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blakeduncan · 10 months

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Blood Ties

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, and not meant to be an unproblematic representation of a relationship. Head the tags/warnings

The reason you’re so good at your job? You don’t ask questions. A year in to working as a night-time motorcycle courier, and you’re still no closer to knowing who for and what it is you deliver. Things are safer that way. You’re safer. One night, everything changes. Cassius Acisculus wants you. And he never takes no for an answer.

AO3: Chapter 1/?

Tags OC x Reader, Reader Insert, MM, Dark Romance, Supernatural elements Content Warnings Kidnapping, Dubious Consent, Badly Negotiated BDSM elements

Know why you’re good at your job? It’s because you don’t ask questions.

Ok fine, there’s other reasons too. Like that when you’re on your motorbike, you ride like the wind. Like that you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. Like that there’s no weather in the world — not rain or snow or sun or hail — that can stop you.

Not even the storm that’s brewing tonight.

It starts as a light drizzle in the early hours of darkness. It’s early winter, early enough that a few umber coloured leaves cling desperately to their trees. But it’s winter enough that the sun sets early, that it’s easy for you in your late sleeping hours to never see the light. It’s not a heavy rain, not yet, but it’s the kind of weather that’s only pleasant when you’re not in it. For a moment, you think about how nice it would be to be back inside, huddled under your blankets with a bowl of hot soup in hand.

But you have work to do.

Your bike is a beat up old wreck that’s had a dozen owners before you. But it’s your Baby. You love that old thing more than you love anything else in your life. Sometimes you even wonder if you might love Baby more than you love anybody else. But that’s a dangerous thought. Letting it stick in your head brings up too many memories, forces you to think about all the people you keep at arm’s length and all the friendships you’ve let die. You don’t have time for that. So you push it away, force it down. You put on your helmet — the closed face turning you into just another anonymous commuter — and ride.

It’s an hour or so after the worst of the rush hour traffic, but you still have to ease your way through the road on the way to The Warehouse. Your handlebars narrowly avoid outstretched car mirrors, your toes brush against tire edges. And around you, the rain gets heavier.

The Warehouse isn’t a single warehouse, really. The place you’re meant to go to receive jobs changes regularly, the new updates slid under your apartment door in a crisp envelope. Inside are map coordinates — to go with the broken spined map book that lives permanently on the floor next to your bed — and instructions to burn the entire envelope when you’re done. This time, The Warehouse is only around a fifteen minute ride from your studio. A small unit on an industrial estate, the place looks damn near abandoned when you park outside the wire gates. Old business signs are sun bleached, ancient torn-apart posters that only half-cling to their walls flap in the wind. It reeks, wet cardboard and gathering dust, the rich earth scent that can only come from rot.

The gate is unlocked, and it squeals on its hinges when you push it open. You’re expecting the door to the unit to be unlocked too, but when you try to pull it open you find it won’t budge.

Sighing, you raise your clenched fist and knock. First once. Then twice.

No answer.

You swear under your breath.

It’s only as you turn on the ball of your foot to leave that the door swings open, a familiar face peering at you from the darkness. He gestures for you to come inside, movements sharp and forceful. You obey, stepping inside the building, and the door shuts behind you.

“Were you followed? Did you leave your phone behind? Do you think anyone saw you?”

The questions come so quick the man barely has enough time to breathe between words. You raise both still-gloved hands, try to bite back the bitter laugh threatening to force its way between your lips.

“Nice to see you’re still alive too, Deacon. Thought one of us would have at least caught a stray bullet by now.”

Those wide, panicked eyes narrow, until they’re glaring at you, white-hot.

“Oh,” Deacon says, not bothering to try and hide the disdain in his voice. “It’s you. They wanted you for the job.”

You shrug. There’s plenty you could say to that. Maybe plenty you want to say. But it’d be unwise, and you’ve already pushed things with Deacon the last few times you’ve taken a job from him. He’s a tall wall of muscle, and in the cramped warehouse he looms over you even larger than normal. His fingers twitch, and you know they’re thinking about tightening around the grip of a pistol.

The two of you stand there for a moment, in silence. If you didn’t know any better, you’d sa you were sizing each other up.

If you are, Deacon breaks first. He turns away from you to a work bench at the back of the room, gesturing at it with the hand that isn’t currently twitching. You follow him and see two things. A map-book, just like yours if not for being in better shape, and a box.

A box that looks for all the world like a perfectly normal cardboard box.

It’s plain brown, taped down on all sides with thick brown tape. There isn’t even a ‘this way up’ printed on one side. It’s completely unremarkable. And you have no desire to know why it’s so unremarkable.

“You’re taking this to 135 on Kingswood. Map reference is 220-7. When you get there, ring the doorbell, and wait for somebody to come and take the parcel from your hands. Payment’ll be under your door in three days. Understood?”

You nod, and step towards the table. Kingswood Avenue is the other side of town, a street of the few grand Victorian houses that haven’t been broken up into tiny apartments yet. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel poor for taking a breath in. You’ll go there, for sure. You don’t really have a choice in the matter.

But you don’t like this. This feels strange.

When you pick up the cardboard box, it weighs almost nothing.

You probably shouldn’t pry. Every one of your instincts is telling you not to, and they’ve done a pretty good job at keeping you alive so far. But right before you open the warehouse door to leave, you can’t help yourself. The walls are thin, and you can hear the heavy rain outside, can feel the dampness in the air.

“Deacon,” you begin, trying to think of the gentlest way to word this. “What you said… I… should I be worried about being followed?”

Deacon looks at you, catches your eye. And for a moment, something in his gaze almost softens. Almost looks sorry.

A single heavy heart beat later, and the softness is gone.

“Just go,” he says. “Do your job.”

And — because you’re good at keeping your head down and yourself alive — you do as he asks.

The rain doesn’t so much fall as pour down from the heavens as you drive over to Kingswood. You’re not allowed to a phone with you, so you follow the route entirely from memory, taking each turn that you ran your finger over on paper. When you set off from your apartment, the streets still seemed full, frantic commuters hurrying home in their suits, glum-faced as they reminded themselves it was only a few days until the weekend. But now the streets are quieter. Not entirely deserted, but quiet. Logically you know it’s because everyone is sheltering inside from the rain, but something in your gut tells you it feels wrong.

House 135 on Kingswood is a mansion from a century and a half ago, a marble pillared entrance set a few meters back from the iron railing fence that surrounds it. The iron gate squeals on its hinges as you push them open, and as you walk up to the tall, looming front door you can’t help but think about two things. Firstly, how small you feel in comparison to it, how inconsequential and fragile and mortal.

And second, how loud your footsteps feel on the paved path up towards the door arch.

The air feels cold and still and it smells rich and earthy as graveyard dirt. You press the bell — bronze turning green with age — , first once, then twice. And then you wait. The parcel is tucked under one arm and your helmet is under the other, and the portico seems so large and dark it’s like it’s swallowing you whole.

The doors don’t swing open so much as glide, and that’s when he steps out. The man who is going to change your life forever.

You don’t know what he is, not then. What you see is a handsome older man, bronze tan skin and dark curls that are just turning silver at the temples. He’s smartly dressed, in a dark suit that you’re sure costs more than your rent every month. But he doesn’t wear it like some men wearing expensive clothes — moving starched and stiff, like they’re afraid to tear the fabric. Instead, he moves as fluidly as the door into his vestibule did, like he’s as used to the weight and cut of the fine cloth as you are to your motorcycle jacket.

You shiver, a chill running down your body from a source you can’t identify.

He’s wearing cologne, and you can smell it even stronger as he takes a step forward, flashing a smile with too-white teeth. He smells of dark patchouli and aged wine, of smoke and fireplace embers, incense and aged leather. But his eyes — his eyes are what you can’t look away from, impossibly dark and unreadable.

He reaches out a hand, palm upturned, and the watch on his wrist doesn’t tick. Instead — just like him, just like the door — it glides.

“Ah,” he begins, and his voice is deep and warm and distant as a hearth fire. “The delivery I’ve been expecting.”

You blink for a second, trying to bring yourself back to reality. And then you remember it — why you’re here, what your job is. Heat rising to your cheeks, you hold the cardboard box out in front of yourself, offering it to him.

If you look, you can see that your hands are shaking.

The older man takes it from you, tucks it under one arm. He’s not wearing a tie with his suit, the shirt is unbuttoned deep enough that you can see just a little of the dark hair that covers his chest. That smile — cold and hypnotising all at once — widens.

When he speaks, it’s a purr. “Thank you, dear boy.”

He has an accent you can’t quite place. The consonants have an edge as clear and sharp as the blade of the knife you keep in your jacket pocket. There’s something about this man — something you can’t quite place — that makes you think about that knife, wonder how quickly and easily you could reach for it.

You give him a non-committal grunt and a shrug. The smile doesn’t narrow, but the edges of the man’s mouth twitch slightly.

“Not a conversationalist, are we?”

He says it like a joke, but something in his words is weighty. You’re suddenly very aware of your heart, of how it’s sped up, not quite pounding in your chest but readying itself. He takes a step forward, soles of his leather shoes clicking against the floor stones of the portico.

“Not paid for chitchat,” you manage, eventually, your mouth dry. He’s taller than you, not by much but by enough that you feel like a cornered animal as he takes a second step towards you.

“Oh, but life would be dull if we only did what we were paid for, don’t you think? Come, at least tell me your name.”

You don’t want to tell him your name. You really don’t. But your name comes out between your lips, unbidden. Your lungs feel empty after you’ve said it, like all the air in them has been forced out as you spoke.

There’s another flash of white teeth in the man’s smile. “Call me Cassius. And you know, dear boy, now we’re introduced properly, I can’t stand the idea of sending you home in this weather. You would chill to the bone.”

The thing is, you want to go home. You want to go home more badly than you want anything else in the world. You want to shelter there, wait until an envelope of money slides its way under your door and your life goes back to normal. But you can’t open your mouth to speak, can’t turn and run back to your bike. You can’t move at all.

Your body isn’t yours to control.

“Come,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “Shelter inside in the dry.”

Something makes you step forward, following him inside. And those doors slide closed behind you, as gracefully as they had opened.

#vampire oc #vampire x reader #male x reader #reader insert #mlm #mlm romance #dark romance #dark x reader #fic: blood ties

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