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“Okay, so say you
do
find one out there,” the man watches Chan move around his cauldrons and books collecting various tools and supplies, knocking over ingredients forgotten on the floor and letting the enchanted broom get the mess, “how the hell are you getting it back here, and furthermore restraining it so it doesn’t tear out your throat?”
Chan stops, scoffing and turning around to give Minho a disapproving look. He really hates people wasting his time when there is so little time left. “You’re acting as though you don’t know I have every step of every day planned out when we both know you do.”
“I need to know if I should collect your mangled pieces later or if you’ve got this,” Minho rolls his eyes and lazily walks over to the window to pet a familiar. “You should get real cats,” he mutters to himself, petting the hazy shadow creature that betrays Chan and snuggles against his best friend’s hand like he hasn’t insulted the very thing Chan has built his hundreds year old legacy on.
“Are you trying to get me to throw you through a portal again?” Chan turns back to his instructions, looking through scrolls for the right incantations and seals for the night ahead. “You’re saying things you know will rile me up,” Chan can feel Minho standing behind him now, eyes focused on his shoulders.
“I just don’t know how good of an idea this is.” Minho’s tone isn’t tired or teasing anymore, the two he switches between most when he visits Chan in his free time away from work with Magic Modeling and his boyfriend’s tiny claws.
“Minho, I’m tired of the word search. Tell me what you mean to say.” Chan is irritated, he only has a few hours before midnight and the club opens. He has to be there before then to set up. Still, his best friend’s genuine concern tells him to hear this out if only for the other’s peace of mind and leave to let him finish his work.
“It’s not the catching that’s bothering me,” Minho walks up to him, placing a hand on his wrist and looking into his eyes. He’s serious. “It’s the keeping.”
Minho has always known him so well. Growing up and growing old together does that, and where has that time gone?.
“You know I have to do this.” Chan’s breath stalls for a second, because Minho isn’t wrong but Chan hasn’t let himself think about it in fear of abandoning it all. Minho’s eyes are sad but understanding.
“That's why I haven’t stopped you.” Minho gathers his robes from the side of the plush velvet loveseat Chan bought just for the man’s naps and heads to the front door. He waits with his hand on the knob, Chan’s already turned back to preparing. He couldn’t stand the grief in Minho’s eyes, his own tearing up for a moment that he knew the other caught just as well. “Just be careful, Channie. That’s all I can ask.”
The bouncer lets him in early, before the club opens, courtesy of a favor owed after Chan saved his little sister from a soul in eternal torture getting involved with an incubus. He still has the tip of its tail somewhere in his cupboards, waiting for a particularly powerful potion.
The tech staff are starting to work the lights on the dance floor, and the DJ is setting up his booth paying no attention to his little corner of witchery. He’s brought everything he could possibly need and then some, because tonight is Chan’s most challenging feat yet and the most important in a long time. His nerves are frayed but he keeps it together; he needs the control. He’s got a faint binding circle ready to go off the moment he steps back into it with the target under the couch that he’s taken in the corner.
The bartender arrives ten minutes before they open, grumbling about having better places to be tonight and barely looking in his direction as he orders a gin and tonic. Chan doesn’t normally drink, hates it really - doesn’t like not being fully in control of emotions and especially not actions but he’s unlikely to be attractive bait without a little running through his veins.
“What part of the staff are you?” The bartender is looking him up and down with a raised brow and untrusting look, and Chan gives him a sheepish smile.
“M’not, but I’m here on business tonight. The bouncer knows I’m here, if you wanna confirm.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” The bartender sneers. “This place could burn to the ground for all I care, just here for the paycheck.”
“Why be a bartender if you hate clubs?” Chan doesn’t really care about the man, but his distress tonight is palpable.
“Don’t, just this one. It reeks.” He bares his teeth as he rolls the ‘r’, guttural. Chan can’t help but laugh. A werewolf. Of course.
“Of what?” Chan knows the answer, it’s why he’s here tonight.
“Bloodsuckers,” the bartender looks ready to spit on the counter, disgust vehement in his expression.
“How many?” Chan’s all business. A werewolf’s nose is better than any clubgoer’s memory for intel, and the hatred a bonus that lets the man spill the info with no coercing.
“Three, more like two really,” the bartender’s face relaxes, obviously not as hostile towards one of the breed as he is to the others, “one of em’s just a newborn. They show him around I guess, teach him how to hunt.”
A newborn might be easiest, but it wouldn’t be potent enough to work, so Chan disregards the mention of him for the moment. He continues to sip on his drink, slow and steady. People, or what little you can call the conglomerate of mythos, start filling the club and dance floors but the couch stays empty. Chan has placed a small illusion in front of it, making it invisible to everyone but him and whoever he’s touching at the time.
“How old are the other two?” Chan prods, and the werewolf grows warier. No one comes to order drinks just yet, most mythos not fond of alcohol anyway. The bar is there for the humans. The club is a guise, put bluntly it’s a trap, for humans to fall into and feed whatever creature needs it for the night under the law that they’re mostly unharmed. Tons still go missing, or die right there on the dance floor. Chan used to care, when it first started, then he became a hunter of things himself and couldn’t bear to be a hypocrite too.
“What are you here for, witch?” The wolf snarls low, eyes lowering. Chan puts his hands up in defeat and gives another smile.
“Didn’t realize you could smell the magic on me.” Chan takes special care to hide it, most people have no idea who he really is until they need to. The wolf has a stronger nose than he would have wanted, but it might serve to help him better in the end.
“Most wouldn’t be able to, I’m Old Blood.” He says it like it means almost nothing to him, when in his world and most of the mythos, it means he’s been here from the start and has powers most can only imagine.
“What’s your name?” Chan is interested in staying friends, keen on having connections in high places. The wolf side eyes him but seems to mark him safe and relaxes, serving a few vodka sodas to some foolish human girls that pass by. They bat their lashes at Chan, giggle and drag nails over his exposed back. He’s in a club, so for a club he dressed. Camouflage was needed, and the best way to hide in a club is to show skin.
Chan is wearing a two piece made of white silk, the back tied at the bottom of his waist and exposing his muscles completely. The pants fit snugly, but are comfortable enough to dance. All carefully controlled parts of the plan.
Chan gives them a small wave of his fingers over his glass and continues to look at the bartender for an answer. The girls take the hint and leave, pouting.
“Changbin,” he finally answers. “What are you doing here?”
“Just looking for a dance.” It’s a half truth, closer to a lie. The werewolf doesn’t pick up on it, or doesn’t care. More humans start coming for drinks and Chan is content to sit and gaze upon the crowd looking for what he needs as it walks in. It takes about half an hour longer, but Chan can feel three dark auras as they cross the walkway before he sees the group. All three came tonight, together. Chan might not make it out after all. “Which one is the infant?”
Changbin leans forward, arms resting behind Chan who’s spun around in his stool to gaze upon the radiant group. One stands out particularly, but Chan can’t place his finger on what makes him special. The three talk, laughing at each other’s jokes and walking along the room. There’s a shy looking blonde with freckles who looks at what Chan thinks is him directly, blood nearly running cold, but his fangs come out in a wide smile as he makes his way towards them and Chan is soon aware he’s looking right past him at the bartender who’s turning redder with every step.
“I didn’t know you were working tonight,” the vampire says cheerfully. He’s close enough that Chan can gauge his energy, and it’s clear he’s the newborn. Chan could pee from laughter at the concept, an Old Blood werewolf crushing on a newborn vampire. He’ll surely keep in touch to see how that pans out. He continues to observe the other two who seem to be arguing about something, splitting apart. The younger looking man with blue hair storms back out the door, shouting something to the newborn flirting with the bartender. The last one, Chan’s natural target when the other option has vacated the trap, is the most beautiful. Long dark hair flows to the sides of his sculpted face, tied back loosely with a dark red ribbon. His clothes flow along a lithe body, leaving his stomach bare for the diamond stone on his belly to shine through under the club lights. The man looks like royalty, moving like the perfect breeze through the crowd and starting to dance.
Chan watches him, nearly forgetting himself. His movements are unlike anyone he’s ever seen, mythos or not, beautiful - unreal. He barely registers himself standing up, his legs moving towards the man and past the bustling crowd of dancers.
“Wait, there’s something else!” He hears Changbin shout behind him, but Chan doesn’t listen, focused on his original plan.
He’s close enough to really see the man’s face, his eyes are closed as he dances at first - but they open and pierce through him like red hot daggers. A slow smile spreads on his full lips. Chan is only steps away from him now, and he can feel it, what made the man special.
Noble. Power beyond comprehension. History beyond telling. Before him, stands the oldest of all creations, and Chan is going to capture it.
“Hello,” the vampire’s voice is a nice pitch, calm but mischievous too. He drags out the greeting, keeping his red eyes locked on him though they look at all of him. Chan straightens with confidence at the flash of desire it invokes.
“Hello,” Chan’s mind is going a mile a minute, running through the seals and chants once more - trying to figure out if they’ll be strong enough to save his life once this ancient thing figures out his intentions and tries to kill him for it. One small part is taken up entirely by the awe the man instills in even Chan, who’s seen most of what life can offer and lain with goddesses themselves, one chamber of his mind is taken with every mark of the man’s smooth skin. The corners of his eyes and lips as they crinkle and raise, his dancing, what he might look like writhing on a bed. “Would you like to dance?”
“I’ve been dancing.” The vampire’s smile doesn’t falter as he changes his movements to fit something a lowlier being like Chan can follow.
“Sarcastic,” Chan smiles back, getting closer and resting his hands carefully on a part of the man’s torso covered with cloth. They dance facing each other, moving their hips slowly to the sultry music playing though neither can really hear it. “Can I have your name?”
“Hyunjin,” the beauty answers, and the eagerness to give it makes Chan hopeful this will work. He can see the couch behind the noble, the seal still there - perfectly made. “Yours?”
The man takes Chan’s hands, covering them with his own, and moves them to where cloth doesn’t linger. Skin like velvet, warm to the touch even though Chan knows it to be merely an illusion of the vampire’s own. He can feel hunger around him, a mark on his exposed back. He’s not opposed to letting him take what he wants before he takes all of him.
Letting a vampire drink from you is known to be pleasurable, from a noble - pure ecstasy.
“Chan.” He leans in closer like Hyunjin’s ancient mythos ears wouldn’t be able to hear, as if he can’t hear even something dropping outside the club if he focused a little more. “I’m Chan.” He holds his waist tighter, fingers digging into the skin and allowing himself the horrible fantasy of it being in his bed - of it being from behind as he pushes against him, drawing breaths he wants to steal right here on this dance floor.
“You smell delicious,” Hyunjin whispers in his ear, nipping at the lobe slightly as his arms wrap around Chan’s neck. His fingertips drawing out runes that Chan can’t be bothered to remember right now, too aware of the man pressed against his crotch and moving sinfully. The alcohol’s done nothing, but the lust might just make him lose it all. He snaps out of it, just long enough to see the couch behind them again. He reasserts himself.
“You’re one to talk. I’d love to be the one eating you.” Chan says back lowly. He revels in the catch of breath it brings out in the vampire, the growing arousal he can feel pressing against his in the middle of the club. “Why don’t we talk on the couch, baby?”
“Baby,” Hyunjin laughs. Chan isn’t lost on what’s so funny. Hyunjin must be centuries older than anyone in the club. “Talking, sure. Let’s pretend at least.” That knowing smile, playful smile. Gorgeous. Chan hopes he never sees that smile again, knows he won’t.
It takes less effort than he initially thought, keeps his hands on the man’s waist, the vampire’s own hands running wild over him, feeling up his chest and stomach. The vampire makes a noise of satisfaction at the plush pectorals and valleys of abs he finds, sneaking a hand back to grope his ass and smile wider.
“You
are
delicious,” Hyunjin murmurs, placing a half-kiss on the part of neck he can reach. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
Chan’s mind fights him for a second, a night of ecstasy for mere lifetimes more, but in the end he doesn’t waver. He remembers what he told Minho before he left, maybe the only one who truly understands.
He has to do this.
Chan is two steps away from the binding circle. Two steps away from being halfway to being alive again. Two steps.
“Something’s strange.” Hyunjin’s expression changes, and his aura is filled with fear that Chan has a hard time telling apart from his own.
One.
The vampire starts to move away from him, panicking without really knowing why, too slow to save himself - still too trusting of Chan being just a human. The noble’s body starts to feel the binding circle in front of him, warning him, but he still can’t feel all the magic Chan’s locked away pouring from Chan himself.
Two.
The realization comes to Hyunjin, a second too late. A second after he steps right into it.
“
No!
”
His scream is so painful, desperation down to the core, something innate ripping its way out - Chan almost lets him go.
The sealing is easier, physically.
When Chan teleports them, Hyunjin chained down by illusion energies holding him to his captor, they land right in the sleeping spell - though Chan has prepared for this and carried a protectant, landing unaffected. Hyunjin looks more peaceful in his sleep, less noble and vicious.
It makes it harder. Harder not to care, to separate the work from the feelings.
The capturing is just as hard as the keeping.
The vampire wakes with fear metamorphose into scorching rage, eyes burning through Chan but he can’t move from his chains on the floor. He twists, gnashes his fangs, attempts to conjure old magic and after a while - dies down to silence once more. Chan doesn’t talk, doesn’t react, just watches him and goes about his work. He’s got a lot to do in the coming days.
“Let me go,” Hyunjin’s voice is strained from the bottom of Chan’s wooden floors. The noble doesn’t attempt to sit up, doesn’t move from the spot he landed after his fruitless fit - hopeless.
“Of course. I went through all that trouble, but now that you say that ...” Chan muses, smiling to himself as he writes in his journal about the procedures. The smile falls quickly as he turns and sees the vampire’s bright red eyes full of such despair. The hatred is still there, but it’s the fear and misery that gets to him.
Chan is human, technically, and his heart beats and feels like any other. The guilt is strong.
“You don’t have to do this,” the man starts to plead and reason. Chan becomes a stone wall, no more smiles. “Please. Please, let me go.”
The begging. Chan expected it all, but not on the first day.
“What do you think I’m keeping you here for?”
“I am not a newborn.” Hyunjin hisses, rage spiking once more. “I know what witches like you want with me.” The last sentence is said with fear once more, a shudder as he thinks of all the things that will happen to him. “Immortality, is that what you’re looking for?” He meets his eyes once more. Chan scoffs.
“No.” He stands and walks to his prized bookshelf, mementos of all his greatest adventures throughout his hundreds of years on this earth. “I’ve lived long already.” Chan looks down at Hyunjin, smirking at the thought that his lifetimes are
long
when Hyunjin’s seen entire civilizations rise and fall in the blink of his beautiful eyes. Chan frowns, guilt paining his heart once more at the sight of the beautiful man sealed inside his space. Soon he’ll have to bind him completely, taking any drop of hope left out from under him. “Not long enough yet. That’s why you’re here.”
“You don’t want this. Living much longer, it’s not what you think.” The vampire takes the chance, starts speaking faster with more emotion. Chan sighs. He doesn’t get it.
“Hyunjin.” Chan’s voice says more than he needs to, finality. “There is nothing you can say.”
Hyunjin’s panicked brows fall, his lips close and tears of blood form and trickle down his pale cheeks. “
Please
.”
Chan doesn’t show kindness, though he’s not as cruel as some could be. He won’t pretend to be better when he’s not. He’s not a member of the Hunter Order that systematically kills them but he might as well claim the hunter title now. He’s not aiming to kill Hyunjin, but what he’s doing might be worse.
Chan checks the seal, puts another for good measure on the study door where he keeps him, and walks out to take a moment alone and give Hyunjin the space to cry in private as well.
“You got one?” Minho looks at the study door, eyes wide and looking all around Chan for signs of him being an illusion or a shapeshifter pretending. Surely, not alive.
But he is, and starting to wonder whether he should be.
“You should go. Don’t come back until it’s over.”
“What?” Minho’s pissed, his lips pouted in the way they do when he’s thinking of new methods to fight him.
“You don’t need to be-”
“Did you think this would be over someday?” Minho’s looking at him like he’s not himself anymore. “Is that what you had to tell yourself?”
“Minho,” Chan is tired. It’s been two days, and Hyunjin won’t talk anymore. Chan had to clean his tears from his study, connecting red stains all over the earthy wood. He won’t drink the blood packets he gives him, won’t do anything but lie there - waiting.
“No.” Minho steps closer to him, poking his chest and puffing his own in offense. “I’m not judging you for doing what you have to,” Chan can’t look him in the eyes either way, “but don’t you dare pretend it’s anything less than it is.” Minho shudders as he looks at the sealed study, usually eager to prance in the moment the front door opens. “It deserves at least that.”
“He.” Chan breathes, voice trembling. Minho looks at him with wider eyes. “Hyunjin. He deserves at least that.”
“You idiot.” Minho shakes his head, turning his back to his friend. “Which of you will I find dead next time I come?”
“I’ve gone this far now -”
“Stop lying to yourself. The only way you can do this is to face it without any veils. Decide. Is he human enough or not?”
It’s the day of the second binding, the one that binds Hyunjin’s very soul to the vessel’s own so that he can
never
be free. Such magics were restricted ages ago, but Chan has lived through darkest times and knows how useful even horrible things can be.
He enters the study, again with offerings of blood that Hyunjin doesn’t take. He won’t waste away like this, but his powers will wane. Just another sign of how far he’s given up.
“I have to soul-bind you today.” Chan takes Minho’s advice, faces it for what it is and lets Hyunjin do the same even if he’s had a good idea anyway.
“Are you asking for permission?” Hyunjin’s voice is soft and quiet, more of a whisper.
“No.”
“Trade.” Hyunjin sits up a little, white blouse from the club slipping down his shoulder. Chan grimaces at the desire it evokes even in these circumstances. “Information for an easier time.”
Chan doesn’t think Hyunjin is being serious, that he thinks he can give Chan a hard time with this in any physical way. His only barriers are human emotion, shame and pity and
sympathy
.
“What do you want to know?” Chan raises a brow, settling in a chair across the man.
“Who is it?” Hyunjin meets Chan’s eyes and they’re stronger than they’ve been since he first captured him, biting and victorious in a way. “Who are you doing this for?”
Chan is confused, so sure before that Hyunjin was aware he’s working alone on his own terms and motives. He hates that the vampire might think better of him than he is.
“It’s just me.”
“No. I know you made the
decision
, came up with the plan, found me all by yourself. I know.”
“Then-”
“You aren’t desperate to keep living for yourself, no thirst for knowledge or power. Who needs you around?”
Nobles. Not mind readers as much as they are of the heart, and as locked away as Chan’s kept it for a while - Hyunjin somehow saw through. He debates telling him, plays with the idea that it will be a good enough cause for him too but it’s not right. He can’t keep deluding himself into thinking he’s being humane in any way.
Hyunjin isn’t human, but he’s a being with conscious thought and feelings and tears to cry, freedom to lose and lament.
Is he human enough or not?
“This isn’t the kind of information we can trade.” Chan decides to say, standing and getting the ink he’ll need to draw the symbols on their hands for the soulbinding. No more stalling.
“Family.” Hyunjin narrows his eyes at Chan who snaps around, concerned. “Partner?” He observes Chan, prying deeper into his heart with those red eyes smiling for the first time since the club. “A little brother.”
“Stop.” Chan hisses, angry.
“Seungmin.” Hyunjin says his name slowly and sweetly but all Chan can hear is threat. He lunges into the circle, holding one arm against the vampire’s neck. His breathing is heavy. He holds himself back from making a mistake. He needs him alive. “You hold a lot of love for him.”
“We’re done talking.” Chan grits through clenched teeth, putting more pressure on Hyunjin’s neck who continues to smile cattily with little concern.
“It’s funny. I’ve met humans like this before, that try to trap me - keep me. They always smell.”
Chan lets go, walking back to the table at the back of the study where he picks up a letter opener. Blood for blood. He has to get it over with.
“The evil in their hearts makes them smell absolutely rancid.” Hyunjin keeps going as Chan approaches with the tool, trying to keep on steady feet and failing ever so slightly. “But you,” Hyunjin smiles with full fangs out, a sign of endearment from nobles - rarely seen, “even now, you smell as delicious as you did in the club, Chan.”
“I use a nice cologne.” Chan half jokes, half brushes Hyunjin’s curiosity off so he doesn’t pry further but Hyunjin seems as eager for knowledge as Chan was when he was young and looking for immortality. It took only a lifetime and a half to give that dream up.
“No.” For the first time since the first night he was conjured here, Hyunjin stands and faces Chan directly. He holds out his arm, perfect for the cut Chan needs to make. “Do it.”
Chan looks stricken at the vampire, never imagining he would
volunteer
. Never imagining that would only make things harder. “I -”
“Your hand is shaking. You aren’t doing this out of greed. I can’t find it. That emotion deep in your heart, can’t put a name to it just yet,” Hyunjin’s eyes flicker between shades of red as Chan feels a deeper tug inside his chest - the fleshless fingers of Hyunjin’s prying eyes digging around looking for answers. “but it’s the reason. The reason you aren’t able to go through with your own plan.”
“I just need more time.” Chan buckles, delves more information than he should, shows weakness. Hyunjin doesn’t smile at that, doesn’t preen at the victory. He simply sits back down on the floor, back to the wall and sparkling eyes fixed on Chan sinking deeper and deeper trying to uncover the secret his captor is hiding.
Chan doesn’t bind him that night.
Or the next.
“You’re going to let him go.” Minho says over too many glasses of wine between them both, face flushed and eyes full of sympathy for his dear friend.
“M’not.” Chan slurs.
“You have to.” Minho watches tears slide down Chan’s cheeks, reaching out to wipe them with careful fingers before he pulls him into the embrace he needs. Minho is the only one in this world who knows him like this, as villain and hero and nobody all at once. Minho is the only one that understands.
“I can’t.” Chan shudders between wrecked sobs.
“I know.” Minho shuts his eyes and doesn't let his own tears form. One of them has to stay strong, and tonight it can’t be Chan. “I know, but you’ll have to anyway.”
“You’ve changed.” Hyunjin says as Chan studies at his desk, keeping his eye on his prisoner every so often. “Your smell.”
Chan tenses. It’s been a week, and he hasn’t gone through with the binding. If he was any weaker of a sorcerer, the seals keeping Hyunjin here would have come undone days ago.
“Have I gone spoiled?”
Hyunjin narrows his eyes at him, tilts his head as if turning him over to examine more closely.
“Something familiar.” The vampire muses, sounding reminiscent.
“How many of my secrets have you stolen with those eyes of yours?” Chan says with no menace, a teasing tone as he crosses off another drawn out alternative to the plan he has now - the list continuing to dwindle almost down to nothing much too fast.
“You’re giving them to me.” Chan flushes at this, unknowing of why, and when he raises his head to look at Hyunjin - the vampire’s fangs are on display in a smile yet again. He looks so youthful like that, though it should be a reminder he is a monster. It should be. It could have been.
Is he human enough or not?
All along, Chan wasn’t making Hyunjin out to be anything less - only him. With every cruel act, he let another piece of the word crumble off into a vast abyss where he is the sheep in wolf’s clothing.
The monster in the study was never Hyunjin.
“You don’t seem to hate me.” Chan manages to get out, overcoming the sudden pressure in the air holding his words back. “Even though I’ve taken you from your friends and locked you here.”
“My friends know me well enough to know I can take care of myself in any situation. They won’t be worried.”
“They should be.”
“Why?” Chan hates it somewhat, that Hyunjin knows he can’t hurt him, and likes it too. There was a point when he first got here, right before he stepped into that circle - Hyunjin was afraid. It’s taken a few weeks to figure out it was never of Chan. “How long do you think you’ll play this game?”
“It’s not a game.” Chan yells, throwing his pen at the wall beside him and getting up briskly, letter opener back in his hand, he strides over to Hyunjin. “You’re not afraid of me, but you should be.” Chan is talking so fast he’s spitting, words rushing out before he can feel bad saying them. “I’m going to cut your arm open and soulbind you to my little brother. I’m going to keep you somewhere locked away, where you’ll never see anyone ever again or step foot outside of that seal. You’ll live the rest of your unending life in the chains I keep you in.” He grabs the man’s arm like a brute, holding the sharp blade to the arterial vein and willing himself to press but the pressure doesn’t come. His hand still shakes like before.
Hyunjin jerks his arm away, fear embedded in his red eyes as he backs to the edge of the seal Chan is furthest from, and tries to escape it. Chan tries to get closer, not understanding what’s suddenly come over the other, but Hyunjin creates a barrier inside the seal. It’s weak, and Chan could break it but he doesn’t want to frighten him any more.
“I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses.” Chan says miserably, not glad at all. His heart is pained. The vampire stays in the furthest corner, shaking to himself.
“Y - you,” Hyunjin cries out as Chan starts to walk towards the study door to leave him for the night, “you don’t even
know
, do you?”
Chan looks at him with confusion, the vampire’s desperate eyes from the first night returning.
“I want to go home. Please. Let me go.”
Chan hangs his head. “I can’t.”
“You can. This isn’t you. This isn’t -”
“Shut up!” Chan throws the letter opener still in his hand at the barrier, the tool bounces off and lands back at his feet. He mutters an incantation he repeated countless times the night before the club, strengthening the seal holding Hyunjin who screams as he realizes it. “I told you what was going to happen.”
“Chan, please. It won’t help him.”
“Stop acting like we’re
friends
. It makes it harder. You know I don’t want to do this! What choice do I have? I mean -” Chan’s voice raises, a yelling match.
“ - just think! Think of what you’re doing!” Hyunjin screams back. “
Me
!? I’m
who you want him to be?”
Chan looks into Hyunjin’s red eyes, traces the edges of Hyunjin’s pale skin and teeth that point to a jagged edge, the weakness he can see in his face from the lack of blood he’s taken while he’s been stuck here. He staggers, thinking of Seungmin’s bright smile that warmed him like sunshine on foggy mornings. He thinks of the cheeks he’d pinch and prod like the dough of cookies he loved eating. Hyunjin is beautiful, in the way things of other worlds can be - magic and fairies, castles in the sky and caves beneath oceans that house leviathans. Seungmin is the only thing
this
world has left to give Chan.
“Alive,” Chan begins to cry, memories of taking him to his first concert and buying him a guitar he almost refused to take, when he first found him at the orphanage on a lonely day and knew he couldn’t leave without holding his tiny hand, the way his eyes lit up when Chan first started showing him magic - even if it was something he would never be able to do himself. “I just want him to be alive.”
“But-” Hyunjin starts to approach Chan again, the barrier lowered.
“Don’t.” Chan shouts, and Hyunjin stops in his tracks. Chan looks at him with fear in his eyes, which burns to an ember of rage and Chan slams Hyunjin against the wall behind him with both arms. “This won’t work.” He grunts through the effort of holding Hyunjin still, the other starting to struggle against the man. “It doesn’t matter,” Hyunjin breaks free of his hold, scratches at Chan’s neck where a trickle of blood appears and runs down his collarbone. Hyunjin’s eyes flash white as the aroma intoxicates him but he stays back, too aware of the danger inside Chan’s emotional heart. “No matter how terrible it feels,” Chan starts to calm, wiping away angry tears and walking towards the door holding onto his bleeding scratch, “I’ll do anything for my little brother.”
“Chan,” Minho’s voice wakes him in the morning. It’s not often Minho comes upstairs, where they really live, usually hanging around the study like a cat with a favorite windowsill. He sounds concerned. Chan opens his eyes slowly, turning to look at the other with a frown.
“What?”
“The seals.” Chan jolts in his bed, sitting up to find pants at the simple words. He doesn’t bother with a shirt, running into the study with an enhancing wand ready to fight off an angry noble vampire.
“He’s gone,” Chan whispers as he finds the room empty, turning this way and that and finding no trace of the creature. He yells and throws the wand to the wayside, running his hand through his bed hair. His cell phone goes off, left on the desk the night before in a rush to get to bed after an exhausting fight with Hyunjin.
Picking up some donuts with Jisungie, do you want one?
The text is from Minho.
Chan freezes, the room suddenly grows colder - as if a strong breeze has come to nest inside its walls. He senses him behind him before he turns to see the illusion disappear and Hyunjin standing there with the letter opener he was threatened with. He doesn’t need it, his own powers strong enough to kill anyone he pleases without a foolish human weapon.
“You’re not as careful as I thought,” Hyunjin speaks with the tone of his birthright, someone far above any other on this earth. He seems like an entirely different person now. Chan knew the seals were breaking, he let them fade - in hopes of something, whether it was not binding Hyunjin or his own death he still can’t really tell. The vampire moves in the blink of an eye, Chan can’t fathom the speed at which he’s behind him again, a cold pale hand to his throat. “I figured it out, Chan.”
Chan trembles, afraid despite it all. Death is something he ran from for so long he forgot what it was like to fear it, but faced with it here again - nothing changes. “What?” He whispers, Hyunjin feels the movement of his throat under his hand as he speaks.
“That emotion deep inside you,” Hyunjin’s voice is by his ear but it rings throughout his mind like there’s nothing else he could possibly hear. He feels bewitched. “It’s longing. I caught a glimpse of it that night, when you pretended to be the monster you could never be.” Chan feels Hyunjin’s maw open, and feels the fangs go deep inside his neck. It hurts, but the ecstasy people claim is no exaggeration. He can feel Hyunjin taking every drop across his tongue through him and it feels divine. Hyunjin stops, pulling back and wiping his lips. Chan almost begs him to take more, letting him feel it a little longer but the fear paralyzes him. He can barely speak at all. “You threatened me, with what I was afraid of most.”
“I didn’t know.” Chan breathes out, feeling suffocated by the sweet smell surrounding him that he can only guess is Hyunjin.
“I know. That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Hyunjin smiles with his fangs bloodied. “You were never going to hurt me.”
“I was.”
“You wanted to.”
“Tonight, I was finally -”
“He’s not here. Seungmin, “ Hyunjin hisses, and Chan’s heart aches painfully at the words. He shuts his eyes tight, steels his jaw. “Not anymore. Not for so long that his body couldn’t possibly be more than bones.”
“No.” Chan shakes his head, Hyunjin’s grip on his throat tightens.
“Necromancers are rare these days,” Hyunjin hums. “You’re truly a talent. It’s why you smell so good, to someone like me.”
“I can still-” Chan begins to claim, ignoring the terrible images in his head that plague his nightmares. The guards broke down the door as Chan tried to blow away any magic left in the air, the way it clung to Seungmin and branded him a criminal to the court. The way the little prince claimed he would be okay, rotting in that cell Chan visited to try to find some way to get him out before -
the images, his head dropping into the basket, smile still on his face when he saw Chan in the crowd with terrified eyes. One last smile for his big brother. The day Chan roared and killed every person in the palace, guilty or not. The day Minho helped him, saving the slave in the dungeons he would later call lover for many years to come. The day, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
“ - even if he’s -”
“Even if you can,” Hyunjin stops him, tone steady, “I won’t let you.”
“What are you going to do?” Chan sighs, tired of the fear and the pain and the nightmares. Tired of this world, of himself. “Kill me then.”
“No, not that.” Hyunjin licks his lips, blowing hot breath against Chan’s wound with a smile. “I won’t let you imprison me. Not again, never again.” Chan’s heard of the ways nobles are used, as concubines and healing poultice and weapons of war, he knew and he still took him. A necromancer, he called him. Disgusting. What was he about to do to Seungmin? “I feel bad for you, Chan.”
“Don’t,” Chan says, falling back into Hyunjin’s body. He feels weak, under a spell. Hyunjin stops holding onto his throat, instead hugging him from behind with both arms. He smells so nice. Chan closes his eyes, indulges in the senses. The feel of Hyunjin’s body behind him, sturdy but lithe. He remembers when they danced, smiling slightly at the memory. “I’m not worth any feelings.”
“Well, Minho’s followed you for this long. You’re worth something. People who aren’t worth feelings, don’t have little brothers who love them.” Chan opens his eyes for a moment, and he can see him, distant and wispy but smiling at him. Noble illusions aren’t perfect, don’t look real, but they’re enough. Chan lets himself weep at the image, reaching out with both hands. “I wish there was a way. Really.” Chan can feel the vampire’s sincerity, and hangs his head as Seungmin disappears.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Your permission.” Hyunjin smiles again, leaning forward so that Chan can see it. He’s beautiful. It’s always the smiles that get him. Well maybe he knew that somehow it might end like
this
, he’ll have to apologize to Minho sometime. “You wanted so badly to be the monster.”
“It’s for nothing now, isn’t it?” Chan murmurs, still feeling the effects of Hyunjin’s full atmosphere. A noble vampire, a free one, can make anyone fall to their knees.
“Is it?” Hyunjin lets him go, knowing the other won’t try to run or fight anymore. Chan turns to face him, looking into his beautiful red eyes. He feels heavy chains settle on his wrists and ankles though there’s nothing there. He sighs.
“No,” Hyunjin smiles again, his eyes flashing. Chan’s own eyes are closing once again, he’s ready for what’s coming this time. The fangs pierce deeper this time, Chan’s throat is torn apart but he doesn’t mind. It will heal after this. Hyunjin pulls back again, blood soaking through his white shirt. Chan is starting to feel it, an intense pain people can only dream to describe. “No, what?”
It’s the tone again, the noble’s tone. Hyunjin’s eyes are white as he watches Chan fall to the floor, holding his wound like it will help anything.
“No, master.”