding of the music it's clear that he isn't paying attention. His gaze is scanning the dance floor, and he only pays attention to the people he came here with when he has to reach out and refill Mark's drink with a single touch of his finger, magic sparkling for a moment through the air.
Mark has a pleasant buzz and he's enjoying Sean's company by the point in the evening that Eduardo leans in close against his ear. The gentle brush of Wardo's breath against the shell of his ear forces Mark to grip onto his bottle unnaturally hard. His eyelids flicker.
"Do you need me for the rest of the night?" Wardo asks.
Mark glances towards him, his eyes squinting as he tries to work out why he's asking. "You want the night off?" he asks. He didn't even know that vassal could take nights off. National holidays, weekends? Maybe he's never going to understand all the rules. He gives a half-shrug. "Sure, go."
Eduardo pats his knee as his way of saying thanks, and it makes Mark's spine go instantly straight. Wardo leaves, but the warm spot that he's abandoned is quickly filled by one of Sean's girls. It's not as good, and not nearly as warm.
Across the table, he can see Sean smirking at him.
"Stop it," he instructs, pointing at him around his beer bottle. "Don't."
"I didn't say a word," Sean protests, although his smirk turns into a full-on grin. "I'm trying to work out how my gift's settling in, that's all."
"He's fine," Mark answers. Sean is looking at him like he expects far more of an answer than 'fine', and Mark doesn't know what he's supposed to give him. "He does my laundry, cooks for me, gets me to work on time. I don't have any complaints."
"If that was what he was for, I could have got you a housekeeper." Sean leans forward, bridging the gap between them. "Have you two, y'know, gone there yet?"
"I can't see that being any of your business," Mark says.
That is, of course, more than enough of an answer for Sean as it is.
He shakes his head, and Mark can see him laughing at him. It's not cruel, exactly; it's not meant that way. It's the laugh people give when he's not understanding something socially important. It happened a lot in high school. Once you're rich enough to own someone, they tend to stop laughing at you.
"That is messed up. What's the problem? Did you want a girl? I can get him replaced if you want."
"It's - what, no. Why would that even be an option?" Sometimes, Mark thinks that someone like him was never supposed to end up in the side of the world he's in. He doesn't think like a millionaire; he doesn't act like one. Most of the people he's met that act like millionaires are idiots (most people he's met period, actually), and he doesn't want to be counted among them. "I'm not going to take advantage of someone I own."
"That's what he's there for," Sean says. "Seriously. They like it. You think we'd be allowed to keep them if it was slavery?"
Mark's response is cut off when a ripple of heat waves through the entire bar. A murmur follows it as people ask each other what's going on, and Mark feels a sudden wave of light-headedness. Across the table, Sean raises his eyebrows at him.
"Looks like trouble," he says.
They stand up and follow the crowd, nudging their way through to try to get a look. Mark glares at the back of people's head, and curses his lack of heat-vision. "What's going on?" he asks a stranger.
"Paranormals," she says. "They're, like, mating."
"Shit." It seems like the only appropriate response. With a little more liberal use of his elbows, he manages to get close enough to see what's going on.
It's a little less extreme than 'mating'. At least they're still wearing their clothes.
Wardo is wrapped around a short, Asian woman, his head bowed down as if he's murmuring into her ear. There's a tingly, orgasmic feeling pulsing out of the pair of them, as they move offbeat as if they've forgotten where they are. Mark can feel it like a caress over his body, and the reactions from the rest of the crowd say that they can feel it too. Everyone in the club is affected.
Mark's eyes are instantly drawn down to where the stranger is palming Wardo's ass. A possessive flare rushes through his chest.
Sean appears at his side and nudges him. "Dude, is she drinking from him?" he asks - and it's only then that Mark realises that Wardo isn't whispering at all. He's leaning down so that the woman can reach his neck. While one of her hands might be man-handling his ass, the other rests on the back of his neck, holding him in place while -
Yeah.
While she drinks from him. Drinks his blood. Vampire.
Appreciating that physically intervening with a pair of beings who both had the ability to squish him flat wouldn't end well, Mark goes for the next best option: he says Eduardo's name.
Not loud. Not shouting. Just Wardo's name, followed by an instruction. "Get over here." He allows his voice to go flat, allows his mind to fall into the steadiness he needs when making decisions. It's like coding. It's best to detach completely. It takes Eduardo a moment to pull back from the girl, longer than it should. His eyes are unfocused, but he makes his way towards Mark.
"Mark?" he says. Just being close to him right now is almost too much. It feels like Eduardo's hands are all over his skin, and Mark knows that if he isn't careful he's going to end up staining his pants again. "You said I had the night off?"
"I'm changing my mind. Go outside. Get us a cab. We're going home."
Eduardo stares at him, and for a moment Mark thinks that he's actually going to refuse. He can see the droplets of blood beading on Wardo's neck from the messy wound, and knows that they'll have to tend to it, but that can wait until they're out of this place and away from dozens of pairs of staring eyes.
It takes a moment of staring him down, but Wardo breaks, lowering his head and nodding before he heads for the exit - but not without looking back to offer a wave to the vampire that he leaves behind. Mark takes a breath from his nose, because he's seeing red. It's like a month of restrained emotions are trying to hit him at once. It's a struggle to maintain his calm façade.
"Do you need a hand?" Sean asks. The teasing smile has gone, replaced with genuine concern and a willingness to help, but Mark shakes his head anyway.
It's his mess; he'll clear it up.
First, he needs to work out where the hell to start.
iii.
Wardo tends to his wound himself while he's waiting for Mark to come and join him in the cab. The advantage to being part-fairy is never being without the small things you need: whether that is cotton wool, gauze pads or the exact right moment to hail a cab. The universe can always be tipped in the right direction.
Without Christy right there, his neck hurts like hell. When a vampire is around, it can cloud the senses. The bite doesn't feel as sharp. In her absence, however, he's beginning to wonder how he got into this mess again.
The door on the other side of the cab opens and Mark climbs in. Giving the address to the driver, Mark then sits back and looks out of the window.
The disapproval that fills the backseat is enough to make Eduardo twitch in uncomfortable misery. He's not used to being in trouble.
"Mark," he says, leaning across the gap between them. "I'm sorry, okay. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I wasn't thinking clearly." He'd hardly been thinking at all.
Mark looks towards him, and not for the first time Eduardo wishes that he had the ability to dip into his mind and see what he's thinking.
"How's your neck?" Mark asks. "Do you need to see a doctor?"
Eduardo raises his hand to the covered wound, and shakes his head. "I'll be fine. It'll heal."
Mark nods, and returns his gaze to the window without further comment.
"Mark, really. I'm sorry."
"We'll talk about it when we get home," Mark states.
There's no arguing with the tone of his voice. Wardo feels like a scolded dog, and closes his mouth with difficulty. It's his own fault, he reminds himself. The last few weeks with Mark have been enough to cause him to grow lax with his standard of behaviour. It's frustrating, belonging to someone that doesn't want to be a master. In Wardo's experience, people have tended to get over their hang-ups after a day or two.
Yet Mark is different, and that is why Wardo likes being here with him. It's also, unfortunately, why he finds him endlessly frustrating.
He follows Mark's lead and stares sullenly out of the window until they reach the apartment. Trailing inside after Mark, Eduardo doesn't know what to expect. That's the problem. Around Mark he never knows what to expect.
The apartment feels quiet in a way that makes his skin tingle with expectation. "Mark," he starts.
"I'll talk first," Mark says. Eduardo quiets himself immediately. "What you did tonight was incredibly stupid. If someone had linked you to Facebook, it would have reflected on us."
"You're making this about your company?" Eduardo asks. "Seriously?"
Mark blinks at him, lizard-like and cold. "Everything is about the company," he answers.
Eduardo thinks that maybe that's where they've been going wrong the entire time. He's supposed to be here to make Mark's life easier - but Mark doesn't have a life. He has a computer and a website and that's just about it. Eduardo can cook and clean around him, but in reality there's no need for him, no space for him to fit into.
"I'm not. Me, I'm nothing to do with your company. Does that even make sense to you?"
"I am the company. You were given to me. Therefore, you belong to the company. It's simple."
"It's stupid. I don't serve Facebook, Mark. I'm here for you. I'm supposed to be here for you."
Mark is giving him that face again, the blank one that Eduardo can't make any sense of. After over a hundred years of dealing with humankind, he still can't make sense of any of this.
"You're shouting at me," Mark states after an over-long moment.
Eduardo, once again, is filled with the desire to throw things at him. "I'm not shouting at you," he shouts.
"Why am I the one getting shouted at here? You're the one that screwed up."
"What did I do that was so wrong?" Eduardo answers. "C'mon, enlighten me. You gave me the night off. I was free to do whatever I liked. So what's the problem?"
Mark's jaw tightens and releases, just once, but it's enough. Eduardo steps forward, feeling stupidly brave and disobedient. He can remember how it had felt last night to have his hands on him, to make him feel good, and he knows that he could do so much better. He could make him feel so much more, if only Mark would let him.
"Were you jealous?" he asks - and he knows that there is something unfair about the smile on his face, something bordering on mean, but he's earned it. For months now he has been pushed away and told that he couldn't do what he wanted, what he was made for. He's been plunged into the dark and now he has proof that it's all been for nothing. "That's it, isn't it? You were jealous of Christy."
Mark stares at him steadily, and Eduardo refuses to let himself crumble until the analysis of his cold eyes. "You knew her already," Mark concludes.
"She's an ex-girlfriend," Wardo says. It's more complicated than that - with vampires, it always is - but for now it'll do.
There's something in the way that Mark's nostrils flare as he breathes in through his nose, forcing himself to stay calm, that makes Eduardo want to grab him and shake him. Only decades of trained propriety still his hands.
"You shouldn't have let her touch you," Mark says. He looks away, so that he isn't meeting Eduardo's eyes any more. His hand rises as if he's making a point, but the gesture is too vague to make sense of. "If you're supposed to be mine, then she shouldn't have been able to grab you like that. People don't just touch other people's property. It's - it's rude."
"I'm not your property," Eduardo corrects irritably. "I work for you, I serve you, and you own me. But I'm not a house or a car. She can touch me all I want her to, especially if you're not up to it."
Mark's dead eyes stare at him for far too long. Under their intensity, Eduardo can feel every inch of his skin prickling under observation. He feels like a puzzle that's being solved.
"You're trying to provoke me," Mark says. "Why?"
"Why the hell not?" Eduardo says out of desperation. Now is about the time that he ought to retreat to his room, maybe slamming the doors out of irritation, but he can't keep his mouth shut. He doesn't even want to, because he's been putting up with Mark and his shit for months. "Nothing else works. I'm doing my best, Mark, and I am good at my job. Trust me, I'm good at it. But with you - it's like I'm not even here. Do you even notice me?"
"Of course I notice you. You're right there."
Eduardo makes a sound not unlike a growl. "You honestly must try in order to be this obtuse."
"You're mad at me because I don't take advantage of you. It's confusing, so - yes - I'm obtuse about it. Would it be better if I forced you to have sex with me every night?"
"Yes! I'm a succubus, Mark. There wouldn't be much force involved."
"We're stuck in a power dynamic that makes it very difficult for anything to happen here without it reflecting on me. I'm trying not to be an asshole here."
"You're failing." Eduardo crosses his arms over his chest. "A lot."
Mark flops down onto the couch, as if Eduardo has managed to sap all of the energy out of him. He's done that to men a lot in the past, but not usually by arguing with them. He stays on his feet and looks down at Mark, fighting against the natural instinct to give in and let him win. Sometimes, it's worth breaking the rules.
"Are you even thinking about this from my point of view?" Mark asks. "They say it can be addictive for humans."
"'They'?"
"Chris. The internet." Mark scowls. "I researched it."
"Well, I suppose that's a start." Eduardo steps forward and perches on the arm of the couch. "You could have just asked me."
"I have issues with social interaction, even of the regular kind," Mark says. "Asking my newly gifted sex-slave if I was going to get addicted to fucking him wasn't a situation I knew how to tackle."
Eduardo nudges Mark's foot with his own, not quite a kick. "I'm not a sex slave. If you're going to be dismissive, at least use the right term."
"Alright. Vassal." Mark props himself up on his elbows. "So here I am. Asking. How does it work with you?"
"You won't get sick. I won't steal your life force. I'm not in league with the devil. And I won't make you get pregnant." Eduardo frowns as he tries to remember if there are any other significant myths that he should be debunking. That probably covers the bulk of them. "But the sex will be good. Very good. That's what people mean when they say it's addictive. It's not a supernatural addiction. It simply makes it difficult to want to do anything else."
Mark continues to stare at him in a way that Eduardo tells himself he doesn't find unnerving. Intense stare or not, this is still Mark. This is the man that he has had to drag out of bed every morning for the last month, grumbling and groaning all the way to the office. It should be impossible to be intimidated by someone once you've watched them fall asleep, drooling, on their laptop keyboard.
"Trust me," he says. "I can blow your mind."
"You're quite arrogant about this," Mark says.
And that makes Eduardo light up with a sudden spark of instant amusement, because for Mark to accuse anyone of being arrogant it must be bad. Mark set the worldwide standard for arrogance, after all.
"I'm not being arrogant. I'm being truthful. You deserve to have all the facts." Eduardo can't fight the soft spot that he feels when he looks at Mark, and he knows that it shows on his face. It stops him from being objective or smart about his behaviour. It even makes him forget the pain of the bite mark on his neck. Looking at Mark, sprawled, comfortable and questioning, it's enough to make the wider world fade away. "I'm not saying that you have to make a decision tonight. But, if you're not interested in me like that, I'd like to know."
Mark nods, and sits up on the couch. There's a moment, tense and sweet, when Eduardo can imagine how the evening might end, with Mark's lips gentle and awkward against his mouth and Mark's hands quick and eager as they pull away his clothes.
But the moment breaks.
Nothing happens.
Mark swings his legs around so that he can stand up, reaching for his laptop already. "I'll get back to you on that," Mark says, and it's as close to a dismissal that Eduardo is going to get.
He closes his eyes and tilts his head back as Mark retreats to his bedroom. Shit. Shit. For a while there, he'd really thought that tonight might be the night that the tension broke.
Stupid, so stupid.
He wonders if he's ever going to learn not to expect too much from Mark. With the yearning that aches in the centre of his chest, he doubts if he's ever going to learn that lesson.
*
The newspapers the next day carry a few small pieces about supernaturals gone rogue; a wild succubus reeking havoc in a popular club. It's mostly used as an inroad to debate the morality and dangers of the new celebrity trend for vassals, and Eduardo flicks past it with only a cursory glance. There's nothing in there to link him to Mark or to Facebook; they're fine. He'll have to be more careful in the future, but there's no major harm done.
On the other hand, the way that Mark keeps looking at him (or determinedly not looking at him) isn't exactly good news either.
Eduardo keeps his head and carries on with work, but he can't stop looking at Mark every few seconds. It's a slightly increased rate from usual. His eyes have always automatically sought him out, but this is more intense than he's used to.
It's the first Monday of the month, which means that they have a general meeting: all of the most important people to the running of the company crammed into a room together. Even ceiling-to-floor windows and white walls can't make this anything other than old fashioned, and Mark doesn't bother to hide how bored he is with it all.
Eduardo makes up for it by taking copious notes, staying focused even when Dustin leans over to whisper to him, teasing him about being such a swot. With a smile, Eduardo flicks him away, but as usual it has absolutely no effect. Dustin leans in again, and invades Eduardo's personal space in order to draw obscene doodles in the margins of his notepad.
It's a long way from 'professional', but that's what Eduardo has learned to expect from this place. It seems to work for them.
He still won't stop wearing a suit to work, however. It's only right.
He hides a laugh behind his hand when Dustin adds a ridiculously large appendage to his drawing of a unicorn. To his left, he's acutely aware of Mark glaring at them. If they're being unprofessional enough to annoy Mark, things are certainly getting out of hand.
When Dustin reaches out to deface even more of his notes, Eduardo reaches down and taps the back of his hand. A little nudge of power, just a zap and nothing more, shoots from his finger to Dustin's hand. He pulls back instantly, eyebrows raised in over-the-top surprise.
"Kinky!" Dustin mouths at him, and then Eduardo is giggling, and Mark is glaring, and the person giving the current presentation stops and stares at him, and even disguising it as a coughing fit doesn't seem to work.
Dustin, meanwhile, seems able to keep a completely straight face.
Bastard.
*
Following the meeting, Mark asks to speak to him in his office. Eduardo's heart sinks as he walks this way, because this doesn't sound like it's going to end well. Mark's voice is flat and stern, and he feels as if he's walking into a lecture.
As it turns out, he's no sooner walked in and closed the door behind himself then he finds himself pressed back against it, Mark's hands on his chest as he kisses him with studied thoroughness.
Mark's lips are thin and relatively inexperienced, but they glide in determination as if they know exactly what they want from Eduardo. Eduardo gives a satisfied, embarrassing groan, even while he's aware that he's the one that ought to be able to hold it together here. He's just waited so long.
Mark pulls back with a violent jerk, but his hands keep Eduardo trapped against the door. Eduardo's hardly struggling.
"I thought I made it clear last night," Mark says. "I don't - I don't want anyone touching you. They don't have the right."
Eduardo frowns and tries to piece everything together, but then Mark is kissing him again. Arguing seems pointless. There's something desperately violent about the way that Mark moves against him, as if he has a point to prove. Eduardo's hands come to rest on Mark's sides, hoping to soothe him into a calmer mood, but it seems to have the opposite effect.
Mark pulls back and stares at him for a moment, his eyes piercing and dark. "Close the blinds," he instructs, without letting Eduardo go. Eduardo swallows, but reaches inside for the spark of magic to make it possible. The blinds whistle shut, and the room fills with shadows. "Lock the door." Without a key, the lock clunks shut.
Mark finally nods and takes a step backwards, giving Eduardo enough room to move if he wants to. He gestures towards the desk, twitchy and uncertain in his movements again. "Over there. I want you - " For a moment, that statement seems to be enough to block him. He points at the desk again. "I want you there. Over the desk."
With an acceding nod and a gracious smile, Eduardo heads forward. He slips off his suit jacket and begins to undo the buttons of his shirt, before Mark shakes his head and reaches out to stop him. Eduardo doesn't ask why; he's good at following orders.
"Bent over or on my back?" he asks, purposefully blunt, just to see the way that Mark reacts, swallowing hard.
There's a businesslike air to the transaction, as if this is part of a contract that Mark needs to sign. Eduardo's had a lot of sex in his time, from urgent and violent to tender and loving. Businesslike, that's a new one.
Mark gets him to bend over his desk after pushing important files and papers out of the way. He steps close and his hand rests against the back of Eduardo's head, pressing him down until his cheek touches the wood.
Eduardo wets his lips as Mark pulls his trousers and underwear down, exposing his ass to the air. There's a long pause, and Eduardo twists in order to see what Mark is doing: staring down at him with his lips parted. He's Mark, so there's little open glee on his face, but Eduardo knows him well enough to see his delight.
Mark pulls himself out of his thoughts and starts to push his sweatpants down, but his expression stays intense. "I don't know what I'm really doing here," he admits. "I've watched some stuff online, but… Well. I don't know how accurate it is."
"I can steer you through it. Don't worry, I'm kind of an expert at this." Which is boastful and smug but also true. Succubus, hello.
The details don't seem to matter to Mark, because the reminder makes him give a small grunt of displeasure. Eduardo closes his eyes for a moment, reminds himself how to be tactful and that humans aren't big fans of sharing, and then opens them again.
"If we were doing this the other way around we'd have to be more careful, but since it's me we'll be fine," Eduardo says. He doesn't want Mark to end up hurting himself - some other time, some other place, some other person. It doesn't bear thinking about, any of it.
He talks him through it as quickly as he can, sensing Mark's frustrated impatience as surely as he can feel the tip of his cock smearing precome against his ass. With nothing more than spit and a quick stretch, Eduardo feels ready, bracing himself against the desk.
"Are you sure?" Mark asks. "I don't want to hurt you."
Smiling, Eduardo can't help but feel reassured. Under Mark's brisk attitude, there's still something there. "Trust me - I know my limits," he says.
Confidence or not, it still steals his breath when Mark takes him at his word and lines himself up against his entrance, the blunt head of his cock nudging its way inside. With the harsh light of the office shining down on him, Eduardo breathes through his open mouth as Mark gradually eases into him. The long stretch is welcome, his body accepting it readily. It feels like he's been waiting forever.
Mark pushes in until his balls are flush with Eduardo's ass, as deep as he can get. Leaning over him, chest pressed to back, Mark pants against the nape of Eduardo's neck. It sounds like he's already coming apart, just from this.
"Wardo," Mark groans. "Fuck, I…"
He trails off into a mindless groan, so Eduardo tightens his muscles around him to make him really lose his train of thought. It works, as Mark swears again, his blunt fingernails digging into the flesh of Eduardo's hips.
It seems to be all the encouragement that Mark needs to draw out and begin a steady thrust, the pair of them shaking Mark's desk with the force of it. Gentle at first, slow, it doesn't take long before Mark dissolves into fucking him as hard and raw as he can.
It hooks into that power at the centre of Eduardo's being and sends it spilling out through the room and beyond, primal energy that tingled over the skin and sent sparks through the groin. Mark slams him hard against the edge of the desk with renewed strength and Eduardo moans, half-pleasure half-pain, as he feels the bruises ready to form.
Through the building, strangers are locking lips and clothes are being shed. Eduardo needs to pull himself together. He's too old and too powerful to risk losing control like this, but then Mark slides across his prostate and all surviving rational thought shatters into pieces. He wants him too badly.
A rational part of his mind might realise that this is nothing special: in his lifetime, he has been with people a lot more experienced and inventive than Mark. His body doesn't care. Everything feels bright and new, as if he'd never known what he was for before Mark touched him.
God, that sounds sappy. He hopes he didn't say it aloud.
He isn't capable of forming any words at all right now, his mouth open and moaning. He sounds like a goddamn whore, but it makes Mark fuck him just a little bit faster, little bit harder. Worth it.
He closes his eyes as he comes long before Mark, losing control and spilling over Mark's messy desk. Mark takes him through it, piercing through the haze and drawing it out, grunting on each thrust with effort.
He finally holds Eduardo firmly against the desk and goes still as he orgasms with a strangled groan, pressing as deeply inside as he can get. Eduardo can feel him like an ache all throughout his body.
When Mark pulls out, Eduardo feels it like a physical loss, as though someone has punched him in his stomach and stolen something from him. His legs are shaking and he's depending on the desk to hold him up; he decides to stay where he is for a moment or two, for the sake of his dignity.
Mark quickly pulls himself together, barely out of breath for his trouble, as he walks around the desk to sit at his chair. His face is flushed and stained with sweat, and he looks positively pleased with himself, like an arrogant cat, as he stares at the wreck he's made of Eduardo.
"Are you okay?" Mark asks.
Gingerly, Eduardo nods and stands up, pulling his underwear and trousers back up. He gathers his thoughts together before managing to smile. "Yeah," he says, followed by a half-laugh that leaves him surprised. "I've been waiting for you to do that for a long time."
Heavy knocking at the door causes Eduardo to abruptly open the blinds and undo the lock, leaning against the desk as the door opens. He hopes that he looks half-way composed, but he knows that it must be perfectly clear to anyone not in need of thick glasses what they've just been up to.
Chris and Dustin burst into the office.
Dustin is wearing nothing but his boxers and his tie. Chris has the look of a man who has hastily pulled his clothes back on. Eduardo can already tell that this isn't going to end well.
"I am in so much trouble," he murmurs to himself - thinking not of Mark, not of Facebook, not even of the wider media. His superiors, the higher-ups, The Father. They won't stand for this level of irresponsibility.
"Guys?" Chris snaps. "How am I supposed to explain an orgy in the middle of our offices?"
"We're an alternative workplace," Mark suggests. It sounds less like a suggestion and more like a decree. "No shirts, no suits."
"No clothes?" Chris asks.
"I'm sorry," Eduardo says. "It was my fault. I lost control."
"I kind of guessed that," Chris snaps abruptly. He presses his fingers against his temples, lines forming on his forehead in concentration. "The entire building just started ripping off each other's clothes. We're going to have hundreds of sexual harassment suits on our hands, and that's if we're lucky. You could end up in jail for this, Wardo."
"No," Mark states categorically. "We won't let that happen."
"Mark, there are people out there who just had sex with their co-workers against their will. That's very much not-good."
Eduardo looks out of the blinds to the rest of the open-space office, where he can see people milling around in confusion. He wants to help in any way that he can, because he's the one that screwed up here. Not Mark.
"Go, do whatever damage control is needed," Mark says. "Keep the site and Eduardo out of trouble."
In the midst of his worry, it is still almost enough to make Eduardo smile to hear himself listed alongside Facebook on Mark's list of priorities. Chris and Dustin leave, and Dustin doesn't even have a smile or a thumbs-up for them on the way out. That means they've definitely done something wrong.
Mark gets up from his seat and heads towards the door as well. "Let's go home," he says. "We're not going to get any work done here anyway."
Scared glances follow them through the building as they leave, and Eduardo tries to pretend that he doesn't notice any of it. From the way that Mark carries himself, no different from normal, maybe he genuinely doesn't notice a single thing. Nothing seems to affect him.
At times like this, with the wrath of both human and supernatural law approaching, Eduardo wishes that he had that exact ability too.
Part Two