but it's better if you do

They find themselves holed up in another run-down motel for the sixth time that month, and Einstein has almost forgotten what a good bed feels like, without the springs jabbing up into his spine—he's almost gotten used to the smell of death and decay and whatever else Jonathan's work drags along behind them.

He drags a hand through his unruly mop of hair, slicked back with the sweat—it's been hot, too hot lately, here in Chicago, meaning he can't keep clean and Jonathan can't keep cool. He wanders around their cramped motel room, growling like the monster he is and leaving the discarded pieces of his wardrobe in his wake, because damn it all, why can't there ever be air conditioning in these places, he doesn't want to think about Jonathan right now, especially the half-naked Jonathan pacing in front of him, detailing exactly how they will dispose of the latest body, and Einstein realises that he really wasn't listening to any of it.

He closes his eyes, counting to ten and hoping to god the man didn't notice.

"Chonny, I'm too tired for zis tonight, ve get rid of body tomorrow, yah? "

(The lie sounds convincing to his own ears, at least.)

Jonathan stops, looks forward at him, freezes him in place. (He's frightening, with that face, and it makes Einstein a little sad, because he liked the old face just fine, the softer, more handsome contours of it. It was his fault, anyways. And maybe he wasn't drunk, persay, he just thought that maybe, if Jonathan looked like a monster, then it might be a little easier to think of him as one.)

"Of course, Doctor."

Colour rises to his face under the intense stare, and he looks away uncomfortably, feeling much like an ant under a magnifying glass—an ant that was slowly being set to flame under the magnified sun's beam.

Jonathan, of course, was holding the magnifying glass.

"Y-yah, Chonny. Ve sleep now. I take floor."

And he lowers himself to the threadbare carpet beside the single bed in the room, fixing his pale eyes on a particular unidentifiable stain there, the origins of which he concludes he probably doesn't want to know.

"You're flustered, Doctor."

He jumps violently at the voice in his ear, forgets the heat of the room for a moment as his face burns (because isn't that what happens when you play with fire?), finds himself hauled up by the collar of his shirt and thrown onto the bed, his head hitting the headboard with a nasty-sounding thump, but that's okay. He's used to it by now. He thinks, distantly, that his threshold of pain has increased tenfold since meeting Jonathan Brewster.

His head swimming, he watches Jonathan crawl up onto the thin sheets, his gaze predatory and dark and somehow innocent, though it's not like he can really fool Einstein, not anymore.

"My apologies," he says, voice deep and smooth and with that calming air that a potential rapist might use to lure the unsuspecting schoolgirl into the car with him. "But I think the bed is big enough for both of us, wouldn't you agree?"

It strikes him speechless, and he can't—can't comprehend for a moment, doesn't realise, and by then, it's too late, because he feels the cheap mattress dip under their combined weights, tries to focus on things like the pain in his skull and not how Jonathan pins him there, their chests pressed together and the rough hands forcing his shirt up, running over his thin chest.

(He vaguely realises, as Jonathan's heavy breath settles on his lips and knows that his heart is racing in fear and not anything else which might have made things a little easier, that he doesn't want this.)

"Would you like to play a game, Doctor?" he asks against Einstein's lips, almost enjoying how the man writhed under him, fighting for escape. Prey.

Slams the doctor's wrists up against the headboard, leans in to kiss him (suffocate him, Einstein mentally corrects, because there's something very romantic about a kiss, and this really can't count, can it?), and unconsciously realises that perhaps this is what he wants.

("What kind of game?")

Submits. Allows himself to react. And he's afraid, god, he's afraid, but that's all part of it, and he's not entirely sure when Jonathan's knee got inbetween his legs, but there's something like arousal pooling in his stomach at the rough touches and the suffocating kiss, and—

Allows himself to kiss back. Jerks up against him, plays along right into his latest little experiment.

(Because Jonathan Brewster always gets what he wants.)

"Ch-Chonny…"