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Chapter Text

As time marches forward, all the excitement of that summer several years back settles and the world mostly forgets the Catton family, their tragic fates, and the kind family friend that inherited the Saltburn estate. The elaborate rooms echo with emptiness, the hydrangeas start to die back, and Oliver begins to come to terms with the fact that he’s bored. Worse than that, even, he’s bored and lonely. At first, it was buckets of fun—digging around in all their personal items, wearing Felix’s boxer shorts, reading Valentia’s diaries—but eventually he ran out of privacies to intrude upon, and the all-too-familiar ennui that is the curse of immortal beings the world over starts to dull all of Oliver’s exceedingly keen senses. At least he still has Duncan haunting the estate—the sentimental bastard couldn’t bring himself to leave when the rest of the staff fucked off; most of them feeling, rightfully, uncomfortable with the amount of death hanging dark over the home. Loyalty can be a real bitch but his loyalty eventually paid off, depending on how you look at it. 

The night Oliver turned Duncan, the air outside had a distinct, stale smell to it that made even the deer in the surrounding forest itch with discomfort. Perhaps he had been building up to it, or perhaps he simply couldn’t take the sadness anymore—either way, Duncan took his shot, quite literally. When Oliver woke up to an antique revolver shoved under his chin, he wasn’t all that surprised—Duncan had been acting exceptionally skulking and, though his mind-reading skills weren’t quite as honed as his manipulation skills, it didn’t take a genius to get the sense that he was up to something. At first it was self-defense, and even though Oliver was quite certain the revolver contained a run-of-the-mill, brass and gunpowder bullet, a wound of that size would be a real bitch to heal.

The first hit put him on the ground. The first bite made him scream. The second bite was a bit more selfish. After subsisting on a lean diet of postmen and scrawny animals that wandered into the woods behind the estate, Duncan’s rich, coppery blood tasted like milk and honey pouring from a divine goblet, and Oliver’s self-control was, admittedly, frayed at the edges. Unfortunately, vampires are still cursed with the emotions of the human psyches they were born into, and as Duncan’s pulse started to slow with each gratuitous slurp, Oliver started feeling a little guilty. Duncan hasn’t done anything deserving of such a bleak ending—only ever loved and protected the Cattons. And besides, wouldn’t it be nice to have some company in this eternal abyss? He might have preferred someone who liked him a bit more than Duncan did, and possibly someone less homicidal, but relentless immortality means making concessions once in a while—so Oliver bit into his wrist and let Duncan sip at the putrid, viscous fluid that ran through his veins. The next morning, after he woke up in a pool of sticky, browning ichor, Duncan served a light breakfast, as he did every morning, and never spoke to Oliver about what had occurred, never asked questions about what he was—simply carried on with the same haughty attitude and only occasionally allowing himself to exercise his powers and seep into the foundations of the house, peer into the dark corners and up into the half-rotted rafters, wrap around each beam and nail and crack in the floor tiles, listen to the futile, echoing mists of rich men and servants that walked across the gilded thresholds ten generations ago. Good for him.

Despite being well on its way to becoming a den of blood-sucking monsters, the external vision of Saltburn—the day-to-day mundanities—has remained the same. On this particular day, that feels as normal as the last six hundred or so odd days Oliver has spent puttering around the house and the grounds, the sun beats down on the hot cement around the pool, making it hard to walk across. “Might as well be a church,” he thinks, as he spreads a towel across a plastic lounge chair and drags over a large umbrella. Contrary to what myths would like you to believe, no vampire has ever been burned to dust by direct contact with the sun, but rather, it’s a simple matter of preference. With darkness comes more freedom, more places to hide, and more open hunting grounds. Tales of night stalking, blood-sucking demons have painted a pretty fearsome reputation for people like Oliver that seems to come in handy when the need arises. A healthy dollop of fear goes a long way.

When Oliver first adjusted to his new life and his new body, it terrified him—the idea that a simple slice of sunshine might singe his skin and scatter his cells to the wind—but the braver (and more bored) he became, the less fear he felt, until he finally stepped out on a bright, cloudless day, only to find that it felt…good, in a way. His nerves lit up from the bottom of his feet to his scalp, and it was as if he could taste the sunshine, like he had tendrils growing out of every pore that wrapped around each photon, tracing the pinpoints of energy back to the black hole that created them. He could feel the whole universe around him. It was all-consuming, entirely overwhelming—like coming during sex but not stopping, fucking through the pleasure until it’s almost pain. Perhaps it did make more sense to avoid it entirely. Still, Oliver felt the unmistakable desire to embrace it, so he practiced—took walks through the foothills, bathed naked on the rooftop, became wholly unaffected by the way his molecules vibrated and spread his body across the land like butter. In time, he would learn how to weaponize this particular side effect of his demonic affliction and find that, if he focused just enough to follow the spread, chase after it like a greyhound sprints behind a fake rabbit on a track, he could see into the places it reached. This proved to be a very useful way to spy on the humans he would often live with and taught him how to properly manipulate their soft, squishy brains into doing his bidding for him. It was almost as if the exposure unlocked an ancient power inside of him and, still, he often wonders if they’re all affected in this way. Be it an abnormal side effect or a mutation of his ashen DNA, walking out into the sunlight that day was one of the best decisions he can remember making. 

Oliver sinks into the squeaky vinyl chair, letting his eyes flutter closed and his mind wander the same path it always did in all the expansive, empty time he now enjoys every day. Being here at Saltburn—adorning himself with Felix’s former life—means that the boy constantly lives behind his eyes, pressing long, slim fingers into his sockets just to remind Oliver of what he lost—what he chose to lose. Maybe he was in love with Felix. He certainly loved Felix, but even if that were true, he has no regrets about moving forward with his plan to slide into the void the Cattons left—to occupy the empty space he so meticulously created. Felix was one of a thousand boys and girls that he’d loved since crawling out of the dark, stone house he was dragged into that bright afternoon almost two hundred years ago. It almost feels like a dream now, to recall that foolish, simple boy—the poor son of a shepherd who dreamed of silly things like leaving his father’s farm, attending Oxford, and learning to read.  A little smile twitches at the corner of his lips as he marinates in the self-satisfaction of life now lived.

Diary of Oliver Quick

17 June, 1899

It’s been fifty years to the day that I’ve existed in this world and tonight, as I pour wine and watch out the window of my London apartment at the supple bodies of young women and the loose joints of drunk men, I realize I’ve never put to paper the story of the day I became what I am. Perhaps I’ve been afraid to see the words looking back at me, assuring me that my life will continue to be this aching, expanding vacancy. Nevertheless, there are facts to convey and myths to dispel, and I believe now is no better time than any to recount the details of how a man can become a monster.

My father never understood my desire to find more. He discouraged my mother from sending me to school, insisting that our family trade was more important than any book could be, but her tenacity and love for me won out in the end. Every day, I would walk through the cow fields and down dusty paths to reach a small, brick building, surrounded by nothing but dark woods, to find refuge in pages of poetry and prose and thick bindings that held our history. The woman who taught me to read was patient and soft-spoken—dark-haired and pink-cheeked and likely no more than a few years older than I. I sat with the younger children to sound out consonants and vowels and scribble out looping O’s and dotted I’s. It became a habit, for me, to take books out to the low riverbed set several hundred feet back in the woods after studies had ended for the day, desperate to be alone, to be anything I wanted, to be anyone but a poor shepherd’s son. 

On that fateful afternoon, as I sat against a tree and sounded out the proper pronunciation of the word “veritable”, a boy, who looked older and clean and sharp around the edges, appeared at the edge of a dark tree line. It wasn’t like me to stare at a stranger, but his sinewy arms stretched and his blonde curls bounced as he approached me, and I felt the distinct churn in my stomach that I felt whenever I saw the neighbor’s daughter outside hanging linens in just her bedtime frock. When he was close enough, I could see his eyes—impossibly dark, like a cow’s eyes, wide and endless. I was hypnotized. 

He sat beside me, asked my name, and told me he lived on the other side of the trees. I asked how far he walked to get here, and he replied, “Not far.” We sat shoulder to shoulder as the fire in my belly was fanned by the softness of his voice and the way he touched my arm to emphasize his assertions on Shakespearean comedy or Dante’s depictions of hell, stories I’d only heard of, books too thick for my infantile understanding. My eyes fell shut when he manifested a small parchment from a linen pocket and read aloud, “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.” Dickinson. In my small handful of experiences, I had never felt a pull like this—each word he spoke tugged me closer to an edge that I knew I was approaching but couldn’t will myself to step away from. I wanted to learn. He taught me. 

The sun started to set and he asked if I was hungry—promised me a table of hams and puddings, a warm hearth, and dark brown ale. Our palms came together as he effortlessly lifted me to my feet and told me he enjoyed the company of equal minds. He stayed pressed into my fingers as we walked along the dry, powdery riverbed, moving deeper into the blackness as the sun fell below the treeline behind us. Time slipped away and the world outside the woods faded. The house was a small rectangle with a sharp, tall roof. It looked out of place, tucked between towering, spindly tree branches and jagged brush. He pulled me inside and laid me across a soft cot. He put his lips on mine and ran his hand beneath my cotton shirt—touched me in places I had only ever touched myself. We sweat and groaned and moved together like anchored boats rocking on the gentle sea as he whispered to me “Stay here, stay with me.” 

“Yes,” I answered, and he dipped into the crook of my neck, dragging sharp teeth across the veins that throbbed with fear and anticipation. When those daggers breached my skin, my body erupted. It hurt, but the pleasure blooming in my core overtook the discomfort as my eyes blurred into the world around me, blackening with each passing second. 

I remember asking him to stop, the pain beginning to seep in, and I felt my muscles untying—loosening. My breath came in short gasps, my body slick with scarlet liquor, as he pulled away, leaving me cold and weak. The room became dark and soft around the edges and I was overtaken with exhaustion—unable to move my limbs. He pressed his wet wrist to my mouth and asked me to drink. I obeyed. “You’ll feel better,” he cooed, stroking my cheeks as I lapped at the sap pouring from his body into mine. 

There’s not much to recall after that. My new master cleaned and dressed me as I lay, cold and shaking, in front of the smoldering hearth, my stomach twisting with a pain not entirely unlike hunger, my skin burning from the molten blood rushing beneath it. I slept for three days. When I finally awoke, I was still cold and my hands lay like icicles across my bare chest. He stayed by my side, tending and coddling, pressing frigid kisses into my wound. Over the next several weeks, I learned more. 

Halithan was his name and that year marked four hundred and twenty since his turning. He taught me how to hunt and how to eat, how to sharpen my focus and listen to the way the Earth spoke to me. He held me when I grew fearful of myself and kissed me down into the cot when the heat inside my stomach became too much to bear. We only left the house at night, at his insistence. One snowy evening, at least a dozen months after my transformation, he left on his own, never to return. At first, I cried. I lay around the cabin feeling sorry for myself, sorry for the love that I lost, crazed with a lack of closure and consolation. Eventually, I left too—abandoned the life we created under the protection of a hundred midnights.

Since then, I have curated my own litter of young vampires. Some of them come to me hungry for immortality. Most of them find themselves in my bed, receiving the same violent mercies I was given. I always leave them, the same way Halithan left me, as all vampires must forge a path through eternity independently. They all must learn what it means to be utterly alone in a world not made for them. I have learned and, as surely as my black heart pumps thick molasses through my constricted veins, I will continue to love and to leave.

As the late afternoon sun continues to beat down on the textured tile and hard cement around him, Oliver considers how he’s changed since that time. No longer does he run. No longer does he hide, cowering in shadows, fearful to show the world what he is. Saltburn—this opulent home, this sprawling estate built on the backs of slaves and low-born men like himself, is the keystone of the world he’s spent so much effort and diligence creating for himself. 

When Oliver first decided to attend Oxford, a dream he’d carried since his mortal childhood, it took precise planning—the amount you might assume would be necessary to pass a two-hundred-year-old vampire off as an eighteen-year-old college student. Moving to the United Kingdom was easy. Forging the necessary documents—identifications, birth certificates, transcripts—was even easier. Manipulating an entire family of humans into believing he was their child since birth, weaving himself into their dynamic, playing the role of the dutiful son—that was where the difficulty lay. Asserting your will via mind control on a single, oblivious man was one thing. Twisting around the psyches of an entire family, implanting falsehoods in their fallible memories, staying focused at all times—that was another thing altogether. 

Occasionally, it was nice. For the first time in a very, very long time, Oliver was part of a family. People took care of him. The fleeting moments of happiness served to push him forward with his plan to create his own everlasting family—and the plan, all of the carefully orchestrated pieces, are falling into place.

As a self-satisfied smugness spreads across Oliver’s face, he lets his mind rest. The past is very much the past, and he’s never felt more certain, more hopeful, about his eternal future. 

A hand pressed to the top of his shoulder wakes Oliver with a start. His eyes fly open to see Duncan, stiff-faced and devoid of all emotion, peering down at him with a blank stare. 

“Shit, you’re terrifying, you know that?” Oliver pants, having been pulled prematurely from a dream where he was drinking wine with Halithan at the pub in town—his gentle hands ran along the back of Ollie’s neck and he was whispering between drinks, “I’ll find you again”. It was lovely.

“Apologies, sir. You have a visitor.” 

A visitor? He squints up at Duncan, puzzled by his announcement, and his dull pulse quickens. At first, there were visitors constantly. Family members paying respects, curious neighbors, tourists looking for a unique, macabre experience at the deadliest estate in the United Kingdom. Duncan turned most of them away. Some would stay for tea or lunch, asking Ollie all about himself and how he came to be in such a lucky position. A few, mostly those traveling far from home, would end up satisfying his and Duncan’s appetites for a few days. Others, some of the lovelier ones—the younger ones—would stay for a drink or two, would let Oliver seduce them without protest, would follow him into his bed, and let him fuck them relentlessly. Those, he always let go without harm. A few stayed in contact, but none of them ever visited a second time. 

He follows Duncan through the atrium and into the belly of Saltburn, quietly moving across the cold floor tiles, from one room into the next. They emerge in the front gallery and Oliver studies the back of a tall, slender, dark-haired man. He sucks down a gasp and his limbs go all numb and useless when he recognizes the golden design of an unmistakable signet ring. The all-too-familiar arms and legs turn to meet Ollie face-to-face.

“Oliver fucking Quick, as I live and breathe.”

It’s been quite some time since Oliver gave any thought to Farleigh Start. After Felix died and the entire family was led to believe that his drugs played a primary role in the tragic events of that night, Farleigh was shipped back to America to live with his mother and finish school at some tiny, no-name, liberal arts university and eventually disappear back into the middle class. It was shocking, to say the least, to see him standing on the grounds of Saltburn, looking just as cutting and devilish as he did the night of Oliver’s birthday party. The words he spoke that night would rattle around Ollie’s head for years. “This is my house,” is all he heard as he licked at the wounds on Venetia’s hemorrhaging wrists and held Elspeth’s frail, limp body as her pulse faded into the past.

He lets them both sit in the overwrought smog covering the house for a while, searching for a witty or cunning response. 

“You’re looking fit, Farleigh.” 

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Farleigh scoffs and rolls his eyes as his body language tenses and his crossed arms come untangled. He steps closer to Oliver. “I honestly didn’t believe it when everyone was saying you were Elspeth’s caretaker. You ?! And that you convinced her to hand over Saltburn like you were someone to her. Like you’ve done anything but fuck with my family since the second you stepped foot in my house.”

It’s comforting to see that Farleigh hasn’t changed a bit. Still bitter. Still weak. Still clinging to the shredded gossamer of Saltburn and her innocence.

“Your house?” Oliver asks, somewhat rhetorically. He lowers his voice to just above a whisper and closes the gap between the two of them. “You never loved them—Elspeth, Felix—none of them. Tell me, Farleigh, how did James convince you to run back to your mum so quickly? He threaten to press charges? Put you away for killing his son? The way I see it, I was more kin to the Cattons than you ever were. I earned what I got from them. You could only ever beg for it.”

They’re close enough now that Oliver can see the fire raging behind his tight pupils and braces to dodge a hit, if necessary. It’s been a long time since he’s seen anger spill out of a man like this. Farleigh’s body shakes, but his voice is deep and certain when he leans close to Oliver’s ear, breathing hard into the shell. 

“You can’t scare me, Oliver.” He roughly grabs a fistful of Ollie’s jumper and pulls him close, pressing up against him, firm and tense. “Because this is my house. My ancestor’s blood is leached into the dirt it’s built on. No matter how hard you try, you can’t change that.”

Oliver pulls back and looks up into his eyes that ooze with venom and poison.

“Well, I’m not planning to roll over and let you have it simply because your last name is written in a few books on the library shelves.”

An unsettling air of intensity and oddly comfortable intimacy flows around them as neither offers to break the stand-off between the two Catton family bastards. Without moving, Farleigh announces loudly, “Duncan! Please take my bags to Felix’s old room. The one across from Oliver’s.” His voice drops back down and a wicked smile curls at the corners of his mouth. “Unless you’re sleeping there now, you love sick fuck.”

Oliver continues to hold himself in place, beating back the instinct to attack, to bite, to kill. It’s been lonely, living here at Saltburn with nothing but books and a small cable TV to keep him company, and more than lonely, it’s boring as all hell. Perhaps it won’t be too sinister if he allows these unexpected events to play out, let Farleigh think he holds some of the cards. This opportunity might be precisely the one he’s been waiting for.

The unstable, staticky energy Farleigh brings with him to Saltburn makes it impossible for Oliver to get any sleep—he has too many questions, too many open-ended plans, too many deep-seated desires. It’s become a routine over the last few years for him to walk the perimeter of the grounds whenever the backs of his eyelids feel more like old friends than pieces of his own skin. It always worked for Venetia. God knows how many times he saw her wandering across the courtyard in the middle of the night, sometimes crying, always smoking. Tonight, the cool air is swollen with moisture. The dark clouds look like black holes against the already darkened sky and hang heavy with the imminent threat of rain. As Oliver paces the fences and the treeline, he turns over the events of the afternoon in his mind, hoping to see a clear path forward.

The bottom line is that Farleigh wants to take Saltburn back—for himself and the rest of his family. It’s a noble pursuit, Oliver affectionately thinks. It’s hard not to have respect for a man’s willingness to show up—unannounced and angry, driven by retribution and revenge—and potentially put himself in harm’s way to take back what he believes belongs to him. Unfortunately for Farleigh and his side of the Catton family, the ownership of Saltburn runs deeper than a few legal documents can define. The way Oliver sees it, no one can own Saltburn anymore. Its ancient walls hold more than just drywall and peeling wallpaper—they contain life. Moving, changing, evolving, breathing life. And Oliver is a part of it now. He’s sunk into the tile grout and the trussings, every grain of mahogany and every slab of ten-thousand-year-old marble. A simple human force like Farleigh can’t change that. 

As his bare feet compress into the soft sod, he finally concludes that there are two choices at play. One, he could kill Farleigh. It wouldn’t be hard—the man is tall and virile, but a lifetime of privilege and power has left him weak. Ollie could walk the stairs to his room right now and put a knife to his throat—fill his guts with his warm juices, look him in the eyes as his life circles and rushes down the drain, relish in the fact that he’s won. 

The second and more preferred option would be to welcome Farleigh into his world—push open his bedroom door, kiss his lips, touch his cock, feel the hot burn of his skin as it breaks under his piercing canines. He would be scared, at first, but Oliver would show him what to do, how to live. It would be his choice, then, if he wanted to stay at the estate or try to venture into the world, more alone than ever before. The choice, Oliver hopes, would be easy for him. He treks back into the house and wanders through a maze of dark hallways, taking a few minor precautions on his way. He visits the garage first, to disable the rental car Farleigh arrived in. As he passes through the foyer, he snips the main line that leads to several antique telephones around the home. When Oliver stops at Farleigh’s bedroom door, he’s overtaken by a desperation to be inside, under his sheets, pressed against his fiery skin. A rush of urgency and lust fill his senses, so he places his flat palm on the smooth wood and closes his eyes, focusing narrowly on what’s on the other side.

The image comes in clear. Farleigh is asleep and spread wide across the king-sized bed wearing nothing but a pair of tight briefs. His chest rises and falls with mesmerizing rhythm and Oliver feels a swell of affection for the man—peaceful and unknowing—and suddenly, he’s desperate to see past this moment and into the future—a day, a week, a hundred years—wanting his predetermined destiny to make the choice for him. Continuing to scan the contents of the space behind the closed door, Oliver finally sees what he’s come for and slowly pushes the unlocked door open, careful to step soundlessly over the wooden planks. Next to the bed sits Farleigh’s mobile phone—his last connection to the outside world, his only lifeline. As Oliver lifts it away and disconnects it from its power cable, he pauses to soak in Farleigh’s calm, vulnerable body. He really is lovely—soft and almondy skin, lean muscles, scant tufts of dark body hair—and Oliver has to fight back the urge to cradle his head in his hands and stroke his cheek. Conflict swirls around his mind and makes his eyes feel sore and heavy, so he steps quietly back into his room, soundlessly latching the door behind him, and crawls underneath his thick blankets, willing sleep to come. The immediate choice, he decides, is to make this decision tomorrow’s problem. 

The following morning, Oliver wakes before the sun comes up. Overnight, he dreamed of Farleigh and couldn’t believe how beautiful he looked—eyes darker than normal, long fangs, mouth glistening with fresh, wet blood. A little bit of clarity is coming into focus and Oliver makes the definitive decision to turn him at the first opportunity and convince, possibly beg, him to stay. When he finally pulls himself from the sheets, he’s surprised to see Farleigh already sitting at the table in the dinette, holding a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other. 

“Good morning, Ollie,” he greets pleasantly, but it sounds, to Ollie, more like the cruel, patronizing type of plesantry—a fairly common communication style for Farleigh.

“Sleep well?” Oliver asks as he sizes up Farleigh’s attitude and tries to suss out more of his motivations. When Farleigh sets the newspaper down and clears his throat, a pang of anxiety that he had been caught sneaking into his room last night clenches in Oliver’s gut.

Farleigh shoots a piercing gaze in Oliver’s direction. “I always sleep better at home.”

They dance uncomfortably around the unease that flows between them, exchanging skeptical glances and pushing bites of quiche around the bone China plates, locked in a tense, silent battle. After several minutes of unspoken back-and-forth, Farleigh sets down his fork and looks inquisitively at Oliver.

“You haven’t happened to see my cellphone, have you? It's the funniest thing,” he says in a way that doesn’t sound funny at all, “when I went to bed, I could have sworn it was right next to me.” His cutting eyes search Oliver’s face for any minute signs of fear, but Ollie simply shrugs his shoulders and reaches for the teapot in the middle of the table.

“Maybe you should ask Duncan.”

They continue to eat a silent breakfast together, only occasionally glancing up from their plates to make electric and sinister eye contact. Like most of his days at Saltburn, Oliver doesn’t have much to do, but he desperately needs space from the situation, from Farleigh, or else he isn’t sure he’ll be able to control himself. From what, exactly, he remains unsure of as he drags an antique wool blanket and a thick copy of Pride and Prejudice out to the golden, sprawling field on the south side of the grounds. It’s a comfort to lay naked under the sun the way he had years ago when he was surrounded by love and kindness and family, when the cracks in his plan hadn’t started to fill in with violence quite yet. The sun shines down through the thin ozone and coats Oliver’s back with prickly awareness. The book is with him mostly for show, as he’s read it so many times he can recite all his favorite lines and monologues. Sometimes he imagines himself as Mr. Darcy—intelligent and forthright—vying for the affections of Felix’s Elizabeth—soft and witty and painfully earnest. The daydreams make him hyper-aware of the massive gap in their social status and the withholding of truths and honesties that will eventually boil over every time. 

His eyes close, weary from a lack of sleep, when he senses a shift in the atmosphere—a reverberating quake through the ground that means someone is walking his way—and turns to lay on his stomach so he can watch for movement across the field. Soon enough, he sees Farleigh in the distance, and Farleigh sees him. Awkwardly, he approaches the edge of the grassy expanse with his own rolled-up, woven blanket tucked under his armpit. He’s wearing thigh-length shorts and a yellow polo. Oliver recognizes it from Felix’s closet but bites back the urge to call him a hypocrite. 

“I had a feeling you still came here,” Farleigh says, factually but with an air of sympathy that Oliver can’t wait to exploit. 

“I do,” Oliver affirms, “and all the rules still apply.”

Farleigh rolls his eyes, but reaches for the hem of his shirt regardless, and pulls it off. It falls to the ground and he fingers open the button on his shorts, pushes them down his long, thin legs, and steps out of them toward the center of the field where Oliver is lying. While his feelings about Farleigh are conflicted, to say the least, the only thing he feels looking at him right now—watching the way his muscles pull and shift, the way the sun bathes his brown skin in golden hues, the way his cock moves from side to side as he walks closer—is want. This feeling, however, quickly fizzles out when Farleigh lies beside him on his back and opens his fucking mouth. Christ, if he isn’t easy to despise. 

“You know, I hired a private investigator a few years ago. Tried to find out where you were, what you might be doing, what lies you told to my family.” He turns his head to speak directly at Oliver, clearly not planning to pause for a reaction. “And he couldn’t find anything, not a single piece of paper or public record with your name on it, except for your transcripts from Oxford. Isn’t that weird? I told him there was no way, that you were a kid with deadbeat, druggie parents, probably bounced around the system a few times. Told him there had to be hospital records of negligence, court documents, or something. No way little Ollie escaped that childhood without a few paper trails.”

Oliver realizes he’s been holding in his breath since Farleigh’s footsteps rattled across the yard and feels a rush of relief when he finally lets it go. He’s got nothing to worry about—a professional couldn’t even weave together the sticky web of lies he spun to achieve his goals. It gives him confidence—dangerous confidence. The style of confidence that led him into Farleigh’s bed that night, years ago. Oliver tucks his arms underneath his chin and stares into the tall grass in front of him.

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Come on,” Farleigh pleads, frustrated and exasperated, “you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

“No, obviously you’re right, Farleigh” Oliver confesses. “At eighteen years old, I was able to manipulate an entire family of lords and ladies into trusting me and then I picked them off, one by one, in an elaborate scheme to occupy their giant, empty mansion.” The confidence swells again—he knows the truth is too unimaginable to be real and hopes he’s using the right level of sarcasm and playfulness to cover up the underlying reality. Farleigh rolls his eyes once more and looks back up into the clouds. 

“I know you’re not a fucking murderer, okay? But you have to admit, things don’t seem to be lining up. And I think I’m expressing a healthy amount of concern for my dearly departed loved ones. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

Ollie tries to hide the smirk on his face, but can’t cover up the irritated way his voice comes out.

“You paid someone to stalk me,” he recalls slowly, emphasizing the absurdity of Farleigh’s assertion. “And I’m the dick.”

Farleigh presses his wrists into his eye sockets and groans. “Ugh, come on Oliver! I feel like I’m going fucking insane over here! You have to give me something, please. Just tell me the truth, once. One thing about your life that’s actually real.”

A little bit of empathy permeates Oliver’s shriveled heart and he figures that the kind thing to do is to admit to at least one of his lies—offer Farleigh a taste of closure that will hopefully satisfy his hunger for the truth.

“Alright,” he begins, “you remember when the Cattons accused you of stealing? When James got that call from his friend at Soethby’s?” He lets the question hang in the air for a moment and gives Farleigh the chance to think back through all the madness of that summer.

“Oh my god…” His eyes go wide with realization. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.” Oliver tries his best to sound convincing. He does feel sorry, a little bit, that Farleigh ended up being collateral damage in all of this. “I was jealous. And you were right—that summer was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I didn’t want to have to share it with you.”

Farleigh sits up on his elbows and takes in a deep breath. Oliver isn’t sure if he should be bracing for a fight or running away—the molten anger building up pressure behind Farleigh’s eyes feels like it’s about to erupt. He sits up and tucks his feet under his knees, turning so that his back is to Oliver.

“That’s really fucked up, dude.” 

When he has nothing else to add, Oliver presses on.

“I know. I didn’t say you deserved it.” He focuses his energy on the amber sunlight that’s beginning to dip below the treeline, trying his best to make the admission sound sincere. “I was devastated to see you welcomed back so quickly. To know that they’d all rather let a thief into their home than cause any sort of public rift…to realize it was all for nothing.”

Strangely, he lets out a huff that could nearly be described as a laugh. “That’s pathetic,” is the last of Farleigh’s commentary on the revelation and he pushes himself up onto his feet, leaving the blanket where it is, “I’ve got to go get ready for dinner.”

Tradition is tradition, and Oliver is in no place to deny as precious a tradition as dressing for dinner at the Saltburn estate. A comforting reminder of home is the least he feels he can do for Farleigh since, technically, he did have a hand in the premature demise of several of the boy’s family members. Plus, no one has utilized the grand dining hall since Elspeth and James’ anniversary party four years ago. Almost no one came, and those who did sat awkwardly around the table, trying to keep the conversation light while their eyes darted around the room, hoping to suss out any salacious details of their children’s tragic deaths. 

Oliver may not have been there, but the house remembers—tells him all about that night when Elspeth had taken so much Klonopin that she could hardly form a complete sentence. The pity it felt for James who sat by her side all night, monitoring her heart rateas she took shallow, shaky breaths. It’s funny, to Oliver, how two people who hate each other so much can care so deeply about one another. Maybe, he muses, that’s what he could find with Farleigh. One thing is certain as they sit on opposite ends of the sprawling dinner table, taking cautious bites of pork belly and mashed potatoes: Farleigh will not be leaving Saltburn any time soon, and it certainly will not be in the same body he arrived in.

“So what’s your plan, then?” Oliver cuts the silence, uninterested in playing some strange game of niceties. Neither he nor Farleigh were born into this culture of masks and polite denials of reality; they can’t paint over and ignore the dramatic nature of Farleigh’s arrival and Oliver’s persistence. They are so much more similar than either would like to admit.

Farleigh answers, “Missed my dear old friend, Duncan, obviously.” The sarcasm dribbles from his tongue and he continues. “The real question is, Oliver, dearest, what the fuck is your plan?”

Oliver takes the cloth napkin from his lap, dabs the corners of his mouth, and lays it across his half-eaten plate. The stiff, antique chair scuffs painfully when he pushes himself back and rises to his feet. Farleigh is watching him closely, trying to predict his next move, running through a thousand different scenarios in the back of his head, but unfortunately for him, you can’t often predict the moves of a predator. He closes the distance created by the long, oaken dinner table. When he reaches Farleigh, he steps behind him, placing his hands on his shoulders and dipping down close to his ear. His breath comes out hot and damp, and he can smell the lingering scent of sweet cologne settled into the soft patch of skin on the side of Farleigh’s neck. It makes his head spin with hunger and lust. 

“My plan,” he begins, as he moves his thumbs in gentle circles between Farleigh’s shoulder blades, “has changed a bit, due to your unexpected arrival.” Oliver dances his fingertips down Farleigh’s jawbone, lightly taking his chin into his hands and tipping his face to the side so that Oliver’s lips are just centimeters away from his. “But I don’t see why we can’t pick up where we left off.”

It’s cute, the way Farleigh tries to hide the hitch in his breath. Oliver focuses on his eyes and pushes his senses into the objects around them—the chairs, the table, the chandeliers. They respond with a familiar buzzing, an insistence. He blends his thoughts into the hard, tangible things around him and uses them to reach into Farleigh’s head—desperate to unearth the truth that’s fighting its way out through a layer of hate and anger—and he’s pleasantly surprised to find them sitting right on the surface. It’s going to be so simple to get what he wants. He’s almost there.

“I’m going to take a bath,” is his final word—a taut line with a sharp, silver hook gleaming on the end—and Oliver can feel Farleigh’s confliction burning a hole into the back of his head as he strides out of the dining hall.

The bathwater sears Oliver’s skin, just barely on the right side of too hot. It’s funny to consider the man he was when he first saw Felix fucking himself right where he currently lies. There’s a small pang of pity in his chest when he remembers the boy so blinded by want for his friend that he lay on the floor of this very tub and lapped at the spoiled water, frenzied and desperate to have a piece of Felix inside of him—to hold him, safe and settled, in his belly. 

He chases after the extension of his mind, through the hallway and the library, down the stairs, and back into the dining hall where he can see Farleigh still sitting at the emptied table—uncomfortable, stiff-backed, and tingling. It’s too far to see into his thoughts, and his senses are too distracted by the persistent heat to reach into his nervous system and pull Farleigh towards him, but he trusts the pathetic, carnal nature of men—feels it himself, even. His face is sunk into the water, with only his glowing blue eyes remaining on the surface, and he feels unmistakably like a crocodile silently stalking a buffalo, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The moment is coming. He can feel it.

When his fingers and toes begin to prune, Oliver resigns to the fact that Farleigh isn’t coming to claim him, naked and wet in the bathtub. Not this time, at least. He pulls the plug free and watches the water spill down the drain, carrying bits of his patience away with it. The short, fluffy bathrobe Duncan keeps clean and hung by the door is soft and inviting, and it helps soothe away the tense anticipation he’d allowed to build. He brushes his teeth in the mirror, running his tongue along the blunt-tipped canines that grow and swell whenever he thinks about Farleigh’s velvety skin and the warm blood that runs beneath it. Just as he goes to reach for the doorknob and retire to his bed, the door behind him releases a deep creak and the unmistakable sound of bare feet plodding across the hard floor sends a spark down his spine. Locking eyes with Farleigh through the mirror he asks, “What took you so long?”

“Look,” Farleigh begins, stepping further into the room, “I don’t know what you think is going to happen here, but all that weird shit between us is in the past.”

Oliver looks down at the sink and smiles to himself. “The past, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Farleigh stands a few feet behind him, and Oliver can sense his resolve starting to slip away. “I’m here to help my family. To get my house back for my mom.”

“That could be true,” Oliver assures and turns around to face him. “But I know you haven’t forgotten how my hands felt on your cock, know you’ve thought about what I would feel like inside of you.” He puts himself just inches from Farleigh but doesn’t reach out, simply looks up at him—a question sitting right behind his eyes.

Farleigh’s voice is breathy and shaking. “You don’t know that,” he asserts.

They’re inching forward, tension running hot between them as Oliver attempts to poke holes through it. He reaches up and slides his hand behind Farleigh’s neck, running his fingers up into his curls and tightening down. 

“Oh, but I do,” Oliver is insistent. “You think I’ve forgotten what a good boy you can be? How you cried for me when you came?” Farleigh’s mouth is hanging open, brushing so close to Oliver’s that he can smell the stale, red wine on his breath. “Think I haven’t been imagining what your tight cunt might feel like?”

The electricity between them unravels in an instant, and Oliver climbs into Farleigh’s mouth, running his tongue along his teeth and pulling him closer. They share a gasping moan as Farleigh grabs hold of Oliver’s hips and pushes him up against the sink.

“I fucking hate you, you know that?” Farleigh chokes out as Ollie grinds into his thigh. He grasps for control, feeling wild and manic and dizzied by his reality. He shoves a hand up Farleigh’s button-down, clawing at his bare skin.

“And you’re still going to let me fuck you, aren’t you?” Farleigh’s body responds for him, and he reaches beneath Oliver’s robe to palm at his half-hard cock. They spill into Oliver’s bedroom, the same room he has occupied since his initial arrival at Saltburn, and Ollie makes quick work of Farleigh’s shirt and belt while letting his meager coverings slide off his shoulders and onto the floor. He mouths at Farleigh’s collarbone, treading lightly along his neck, trying to control himself—holding out for the right moment. They let their hands wander over lean muscles and swollen cocks as Farleigh leads them towards the bed, tripping over their tangle of legs. When the backs of his knees bump against the soft comforter, Oliver lets himself fall to a seat. He knows he shouldn’t do it—knows it’s not the most moral way to get what he wants in bed, but it’s thrilling to search through the confines of Farleigh’s mind, to let him think he has some semblance of control while, in reality, Oliver is orchestrating his every move from the inside out. It only takes a second of focus and Farleigh’s pliable mind gives in. He sinks to his knees at the edge of the bed and places a soft kiss on the side of Oliver’s rigid cock.

“Mm,” Farleigh rumbles, sounding pleased with himself. “Hello, old friend.” 

Oliver tips his head back and lets his eyes fall shut as Farleigh slides his tongue along the shaft and sucks his cock into the heat of his wet mouth. What Farleigh lacks in likability, he makes up for in spades with his strong, dexterous tongue that milks a wanton moan from Oliver’s lips. He swallows Oliver down as far as he can, drooling over his hand that’s making up for what he can’t fit inside of him. The wet gag he lets out when Oliver thrusts into his throat nearly has him coming prematurely, but Farleigh must sense this, and he tightens his fist around the base of Oliver’s dick, quickly stifling the impending orgasm. 

“Come here,” he gasps. “Come get on your hands and knees.” 

Despite the way he’s inclined to arch his back to authority, Farleigh seems eager to obey Oliver’s demands. The way his cock strains between his legs and dribbles onto the sheets underneath him as he pushes his face into the pillows tells more truth than his mouth ever would. Oliver admires him from behind, rubs a hand over his soft cheeks, and traces his fingers down the cleft of his ass.

“You’re going to do what I want you to, aren’t you?” Oliver asks as he circles his thumb around Farleigh’s spread hole. 

His answer is muffled by the thick pillows, but it’s clear nonetheless.

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to stay here, at Saltburn, with me. As long as I want you to.”

“Yes.”

As a reward for his obedience, Oliver sucks his middle finger into his mouth, pumping it in and out gratuitously, putting on a show for no one but himself and the walls of Saltburn. It returns to Farleigh’s eager muscle, wet and slippery. Farleigh gasps when he pushes it inside, their desperate moans echoing each other. He starts to grind back into the intrusion and lets out a put-upon groan when Oliver leaves him for a moment. The click of a bottle opening quickly stifles his impatience, and Oliver returns with two, slicked digits and takes his time opening Farleigh up slowly, gently, rocking into his backside and dragging his desperate cock along his fuzzy thighs. Once he feels almost no resistance, Oliver pulls out entirely and hooks his arm around Farleigh’s middle, flipping him roughly onto his back.

“Please,” Farleigh begs. Oliver pushes the small bottle of lube into his hand.

“Get it wet for me,” he commands and Farleigh eagerly drizzles the cool liquid into his hand, reaching between them to slick Oliver’s cock and his entrance. When Oliver finally pushes inside of him, Farleigh releases a shuddering sigh.

“Does it hurt?” Oliver asks, like he nearly cares.

Farleigh nods his head.

“Do you like it?”

Another silent affirmation.

Oliver sinks deep into Farleigh’s body and feels the pleasurable sting of sharp fingernails clawing down his back. He focuses on the acute line of Farleigh’s jaw, the swell of his Adam’s apple, and the soft throb of his jugular vein as he sets a rhythmic pace, breaking down the tension between them with each thrust. Oliver wraps his fingers around Farleigh’s throat and presses a surprisingly gentle kiss to his mouth, squeezing tight enough to feel him swallow tensely. It’s intoxicating, and Oliver feels entirely wasted on the smell of sweat and sex and the anticipation of stinging, bloody release. As his climax builds steadily inside of him, he senses that the moment is coming closer. Farleigh squirms beneath him, gasping from the pressure of Oliver’s hand on his neck and the pleasure of his huge cock pressing against his prostate. He knows it’s time when Farleigh reaches between them to stroke himself, arching his back in response to the touch.

“I need you, Farleigh,” Oliver whispers into the crook of his neck. “I need you here with me.”

The moment Farleigh begins to shake and spill across his fist, Oliver lets himself go as well and sinks his protruding fangs deep into Farleigh’s sweat-flavored flesh. The delicious sap that flows from the punctures coats Oliver’s throat and hurdles him over the edge as he comes inside Farleigh’s gaping body, fucking into him as he screams and fights and heaves in deep, panicked breaths. 

“Ollie!” He cries, and Oliver gives the poor man a moment to breathe while being bled dry. He releases the torn, mangled flesh and looks him in the eyes, grinning through the sparkling, scarlet liquid darkening the lower part of his face.

“Don’t worry,” he tells him. “I won’t let you die.” He pulls his softening cock out of Farleigh’s spasming body and lays along his side, watching the blood pour steadily from his throat and biting into his arm to create a matching waterfall of foul ichor. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

It’s difficult to coax the fluid down Farleigh’s throat as he coughs and chokes and his lungs fill with more blood than oxygen, but his body, clinging desperately to life, accepts it dutifully. Oliver digs a handkerchief out from the bedside table and presses it firmly to the fresh puncture wound as he watches Farleigh’s eyes glaze over and slowly close. He licks and kisses at the last few drops of wet blood sliding down the man’s neck and chest—feels his breath grow shallow and, eventually, stop altogether. 

Oliver lays his head on the pillow next to Farleigh’s cheek and rests a hand on his chest, soaking in the last of his soft, fleshy warmth.

“Still such a good boy,” he sighs into Farleigh’s rapidly chilling skin and brushes back some stray hairs that cling to his forehead. “You’ll feel better come morning.”

Chapter Text

Oliver remains by Farleigh’s side throughout the night and into the early morning. Sometime before the sun starts to peek through the gauzy curtains, Duncan brings in a few hot towels. Together they silently and carefully change the bedsheets and wipe away the evidence of the violence that occurred. The thrill of it all—being inside Farleigh’s warm body, tasting his sweet skin and thin veins, taking what he needs from him—has Oliver pacing the winding hallways of Saltburn, desperately trying to regain control of himself. 

The gift of immortality isn’t for everyone; most people see it as more of a curse and there have been long periods where Oliver has been inclined to agree with that sentiment. However, this time, possibly for the first time, he feels content with it. It’s like his life, up until now, has been a jumble of scattered puzzle pieces that he’s tried to sort and fit together a thousand times, only to find that they never quite match. Standing beside his bed, gazing at Farleigh’s weak, motionless body, he feels like the most skilled problem solver that has ever existed. He sees how the pieces are rapidly coming together, forming the perfect picture of his future. 

It’s close to noon when Farleigh stirs for the first time. Oliver lies beside him, his arm wrapped around the back of Farleigh’s neck and a gentle palm laid across his bare chest. He can sense some energy returning to his body and feels the electric tingle of a now sharpened and all-seeing nervous-system creating static within his frigid core. Deep in the pit of his chest, Oliver fears Farleigh may never open his eyes. Perhaps he took too much from him leaving him too weak to fully come back. So, he tips Farleigh’s chin towards his, crowding in close to his lips, and whispers,

 “Wake up.”

Slowly, like a newborn baby being welcomed into the world, Farleigh blinks his eyes apart and looks up into Oliver’s pleased face. His mouth opens slightly and his voice comes out low and gravelly.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

Oliver can’t help but smile down at his newest creation.

“Don’t worry about that yet,” he purrs, reaching up to cradle Farleigh’s head in his hands. “Rest a little while longer.”

Diary of Oliver Quick

25 May 1852

Tonight, I attempted my first turning. There’s still a possibility that I’ve killed her, as her body has not moved for at least four hours, which feels like tremendously more time than it actually is. I tried to clean her and put her into fresh clothes, but the drying blood wouldn’t scrub away. There’s a hot bath drawn for her if she ever comes back to me.

This wasn’t my plan for the evening, I must admit. A group of actors is in town to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I could not resist such sentimental Shakespearean comedies. I first heard the story on a hot, summer night with Halithan’s head resting on my stomach and my hands sunk into his soft hair as he read from the text. That memory still churns inside of me when I close my eyes. 

The theater was crowded with excited patrons. It overwhelmed my senses, which are still raw and out of control, so I quietly crept past the ticket booth, blending in with the other white-collar men and women, and found an inconspicuous seat in the back row. While listening to the orchestra tune and letting my mind sink into the throbbing reverberation, I felt the distinct pull of eyes. A woman, older than me but not terribly so, maybe nearing her thirties, was sat next to me, burning a hole through my temple with her gaze. 

When I asked her if I could help her, she told me, “Yes, you’re probably the only person who can.” 

My attitude can be cryptic at best, but she was unlike any mystery I’d unraveled before. As the play began, she leaned her shoulder against mine, stroked her hand up my leg, and whispered in my ear about the costumes and the script and the beautiful woman playing Hermia. She told me that the actress looked good enough to eat. When it ended, she pulled me by the hand down a dim alleyway, pressed her body to mine, and asked me what I wanted in exchange for her immortality. I will have to ask her what she saw that gave me away—how she looked at me and knew that I could offer her the eternal life she was seeking.

I told her, “Come stay with me,” and she agreed. We walked through the dark streets and up the long staircase to the sublet I’d acquired after sucking dry the original renter who looked surprisingly like me. She asked if it would hurt, and I told her no. It didn’t feel good to lie to someone like that, but I didn’t want her to change her mind. I have spent two years alone, and her company would be a welcomed reprieve. I offered her wine and she shared her story with me. 

Cherie, when she was young, had a cruel father. He drank too much and beat her when her mother’s bruised body couldn’t satisfy him, making her life and her home feel more like a torture cell. She left when she was young and  worked on the streets, using her wiles to attract wealthy men and taking payment in coin and ruinous secrets. 

The first vampire she met was in Sussex. He paid her for her company, lonely and desperate for contact and conversation. His emptiness, suddenly filled by hired companionship, made him open and vulnerable—so he shared the secrets of his darkness and the blood-fueled madness of his world. He fucked her gently, like a real lover would, and she lamented when he left her with her humanity intact and her body filled with red juices like a perfectly ripened strawberry, warm from the sun. From there, she wandered from town to town, searching for another vampire that would make her what she wanted to be and I was more than willing.

I kissed her neck and sank my fangs into her pulsing throat. She didn’t scream or cry, she didn’t fight it. My inexperience left me hesitant as I let the heat from her body slide down my throat and welcomed her into my belly. I cut my wrist open and poured myself back into her. Her soft face grew pale so quickly and as I write, I still fear that my novice enthusiasm has taken her. If she wakes up, I will show her what to do. I will love her and take care of her and soon we will both move on, for I cannot and will not give into the false safety of everlasting promises. I’ve learned many useful things this evening and I will not let that go to waste. 

Oliver reflects on the others who have come and gone from his life—the ones who were fleeting and unstable, but also the ones that behaved and loved and stayed—as he fills a tall glass with water from the service kitchen sink. Drinking, eating, and even breathing have become optional for Farleigh now, but human urges and indulgences still hold their meaning. Breathing deeply is still calming and relieving. Drinking cool water still quenches the sting of a hot day. It will be good for him, to hold onto some of his habits, to transition slowly and deliberately, to cling to a few pieces of his former self. 

When he returns to the room, he sees Farleigh sitting up slightly, pressing his hand to his chest and staring wide-eyed at the wall. He turns his head in response to the creaking door and Oliver notices how his eyes look different—brighter, while simultaneously holding a new darkness that he recognizes in his own eyes—and how his body seems to radiate out of the room and through the hallways. 

“Oliver,” he says, cautiously. “I don’t think my heart is beating.”

Ollie sets down the glass he brought for Farleigh and quickly comes to his side. He slides his hand underneath the one settled where Farleigh’s heart should be moving consistently each second.

“I can still feel it there,” he soothes. “It just doesn’t have to work as hard anymore.”

The confusion and fear that pass across Farleigh’s face hurts Oliver to look at. He sits on the bed next to him and strokes his arm, hoping to comfort his distress away. Still avoiding eye contact, Farleigh asks—

“What are you?”

Oliver gently puts his hand on the side of Farleigh’s face and helps him turn his head, looking deeply into his eyes now sparkling with a powerful emancipation from his mortal body that he will someday come to appreciate.

“I think you know what I am.”

Farleigh drops his head once more and whispers, “Why me?” Oliver smiles sweetly, his insides warming with fondness because it feels so obvious to him why it had to be Farleigh—why the universe put them together all those years ago and deliberately pulled them back to one another.

“Because we were made for each other, Farleigh. Don’t you see? You and me, we can have everything we’ve ever wanted. Together.”

“I didn’t want this,” Farleigh bites back. “I fucking hate you for doing this to me.” His muscles knot together as Oliver leans in to press a kiss to his temple—a gesture of good faith.

“Get some more sleep,” Oliver tells him. “I’ll have Duncan find you something to eat.”

“Oh, fucking hell, Oliver, something to eat?” he laments. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, right?” Farleigh looks so unsteady, so frightened.

“Come find me when you feel stronger, please,” Oliver pleads. “I want to explain everything to you, but you need to rest.”

Farleigh opens his mouth to protest, but exhaustion rolls over him like a wave as he sinks back down into the blankets. He mutters, “Go away,” as his eyelids fall together with an impossible heaviness and Oliver takes his leave. It’ll take time—it often does—for Farleigh to grieve his former life, but this all feels too perfect to be the wrong choice. The house vibrates with a new frequency that wraps around his ankles as he passes through doorway after doorway. Oliver lives to serve Saltburn and now Farleigh will as well.

It’s a full twenty-four hours before Farleigh emerges from the room, standing upright and cautious. He sways on his feet, searching for a new way to ground himself in this body that feels wholly unlike his own. Oliver had told him to come find him and even though Ollie is the last person he wants to speak with right now, he feels a magnetic pull guiding him through Saltburn and into the main sitting room. Oliver is planted in front of the television watching the bright colors move silently across the screen, focusing on counting each individual pixel to distract himself from his anxiety. He reminds himself that each fuzzy, gradient piece of static electricity, though useless on its own, forms a perfect image when you step back and view the picture as a whole.

The door pops open and Oliver jumps to his feet as Farleigh emerges from the other side. He moves his eyes around the large room that looks no different than it did six years ago, still bright red and covered in Elspeth’s eclectic art collection. Finally, he lands on Oliver’s fraught expression.  They stand across from each other and Oliver looks him up and down—searching for the changes and witnessing the powerful aura he carries that never used to be there. Farleigh makes his way closer to the loveseat he knows from weekend sleepovers and a thousand movie nights. When he sits down, all of the stress Oliver has bottled up for the last day explodes out of him.

“Are you okay? How do you feel?” He picks up Farleigh’s icy hands and holds them close to his chest. “Did Duncan get you something to eat? Was it alright?” Farleigh takes a deep breath, still clinging to his old human behaviors, and jerks his hands back in a way that feels frigid and angry.

“I feel fine.” 

It seems as though Farleigh chooses to respond to just one of these questions. Why is he torturing Oliver like this? All he wants is to help him, to guide him, to be his pillar through a lifetime of violence and pain and he continues to stack bricks, build walls, and close Oliver out of his thoughts. He tries to coax his way back in and slides closer to Farleigh’s side.

“What do you want to know about being a vampire?”

Farleigh closes his eyes and rubs his index and middle fingers into his temples, letting out a frustrated groan. 

“I want to know what the fuck your plan is, Oliver! This is fucking unreal! What are you going to do with me? What do you expect me to do?” Oliver stares at his mouth as he continues to let out of a panicked string of questions. His lips look dry, chapped from lying half dead on his back for several hours. They sit close enough to feel each other’s breath and Farleigh’s eyes start to well with tears.

“Why didn’t you give me a say in all of this, you evil fucking…”

Oliver cuts him off with a bruising kiss, slipping his hand around Farleigh’s waist and attempting to pull him closer. He wants it so badly, to be close to Farleigh, to know the pathways of his body, to live inside Saltburn for the rest of his life with him. The immediate resistance Farleigh puts up makes Oliver’s heart ache. Cold hands bristle against his chest and push him back. Farleigh’s voice pitches higher, louder.

“Oliver, stop! You can’t fuck your way out of this, okay? You took my fucking life away from me. If you don’t tell me the truth about why you did this and what in God’s name your end game is, I swear I’m going to walk out that front door and keep walking until it’s impossible for you to find me.”

It’s true that Oliver has become proficient at using his body to avoid answering questions and curb conversations he doesn’t want to have. Flattery, flirting, sex—it’s the only way he knows how to grab control of someone and reveal their darkest thoughts. Honesty and vulnerability, that’s what Farleigh is asking for and Oliver loathes the part of him that says it’s better to lie, to say whatever he must to keep Farleigh inside of Saltburn. No, he wants to do this right. He stands up, agitated by the way his chest resists its unraveling—keeps sewing up the threads that Oliver tries time after time to pull loose. Some pacing helps. At least he can’t look Farleigh in his tired, pleading eyes. 

“It’s complicated,” he begins, his body turning to face one of the towering windows as he speaks out into the vast chasm in front of him.

“Well,” Farleigh says, annoyed and impatient, “I guess I have a lot of fucking time now that I’m treading the narrow path between life and death, don’t I?” His anger and confusion build to a crescendo of release as he stands to meet Oliver, crowding in behind him and sending tingling static through his limbs. 

“Fucking hell,” he drops his voice to little more than a whisper. “I should kill you, you know? Silver bullet, dagger to the heart, whatever stupid shit you’re going to tell me is the definition of my life now.” Farleigh takes a large step back from him, indignation slipping into desperation, and begs, “Fuck, Ollie, please just tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Oliver speaks calmly. “Just sit down, we’ll sort everything out.”

Farleigh does as he’s told—reoccupies his spot on the overstuffed couch—and leans his head against the back in exasperation, rolls his eyes, and lets out a huff of frustration. Oliver can’t stop staring at the curve of his throat, tracing the line up into his pointed jaw that’s rough with day-old stubble. He doesn’t want to stop looking because his palms start to sweat and his dead heart starts to pump sludge through his body and he has to resist the urge to touch him. He’s in there—the Farleigh that he’s kept buried down in the smoldering coals of his obsession with this place. The head-spinning, explosive, devastating man who can perfectly blend arrogance and confidence to cultivate a dominant exterior that melts into submission every time Oliver puts his hands on him. The same cutting, cruel, passive-aggressive piece of shit that he met that summer. When Oliver joins him, sitting as close to Farleigh as the electrons under his skin will allow, raw desire does its part to beat back the animal inside of him—cuts off his impulse to lie and manipulate and leaves him feeling brave. He’s ready to answer for his decisions.

“I’m lonely, Farleigh,” Oliver confesses.

Farleigh scoffs at the admission. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you kill the family that took you in and kept you company. I’m assuming that’s true, yeah? That you ate up the Cattons from the inside out.”

“It’s true, “ Oliver confirms, his gaze focusing on a painting in the corner depicting a sprawling meadow filled with flowers. In the center stands the image of a beautiful, young knight surrounded by clamoring, porcelain-skinned women. “I needed to make room for Saltburn to breathe. To become what it wants to be.”

“Oliver, what the fuck does that even mean ?” Farleigh asks, scrubbing his face with his hands, pleading for at least one sensible, logical explanation to this that he can understand. “Can you please stop talking in fucking riddles like you’re the fucking Joker?” Impatience boils up in Farleigh’s throat and Oliver, anxious that this conversation will soon spiral out of control, pushes down the gut reaction to hit Farleigh hard enough that he forgets all of this and they can rewind the events of the previous day—start over.

“It’s hard to explain…” he admits. And that’s the god-honest truth. How do you put into words the way a home like Saltburn feels and moves and evolves in the same way a molecule of carbon, under the right circumstances, can become an entire human race? He tries, anyway.

“This place is more than just a mansion and a plot of land. It holds power.” Oliver continues as Farleigh stares at him with a mix of confusion and skepticism dancing across his face.

“It knows about the past and can see into the future. When I’m here, I can understand what it has to say.” Oliver presses on, trying to maintain his momentum and make Farleigh understand. “I could feel it as soon as I met Felix. Could tell he didn’t have the strength to tap into it—just carried it around with him like an empty shoulder bag. James was even worse—brainless and weak. He wasted the opportunity of a lifetime to bathe in obscene wealth and pageantry. I knew I had to save Saltburn from their ignorance. It’s mine. I was made to be its caretaker. There didn’t seem likto be any other way.”

“But you killed Felix,” Farleigh states with more curious than vicious. “I really thought you loved him. You sure acted like a sick puppy when he was around.”

Oliver drops his gaze and smiles into his lap, reminiscing about Felix’s slender body and sweet voice—the way he seemed to glow from the inside. “I did love him. Desperately, desperately loved him. But love that isn’t reciprocated is hardly love and he could never handle all of this, not like you can.”

Oliver pauses, feeling like he has just delivered a monologue filled with more truths than he’s spoken in years. When he musters the courage to look at Farleigh and decipher his expression, he finds it nearly impossible. It makes him feel urgent—animalistic. He tries to push himself into the couch cushions and and delve into Farleigh’s mind, searching for what he wants, if he’s satisfied with what he’s gotten, and if he feels as sick to his stomach as Oliver does. Surprisingly, he’s met with harsh resistance—as if a glass-paned window stood between them, preventing Oliver’s dowsing rods from vibrating and seeing out for the holes in Farleigh’s mind. He feels like a bird, slamming time and time again into the invisible barricade. Farleigh abruptly pushes himself back into the couch, distancing himself for Oliver’s intense starre.

“Oliver, get the fuck out of my head. Stop fucking digging around for it and just let me tell you how I feel,” Farleigh demanded.

“You…how did you know I was doing that?” Oliver is taken aback, caught red-handed in his attempt to steer the conversation in the direction he wants it.

“I don’t know, but it's fucking weird so please, just give me a second.” Uncertain of how to sit or where to look, Oliver folds his hands in his lap and waits quietly, searching for a sign that Farleigh has caught up with the plan so far, but he continues to stare forward, remaining silent and still.

“If you want, I can…” Oliver doesn’t manage to finish the sentance—isn’t quite sure what he was planning to say, anyway. Farleigh jumps back to life and turns his body towards their shared space.

“So you’re telling me that you and the house have some sort of divine, demonic connection?”

“Kind of,” Ollie answers.

“And my family—the Cattons—couldn’t stay here.”

“Right.”

“Because the house belongs to you, like, spiritually?”

Oliver is desperate to provide him with some certainty, some solid facts, but half the time he doesn’t even have that for himself. “If that makes sense to you, sure.”

“None of this makes sense to me, man.”

And Oliver can empathize with him, he really can.

“I still don’t get it,” Farleigh continues, “What do I have to do with this? I was gone—you made damn sure of that. Made sure they’d never want to talk to me again. You won. Why do you want to keep me here? Why didn’t you just kill me the second I stepped through the door?”

“I told you.” Oliver hates the way his voice drips with vulnerability, the way he feels defenseless around Farleigh now that he’s partially placed his dreams on his shoulders.  “I’m lonely.”

“So you decided to, what,” Oliver asks, irritated and ramping back up to angry, “Make me your slave? Your immortal house boy? You don’t even fucking like me.”

Oliver is struck with the memory of himself uttering similar words to Farleigh the night he crawled into his bed and violated his mind—the night he unknowingly surrendered his fate to the beautiful, dutiful boy who drove him mad with frustration and desire. The distance between them has grown wider and Oliver tries to lessen it—extends an olive branch disguised as his thigh pressed up against Farleigh’s with sharp, blue eyes staring up at him.

“That’s not true,” he pleads, exasperated by his attempts to get through to him, searching his head for clearer answers, but Farleigh jumps in to fill the void between his words.

“Then why did you try to ruin my life? Why did you destroy my family? Take away things I loved, things I needed? You fucked everything up for me and you expect me to believe that you like me enough to share this empty, loveless house with me?” 

It’s true, Oliver did all of those horrible things—would do them again, if given the chance. But Farleigh sank his hooks into Oliver and tore into his cold skin that night he looked him straight in the eyes and let his gaurd fall to pieces when Oliver laid bare his desire to touch him. It was like the thrill of breaking a wild horse—subduing a pack of rabid dogs. He showed Oliver that there could be more to his eternity than fleeting infatuations and self-destructive, psychosexual shit-shows—he could really build something with the right person by his side.

“You’re different from all of them, Farleigh,” he tries to explain. “You’re like me. You don’t come from their world but, unlike me, you’ve blended in so well that King George couldn’t tell the difference. We’re snakes, you and me—survivors.” 

Farleigh shifts uncomfortably in his seat, prompting Oliver to reach over and wrap his hand around his thigh, squeezing lightly.

“You’re cruel and cunning and fucking brilliant. I missed you, you know?” Oliver confesses.

“Of course you did—I’m the only one who got out. And I can’t fucking believe you’ve sucked me back into this insane, esoteric nightmare.” Farleigh attempts to stand up again, but Oliver tightens his grip, urging him to stay just a little bit longer. Leaning in closer to Farleigh’s lips, Oliver tilts his head slightly and notices a blend of fear and excitement dance across his face. They’re so close together that Oliver can feel the coolness of Farleigh’s skin enveloping them.

“What if it was our nightmare?”

The question stirs something deep within Farleigh and Oliver hear his mind buzzing—watches the heat buried deep inside his body push its way to the surface. The glass that separates them begins to crack down the middle, forming a complex web of love and lust, fear and trust. 

“Fuck you,” Farleigh whispers, grabbing Oliver’s shirt and pulling him into an urgent kiss as if some magnetic pole has reset and is tugging at their bodies, Oliver climbs into Farleigh’s lap to intensifying the kiss, wanting to be even closer. As he dips down to lick and suck at the soft skin beneath Farleigh’s jaw, he feels the words vibrate out from his vocal cords.

“I’ll stay.”

Oliver smiles against his neck and rewards him by rocking down into his lap, elliciting a deep gasp from Farleigh’s mouth. He murmurs against his skin, “I promise, you won’t regret it.”

“Fuck, Ollie,” Farleigh moans, all breathless and desperate, “it feels so different.”

When Oliver slides his hand under Farleigh’s shirt and brushes a thumb across his nipple, chasing the goosebumps that prickle across his chest, the man squirms beneath him, unable to resist pressing into the electric touch.

“It’s good, right? Just wait until I take you out into the sun.”

“Wait, what?” Farleigh pulls his away, looking at Oliver with a puzzled expression.

Oliver kisses his forehead and his cheeks, under his eyes, and down his throat.

“I can’t wait to show you everything you are now.”

Their mouths meet again, open and hungry, devouring the flames that burn between them. The friction of their hips moving together like perfectly coordinated ballroom dancers makes Oliver feel drunk, his head spinning with the pleasure of winning, of finally getting what he wants. Farleigh will stay. Oliver wishes he could crawl inside of him—curl up like a cat in a warm, afternoon sunbeam.

They stay there for some time, exchanging spit and sweat, lazily kissing as the afternoon fades into early evening. At one point Farleigh says he’s tired, that his head hurts. Oliver understands—he’s still adjusting, still getting used to everything. The wide couch comfortably accommodates both of them, and Oliver closes his eyes too, feeling safe wrapped in Farleigh’s arms. He feels, for the first time in centuries, that he doesn’t have to bear the weight of eternity alone.

When Oliver wakes up, the sun has disappeared into the hillside, replaced by a bright, silvery moon that bathes the walls of Saltburn in piercing light. He sits up and looks back at Farleigh. His chest doesn’t rise and fall with the slow, steady rhythm Oliver is accustomed to—his body doesn’t need it anymore, only responding with breath when he’s awake as a response to a subconscious, primal reflex to breathe. When his mind is quiet, it forgets. It’s still hard to believe that this beautiful archangel, illuminated by the giant satellite and the constellations that Oliver would pluck from the sky and name after him if he could, belongs to him now. Farleigh must sense him staring and he flutters his eyes open, squinting to adjust to the beams of light streaming through the windows. If Oliver’s heart could pound and his stomach could house fluttering butterflies, it would have done so at this moment. 

“How do you feel?” Ollie murmurs, his voice low and rumbling from sleep.

“I’m hungry,” Farleigh responds. “I guess…I don’t know what to do about that now.”

“You don’t have to yet,” Oliver assures him, “If you’re not ready, it’s okay. I can take care of it. I want to take care of you, Farleigh.”

A devilish gleam shines in Farleigh’s eyes. “I don’t need you to take care of me. I want to know. Show me.”

The late summer evening air is cool and breezy and Oliver breathes in deep through his nose to fill his body with the smell of the wet grass and the dense, mossy forest behind the estate. It’s just past midnight, but the nearly full moon lightens the scenery around him and Farleigh. Despite this, he’s still grateful for the way his pupils dilate, soaking in every hint of light until his vision comes in bright and clear. He pulls Farleigh by the wrist past the treeline and into the thick woods. 

“Holy shit,” Farleigh says, filled with wonder. “it’s like the sun’s up…I can see everything.” 

“Useful, yeah?” Oliver adds. 

“Fucking weird,” he corrects.

“So, what now?” Farleigh asks, getting antsy with hunger. “You going to pull a crossbow out of your ass or something?”

Oliver stifles a laugh, cautious not to scare off any potential prey.

“You’re a predator now, Farleigh. We’re not going to need anything like that. Just…shut your eyes. Focus. Tell me what you hear.”

Farleigh does as he’s told and squeezes his eyes closed. He furrows his brow.

“I hear…crickets. Wind.”

“Try to imagine you’re the wind,” Oliver tells him, and Farleigh opens his eyes to roll them in his direction, giving him a piqued smile. “Okay, Henry David Thoreau,” he teases and Oliver thinks he might be blushing because the way Farleigh pokes at him makes him feel warm all over.

“I’m serious,” he asserts through a lopsided grin. “You’ve got no idea the things you can do now. You just have to figure out how to get to them.”

“Ugh, fine,” Farleigh groans, but still tips his head back and closes his eyes again. “I want you to know that this is the gayest thing I’ve ever done.”

Oliver looks over at his silhouetted form and can’t believe how everything he’s ever wanted is his now. He smirks and mutters, “And you’re sure about that?”

“Definitely.”

The two stand silently for a few minutes and Oliver starts to work his mind over the forest floor, dipping across streams of water and spans of pasture. On a clear, calm night like this, he can sometimes reach for miles. Farleigh sucks in a soft gasp that yanks his consciousness back to the space they occupy.

“What’s wrong?” He tries to make the words as small as he can—knows Farleigh will be able to hear him regardless now that his senses are more honed than ever. 

“The ground.” His voice trembles as he speaks. “It feels like it's…trying to crawl up inside me.”

“Follow it.”

Farleigh opens his eyes and takes a few silent steps forward, slowly gaining speed towards the deep thicket of trees ahead. Oliver skips alongside him, struggling to keep up with his stride without jogging. After about a hundred meters of quick, light movement, Farleigh dips behind a wide tree and Oliver follows, crouching low and pressing up against his back.

“What is it?” He asks, hushed.

Farleigh points in the distance towards a long, slender hare, still brown with its summer coat. There’s no indication that it’s noticed their lurking.

“I could see it,” Farleigh whispers. “And then I just…knew where to go.”

Oliver beams at the back of his head and leans in close to the shell of his ear. “Good boy.” A ripple of pride fans out from his chest and wraps them up together. “Now, go get it.”

Farleigh whips his head around. “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

“Run fast,” Oliver shrugs.

Vampires aren’t fast, necessarily. At least not in the way those insufferable Twilight movies would have you think. They don’t run at supersonic speeds or effortlessly fly up trees—it’s more about dexterity, stamina, and the vicious instinct to chase and kill. When you’re starving and clever and outfitted with the sharpened skills of an apex predator, moving quickly simply becomes easier.

Farleigh begins to move towards the hare but immediately trips over a protruding root. He stumbles, catching himself, but makes enough commotion to draw the hare’s attention his way. 

“Fuck it,” he mutters, as he poises himself and sprints towards the small, nimble creature, disappearing behind a wall of brush and tree branches. Oliver follows at a distance, relying on the invisible tether the two of them share to lead him forward, and soon finds him sitting on the ground inside a small clearing with the hare, still kicking and fighting, secured by the scruff in his hand.

“What now?” he asks, panicked.

“Kill it, I suppose,” Oliver tells him, thinking about how obvious the next step should be.

Farleigh’s eyes fill with dread. “I don’t think I can! Ugh, goddamnit, can’t you do it? It's so little and cute, I can’t.”

The killing, the mutilating, and the blood-sucking tend to be some of the more unpleasant parts of vampirism, so Oliver tells him what he often told himself in the beginning. “So are chickens, and I’m sure you’ve eaten plenty of those. Is there that much of a difference when you take out the middleman?” 

He blinks at Oliver, his face pleading with him to come take the choice away. The hare continues to struggle for its life—Farleigh has to choose.

“Ugh, fine.” 

His fangs now protrude from his lips and catch the moonlight, looking sharp and dangerous. Timidly, he rehandles the hare—holds tight as it fights against his grip—and bites down, sinking his dagger teeth deep into its flesh, guzzling down as much as the creature can provide. Oliver watches the life drain from the hare and flow into Farleigh’s body—it's profound, he thinks, that such a small, meaningless life gets to be a part of this now. When he looks up from his meal, Oliver can barely stand the sight of him. It’s just like his dream—his eyes are nearly black, bottomless like a well of twisted beauty, and scarlet liquor drips from his chin. Strife and guilt play a cruel game of ping-pong across his face as he lowers the hare’s body to the ground and stands up. He clears his throat.

“That felt fucked up.”

Oliver walks over and reaches up to wrap his arms around Farleigh’s neck.

“I know, but you did so well.”

When Farleigh tries to look away, ridden with conflict and pain and fear, Oliver pulls him back in, sliding a hand into his hair to tilt his head back. Unable to resist the coppery scent of a fresh kill, he runs his tongue up Farleigh’s neck until he reaches his chin. When he tips his head down to meet Oliver’s lips, Ollie takes him slowly, searching his mouth for the misplaced guilt so he can hold it—turn it over in his hands until it’s something new. They share the taste, sweetened by the thrill of Farleigh’s first chance to take a life and make it his own, made saccharine by the way their mouths slide together, slicked with Farleigh’s burgundy prize.

“Go on then,” Oliver finally says, letting the words disappear into the night around them, “Go run a bath, you’re disgusting.”

“Fuck off,” Farleigh laughs, “So are you.”

“I’ve got to find myself something to eat, but how about I meet you there?”

“Fine,” he answers and begins to amble back towards the house. He calls over his shoulder as he walks away, “But if I’m done by the time you get there, it’s your loss.” Oliver would never tell him, would never willingly offer Farleigh the upper hand by admitting it, but he knows the man has him utterly and pathetically leashed.

_______________________________

As Oliver makes his way back onto the grounds of Saltburn proper, he feels a jarring sense of calm. In the years he’s been making his way through the world—avoiding connections, lurking in shadows, staying cautious, on edge—he’s never allowed many good things to come his way. Today, not only has he let them in—let them soothe his lonliness and comfort his darkness—he wants to keep them.

Saltburn is quiet and still, as it usually is, but Oliver senses a shift in its foundation when he steps through the atrium doors. This place has treated him well over the last few years, but it has always felt so fucking empty. Tonight, something has changed. The recycled air circulating the grand rooms and long halls no longer sighs with dead, dull breaths or reflects Oliver’s isolation like a cruel mirror—it's happy. For him. His body feels like cotton candy, all whipped and dizzy and tooth-rottenly sweet, as he floats up the stairs to make good on his promise.

When he reaches the bathroom that separates his room from Farleigh’s, he can see the steam dancing out of a crack in the door. Its hot tendrils, like the fingers of an old witch luring him to a stew pot, draw him closer until he’s standing on the other side and can admire a different kind of prey—prey he’s been meticulously hunting for years, prey that he feels no desire to consume and destroy, prey that might stay caught.

Farleigh is sunk deep into the tub with his back facing the doorway. He calls back—

“Oliver? I know it’s you.”

“And how do you know for certain, huh?”

“I could hear you as soon as you came inside.” He turns his neck to watch Oliver out of his peripherals as he nears the side of the bath.

“That’s fantastic.” Oliver kneels by the side of the tub and runs his fingers through Farleigh’s thick curls, damp and heavy from the humidity in the room. “You’re fantastic.” 

Farleigh looks down into the water and asks meekly, “Do you ever get used to it? Killing?” Oliver’s heart stings with pity for him and his internal war—is pained with the knowledge that he single-handedly pulled out the last sliver of softness Farleigh had left inside of him and burned it to ash.

“Yes,” Oliver assures, “It will matter less and less.” Swollen silence moves through the room and Oliver fears what will happen when it comes to a halt, so he offers Farleigh something to fill it. Sitting up on his knees, he presses a kiss to his temple. “I want to reward you,” he murmurs close to his ear, “For doing so well tonight.”

“Yeah?” Farleigh asks, a sly smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “How so?” 

Without pause, Oliver stands and begins to strip off his sweat and blood-stained clothes, then taps Farleigh’s shoulder, prompting him to make space behind his back. The water singes his cold skin at first, but the weight of Farleigh’s body pressed against him and the damp, thick air soothes him down to his bones. He wraps his arms around Farleigh’s middle and sets his chin on his shoulder.

“You looked beautiful tonight. Wish could have seen.” He lets his fingers dance across Farleigh’s chest and neck, wrapping his hand around his throat with no pressure—he wants Farleigh to know that he’s safe and held, wants to feel their nervous systems flare up in tandem and feed each other like oxygen to a fire. “I knew you’d be perfect,” he continues to purr and praise, “knew you had it in you. Christ, you’re vicious—terrifying.” Oliver grabs his earlobe between his teeth and growls, “You’ll be able to have all the power you want.” A tremble vibrates through Farleigh’s core and down his limbs when Oliver puts his hand on his cock, taking it into a loose fist, coaxing his hardness along. “As long as you stay here with me,” he pants against Farleigh’s warmed skin, “I’ll give you everything you desire.”

He pulls on Farleigh’s cock, quickly filling with interest, at a languid pace and relaxes into the mewling whimpers that slide from his mouth. “It’s too much,” he tells Oliver as his body starts to slip lower in the tub, so Ollie wraps his unoccupied arm around his middle, holding him firmly in place while continuing to fist his cock, slowly and tortuously. 

“It’s okay.” Oliver coddles, “Stop holding back. Let everything go where it wants to.” Farleigh shakes and moans—would probably drown if Oliver wasn’t gripped around him. “I can’t,” he chokes, “I think my brain is about to melt out my ears.”

“You can. You can do it for me.” Oliver slides his hand up and down Farleigh’s cock as quickly as the heavy water bearing down on them will allow. He balances on a razor’s edge of pleasure and pain as Oliver bites and sucks at his neck and shoulders, sinking his wanton desires to mark and claim him deep into his skin. He’s so close that all Oliver has to do is tell him.

“Come for me—you deserve it.”

And Farleigh’s body unravels in his hands as he does exactly as he’s told. His stomach flexes and his hips twist furiously as he comes without a sound, too overtaken by the feeling to let out a moan or cry Oliver’s name. Ollie works him through it and lets him lay against his chest in the clouded bathwater until it turns unpleasantly cool. They help each other tip-toe out of the bathtub and can’t seem to stop touching as they dry off. His robe is hung up, washed and bleached, as usual, but now a matching one hangs next to it—bless Duncan and his passion for house guests. Oliver wraps himself in the soft terry cloth and edges towards his bedroom door.

“I’m going to—I mean, it’s late so I think I’ll…”

Farleigh interrupts, trying to sound nonchalant. “I thought maybe…I could stay with you tonight. If that’s okay. You did traumatize the fuck out of me today.” Oliver smiles down at his feet, feeling embarrassed by the way his cheeks flush red. 

“Of course,” he murmurs, extending his hand to Farleigh—an offer, another olive branch. Without hesitation, Farleigh slides his fingers between Oliver’s and they collapse into his bed, naked and warm. Farleigh falls asleep nearly as soon as he tucks his head into the crook of Oliver’s neck and tells him, “Good night.” Sleep doesn’t come as easily for Oliver, but he’s happy to lay awake with Farleigh wrapped around his body, still and peaceful. It’s even more satisfying than sleep, as he couldn't could dream up a better life than his own.

Chapter Text

It takes a few weeks for Oliver and Farleigh to fall into a comfortable routine. They share awkward moments as they navigate each other’s idiosyncrasies and work to accommodate them—make space for one another. Things seem to be getting easier and easier with each passing midnight and gradually, the uncomfortable tip-toeing grows into a practiced, well-choreographed dance. It’s early evening, near the end of fall—that sliver of time when all the leaves have turned crispy and the wind carries the distinct bite of winter on its breath—when Oliver realizes it. Farleigh sits across from him at the dinette table, stirring an obscene amount of sugar into a steaming cup of tea, ranting on about how John Green’s newest novel lacks character depth and panders too obviously to an adolescent audience (Oliver reminds him that it is, quite literally, fiction for young adults) and he is struck by a distinct roiling in his chest. 

He is so fucking in love with Farleigh.

The realization hits him fast and hard—like a tsunami, or a freight train, or some other metaphor for being whacked onto your ass with the overwhelming clarity that your life has never been better even though so little has changed. It's like someone has stuffed sticks of dynamite down his throat and into his belly and has just now decided to light them all up at once. Watching Farleigh sit, cross-legged and comfortable on the hard-backed chair, pouring over a fresh copy of the third Harry Potter novel (that he insisted they drive ninety minutes to the nearest Waterstones to buy a limited-release printing of), Oliver bites down on a smile, nearly failing to keep the words inside. 

Instead of spilling his guts across the table, he says to Farleigh, “If you’re going to scrutinize literature so harshly, you should stop reading all those kid’s books.” Without lifting his gaze, Farleigh corrects him. 

“Harry Potter is not a ‘kid’s book’,” he scoffs, offended as he raises two fingers next to his head and air-quotes the last words. “It’s a timeless and brilliantly crafted coming-of-age tale about a misfit nobody who suddenly becomes everything to everyone. It’s about spiritual warfare, unconditional love, fucking… sacrifice , Oliver.” He glances over the pages just to roll his eyes in Ollie’s direction. “Kid’s book, my ass.”

Oliver puts his hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he resigns, “you’re right. Brilliant texts.” 

The sudden explosion inside of him starts to settle and he feels slightly more in control of his speech centers. That is, until Farleigh shoots him an annoyed glare under-sown with maniacal heat and Oliver has to swallow hard before he speaks again.

“I was thinking, maybe we should go into town tonight.” 

Farleigh finishes his page and sets the book open and face down on the table. Oliver looks at the book, then back at Farleigh.

“It’s my book,” he grunts, picking it back up. “I can do whatever I want with it.” Despite his protest, Farleigh tears a corner from his paper napkin, sticks it between the pages he’s stopped on, snaps it shut, and drops it back on the table from an unnecessary height causing a soft, flat thud to echo through the room. “You’ll ruin the binding,” Oliver says with a smirk, but he doesn’t really have to say it. Farleigh has had to listen to him nag on about it at least a hundred times a week.

“What’s in town?” Farleigh circles back and Oliver has to stand from his chair to put his eyes somewhere else, suddenly filled with nerves because he’s never been good at this—dating, caring, loving the way that he thinks he’s supposed to. His relationships tend to end with someone heartbroken or, occasionally, dead and almost always turn into contests of who can be the quickest to squeeze the other dry like a lemon. It's not in his nature to take his time and tumble his love around until it’s perfectly polished. Luckily, he’s never wanted anything the way he wants this. Oliver shrugs his shoulders.

“Might be nice to visit the pub, have a drink and a chat.” His eyes wander up the walls and try to distract him with oil paintings of hideous monarchs and shelves filled with antique copper trinkets. The following silence convinces him to look back at Farleigh and he’s surprised to find him with his elbows on the table, chin wresting between his fists, looking very much like the cat who ate the canary.

“Oliver Quick,” he smiles cheekily, “do you want to take me out on a proper date?”

Oliver sways back on his feet and lets his gaze drift up towards the ceiling. “Yeah, I mean, if that sounds alright with you.” It’s embarrassing to have lived as long as he has and still be choking on his own inexperience. His temples start to sweat when Farleigh gets up and walks around the table. As he passes by, he wraps an arm around Oliver’s neck and bends down to kiss him sweetly. His lips stay against his skin and he mutters, “Give me twenty minutes to change.”

The night is in full swing and the pub is littered with belligerent patrons hollering over the music to slur profound notions to each other. The floor is sticky from spilled beer, the air smells like stale cigarettes, and Farleigh immediately feels out of place. It’s not that he’s unaccustomed to standing out; in Saltburn, Oxford, even back in America he never really fit into the boxes his peers held open for him, but with practice and exposure, it’s become more and more comfortable to feel uncomfortable. As he moves around, trying to spot an open table and muttering “‘scuse me”s and “pardon”s when he inevitably bumps into chairs and shoulders, he turns around to catch Oliver openly staring. 

Farleigh has always felt like he was okay. Not as good looking as Felix, not as charming as Venetia, but moderately handsome and funny enough to have a semi-active sex life. However, the way Oliver looks at him—steeping with desire and affection—makes him feel fucking beautiful. His outfit—well fitting, white trousers, a casual t-shirt, and a navy blue linen jacket—is in dire threat of beer stains, but he lets himself relish in the feeling of being wanted, being admired. He considers pulling Oliver back out into the car and letting him peel the pieces of clothing off of him, one by one. As his mind wanders down that path of thought, he spies an open booth near the back corner—a little hidden and mostly void of loud drunks. Oliver, who has caught up to him by now, tries to say something in his ear, but the music and the chatter drowns it out, so Oliver just points at the table and they take their seats. 

“I’ll grab us some pints,” Farleigh announces, loud enough to be heard, and is quickly swallowed by the mass of people standing around the bartop. Elbowing his way through the crowd, Farleigh finally finds a gap that he can weasel his way into. The bartender, noticing him, sidles over. He’s tall, quite handsome—in a small town sort of way—and his deep voice strikes Farleigh as familiar. 

“Now that can’t be the famous Farleigh Start,” the bartender laughs through a thick, Irish accent.

Farleigh combs his memory to place the man. Sure, he’d lived in the area on and off for nearly his entire life, but those summer and winter breaks were mostly spent creeping around Saltburn, expiring from boredom, or attending whatever activity of the moment his aunt forced him into. He squints and focuses on the face in front of him.

“Declan?” His eyes widen with realization.

“The one and only!” the animated Irishman responds. 

It’s been at least ten years since Farleigh’s heard that charming, bouncing accent. When he first moved from America, Farleigh’s Aunt Elspeth worked tirelessly to get him acclimated, putting him in art classes, fencing, and basically any activity that would get his nose out of a book. None of it stuck—he couldn’t draw for shit and his hand-eye coordination became a major threat to those around him when sharp objects were involved. Near the end of his third summer at Saltburn, Elspeth excitedly shared that he’d be joining a boys’ recreational basketball league, assuring him he would be amazing at it. A bit presumptuous at best—downright racist at worst—but his aunt and uncle were so kind to let him stay and pay his way through boarding school, so he went. 

Declan was older than him—had clearly hit puberty out of the park with his deep voice, hairy legs, and his six-inch height advantage over nearly every other boy on the team. Farleigh wasn’t sure why, but his heart would threaten to pound out of his chest each time Declan lifted his arms to shoot a basket, revealing a few inches of creamy skin that made Farleigh sweat through his uniform. He was fourteen, a teenager, so, of course, he’d had crushes—fancied the occasional sweet-looking boy in class—but watching Declan sprint and jump and pal around with the rest of the team made him feel altogether transcendental. Luckily, for Farleigh, he was horrible at basketball and Declan was too kind to watch him fail so miserably. So every day after practice, they would run drills together, chat about life, and laugh about the other boys on the team and their brutish behavior.

One afternoon, just a few days before Farleigh was to return to boarding school, the two were walking home from practice. They recapped all the ways Farleigh fucked up at practice, but Declan never teased him, just encouraged him to try again tomorrow. Their shoulders bumped together and the conversation shifted more personal when Declan revealed that he was adopted by his British parents when he was eight. He told Farleigh about his real parents—how they were hardly older than him when he was born, that he hadn’t seen them since waving goodbye from a cold train car, that he felt like a mismatched sock in his new family’s laundry basket, in the mix but always getting stuffed back into the drawer alone. Farleigh could relate—God, could he relate. He wanted to tell Declan everything about his life—tell him about his mom, and his cousins, and how he has always been a black eye on the face of the family. Instead, he pulled Declan down a narrow alleyway and kissed him on the mouth. It was the first time Farleigh had kissed anyone. He apologized, but Declan just kissed him back. When they got to Declan’s front yard, they said goodbye and kissed one more time—innocent and sweet. Farleigh nearly skipped back to Saltburn, his stomach filled with butterflies and his head teetering on its axis. He never saw Declan again—didn’t see him at their last practice of the summer, didn’t see him when he would casually stroll past his house and, only occasionally, peek through the windows. It’s the most devastated Farleigh can remember feeling and now, seated right in front of the first boy to break his heart, Farleigh can’t help but fall back into the arms of that lonely, insecure kid he used to be.

“What the fuck happened to you, Declan? You disappeared on me. I…” His eyes drop down to the empty glasses on the bar in front of him and that fourteen-year-old boy bubbles to the surface. “I figured it was my fault.”

“Well,” Declan starts, “you’re not entirely wrong about that. Mum saw me kiss you after practice that one time and kind of flipped. Sent me to some uptight Catholic school in Cambridge hoping it would straighten me out.” 

Farleigh looks into the all-too-familiar, emerald green eyes and asks, “Did it?”

Declan laughs. “Nah. Well, maybe for a little while. I got married when I was nineteen and divorced when I was twenty. Delicate little thing, naive. Certainly not my kindest decision.” He talks while picking up empty pints from the counter, pressing them down, one by one, onto the automatic sprayer. “Been back here for, hell, five years now. Dad passed and Mum followed him about a year later. I sold the house—stay in a little apartment upstairs. What about you?” He looks at Farleigh, inquisitively, “All that pomp and circumstance and fuck off money straighten you out?”

Farleigh glances over his shoulder and sees Oliver sitting patiently at their table and tapping his finger in rhythm with the pop song blasting over the speakers. They grab each other’s eyes and the smile on Oliver’s face makes Farleigh swoon.

“Definitely not.” He answers, turning his stool back to face Declan.

“Tell ya what,” Declan says, raising his voice as he walks to grab clean glasses from the stack behind him and returning to pull two perfect pints of rich, stout beer from one of the drafts. “For you and your fella, on me.” 

Farleigh smiles politely. “Thank you, it's…” He quirks his mouth to the side, searching for the right words. “It’s good to see you. Join us later, if you can. I would love to catch up.”

Declan nods and Farleigh cautiously makes his way back to the table, dodging poorly coordinated patrons and lamenting his decision to wear white. As he slides in next to Oliver and passes off his drink, Oliver asks, gesturing his head towards Declan, “That a friend of yours? Or do you often get chatted up by handsome bartenders?”

Farleigh takes a deep drink from his fresh pint. “Yes,” he answers with a sly grin. “He might join us later.”

“Ah, so I’m going to have to share you? And on our first date, Farleigh, really?” Oliver’s sarcasm has a hint of surliness behind it that melts away when Farleigh smacks a loud, emphatic kiss on his cheek.

“Never.” And he really means it. Staying here with Oliver is a choice. A choice he feels no regret about and doesn’t plan on rescinding any time soon.

The evening passes pleasantly enough and Oliver can tell Farleigh is towing the line between buzzed and full-on drunk by the way the conversation and his wandering hands become bolder. He leans against Oliver’s side as they play an impromptu game of Two Truths and a Lie.

“Come on, Farleigh, you’ve had ten minutes to think,” Oliver complains. Farleigh sits up straight and turns to face him.

“Okay, okay, fine.” He pushes his shoulders back and puts on a very unserious serious face. “One, my dad is black.” It’s Oliver’s turn to roll his eyes and Farleigh grins. “Two, when I was eleven, I accidentally killed Felix’s hamster so I buried it in the family cemetery and told him Venetia set it free.”

“Brutal."

“Kind!” Farleigh argues. “And you know Felix—he would have cried and I would have lost Nintendo privileges for a week.”

“Alright,” Oliver tries to smirk but he's smiling, “I think you’re bad at this game.”

“Let me finish!” Farleigh insists. “Three, I dreamed about you for weeks after leaving Saltburn.”

“You’re supposed to tell a lie, too,” Oliver reminds him. “Told you, you’re bad at this.”

“You’re impossible to lie to,” he laments as he rests his head on Oliver’s shoulder, “not fair when I’m up against someone with unfettered access to my brain.”

Farleigh declares Oliver the winner as he sits up and scans his eyes around the room, landing them on the man tidying up behind the bar. His voice is loud and his speech slurs together as he hollers across the table, waving his arms at Declan. “Dec! Declan, come on, it's after midnight!” The man looks up and down the bartop—mostly vacated at this point—scrubs his hands on a dingy rag, and steps around the bar with a soft smile. Oliver looks him up and down, forcing back his intense expression in an attempt to make himself more approachable—disarming. He plops down into the empty chair on the other side of the table.

“You gonna introduce me to your fella, Farleigh?” He asks, looking from Farleigh’s face to his lips—a move that makes Oliver want to leap across the table and choke the man. 

“Declan, Oliver. Oliver, Declan.” He gestures rapidly between the two of them. “Declan was a good mate when I was a kid.” That phrase—good mate—makes Oliver’s stomach twist with jealousy. The handsome, dark-haired man extends a hand in Oliver’s direction and he greets it with a firm grasp and a hard shake that he hopes will communicate, “Back the fuck off or I will literally eat your face.” It’s not that Oliver enjoys this streak of envy that lives inside of him; knows it's unsightly and unkind. But Farleigh belongs to him .

“Cheers,” he rumbles, taking a long drink and inching his consciousness across the table, desperate to claw his way into Declan’s mind and figure out what his angle is. All three of them sit in uncomfortable silence for just a few moments too many. Thankfully, Farleigh is drunk enough that he can’t keep his lips from flapping.

“Funny story, Ollie, Declan,” he flicks his wrist in the man’s direction, “was my first kiss. We were, what, fourteen?” Declan’s cheeks glow red from embarrassment at the personal admission. Oliver tweaks a keen smile and returns to his intense, one-sided staring contest. 

“Ah, young love was it?” He looks back at Farleigh, who laughs out loud.

“More like young, ramped up, and sexually confused love. He moved right afterward. Haven’t seen him until right this very moment. An absolutely baffling coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Oliver locks his focus onto Declan as he slides his hand down Farleigh’s thigh and squeezes possessively. He lets the touch reverberate back into his body and reaches for a connection. “You’re mine,” he whispers directly into Farleigh’s brain. The way he slings his arm around Oliver’s shoulder and runs his fingers up and down his bicep confirms that he’s hearing it. Declan awkwardly clears his throat. “So, how’d the two’a you meet? Not here, I’d imagine. This town is short a few fruits in the basket if ya know what I mean.” Farleigh chuckles.

“We met at Oxford,” his voice sounding all sweet and slow with nostalgia and beer, “A classic enemies-to-lovers tale. He’s been taking care of Saltburn since my aunt passed.”

“Aye!” Declan slams a fist on the table, rocking their pint glasses around, “Yer that creepy fucker stayin’ up at Saltburn! How long ya been there? A couple years? Christ, the guys are never gonna believe this…kinda feels like I’m meetin’ Bigfoot, ya know? Been the town mystery for a while now.” 

Oliver smiles and looks down into his drink. “That’s me,” he says, nonchalantly, then quickly downs the rest of his beer.

“Well good on ya,” Declan lifts an empty glass from the table and tips it forward for a ‘cheers’. “Big, fuck off mansion, servants, hot boyfriend, you really have it all, aye?” 

There’s no arguing that. Sure, he feels jealous of Declan and the attention he’s drawn out of Farleigh tonight, but the jealousy only sits at the surface. Deep in his dark, hollow chest, he knows he has everything he’s ever wanted. It’s silly and senseless to feel insecure about what they have.

“Indeed,” he agrees again and sets his empty pint glass down with a loud thunk. “Excuse us,” he looks to Farleigh, hoping he can read the fire crackling across his irises, “We’re going to grab a quick smoke.” 

“Ah, no worries!” Declan enthusiastically responds, “I’ve gotta be gettin’ back to the bar. Last call coming up.” He stands and shoots a coy wink at Farleigh. “You boys be good tonight.”

Oliver watches him stroll back up to the bar and feels a rage of jealousy and possessiveness flare inside him that’s stoked by Declan—a stranger and an immediate threat, as far as Oliver is concerned—and his brazen audacity.

“Come, Farleigh,” he commands as he rises to his feet, blank-faced and empty-toned. 

“Oliver,” he whines, “there’s nothing for you to be mad about. We were kids, for god's sake. I haven’t thought about him in years!”

“I know,” Oliver replies a bit more softly as he holds out his hand. Farleigh grabs it without question and allows himself to be led through the thinning crowd and out a back exit. The alley outside is narrow, only a few feet wide, and dark due to a distinct lack of street lamps. 

“Shit,” Farleigh realizes as they let the door close behind them, “I forgot to bring smokes. Let me just run back and see…”

Oliver interrupts him by pushing him roughly into the brick wall. A flash of fear crosses Farleigh’s face as Oliver shoves their bodies together and looks up at him with dark ferocity. As if drawn together by an outward force, they aggressively meet in the middle, kissing sloppily with open mouths and desperate tongues. When Oliver presses his hips against Farleigh’s, eagerly grinding into him, Farleigh lets out a deep moan. Encouraged by his response, Oliver uses one hand to grab Farleigh by the shirt collar as the other presses firmly against his cock. The man gasps and lets Oliver pull him closer as he brushes his lips against his ear, biting and sucking as he whispers, “You’re mine.”

“I am, I know,” Farleigh pleads. “I promise, Ollie, that was nothing, he’s nothing.”

“Prove it to me,” Oliver growls through gritted teeth. He forcefully pushes his tongue into Farleigh’s mouth, chasing down his throat and lapping up every little taste of him he can find. Oliver wraps his tee shirt even tighter around his fist as he mouths at the velvety skin under his jaw, speaking into it. “You’re going to go inside and invite him back to Saltburn tonight. Flirt with him, tell him you want to fuck him, I don’t care. When he gets there, you’re going to seduce him, and when he’s naked and hard and begging for your cock, we’re going to kill him and we’re going to bleed him until there’s nothing left.”

Oliver feels a shutter run down Farleigh’s body as he sucks in a sharp breath.

“I can’t,” he whispers, voice starting to tremble, “we can’t, Oliver, people know him. He’s lived here forever. He’s my…friend.”

“Your friend you haven’t thought about in years,” Oliver reiterates, echoing Farleigh’s earlier excuse. “Tell me about him. Where’s his family?”

Farleigh turns his head, avoiding looking at Oliver in his wide, manipulative eyes. “He’s adopted,” Farleigh’s hands shake where they press against Oliver’s chest, “and they’re both dead.”

“And no boyfriend,” Oliver factually states.

“No,” Farleigh confirms, “But people here will notice he’s gone.”

“I don’t think a bunch of drunks are going to think twice about the lonely, gay bartender fucking off to a friendlier town.” Oliver’s need is growing. It’s already been decided that this night will end with them covering the floor in Declan’s thick, red blood. The more he wants it, the less he cares about Farleigh’s concerns.

“Farleigh,” he croons, as he starts to rub his hand up and down the front of Farleigh’s pants. Oliver can sense that he feels confused—scared even—but his body responds reverently, dying to submit to the touch, hungry to worship at Oliver’s feet. Farleigh tips his head back to rest on the wall and lets out a deep sigh as Oliver’s his voice drips slowly into his ears. “I know you want to do this for me.” 

“I-I can’t…” he studders back, trembling against Oliver’s hand.

“You will do this for me, Farleigh. Now go. I’ll meet you back home in the library.” 

If anyone is capable of deceiving, manipulating, and seducing their way into a meal, it’s Farleigh. He’s gorgeous and charming in the loveliest, most sinister way and, while killing a good mate can’t be easy for him, Oliver knows it’s even harder for Farleigh to resist pleasing him. Easing up on his grip, Oliver gently releases Farleigh’s shirt and he stands up straight, the furrow of his brow shifting from worry to determination.

“Okay. I’ll see you at home.”

Farleigh heads back into the pub, swatting at the all-too-human urge to run, to defy Oliver, to let his fear win out. The old Farleigh—the one that came before Oliver and lived each day curled up inside of himself, desperate for a way out, for a lifeline, for something fucking interesting to happen—he’s gone. What’s replaced him isn’t entirely clear, but Farleigh can feel something inside of him shifting—lighting up—and pushing its way to the front of his psyche, ripping back his old impulses to cower behind a facade of dominance and arrogance. He hangs near the alley door and waits for Declan. 

The moment he walks out of the back room, he spots Farleigh and smiles. “ Too easy,” Farleigh thinks, filling his chest with air and straightening his shoulders as he reclaims a stool at the bartop. 

“Last call’s already done,” Declan reminds him. “I’m afraid you missed you chance.”

Farleigh reaches out and puts his hand over the one Declan has resting on the counter in front of him. “I don’t think I did,” he says, flirting as best he can under the circumstances Declan is about to find himself in. His heart picks up speed, pointlessly pumping ice cold blood through his veins and he wonders if he can really do this, if the monster brewing inside of him is ready to lash out. Declan has lived through so many things that should have hardened him, made him cautious, distrusting, but he looks down at where their fingers touch and smiles, causing Farleigh to melt—just a little bit. 

“What about Oliver?” he asks, and Farleigh can sense his hesitation in the way the energy around them starts to oscillate. 

“It’s fine,” Farleigh encourages. “We’re not—we don’t own each other.” He internally berates himself for saying it, praying that Oliver can stay out of his mind and doesn’t hear the lies he’s prepared to tell. Because it is just that; a lie. Every little part of him, every shred of DNA is impossibly tangled up with Oliver’s, and doing this for him, killing off an old part of himself, absorbing the hurt and the hate he had to live with for so long, feels desperately necessary. 

“Progressive,” Declan laughs and grabs a bottle of top-shelf whiskey along with two shot glasses. He dexterously pours them both to the brim and offers one to Farleigh. “Cheers,” he says, all bright-eyed and excited, hesitation dropping away bit by bit.

“To the death of our boyhood,” Farleigh offers, and they knock back the smoky liquid in tandem. Declan pours another pair of shots, and Farleigh accepts, sneakily emptying his glass onto the floor before pantomiming the burn of hard alcohol sliding down his throat. He wants to stay sharp, wants to figure out how to get inside Declan’s mind, and will him into his car, through the doors of Saltburn, and right into Oliver’s lap. He focuses on the bartop, tries to bind with the pattern of the grain and the water rings staining the unsealed wood, and tries to move it up Declan’s arms and into his head. It’s surprisingly easy, he finds, to grab at his consciousness and wrestle it into submission. Farleigh’s head buzzes with thoughts—some his, some Declan’s—and realizes he can do this not just for Oliver, but for himself, too. Declan represents everything Farleigh used to be—scared, lonely, hurt, confused—and he knows he has to shed that part of himself to find the otherworldly power Oliver swears lives inside him. 

The internal battle still rages as Farleigh stands from the stool, determined, and locks eyes with Declan. “My car is parked out front. Do you want to…” 

“Yeah, okay,” Declan enthusiastically agrees.

Easy.

The two head towards the door and Declan hangs back a bit to bid the other bartender farewell, apologizing profusely for not staying to close down. Farleigh hones his hearing to listen to the excuse he’s planning to provide and is a little tickled to hear him tell the truth. “I think I’m gonna get laid tonight,” he tells her and she playfully punches his shoulder. “What the fuck are you still doing here then, go!” she urges, shooing him as he turns back towards Farleigh and the exit.

So fucking easy.

He and Declan find the old BMW, which used to belong to James, in the parking lot, and Farleigh wastes no time making his intentions clear as he chivalrously pulls open the back door. Declan slides in and reaches for Farleigh’s hand, tugging him down into the seat, instantly pushing their mouths together. It feels exactly the way Farleigh remembers and the memories the Ghosts of Lips Past flood into his mind start banging on his skull, letting doubt seep through the cracks.

Declan isn’t a bad guy—never was. He broke Farleigh’s heart once, but now he knows that it wasn’t Declan’s choice to run off without a word. That has to change things. There needs to be anger—there needs to be animosity and harsh realities or else Farleigh doesn’t think he can go through with this. Declan wraps an arm around his waist and moves him to lay flat on the back seat, pressing the length of their bodies together as close as he can and kissing Farleigh like a thirsty camel at a desert oasis, his thoughts screaming and echoing through the car as Farleigh tunes in. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he’s saying to himself. “I get a second chance. ” Then he hears something that threatens to ruin everything. Declan can’t stop thinking his name. Over and over again, “ Farleigh, Farleigh, ” penetrates every inch of his brain matter. It’s too kind. It’s too sweet, and, regretfully, now that Farleigh is tapped into this stream of reverie, he can’t seem to find a way out, but fuck, he has to, or else there’s no way he’ll be able to keep up this act. He squeezes his eyes shut as Declan sucks at his neck, reaching between them to pull open Farleigh’s slacks. If Oliver were there, he’d be able to get Farleigh through this—to remind him that none of it matters anymore, that he’s evolved past these pathetic, human emotions. He tries to imagine what Oliver might say and suddenly his thoughts go clear, like a radio signal coming in perfectly between channels of static.

“You will do this for me.”

Farleigh puts a hand on Declan’s chest, nudging him back a bit.

“Not here,” he says quietly, brushing his thumb across the collar of Declan’s shirt. “Let’s go back to Saltburn. I want to do this right.”

No turning back now. He is going to do this right.

Oliver sits patiently in the dim light of the library listening to the soft sounds of recorded laughter emanating from the television. It’s been an hour, at least, and he’s starting to feel uneasy. He sends out his probing tendrils through the floors and out the main door, deep into the black soil underneath the pastures and forest separating him from Farleigh. There’s something out there—some vibrating pull that guides him right to where he needs to be. Declan and Farleigh are in his car, their hands wandering and mouths touching and Oliver feels like he’s about to throw up. It’s almost impossible to think through the haze of distrust that flares within him, but he reminds himself that this is his plan and Farleigh is simply obeying his orders—some mediocre Irishman can’t change that with a few free shots and a handjob. Oliver snaps himself away from the projection, biting back his envy, and returns to impatiently waiting for the pair to arrive.

Shortly after the syndicated episode of Family Matters ends and the library is awash with silence and starlight, Oliver feels a tingle sliding up his spine that means Farleigh is back. He lets his consciousness wander out through the hallways and into Farleigh’s bones, pulling him along as he and Declan fumble their way through the twists and turns of a house swollen with anticipation and blood-lust. When the two fall through the door, Oliver has to close his eyes to try and shut down the violent monster inside of him that wants to rip Declan apart, organ by organ, for daring to touch something that belongs to him. “ Patience, he reminds himself, “ you’ll soon get what you want.”

Declan immediately looks surprised to see Oliver—surprised enough to pull his mouth from Farleigh’s neck and inquire about the situation.

“Oh,” he starts, eyes bouncing between the two men, “I didn’t realize this was…I mean it’s cool with me I just…”

“Don’t worry,” Oliver interrupts, “I’m mostly here for the show.” He looks to Farleigh and Farleigh offers him an evil, knowing smile. “Please, don’t stop on my accord.”

He watches as Farleigh takes control of Declan, pushing him down into a lounge chair and climbing into his lap—Oliver has to imagine himself underneath his lover to keep from acting too quickly, from lunging and biting and ripping and bleeding. Farleigh moves his hands and his hips, drawing moans from Declan’s open lips, massaging him into a state of vulnerable relaxation. Oliver can’t resist palming at his dick, thick and desperate with a cruel mix of love and jealousy. Farleigh is beautiful—he shines in the light of the stars and the staticky television, moves his body like a flower, molested by the spring breeze, all soft and delicate, rocking back and forth with an artful rhythm. He turns his head towards Oliver when Declan dips down to lay his lips across his collarbone and gives a nod, confirming the energy he was actively sending into Oliver’s body. He’s ready. 

Oliver stands, his veins rushing with caustic chemicals and his eyes narrowing in on his prey. He walks around the back of the chair and pushes his hands down Declan’s chest, running his fingers through a thicket of wiry chest hair. As he lowers his head near the side of Declan’s face, he whispers, “Thank you for your sacrifice. It means so much to us.”

Declan looks up at Farleigh, stretching his neck and revealing his pulsating arteries. “What’s he talking about?”

Without hesitation, Oliver bites down on Declan’s pale skin, sending a rush of blood down his throat and chest. “Farleigh, help me!” He cries out, and Farleigh sinks his hand into the hair on the back of Declan’s head, pulling it back and exposing even more taut, warm skin for Oliver to latch onto. 

“God, Dec, you have no idea how desperately I wanted you back when we were kids. Would have done anything for it.” Declan, choking on his limp tongue, reaches out to weakly grab at Farleigh’s shirt and Oliver pulls away, offering Farleigh the reward he deserves. “Now I get to have you inside of me forever.” He looks at Oliver, his face soft and stoic. “Can you see, now?” He asks, “I would do anything for you.”

“Yes,” Oliver breathes, as the words rattle around in his chest making him feel as warm as the crimson liquid spilling from Declan’s broken skin. 

“I love you, Oliver.”  

It’s been a long time since Oliver cried from happiness. Most of the time it’s heartbreak, or loss, or a means to manipulate a situation, but tonight, hearing those words float out of Farleigh’s mouth, watching him bite and suck away at a man that he once cared for—still might care for—out of loyalty to him…it’s unlike anything he’s felt before. He puts his hand on the back of Farleigh’s neck and pulls him closer, letting go of the jealousy and the frenzied hunger, wanting Farleigh to see the tears well up in his eyes and spill down his bloodied cheeks. With the press of a soft, innocent kiss to his lips, as Declan takes ragged, shallow breaths beneath them, he whispers back, “I love you, Farleigh. Forever.”

The two come together, passing the coppery fluid back and forth with their mouths as Declan convulses and gasps for air underneath them—his life slowly draining away and flowing in between Oliver and Farleigh, a thrill for them to share. Oliver can barely hold back. With a gentle hand on his jaw, he guides Farleigh back to his meal.

“Finish what you started, love,” he croons as he goes nearly blind with lust watching Farleigh sink his fangs into a man he could easily have loved the way he loves Oliver. Declan finally turns himself over to a bleak eternity and the waterfall of blood slows to little more than a trickle. When Farleigh finishes and releases the jagged flesh from his mouth, his expression is hard to read. Soft, Oliver reminds himself. Gentle, he repeats in his mind. 

“Are you okay, Farleigh?” He asks, shoveling out as much empathy as he’s capable of as he reaches across the limp body of their victim to run a thumb across his stained cheekbone.

“I don’t know,” Farleigh whispers, the uncertainty, the fear he feels is palpable inside the thick haze of lust and violence. It looks different, Oliver thinks, then the fear Farleigh felt that first time he chased down that hare and stole its life for himself. “This should matter to me, shouldn’t it? I should feel bad. I should…” He lets the sentence dangle and Oliver can feel him digging at his psyche, trying to tap into his unconscious and drag out the comfort he’s so desperate for. Oliver pushes back—wants to stitch their minds together so that Farleigh never has to question, never has to pry, and can always reach in and find the assurance he needs. 

“I know,” Farleigh responds to the energy and unspoken words between them. “Nothing matters anymore but us.”

Oliver reaches around the chair and Declan’s corpse to pull Farleigh by the hand, bringing them chest to chest, and starts sliding off his ruined jacket. “Nothing at all,” he murmurs into the cotton fibers of his tee shirt before lifting the bottom hem, prompting Farleigh to pull it off entirely. He lets out a whimper when Oliver reaches up to wrap his hand around his neck, pressing his thumb into the hollow of his throat just enough to ground Farleigh back into the moment.

“I need you, Ollie,” he chokes through the pressure. “Please, fuck, I feel like I’m unraveling.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver soothes as he presses open kisses against Farleigh’s chest, dragging his tongue across the soft, bloodied skin. “We take care of each other, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Farleigh agrees, his fingers moving to the back of Oliver’s head, clutching his hair in his loose fists.

“And tonight,” Oliver continues, firmly and clearly, even though his head is swimming in a deep mess of absurdity, even though he can hardly hear anything except “I love you” banging around in his soulless body, “you’re going to be taken care of.”

Oliver leads Farleigh to the large shower on the third floor and takes his time undressing the both of them, admiring the ways that Farleigh’s body and aura have changed—how powerful he is now that he’s taken someone else’s soul and made it his own. Oliver can see the way the hot steam sways across the tile floor and washes away the guilt and pain—sucks it right out of Farleigh’s skin and sweeps it under the bathroom door for Saltburn to hold for the rest of eternity. Something about this place—maybe the ancient wisdom it keeps tucked into its walls or the dark magic it contains in its creaking wood panels—makes it possible to give away your regrets and hold them at a safe distance. It lets you look at your mistakes and your uncertainties with power and perspective. It's necessary, Oliver thinks, as he wipes at the crusted blood that’s mixed with the soft hairs spilling down Farleigh’s belly, for people like them to remain outsiders to their own damnation.

When the water turns cold, Oliver doesn’t allow Farleigh to lift a finger. He wipes away every droplet of water with reverence, trying his best to offer the mental space to process the events of the evening, resisting the urge to crawl inside Farleigh’s body and steal away the burden of his grief. He wraps Farleigh’s narrow shoulders in a soft blanket and tucks himself into one as well. They don’t talk, don’t really need to, as Oliver guides them into the old hearth room at the center of the house. It’s one of the smallest rooms at Saltburn, but, due to it becoming Oliver’s favorite place to sit and think—where he feels the most connected to the house and the chaotic energy that ripples through it—it’s been outfitted with comfortable amenities. He lays Farleigh down on a long chaise lounge and fills the front of the hearth with dry logs, easily catching them ablaze and stoking the flames until they crackle and glow. He looks back at the man he loves—the man that loves him—and aches. 

Declan had to die. Oliver knows this and doesn’t second guess his orders—but he understands what it feels like. Killing rabbits, deer—it’s a simple hunt. A predator and its prey. The natural order of things. But killing people—chewing on the flesh of familiar humans who walk the streets, serve your coffees, own little cottages outside of town, plan vacations for their families, and sleep soundly at night wrapped tightly in the comfort of mortality—is different. Farleigh shares as much when Oliver sits by his side and strokes a finger down the chasmic stare on his face. 

“How am I supposed to be okay with this?” Farleigh asks, his brainwaves continuing to drift further and further away from the room. Oliver grapples to pull them back towards him, tries to tie them down, and hold them in place so he can fix this, or at least has a chance to share the weight. 

“It’s just how it is,” Oliver speaks softly, straining to hold in his own desire to run away, beating down the impulse inside of him to abandon anything that becomes too complicated, too emotional. “It’s just…life for us.”

“What makes us so special?” Farleigh asks, voice cracking as a small tear gathers at the edge of one eye and gravity cruelly yanks it down his cheek. It stains the silk under his head and Oliver dips down to kiss the wet trail. He tries to explain, his voice edged with pleas of understanding, “Everything makes you special. This world, the one I brought to you, the one I am desperate to share with you—it's for us. ”

Farleigh turns his head away, causing more tears to slip from his glassy eyes.

“No,” he insists, “How can anyone deserve that? Who am I to…”

“Farleigh, stop,” Oliver interrupts, watching the order spike goosebumps down Farleigh’s arms. “I know you can understand. I know the man who lives inside you. You’re hungry and vicious and so fucking strong. You’re better than Declan—can’t you see? You were born to rule over weak men like him.”

“How?” He asks, meekly.

Oliver’s eyes narrow as white, hot need starts to pressurize in his guts. Farleigh is everything he’s ever wanted and Oliver needs him to stay; needs him to know how worthy he is of eternal, unbridled power. 

“I need you to take control, Farleigh.” Oliver reaches out to run his fingers along Farleigh’s soft cheeks and stubbled chin, his collarbones, every perfect dip and curve of his body he can reach. “You’ll never see your potential if you don’t grab it and force it to submit.”

Breaking through the barriers Farleigh has thrown up proves to be more difficult than ever. Oliver bangs against the cement walls of his mind, begging to be let inside, but all he can see is fear and hurt—can only feel the pressure mounting underneath his consciousness. In a desperate attempt to communicate, Oliver mouths his way around Farleigh’s neck and stomach, pausing to nip at his hip bones and run his tongue across his ribs, savoring the sweet electricity pulsating out from Farleigh’s chest that rises and falls with pointless breaths. Their minds are separated by a chasm of unrectified evil and darkness. He’s tried talking, he’s tried plumbing the depths with his invisible fingers, has carded through all the filing cabinets of Farleigh’s mind that he’ll allow to stay unlocked—all that is left is to demonstrate to Farleigh how perfectly he fits into the messy puzzle Saltburn has laid out for them, piece by piece.

“Look at me,” he says, craning his neck as he makes his way toward Farleigh’s strained cock. When their eyes meet, Farleigh’s damp eyes light up with adulation. “Take control,” Oliver asserts and Farleigh throws his head back, knocking it lightly against the edge of the chaise as Oliver presses his mouth against the hardness—savoring the sweet musk and teasing his lips lightly across it. He runs his tongue up the underside of his shaft and the gratuitous moan Farleigh allows to slip from his tense lips makes Ollie’s skin burn with blind, raging affection. When Oliver takes the tip into his mouth, Farleigh lands a strong hand on the back of his head, aggressively pushing his cock into Oliver’s throat, causing him to gag. 

“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologizes for the intrusion, but Oliver doesn’t want to hear it. Instead of using his tongue to soothe Farleigh’s concern, he pulls off and looks up at him, longing to wipe away the worry lines on his forehead.

“I told you to take control,” he firmly whispers, finally breaking through the bricks stacked between their psyches and bearing witness to the dark desires Farleigh has been fighting against. He sinks back down on Farleigh’s cock, taking him in as deeply as he possibly can, gagging and letting thick spit drip from his mouth onto the nest of pubic hair beneath him, bobbing his head up and down with perfect, predictable rhythm. When Farleigh returns his forceful hand to Oliver’s head, it feels different, like he means it this time—strong and intentional. Oliver lets him push down and feels him experiment cautiously with the pressure, but Oliver’s impatient throat is desperate to be fucked—forceful, and brutal. He slides his hands underneath Farleigh's hips, grabbing handfuls of his ass and guiding him to let go—to take what he wants. It’s a beautiful thing to witness; a young vampire discovering himself, learning to own his body and his power. Oliver wants it all.

“Ollie, fuck” Farleigh gasps as he rocks his hips upward, clinging tightly to the back of his skull, and finally tipping the scales of control into his favor. Oliver lets his tongue hang loose from his mouth and gives himself over to the intrinsic, metaphysical trust they’ve been cultivating for years, even while they were thousands of miles apart.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Farleigh chants in rhythm as he picks up pace, tilting his head forward so the two can see each other and he can watch his cock disappear into Oliver’s open throat with each harsh thrust. Their psychic connection builds and builds as Farleigh gets closer to the edge and Oliver himself be ruthlessly penetrated—offers up his body, eager to be a part of Farleigh’s metamorphosis. It’s there—that endlessly dynamic force that’s lived right underneath Farleigh’s skin for weeks now. The way his stomach tightens and his mind starts to blur right into Oliver’s is overwhelming—almost sickening. They’re locked into each other, feeding off of their hypnotic energy and drawing out the dark, esoteric monster that lives inside Farleigh’s subconscious. Out of nowhere, there’s a firm knock on the door to the hearth room, shattering their focus into a million pieces.

“What the fuck,” Farleigh groans, throwing his arm across his face. Oliver, disappointed and still tied up in mental knots, frees his voice and hollers, raspy and breathless, “What is it, Duncan? Can’t you hear we’re busy?” He grabs one of the blankets from the pile they’ve created on the floor, tosses the other to Farleigh, and wraps it around his hips, doing nothing to hide his tense, neglected arousal. When he opens the door, Duncan’s voice is calm, though the look on his face is odd and unreadable. 

“There’s…someone at the gate for you.”

Both Oliver and Farleigh look at each other, then back to Duncan.

“Well,” Oliver starts, annoyance dripping from his mouth and his cock, respectively. “Who the hell is it?”

“He didn’t give me a name,” Duncan states, calm and even-toned. “Says he knows you from when you were in school.”

“Oxford?” Farleigh asks from the lounge.

“I’m unsure, sir,” Duncan maintains his cool, but Oliver can see past his collected exterior and is troubled by the anxiety churning underneath it all. 

“Invite him in,” Oliver decides, “Don’t let him wander the house. Keep him in the entry.” He gestures towards Farleigh. “Come on, let’s get decent and greet our guest.”

Oliver holds tightly to Farleigh’s hand as they step into the grand entry. The lights are dimmed, as they often are, but Oliver can make out the silhouette of a slender man with short, curly hair standing in front of the gallery wall, looking up at the ancient faces of men who walked through those same doors and their insignificant, unremembered families. The tight curve of his waist and the way he sways on the balls of his feet release a shockwave of pain across Oliver’s body as he drops Farleigh’s hand and steps closer. 

He sucks in some air and asks, “Halithan?”

The man turns to greet him, a wide, toothy grin spreading across his face.

“My sweet Oliver. I told you I would find you.”

Chapter Text

Oliver’s world screeches to a halt. The walls of Saltburn seem to inch closer and closer, narrowing his line of sight on the man in front of him. The thick, tense air taps recklessly at the hairpin trigger on his fight-or-flight response. The back of his neck burns. He can feel Farleigh’s fierce eyes pressing into his head, digging at his skull, yanking on their psychic tether. 

Move, he screams at himself. Say something. But Oliver’s feet seem to be cemented into place as the surprise visitor steps further into Saltburn’s warmth. 

“Who are you?” Farleigh asks from behind him.

Halithan. He’s exactly the same as he was—sharp, sinewy, glowing so bright that it hurts to look at him—but Oliver is struck by how beautifully he’s grown into the era with his short-cut, tousled curls, and worn leather jacket. He opens his mouth to say something, letting it hang open as he searches for neurons to connect, but Farleigh’s voice fills in where his vocal cords fail.

“Hellooo?”

He steps forward so he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Oliver. “You’re in my house in the middle of the night. The least you can do is stop staring at my boyfriend and answer me.” 

Oliver can feel Farleigh’s nervous system bristle when Halithan, inching closer, refuses to pull his eyes away from Oliver’s. Farleigh steps in further so they can meet in the middle, but Oliver weakly tugs on the back of his shirt, hoping to mollify him for a second, at least, and, thank Christ, his voice finally starts coordinating with his brain and mouth. 

“What are you doing here?” His barely recognizes the words as they leaves his mouth, all quivering and hesitant, and he can hear Farleigh pleading with his consciousness to tell him what the fuck is going on, give him a directive, do something.

“I just need to talk to you, Oliver. I know I should have told you I was coming but, Christ, you were hard enough to find, I didn’t want to risk scaring you off. Please, we just need to talk. I’ve come a long ways.” 

Halithan’s rambling voice still rings with comforting familiarity—feels like home in a sweet, nostalgic way—but Oliver can’t focus on that because his feet weigh so heavy on his ankles that he thinks he must have stepped into a pool of molasses. 

Here stands Oliver, balanced on a sticky ledge, trapped in the middle of these men that, between the two of them, hold every ounce of Oliver’s being. One blazes behind him full of fury and fire, and the other pours out like water from a cracked cup in front of him. It all creeps up his spine and grabs ahold of his throat, squeezing so tight he thinks he might pass out.

“What the fuck’s happening, Ollie?” Farleigh asks, his stress levels ratcheting up as they all let the prolonged silence wash over the room. The worry in his eyes punches Oliver in his already churning guts. 

“It’s okay,” he gets out and tries to breathe in steady, deep inhales, fighting to collect the thoughts that are ping-ponging around in his head. “This is…”

“An old friend,” Halithan fills in, confidently closing the space between the trio and extending a hand towards Farleigh who shakes it with the kind of skepticism one might use when reaching out to pet a strange dog. The moment their hands touch, Oliver—whose brain is mercifully starting to catch up with his body—experiences a welcomed moment of clarity. Something about the way the skin of their palms collide and conduct energy from one set of fingers to the other snaps Oliver from his dizzying nightmare. 

“Answer my question,” he boldly snaps at Halithan. “Or get out of my house.” The resolve in his tone must raise red flags for Farleigh because he silently pushes a question back at Oliver—a question that rings more like an intention than a request for permission.

“Do we need to kill him?” Farleigh’s brain waves permeate across the web of hostility that’s been spun around the room and Oliver witnesses the moment the vibrations reach Halithan’s ears because his eyes go wide and his back snaps straight.

“Wait, no, no, there’s no need to kill anyone,” he says, starting to sound a little frantic—panicked—and Farleigh’s face goes pale with the sudden realization of what’s happening. Oliver watches the understanding paint across his face.

One night, a few weeks back, Farleigh and Oliver had a particularly successful evening of hunting. It was glorious. Farleigh moved so silently, so viciously, that no creature on Earth would have been able to escape his deadly bite. The necks of hares snapped like dried twigs in his hands and Oliver thought he might drown in admiration for his malleable soul and his naturally bloodthirsty instinct. They feasted on their laurels together right there on the forest floor, carried back even more, and later, as they sat in the library with their feet propped up, drifting off in front of the hazy television just before the sun started to draw the darkness from the sky, hue by hue, Farleigh asked him.

“Who made you like this?” 

Oliver knew that, eventually, Farleigh would get curious about his lineage—would want someone to blame if things between them turned sour, or if, in a thousand years when there’s nothing left to do or know, the idea of a silver bullet to the heart starts to feel like a warm embrace. It was only fair to share with him the succession of evil that is now meandering through his constricted veins. So he did. He told Farleigh all about Halithan and how he yanked Oliver from the monotonous trenches of impoverished, weak-minded, unimportant men and made him the master of his fate— their fate.

“Where did he go?” Farleigh still wanted to know. “Didn’t he love you?” 

“Not all love is infinite,” he posited. “Some comes and goes as you need it.”

Farleigh didn’t press any further, didn’t have any questions that merited sound waves, but Oliver wanted to push himself—prove to Farleigh that he wasn’t like Halitan, that he wanted him to know how it hurt to be left by someone who cares for you, to be broken apart by promises forgotten and dreams hammered flat by the harsh realities of immortality. He laid his head in Farleigh’s lap and let the memories fall out of his ears, feeding them into his thighs as he stroked his fingers through Oliver’s hair until he finally fell asleep. 

So, when the stranger standing in his home seemed to reach out and pluck Farleigh’s words from the air with the skill and dexterity of a practiced berry picker, he knew precisely who was standing in his home, uninvited and unwelcome. 

“Oliver…” Farleigh grabs him by the shoulders, his eyes glowing black with the instinct to protect, to serve at Oliver’s side by any means necessary, “You say the word and I’ll take care of this. If you don’t want him here, he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Halithan pipes up, having instinctively scooted several feet away from them, “But if we could all just take a beat and collect ourselves, I understand that my sudden appearance in you and your,” he eyes Farleigh with unwarranted contempt, “ friend’s domicile must be disconcerting. Lovely home, by the way.” He turns his neck in a circle to take in the gaudy opulence of the grand entry. “Who’d you have to kill to get it? A duke?”

“A knight, actually,” Farleigh haughtily corrects him. 

“ A knight, ” he repeats with condescension, “Impressive, Ollie. Though, I can’t imagine that title holds the same kind of reverence it used to. Seems like knighthoods are only reserved for fat, rich old men now.” Oliver can feel Farleigh’s nervous system tensing by the way he sucks in the energy around them like a vacuum—he knows he has to step in before things escalate any further.

“Farleigh,” he says, suspring in and out through his nose in an attempt to steady his wobbling breath, “Go to the kitchen and put on a kettle, would you?”

“But Oliver, I…” Frustration and stress boil uncontrollably inside of him. 

“Now,” he barks and the command echoes through the room as Farleigh turns to leave, still twisted with conflict and terrified on a primal level but unable to disobey. His body disappears down a hallway, but Oliver can feel his presence lingering at the front of his occipital lobe, desperate to stay there in any sense possible, to witness what happens, to keep himself vigilant of this stranger that’s infiltrated their sanctuary. Oliver lets him linger, feeling a little calmed by the comforting reminder that Farleigh longs to stay by his side—to keep watch like a rabid guard dog that launches teeth first at the smallest threat of violence. He tries to whisper back at him, “I love you.”

As most of the tension wanders off to the kitchen, Oliver looks all the way into Halithan’s eyes, through his retinas, and down his brain stem, into each cell and chunk of tissue. Every bit of him is there—the lines across his forehead, the quirk of his mouth, the mole on his cheek that always has a few brittle hairs popping from its center no matter how often they’re plucked. 

Oliver isn’t new to all of this. He knows this body standing in front of him—and he knows that vampires do not grow old. They do not change as their fleshy, mortal counterparts succumb to gravity and high mileage, and he knows that his own hands and teeth, every bump and blemish, remain identical to the way they were the day he turned. 

Still, the impressions of Halithan’s body have been kept so carefully preserved in his memory for such a long time—been lovingly dipped into rubbing alcohol so that the astringent burn can keep the history of Oliver’s cruel beginnings distant and safe, sealed up tight to stop them from spoiling—that his brain can’t separate the past from the present. He’s so perfectly, painfully the same that it feels like this might be just another dream. 

His waking reality, Oliver reminds himself, is that Halithan, his ex, the first man he ever loved that hasn’t sent as much as a letter in two hundred years, has just dropped in to ruin what was shaping up to be a fantastic night of having his face fucked into oblivion. The best his mind and body can do is default to a comfortable, yet appropriate emotion; anger.

“You’d better have a great fucking reason for being here,” he seethes through gritted teeth. “Come on, we’ll go to the library. It’s more comfortable.”

Halithan follows hot on Oliver’s heels as they pass through hallways and sitting rooms that lead to the east wing of Saltburn. 

“Shouldn’t you let your boy know where you’ve gone?” he asks and Oliver can feel biting venom in the imperious and petty way he refers to Farleigh, almost like he’s jealous. The cruel, heartbroken boy inside of Oliver finds this absolutely delicious.

“He knows where I am,” is all he has to say back, because its true. For the rest of their endless lives, they’ll be tethered to one another. Farleigh will always know where he is.

The library is Oliver’s comfort zone. Here, among the eclectic artwork and stacks of DVDs surrounding the comically small television, there is no question of who holds the power. Halithan walks slowly to the center of the room, shifting his head around to take in the scene. 

“A proper game of house you have going on here, Ol.” He pauses and runs a finger along the shiny silver bar cart filled with crystal glassware that sits tucked between two of the large windows. “May I?”

“Just an old bottle of bourbon I’m afraid.” Oliver stays planted firmly in place. “Don’t care too much for the hard stuff anymore.” Halithan pulls the heavy top off of the sparkling decanter and chooses a stout highball glass to fill with the dark, ambery spirit, kicking it back with one dramatic gulp. 

He hisses through the sting and remarks, “Of course, you have that young, fresh thing to keep up with.” Halithan grabs the decanter once more, refilling the glass with an inch or two of the bourbon that has been sitting in that spot, entirely untouched, since Elspeth received it in a “Get Well Soon” basket near the beginning of her decline. This time, he presses the rim of the glass to his lips and slowly sips.

“I remember when you were like that. Frantic, unregulated, itching to kill.” He takes another drink, sucking it through his teeth, his hips swinging loosely as he meanders back to the spot where Oliver has cemented himself.

“You said you came here for a reason,” Oliver impatiently reminds him. 

“Mmm,” Halithan pauses and taps the crystal glass against his chin as his eyes take a scenic path up and down Oliver’s body. “Not very interested in catching up, I take it? Come on,” he teases, “ask me anything. I’m here now.”

It hits Oliver blunt-force in the chest. Why is Hal doing this now? For two hundred fucking years Oliver has been dying to hear those words, grasping at loose memories and dreaming night after night that this day would come and now it’s here, laid out in front of him like a feast— I’m here now— and all he can feel is resentment. Still, the urge to reach out and touch, to move his hands along the same paths they traveled for so many nights, buzzes in his fingertips like hard static.

Still, the unmovable, unchangeable fact of the matter remains.

“You’re too late.”

The moment those words start to slide around the room, up the walls, and into the safety of Saltburn’s rafters, Oliver feels a quake in his guts, immediately followed by the creak of the door. Farleigh. He carries a silver tray decorated with three ornate, gold-rimmed tea cups, his palm spread wide underneath it to keep it balanced as he pushes the door shut behind him. The divine way he moves—like flowing water dipping and spilling over ancient, perfectly smooth rocks—pulls Oliver out of his body for one gracious, gratifying moment until he’s forced to reconvene with reality.

“There he is!” Halithan greets cheerfully, and offensively comfortably, as he quickly shuffles towards Farleigh, sliding the tray from his hands and placing it unsteadily on the coffee table, rattling the delicate cups. At one time, Oliver found the confident, unapologetic way he carried himself to be irresistibly attractive. It must be a sign of growth, or at least well-cultured apathy, that all he wants to do now is roll his eyes and scoff at his cocksure attitude.

“Please,” he clasps his hands in front of him as if prepared to beg, “Both of you, if you could sit down and level with me for a moment…” Oliver and Farleigh exchange glances, desperate for some communication while painfully aware that their internal conversation is no longer private and Oliver gives him a nod. The two simultaneously move to the overstuffed couch to take a seat as Halithan steps in front of them, standing tall and poised like a ringleader at the circus preparing to start his show. Farleigh—sweet, vicious Farleigh—puts on a look of pure indifference as he picks up one of the teacups, nearly swallowing it whole underneath his prodigious hands.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I came here with intent,” he starts.

“Yeah, intent to fuck my boyfriend,” Farleigh mutters before taking a full swing from his cup. 

“No,” Hal quickly supplies. “Well, okay, it’s not as if I hadn’t considered that possibility…” Farleigh impatiently taps his foot with a steady, metronomic rhythm and stares such sharp daggers through his chest that Oliver thinks he may fly back and get pinned to the wall.

“I swear to God if you don’t get to your point…” Farleigh prefaces a threat muttered through his tight jaw and Oliver puts a hand over his knee, silencing him.

“Thank you, Ollie. Now,” Halithan’s voice drops a bit, sounding less friendly and more serious. “As I was saying, I have spent the last several months trying to track you down because,” he takes a brief pause and Oliver watches as the gears in his mind turn a particular thought over and over—one Oliver can’t quite make out the details of. “Well,” Halithan grabs at the idea and squeezes it into the speech centers of his brain. “Near the beginning of the summer, I started having these dreams. Oliver, you were always there, but no matter how hard I would try, I couldn’t get you to notice me. It was like…like you were in a waking coma.” Farleigh, still unimpressed and seething with protective jealousy, laughs sarcastically.

“Ha! You’ve wasted your time, and ours, because of some REM-induced visions? There’s nothing special or interesting about a goddamn dream. Basic fucking brain function that doesn’t mean shi—” He’s cut off by a squeeze of Oliver’s hand on his knee and a stern “Farleigh, stop.” As is his inclination nowadays, he obeys, but continues to attempt the first murder by glare.

“As I was saying, night after night, I would try to get closer, until finally I broke through. I touched your shoulder and told you I’d find you. Oh, wait!” He pauses and thinks for a moment. “I guess I did let you know I was coming. That seems like it’s on you.”

Oliver’s head starts to spin. He remembers the dream too, from the day Farleigh arrived at Saltburn. Halithan’s ethereal body sat across from him and told him—warned him. 

“I was there,” he affirms. “I remember.”

“I knew it! That’s when I was certain the dreams were trying to tell me something. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you start to fade…harder to see with each iteration and I couldn’t do anything about it. Then…” Halithan squeezes his eyes closed with a pained expression, like he’s simultaneously trying to remember and forget what he came next. “I woke up in a nightmare.”

Oliver is starting to sweat. Something Halithan saw in those dreams felt real enough, strong enough, to seek him out after all these years and tell him…warn him.

“I saw this house. It was…engulfed. I could feel the heat of the flames, Oliver, and I knew you were inside so I pushed through a broken window and ran a maze of hallways and when I found you…” It’s like he nearly chokes on the words because the memory is so true, so tangible, it sends real fear rippings through his limbs. “You were standing in the middle of the blaze and you looked so calm, so resigned. I reached through the flames to grab at you but you just kept stepping back from me. It was…” His eyes mist over and Oliver thinks he might honest to god start crying from the intensity of his recollection. “It was more real than any vision I’ve had, any dream or nightmare. I know it's a warning. I don’t know why it came to me but, Oliver, please if you’ve seen it too, if you can stop it…”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Farleigh snaps. “What bullshit reasoning is that? You had a dream …”

“Wait,” Oliver cuts him off. “What do you think it means, exactly?” 

“I think it means you need to start watching your back.” Halithan walks over to the plush armchair that, while void of a mangled body, remains covered in Declan’s brownish blood. He admires the violence spewed across the seat and sits nervously at the edge of it, clasping his hands in his lap. “Does anyone in town know about you?”

“No,” Oliver answers confidently. The sacrifices he has made to maintain his low profile haven’t been for nothing. Sure, there are folks in town—the high school kid who delivers groceries, the man who delivers packages, a few drunks at the bar—that have seen his face more than once, but Oliver has peered into their thoughts enough to know that he’s seen as an odd recluse and nothing more. 

“What about you?” Halithan shifts his attention to Farleigh who sits up straight, poised on the defense. 

“What about me?”

“Well, where did you come from? Does your family know you’re here? Do you have any enemies that might want to harm you?” Farleigh bites down on his tongue, enmity barking at the tip of it, ready to fight.

“That’s not your business, nor your problem.” His arm hair stands on end and Oliver wants to reach out, to calm him, but it feels good to see Farleigh like this—focused, angry, bubbling with power. He’s far too awed to stop it as Farleigh barrels through his tirade standing to his feet and nearly levitating from the strength of his jealous rage. “I’m certain the two of us are perfectly capable of protecting ourselves from whatever perceived threat you invented to justify tracking Oliver down and disrupting our lives.” His fists are curled tight at his sides and he lets his savage defenses forge his path. “ You need to accept that you’re nothing anymore, Hal . You had your chance and you threw it away. I know what I have, and I won’t be letting it go so willingly.”

Oliver remains in his seat and watches obsession bleed out from these two men and fill the room like a burst pipe—an obsession that he sits in the middle of like the eye of a hurricane poised to purge a coastal city of its infrastructure, its history. Being the object of their matched affections makes him feel omniscient and omnipresent. Watching them fight over pieces of his body like circling hyenas makes his head swell with sweet, delusional egotism. He’s nearly drunk with it when he’s snapped from his satisfaction by Halithan’s commanding voice.

“Oliver, tell him to back down, now.”

A familiar heartache rattles in the hollow of his throat as the demand sinks into his ears and wraps his brain up in a warm towel. It feels just like it used to, the comfort of subservience, and it would be so, so easy to give into it, but Oliver pushes back and sits up, clearing his throat and soothing his hand between Farleigh’s shoulder blades and letting the strength they pass between their bodies help him speak without trembling. 

“Under this roof, Farleigh and I are equals.” And he means it. Their day-to-day power dynamic could be seen as inequitable from more traditional perspectives, but the trust they pass back and forth cements them in the security fortress of mutual respect. “If he has concerns, I would like for him to voice them.” Farleigh stands and looks back at Oliver, sweetness shining in the corners of his eyes.

“Thank you, Ollie.” He paces around the back of the couch, standing tall and commanding his audience. God, he’s changed so much and is somehow still exactly the same Farleigh that Oliver couldn’t get out of his head for six fucking years. “I’m just a little confused, Hal, about the full extent of your intentions in coming here.” 

“I told you, I was worried that…”

“Yeah,” Farleigh interrupts, “I know why you told us you came here and it just all seems a little too convenient. A little too…serendipitous.”

“I promise you,” Halithan scoffs, “Finding this place was no convenience.” 

His train of thought steamrolling over any shift in the conversation, Farleigh continues, “And it seems, from my perspective, at least, that the only thing threatening my immediate comfort and happiness is you . What, did you hear that Oliver finally found some meaning in his life after you tossed him to the side like an old toy? Were you jealous he made it this far without you?” He walks towards Halithan’s seat, piercing right through him with his slitted gaze. “How do we know that the threat you come bearing isn’t sitting right in front of us waiting to kill us both? ”  

The room is silent enough to hear the radiators kicking boiling water through their curved pipes as the three of them sit in the weight of Farleigh’s accusation. Finally, Halithan looks to Oliver, eyes pleading.

“That’s mad…I couldn’t just…Oliver, tell him.”

Farleigh steps back from the couch and crosses his arms as Oliver turns to tell him a small truth about vampyrism that he wasn’t hiding by any means, but had simply not considered vital information until this point.

“Ah, he kind of…can’t kill me,” Oliver admits awkwardly and rubs the back of his neck, unsure of how exactly to explain this.

“What?” Farleigh, as expected, is confused by the assertion. “But, wooden stakes, silver bullets?”

“I suppose,” he clarifies, “He could kill me, it’s just generally better for everyone’s welfare if turners and turnees keep each other…alive.”

“Why?” Farleigh’s eyes dart between the two of them and Oliver can feel him hovering in the back of his mind, searching for clues. 

“Because it fucking hurts, you dense child,” Halithan barks. “The act of turning is permanent. It’s a weighty choice that comes with weighty consequences. If I were to kill Oliver, it would be like killing a part of myself.”

“So,” the gears start to turn as Farleigh’s limbs loosen and his expression softens, “You can’t kill Oliver and you claim to have no idea I was here.” He’s putting the pieces together one by one, understanding the could be more than one conclusion at play. “If you really did see something, it would benefit you to send a warning.”

“Yes,” Halithan says, exasperated, “I swear to you, Farleigh, I’m only here to help.”

Oliver senses the walls around Farleigh’s consciousness, whose mortar had just barely started to crumble, sure back up. “Oliver,” he asks, voice soft and sweet the way he sounds when they’re laying together in bed after a long, tiring day, “Do you trust him?”

Fuck no, Oliver does not trust the skinny, beautiful liar sitting in front of him. It may have been two centuries ago, but the hurt that Halithan sewed into his skin still lives on him like an itchy wool sweater, and no matter how much time or distance he puts between himself and his heartbreak, it’s always there, guiding his choices and the ways he moves through his doomed eternity. If Halithan is telling the truth, fine. He, Farleigh, and Duncan will stay vigilant and protect Saltburn from whatever evil invader Halithan has come to warn them of. If he isn’t—if this is a scheme to inject himself back into Oliver’s reality and do…something (get rid of Farleigh, leverage his mastership over Oliver, steal Saltburn out from under him, or any litany of cruel, selfish actions), it’s probably best to cut it down before allowing him to sink his fangs into their lives.

Oliver lets his arms and legs sink into the couch cushions and down into the floorboards. He begs Saltburn to show him the right answers and pleads with the house to reveal the future to him. It shocks him back into the present  when all he can see, all he can reach out and grab, is a wall of flames. 

Fuck. Maybe Halithan is right.

“Yeah,” Oliver finally responds. “For now, I do.”

“Fine,” Farleigh huffs. “I trust you .” He moves to stand in front of Oliver, bending down to kiss him, sliding his warm hand up to cradle his cheek, and moving his mouth with heat that makes Oliver’s legs tingle. When he breaks their contact, he cuts his eyes over to Halithan, assuring that he’s witnessed the brazen claim. “And,” he saunters towards the door, moving loosely and with an altogether different tone than he had five minutes ago, and announces, “I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.” He looks to Oliver. “Wake me later,” and Oliver nods in affirmation.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, Halithan releases a deep sigh. “Wow,” he looks wide-eyed at Oliver, “He’s intense, huh?” A fond smile tugs at the corners of Oliver’s mouth.

“He’s passionate,” he corrects. “He loves me, doesn’t want to see any harm come to us or our home. You can hardly blame him.”

“I don’t,” Halithan says as he moves from his seat to the one that Farleigh has vacated. “I remember feeling quite…passionate about you as well.” 

Suddenly, and without warning, Oliver is yanked back into the world of the boy he was—young, naive, in love—and the admission makes him blush uncontrollably. Hal always had a way about him that, admittedly, he sees in Farleigh as well; bold, brash, able to reach down into Oliver’s hardened, cavernous heart and pull out the human emotions he forgets he even misses. His body takes him back to that time and he shivers from the cold that slips in through the gaps in the stonework and shakes from his sobs after realizing that he was truly, utterly alone.

“Why did you leave?” He asks, softly, like he’s speaking a sacred mantra that only Halithan can hear. “Why didn’t you come back?”

“Ollie,” Halithan puts his hands on Oliver’s shoulder and draws him closer so they can see each other eye to eye. “It’s just how things work for us.” 

Fuck that, it’s not how things go and Oliver can prove it— has proved it.

“You’re wrong,” he bites back, jerking away from Halithan’s touch.

“I’m not,” the man argues, “You know it's true. We had something good, I know, but we were getting too close Oliver and I couldn’t let myself be bound to someone like that…”

“ Bound?! ” Oliver starts to feel the pressure in his chest rising with each vacant excuse he’s forced to listen to. “You already made that choice, Hal. You sunk your teeth into me and you tied us together for eternity.” His face feels hot and he winces at the unmistakable sting of tears welling in his eyes. For two centuries he’s been sloshing this pain around his guts and it all starts pumping out of him, spilling across the couch. “I sat in that house for weeks, praying you would return. Praying to any god that might listen that you would tell me what to do next.” The tears start falling down his cheeks in earnest as he releases all the pain that’s been locked up inside of him for centuries. “I hated you then and I fucking hate you now. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you spoiling everything I’ve worked for.” 

“But I am here, Ollie.” Halithan frantically slides close on the couch, reaching out for a connection, but Oliver curls himself around his legs, getting smaller and smaller as Halithan continues. “I don’t want to leave you again. I thought that this…” The heat of his breath singes the edges of Oliver’s psyche as he continues to advance, pressing closer and closer to Oliver. “You’ve waited long enough.” Halithan is pressed against him, leaning close to tell him, “ We can rule Saltburn, the way we were meant to.”

Oliver doesn’t mean for it to happen, but his mind is clouded by hurt and heartbreak, by the dizzying realization of all his dreams that used to be—the ones that have been replaced by new dreams—and he lets Halithan close the space between them to press their lips together. 

The only thing he can think is how Halithan tastes the same and moves the same, how he can still make him go breathless and pliable with such little effort. It’s nice—like watching your favorite movie from childhood or walking through the neighborhood you grew up in. Halithan moves his mouth against Ollie’s, wrapping his arm around his waist and pulling him close. 

Halithan bites down on Oliver’s lower lip as he pulls away to whisper, “We just have to get rid of him.” Then, suddenly, it all feels very, very bad. A massive weight drops in his stomach and his temples start to pulse.

Halithan springs upright when they hear heavy footsteps rushing right outside the door that furiously flies open, slamming into the wall behind it.

Farleigh.

There’s no way Farleigh is going to sleep while that man—that stranger—is in his home, but he wants to do right by Oliver and knows that if he’s suffering from Halithan’s presence, Oliver is experiencing the suffering tenfold. To occupy himself, he thumbs through some of the collections on the bookshelves outside their room; Shakespeare, Whitman, Faulkner. Tucked into the furthest end of a shelf, he notices some unlabeled volumes. Curious, he pulls out one of the battered, leather-bound books and opens it to the first page.

Diary of Oliver Quick

1 March 1850

Oliver’s diary. It’s private, personal, but Farleigh can’t stop himself from reading. Any opportunity to peek behind the doors of that elusive, evasive mind is a miracle that must be honored, and revered. The entry is short.

It’s been a month since Halithan left. I know now he will not return for me. The days of longing have boiled down into a sticky mess of pain and anger. If I ever see him again, I will hurt him for what he’s done to me—for offering conditional love, for abandoning what we built. I will leave here and forge my own path, but I will never again trust the love of a man.

The hurt bleeding from the pages makes Farleigh’s heartache for the boy left abandoned in that cold house, his eyes burn with fury and hate for the man who caused this pain, and his stomach feels warmed by the truth that he offers Oliver—the love he provides. Halithan’s presence here can’t threaten that, can’t change that, can’t destroy the life they’re fighting to create. 

He paces the large hallway outside of their bedroom and tries to focus the way Oliver has taught him to because, while Oliver might trust the man, Farleigh hasn’t a single reason to entertain a single word he utters. Clouds have moved in, so the night sky is a deep, inky kind of dark—the kind you could get lost in if you look into it for too long—and the yard below the large window he stands at looks like a pool of void that Farleigh is half inclined to leap into. He closes his eyes.

At first, he can’t find anything. His consciousness wanders around the studs and the insulation, pushes between the pieces of crown molding, and dances along dusty rugs covering the floor. Oliver is close, he can feel it, he just has to breach that last gap and slide in without Oliver noticing so he can see an undiluted picture of what’s happening—hear an uncensored version of what Halithan has to say. Farleigh tells himself that this is for Oliver, to protect him, to help him heal, and to give him the space to find closure. Oliver is safe—steady. A dark, holy harbor to dock in. But the seed of insecurity he holds tightly to his chest has been exposed to just enough sunlight that it’s started to sprout.

Finally, he can hear Oliver. His voice is tense.

“You tied us together for eternity.”

His vision is starting to come in clearer. Oliver looks small, almost scared, wrapped around himself as far away from Halithan as he can get. The two are speaking in hushed tones and Farleigh has to empty his mind of everything else so that he can hear. He focuses all of his attention— Oliver, Oliver, Oliver— until there’s nothing else. 

Halithan moves closer, speaks lower, coos into Oliver’s ear that he doesn’t want to leave and Farleigh’s spine gets straighter the bolder Halithan grows and then, as he leans in and Farleigh can feel the rush of emotion pump from Oliver’s dead heart, his body fills with an untameable rage. Their lips come together and that’s it. Farleigh rushes down the stairs, storming up to the door of the library, ready to rip Halithan to pieces for daring to touch his lover, his master.

“We just have to get rid of him,” is the last thing he can hear vibrating through his mind as he pushes the door open.

Farleigh looks like a wild animal; hunched, hungry, deadly. Once his eyes meet Halithan’s, there’s no stopping him. Farleigh angrily grunts through his gritted teeth as he takes several large, swift steps toward the pair on the couch. It all feels like a blur, an impossible-to-understand series of events, as Farleigh throws out a hand and, without even touching the other man, hurls his body from the sofa and into the wall, knocking down several paintings and leaving Oliver cold with fear.

Not all vampires can utilize telekinesis and, god if he wasn’t so fucking terrified, Oliver would be proud of Farleigh’s newly discovered skill. He tries to call out, but the words fall flat on his tongue and he feels utterly helpless as Farleigh stomps toward Halithan’s crumpled body. Effortlessly lifting him by the collar of his shirt, Farleigh pins him to the wall and snarls, “If you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to try a little bit harder.”

Halithan struggles against his grip, but Farleigh is prepared. He lashes out, cracking their skulls together and dropping Halithan to the ground.

“Farleigh!” Oliver screams. “Stop it!”

When Farleigh turns to face him, he barely recognizes the man behind his blazing eyes, blackened with anger and jealousy and protective rage. 

“No Oliver,” he replies in a surprisingly calm tone, “I was right about him. I’m not going to let him take you away from me. This is my house. ”

“Farleigh, listen to me,” Oliver tries to bargain, “you don’t need to hurt him.”

“Do you want him, Oliver?” Farleigh asks accusingly as he drags Halithan’s limp body by the shoulders to the middle of the room. “If he’s what you want—what you really want—you can have him. If not, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Oliver jumps to his feet, grappling to touch Farleigh, to create a connection, to ground them back to each other. 

“You know I don’t want him, Farleigh. I want you. ”

“Then let me kill him.” Oliver’s never seen Farleigh like this—so bloodthirsty, so eager to steal a life away. He killed his first man just hours before, and already he’s biting for more. 

“You can’t,” Oliver firmly tells him, ready to step in if the violence goes further, “please, you have no idea what pain it will bring me if you kill him.”

Farleigh is frustrated—Oliver can see it in the way his body stiffens and his eyes dart around the room, desperate for a plan. His mind is rife with conflict—to please Oliver, or please his inner demons, the ones that simmer underneath his bones and fill his body with greed.

“Come help me,” Farleigh asks as he drags a stiff, wooden chair next to Halithan’s body that stirs with the occasional groan of pain. The two hoist him into the chair, sitting him upright, and Farleigh pulls two long, braided ropes that hold the curtains drawn. Oliver watches as Farleigh binds Halithan to the chair, wrapping the rope around and around his middle, pinning his arms tight against his sides. 

“Farleigh, you don’t need to do this,” Oliver tries to assure him.

“Yes I do, Ollie.” He’s so firm, so determined, Oliver wishes that the lust it stirs inside him would wait to bear its teeth at a more appropriate time. “I heard what he wants and I’m not going to sit back at let him take what’s mine.”

“Okay,” Oliver submits, seeing no better option at the moment, “I get it. Do what you need to, Farleigh, I trust you.”

And he does. He trusts Farleigh more than anyone he’s ever loved before—knows that Farleigh wants nothing more than to serve him, to protect him. If Farleigh has to kill Halithan, Oliver can accept that. It will hurt—god knows it will hurt for the rest of his life to have his creator ripped from his body like that—but as long as Farleigh is here, safe and happy, he knows he will survive. 

Farleigh walks over to where Oliver paces and gentles a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t want to cause you pain, Ollie,” and his voice is so fucking sincere it makes Oliver want to weep. “I don’t want to have to kill him, but he can’t threaten me like that and leave here with no consequence.” Oliver knows he’s right. He loves Halithan, and will always love him, but Farleigh is more than that. Farleigh is everything . And Oliver is more than willing to give up something for everything. 

Farleigh walks over to Halithan, whose head hangs from his neck like an old doll, lolling around as he lifts his eyes to meet Farleigh’s. He coughs as he begins to bargain.

“You don’t have to do anything, just…let me go. I swear to you I’ll never return, I–I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Farleigh scolds as he walks around the chair and places his hands on Halithan’s shoulders, leaning down to whisper in his ear, “If only you hadn’t proven yourself a liar, Hal.”

“I’m not!” He squeaks, “I didn’t lie! Yes, perhaps I had some hidden motives but I swear to you,” he sounds more and more desperate by the second, “I wasn’t lying. I’m worried for you two. Ollie, please, you saw it too.”

Oliver did see it and he’s nervous about what it means, but he can’t let this man stay and threaten what he’s worked so tirelessly to build. He walks over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room. It’s covered in old crayon and pencil drawings—things Felix and Venetia made as children. He pulls open a drawer and sifts through tubes of oil paints and stencils until he finds what he’s looking for. 

The silver scissors reflect the devilish gleam in Farleigh’s eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Halithan asks, voice shaking with fear.

“I have to trust that, if we let you go,” Oliver turns the scissors around in his palm, “You can’t ever return.” Gently, he passes the shears to Farleigh with a directive. “Cut his hair.”

“Why?” Farleigh curiously asks.

Oliver responds, addressing both Halithan and Farleigh at the same time.

“We're going to take a piece of him away, and I'm going to give him to Saltburn. It’ll be enough of an offering that these walls will never let him walk through the threshold again.” He turns to look Hal in the eyes. “If we send you away and you try to enter this house again…” Farleigh has started snipping away at the blonde curls that sit so tidily on the crown of Halithan’s head, creating a rhythmic beat that echoes in the quiet room as Oliver makes clear his intentions. “You will receive no such mercies a second time.”

As curls fall to the floor, Oliver picks them up, chunk by chunk, and places them in an empty metal wastebasket. When Farleigh is satisfied and Halithan looks like a Barbie doll belonging to a curious child that stole shears from the kitchen drawer, he takes the sharp side of the scissors and cuts a line across his palm, letting some of his dark, oily blood soak into the soft hairs. He pulls a book of matches from the side table and drags one across the rough emery board, sparking a glow that lights up his face, making his features shadowy and distorted.

When he drops it into the wastebasket, the hair and the blood sizzle as they burn, and Halithan writhes in pain, still trapped underneath the tight knots of rope. 

“Stop!” He yells. “Please, just let me go! Just stop!”

“Do it, Farleigh,” Oliver commands as he stares into the flaming basket. “Untie him. Let him go.”

Hesitantly, Farleigh undoes the bindings and Halithan leaps to his feet. Before he can get far, Farleigh shoves him up against a wall, making sure that he knows how unwelcome he truly is.

“If whatever spell Oliver just put on you doesn’t kill you,” he growls through gritted teeth, “I fucking will.”

Still weak from the beating he took, Halithan starts to limp towards the door. Farleigh and Oliver take it upon themselves to escort him to the main entrance, where Duncan dutifully awaits their guest’s exit and silently guides him out the door, shutting it with a slam behind them. 

Finally, for the first time since Halithan walked through the door hours before, Oliver feels like he can breathe. His chest feels lighter, his mind feels clearer. Unfortunately, Farleigh looks like he’s about to come undone as he pads lightly across the cold floor, away from Oliver. 

“Farleigh,” he reaches out, but Farleigh jerks away from his touch.

“No,” his voice is cutting and filled with strife. “I just need some time, Ollie. You…”

“What did I do wrong?” Oliver asks, surprised by the walls Farleigh has thrown up around himself. “I made him leave—made sure he can never come back here again. I…”

“Kissed him,” Farleigh supplies. “I saw you. I could hear what you were thinking, Oliver, and you weren’t upset, you didn’t fight him off.” He turns away once more, inching towards the edge of his hurt but Oliver steps in front of him, blocking his path.

“Farleigh, I’m sorry,” and for possibly the first time in his life, it’s an apology that he genuinely means. No motive, no angle, just the utter shame and disappointment that he could break the trust of someone he loves. “Please, he means nothing to me anymore. It was…I was scared and confused. I loved him for so long and when he touched me it was…”

“Good?” The sadness in Farleigh’s eyes seeps right into Oliver’s empty soul.

“No.” He grapples for the right words. “It was like…a memory. Not bad, but not…real. You’re what’s real to me Farleigh, you are. I wish I could show you—prove to you that you’re it for me. No one, especially not Halithan, can take this away from us. Please, just tell me what I can do.”

Farleigh shoulders are slumped and he looks so fucking tired, so defeated. Oliver reaches up to cradle his cheek and asks again.

“What can I do to show you the truth, Farleigh?”

The man covers Oliver’s hand with his own and nuzzles into it, closing his eyes as he speaks.

“I want…” he starts, seeming hesitant to let go of the words tied up on his tongue. “I need to know that you and I are in this together. That you care about me as much as I fucking care about you, Ollie.” 

“How?” He begs. “Anything, Farleigh, just tell me what I can do.”

“I want to fuck you,” he admits, the dark desire finally unfurling from his mouth. 

For Oliver, sex has always been a means to power. Even with Farleigh, he’s maintained a certain upper hand that keeps him feeling in control—keeps their dynamic moving forward in a way that feels safe to him. Giving up that power, letting Farleigh inside of him, trusting him in such a singular, intimate way—it’s terrifying to Oliver.

“I’m not…I haven’t in a long time and it’s…”

“Ollie,” Farleigh sweetly interrupts his string of fears, “Do you really trust me?”

“Yes.” And Oliver is being so painfully honest about it, he thinks he might combust from the effort. 

“Then give this to me.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, struggling to give the answer he so desperately wants while looking up into Farleigh’s sweet, soft eyes—the same eyes that were just filled with so much hate and anger when they thought Oliver’s happiness and safety were hanging in the valence. Sometimes he thinks he can look through Farleigh’s eyes and see generations of truth and reality hiding in the hypnotizing brown pools.

There is still so much to talk about, including what they are planning to do about this perceived threat that Halithan came bearing, but, for the night, Oliver is ready to submit.

“Okay.”

Farleigh takes to power like a prince accepting his birthright.

He lays Oliver across their bed, peeling away pieces of clothing one by one, pressing his lips to every new inch of bare skin, whispering “I love you” into every crease and fold.  Oliver wraps his legs around him, canting his hips forward to find friction and groaning into the press of Farleigh’s cock against his. They let their tongues wander across each other’s bodies, moving leisurely together with no rush towards the finish line. 

“You’re everything to me,” Oliver breathes into Farleigh’s neck. “Nothing comes before you and if you leave me, nothing will come after.” 

“Ollie,” he whispers back, “I know. I forgive you.” He slides down Oliver’s body, running his hand between his fuzzy thighs and spreading them apart, his warm breath ghosting over his hard cock. Farleigh slips even lower and gently teases his tongue against Oliver’s tight hole, pulling a moan from the back of his throat as he continues to press into the heat of Oliver’s body, nipping at his cheeks as he pushes deeper and deeper past his rim with each delicious lap. When Farleigh places one of his long digits alongside his slick tongue, slipping it inside with ease, Oliver can’t keep it contained.

“Yes,” he gasps, “Christ, Farleigh, I want you inside of me, want you to own me.”

Nuzzling his nose into his thigh, Farleigh continues to lightly press in and out of Oliver, giving him time to adjust to the intrusion before adding a second finger. It’s been years since Oliver has let someone take him like this, and the lack of experience adds to the satisfying pain he feels as Farleigh moves inside of him, expertly preparing him for what’s to come. When his fingers leave and don’t return, Oliver whimpers, the emptiness feeling so much worse than the burn of Farleigh’s dexterous fingers. 

He returns quickly with the small bottle of lube they keep in the bedside drawer.

“Roll over,” he sweetly nudges at Oliver’s hip, “It’ll be more comfortable.”

Oliver complies and eases his way onto his belly, shuttering when Farleigh traces the line of his spine down to his crack and he feels the cold liquids pour between his cheeks. 

“I’ll go slow,” Farleigh assures him as he kneads his hands into his ass, pulling him apart and exposing his hole to the cool air. He returns to pressing his two fingers into Oliver’s body, sweetly stroking down his back as he praises him.

“Beautiful Oliver.”

“My sweet love.”

The burn eases and Oliver’s desperation grows. “Please, Farleigh,” he begs, “I need you.”

“I’ve got you,” he soothes as he lifts Oliver’s hips up and crowds between his legs. “Tell me if I should stop, okay?”

Fuck. Oliver has never been a “cry during sex” kind of guy—has never really had a reason to be—but the trust he feels between them is so overwhelming, that a small tear falls down his cheek. Farleigh doesn’t know it, but as Oliver lies beneath him, a transformation of sorts happens. Not one of violence, of man to vampire, but a shift deep in the pits of his gory body that shows him it’s okay to feel weak, to feel scared, to trust another person with the darkness and let them hold it in front of you and dismantle it bit by bit.

“Okay,” he chokes as Farleigh aligns himself and starts to press bluntly into his body. God, it’s been ages since Oliver has had someone inside of him and Farleigh slips in with such ease it’s like they were built to fit together. The pressure is overwhelming and Oliver bites down on a grunt as he adjusts to the weight of Farleigh slowly grinding into him. Once he’s fully seated, he rubs his thumbs in circles into the back of Oliver’s hips and asks, “Okay?”

Oliver moans, “Yeah,” as his need draws a taut line down his body, “Please Farleigh, move.” He’s so perfectly stretched around Farleigh’s cock, he thinks he might explode if he doesn’t get the friction he’s craving. Slowly, Farleigh begins to slide in and out of his wanting hole, staying in control of his desire, patiently waiting for a signal that Oliver wants more. Oliver pushes back against his thrusts, deepening their connection and aching for Farleigh to make contact with his prostate. As if he’s reading Oliver’s mind (a thing he’s likely to be doing—checking in mentally again and again, staying vigilant) he shifts his angle downwards, pushing Oliver belly first into the bed. When he finally hits that sweet spot, Oliver wails in rhythm with each press, dying to stroke his aching cock that’s trapped underneath him. 

It’s all starting to feel overwhelming. Oliver’s body is too stimulated to push out words and he’s relying on Farleigh’s intrusion into his psyche to read his need. Like a perfectly choreographed ballet, Farleigh pulls out and wraps his arm around Oliver’s middle, easily flipping him to his back and making Oliver feel like a helpless ragdoll underneath the larger man’s control. Their mouths come together, hot and frenzied, as they grasp at handfuls of skin. Carelessly, they bite at soft bits of skin and take turns sucking bruises across each other’s chests and necks, easing back the chaos until they’re breathing in rhythm. They lay pressed together, drinking down each other’s tongues, letting their fingers dance across each other’s backs and hips.

“I love you, Farleigh,” Oliver says quietly as Farleigh spreads his knees apart and pushes back into his hole, the painful friction nearly gone and giving way to the hot slide of his cock along the tight walls of his body. Farleigh moves with such care, such gentle control, that when he tells Oliver to touch himself, it only takes a few minutes until he’s coming against his stomach, moaning and grinding uncontrollably into Farleigh’s hips, hoping to help him find his own release. His body feels light and utterly void of the harsh world he let walk through their doors earlier.

Farleigh still moves inside of him, gentling his speed and wrapping his arms under Oliver’s back to haul him to a seat on top of him. “We can stop if it’s too much,” he kindly offers, but Oliver is desperate to keep Farleigh inside of him, to feel him come into his vacant body, to fill him back up with the love and comfort he offers with no strings, no agendas, just devotion and honor and unconditional care.

“It’s good,” Oliver gasps as he tenses his thighs so he can grind down into Farleigh’s lap, placing a hand on his chest and guiding him to lay back. His legs quake from the aftermath of his orgasm, but he continues to hoist his body up and down on Farleigh’s cock as he sucks on the side of his neck, biting and licking at him, savoring the salty taste of his sweat. He hears his name leave Farleigh’s lips, soft and reverent, over and over again until he spills into Oliver’s body with a shout, his body trembling and shaking apart as Oliver praises, “Good boy,” and “So beautiful,” as he works him through it. They stay there, slowly moving together until Farleigh’s soft cock can’t stay inside of him anymore. They’re nearly stuck together with come and sweat but manage to peel apart, refusing to move further than the bathtub where they soak in the hot water. Oliver is sore—his lower body aches and the muscles in his hips burn—but it’s a good kind of sore. The kind that reminds you that you’ve accomplished something difficult. 

They sit facing each other in the tub and Oliver admires the gentle lines of Farleigh’s body as he tells him, “Thank you.”

Farleigh flutters his eyes open, having drifted close to sleep in the warmth of the water, and asks, “For what?”

“For being here with me.”

“Where else would I want to be?”

And that makes Oliver’s whole body light on fire with love for the man in front of him.

He smiles.

“Nowhere.” He looks down into the swirling bathwater and sees himself reflected back. Happy. Content. Nearly unfamiliar. “Wait,” Oliver remembers and Farleigh flicks his eyes open once more, “You threw him across the room…”

Farleigh smiles. “Yeah, what was that?”

“I’m not certain,” Oliver admits, “But we’ll figure it out.” They have done a pretty good job of it so far. 

Oliver thinks once more about how  there’s still so much to figure out, to talk through. Halithan, Saltburn, their long-term safety, but tonight, they simply enjoy being here, safe and together. For however long that might last.

Chapter Text

The sun cuts through a poorly closed curtain and pries at Oliver’s eyelids. Begrudgingly, he opens them, unprepared to leave the soft, perfectly fluffed bed or the comforting weight of Farleigh’s arm resting against his belly. They’ve been in Paris for two days now, fleeing the dreary, wintery, countryside in exchange for the dreary city. At least the sun is out today, even if its fleeting presence has prematurely roused him from a deeply satisfying sleep.

Farleigh stirs, softly blinking his eyes open as he hums into his ear. He slides his hand up Oliver’s stomach to rest it on his chest. “Good morning,” he whispers, raspy from the heavy kind of sleep you can only get when you’re on vacation and fall asleep in an unfamiliar town and a strange bed. “What do you want to do today?”

Oliver smiles at the ceiling while considering how uneventful his life has been up to this point—how empty and lonely he spent every second before he found the pliant, sweet, villainous man next to him. “There’s somewhere I want to take you,” he shares.

“And where’s that?” Farleigh scoots closer so that his body is pressed up against Oliver’s length and his chin can rest comfortably on his shoulder. For such a vicious killer, Farleigh has the capacity for such softness—can be so sweet and sticky and saccharine—that sometimes Oliver has to squint his eyes to recognize him. Sometimes he has to dig through his mind’s archive in search of a single deed worthy of the atonement that should be required for this all to be real. Christ, he wants to give Farleigh everything, and he’s giddy at the fact that today, he gets to.

Oliver realizes he’s been too preoccupied admiring Farleigh in his head to respond to his question, so Farleigh presses for more information. “Is it a surprise or something? You know I don’t like surprises, and I’m a better planner anyway.” He starts to sit up in bed the more annoyed he becomes by this theoretical surprise day-trip. “Ugh, come on, just tell me already.”

Oliver sits up as well and rolls his eyes sarcastically. 

“It’s not a surprise, you impatient scamp. I’m going to take you to see a friend of mine. Someone I haven’t seen in a while.”

“That’s still vague and kinda ominous, Ol.”

“Well,” Oliver shrugs and tosses his legs over the side of the bed, “You’ll just have to trust me, I suppose.” He pauses and rolls that thought around in his mind. “You do trust me, don’t you, Farleigh?”

“With my life,” he answers without pause. “The whole eternity of it.”

Farleigh watches out the train window as the idyllic French countryside goes flying past them like frames in a classic film. Oliver lets him know they’ll be heading to Les Lilas, a small commune a bit north of where they’re staying, but has yet to reveal any details like who they’re going to meet and exactly what the intention of the outing is. It doesn't really matter, though. For all his protesting and whining, Farleigh knows that he would follow Oliver anywhere. He’d follow him straight into the flames of hell if Oliver decided to walk towards them.

“I’ve been thinking…” Oliver begins as he stares unblinkingly in front of him, his brow furrowed with thought. “I don’t mean to keep you locked up in Saltburn like some distressed maiden. I don’t want you to live the rest of your eternity without seeing some of the world.”

“I’m not a child, Oliver,” Farleigh defensively squashes his concerns because he feels confused by the assertion that he’s somehow been kept against his will. “And I grew up tangentially wealthy. I’ve seen more of the world than most people my age.” 

“No, I know, but…” Oliver trails off, grasping to make sense of the anxieties Farleigh can feel pushing their way through his pores. He gently places a hand on Oliver’s knee.

 “Are you afraid that’s how I feel? Like I’m being trapped?”

“Sometimes,” he answers honestly. “I want you to see the world the way it is for you now. It’s different, Farleigh. You’re not the same, and you can’t interact with people and places the way you used to.”

“What do you mean?” Farleigh is clearly still grappling with Oliver’s vague concerns.

“I mean,” Ollie turns and leans against his arm that’s resting on the back of the seat. “You’re different now. You control everything around you. You get to determine your fate and the fate of those around you in a way that even wads of old-world Catton money can’t.”

“I do?” Farleigh has never really thought of it that way. He knows that something has changed. He’s more in control of himself. He feels stronger, more focused, more dangerous than ever before, but the power he senses has always felt rooted inside of Oliver—like an extension of him. And Farleigh is okay with that because nothing makes him happier than the feeling of being intrinsically braided into the fibers of the man he loves. 

“You do. And I want to show you what that means.”

“And I’ll reiterate that this all feels weirdly ominous, Ollie.”

Oliver huffs out a small, breathy laugh. “When you’re evil and immortal, doesn’t everything feel a bit ominous?”

“Hmm, not really,” Farleigh argues. “Menacing, maybe. But not ominous.”

“Fine,” he consigns, “I’ll try to be more menacing instead.”

They sit in still, comfortable silence until the train starts to incrementally slow down and eventually delivers them to their stop. When Farleigh turns to look at Oliver, he’s already staring at him with fucking stars in his eyes.

“What?” he asks, feeling suddenly self-conscious at the depths Oliver manages to plumb with little more than a glance. 

“Nothin’.” Ollie stands and holds his hand out for Farleigh to take. “I’m just excited to do this with you.” 

They walk hand-in-hand down the wide sidewalk. Oliver seems to know exactly where he’s headed as he confidently guides them around turns and down streets. The deeper they walk into the heart of the village, the older it feels. Gradually, cement turns to cobblestone, tall buildings become small, squat squares, and the air tastes like pastry instead of car exhaust. Oliver grips his hand tightly, like he’d die if he let go. 

Maybe it would be daunting for most people—most humans—to consider an eternity with another person. Till death do us part feels like a big commitment until you consider the alternative; no death, no parting, an eternity bound to another being, and the highs and lows that accompany it. For fuckssake, until now, Farleigh had avoided even the most casual of connections with lovers, never taking a relationship further than he absolutely had to to get what he wanted (which, most of the time, was sex, and maybe a bit of validation and ego boost here and there, he was only human), but with Oliver, he’s not scared. He’s not nervous. He’s not daunted. He knows he could do this forever.

“It’s right here!” Oliver exclaims as he yanks Farleigh towards an alleyway that’s arched by a brick threshold that looks older than anything else around it. Any semblance of modern life continues to drift away behind them as they plod down the path between crumbling block walls until they reach a large, wooden doorway. 

“Okay,” Oliver breathes, his voice filled to the brim with anticipation and excitement. “So, just to catch you up, this is where Nulani lives. She’s like us, but she’s been here longer than…” He pauses to think, and Farleigh can see his eyes running through the decades of filing cabinets stuffed into his mind, “Well longer than most of—maybe all of us, I’m really not sure.”

“She’s a vampire?”

“Yeah,” he confirms.

“But, like, a really old one?”

“Relatively, yes.”

Farleigh takes a deep breath. “And you want me to meet her?”

“I want you to meet her, and I want you to learn from her. See, Nulani is sort of the…record keeper, for our kind. Texts, artifacts—it’s all kept right here.” He reaches up and uses the large brass knocker to thump against the door. “She’s very kind,” he says quietly. “But she’s a stickler for manners so just…behave.”

As he finishes his sentence, the door slowly creeps open, revealing a tall, willowy woman with salt-and-pepper hair that falls below her kneecaps. Her skin is taut and dark, with a few worn-in wrinkles creasing at her forehead and her cheeks as she reveals a large, toothy smile. 

“Oliver!” She exclaims, reaching out to grab Ollie by the wrists and pull him into a body enveloping hug. “My gods, what are you doing here? It’s been, Christ, I don’t even know how long!” Her voice is light—airy—and her accent is nearly impossible to place. Germanic, Farleigh decides.

“Forty years or so,” Oliver supplies. “But who’s counting?” 

“Certainly not me,” the woman chuckles. “And what’s this?” She asks, shifting her attention to Farleigh. He immediately snaps his spine straight and sticks out a polite hand. She clasps it between both of her cold palms. 

“My name is Farleigh Start, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Oliver has—well he hasn’t told me much of anything, but he speaks highly of you.”

Nulani coos, “Oh, of course he does, sweet, sweet Oliver. Come in now, quickly! I can feel the rain coming.”

When Farleigh steps over the threshold, he pulls in a deep breath through his nose and tries to parse out the menagerie of scents bombarding his nervous system: bergamot, honey, mold, cedar, smoke. The entryway looks like it hasn’t changed (nor been dusted) since 1750, and as Nulani leads them through the cramped hallways, he takes in the assortment of knick-knacks, trinkets, and tchotchkes that line the walls. He lingers a few paces behind her and Oliver, choosing to be more of an observer on this outing than a participant, and lets his mind wander back to his old life—his mother. She’s out there somewhere, wondering about him, dreading that it’s her fault he’s vanished from her life when the truth is, she’s the only reason he went back to Saltburn in the first place. He feels a pang of grief when he realizes she could never even fathom the reality of it now.

“Where are you staying now, Ollie? London get a bit boring?” 

“No, London is London. I wanted to go to school, so I found a family—inserted myself. Figured out how to make it happen and applied to Oxford.” 

“And you got in?”

“Of course,” Oliver says cheekily. 

“Of course,” Nulani affirms. “So you’re staying there? In Oxford?”

“A bit outside, in Northamptonshire, but yes. I live with Farleigh at his family estate.”

Nulani stops in her tracks.

“Family estate…in Northamptonshire? Oliver, you don’t mean to tell me…”

“Yes,” he confirms, without needing to know the rest of her question.

“ Saltburn,” Nulani whispers, clutching the large, geometric pendant that hangs around her neck. “So that’s why you’re here.”

“It is,” Oliver affirms as he turns and takes Farleigh’s hand. “I want Farleigh to know where he came from.”

The oddly ageless woman reaches out and strokes Farleigh’s cheek with her rough thumb. “What a handsome boy! What a blessing, Oliver. What a miracle!” She takes Farleigh by his other, unoccupied hand, and the two guide him like a toddler into a large, open room, stuffed to the gills with books, antique busts, and other seemingly random assortments of objects. 

“You’re very lucky,” she muses, stopping inside the doorway to let go of his palm and take a few steps towards one of the overloaded bookshelves, “to have made it to this side of things.”

“I know,” and he really fucking is. “The rest of my family wasn’t so lucky.”

“As it goes, sometimes.” She runs her pointer finger across a row of book spines, wiping away a thin layer of dust as she goes, revealing the titles and names of authors, volume numbers, and publishing dates. She pauses on a comparatively slim catalog. “Has Oliver told you anything about your family home?”

“A little bit…” Farleigh recalls their conversation a thousand years ago, where Oliver spoke vaguely of the past and the future and the intense psychic experience that is walking across the wood floors and the ceramic tiling and the way it seems to absorb you into the slate that forms the foundation.

“He’s never been one to spin a very captivating tale.” She cuts her knowing eyes over to Oliver with affectionate indignation. “I’m a much better storyteller. Come along; there is so much for you to see.” 

Oliver and Farleigh follow close behind Nulani, bumping shoulders and sharing energy back and forth—giddy, anxious, curious. She carries the leather-bound text in her arms, and Farleigh can just barely make out the gilded font across the face— A History of Saltburn. What history could possibly exist that hasn’t already been drilled into his head by the constant exposure to the chronicles, the portraits, the family trees that held him by the throat and left him dangling like a rotting apple from a dying branch? 

He steps carefully around piles of books and dusty credenzas laden with empty tea cups and folders stuffed with loose papers. It’s hypnotizing—the centuries of history that exist within his arm’s reach. They climb a short set of stairs that opens to a smaller, dimmer room that’s outfitted with comfortable-looking seating, heavy velvet curtains, and, thank Christ, a beautiful, oaken bar top covered with dozens of liquors or varying shades. Drinking isn’t all that fun for Farleigh anymore—it dulls all his senses in a way that is much less euphoric than it once was, but the comfort of the familiar, antiseptic tingle coating his throat sounds appealing to his frayed nerves. 

“May I?” He asks politely, of course, as he nods towards the assortment of beverages. 

“Help yourself, and pour me a double of what you’re having,” Nulani requests as she glides past him. It’s interesting to watch the way she moves almost weightlessly, barely needing to lift her feet. Farleigh looks over at Oliver. 

“What you’re having,” he confirms.

Whiskey. Definitely whiskey.

He carefully pours the drinks into shiny, crystal glasses and carries them all together between his hands over to where Oliver and Nulani have made themselves comfortable on a small love-seat. There isn’t enough room for him, and anyway, it feels so cozy—so intimate—that Farleigh sits himself at Oliver’s feet, looking up at Nulani like a child ready for a bedtime story. 

Nulani draws in a deep drink of amber whiskey and taps the side of the glass with her pointer finger, thoughtfully. “Do you know what year your home was built?”

“1801.” The information flies out of Farleigh’s mouth before he even realizes he’s sent his brain the processing request.

“Indeed, and do you know what was there before it was built?"

“A monastery, but it had to be demolished because of damage to the foundation.” Jesus Christ, where is he getting all this information from? 

“A monastery!” She bellows. “ That’s what they’ve been telling all of your ancestors!? A monastery,” she repeats, tossing her head back and belly laughing at the thought. “I’m sorry, gods, that’s just…” she wipes a few tears from her eyes and collects herself. “The English almost never have a sense of humor that keen.” The joke is exceedingly lost on Farleigh, who stares blankly up at the amused woman. Luckily, Nulani does her best not to leave him in the dark for long.

“We’ve always been here, Farleigh, but we haven’t always been very good about record keeping. You see, I have thousands of artifacts here that trace our existence on this Earth back to ancient Mesopotamia. But the written record…” She runs her right hand reverently across the cover of the history book she holds in her lap. “There exists significantly less of that.”

She extends the book towards him, urging him to take it, so he does. The leather is rough and dull, but the gold letters shine up at him like jewels in the sunlight. He opens up to the front page and reads the first few lines:

A Brief History of Vampyre Collectives in England

For many centuries, the territorial and blood-thirsty nature of vampyres have kept us isolated from one another, with most existing completely independently or in small family groups of no more than one to three others within the same bloodline. While this solitary lifestyle can be beneficial in regards to limiting detection and maximizing food availability, it leaves one vulnerable to potential attack and can cause negative impacts on one’s psychological well-being. As the benefits and drawbacks of such cultural shifts in perspective have been debated thoroughly, it remains true that large, mixed bloodline clans have been forming with more frequency than ever before. 

The first documented collective of vampyres in England settled in the central countryside in 1710. The clan of nineteen, who ranged in origin and homeland, hired a local builder to design, draft, and build a multi-story castle meant to house them for the next several centuries. The area was abuzz with stories about the new family of eccentric, isolated foreigners, and many traveled to witness the erection of such a marvelous home, although attendance dwindled as tales of missing tourists circulated the surrounding villages. 

Completed in 1713, Saltburn Estate would be the residence of this clan for nearly a century.

“What is this?” Farleigh asks, running his eyes over the words again and again, trying to force his mind to absorb and understand what he was reading. “What does this mean?”

“It means,” Nulani say, speaking low and soothingly, “Your home was never a monastery, dear child. It was never torn down and rebuilt. It was conquered by your ancestors and the people who supported them.”

Farleigh looks down at the pages, then back to Nulani, his eyes rife with confusion that she can easily interpret, so she continues.

“There was a war, darling. Not the kind of wars you Americans like to engage in, but a sort of underground war between the living and the unliving. Us against them. Eventually, the town’s people—your family—proved more predator than prey. Keep reading…” she prompts, so Farleigh turns a few pages and lands on a bolded heading.

The Psychic Mechanisms of Saltburn

The Saltburn Estate was built to provide its inhabitants with both psychic protection and projection. Utilizing discrete astrological patterns in combination with the existing magnetic fields, the house was designed to serve as a conduit between that which is physical and that which is vibrational. The theory that such entities can be created has been subject to much experimentation within the community thus, the success of the Saltburn Project was meant to pave the way for the development and organization of a psychically interconnected community of vampires across Europe.

“So this is why…” Farleigh says, mostly to himself.

“That’s why,” Oliver confirms.

“I’m guessing you’ve felt it?” Nulani asks as she reaches into her pocket, pulling out a soft pack of cigarettes. She offers one to Oliver, who declines, then one to Farleigh, who gratefully removes a slim, white square from the wrinkled wrapping, then allows Oliver to light it with the heavy, golden lighter they’re passing around.

“It’s strange,” Farleigh reflects. “It’s like, when I really focus on it—the electricity and the movement passing through the air in there—I feel sharper, stronger. Like I can tap into something…more.”

“Exactly,” Nulani exhales with a puff of smoke. “I’m happy to hear it’s still a successful conduit.”

Farleigh shifts his attention up to Oliver. “So that’s what was so important to you? The power?” It wouldn’t be all that surprising to Farleigh. Oliver is so gentle and kind towards him, but right underneath his thin, pale skin lives a deep thirst for power and control that’s impossible for him to hide completely.

“I’ll admit, it did entice me,” Oliver confesses. “But mostly, I just wanted it to be protected. Wanted to see it cared for by someone who actually understands its value.”

This is fucking crazy. The new information bombarding his senses keeps piling on before he has time to fully process any of it. It’s fascinating and terrifying. It’s confusing and yet it makes perfect sense. It’s heartbreaking…it’s infuriating…it’s…

“I don’t get it, Oliver. I don’t get any of this. Why did it have to be now? You’ve had centuries…” It’s all getting harder and harder to wrap his head around. In the span of ten minutes, Farleigh’s meant to accept that he’s been lied to about his generational home, that he lives inside of a psychic channel that can be tapped into and manipulated to heighten the existing skills of any vampire smart enough to tap into it, and that he’s the descendant of, fuck, fucking vampire slayers? His human nature starts to bleed out as his confusion and frustration build up pressure in his head, and his words become more difficult to push out the heavier they sit on his tongue. It takes him a second to swallow the lump in his throat and ask the question he’s had sitting right behind his teeth for months.

“Why did you have to kill them all, Ollie? My family. That was my family.” Most of it, anyway. Farleigh thinks back to when he first decided to return to Saltburn and who motivated him to do so—his mother. Things have changed so much since then that it feels like it might be grief sitting like a stone in his stomach. He stamps out the half finished cigarette in the ashtray Nulani has placed on the ground between them and rubs his eyes with the heels of his wrists. It feels like everything—months of unanswered questions and little resentments—is threatening to spill out.

“I didn’t see another way,” Oliver tells him, his voice weighed down with hesitant honesty. “They couldn’t stay there anymore, Farleigh, you have to see that now. This is bigger than them.”

Tears start to build up behind his eyelids when he squeezes them shut, and he thinks about his cousins, his aunt, his uncle, even fucking Duncan, the wretched bastard. None of them deserved the fate they received. None of them deserved to be killed by a blood-thirsty, revenge seeking monster. He loves Oliver—fucking loves him—but he knows the true nature of the man he loves and has seen the cruelty he’s capable of and the violence he willingly hands out in order to get what he wants.

“I just don’t understand it,” Farleigh chokes on the words clenched in his throat. “Why us…why me?” A little bit of dampness spills down his cheek, and Oliver quickly reaches out to wipe it away. 

“You really don’t see it, do you?” Nulani asks rhetorically, he hopes, because he feels he’s made it quite obvious that none of this makes any sense to him. “You’re the perfect heir.”

His eyes narrow as he stares out in front of him, trying to put the pieces together. “The heir to what?”

“To Saltburn, Farleigh,” Oliver skips over the cryptic formality and gets straight to the point. “You have the blood of the creator and the destroyer. You walk the thin line between what that implies every day. You’re a Catton, yes. But you’re also a vampire. A vicious, violent, awe-inspiring vampire that holds one of the most powerful tools of our kind in the palm of your hand.”

No. Hell no. Farleigh was just getting accustomed to the whole “immortal, blood sucking monster” thing, now he has to cope with the realization that his entire life has been based on the most whimsical, unimaginable lie ever told. And, more so, that the so-called truths he’s been fed for his entire existence are exactly the same. Lies. One minute, he’s nothing; the next, he’s everything. It all bubbles around in his guts until the black bile spills out.

“I’m not a Catton.” He pushes himself to his feet and takes a few steps away from everyone. “I’m not a lord, or the son of a lord, or an heir to fucking anything.” And he knows it’s true. It’s the one thing he’s been reminded of over and over again since he was a little boy—his existence under the Catton family’s roof is implicitly powerless.

“That may have been true.” Oliver springs upright to stick close to his side as Nulani watches observantly from her seat. “But that’s not how it works now, Farleigh. You’re right, you weren’t born into this. You fucking earned this.”

Farleigh backs away from everyone’s knowing stares as his eyesight starts to blur out with tears, and, thank God, because the sympathetic look on Nulani’s face makes him want to bury himself in the fucking catacombs. 

“No, I–I haven’t, Oliver.” His voice warbles with emotion. “I was just…there. I’m just here. You’re the one who worked for it. I just…showed up and was lucky that you’d rather fuck me than kill me.” A fat tear rolls down his cheek, and he starts to hyperventilate, his body responding in the only way it knows how to, regardless of how useless the functions are to him now. Oliver rushes over to where Farleigh’s epic, existential crisis is occurring and grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly and sending enough stimuli to his nervous system to help snap him out of his spiral. 

“You’re wrong,” he states—firm and honest. “You couldn’t begin to imagine how lucky I feel. Lucky that I found Felix, lucky he fell for my story, lucky his family was just as gullible and stupid as he was.”

“They’re not stupid…they’re…”

“Wrong again,” Oliver corrects before he can finish the thought. “For centuries, the Catton’s have hidden truths, ignored facts…lied to one another. And that all ends with you. I’m so fucking lucky I found you.”

“No,” Farleigh cries and jerks away from Oliver’s soothing touch. He doesn’t deserve it. “I should have died with them. I don’t…fucking know why you let me go, Ollie.” It just doesn't make any sense, why Oliver would give him this gift…this fucking curse …this seat of honor at the table of his family’s inheritance that was never meant for him—a dinner he was never meant to be served. 

Nulani looks at him with pity as she stands to pass him another cigarette. “I understand,” she calmly comforts. “You’ve been captive to those around you for many years, and you disagree with Oliver here. You don’t believe you are owed a piece of the Catton legacy, as it was never even a theoretical thing for you.” It’s as if she’s reading his mind. “ Oh shit,” Farleigh thinks, “ She probably is.”

“It just doesn’t seem…”

“Right? Fair?” She fills in, offering him a light that he graciously accepts. The warm smoke fills his lungs with carcinogens and tar, and he feels like he’s watching the whole scene from the ceiling—outside himself. “What in life is, my boy?”

Farleigh squeezes his eyes shut and tries to sort out all the thoughts in his head, but there’s too much static buzzing around the room for him to think clearly. 

What is right?

What is fair?

What do those words even mean to him anymore?

“Thank you, Nulani.” Oliver reaches up and gently places his hand between Farleigh’s shoulders. The grounding effect of their entwined energies immediately soothes a bit of Farleigh’s worry. “He needed to hear it from you. We have a lot to discuss, the two of us. We’ll leave you be.”

She nods. “You’re always welcomed in my home, Oliver.” The two exchange polite kisses on the cheek, and Oliver guides Farleigh back towards the front of the house. He must seem dazed because Oliver refuses to remove his palm from his back, like he might lose Farleigh if he lets go. 

The air outside is thick with humidity, and the dreariness that has moved in and choked out the earlier sunlight feels more apropos to Farleigh’s current mood. It’s strange—the more he moves, the more he takes in air and forces his sludgy blood around his veins—the calmer he feels. It’s like a dull comfort sets in. He still doesn’t believe that this is a good thing, by any means. Oliver’s choice to pull him into this still feels wrong because, really, it’s Oliver who deserves Saltburn. He’s stronger and better, and he might actually fucking know what all this power means. Fuck.

“What would you like to do?” Ollie asks as a small group of young women walks in front of them on the sidewalk, giggling and chatting amongst themselves with little to no awareness of the brutal monsters they’re passing by without a thought. Farleigh’s brain perks up at the smell of them. 

“I’m fucking starving.”

Finally, it’s nightfall. 

It’s not that Oliver isn’t accustomed to plodding around in the full light of day—isn’t used to controlling his body and the way it yearns to lash out and feed on the psychic power the ultraviolet rays provide him—there’s just something about the darkness and the way Farleigh glows so fucking beautifully under the moonlight that contributes to his preference. As they sit across a pub table from two strikingly boring women, chatting them up with feigned interest, Ollie can feel Farleigh’s body rattling with bloodlust. He’s growing impatient, and it’s nearly a chore to fight back looks of glowing affection and admiration every time Oliver hears him give a backhanded compliment or catches him dozing off at the lackluster conversation. Eventually, he has to kick Farleigh’s ankle to draw him out of his distracted psychic wandering, and Oliver decides that it’s time to move onto the next portion of their evening. He communicates as much with Farleigh, who sits tightly wound beside him. 

“So, where are you two staying?” Farleigh asks, anxious to speed up this interaction—get to the good stuff. 

“Oh, this nasty hostel a bit down the road,” the blonde one with the twangy, southern American accent responds. “I don’t think anyone’s cleaned a toilet in that place in goddamn ten years.”

“And I’m pretty sure the guy running it is a rapist,” the other adds. She’s American too, and somehow even more blonde than the first, but has far less of a drawl in her tone—just a slur from the several rounds of shots Oliver has ordered for the table. Farleigh raises his eyebrows in curiosity at her accusation, and she’s quick to explain herself. “Not that he’s done anything! He just…has these creepy, beady eyes. Reminds me of a vampire from an old movie, like Nosferatu, or something.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Farleigh says out loud as he pushes information into Oliver’s mind. “Let’s get them out of here. Invite them back.” God, he loves it when they’re in sync like this—repeating the same thoughts back and forth.

“Certainly not,” Ollie agrees, his palms starting to sweat with anticipation. “We’ve got an empty double bed and no bat-eyed monsters.”

The blondest one leans over the table, and, when she speaks, Oliver feels a little bad about how drunk they got her. There’s a sweet spot when it comes to loosening up prey before moving in to kill; best to keep them pliant enough to be open to suggestion but upright enough to walk on their own. 

“Are you sure about that?” She asks, biting her lower lip in a way that Oliver knows is meant to be flirtatious, but her slurred speech and fucked-up coordination make it almost comical.

“I suppose you’ll find out,” Farleigh answers, offering a bit of his own sultry eye contact—and fuck if it doesn’t hit Oliver with a pang of jealousy, even though he knows Farleigh is simply putting on a show to gain the trust of these two women. 

They look at each other, like they can read minds as well, and the one laughs. “I guess that sounds alright,” she agrees. “Can’t be any worse than bunking with thirty strangers and that creature of the night that runs the front desk.”

Oliver leaves a handful of cash on the table as Farleigh offers a polite elbow to the southern one, and Oliver swings his arm around the blonder one, trying his best to act inebriated enough to pass as someone who’s been drinking for the last two hours (when, in reality, he and Farleigh had been sneaking their shots into a potted plant that was decorating the ledge by their table).

It’s not a terribly long walk back to the general vicinity of their hotel, so, after just a few minutes of plodding and chatting and Oliver and Farleigh doing an admittedly horrible job of putting on an “interested prospect” act, they take a sudden turn down a dark alleyway between the hotel and, what appears to be, an abandoned medical office. Previously, they had agreed to keep any and all bloodshed out of their rented room (for the deposit’s sake), so Oliver’s been keeping a close eye on the comings and goings of this particular hideaway. In three days, he’s hardly seen a stray cat wander down the dark dead end. 

With his hand on the small of her back, Oliver guides his chosen meal past Farleigh and her friend, who are already kissing sloppily against the brick wall. Fuck, it doesn’t matter how fake or insincere the act is; he will always feel beaten down with jealousy for any living thing that gets to put its hands on Farleigh the way he does. At least his jealousy is soon diverted by the handsy woman next to him, who brazenly pushes him backwards until his back hits the wall and shoves her hand down the front of his pants. The visceral reaction it causes him—the way he reaches for her wrist and winces at the touch—is so apparent that he’s thankful, once again, for how drunk she is. 

“I know you want me,” she slurs into his ear. And it’s true; he does. He’s desperate for her—aching for the rush of sinking teeth and flowing blood—and he can hear Farleigh begging for the same. Oliver takes a deep breath and puts his lips on hers, parting them with his tongue as he tastes stale liquor and peppermint. All he can see is Farleigh, and he pushes his senses past the woman pressed up against him to let Farleigh know, “Christ, I wish it were you.”

He can’t stand very much more of her wet mouth and her hungry fingertips that remain wrapped around his flaccid cock, fruitlessly sliding her palm up and down in an attempt to coax out the pleasure that will never come. 

“Take it,” he hears Farleigh say. So he does.

Oliver lets his mouth wander down to her throat as he pushes his fingers into her mouth to keep her from screaming and sinks his sharp daggers into her soft, pale flesh. She gasps and gurgles and chokes on the digits pressed against her tongue as the sweet liquid starts to pour down Oliver’s throat. He can feel Farleigh taking his, too—can sense his satisfaction as he drains the life from his dinner. When she collapses, Oliver follows her down to the ground and kneels over her quickly depleting body, continuing to lap at the consistent flow of blood. 

“Ugh, fuck ,” Farleigh mutters, and Oliver pauses his feeding to check in.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“She’s already fucking empty. That’s what you get for choosing these skinny, anemic girls, Oliver.” Farleigh abandons his drained victim and leans against the wall near where Oliver kneels with an exasperated sigh. “I told you we should have gone to the gay bar and found some thick, juicy bears. God, I could eat four of her.”

“C’mere.” Oliver gestures with his open hand for Farleigh to join him on the ground, and, when they’re side by side, he places his palm on the back of his neck, guiding him down towards the puncture wounds he’s been feeding from. “Have as much as you want.”

Farleigh looks with his dark, round eyes, frenzied and thirsty, and slides his fangs into the holes Oliver created. The moment contact occurs, a lightning bolt of lust shoots down Oliver’s spine, and he watches closely as Farleigh sucks and feeds from the wounds he made for him, from the life he stole for him. It will always, always, be worth it if it’s for Farleigh. Always.

When Farleigh finally lets go of the mangled chunk of flesh between his teeth, his chest heaves, and the scarlet liquid leaks from the sides of his mouth and down his chin, like he’s so filled with her soul and her saccharine blood that he’s nearly bursting. Oliver has to have him—has to feel him right here in the dark alley in front of two dead bodies of strangers that no one here knows. That no one will miss for weeks. Farleigh stands up and runs his arm across his mouth, smearing stains across his sleeve. He looks down at Oliver with those fucking eyes—those dark, vast, soul-stealing eyes—and Oliver couldn’t control himself if he wanted to.

He doesn’t fucking want to. 

Oliver stands up and puts his hands against Farleigh's chest, shoving him roughly against the outer wall of their hotel.

“You are everything to me,” he growls into Farleigh’s ear. “You’re everything. All of this. I need you.” Fuck, he loves him so much, and the fact that Farleigh can’t see that—can’t trust it—makes Oliver’s stomach hurt from the heartbreak. 

“I think I get it now,” Farleigh tells him, sanguinely. Oliver is sure that it’s primarily the manic high of the hunt that’s bolstering his previously frail confidence, but he’ll take what he can get for now. For now, all he really needs is Farleigh’s tongue in his mouth and his cock in his hand. 

“Fucking everything,” Oliver repeats as he tugs at the button on Farleigh’s jeans, unceremoniously pulling his cock out the moment he can. His mind goes to the moments leading up to now—the drunk girls, the making out, the fondling—and he feels inspired, enlightened even. Oliver sinks to his knees and wraps his arms around Farleigh’s thighs, pulling him in close, repeating himself like a mystic falling into a trance. Everything, everything, everything.  

The familiar flavor of Farleigh’s skin on his tongue is still just as sweet as it was the first time he tasted it, and he savors it all the same. When he takes it into his hand and runs his tongue up the side of it, Farleigh’s groan echoes out into the sparsely populated street.

“Fuck, Ollie,” he breathes into the dense night, “We need to get out of here…need to clean up…gotta get away from these bod—” 

Oliver, feeling quite through with Farleigh’s insistence on reason and logic, sinks down onto his swollen cock until it bumps the back of his throat, and he stays there, choking a bit as it triggers his gag reflex. He’s quite sure that Farleigh is going to be too busy fucking his face and coming into his mouth to be so concerned about what they need to be doing right now. When he feels Farleigh’s strong hand grip the back of his head, he knows it for certain.

It only takes a few experimental thrusts for Farleigh to lock into a brutal pace as Oliver lets his jaw hang wide and his tongue lay flat, taking every last bit of Farleigh’s cock he possibly can as his drool mixes with the blood that’s covering his chin and creates a disgusting, coppery foam that drips onto the pavement underneath him. When Farleigh gets like this—drops the fear and the hesitance and just takes whatever the fuck he wants—Oliver feels like he can see hundreds of years into the future into a time where Farleigh knows how to embrace his power with pride and unflinching ego.

“Oh shit, oh fuck,” Farleigh gasps as his knees begin to shake and he pulls his hand from where it’s sunk into Oliver’s hair, throwing it across his eyes as he collapses his weight against the wall. Determined to see him through, Oliver takes back control and wraps his hand around Farleigh’s cock, suckling at the tip and running his tongue along the frenulum until he hears Farleigh give a warning, then feels the warm release coat his mouth and tongue. Fuck, Oliver loves having him like this. Sometimes it feels like they can’t possibly get any closer, living in each other’s space—in each other’s minds—and Oliver craves the reminder that there still are pieces of Farleigh that he can steal and hide away for himself. 

“Ugh,” Farleigh groans as he slumps against the brick wall. “ can’t believe I have to climb a five-story fire escape now,” and Oliver gives him a sheepish grin.

“We could go through the lobby,” he sarcastically suggests. 

“ We could go through the lobby, ” Farleigh repeats with a playfully mocking accent as he helps Oliver to his feet and wastes no time pressing their lips together, licking at the blood and spit and come that decorates the lower half of Oliver’s face. “C’mon, I have a few thoughts on how to reciprocate that.”

Farleigh lays in the fluffed hotel bed, well fucked and well showered, rehashing the day’s events in his head. It still feels unreal—Nulani, all of her books and trinkets, her stories about Saltburn and the clan that built it. Of course, it’s his gut reaction to deny any rights to own or occupy the fantastical castle that always existed just inches from his fingertips and to disavow any claim that his ancestors, vampire or human, would want someone like him sitting in such a position of power—of leverage. It’s not natural for him to trust himself, or anyone else for that matter, so the fact that he’s expected to just accept this as truth? Put his faith in the power contained within the walls of Saltburn. Accept his fate or, possibly, create it? It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, but, shit, if anything, he just wants Oliver to be happy. 

Oliver, who worked so hard to be where he is, who put in the labor and the energy to carve out a space for himself—to take what he deserves—lays next to him, peaceful and still, sleeping so deeply that his body doesn’t feel the innate desire to breathe in and out. 

Rest. That’s what Oliver needs. It’s what they both need. Tomorrow, they’ll go back home, and things won’t make any more sense than they do right now, but, hopefully, they’ll feel a little bit better.

Oliver squirms in the chair he’s currently strapped to. The restraints that must be crafted from the shaggiest, itchiest fiber that ever existed cut into his wrists and ankles, but the ones wrapped around his thighs are the most uncomfortable.

“Farleigh, could you loosen these ropes just a little bit? I didn’t sign up for carpet burn.”

“Oh, come on,” Farleigh purrs from the chest of drawers he hunches over. “Just a little bit longer? You really can’t take it?”

Of course he can’t take it because, for the last few days—specifically, since the night Oliver sucked him off in front of an audience of leftovers after begging him to see himself, to trust himself—Farleigh has been utterly insatiable. For fuck’s sake, Caligula himself would have a hard time keeping up. And it doesn’t help that, on this particularly snowy afternoon, Farleigh has already worked him up to the edge at least four times. 

“It’s been hours, Farleigh, please.”

The smug grin on Farleigh’s face, which spreads wide as he saunters back over to where Oliver is bound, is not giving him hope that he’ll be getting out of this chair any time soon. A chill blows through the drafty windows of their bedroom and across Oliver’s nude body. His arms prickle with goosebumps, and his nipples are so hard, it fucking hurts. He’s warmed up a little bit when Farleigh, still fully clothed, climbs into his lap.

“I can get you a snack if you need it,” he patronizes. “But if you want to come, there’s just one more thing…” Farleigh reaches into the front pocket of his sweater and pulls out a thick, short, red candle, rolling it between his fingers.

“I’m not putting that inside me,” Oliver firmly communicates, and Farleigh lets out a laugh from deep in his belly. The vibrations of his voice leaving his body go straight to Oliver’s desperate cock.

“No, babe,” he assures while he catches his breath. “I just want to see how much you can handle.” 

The lighter in his other hand flicks to life and meets the wick in front of Oliver’s eyes. They must be as big as dinner plates because Farleigh checks in, leaning in so the two are nearly touching noses.

“We can always stop,” he reminds Oliver, “but if we stop, you’re going to have to deal with your blue balls the rest of the day.”

“No, no, no.” Oliver quickly jumps to correct himself. He’s been through almost two hours of cock sucking and hand jobs, and every time Farleigh has kept him balanced on the razor's edge, ready to pull back as soon as he starts to teeter over into his pleasure. No fucking way he’s quitting now. And, Christ, Farleigh looks so stunning between his legs that he thinks he might sacrifice the next six months of orgasms to keep him there. “Just do whatever you have to.”

It takes him back, occasionally, to witness the way Farleigh has changed over the last several months. Christ, even in the short time since they’ve been home from France, Farleigh seems to wake up each morning with twice the strength he fell asleep with. Deep inside, under his shell of sarcasm and cruelty, and then under one more layer of self-doubt, lives the same boy he met that summer: clever, graceful, sharp. But now there’s something more that lives there, right next to all of his fears and insecurities, and it’s suspiciously Oliver-shaped. When they’re close, Oliver can practically see himself inside Farleigh's immortal soul, like they’re one and the same—always have been, always will be. At night, when they lay next to each other in bed, Oliver can barely tell where his psyche ends and Farleigh’s begins. He feels so fucking honored to be a part of all of this—to be the one that’s gifted Farleigh with the opportunity to grab the power that belongs to him—it makes every ounce of struggle he’s experienced up until this point worth it.

Oliver is brought back to the present by the devilish smile that tugs at the corners of Farleigh’s lips. “Look at how it burns,” he tells Oliver, and Oliver lets his eyes drift from Farleigh’s manic gaze toward the glowing orange flame. The wax is starting to melt down and collect around the wick. Oliver stares dutifully as it breaks the surface tension and drips down into his lap. 

“Fuck!” He yelps—the sudden sting of heat is more surprising than it is painful. In fact, in a matter of seconds, the pain spreads out and creates a soft burn that feels surprisingly nice. Like slipping into a bath that’s too hot—sinking into the water’s singe before your body fully adjusts.

“If you hate it, we can stop,” Farleigh kindly offers.

“No,” Oliver is quick to supply. “It’s okay, it’s just different.”

“Mmm,” Farleigh purrs with satisfaction. “Such a little freak.”

He accents the remark with a slight tip of the burning candle, releasing several drops of red wax to drip and pool in the space where his chest and stomach meet. Oliver winces and is briefly humored by the innate humanness of the reaction. Prey are always figuring out ways to protect themselves. 

As the burn simmers, he tips his head back, letting a soft groan slip out of his mouth. Every nerve, every synapse, every carnal desire he’s ever held begins to riot inside of his body as he’s rewarded with the delicious sensation of Farleigh grinding his hips against his half-hard cock. Farleigh leans in close, holding the glowing flame dangerously close to the soft skin between his neck and shoulder, and kisses Oliver, deep and hot and desperate.

“If you can last until this candle is burned down,” His breath is hot against Oliver’s ear, and his voice is dropped down into the lower register that he saves strictly for fucking and killing. Oliver’s so fucking hungry for it, so pent up with lust and frustration, he thinks he might explode. “I’ll give you what you want.” More wax collects on Oliver’s skin, and the danger he feels—the urgency that stirs within him when Farleigh threatens to ignite a chunk of his body—makes his thick cock throb.

Farleigh continues to let the candle wax dribble across his stomach and his nipples. When he moves the flame, which is still burning strong, close to his cock, he sucks in a deep breath. One, then two, then three beads of wax splash down onto the base of his shaft, hardening quickly against his pubic hair and sending his senses reeling. 

“You like it, don’t you?” Farleigh teases. “I knew you would.” And Oliver doesn’t doubt that for a second. Farleigh seems to know everything about him without having to tell him anything. They’ve been so in sync lately, dancing perfectly between each other’s lives and thoughts. When Farleigh puts his hand on his cock, Oliver winces at the contact, his senses so heightened from the teasing promise of release that it almost hurts, but he bites down on his lower lip to hold back his complaints, knowing that every word he utters puts him at risk of dragging this out longer. 

The candle is little more than a stub at this point, and the wax falls between Farleigh’s fingers and onto Oliver’s desperate cock, singeing the thin skin as it dribbles and hardens. Farleigh lets it rest in his still, unmoving hand as the last of the flame starts to fade, and Oliver, who feels like he’s on the verge of exploding from the unreleased pressure, attempts to rock his restrained hips in search of friction. 

“Tsk,” Farleigh scolds. “You’re going to give in right at the end like this?” He holds the burnt-out stub of wax between his fingers as he slides up in Oliver’s lap, pinning his hips back and trapping his cock between their stomachs. 

“Farleigh, please, I…”

“Oliver, did you forget? This is my house.” The confidence in his voice as he says those words sends a chill down Oliver’s spine. It is his house. It’s all his. “You’ll do as I say. And you’ll wait as long as I want you to.”

A small groan escapes from the back of Oliver’s throat, and Farleigh must like the sound of it, because he grinds down into Oliver’s lap, giving him the hint of pressure he’s been craving. It feels incredible—the press of his hips, the promise of relief—and at the same time, it’s horrible—the dry rub of Farleigh’s jeans, the cracking wax that pulls at his skin. 

“Do you think you deserve to come?” Farleigh asks, and Oliver nods his head rapidly. He does; he fucking deserves it. He’s been patient and good, and when Farleigh pulls a small bottle of lube from his front pocket and pops the cap open, Oliver fears he might come just from the prospect. Fruitlessly, he tugs at the ties around his wrists, dying to touch the man in his lap. 

“Please,” he begs as pathetic, embarrassing tears start to well up behind his eyes. 

“Oh, you sweet thing,” Farleigh patronizes as he reaches between them with slicked fingers, touching gently and delicately. More, Oliver fucking needs more . 

“Please,” he asks again, and this time the tears fall in earnest. “I fucking need you, Farleigh, please.”

Graciously, Farleigh wraps his hand around the base of Oliver’s cock, sliding along his length and yanking off chunks of wax as he goes. It’s like ripping off a bandage—burning and painful—but the electric pleasure of finally being touched the way he’s been craving renders the pain negligible. The faster Farleigh goes, the heavier Oliver’s breathing gets as he pants in time with the motion. It won’t take long—he’s been walking along this torturous cliff all fucking day. The pressure in his stomach builds as he keens underneath Farleigh’s commanding hand.

“I want you to come, Oliver.” 

He’s so close, he can taste it.

And then suddenly, horrendously, cruelly…there’s a knock on the bedroom door.

“Ignore it,” Oliver gasps. “Please, fuck, don’t fucking stop. I don’t bloody care who it is.”

Then, a second knock.

“It’s Duncan,” Farleigh says.

A third knock answers him, followed by Duncan’s deep, overly polite voice. 

“Sirs, I hate to interrupt, but there’s someone here to see you.” Farleigh climbs out of Oliver’s lap to open the door.

“Farleigh,” Oliver hisses, “fucking, get back here, wait…” He hones in on the quiet muttering happening through the cracked bedroom door and gathers that there is some urgent visitor currently kicking around in the entry. Farleigh closes the door and turns around with an abnormally serious look on his face. 

“Get dressed, Ollie.”

“Wait,” no fucking way he is serious. No fucking way, he’s going to leave Oliver desperate and dripping like this. Farleigh comes over to undo the series of knots holding him in place. As the ropes fall to the floor, Oliver turns around and senses nothing but fear radiating from Farleigh’s mind.

“Oliver,” Farleigh says without any playfulness to his stern command, “Get dressed.”

“What’s going on?” He asks nervously. “I couldn’t hear over the sounds of my dick sobbing.” 

Farleigh, not finding his comment amusing in the least, digs through their dresser and replaces the lube-stained hoodie he’s wearing with a light blue polo shirt. 

“There’s a private investigator downstairs.”

“A… what ? Why?” He grabs his slacks and tee shirt from the floor where they were carelessly tossed hours ago. Fuck, his cock and balls are aching, and now he’s freaking the fuck out on top of it all.

“I don’t fucking know, Oliver! But the longer we leave them down there by themselves, the more opinions they’re going to form about us. Hurry the fuck up.”

They hustle down the stairs and speak only in each other’s heads from the moment they cross the threshold into the grand entry.

“ Be cool,” Farleigh tells him.

“You be fucking cool,” he counters.

The man waiting for them is what Oliver would consider to be painfully average. His thick pea-coat and red scarf cover his average body and his average neck. His hair is an average shade of brown, and his eyes match. Oliver tries to push his way into the man’s mind and finds that his thoughts are equally average and unexciting.

“ Nice house.” 

“Must be a rich guy.”

Entirely unhelpful.

“Hello,” Farleigh greets as he extends his hand outward. “I’m Farleigh. I’m the owner of this estate.” Fuck yeah, he is.

“Interesting,” the man responds as he returns the handshake. “I was under the impression that a Mr. Oliver Quick was the owner.” His voice is deep and has a distinct Irish accent to it, as faint as it is.

“Ah,” Oliver steps forward. “Yes, that’s me. I inherited the estate, but Farleigh here is a family member.”

“Interesting,” he repeats, and he pulls a small steno notebook from the inner breast pocket of his coat, jotting something down and quickly flipping it closed. “So why doesn’t he own it?”

“I…was estranged for a while…”

“Hmm,” the stranger taps his finger on his chin as he sizes them up. “And you two are associated…how?”

“I’m sorry,” Oliver steps in, “I didn’t catch your name. You are…?”

“Donovan Connolly—Donnie, if you’d like.”

“Lovely.” Oliver rolls the name around in his mouth. “Donovan. How can we help you?”

“Right, of course.” Donnie flips his notebook open again and pages through several well-filled-out records. As he reads, he begins to explain himself. “I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by a woman named Patricia Hughes. Does that name ring a bell?”

Oliver and Farleigh both shake their heads. 

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to. She’s been paying me to track down her son, Declan. She gave him up for adoption when he was quite young, and she’s looking to reconnect. Do either of you know Declan Lewis?”

“No,” Oliver quickly lies. Unfortunately, Farleigh still copes with the human inclination to tell the truth.

“Yes,” he answers. “We…played basketball together when we were kids. I ran into him at the pub he works at a few months ago.” 

“Lie,” Oliver whispers into his mind. “Lie, lie, lie.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.” Donnie pulls a pen from his pocket and presses it prematurely to a blank page. “Either of you hear where he might have gone?”

“No,” Oliver answers simply.

“I don’t know,” Farleigh answers, less simply. “He was telling me he might want to move back to Cork. Felt like the dating pool here was a little slim.” “ He’ll buy it,” Farleigh communicates silently before Oliver has a chance to scold him for saying so fucking much.

“Hmm, yeah, checked there,” Donovan mutters to himself as he scratches down some notes. “The interesting thing is, the other bartender that works there—she told me that Declan left with you that night.”

Fuck. It appears that this nosy piece of shit has already done his research.

“Christ, uhh…” Farleigh grapples with an excuse as Oliver continues to encourage him to—

“ Lie, just fucking lie to him already.”  

“I just gave him a ride to the petrol station for a pack of smokes. Brought him back to his place above the bar, but…it was late. Everyone seemed to have gone home.”

“Mhm,” Donovan sticks the end of his pen in his mouth and chews on the cap that’s stuck there, speaking past the slimy plastic. “And that’s the last time you saw him?”

“Yeah,” Farleigh confirms.

“I see…” The strange, average man looks left and right between the two of them. “Well, that’s all I need to know. I’ll get out of your hair for now.”

“Oh,” Oliver says, surprised. “If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. It’s strange that no one’s seen him in a while. Concerning, even. Anything we can do to help…”

“Tell you what,” Donovan posits as he reaches into yet another coat pocket. “Take my card and if you think of something, give me a call. If I have any more questions, I know where to find you.”

“Of course,” Farleigh assures him, “I hope you find him.”

Oliver escorts the man back out the front door and leans against it once it’s closed—pale faced and wide-eyed.

“Fuck.”

Chapter Text

It’s been three days since Donnie showed up on their front steps, and Oliver remains on high alert for any signs of his return. He’s been consumed by the effort of keeping track of the man as he wanders around in town, asking questions about Declan—about them. Even when he lets his consciousness melt down into a pool of psychic energy that seeps through the floorboards and binds with every amplifying beam and slab of drywall, it’s a chore to project all of his senses across miles like this. But he has to do it. He has to keep his dream alive and keep Farleigh safe. The only way to do that is to make sure that he knows everything Donovan knows. 

“You need to get some sleep,” Farleigh insists. “It’s been almost three days.”

“I’ll be fine,” Oliver argues. “I can sleep once I’m sure we’re in the clear.”

Farleigh sighs, likely knowing there’s nothing much he can say that will convince Oliver to leave it be for a few hours, and plops down beside him on the window bench he’s currently using to gaze out of a second story window. “Fine,” Farleigh concedes, and he reaches out to rest his hand on Oliver’s cheek, gently shifting his face away from his fixation. “But could you at least talk to me? I miss you.” 

The sentiment tugs at Oliver’s dead heart. Of course, Farleigh thinks he’s being ridiculous, but it seems he doesn’t fully grasp the gravity of the situation they’re currently embroiled in. Oliver doesn’t want to break his focus—he doesn't want to give Donovan a chance to slip out from underneath his watchful eye—because if he does and they’re caught unaware or unprepared, it could be the end of all of this. There’s a precedent that’s been set for what happens to vampires who get too comfortable inside the walls of Saltburn. 

“I miss you too,” he tells Farleigh earnestly, “but I need you to understand that this is the worst-case scenario for us. I—we have made it this far because we use discretion and stay out of the public eye. When people start to press, start to ask questions…” He looks back out the window and tries to grab hold of Donovan again, finding him right where he left him—sitting inside a cozy cafe with an Americano and his laptop, clicking at web pages that Oliver can’t quite make out. Shit, he was saying something. Oliver quickly tries to shift his attention. “When people start to ask questions, what they often find are…” He’s distracted again when he sees Donovan close his computer and pack it into a worn leather messenger bag. Fuck, what was he talking about? “Erm…answers.”

“So now you’re going to ignore me and be cryptic as fuck for no reason?” Farleigh is frustrated, but he doesn’t seem to fucking get it. “I get it, Oliver. I get that this guy could really fuck things up for us.” So maybe he does get it, a little bit. “But don’t you think we should be coming up with a plan instead of staring out the window to make sure the guy is just ordering his coffee and not interrogating everyone in town about the vampires up the road?”

It seems like Farleigh isn’t going to give up without a fight, so Oliver drags his focus back to what the man is saying, hoping he can give a simple, acceptable, and short explanation. “If he somehow manages to connect us to Declan…”

“We’re fucked!” Farleigh clamors. “I know that, Ols! Which is why I think we should be spending our energy coming up with a plan for if he actually does.”

“But if we can see him coming…”

“Oliver, please. Knowing he’s coming isn’t going to stop him. What’s going to stop him is us. And what good will you be in a crisis when you haven’t slept, and you’re starving, and you're strung the fuck out on your own paranoia?”

Fuck, maybe he has a little bit of a point. Oliver tries to split his focus between Donovan and Farleigh and finds himself feeling dizzy—like he might faint if he gets up too quickly. 

“Fine,” he admits, “I could stand to rest for a few minutes.” Farleigh’s eyes soften. 

“Good. Here.” He pats his lap, sweet and welcoming. “You don’t even have to sleep, just shut your eyes for a little bit. I’ll keep watch as best I can, okay?” 

God, it does sound nice. And Farleigh’s thighs look so inviting. 

“Okay,” he finally agrees as he scoots along the bench so that he can stretch out and rest his head across Farleigh’s lap. “You’ll keep watch?” He asks, his eyelids feeling suddenly like two heavy, dusty curtains. 

“As best I can,” Farleigh reiterates. 

“As best…you…” It only takes a few seconds for his world to go dark and his mind to quiet for the first time in almost seventy-two hours. Just a few minutes…

It’s almost comical how quickly Oliver falls asleep after being given permission to let this all go for a moment. Farleigh looks down at him, resting peacefully in his lap, admiring how still and content Oliver looks asleep. God, he loves the man, but sometimes he lets his fear and his paranoia choke him half to death—another day of this, and they may have both gone insane. But Farleigh stays true to his word. He runs his hands through Oliver’s hair and focuses on the energy that pours from every one of his follicles, tries to hone it, and send it through the snowy countryside. He pictures Donovan—his medium build, and his mediocre face, and his boring clothes. It’s hard, at first, to navigate his psyche outside of the walls of Saltburn, but he eventually makes it to where his mind wants him to be. Donovan has moved from the cafe and is walking across the street. He uses a keycard to open a nondescript door and sits on a bed in what seems to be a two-star motel room. He flips on the television and sets his open laptop next to him. It’s impossible to see what’s on the screen, but it’s suddenly easy to peer inside the man’s head. Farleigh can sense his skepticism about the two of them, can pull out information about his recent Google searches on “Oliver Quick Oxford” and “Fredrica Start-Catton." The son of a bitch really is doing his homework. 

“The only thing that can stop him is us.” Farleigh repeats his words back to himself as Oliver stirs gently underneath his fingers. He’s kept enough of his word and decides it’s time for both of them to take a break from it all, and he guides Oliver’s limp, sleep-laden body from his lap so that he can cradle him like a baby in his arms. It’s rare he gets to see Oliver like this—exhausted, broken, vulnerable—and he lets himself take a deep, gratuitous look at it. Sometimes, Oliver feels so huge—so untouchable. But like this, Farleigh can really feel the lightness of his small body, can put reality into proportion, and see the scared, confused boy that was bit and bled in the dark woods so long ago. As compact as he is, Farleigh still gives a soft grunt as he stands to his feet, tensing his abdomen to hold up the added weight, and Oliver couldn’t be bothered in the least. 

After laying him down in their bed, Farleigh slips in next to him and pulls a blanket over both their bodies. He stays a few inches away, once more admiring the gentle curve of Oliver’s lips and the stillness of his chest. 

“I love you,” he says quietly. “It’s all going to be okay.”

An intense sense of unease churns in Oliver’s stomach, and it rouses him from his momentary rest in Farleigh’s lap. Except when he opens his eyes, it’s bright outside. And he’s in bed. And Farleigh is gone. All at once, every nerve ending in his body convulses to life, and he shoots up from his comfortable resting place as an immediate list of fears runs through his mind. 

Where is Farleigh? Where is Donovan? What the fuck are they going to do?

As if he can sense Oliver’s restlessness, Farleigh cracks the bedroom door and lightly greets him. 

“Hey, did you get some decent sleep?”

His calm demeanor is met with Oliver’s crazed, panicked, still-half-asleep one. 

“What the fuck, Farleigh? You weren’t supposed to let me sleep for that long. What if we missed something? What if he’s on the way to the house right fucking now? What if…”

Farleigh shrugs. “Exactly, Ollie. What if?” 

He’s being annoyingly logical about the situation, but Oliver isn’t interested in logic. Logic doesn’t mean anything to him anymore, because not a single goddamn thing has made sense since the day Farleigh Start appeared on his doorstep and brought everything in his life into crisp, nonsensical, illogical focus. 

“How are you so fucking despondent about all this?” He asks with an annoyed edge that he doesn’t quite mean to let seep out as he swings his still-clothed legs over the side of the bed, pressing his palm into his forehead in an attempt to keep his skull from caving in under the pressure. “What if he figures us out? What if he brings all of this crumbling to the ground?” His pace quickens the more his own hypotheticals terrify and infuriate him. “Fuckssake, what if we had just killed him three days ago? Christ, we could have been done with this whole thing and just had a body to worry about instead of a whole living, breathing fucking…gumshoe.” 

Farleigh takes a few panicked steps, kneeling down next to him at the side of the bed and looking up at him with adoration and pity. The combination makes Oliver squirm with discomfort. Farleigh places a soft palm on the side of his face. 

“The ‘what ifs’ aren’t going to go away, Oliver,” the man soothes as he runs his thumb across Ollie’s cheekbone, grounding him a little bit. “We need to very seriously consider the worst-case situation here. And we need to think of a way through it.”

Oliver knows he’s right—knows that there has to be a balance between defense and offense. He sighs through his gritted teeth, still frustrated by his inability to make sense of his thoughts. 

“I know, okay? I know.” His eyes cut away from Farleigh’s angelic fucking face because he can’t stand for him to see him like this—upset, out of control—but Farleigh isn’t backing down. He tugs at Oliver’s chin, rising to sit on the edge of the bed next to him.

“We’re in this together, you and me.” 

It’s a comfort to hear, but the sentiment smacks loose a fear Oliver’s been fighting back for days. They’re in this together, sure, but that means every bad thing that happens to him happens to Farleigh, too. He leans in and kisses Oliver lightly on the lips, and Oliver has the sudden, primal desire to crawl inside of his mouth and down his throat so he can hide inside Farleigh’s guts alongside the pieces of rotten flesh and putrid blood. 

“So, what do you say? I’ll have Duncan find us something to eat, you can take a bath, and we’ll spend some time talking through options, yeah?”

Christ, he’s being so fucking rational, so calm. It's exactly what Oliver wishes he could be in this moment. Instead, he feels fucking small. And not in the way he enjoys, like when he’s encased beneath Farleigh’s body as he’s fucked into their mattress or when he’s disappearing into the background of reality; a vicious hunter stalking his prey—he feels small in a more existential, difficult to rationalize way. He feels downright pathetic moping and dragging his feet behind Farleigh as he leads them down the staircase.

The table is set for two at the head, which allows them to sit as close as possible and still see each other. There’s a round, fluffy quiche sitting between the two chairs, and Oliver spies two wine glasses filled with dark red fluid. It’s embarrassing how obvious it is that Farleigh is coddling him—making him feel comfortable and safe before he sinks his daggers into Oliver’s psyche and drags out his darkest dreads. They sit, and drink, and eat awash in a silence so loud that it reverberates inside Oliver's skull, and fuck if he doesn’t feel worse than he did last night. Farleigh should have just left him alone, let him do his thing, let him protect everything they’ve worked so fucking hard for.

“It’s hard,” Farleigh begins the conversation, “when you shut me out like this, Ollie. It’s not fair. You always know what’s going on inside my mind, even when I don’t want you to. You reach in, and you take what you want.”

“I don’t!” Oliver argues defensively, even though he knows he’s lying, but Farleigh is quick to retake the lead.

“You do! I know you do! Oliver, I can still feel you fucking rummaging around in there when you think I’m not paying attention. And I let you do it because I want you to trust me enough that you don’t have to lie about it. I need you to know that I don’t have anything to hide from you. Not anymore.”

Oliver’s cheeks burn hot with the guilt of being found out. There’s a keen part of himself that feared Farleigh was watching him dig through his mind, but he was always so welcomed—embraced, even—by the man’s thoughts, fears, and memories that he couldn’t stay away. He’s addicted to understanding Farleigh—to knowing him.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver mutters into his eggs. “I’ll stop.” Because what else can he say? This whole ordeal has worked him into such an emotional lather that he can’t differentiate any one thought or feeling. It’s like they’re all canceling each other out and projecting themselves outward as the sum of their whole…which is nothing. Dead. Heartless. Frozen.

Farleigh begins to gently plead with him. “Ols, please, I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to open the door to your brain and let me in. Fucking hell.” His eyes glaze over with a glistening sheen as he reiterates, “Why can’t you trust me?” 

And that really is the fucking question of the hour, isn’t it? Oliver brought Farleigh into his world because he saw something in him—felt something deep and transcendent behind his cutting eyes. It’s the same thing he felt that first summer when Saltburn was so filled with tension and pressure that everything eventually cracked. It’s solicitous devotion; it’s a desire to protect and shelter; it’s…not trust. 

“I just... can't,” Oliver hesitantly admits, his frustration leaking out of him as he tightens his fist around the fork he has clutched against his palm. 

“Why?” Farleigh begs. Why? Because Oliver hasn’t made it this far into his bleak eternity by handing over pieces of his heart he might never get back.

“Because it’s rational, Farleigh.” He tries desperately to believe the words as he speaks them, even though he knows the way he’s behaving is the opposite of rational—it’s self-preservation in its ugliest form. “You have no experience—you haven’t seen the kinds of things I’ve seen.” The frustration, the shame, the fear—it all stirs around inside Oliver’s lungs until he’s nearly drowning in it. “You don’t fucking know anything! You’re naivety is going to get us fucking killed if I’m not careful.”

He knows he’s being harsh, and when he finally dares to look Farleigh in the eyes, he can practically see the skin-splitting lacerations his words created on Farleigh’s face. His brows knit together, and his chin trembles as he cuts his gaze away from Oliver. When he finally stitches together a response to the venom spilling over Oliver’s teeth, his voice is low, and it warbles from the fire Oliver can sense building in his core. 

“You can’t have both.” Look who’s being cryptic now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oliver asks, not allowing the edge to drop from his tone. Walls, walls, walls.

“I mean,” Farleigh sits up straight in his chair, “you don’t get an open door into my fucking soul while you’re over there stacking bricks around yours.”

Fuck, it’s not that Oliver wants to be like this—all guarded, and skeptical, and cold—and he isn’t…all the time. Farleigh has seen him be vulnerable; he has watched him move emotional mountains to make room for the things he really wants. Why can’t he see how fucking important it is for Oliver to protect that? In fact, how dare he not see that? Oliver can feel the crescendo of his vexation ramping up when he smacks his flat palm against the table, rattling the china plates and the crystal stemware, as he stands to tower over Farleigh. If he has to feel this way—so fucking small and scared—he’s sure as hell going to overcompensate by looking down on the man he loves as he rips the sick fear from his chest and flings it into Farleigh’s lap.

“I can’t, Farleigh! Fucking hell, you’re being so dense about this! I don’t keep you out because I want to—I have to. Don’t you fucking understand?” The violence and the anger continue to leak from his fingertips as he wraps them up into the front of Farleigh’s shirt, leaning into him and tugging him closer so that they’re nearly touching noses. If he had a shred of control, of hesitancy, left in his evil body, it’s gone now. He seethes through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to let you fuck this all up for me.”

Farleigh hardly recognizes the man standing in front of him. His blackened irises, which have always shone with such love and affection when he looked at Farleigh, now glow with poison and anger. The fist wrapped into the front of his shirt shakes with pent-up aggression that’s clearly been simmering right underneath his skin because, what the fuck did Farleigh even do? Suggest that maybe Oliver’s intense, single-minded approach to their predicament isn’t as helpful as he thinks. Insist on being treated like an equal. Ask for some mutual respect.

“Fuck you, Oliver,” he bites back in response. “If anyone is going to fuck things up, it’s you and your manic obsession with being in control. It’s so fucking repetitive. It’s pathetic.” 

That word must strike a tightly wound chord inside Oliver’s chest, because, as he tightens his grip on Farleigh’s stretched, wrinkled shirt, Farleigh has a genuine moment of panic where he fears he’s going to be punched in the jaw. He can see Oliver’s desire to attack—to strike fast and eliminate his perceived threat—in the slivers of his psyche that he’s allowing to slip out, too distracted by his own fury to protect them. Instead of following his inclination, Oliver pushes Farleigh back in his chair and takes a few tense steps back. Farleigh stands to meet him as Oliver continues to force distance between them.

“All you rich fuckers are exactly the same,” he wavers through his tight vocal cords as he begins to pace in front of Farleigh, who is sitting pale-faced and straight backed, ready to hear whatever venom is about to come pouring out of Oliver’s mouth. He wishes Oliver would just take a swing—let it all out with a blow to his head that’ll hurt for a few hours, a few days even, but would eventually heal, leaving no trace of hurt behind on his face. Oliver can apologize for an act of violence in the midst of an argument, and Farleigh, knowing how weak-willed he is for the man in front of him, would probably forgive him. But there may be no amount of groveling that can compensate for the things Farleigh fears he’s ramping up to say.

“You live your entire lives laying around like fat, spoiled dogs, bellies exposed, paying no mind to any lurking threats.” The disgust Farleigh can see on his face is…personal. Painful. Oliver continues.

“And why would you? Your money, your big fuck-off castle, keeps you safe from the likes of those who would give anything to rip your bowels out with their teeth. Do you have any idea how much work it takes to keep you safe? To keep all of this from falling to pieces? Do you even give a shit?” 

The visceral disdain in his words pokes at every single one of Farleigh’s insecurities—insecurities that were carefully handcrafted by the same culture that Oliver is furiously describing. One that thrives on exploitation and a ferocious, focused ego. He loves Oliver, fucking loves him, but he also loves what Oliver gives him—power, claim, the very carrot that’s been dangled in front of his face since he was a child. He loves the way Oliver makes him feel: safe, important, beautiful. Yet it’s impossible to deny the parasitic nature of every one of Farleigh’s relationships. How could Oliver be any different?

“I give a shit,” he answers meekly. When he hears the words echo back into his ears, it sounds like a lie, and he can feel Oliver dip into his mind in search of the truth. Farleigh doesn’t have the strength to fight him. He isn’t even sure what Oliver might find in there. Truths, lies, trust, fear—it’s all swirling around in some abstract, impossible to interpret configuration anyway. Oliver looks up at him with a burning gaze.

“Then do as I say,” he seethes. “And let me handle things the way they need to be handled.” Oliver places a hand over Farleigh’s unmoving heart in a way that lies somewhere between threatening and thoughtful. “If trust is what you want, you have to give it first.”

“Okay,” Farleigh surrenders. He's exhausted, deflated, sucked dry of his will to stand up for himself and scream back at Oliver that he does trust him, it’s Oliver’s concept of trust and the blind faith he expects from Farleigh that he can’t live up to. For fuckssake, wasn’t this whole argument started by Farleigh and his desperate desire to share some of the burden? To have Oliver give an iota of what he takes? Oliver wraps his resting hand into Farleigh’s shirt once again. This time his grip is gentler, but tense aggression still pulsates from his fingertips. 

“You know I love you, Farleigh,” he soothes, shuffling closer until he’s pressed up against the length of Farleigh’s tense body. “But I can’t let my love for you take all of this down.” The conviction with which he says it—the truth that sits at the bottom of all of this—sends a spike of fear through Farleigh’s guts. He doesn’t even dare to blink, afraid that within the milliseconds it takes for him to shut his eyelids and open them again, Oliver will have slit his throat or sunk a wooden dagger into his chest. The way Oliver’s eyes trace along the features of his face, outlining every dimple and eyelash, has him feeling like the hare he had held in his hands on his first hunt, twitching, vulnerable, and crushed beneath the torturous weight of loss, of defeat. 

Oliver loosens his hold and slides his hand up Farleigh’s chest, pausing to pluck open the top few buttons on his shirt as Farleigh remains motionless. When Oliver brings his lips to Farleigh’s now-revealed collarbone, the sudden, familiar pleasure only further weakens his crumbling constitution, and he can smell the unforgivable stench of fear leaking from his parted lips. With each delicate kiss, Oliver whispers affections and thinly veiled threats into Farleigh’s cold skin.

“You have no idea how much I care for you, how terrifying this would all be for you if you didn’t have me.” His fingers continue to creep upward, gripping tightly onto the back of Farleigh’s neck so he can pull their gazes closer together. “This,” Oliver says, moving his eyes around the grand room as he lets the words percolate on his tongue, “doesn’t exist for you without me.” 

“I know.” Farleigh finally chokes out a meek response. “I’m not trying to…” A sharp pain cuts him off as Oliver, digging his fingernails into Farleigh’s skin, jerks him forward, squaring them up nose-to-nose.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Farleigh. Do not fuck this up for me.”

Farleigh considers what might happen if he pushes back, if he tells Oliver to shut the fuck up, and lets his anger brew inside of him until he throws Oliver across the room like he did Halithan. Would Oliver fight back? Hurt him? Leave him? The thought of that—of being alone, and directionless, and eternally fucked—cuts his violent schemes off at the knees.

Perhaps it's time that Farleigh admits to himself that this is simply what he is: a pet. A tiny, fluffy hamster who is made to suck at a water feeder full of power, claim, and pride, lapping up the droplets that leak out with enough consistency and volume to satisfy but never enough to truly nourish his thirst. And no matter how long he stands at the fountain and how many times he breaks his teeth biting on the metal dispenser, he’ll always come back for the satisfaction he feels in those moments when the cool water slides over his tongue, down his throat, and into his needy belly. He’s been carefully trained  to believe that diligence and loyalty will be rewarded with more of the same steady flow of nectar. It’s the same conditional love he’s always received—from his mother, from Felix, and now from Oliver. The same cycle, he realizes, has been projecting his life forward and upward for as long as he can remember.

“I won’t,” Farleigh finally concedes. “I won’t do anything to fuck this up, Oliver.”

And now that he’s done his part—obeyed willingly, forfeited quietly—he craves the sweetness of his reward. Itches for it, like a junkie. He closes the gap between their mouths and takes what he deserves, slipping his tongue past Oliver’s lips in a frenzied attempt to taste the approval he needs. Oliver answers Farleigh’s desperation with his hands as he moves greedily over Farleigh’s body, searching for purchase across his hips, and shoulders, and ass cheeks. The knots in Farleigh’s stomach start to unfurl as he once again allows himself to be played like a well-tuned fiddle, giving into the security of Oliver’s soothing voice and finding comfort in his arcane power.

“Good,” he mutters into the crook of Farleigh’s neck. “Because I fucking love you, Farleigh. I would hate to have to do this alone.” 

It’s equal parts a vulnerable admission and a foreboding promise of violence. In this moment, Farleigh looks hard at the ugly bits of himself—the ones that he’s constantly scrambling to stuff deeper and deeper into his soured guts. What he sees is a twisted, broken man who can’t get enough of the cruelty. He wants freedom, but he craves subjugation. It’s the only thing that’s ever made sense to him.

“I love you,” Farleigh answers, even though there’s a parallel part of his heart that hates the monster Oliver can be—the monster that he is. “I’m sor—“ 

Before the word makes it past his teeth, Duncan’s voice bursts the tension in the room.

“Sirs,” he says firmly, as if he’s preparing to scold two children, and Farleigh turns his head to see Duncan looking unnervingly frantic. “Mister Connelly is in the entry. He’s requested to speak with Mister Start.”

“Mister who?” Oliver derides, and Farleigh’s mind whites out with static as he recalls…

“Donovan Connelly, the investigator, sir.”

Oliver’s eyes snap to meet Farleigh’s as his grip tightens on his shoulder. In a dangerously low tone, he hisses, “God damnit, I told you this would happen.” He pulls Farleigh closer, letting the acidic curses flow freely from his lips as anger projects his voice across the room. “You should have just let me keep watch, for fuckssake! If this…if your little fucking tantrum about your feelings costs us anything, I swear to you, Farleigh, you’ll pay for it.”

Farleigh can’t bring himself to push back in defense, because Oliver’s not wrong. His palms start to sweat with fear, and guilt, and a healthy dollop of shame. Now they’re surprised and unprepared. Defense, offense—none of it matters now. He swallows the lump in his throat as Oliver quickly strides past Duncan. He's halted by a polite hand on the shoulder.

“My apologies, but our visitor specifically requested to speak with Mister Start,” Duncan reminds him. The look of disdain on Oliver’s face prods him to add a bit more information. “Privately.”

As Farleigh follows Duncan down the hallway, he has to fight back the urge to run because he’s determined to face this—to rectify his stupid mistake. As he moves slowly and quietly towards his destination, Farleigh lets his psyche sink into the cracks in the plaster walls; tries to project his vision across the room in front of him and see behind Donovan’s skull. When he finds him, just moments before entering the sitting room that Duncan must have asked him to wait in, he can only make out fragments of the man’s inner thoughts. 

“Saltburn,” “The boy’s mother,” “No records…”

“Ah, Mister Start!” He greets cheerfully, as if they’re old acquaintances. “Just the man I came to see. Please,” he gestures towards an overstuffed sofa, as if it’s his home to welcome Farleigh into. “Take a seat. I don’t mean to take up much of your time, just looking to answer a few questions I’ve come across.” 

Farleigh sits, fearing his inner hesitancy is reading like a neon sign across his face. He doesn’t dare speak first—instead, he continues to feed his consciousness into Donovan’s mind, desperate to flush out even a hint as to what he’s come to find. 

“As you know,” the man begins, “I’ve been trying to track down your friend, Declan.”

“Childhood friend,” Farleigh corrects. “That night at the bar was the first time I’d seen him since we were fifteen.”

Donovan reaches into the breast pocket of his plain, starched button-up, producing the same steno notepad Farleigh saw him furiously scribbling on the night before. 

“Ah, right, of course,” he confirms as he flips the notepad open to a blank page before reaching back into his pocket to retrieve a pen. “Now, if I recall correctly, you said you took Declan to a petrol station for a pack of smokes.”

“Right.”

“And then you brought him directly back to his apartment above the pub.”

“Yes, I told you that’s what…”

“And you’re sure you didn’t come upstairs with him? For a nightcap? For…anything?”

There’s only one possible thing Donovan could be suggesting.

“I didn’t sleep with him, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He straightens his spine, trying to look taller—more foreboding.

“I’m sorry; I don’t mean to offend you in any way, Farleigh.” He keeps his eyes on his notepad as he continues. “I know you have…a lad of your own. But that doesn’t change the fact that there were several patrons from that evening who confirmed seeing you and Declan getting…close…in the backseat of your car before your alleged smoke run. Is that true?”

A bead of sweat rolls down Farleigh’s temple. Who could have possibly seen them? The pub was closed…practically empty. Suddenly, he feels Oliver leap inside his head and scream, “Lie, lie, lie.” So he does.

“They must have been mistaken. I’m not interested in Declan. We're just mates. Kissed once or twice over ten years ago, but that’s how it goes when you’re the only queer kids within a thirty mile radius.”

“Good.”

“Things are different now, as you can imagine,” Farleigh continues. “But everyone still loves a salacious gay rumor, don’t they?”

“Hah,” Donovan chuckles wryly, “I suppose they do.” 

“It seemed like a big reason Declan wanted to get out of here. That night, he was telling me about his plans to leave town, go somewhere a little friendlier.”

Donovan squints his eyes and taps his pen against his chin as he peers thoughtfully at Farleigh, who braces for the question he can already hear rattling around the man’s head. 

“Do you miss your family?” 

The bit of lead time doesn’t help prepare him to answer the question, and he opens his mouth, hoping something will come out. Luckily, Donovan gives him a quick out and immediately fills the gap, chatty fucker. Farleigh can tell this tactic has done him well in the past—filling silence, blathering on, and getting people comfortable before disarming them completely. He won’t fall for it. 

“I apologize,” he continues, “for bringing up such a macabre subject, but, you know, it’s my job to gather facts. And, fact is, you can’t look up the name ‘Farleigh Start’ without seeing it. I mean, my god, what a nightmare-ish chain of events. What a horrible thing for someone that age to go through.” He leans forward on his elbows, nearly on the edge of his seat, hungry to hear more about the Catton family tragedy straight from the source. He asks again. “Do you miss them?”

“Of course,” is the best he can supply on such short notice. “Of course I miss them.” 

“Couldn’t have been easy growing up the black sheep in the family.” Farleigh raises his eyebrows at Donovan’s choice of wording. He catches himself. “Sorry, I mean, your mother; she hasn’t come back to Saltburn in, what, twenty years?”

“Right, yeah.” Farleigh looks down at his lap, stirring with guilt that he can’t quite pinpoint. “The lifestyle didn’t suit her.”

“Mhm,” Donovan hums thoughtfully. “But it suits you?”

“Sometimes,” Farleigh answers earnestly.

“I see.” Donovan flips through a few pages of his steno before shifting the conversation back to the Cattons. “I read this scummy expose in the Daily Mail that suggested you provided the drugs that killed your cousin. Hate those shit excuses for journalism—always trying to make a dime off of people’s trauma. Nasty.”

In no way is Farleigh letting his guard down. He sees right through Donovan’s curtain of empathy, watches as the silhouettes on the other side put on a perfectly orchestrated dance just for him. He lets out an unimpressed laugh.

“Hah! As if you’re one to pass judgment on someone profiting from trauma. From where I’m sitting, it looks like trauma is what’s paying your bills, Donnie.” 

“Stop provoking him,” Oliver silently bites. 

“You’ve got a bit of experience with that as well, eh?” Donovan gestures vaguely to the room around them. “Pretty sweet digs you got here. Forgot, though, that it’s Oliver’s name on the deed, so I guess they’re more his digs.” 

Farleigh's eyes burn with rage, and shame, and a furious desire to leap across the gap separating them and rip this asshole’s throat out for being the second asshole to put Oliver’s preeminence on a jeering display in front of him today.

“It’s always been my house,” he growls, his fists clenched into two balls at his sides as he takes a deep breath and lets the useless oxygen calm his spinning head.

“Of course, yes, of course it is,” Donovan patronizes, “Sentiment can be just as powerful as government paperwork; I’ve always said that.” 

Before Farleigh can voice his offense or come up with a witty retort, the man barrels on. “He was here that summer, wasn’t he? It’s interesting, I can’t seem to locate any previous residences for him other than his short stay at Oxford. Where’s he from?”

“What?” Farleigh asks. Donovan’s whiplash-inducing interrogation style is causing him to lose track of what they’re talking about or how they even got here. “Why does that matter?”

“Ah, curiosity mostly. Not too often someone evades my keen internet sleuthing skills.”

Farleigh rolls his eyes. “You mean your Googling skills?” 

“Hey!” Donovan’s shoulders start to relax, and Farleigh can feel the air around them smoothing out a bit. “I use Bing.”

“Fuckin’ shit sleuthing.”

They share a laugh. A small one—an uncomfortable, tense, exceedingly awkward one. But a laugh nonetheless. It seems to cut through some of the heaviness in the room’s atmosphere, but it doesn’t last for long. Farleigh wishes he could use his manipulation skills the way Oliver can—sway the man into believing him and guide him out the door with a friendly pat on the back and a non-committal invite to the next barbecue, or garden party, or whatever the fuck.

“Farleigh, I think you’re a good kid.” He flips his notebook closed and clicks his pen, tucking them both safely back into his pocket. “And I think you have something you’re trying to hide from me.” He cuts his eyes over to the open doorway. “And I think your partner, Oliver, whom, I’m assuming, is standing around the corner listening to every word of this conversation…” 

“Almost.” Farleigh hears Oliver scoff.

“...has a myriad of things he wants to hide from me and, probably, some kind of foreign government agency. I mean, seriously, he’s what, twenty-five? Twenty-six? All this to show without so much as a hospital record to his name?” Farleigh tries to sink himself into the couch and across the coffee table into Donovan’s psyche to force him up and out of his seat, to shove him across the floorboards, to make him leave before he puts any more pieces together. Oliver is pissed—he can feel it. And it’s his fault. It’s his fucking fault for pushing, and fighting, and trying to be this perfect vision of himself that he knows doesn’t really exist. 

“The man is fascinating; I’ll give him that,” Donovan continues. “Got a weird vibe, like he’s secretly a hundred years old or something, you know? Like he’s a vampire or something.” He chuckles to himself, entertained by his musings. “Guess that would make him your master, huh?”

Farleigh grits his teeth so hard that he thinks he can hear them cracking under the pressure. Donovan’s right. Oliver is his master. Everything he does, everything he says, every good thing that’s happened to him has been because of his undying loyalty to Oliver. He squeezes his eyes shut as an aching throb starts to creep up behind his brain.

“I think it’s time you left my house, Mister Connelly,” Farleigh seethes through his clenched jaw.

Maybe his psychic manipulation worked, or maybe the man is just tired of poking at every lingering bruise on Farleigh’s body, but Donovan stands and pulls on his coat.

“Ah,” he corrects, as he pulls a knit hat from his pocket and tugs it over his wispy, dark hair. “Oliver’s house. Goodbye, Mister Start. You’ll be hearing from me again.”

Duncan appears at the doorway to guide Donovan from their stronghold as Farleigh stays put, glued to his seat by the overwhelming dread that they are genuinely, absolutely fucked. Fear starts creeping into the party as he tries to reach out to Oliver and gets nothing in return except for “Meet me in the library.”

This is the worst-case scenario.

Oliver paces the walls of the library as his mind follows Donovan out the front door, through the gates, and into a small yellow taxi. What is it about this man that makes him so hungry to uncover truths he has no business learning. His pea-sized, human brain couldn’t even comprehend the inscrutable reality. And Farleigh, fucking Farleigh, can barely keep his shit together through the most standard manipulation tactics and boilerplate lies he could muster. He should have never taken Farleigh to Paris—should have never let him know the truth about Saltburn. If only he had kept Farleigh in the dark for just a little bit longer, he wouldn’t have these insane, grandiose ideas about himself.

The hate and the anger boil inside his belly as Farleigh slowly opens the door to the library—dutiful as always, coming as soon as he’s told. This is the Farleigh he needs right now. The Farleigh who sleeps peacefully in his bed believing no evil could ever become him. The Farleigh that melts underneath Oliver’s touch and begs to please him. His aura is one of demure wrapped in a healthy blanket of fear.

“Good,” Oliver thinks, “He should be scared.”

“Oliver, I’m sorry,” Farleigh begins as his eyes well with fat, sorry tears, but Oliver lifts his hand, immediately silencing him. He doesn’t want to fucking hear it. There’s a part of Farleigh that's fierce and fearsome. Harsh and unforgiving. And there’s another part that’s soft and loving. Vulnerable yet steadfast. And Oliver respects these perfect, conflicting bits that make up the man he loves. But this? This timid, tired, guilty little boy is nearly unrecognizable. He wants his Farleigh back. The one that loves fearlessly, follows orders even when he disagrees—the Farleigh that knows him. He feels the respect start to drain from his veins as he starts the scolding he’s been preparing in his head. 

“I don’t need you to beg for my forgiveness or grovel for my trust,” he says, slowly stepping towards the cowering man in the doorway. “I need you to get your shit together, Farls.”

“I fucked up,” Farleigh admits. “It was…I was selfish and stupid enough to second guess you. It won’t ever happen again, Oliver, I swear to you, I…”

“It’s too late for that,” he interrupts. “We’re in a world of shit now because of you.”

“I know, Ollie, let me fix it; I can…” Another raise of his hand cuts Farleigh’s sentence short.

“Go to bed,” he demands. “I have to think through this. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Oliver, please,” Farleigh begs as he crowds further into Oliver’s space. “Please, there’s got to be something I can do to help; just tell me what to do and I’ll…”

“Stop,” Oliver says firmly. He sucks in a breath and lets it out with an exasperated sigh. It’s all too much—the betrayal, the failures, the letdowns. He doesn’t even want to look at Farleigh right now—doesn’t want to give into the violence stirring in his chest. “I said go to bed.”

“Okay,” Farleigh concedes as he begins to pathetically languish toward the door. He stops at the threshold and turns around to offer one last stab of the knife into Oliver’s back. “I love you.”

If there’s one thing Oliver knows for a fact, it’s that no amount of love between two people can keep them from destroying each other.

Farleigh lays awake and alone, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he replays the earlier events in his mind over and over again, finally safe from Oliver’s mental voyeurism as he remotely views the man sleeping soundly on the sofa in the library. He considers all the lovely things Oliver has told him about himself and remembers the epiphanies he’s experienced about his family and his legacy, all thanks to Oliver’s willingness to share his esoteric knowledge of a world that used to exist on the edges of Farleigh's consciousness but now envelops his entire being. He chews on some words that Oliver once said. Something about the way he’s capable of deciding his fate and the fate of those around him. “Bullshit,” he thinks. His fate, he’s realized, has always existed under the watchful gaze of two icy, blue eyes that continually play him like a fucking chess piece. Even a daft stranger like Donovan can see the heavy hand Oliver keeps wrapped around his throat. 

His cheeks burn with guilt, and hate, and devastating embarrassment for the way he’s let a little bit of love and affection blind him to who he really is—who others really are.

He wants to be devoted. He wants to be powerful. But what cost is he willing to pay for it?

Anxiety creeps up his spine as he hastily considers his options. 

Maybe he should confront Oliver about his behavior—jump down his throat and pour out all the horrible feelings he keeps locked inside his mouth every time Oliver slights him, or goes over his head, or makes him feel like a stupid fucking child. It might get nasty, especially if Oliver is going to stand firm in his opinion that everything he’s ever done is good, and right, and for the benefit of both of them. They would fight, possibly irreparably. They might come to an understanding and forgive each other. Or perhaps Oliver would make good on his vague threat to eliminate Farleigh from the picture entirely.

It would be hard, and exhausting, and more work than Farleigh has ever put into a relationship before. And would it even be worth it? The last time Farleigh let himself be excruciatingly vulnerable with Oliver, well…that’s what put them here in the first place. 

Maybe he should comply with Oliver’s demands to stand down, to let go of the power and respect he feels he’s owed. It would leave him feeling worthless, and dejected, and resentful of himself and the man he loves, but he would still be here. He would still have Oliver. Things would be almost exactly the same. It would be hard work to gain Oliver’s trust, to win back the respect that’s been flushed down the porcelain toilets, and Farleigh is tired. He’s so fucking tired.

The last thought that crosses his mind is one that he’s had to push back several times already throughout the course of this absolutely horrible day. 

He could leave.

He would lose everything—his ancestral home, every ounce of confidence and power he’s accumulated, the love of his life—but what other option is truly viable at this point? If he stays, he has his choice between living as a whipped, neutered dog on a leash that Oliver will feel empowered to yank around at his pleasure or, likely, being killed for what he’s done—the trouble he’s caused. It’s obvious now that Oliver will stop at nothing to see his dream through to the bitter end, and he’s made it clear that he will eliminate any threat standing in his way. Even if the threat is someone he claims to love.

Perhaps the root of the problem is just that; the love has run out. Maybe the best thing for them is to part ways and move on. Oliver is clearly capable of living his best life in spite of Farleigh. He would know how to deal with Donovan—it would be easy without the complications of Farleigh’s burdening presence. Ollie could track him all day long, plot his revenge, and develop a real plan. Hell, it would probably be a relief to Oliver to wake up tomorrow and see an empty bed and a cleared-out dresser. 

But what if it isn’t a relief? What if Oliver decides to come looking for him?

Farleigh can picture him pacing the hallways of Saltburn, burning up with anger and the bitter, astringent sting of betrayal, searching every inch of the countryside to find Farleigh. He would have to make sure he got far enough away that even Oliver’s keen psyche couldn’t find him. 

And even then, who knows what kind of psychic seeds Oliver’s been planting in his brain when he’s not paying attention. Could he escape, even if he wanted to? If he needed to?

Farleigh sits up in bed and swings his legs over the side, leaning onto his elbows and cradling his heavy head in his hands. “Fight or flight,"  Felix used to tell him. He remembers the first real school fight they got into together, after some jacked up Chad wrote “faggot” across Farleigh’s locker. Farleigh was so furious, he thought his head was going to pop off his shoulders as he stomped into their next class and relayed the whole situation to his cousin. “You’ve gotta decide, Farls,” he had told him, “when it’s worth it to fight, and when it’s better to fly.” In that particular situation, Felix and Farleigh ended up meeting the kid outside the gymnasium after school and pummeled his brains in before he could eke out another insult. “Your heart knows the right thing to do. Always trust it.”

With the voice of Felix ringing in his ears, he hauls himself to his feet and digs out a small duffle bag from the back of their closet. The one he arrived with all those months ago. Quickly, he stuffs in a few pieces of inconspicuous clothing, digs his old cell phone out from the back of the bedside table, grabs a few toiletries from the bathroom, and opens the door to Felix’s old room. When they were teenagers, they used to sneak out of Felix’s window nearly every night. His body remembers exactly what to do as he lifts open the creaky pane, pausing to listen for any movement downstairs, slings the duffle bag across his shoulders, and climbs ankles-first out the window. The trusty, old, vine-covered trellising is still there, and he takes his time stepping from wrung to wrung into the courtyard below. As he quickly crosses the lawn, shivering from the cool, winter air, he finds the gap in the fence he’s passed through a thousand times, and easily slips free from the crushing gaze of Saltburn. 

Once he’s a few hundred feet away, he turns on his cell phone, praying there are still some lingering minutes loaded into it. He’s greeted by a slew of messages from his mother and more guilt than he thought he was capable of feeling. It makes his stomach sink like a fucking monolith. 

Mom: Farleigh, where are you staying?

Mom: Please, give me a call

Mom: No one has heard from you in a month, please call. I’m just worried about you, I don’t mean to be a bother.

Mom: Just let me know that you’re okay

Mom: I miss you

Mom: I love you, son

They go on and on for pages, but he has to press on before it’s too late. He walks as quickly as he can down the snow-drift-lined streets into town. One foot in front of the other, over and over, he plods down the dark country roadways as buildings and street lights start to populate. By the time he makes it to the train station, his legs burn from the effort, and the morning sun is peeking over the horizon. The train schedules look like hieroglyphics flashing across the LED screens, and Farleigh scans them in search of the next departure: London. Perfect.

The next fifteen hours are a blur of airports and taxis. He makes a brief detour after landing in Chicago to hunt down something to eat. He’s never felt so hungry—so fucking empty—but the sweet blood of the plump taxi driver he pulls into an alleyway and drains in a matter of moments tastes putrid and leaves him unsatisfied. 

After an endless ride on the L, a bus, and one last taxi, he finally arrives at his destination. He approaches the burgundy painted door nestled between snow covered, evergreen bushes and reaches out, knocking lightly. A woman answers the door, and Farleigh breathes a sigh of relief to see her looking exactly the same as she always does, with the exception of the shocked look on her face. 

“...Farleigh?” She asks, as if she doesn’t believe what her eyes are telling her.

Farleigh drops his bag and wraps his arms around her sturdy shoulders, melting into her safe, familiar arms.

“Hey mom.”