Of Seasons and Spots - Seven
Of Seasons and Spots
Seven: Bells
He hadn’t planned to set foot into the mansion for several more weeks yet. According to his reasoning that would be how long it would take for his cravings to become so bad that not even bottled vampire blood could help them. He didn’t plan for Heechul to die, not that he believed the vampire would no matter how much Heechul insisted that he was more dependent on Hankyung’s blood than the witch was on him.
Kibum opened the door with a look that Hankyung couldn’t decipher but it was clearly laced with malice. “You’ll find Heechul in his quarters,” the vampire told him in clipped tones and then barely managed to make certain he was inside the door before he slammed it shut.
Hankyung contemplated for a moment if it would be worth it expand his energy to teach the vampire some manners but decided against it. It wasn’t worth the amount of magic and skill it would require, not even if it would likely help him work off some the beginning tingles of craving. Instead he turned and strode confidently down the now familiar halls until he reached the darkened area that held Heechul’s rooms.
All of the lights were off inside but that hardly mattered to Hankyung who pulled forth the magic of his Gift. Letting the magic flow as he had thousands of times, he let his eyes shift to those of his favorite feline form giving him the advantage of excellent vision in the darkness. Wasting no time he moved to Heechul’s room, noting absently that he could smell the scent of something having being burn recently in the area.
Heechul’s bedroom was darker as his sitting room and it took him a minute for his eyes to adjust to the greater lack of light. The smell of burning was stronger here, and the smell of blood. On the floor by the wall lay the remains of the box and the vial of blood he had sent to Heechul. “I see, Key delivered the blood like I asked him to,” Hankyung noted as he stood just inside the doorway.
Across the room glowing red eyes opened and focused on him. He could hear the deep intake of breath from the vampire, and action that was only necessary to savor scents or speak. “Come to kill me then?” Heechul asked, his voice laced with pain and something Hankyung couldn’t quite name.
“You do a rather good job of that by yourself. What the hell happened to you?” Hankyung asked, gesturing to the arm that Heechul was cradling to his chest protectively.
Heechul closed his eyes as if he was simply tired and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. “Go see your witch and then come and answer my question again.”
The behavior of the vampire was all wrong, but Hankyung couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Heechul seemed almost docile in sense, completely passive about what he was speaking of. That sent alarm bells to jingling in Hankyung’s head. “What did you do?”
“I’m sure you can find him,” Heechul said dismissively.
Key couldn’t be dead, the magic that bound them together would have alerted him to that. The young man couldn’t be hurt either, Hankyung would know, he had always known. Unless… He cut that thought off before it could form, not wanting to give strength to the idea that maybe he was more hindered by the cravings then he had been thinking.
Heechul wasn’t going anywhere from the look of things and Hankyung turned, using the magic inside him to guide him from the vampire’s rooms down the hall. He allowed his eyes to fade back to their normal human state as he entered the hall. The magic within him told him that not one, but three of those under his charge were down the hall in the way he was headed, including Henry. It was the presence of that particular witch that made him increase his pace. Henry had no business being in the seethe and if he was, then something was not right.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
“I’m sorry,” Henry whispered, pulling his hands away. “That’s all I can do.”
Key lifted his arms carefully, as if afraid of the return of pain, to look at them. On both arms the skin looked as though it had been healing for a year as opposed to a half an hour. The skin was marred, scarred in jagged lines and splashes of patterns from the tips of his fingers to his elbows, but it didn’t hurt. Carefully he flexed his fingers and felt the skin play painlessly over muscles. All in all he was glad to still retain motion in his hands with how badly they had hurt.
“I guess I’m going to have to start working a different angle with my wardrobe,” he said with a shrug. His voice still sounded hoarse to his ears, as if it hadn’t been used properly in so long, yet he knew that wasn’t the case. Absently he wondered if at some point he would be upset that his singing voice was likely destroyed forever, but that seem irrelevant given that less than an hour ago he counted himself as dead.
“I’ll buy you all the gloves you want,” Jonghyun told him, leaning close. Key smiled tiredly at him and pulled him down for a kiss. “I love you,” Jonghyun murmured against his lips.
“I know,” Key replied.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” he murmured, pressing their foreheads together.
“You are such a bad liar,” Key told him, smiling.
“You did always say that you wished witches had physical mutations when you were younger,” Taemin’s voice chimed in.
“This is not exactly what I meant,” Key responded with a roll of his eyes. “You guys don’t have to reassure me. Right now I’m just happy to be alive. You can remind me how beautiful I am in a few days when that has worn off.” They shared a light round of laughter together that was abruptly cut off by the door slamming open.
Instantly Minho was between them and the door, the shimmer of his Talent activating to protect them. Hankyung stood in the doorway his hands balled into fists and his body ridged. “Henry,” the older man said, deceptively soft, “what are you doing here?”
“I was brought here,” Henry answered hesitantly, shifting from one foot to the other beside the bed. “They needed some help.”
“Key,” Hankyung said flatly.
“I’m fine,” Key told him, sighing. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to even bother with anything more than the young man leaning over him right now.
“You were hurt.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of what had happened. “How?”
“How do you think!” Key snapped. If the older man was going to press the issue then he would certainly throw it back in his face.
“Someone here hurt you?” Hankyung growled.
He had known that the man wasn’t thinking clearly, but obviously he had graduated to not thinking at all. “What the hell did you think would happen when you sent the starving crazy vampire a bottle of your blood?”
“Heechul did this,” he stated, taking in the scars on Key’s arms.
“Ding ding, what do we have for him as a prize?” No one said anything in response to his question. He could tell everyone was waiting with baited breath to see what would happen.
Without another word, Hankyung drew his sword from the sheath with the quiet hiss of sound and strode back out the way he had entered. Key had the distinct feeling that Hankyung planned on using that sword on flesh tonight and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. Sliding his fingers into the hair he loved so much, he pulled Jonghyun’s head back to himself so that he could get at his mouth. As he kissed the young man above him he couldn’t help but be thankful that he could still feel the sensations of Jonghyun against his skin.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
His hearing was sensitive enough that he could hear when the witch reentered his rooms. Hankyung, he knew, could move on silent feet so he was hardly surprised that he didn’t hear another sound from the man until he could feel metal against his throat. “Ah,” he said tiredly, “come to kill me now, have you?”
He could smell the man, so close, so tempting, yet he didn’t have the energy to move. It had surprised him, how quickly the hunger had set in, how he had longed for the witch not even twenty four hours after the missed feeding. It had been a long time since he had felt the stirrings of bloodlust but he could feel it now, rising up within him. The lethargy always came first, the last lingering bits of his sanity as the hunger at away at anything human in him. Cravings would follow, the pull of hunger against his instinctual side, stronger than before and they wouldn’t stop until he gave in. Once he had been caught up in it, and that was no where he wanted to go again.
“You hurt what was mine,” Hankyung grumbled.
Hankyung was lucky, he decided, that the pain from his brunt arm was enough to keep his instincts in protection mode. Still the scent of the witch was becoming too much for him to handle, so he said nothing.
“You don’t deny it? Pathetic, Heechul, that is what you are, pathetic.”
Another inhale, another breath of his scent, “Rich coming from the man who was forcing down the blood of another vampire out of spite.”
“Fuck you,” Hankyung snarled.
Heechul chuckled, then inhaled again, savoring the taste of the air on his tongue. “I do believe you have already done that a time or two.”
The blade pressed against the skin of his neck, drawing blood in a thin line that trickled down the blade. He heard Hankyung’s sharp intake of breath, felt the tremble of the blade against the flesh of his neck. “You better hurry,” Heechul whispered.
“I will fucking kill you,” Hankyung snarled. Yet opposed to his words the sword fell from his neck and was replaced by a warm mouth. With a gasp, Heechul’s eyes flashed open. His fangs sunk into the witches neck before he realized what he was doing and his good arm tugged the man closer to him. Hankyung’s body pressed against his burnt arm, causing pain to flare hot through his senses but he didn’t care. The taste of Hankyung’s blood was in his mouth, filling a need in him that echoed down to his very core.
‘I hate you,’ Hankyung’s voice came as a breathy whisper against his mind, as the man’s lips worked against his neck.
‘I know,’ Heechul replied, running his tongue over the punctures in the man’s neck before drawing another mouthful of blood forth.
AN: Well that had nothing to do with the word that was supposed to be the prompt... ^^;;;
Seven: Bells
He hadn’t planned to set foot into the mansion for several more weeks yet. According to his reasoning that would be how long it would take for his cravings to become so bad that not even bottled vampire blood could help them. He didn’t plan for Heechul to die, not that he believed the vampire would no matter how much Heechul insisted that he was more dependent on Hankyung’s blood than the witch was on him.
Kibum opened the door with a look that Hankyung couldn’t decipher but it was clearly laced with malice. “You’ll find Heechul in his quarters,” the vampire told him in clipped tones and then barely managed to make certain he was inside the door before he slammed it shut.
Hankyung contemplated for a moment if it would be worth it expand his energy to teach the vampire some manners but decided against it. It wasn’t worth the amount of magic and skill it would require, not even if it would likely help him work off some the beginning tingles of craving. Instead he turned and strode confidently down the now familiar halls until he reached the darkened area that held Heechul’s rooms.
All of the lights were off inside but that hardly mattered to Hankyung who pulled forth the magic of his Gift. Letting the magic flow as he had thousands of times, he let his eyes shift to those of his favorite feline form giving him the advantage of excellent vision in the darkness. Wasting no time he moved to Heechul’s room, noting absently that he could smell the scent of something having being burn recently in the area.
Heechul’s bedroom was darker as his sitting room and it took him a minute for his eyes to adjust to the greater lack of light. The smell of burning was stronger here, and the smell of blood. On the floor by the wall lay the remains of the box and the vial of blood he had sent to Heechul. “I see, Key delivered the blood like I asked him to,” Hankyung noted as he stood just inside the doorway.
Across the room glowing red eyes opened and focused on him. He could hear the deep intake of breath from the vampire, and action that was only necessary to savor scents or speak. “Come to kill me then?” Heechul asked, his voice laced with pain and something Hankyung couldn’t quite name.
“You do a rather good job of that by yourself. What the hell happened to you?” Hankyung asked, gesturing to the arm that Heechul was cradling to his chest protectively.
Heechul closed his eyes as if he was simply tired and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. “Go see your witch and then come and answer my question again.”
The behavior of the vampire was all wrong, but Hankyung couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Heechul seemed almost docile in sense, completely passive about what he was speaking of. That sent alarm bells to jingling in Hankyung’s head. “What did you do?”
“I’m sure you can find him,” Heechul said dismissively.
Key couldn’t be dead, the magic that bound them together would have alerted him to that. The young man couldn’t be hurt either, Hankyung would know, he had always known. Unless… He cut that thought off before it could form, not wanting to give strength to the idea that maybe he was more hindered by the cravings then he had been thinking.
Heechul wasn’t going anywhere from the look of things and Hankyung turned, using the magic inside him to guide him from the vampire’s rooms down the hall. He allowed his eyes to fade back to their normal human state as he entered the hall. The magic within him told him that not one, but three of those under his charge were down the hall in the way he was headed, including Henry. It was the presence of that particular witch that made him increase his pace. Henry had no business being in the seethe and if he was, then something was not right.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
“I’m sorry,” Henry whispered, pulling his hands away. “That’s all I can do.”
Key lifted his arms carefully, as if afraid of the return of pain, to look at them. On both arms the skin looked as though it had been healing for a year as opposed to a half an hour. The skin was marred, scarred in jagged lines and splashes of patterns from the tips of his fingers to his elbows, but it didn’t hurt. Carefully he flexed his fingers and felt the skin play painlessly over muscles. All in all he was glad to still retain motion in his hands with how badly they had hurt.
“I guess I’m going to have to start working a different angle with my wardrobe,” he said with a shrug. His voice still sounded hoarse to his ears, as if it hadn’t been used properly in so long, yet he knew that wasn’t the case. Absently he wondered if at some point he would be upset that his singing voice was likely destroyed forever, but that seem irrelevant given that less than an hour ago he counted himself as dead.
“I’ll buy you all the gloves you want,” Jonghyun told him, leaning close. Key smiled tiredly at him and pulled him down for a kiss. “I love you,” Jonghyun murmured against his lips.
“I know,” Key replied.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” he murmured, pressing their foreheads together.
“You are such a bad liar,” Key told him, smiling.
“You did always say that you wished witches had physical mutations when you were younger,” Taemin’s voice chimed in.
“This is not exactly what I meant,” Key responded with a roll of his eyes. “You guys don’t have to reassure me. Right now I’m just happy to be alive. You can remind me how beautiful I am in a few days when that has worn off.” They shared a light round of laughter together that was abruptly cut off by the door slamming open.
Instantly Minho was between them and the door, the shimmer of his Talent activating to protect them. Hankyung stood in the doorway his hands balled into fists and his body ridged. “Henry,” the older man said, deceptively soft, “what are you doing here?”
“I was brought here,” Henry answered hesitantly, shifting from one foot to the other beside the bed. “They needed some help.”
“Key,” Hankyung said flatly.
“I’m fine,” Key told him, sighing. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to even bother with anything more than the young man leaning over him right now.
“You were hurt.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of what had happened. “How?”
“How do you think!” Key snapped. If the older man was going to press the issue then he would certainly throw it back in his face.
“Someone here hurt you?” Hankyung growled.
He had known that the man wasn’t thinking clearly, but obviously he had graduated to not thinking at all. “What the hell did you think would happen when you sent the starving crazy vampire a bottle of your blood?”
“Heechul did this,” he stated, taking in the scars on Key’s arms.
“Ding ding, what do we have for him as a prize?” No one said anything in response to his question. He could tell everyone was waiting with baited breath to see what would happen.
Without another word, Hankyung drew his sword from the sheath with the quiet hiss of sound and strode back out the way he had entered. Key had the distinct feeling that Hankyung planned on using that sword on flesh tonight and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. Sliding his fingers into the hair he loved so much, he pulled Jonghyun’s head back to himself so that he could get at his mouth. As he kissed the young man above him he couldn’t help but be thankful that he could still feel the sensations of Jonghyun against his skin.
▪▫▪☼▪▫▪
His hearing was sensitive enough that he could hear when the witch reentered his rooms. Hankyung, he knew, could move on silent feet so he was hardly surprised that he didn’t hear another sound from the man until he could feel metal against his throat. “Ah,” he said tiredly, “come to kill me now, have you?”
He could smell the man, so close, so tempting, yet he didn’t have the energy to move. It had surprised him, how quickly the hunger had set in, how he had longed for the witch not even twenty four hours after the missed feeding. It had been a long time since he had felt the stirrings of bloodlust but he could feel it now, rising up within him. The lethargy always came first, the last lingering bits of his sanity as the hunger at away at anything human in him. Cravings would follow, the pull of hunger against his instinctual side, stronger than before and they wouldn’t stop until he gave in. Once he had been caught up in it, and that was no where he wanted to go again.
“You hurt what was mine,” Hankyung grumbled.
Hankyung was lucky, he decided, that the pain from his brunt arm was enough to keep his instincts in protection mode. Still the scent of the witch was becoming too much for him to handle, so he said nothing.
“You don’t deny it? Pathetic, Heechul, that is what you are, pathetic.”
Another inhale, another breath of his scent, “Rich coming from the man who was forcing down the blood of another vampire out of spite.”
“Fuck you,” Hankyung snarled.
Heechul chuckled, then inhaled again, savoring the taste of the air on his tongue. “I do believe you have already done that a time or two.”
The blade pressed against the skin of his neck, drawing blood in a thin line that trickled down the blade. He heard Hankyung’s sharp intake of breath, felt the tremble of the blade against the flesh of his neck. “You better hurry,” Heechul whispered.
“I will fucking kill you,” Hankyung snarled. Yet opposed to his words the sword fell from his neck and was replaced by a warm mouth. With a gasp, Heechul’s eyes flashed open. His fangs sunk into the witches neck before he realized what he was doing and his good arm tugged the man closer to him. Hankyung’s body pressed against his burnt arm, causing pain to flare hot through his senses but he didn’t care. The taste of Hankyung’s blood was in his mouth, filling a need in him that echoed down to his very core.
‘I hate you,’ Hankyung’s voice came as a breathy whisper against his mind, as the man’s lips worked against his neck.
‘I know,’ Heechul replied, running his tongue over the punctures in the man’s neck before drawing another mouthful of blood forth.
AN: Well that had nothing to do with the word that was supposed to be the prompt... ^^;;;