[Fic] The Sire
Title: The Sire
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: R
Genre: vampire AU
Warnings for: sexual situations, car accident
Prompt: A vampire fic where Kyuhyun is sired to Zhou Mi? Maybe with some smut if you can work that in?
***
Kyuhyun had been a child of the dark for almost two hundred years when his sire died.
Was killed.
There was a distinction there, and he was making it. Vampires of their own will did not die. But two hundred years of torment, he and his siblings had, quite frankly, snapped. It left the orphans, something they had been quite prepared for before ever taking the step. There was a reason most vampires did not turn many humans. There was a small supply of humans to be eaten from, and of those there was only so much that could be done to find more. But his sire had not listened. In the last year of his life, he’d turned six more humans. They’d begged him. But perhaps he’d been alive too long. It happened sometimes, like a human’s dementia. There had been almost ten of them, and they had scattered like a handful of pebbles. They’d been bound, for a time, by a common sire, but no longer. One had mentioned that it was regrettable that they did not lose their ability to bite when their sire was gone, but Kyuhyun was not of the same mind. He had come to acceptance of his fate, enjoyed biting humans. He enjoyed watching the time pass, and the seasons.
He watched as wagons became cars, steam power, electricity. Humans got places faster and faster. They even flew, which was intriguing to him. But it would take almost fifty years, and a bit of cash until he could experience that same thing. He’d bought himself a plane, and built in a room he could hide in when the sun rose. It was something that wasn’t available on commercial planes, and it allowed him off the continent and into the world. He had nothing really to return to. What he saw, he saw at night, humans racing from work to eat and play. Clubs pulsing with music and other vampires scarce. Computers got smaller, until they could fit into his pocket, letting him while away the time in his darkened rooms.
He had never turned a human, had never become a sire himself. He thought it was as important as a marriage vow in many ways, but more serious because it could not be broken. There was no option for divorce. If a sire called, his child answered. And Kyuhyun didn’t like that, either. He didn’t want to be feared, didn’t want to be someone’s father, and responsible for them.
But the choice had been taken from him. He walked the streets of Beijing, his latest city. He’d been there for the Olympics, seen so much of its history, if only from afar. He spoke the language, because he had nothing but time to practice. He spoke then more languages than he had fingers, for all the places he’d been and stayed. He collected knowledge, stored it, and it kept him from wanting more. The rise of the Internet meant he could find people to bite without ever leaving his home. Some of them didn’t believe he was real, that he was just some kind of intense role player. But the opposite was true.
He was 213 years old when he turned his first human. Beijing was a beautiful city, full of cars, of movement. He saw the accident, and that was accident itself. The man had been thrown from his car, and Kyuhyun ran to him - a bright-colored shadow in the dark. He was like a broken parrot, fallen from the sky, wheezing for breath and bloody. Kyuhyun knew blood, knew the workings of the human heart. And he knew the fluttering he felt, of a heart struggling to beat. There were internal injuries, he thought. Bleeding inside, and he would die. There were no sirens, no impending ambulance waiting to spirit the man away. Kyuhyun knew he preferred life. But he could not ask the man if he would rather die, than watch those around him die. But he could only try. It wasn’t a decision he could make for the man.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as he felt the last flutterings of his heart.
The sirens were only still distant as Kyuhyun first bit, and then shared their mingled blood.
No one noticed as Kyuhyun carried the man away from the scene. He was still alive, if barely. Within the week, he would be alive, but not really. Alive, but dead. Another child of the night.
And, Kyuhyun thought, his.
***
The man’s name was Zhou Mi. He was four years older than Kyuhyun had been, when he’d been turned. He would stay that age the rest of his life, as long as he chose to live. It took the full week, and Kyuhyun finding additional humans to bite and feed Zhou Mi, to heal him. His bones knitted, organs healed. Everything about him that made him human, and all the things that would mark him as a vampire. It was a week of watching, for Kyuhyun. He learned how Zhou Mi looked asleep, found his apartment and broke in to retrieve his belongings. It was shockingly easy to do that, with enough lies. To most of the world, Zhou Mi would be dead. He could not go back to his job, whatever it had been during the day.
It had been a long time since he’d looked at a human as something other than a source of food. Or a vampire, for that matter. Zhou Mi was surely becoming one. The teeth proved it. And when he woke, there would be panic, and sorrow, and anger. Kyuhyun would weather it. And he would find a human, had one ready in fact, for Zhou Mi to feed from. It was that first feed that erased all doubt.
“Do you remember the accident?” he asked, when Zhou Mi’s eyes opened, met his. Waking from such a long sleep, to an unfamiliar place and surrounded by his own things.
“I don’t- I sort of remember? I was thrown.”
“And you died,” Kyuhyun said. “I saved you. Do you believe in vampires?”
Long fingers rose to touch Zhou Mi’s forehead, as though he were trying to understand.
“They’re stories?”
“No,” Kyuhyun said. “My name is Kyuhyun. And I turned you. Your name is Zhou Mi, and you are mine now.”
The concept of ownership didn’t sit easily on the human brain. It hadn’t on his, and wouldn’t on Zhou Mi’s. But he let Zhou Mi hunger, and then watched as he fed for the first time. It brought him no joy, to see Zhou Mi’s confusion.
“I can’t be dead,” Zhou Mi argued.
“Walk out during the daytime, and you would shortly become so,” Kyuhyun retorted.
“You’ll find a new life, new friends,” Kyuhyun said. “You do not exist any more. Someone thinks you might have been taken to be sold for organs. We can move, and will move. Somewhere in China, or to Europe, or... Somewhere you won’t be known.”
It had taken Kyuhyun almost a decade to get over his anger. But his sire had had other children, was used to it. Kyuhyun had seen the others in their despair, knew he could only try to ease it.
Even Kyuhyun could see that a frown was unnatural on Zhou Mi’s face.
“I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead,” Zhou Mi said, almost two months later. They were in Seoul, and Kyuhyun didn’t know for how long. He hadn’t seen the city in so long.
“Would you rather that be true?” Kyuhyun asked. “Would you rather I have killed you, or let you die, when I found you?”
“I don’t know what happens after death,” Zhou Mi said, staring at his hands. “But no. I- No. You can teach me to live like this?”
Kyuhyun had already begun to, whether Zhou Mi knew it or not.
***
“Vampires can feed from each other?”
That was a new concept to Zhou Mi, it seemed.
“As long as the vampire being bitten has fed recently, yes. We have blood, vampires drink blood. Vampirism is a disease of the blood. You should know that by now.”
“A sire feeds from his...child?”
Kyuhyun cleared his throat. That was still a point he wasn’t comfortable with. “I don’t think of you as my child. When you’re comfortable, you could leave if you were able. Sometimes it takes a while for a new vampire to be able to do that. I won’t hold you. You’re the first I’ve turned, and I don’t intend to turn another.”
Zhou Mi grew comfortable, and he grew confident. He left the apartment they shared to wander the streets at night and reconcile what he was with what he had been. He knew the rules. No biting humans without consent. No turning humans, ever. On that, Kyuhyun had been clear. Zhou Mi was just beginning to be able to care for himself, much less to care for another baby vampire. Even if Zhou Mi had grinned a little bit at being referred to as a baby.
“How long will you think of me that way?”
“At least until you’re a hundred,” Kyuhyun had said dryly.
“Do you date?” Zhou Mi asked, as they were looking through clothes to buy for Zhou Mi for the upcoming spring. “Or do you sleep with...people?”
He’d almost said humans, and Kyuhyun approved. It meant that Zhou Mi was beginning to accept himself, think of himself as different than the humans that they passed daily. He’d begin to let Zhou Mi arrange his own feedings.
“I don’t date, because no human would understand. But sex is a pleasant enough past-time, if you can find someone who wants entertainment for a night. Maybe I should become some kind of high-class escort.”
Zhou Mi just laughed. But the conversation meant something, and Kyuhyun knew that, because Zhou Mi wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise.
“Is there someone you like? Or are you just getting itchy?”
Zhou Mi shrugged. “I wondered. I like...people. I miss having that kind of closeness. But I couldn’t date someone, like you said, because how would I hide it? And if I fell in love, one day they’d die.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun murmured. An astute observation. And in the back of his mind, an idea tickled that he tried to shrug away. It was folly, to go that path, to wrap up his existence with Zhou Mi’s when he’d already told Zhou Mi he could go.
The fancy watch on Zhou Mi’s wrist, and the earring in one ear. He was a baby still. Kyuhyun couldn’t forget that. He hadn’t seen the things that Kyuhyun had, or felt the things he had. He had only the seasons his life had given him. Maybe they needed to go away. They could find an island, somewhere tropical. They could walk on sand still a bit warm from the sun, and listen to the ocean.
Kyuhyun’s sire had fed from him for a number of years, before becoming bored and turning another human. He had felt that pain. But Kyuhyun wasn’t wary of being bored as much as he was wary of needing.
***
It had taken a year. They had found two humans willing to be fed from, two male roommates who were intrigued by the idea. One for each of them, and they were hungry, so there was no need to go separately. Kyuhyun had taken his fill, leaving the man he’d ended up with dozing and recovering from his bite. And it was the first time he heard Zhou Mi’s voice when not speaking, or laughing, or singing. Small sounds of pleasure penetrating the door as Kyuhyun stared at it.
Kyuhyun’s mind supplied images, any images. Zhou Mi’s naked back, or his hands clutching at a man’s head, or kisses, or-
It had been all Kyuhyun could do to stay, sitting in the kitchen which was furthest away with his ears covered and head pounding. Zhou Mi had emerged well put together, and they had left, taking the ever-normal taxi.
“Was he good?” Kyuhyun asked, and was shocked at how bitter it sounded.
Zhou Mi hesitated long moments, as lights flashed through the car. “Enough, I guess. It’s not like I remember. It doesn’t feel...right.”
The anger in him, the clutching in his stomach, relaxed a little. “Was that your first time, since...?”
“No. There was one other. But it wasn’t any different. I heard you pass by the door.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Kyuhyun said.
“Have you been with a vampire that way?”
“I’m over two hundred years old, what do you think?”
Zhou Mi huffed. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean, is it better? Do you not have to keep thinking how different you are? Or...how do you have sex with humans, and make it okay?”
“I haven’t figured out how to make it okay,” Kyuhyun pointed out. He likely wouldn’t as long as he lived. “Some don’t care, because they’re getting their fill. It takes desperation for me to even try, but I know the feeling you mean. It feels wrong, deep down. Another vampire, it almost allows you to be yourself. You can’t hurt him. Just please him.”
The taxi dropped them off at their building, and Zhou Mi reached for Kyuhyun’s arm.
“I don’t remember being turned. I don’t remember you biting me. I can bite my arm, but it’s not the same. I want to know, I think. Do you remember being turned?”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said. Every second.
“I think it’s something I struggle with. I want to know. Would you bite me?”
“Once wasn’t enough?” Even if Zhou Mi didn’t remember it. It was easy as a vampire to rationalize away the feeling of being bitten. The humans, giving their blood donation like good little providers. A vampire biting another, it was deliberate and carried weight. But one thing he knew, if they did, he would not bite him after Zhou Mi had been rolling around with a human, whatever he’d done. He needed time to forget. “I can’t tonight. I’ve eaten.”
“Then next time. I will come to you after I’ve bitten, and... Even if it’s not much, I need to know.”
Zhou Mi’s fingers skimmed Kyuhyun’s wrist, and he wondered what else Zhou Mi needed to know.
***
Kyuhyun put it off, and put it off. Long after the touch of the human had been washed from Zhou Mi’s skin. They did not need to eat frequently, usually two or three times a month would do. But it took Kyuhyun another month, and a couple of questions of Kyuhyun were ready, to overcome his demons. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it. He did, and he feared it, and he feared that Zhou Mi wanted it. If Kyuhyun played cool, then perhaps Zhou Mi wouldn’t be in danger of wanting more as well. He’d done well without a man to bite, and a man in his bed, and getting both - because he knew Zhou Mi could be both - would be so dangerous.
He’d watched Zhou Mi sleep as he turned, knew the flavor of his blood better than he knew any other, because they were part of each other. Some days, he wondered if he wasn’t broadcasting his want, if Zhou Mi were picking up on it through their connection. Zhou Mi and his tight pants and broad shoulders. Zhou Mi got his hair cut after dark, the tips all blunted and soft. He imagined he smelled like the little pots and bottles Zhou Mi bought, a habit he’d never really gotten rid of. He’d had lovers in all languages, and all continents. He wondered if it was a madness in its own, to look at Zhou Mi and wonder of the ways they fit. That Zhou Mi would make him smile when he woke, and tug him out to see the city. It wasn’t that Zhou Mi could not do those things alone, it simply seemed he liked the company. They sang together in tiny rooms, and walked the seemingly endless creek, and smelled all the scents the city had to offer.
“Our kind of street food,” Kyuhyun joked as humans streamed by.
Oh, Zhou Mi laughed. The sound endless, loud and unrestrained. There was no fear in Zhou Mi’s feelings, the way he took Kyuhyun’s arm and pulled him aside so a car could pass. Sheltering Kyuhyun, even if he didn’t know it.
“Next time you feed,” Kyuhyun said, when they walked in their door just an hour before sunrise. It was closer than he liked, but he hadn’t been able to drag Zhou Mi away and they’d walked most of the way home.
“Next time I-” Zhou Mi’s eyes went wide. “Oh. You’ll do it?”
“Since you need it, yes,” Kyuhyun said. “I was curious once, too. But you should be aware that it might not be what you’re expecting.”
It would be, though.
Kyuhyun could have flown them somewhere exotic, made it seem special, a something other that was done.
But that it was in their apartment, surrounded by their things, made it real. Zhou Mi sat on his bed without a shirt, and Kyuhyun wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary. Just as long as his neck was bare, that was all they needed.
“I wouldn’t let anyone else,” Zhou Mi said, his arm around Kyuhyun’s waist and pulling him tighter. “I haven’t slept with any other humans.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you want.”
He wasn’t sure why Zhou Mi was telling him. And he knew, as surely as he knew he was breathing.
Zhou Mi shivered at Kyuhyun’s hands on his sides. Skin to skin, Kyuhyun kneeling over Zhou Mi’s lap.
“Don’t worry,” Kyuhyun told him.
“Please.”
Zhou Mi’s throat was warm, and his skin parted for Kyuhyun’s teeth. And he tasted the same. It was impossible, he knew it was. His skin tingled from his scalp down his spine at the grumbling little noise Zhou Mi made. It couldn’t have hurt him. But there were so many other things it could have done. He fed from the only human he had turned, from the only vampire he truly wanted, and he sated himself.
He didn’t want to stop, and he had to. Even a vampire could be weakened. And he braced himself as he pulled away, seeing the two bright spots for only a moment before Zhou Mi’s body began to heal them.
“What did you think?” Kyuhyun asked, still staring at Zhou Mi’s neck, with Zhou Mi’s hands on him.
“Kyuhyun.”
That wasn’t Zhou Mi’s voice. It wasn’t the humorous man who loved to laugh who pulled Kyuhyun close and rolled them until Zhou Mi was poised over him.
“I needed that,” Zhou Mi told him, as though things were normal and they were sitting beside each other in the living room.
“I-”
The words caught in Kyuhyun’s throat and he didn’t know what they had been meant to be. The simple fact that he had needed it too, and he had never truly allowed himself to hope that Zhou Mi would also.
And his hands curled over Zhou Mi’s shoulders as Zhou Mi leaned into him. The press of Zhou Mi’s lips hard, and demanding, and he gave, letting Zhou Mi taste his own blood in Kyuhyun’s mouth. The same mingling that had formed Zhou Mi as he was. He felt on fire, unnaturally hot and boxed in, like Zhou Mi’s presence was gathering all the warmth in the air to him. And it was his turn.
“Please,” he whispered, and asked for so many things. Things it seemed Zhou Mi knew. He struggled to keep breathing as Zhou Mi undid the buttons down his chest, and followed them with kisses. He struggled to breathe as Zhou Mi kissed him again as they both struggled with their pants. They wanted more, needed more. More touches, more skin to skin. Trading every secret of every kiss, the taste of blood gone and the only thing left was them alone.
“Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi-“
The moans Zhou Mi gave him. Kyuhyun wasn’t taking, but he was being taken. Logic said they shouldn’t but logic wasn’t true. When Zhou Mi slid inside of him, slick and hard after Kyuhyun had almost hit him in the head with the bottle, he gurgled into Zhou Mi’s throat. He’d needed that. Needed.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, and the kiss was so sweet that it made his head swirl - ironic as he was being fucked into the mattress.
Zhou Mi did what Kyuhyun never expected. He bit Kyuhyun, taking back what he’d given. And Kyuhyun had cried out for him. His name, curses, he didn’t know. They’d shared blood. They’d shared their bodies. And Zhou Mi held him.
“Stay with me,” Kyuhyun asked, touching Zhou Mi’s arm.
Zhou Mi kissed his shoulder. “I was never going to leave.”
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: R
Genre: vampire AU
Warnings for: sexual situations, car accident
Prompt: A vampire fic where Kyuhyun is sired to Zhou Mi? Maybe with some smut if you can work that in?
***
Kyuhyun had been a child of the dark for almost two hundred years when his sire died.
Was killed.
There was a distinction there, and he was making it. Vampires of their own will did not die. But two hundred years of torment, he and his siblings had, quite frankly, snapped. It left the orphans, something they had been quite prepared for before ever taking the step. There was a reason most vampires did not turn many humans. There was a small supply of humans to be eaten from, and of those there was only so much that could be done to find more. But his sire had not listened. In the last year of his life, he’d turned six more humans. They’d begged him. But perhaps he’d been alive too long. It happened sometimes, like a human’s dementia. There had been almost ten of them, and they had scattered like a handful of pebbles. They’d been bound, for a time, by a common sire, but no longer. One had mentioned that it was regrettable that they did not lose their ability to bite when their sire was gone, but Kyuhyun was not of the same mind. He had come to acceptance of his fate, enjoyed biting humans. He enjoyed watching the time pass, and the seasons.
He watched as wagons became cars, steam power, electricity. Humans got places faster and faster. They even flew, which was intriguing to him. But it would take almost fifty years, and a bit of cash until he could experience that same thing. He’d bought himself a plane, and built in a room he could hide in when the sun rose. It was something that wasn’t available on commercial planes, and it allowed him off the continent and into the world. He had nothing really to return to. What he saw, he saw at night, humans racing from work to eat and play. Clubs pulsing with music and other vampires scarce. Computers got smaller, until they could fit into his pocket, letting him while away the time in his darkened rooms.
He had never turned a human, had never become a sire himself. He thought it was as important as a marriage vow in many ways, but more serious because it could not be broken. There was no option for divorce. If a sire called, his child answered. And Kyuhyun didn’t like that, either. He didn’t want to be feared, didn’t want to be someone’s father, and responsible for them.
But the choice had been taken from him. He walked the streets of Beijing, his latest city. He’d been there for the Olympics, seen so much of its history, if only from afar. He spoke the language, because he had nothing but time to practice. He spoke then more languages than he had fingers, for all the places he’d been and stayed. He collected knowledge, stored it, and it kept him from wanting more. The rise of the Internet meant he could find people to bite without ever leaving his home. Some of them didn’t believe he was real, that he was just some kind of intense role player. But the opposite was true.
He was 213 years old when he turned his first human. Beijing was a beautiful city, full of cars, of movement. He saw the accident, and that was accident itself. The man had been thrown from his car, and Kyuhyun ran to him - a bright-colored shadow in the dark. He was like a broken parrot, fallen from the sky, wheezing for breath and bloody. Kyuhyun knew blood, knew the workings of the human heart. And he knew the fluttering he felt, of a heart struggling to beat. There were internal injuries, he thought. Bleeding inside, and he would die. There were no sirens, no impending ambulance waiting to spirit the man away. Kyuhyun knew he preferred life. But he could not ask the man if he would rather die, than watch those around him die. But he could only try. It wasn’t a decision he could make for the man.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, as he felt the last flutterings of his heart.
The sirens were only still distant as Kyuhyun first bit, and then shared their mingled blood.
No one noticed as Kyuhyun carried the man away from the scene. He was still alive, if barely. Within the week, he would be alive, but not really. Alive, but dead. Another child of the night.
And, Kyuhyun thought, his.
***
The man’s name was Zhou Mi. He was four years older than Kyuhyun had been, when he’d been turned. He would stay that age the rest of his life, as long as he chose to live. It took the full week, and Kyuhyun finding additional humans to bite and feed Zhou Mi, to heal him. His bones knitted, organs healed. Everything about him that made him human, and all the things that would mark him as a vampire. It was a week of watching, for Kyuhyun. He learned how Zhou Mi looked asleep, found his apartment and broke in to retrieve his belongings. It was shockingly easy to do that, with enough lies. To most of the world, Zhou Mi would be dead. He could not go back to his job, whatever it had been during the day.
It had been a long time since he’d looked at a human as something other than a source of food. Or a vampire, for that matter. Zhou Mi was surely becoming one. The teeth proved it. And when he woke, there would be panic, and sorrow, and anger. Kyuhyun would weather it. And he would find a human, had one ready in fact, for Zhou Mi to feed from. It was that first feed that erased all doubt.
“Do you remember the accident?” he asked, when Zhou Mi’s eyes opened, met his. Waking from such a long sleep, to an unfamiliar place and surrounded by his own things.
“I don’t- I sort of remember? I was thrown.”
“And you died,” Kyuhyun said. “I saved you. Do you believe in vampires?”
Long fingers rose to touch Zhou Mi’s forehead, as though he were trying to understand.
“They’re stories?”
“No,” Kyuhyun said. “My name is Kyuhyun. And I turned you. Your name is Zhou Mi, and you are mine now.”
The concept of ownership didn’t sit easily on the human brain. It hadn’t on his, and wouldn’t on Zhou Mi’s. But he let Zhou Mi hunger, and then watched as he fed for the first time. It brought him no joy, to see Zhou Mi’s confusion.
“I can’t be dead,” Zhou Mi argued.
“Walk out during the daytime, and you would shortly become so,” Kyuhyun retorted.
“You’ll find a new life, new friends,” Kyuhyun said. “You do not exist any more. Someone thinks you might have been taken to be sold for organs. We can move, and will move. Somewhere in China, or to Europe, or... Somewhere you won’t be known.”
It had taken Kyuhyun almost a decade to get over his anger. But his sire had had other children, was used to it. Kyuhyun had seen the others in their despair, knew he could only try to ease it.
Even Kyuhyun could see that a frown was unnatural on Zhou Mi’s face.
“I’m dead. Everyone thinks I’m dead,” Zhou Mi said, almost two months later. They were in Seoul, and Kyuhyun didn’t know for how long. He hadn’t seen the city in so long.
“Would you rather that be true?” Kyuhyun asked. “Would you rather I have killed you, or let you die, when I found you?”
“I don’t know what happens after death,” Zhou Mi said, staring at his hands. “But no. I- No. You can teach me to live like this?”
Kyuhyun had already begun to, whether Zhou Mi knew it or not.
***
“Vampires can feed from each other?”
That was a new concept to Zhou Mi, it seemed.
“As long as the vampire being bitten has fed recently, yes. We have blood, vampires drink blood. Vampirism is a disease of the blood. You should know that by now.”
“A sire feeds from his...child?”
Kyuhyun cleared his throat. That was still a point he wasn’t comfortable with. “I don’t think of you as my child. When you’re comfortable, you could leave if you were able. Sometimes it takes a while for a new vampire to be able to do that. I won’t hold you. You’re the first I’ve turned, and I don’t intend to turn another.”
Zhou Mi grew comfortable, and he grew confident. He left the apartment they shared to wander the streets at night and reconcile what he was with what he had been. He knew the rules. No biting humans without consent. No turning humans, ever. On that, Kyuhyun had been clear. Zhou Mi was just beginning to be able to care for himself, much less to care for another baby vampire. Even if Zhou Mi had grinned a little bit at being referred to as a baby.
“How long will you think of me that way?”
“At least until you’re a hundred,” Kyuhyun had said dryly.
“Do you date?” Zhou Mi asked, as they were looking through clothes to buy for Zhou Mi for the upcoming spring. “Or do you sleep with...people?”
He’d almost said humans, and Kyuhyun approved. It meant that Zhou Mi was beginning to accept himself, think of himself as different than the humans that they passed daily. He’d begin to let Zhou Mi arrange his own feedings.
“I don’t date, because no human would understand. But sex is a pleasant enough past-time, if you can find someone who wants entertainment for a night. Maybe I should become some kind of high-class escort.”
Zhou Mi just laughed. But the conversation meant something, and Kyuhyun knew that, because Zhou Mi wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise.
“Is there someone you like? Or are you just getting itchy?”
Zhou Mi shrugged. “I wondered. I like...people. I miss having that kind of closeness. But I couldn’t date someone, like you said, because how would I hide it? And if I fell in love, one day they’d die.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun murmured. An astute observation. And in the back of his mind, an idea tickled that he tried to shrug away. It was folly, to go that path, to wrap up his existence with Zhou Mi’s when he’d already told Zhou Mi he could go.
The fancy watch on Zhou Mi’s wrist, and the earring in one ear. He was a baby still. Kyuhyun couldn’t forget that. He hadn’t seen the things that Kyuhyun had, or felt the things he had. He had only the seasons his life had given him. Maybe they needed to go away. They could find an island, somewhere tropical. They could walk on sand still a bit warm from the sun, and listen to the ocean.
Kyuhyun’s sire had fed from him for a number of years, before becoming bored and turning another human. He had felt that pain. But Kyuhyun wasn’t wary of being bored as much as he was wary of needing.
***
It had taken a year. They had found two humans willing to be fed from, two male roommates who were intrigued by the idea. One for each of them, and they were hungry, so there was no need to go separately. Kyuhyun had taken his fill, leaving the man he’d ended up with dozing and recovering from his bite. And it was the first time he heard Zhou Mi’s voice when not speaking, or laughing, or singing. Small sounds of pleasure penetrating the door as Kyuhyun stared at it.
Kyuhyun’s mind supplied images, any images. Zhou Mi’s naked back, or his hands clutching at a man’s head, or kisses, or-
It had been all Kyuhyun could do to stay, sitting in the kitchen which was furthest away with his ears covered and head pounding. Zhou Mi had emerged well put together, and they had left, taking the ever-normal taxi.
“Was he good?” Kyuhyun asked, and was shocked at how bitter it sounded.
Zhou Mi hesitated long moments, as lights flashed through the car. “Enough, I guess. It’s not like I remember. It doesn’t feel...right.”
The anger in him, the clutching in his stomach, relaxed a little. “Was that your first time, since...?”
“No. There was one other. But it wasn’t any different. I heard you pass by the door.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Kyuhyun said.
“Have you been with a vampire that way?”
“I’m over two hundred years old, what do you think?”
Zhou Mi huffed. “No, I don’t mean that. I mean, is it better? Do you not have to keep thinking how different you are? Or...how do you have sex with humans, and make it okay?”
“I haven’t figured out how to make it okay,” Kyuhyun pointed out. He likely wouldn’t as long as he lived. “Some don’t care, because they’re getting their fill. It takes desperation for me to even try, but I know the feeling you mean. It feels wrong, deep down. Another vampire, it almost allows you to be yourself. You can’t hurt him. Just please him.”
The taxi dropped them off at their building, and Zhou Mi reached for Kyuhyun’s arm.
“I don’t remember being turned. I don’t remember you biting me. I can bite my arm, but it’s not the same. I want to know, I think. Do you remember being turned?”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said. Every second.
“I think it’s something I struggle with. I want to know. Would you bite me?”
“Once wasn’t enough?” Even if Zhou Mi didn’t remember it. It was easy as a vampire to rationalize away the feeling of being bitten. The humans, giving their blood donation like good little providers. A vampire biting another, it was deliberate and carried weight. But one thing he knew, if they did, he would not bite him after Zhou Mi had been rolling around with a human, whatever he’d done. He needed time to forget. “I can’t tonight. I’ve eaten.”
“Then next time. I will come to you after I’ve bitten, and... Even if it’s not much, I need to know.”
Zhou Mi’s fingers skimmed Kyuhyun’s wrist, and he wondered what else Zhou Mi needed to know.
***
Kyuhyun put it off, and put it off. Long after the touch of the human had been washed from Zhou Mi’s skin. They did not need to eat frequently, usually two or three times a month would do. But it took Kyuhyun another month, and a couple of questions of Kyuhyun were ready, to overcome his demons. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it. He did, and he feared it, and he feared that Zhou Mi wanted it. If Kyuhyun played cool, then perhaps Zhou Mi wouldn’t be in danger of wanting more as well. He’d done well without a man to bite, and a man in his bed, and getting both - because he knew Zhou Mi could be both - would be so dangerous.
He’d watched Zhou Mi sleep as he turned, knew the flavor of his blood better than he knew any other, because they were part of each other. Some days, he wondered if he wasn’t broadcasting his want, if Zhou Mi were picking up on it through their connection. Zhou Mi and his tight pants and broad shoulders. Zhou Mi got his hair cut after dark, the tips all blunted and soft. He imagined he smelled like the little pots and bottles Zhou Mi bought, a habit he’d never really gotten rid of. He’d had lovers in all languages, and all continents. He wondered if it was a madness in its own, to look at Zhou Mi and wonder of the ways they fit. That Zhou Mi would make him smile when he woke, and tug him out to see the city. It wasn’t that Zhou Mi could not do those things alone, it simply seemed he liked the company. They sang together in tiny rooms, and walked the seemingly endless creek, and smelled all the scents the city had to offer.
“Our kind of street food,” Kyuhyun joked as humans streamed by.
Oh, Zhou Mi laughed. The sound endless, loud and unrestrained. There was no fear in Zhou Mi’s feelings, the way he took Kyuhyun’s arm and pulled him aside so a car could pass. Sheltering Kyuhyun, even if he didn’t know it.
“Next time you feed,” Kyuhyun said, when they walked in their door just an hour before sunrise. It was closer than he liked, but he hadn’t been able to drag Zhou Mi away and they’d walked most of the way home.
“Next time I-” Zhou Mi’s eyes went wide. “Oh. You’ll do it?”
“Since you need it, yes,” Kyuhyun said. “I was curious once, too. But you should be aware that it might not be what you’re expecting.”
It would be, though.
Kyuhyun could have flown them somewhere exotic, made it seem special, a something other that was done.
But that it was in their apartment, surrounded by their things, made it real. Zhou Mi sat on his bed without a shirt, and Kyuhyun wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary. Just as long as his neck was bare, that was all they needed.
“I wouldn’t let anyone else,” Zhou Mi said, his arm around Kyuhyun’s waist and pulling him tighter. “I haven’t slept with any other humans.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you want.”
He wasn’t sure why Zhou Mi was telling him. And he knew, as surely as he knew he was breathing.
Zhou Mi shivered at Kyuhyun’s hands on his sides. Skin to skin, Kyuhyun kneeling over Zhou Mi’s lap.
“Don’t worry,” Kyuhyun told him.
“Please.”
Zhou Mi’s throat was warm, and his skin parted for Kyuhyun’s teeth. And he tasted the same. It was impossible, he knew it was. His skin tingled from his scalp down his spine at the grumbling little noise Zhou Mi made. It couldn’t have hurt him. But there were so many other things it could have done. He fed from the only human he had turned, from the only vampire he truly wanted, and he sated himself.
He didn’t want to stop, and he had to. Even a vampire could be weakened. And he braced himself as he pulled away, seeing the two bright spots for only a moment before Zhou Mi’s body began to heal them.
“What did you think?” Kyuhyun asked, still staring at Zhou Mi’s neck, with Zhou Mi’s hands on him.
“Kyuhyun.”
That wasn’t Zhou Mi’s voice. It wasn’t the humorous man who loved to laugh who pulled Kyuhyun close and rolled them until Zhou Mi was poised over him.
“I needed that,” Zhou Mi told him, as though things were normal and they were sitting beside each other in the living room.
“I-”
The words caught in Kyuhyun’s throat and he didn’t know what they had been meant to be. The simple fact that he had needed it too, and he had never truly allowed himself to hope that Zhou Mi would also.
And his hands curled over Zhou Mi’s shoulders as Zhou Mi leaned into him. The press of Zhou Mi’s lips hard, and demanding, and he gave, letting Zhou Mi taste his own blood in Kyuhyun’s mouth. The same mingling that had formed Zhou Mi as he was. He felt on fire, unnaturally hot and boxed in, like Zhou Mi’s presence was gathering all the warmth in the air to him. And it was his turn.
“Please,” he whispered, and asked for so many things. Things it seemed Zhou Mi knew. He struggled to keep breathing as Zhou Mi undid the buttons down his chest, and followed them with kisses. He struggled to breathe as Zhou Mi kissed him again as they both struggled with their pants. They wanted more, needed more. More touches, more skin to skin. Trading every secret of every kiss, the taste of blood gone and the only thing left was them alone.
“Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi-“
The moans Zhou Mi gave him. Kyuhyun wasn’t taking, but he was being taken. Logic said they shouldn’t but logic wasn’t true. When Zhou Mi slid inside of him, slick and hard after Kyuhyun had almost hit him in the head with the bottle, he gurgled into Zhou Mi’s throat. He’d needed that. Needed.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, and the kiss was so sweet that it made his head swirl - ironic as he was being fucked into the mattress.
Zhou Mi did what Kyuhyun never expected. He bit Kyuhyun, taking back what he’d given. And Kyuhyun had cried out for him. His name, curses, he didn’t know. They’d shared blood. They’d shared their bodies. And Zhou Mi held him.
“Stay with me,” Kyuhyun asked, touching Zhou Mi’s arm.
Zhou Mi kissed his shoulder. “I was never going to leave.”
***