[Fic] Irresistible - 9/10
Title: Irresistible
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, vampire, smut, historical
Warnings: References to issues of consent (not in fic itself), fictional drug use
Summary: The streets of Zhou Mi's city are being contaminated with a new drug - Euphoria. Pure vampire blood, it causes a high unlike any other, but when the high fades, the nightmares begin. It is the spread of Euphoria that Zhou Mi fights, and in that fight he needs a partner to get him to places and people that only a vampire can.
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Epilogue
***
A/N: additional warnings for disturbing imagery in this chapter.
***
It was a fundraiser that he saw Zhou Mi at, for the first time after they had parted. A week just turning past almost to the second, from the moment Zhou Mi had left his house. Changmin had told him that there was no reason for him to go, and it was true. But vampires, he’d said, should show their support. Somehow he’d known that Changmin would insist on going with him. Some kind of bodyguard, a guarantee that if Kyuhyun were desperate that he wouldn’t try to proposition Zhou Mi, or something even more embarrassing.
Kyuhyun wondered how it would be. If there would be looks exchanged over the heads of people he cared nothing about, some hint of longing from Zhou Mi. Perhaps he missed being bitten, or the other delights found in Kyuhyun’s bed. Unless Zhou Mi was experiencing those with someone else, he knew he had to be. He was a man, and did not forget so lightly.
But he’d been in the room ten minutes, surreptitiously checking Zhou Mi’s position, before Zhou Mi spotted him. A polite nod was leveled his way, as Zhou Mi returned to speaking with patrons of the sanitarium. There was insipid music from a quartet in a corner, tables of finger food and drinks. He half wished a tumbler of alcohol would sooth the burning in his stomach.
“He seems to have moved on nicely,” Changmin murmured. And Kyuhyun resisted the urge to step on his foot.
But it was not by chance that Changmin moved closer to him, as Zhou Mi approached them. Solidarity, and warning both.
“Changmin, Kyuhyun. I’m glad you were able to make it.”
Zhou Mi very obviously did not extend a hand to Changmin, else he would have been obligated to extend one to Kyuhyun as well. That wouldn’t have done at all.
“I doubt we will be the entertainment of your party,” Changmin said. “Perhaps we should have worn red hats to distinguish ourselves from your human guests.”
“I know many people here would be interested in speaking with you,” Zhou Mi said. “I might not wish it on you, however.”
Kyuhyun only half swallowed the chuckle. “I’m sure Changmin will find someone with which to converse.”
“Of course. More people are arriving I should greet, but if there is anything else you need, the staff is here.” And Zhou Mi paused, drawing an envelope from the inside his crisp black jacket and looking to Kyuhyun. “I was commanded to give this to you. If you have a reply, you know where to forward it.”
The envelope was nondescript, so Kyuhyun had no true idea of what it could contain. But still he nodded, agreed.
“Thank you both for coming,” Zhou Mi said, and smiled at them both individually. It felt that he lingered longer at Kyuhyun, if only for a moment. He wasn’t sure what Zhou Mi saw. A vampire who couldn’t eat, a weakness that had been mutually created. He saw in Zhou Mi every inch the gracious gentleman and host, a careful reserve that he had not often shown.
It was a veneer that separated them, and voided any connection they might have had.
He’d watched Zhou Mi move around the room for half an hour already, and wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it. He wasn’t even sure what his body or mind was telling him. He could not drag Zhou Mi from the room and demand another contract, or demand that Zhou Mi tell him that his want was too great to be ignored. It was impossible even to stand there, as his mind blanked, too full of conversations he tried to replay, things he should have done. Too full of hunger.
“I find myself tired,” he said, hoping to find a way to leave.
And he more sensed than saw the sharp turn of Changmin’s head. “Tired. Are you eating? You told me you were trying.”
“I have been. I haven’t found someone yet to my taste.”
“Kyuhyun.” A hand grasped his arm hard, turning him. “We shouldn’t have come here. You cannot do this.”
“I’m not trying to. You know that. There is a human waiting for me at home. I will try again. Every day. Perhaps it would be easier away from that house.”
“I don’t think so.”
Changmin’s immediate dismissal rankled him.
“Maybe not. But if it happens, I am protected. We know what to expect. We’ve prepared for it. It won’t kill me.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about it at all. Damn it, Kyuhyun. If you’d just listened. If only I could show you Zhou Mi had found a new vampire to bargain with, maybe you’d see reason.”
“Has he?” Kyuhyun asked, his voice deceptively calm for the sickness that had twisted his stomach at the thought.
“No,” Changmin said, sullen. “He could not even do that for me.”
***
No, Zhou Mi could not have done that for Changmin. But when Kyuhyun sat in his library with the envelope Zhou Mi had given him, he did not know what to expect. He’d waited purposely until he was alone, though Changmin had sent stares at his coat where he’d tucked it. He’d known Changmin wondered what was in it. Some note hoping for a clandestine meeting, Changmin had probably imagined.
But it was not Zhou Mi’s elegant handwriting that he saw, but the scrawl of a child.
“Dear Mr. Cho (splotch)
I liked your cookie. There are books here. I like dogs.
(Illegible),
Jinyong”
The second page had no words at all, but the crude drawing of what Kyuhyun assumed to be a shark taking a bite from a massive cookie.
He laughed, feeling the tension drain from him. The letter had been perhaps to practice his writing, but the drawing was much more personal. It told him that Jinyong remembered that day, sitting with him and with Zhou Mi, and looking through books together. Simpler days.
But it also told him that Jinyong had sent his letter and picture to Zhou Mi, expecting that where Zhou Mi was, Kyuhyun would be as well. It took his delight, the fun of it, and squashed it flat. He would reply, of course. Jinyong deserved that. It would mean addressing an envelope and very polite letter to Zhou Mi, so that Zhou Mi could forward it along. Zhou Mi had been commanded to pass it along, he’d said. He could imagine.
Kyuhyun set the papers aside, and breathed deep. If he was strong enough to think those thoughts, they he would be strong enough to do what needed to be done.
So he opened his library door, addressed his servant, and waited until the woman who had been found for him to feed from entered. He nodded at the woman, nicely dressed. He could feel in his body some strange twist. Perhaps it was hunger, or perhaps something else. All he knew was that he had no choice but to eat. Changmin’s admonitions, a month and a half of them, swirled through his head. Zhou Mi was a threat. Zhou Mi was-
He’d sworn that wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. No matter what he had to do, he would make the change.
“How do you want me, sir?”
Kyuhyun wondered if he heard nervousness in her voice. He wondered if she were married, or engaged. Some highborn women enjoyed a bit of vampire fantasy, though without the danger. It was why they were in the library and not his bedroom.
“In the chair, the settee there is fine,” Kyuhyun said.
He could take her nerves away. She sat, very prim, waiting. And for some reason his mind went to Zhou Mi, the way he had stood so straight and proper to ask for Kyuhyun’s help.
Kyuhyun sat, slow and not too near so as not to alarm her. At the first touch of his hand, he could sense her relaxing. He encouraged that, until she looked at him and smiled.
“Have you done this before?”
“Several times, sir. My brother’s friend is a vampire, so he says vampires always need humans to feed from.”
“That’s true. It will not hurt, but you know that. And you will be fine. Just lean into me, yes like that.”
Her neck was supple, head angled up and away Perfect. A blank canvas in which to sink his teeth, unmarred by other marks.
Zhou Mi’s skin had borne the marks of past feedings, faint and healing fast, but not enough to escape Kyuhyun’s eyes. He could see where he had been, where he had fed.
Kyuhyun pressed his lips to her neck and tried to call down his teeth. He wondered if he could smell her blood, if-
He made the mistake of inhaling.
It was the faint scent of smoke, and some fragrance high and sweet. Vanilla or a flower essence.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi had said, humor in his voice and some damnable mystery in his eyes that even after a month he had not figured out.
Kyuhyun gagged.
He shoved himself up off of the settee and ran for his wastebasket. The feeling of sickness was strangling, forcing him to dry heave even as he gasped for air. He had nothing to vomit in him, no relief for his sickness.
“Sir? Are you all right?”
He hoped the sound he made was something like agreement. It sounded like more of a whine as he gripped the metal edge.
A glass of water was set down beside him. “In case you need it,” the woman told him.
He took a fortifying breath. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m not up to feed- To feed now. You may go.”
He retched again, and all vestiges of hunger, any illusions he had that he would find it, left with the woman. He had not given up, no. But he knew that the precautions he had to take in case he could not find a human he could bite could not be put off any longer.
***
“You are… You are the gentleman, yes? Sir. Mr. Zhou?”
Hat in hand, Zhou Mi paused on the path behind the sanitarium. He had only to round the corner to get to his horse, a long night’s work concluded after his fundraiser with his hands tired and back sore. He’d ridden over only to check and exult with Dr. Lee over the funds that had been promised, before going to a long night’s rest. It seemed that would be delayed. He did not recognize the man, but he had seen so many pass through.
“I am. May I help you?”
“I have a family member touched by the Euphoria. He’s in a wagon. I can’t pay. I heard you-“
“You do not need to pay here. If you have something to contribute, you can, but we turn no one away. If you would let me get a nurse, we can help your brother inside. The path here is wide, and you can drive your wagon here.”
“Bless you, sir. Please. Show me where I turn.”
Zhou Mi followed the man, concerned for how badly the man’s brother must be, at his relief.
But not stupid when he saw the wagon, the man holding the horses, and another at its bed.
There was no sick man there.
Zhou Mi spun and did not fall, racing back for the sanitarium entrance and the locks it held. With each step, his mind raced with him. There were no fighters there, but there was safety in numbers. He saw the light shining through the door. If they wished to rob him, or hold him for ransom, or-
A hard shove to his shoulder sent him sprawling, body scraping over the gravel. A foot on his back knocked the air from him and kept him from calling out.
He was pulled up, and he struck out, knuckles connecting with a face, and then groaning as his arms were pulled tight, painful, behind his back as he was half shoved, half carried to the wagon.
“Why are you doing this?” Zhou Mi gasped out as he was shoved against the wagon bed. “Money? I have money.”
“We want no money of yours. But your nose is liable to be lost, if you keep sticking it in places it should not go.”
“A little taste of your own medicine, Mr. Zhou,” a second man said. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Something hard was pressed against his lips. At first, he thought it would be water, that they meant to try and drown him, or poison him. But it was thicker, and the metallic taste as it flowed over his tongue had his eyes flying open. Blood.
No, not just blood. What the men had said finally made sense. Vampire blood. Euphoria. They were force-feeding him Euphoria.
His whole body convulsed as he gagged, feeling what he had involuntarily swallowed rise up his throat. But no matter how much he spit and choked, more flowed into his mouth until it was a choice of swallow or suffocate.
His vision began to blur, hands tingling as he sputtered. But even after they stopped pouring the blood into him, his head was held back so he couldn’t lean over and vomit.
“It’s a bigger dose than normal,” the man said, tucking a jar back into his coat. “We sell half what you spit out for more than you could imagine. But you’ll like it, I think. It’s blood that’s special to you.”
He was shoved into the back of the wagon, dropped there as his head spun. As the wagon began to move, he was sick for other reasons but the will was not in him to gag. The rattling of the wheels on hard ground shook him, undid him, as the Euphoria coursed through his body. If he could only get to Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun would know what to do. Dr. Lee. Changmin. Anyone. It was like liquid death, his heart racing and head spinning.
The worst was the the part of his mind still working, he knew it would not kill him. The terrors that came after the high and the feelings that others wanted for fun, and then needed more blood, and more, to keep those feelings and ward off the terrors - until there was not enough blood, or money, that could do it. He knew that. He feared it.
The wagon stopped, and Zhou Mi’s head rolled like a rag doll’s, until he was pulled by his legs until he half stood on trembling knees that could not keep his weight. Two men with their hands under his arms, dragged him up a set of steps. Even with his head spinning, he recognized them. Kyuhyun’s home. How ironic that they had brought him to the one place he’d wanted to be.
But with one man holding him down, covering his mouth, the other beat quick jabs into his ribs, into his gut, and then into his thigh with a foot.
“You both were trouble. Tell him hello from us, if you can,” the man at his head told him, and then pushed Zhou Mi’s skull hard into the stone.
The cold was overwhelming, the pain and dizziness from the blows. He opened his mouth to call for help, and only a tiny squeak emerged. His fingers flexed, the only vestige of movement as he thought of knocking upon the door to summon someone. The door could have been only a foot away, behind him, and might as well have been in another country.
Kyuhyun. He was so close. If they didn’t open the door, didn’t find him- The chill sank into his bones.
He stared at a pebble glistening with frost, until the darkness took him.
***
Kyuhyun locked himself in his library, ordering not to be disturbed, and he tried not to brood. He checked accounts, made out payments, and correspondence. For a while, he even tried to read, but the novel he selected held no interest for him. A ride might clear his mind, and he’d nearly decided upon it, when his ears pricked to a knock on the door, and commotion in the front hall.
Despite his order, and without any knock at all, a footman burst into the library.
Kyuhyun was on his feet, admonition almost on his lips, before the boy spoke.
“You must come quick, sir! It’s Mr. Zhou!”
The panic had him moving quickly, even as confusion washed over him. Why Zhou Mi would be there, causing such an uproar, he couldn’t know. He knew the staff had grown fond of Zhou Mi, but even an unexpected visit should not have caused a total breakdown of his orders. Zhou Mi should have been told he was not accepting visitors, and sent away.
“A passerby knocked on the door when they saw him. He was just lying on the front-“
Zhou Mi was pale, almost ashen, snow falling from his hair and clothes as Kyuhyun leaped forward to where he was being held up between two servants.
‘What happened?”
“I don’t know, sir. We found him on the stoop, sir. Just lying there. We don’t know for how long.”
Kyuhyun could see blood coming from Zhou Mi’s hairline, bruises on his face. His mouth looked ringed in blood, all over his chin and throat. But that wasn’t focus. It was the cold-pale skin that seemed half frozen against his hand, Zhou Mi barely stirring at the touch.
To the maid, he turned. “Have hot water taken to my bath immediately, as much as you can.” And to the footmen, “We’ll carry him up.”
It was quite obvious that Zhou Mi could not walk on his own. Zhou Mi was docile, but dead weight, and Kyuhyun got him over his shoulder, the footmen standing by to steady him if need be. Expediency was key. Whatever injuries Zhou Mi had, he needed to be warmed, quickly. The air outside was frigid, he knew that too well.
The bath was half full when Kyuhyun pushed through the door, the room a flurry of movement as maids brought up water by the bucket, steaming to be mixed with cool. Onto a stool, Zhou Mi was placed, and Kyuhyun undid the fine knot at Zhou Mi’s throat as fast as he was able - short of ripping or cutting it off. The clothes were stained with grass and dirt and blood, wet in places and cold. The skin of Zhou Mi’s chest was just as pale and cool and marked, with red blooming bruises as Kyuhyun steadied him as his trousers were stripped.
The bath was not yet full, but Kyuhyun couldn’t wait. He tested the water on his own skin, on one of the footmen as well, to make sure it wasn’t too hot. They could warm it further after he was in it. It would be painful enough, as warm as it was.
He took Zhou Mi’s torso, hefting Zhou Mi as the footmen helped, to lower him into the bath.
Zhou Mi arched, sound almost a keening pain as his body sank in the water. He was still mostly unconscious, but his body was moving of its own accord.
“Get back,” Kyuhyun told the footmen, supporting Zhou Mi himself. He didn’t want them to get kicked, or splashed, and he was the one Zhou Mi knew. If anyone could get Zhou Mi to calm, it was him. “Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi! Try to be still. We’re warming you up.”
The water was barely more than tepid, but far warmer than Zhou Mi’s skin.
“A cloth,” Kyuhyun demanded, and one was put into his hand. He ran the heated water over Zhou Mi’s face, shoulders, and chest. Each bucket of water that was added was warmed and mixed to his approval, until the water rose up Zhou Mi’s body. A bucket removed, and a warmer one added, warming the water, and Zhou Mi as well. A cloth, warmed at the heater, rested over the top of Zhou Mi’s head and over his ears.
And then the shakes began. Violent trembles as Zhou Mi’s body functioned, sought to warm itself.
“Another warm cloth,” Kyuhyun said, and changed the cloth on Zhou Mi’s head. Another warm bucket of water.
Warm, until Zhou Mi’s skin began to glow pink, instead of frozen white. Kyuhyun checked his fingers and toes for injury, but they were normal colored as well, warm as the rest of him.
“It looks like someone beat him, sir,” one of the footmen said, standing back in something like horror after he’d poured in the water.
It did. Bruises on Zhou Mi’s ribs, a scrape on his knees. The knuckles on his right hand were slightly swollen, skin broken, as though he’d fought back. He must have been attacked. There was no other explanation for it. How he had ended up at Kyuhyun’s home was a mystery. As warnings went, it made sense if they were still bound by contract. Those were answers only Zhou Mi could give, and he was still mostly unconscious.
It took three men to lift Zhou Mi safely, so he could be wrapped in robe and carried to Kyuhyun’s bed.
Kyuhyun warred with himself. They could call a doctor, but he did not know what good that would do. He had memories of his own chills as a child. All they could do was keep him warm, get something warm inside him, and hope.
“Zhou Mi,” Kyuhyun said, squeezing Zhou Mi’s shoulder. “Can you wake?”
It took almost a minute for Zhou Mi to truly rouse, his eyelids opening as though he were drunk, and eyes darting as though he were having trouble focusing.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, his voice high and light.
“I’m here. Rest back for me.”
Zhou Mi murmured as Kyuhyun tucked his arm in, pulling the covers up to Zhou Mi’s shoulders. Odd how a man taller than Kyuhyun could seem so young and vulnerable. Like a child put to bed after a long day, and looking for approval. As long as Zhou Mi didn’t catch a fever, come down with something in his lungs, he’d undoubtedly recover. Right in Kyuhyun’s bed, until other arrangements could be made. Zhou Mi would likely not want to stay, given. And it would be dangerous to let him. Kyuhyun knew that. Temptation that ran too far. He needed a new human lined up, one he could bite. It made him jittery that he was looking at the man who was his reason for not having one yet.
“Who did this to you?” Kyuhyun asked, studying Zhou Mi’s face. It was possible that Zhou Mi was lucid enough to answer him. So Kyuhyun could start the wheels of justice.
“I don’t know. Kyuhyun.” Zhou Mi sighed, the sound almost ethereal, distant, unlike any sound Zhou Mi had ever made. “Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun reached for him, and Zhou Mi leaned into the hand against his cheek and smiled up at Kyuhyun. A smile of utter trust.
His pupils were wide, eyes glassy.
It wasn’t the beating, or the freezing weather. But cold slicked over Kyuhyun’s skin, chill and fear as Zhou Mi repeated his name again. Something he had never seen in Zhou Mi, had never expected to.
Zhou Mi was in thrall.
***
But it was not a normal thrall. It was the deepest thrall he had ever seen. Self preservation was normally forefront. He could not ask a human to slit their own throat, or throw themselves from a building. And the thrall did not induce them to do anything they were truly averse to - it was not a tool to relax, and coddle.
“Do you know what happened?”
Zhou Mi shook his head, grasping Kyuhyun’s hands to keep them on his face.
“Zhou Mi. How did you end up here?”
“Men. At the Sanitarium?” Zhou Mi hummed, nuzzling against Kyuhyun’s thumb. “Blood. They gave me blood.”
Just like Jinyong. There had been that warning. Horror swamped over him. Zhou Mi had been dosed with Euphoria. That had been the blood on his face, where he’d tried to spit it out, or else whoever had done it had very poor aim.
He left Zhou Mi there for only moments, finding the first servant he could to have them send for Changmin. Zhou Mi looked so normal there in his bed, until Kyuhyun touched him and he went pliant. It allowed him to get some warmed soup into Zhou Mi’s body.
“You’ll fight this,” Kyuhyun told him. “Jinyong is doing so much better. You’ll fight this, too.”
“Kyuhyun. I’m keeping your bed warm for you,” Zhou Mi whispered against his face.
“I know. Thank you. Rest. Sleep. Heal.”
He watched as Zhou Mi’s eyelids closed, the rise and fall of his chest. Maybe he’d dreamed of having Zhou Mi back in his bed, but it hadn’t been that way.
“You’re stronger than any vampire blood,” Kyuhyun whispered. “You’re stronger than me.”
He had no doubt that his struggles to eat were his and his alone. Zhou Mi would have gone back to his home, his bed, his food and friends without problem. It was why Changmin had warned him. He was the one in danger of opening part of himself, when Zhou Mi moved on. Zhou Mi would find a normal human, to have afternoon picnics and rides with. A human without any agreement, without anything held over him, who would help him willingly.
“Sir, Mr. Shim,” a servant said quietly.
Kyuhyun stood, careful not to jostle the bed as he went for the door. They wouldn’t speak where Zhou Mi could hear, and Changmin was waiting in the hallway.
“Zhou Mi is here?” Changmin asked, accusation in his voice.
“What do you want me to say? Yes, the human I was dallying with was brought to me, injured. Was I supposed to turn him away? He was beaten. And he’s in thrall so deeply, deeper than I have ever seen.”
“Perhaps he was angry for you casting him off.”
Kyuhyun laughed, the irony of it washing over him. “You saw how indifferently he treated me at that fundraiser. I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t serious. He did not beat himself. And he did not drink Euphoria of his own choosing.”
Changmin studied Kyuhyun’s face, but there was no joking in his words. “It’s an anomaly. A man who can sleep with you and know his own mind, and after be undone.”
“Yes. I suspect it has something to do with what we accomplished.”
“Kyuhyun?”
Kyuhyun turned, seeing Zhou Mi had gotten out of bed and was walking toward him. He stood still as Zhou Mi approached, and Zhou Mi’s head pressed against his shoulder.
“Kyuhyun.”
Changmin observed them, the way that Zhou Mi held Kyuhyun tight, stroked his face and kept him close.
“Kyuhyunloveyou.”
It was said all rushed together, so much so that Kyuhyun couldn’t even understand the words at first. But his eyes widened as Zhou Mi tried to hold him even closer.
“I knew of your feelings. You hadn’t told me he was in love with you,” Changmin accused.
“It is the thrall,” Kyuhyun said, pushing Zhou Mi back, gently.
“The thrall can do many things. But it can’t induce emotions like this.”
Kyuhyun closed his eyes as Zhou Mi pressed his face into Kyuhyun’s neck. “Then it’s the Euphoria itself, some hallucination. This is no thrall I’ve seen. This isn’t normal for him.”
It took little urging for Zhou Mi to follow him, Zhou Mi looking at him as though he were some sort of deity. He was so wound up in the effects of the Euphoria, as evidenced by his insistence even though weak and injured, as though nothing could hurt him. But when Kyuhyun touched him, it made him ill to see Zhou Mi’s reaction.
He stayed still, close, watching as Changmin sat on the bed beside Zhou Mi.
“You told Kyuhyun you were attacked?”
“Mm,” Zhou Mi agreed. “They gave me Euph…phor? Phoria. Euph. Phoria.” Zhou Mi laughed a little to himself, and looked up at Kyuhyun with concern. “They shouldn’t have?”
That Zhou Mi asked, as though he didn’t know made Kyuhyun’s jaw tighten. Zhou Mi was the one who was passionate, who knew everything there was about the evils that drinking vampire blood caused. It had been horrible to see Jinyong affected by the Euphoria and Kyuhyun’s connection to him had been peripheral at best. Zhou Mi, however, was something different entirely. He’d come to know many expressions on Zhou Mi’s face, his pride and dedication, and the person he saw in his bed was not the man he knew.
Nor did Zhou Mi react to Changmin’s touch as he did to Kyuhyun’s. There was a deepening of his pliancy, but he did not fall so deeply into the thrall.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Here, touch him again.”
Kyuhyun did as Changmin asked, taking Zhou Mi’s hand. The effect was instantaneous, Zhou Mi’s face raising.
“Kyuhyun.”
“Smile,” he told Zhou Mi, and got the silly look of adoration that Zhou Mi had shown him to begin with. “No. Smile for me, damn it.”
“He is smiling, Kyuhyun,” Changmin told, him, his hand on Kyuhyun’s arm.
“No. That’s not the way he smiles at me.”
It was different. The lopsided curl of his lips, the tease in his eyes. It was warmth, like a sunbeam on cold skin. Or on a cold soul. So genuine and perfect, it had made Kyuhyun’s fingers curl. The expression on Zhou Mi’s face right then was sincere, pleasant. But it wasn’t the same.
“Kyuhyun.”
“We have to fix him.”
“We will. He seems to be reacting to your presence as well as your touch. I’d imagine the only way he could be helped, would be like the others. A vampire can fix this. And it must be done quickly, too.”
Kyuhyun’s mouth thinned. The others had been bitten.
“But why so strongly to me? It can’t be because of any imagined feelings.”
“What if he was fed your blood?” Changmin wondered. “Zhou Mi, did they tell you whose blood they gave you?”
Zhou Mi shook his head, and disappointment shuddered through Kyuhyun. If they knew that, he wasn’t sure what they would be able to do with the information. But for his own knowledge, he wanted to know. Suspicions weren’t enough.
A squeeze to his hand had Kyuhyun looking down, and then meeting Zhou Mi’s eyes. “They said it was very special to me.”
Or perhaps he didn’t want to know.
“Fuck,” he whispered, letting go of Zhou Mi’s hand. “Then it was mine?”
“That’s what makes sense. Have you bitten him since he arrived? Kyuhyun, answer me.”
His hesitation was normal, he thought. They were only supposed to have had a month. Biting again after that time was highly inadvisable, encouraging a trend, something close to addiction.
“I nearly did. Not to feed, but to check,” he said, as though that made much difference.
Changmin looked at Kyuhyun with such a lack of patience. “I would think your bite is too close, so you could not help him anyway. Though if you had, I would have felt more relieved if you had bitten him only to feed. But that is a path that is a dangerous one.”
“It’s why you are here.”
“Then why did you look so angry at the thought of other vampires biting him?”
“Let a hundred vampires bite him!” Kyuhyun shot back, pacing away before whirling back. “Don’t look at me like that. I know what needs to be done. If I hadn’t, I would have gotten you. I could’ve kept him here as my little love slave until it drove him insane.”
“But he wouldn’t have been the man you wanted,” Changmin said, almost a little too smug.
No, the Zhou Mi who stared up at him then with soft and longing eyes was not the man he knew. The outward appearance was not so changed, but the give to Kyuhyun, the urge to be near, the lack of an emotional filter were very much different. Had it been Zhou Mi of a week previous standing in front of him, declaring his love and begging to stay, he couldn’t say what his stomach or his knees would have done in response. Much less his-
His heart. Because he had one, against all his better judgements.
***
Zhou Mi was able to walk down the stairs, supported by both of them. It was a bit like guiding a drunken cow, however, because Zhou Mi was so very pliant and eager and still hurt. He’d caught sight of the bruising on Zhou Mi’s chest and thighs again as they were wrapping him tight in trousers and double robes so he would stay warm. He didn’t think that Zhou Mi would appreciate the reference, but it was the truth for right then.
Kyuhyun wasn’t even sure what his plans were, as they helped Zhou Mi climb into the carriage. Rather than ask why, he just went, guided until he was sitting, stable. He could go with Changmin, Kyuhyun reasoned. Get Zhou Mi settled and then return. Zhou Mi would be calmer then, perhaps.
And then Changmin held him back.
“Stay here.”
“Changmin-“
“I’ll care for him. You know I will. If I need your thrall to calm him, I’ll send for you, but he is not deep in the Euphoria’s aftereffects.”
Kyuhyun frowned, but it urged him to say what he had begun to suspect. “I wonder if he resists some of that, like he does the thrall usually. If this deep thrall is his way of fighting it.”
“Perhaps. But he is not your concern now. He sent away Jinyong because it was best. Now it’s your turn.”
“If I were Zhou Mi, I’d say every human was my concern,” Kyuhyun muttered.
Changmin laughed, squeezing and shaking Kyuhyun’s shoulder. “But you’re not.”
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi called.
“I’ll say goodbye to him at least,” Kyuhyun said, and did not wait for Changmin’s approval. He got there before Zhou Mi could think about climbing out and back into the cold. He took Zhou Mi’s hand, leaning into the carriage.
“You need to go with Changmin now, so he can help you. You don’t have to be afraid. Changmin isn’t going to hurt you.” Besides the biting. But at least he knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Zhou Mi’s condition wouldn’t be taken advantage of.
“But I will see you,” Zhou Mi insisted.
“You will,” he said, not knowing how to deny it. But that was one thing he didn’t believe. “So behave.”
Zhou Mi urged him closer, eyes soft. “I will. I miss you. I love you, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes closed as Zhou Mi kissed him. He could’ve pushed Zhou Mi back, avoided it. The truth was he wanted it. Rationalized it as a goodbye. Rationalized that Zhou Mi needed it to calm himself. And he lost himself to it, as Zhou Mi sighed against his mouth, a rolling kiss where they never parted.
“Kyuhyun.”
Of course it was his name that Changmin called, and not Zhou Mi’s to make sure that they were going to be able to leave. It meant pulling away his face, and watching Zhou Mi’s eyes slowly open. To back away, and close the carriage door after Changmin.
The panic that shot through Zhou Mi’s eyes as the carriage rolled away stayed with him for long after.
***
They brought him a woman, a different one, only an hour after Zhou Mi had gone with Changmin. Kyuhyun was the one to suggest it. It was the worst time, but perhaps it was also the best time, when he was so determined, when his mind could not get in the way of feeding.
She was a prostitute, found as quickly as possible since the daylight hours were not far away.
“Thank you for coming,” he told her, standing and feeling his balance give slightly.
“Anything you pay for, sir.”
He stepped close, noting how small she was, a head shorter than him. Though Kyuhyun did not age, she looked older than him by at least ten years. He wondered how old she truly was.
He saw the sadness in her eyes , and sent her away with payment in full.
Changmin sent him a note the next night, that Zhou Mi was resting and healing. Changmin had bitten him, perhaps multiple times to start his body toward mending the damage the Euphoria had done. Kyuhyun did not like to contemplate it.
Nor any of the days after when Changmin thought to send him updates. The terrors had begun. Zhou Mi was sick. Zhou Mi had been sedated. He thought Changmin sent updates because he knew if he did not that Kyuhyun would be on his doorstep.
The hunger was weak, as his staff tried to persuade him. It made him ill, almost physically ill again, to think of biting a human. Male, female. No matter how pleasing aesthetically. They were pliant and full of thrall, and he thought of Zhou Mi so trusting, smiling at him with his eyes catching the light. The sweet smile he gave to Kyuhyun alone and the way those hands, broad palms, would catch the back of his head and hold him as he fed. Not because he feared, but because he wanted Kyuhyun at his neck, in his body. Kyuhyun made a strangled sound, shaking his head to rid himself of the images. No matter what Zhou Mi wanted, no matter what either of them wanted, they could not have it.
He would find his appetite, one way or another. Even if it meant leaving the city to do it. A change of scenery, a place where memories of Zhou Mi’s laughter were not. Some pretty village maid, or a farmer’s son with strong arms. Perhaps after Zhou Mi had recovered, when there was no danger left.
He thought of Zhou Mi’s hands against his face, mouth pressing gently to his, and shuddered. And alone in his chair, lifted his face for a kiss that was only in his mind.
***
Blood. There was so much blood in his dreams. Zhou Mi ran, as rabid dogs bit at him, dragged him down. He ran more, until he could not breathe - waking and choking and pleading for help.
He dreamed, Kyuhyun above him, face half in shadow. It was a moment of comfort, such familiar weight that he wanted to reach and hold. Then he opened his mouth and tasted the first drop of blood. He startled, watching as tears ran red down Kyuhyun’s face, dropping onto his skin. Kyuhyun’s lips parted and blood pulsed from it, sheets falling onto Zhou Mi’s neck. It was his blood. His blood from Kyuhyun, but he didn’t want it back-
He screamed as his skin went wet, Kyuhyun dissolving - drowning him, bathing him. It smelled of blood and death, and he knew that just as Kyuhyun was dying right in front of him, Zhou Mi would die with him.
He clawed at his own skin to get it off, to let him breathe, to save Kyuhyun-
People shouted at him, holding him down.
“Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun,” he sobbed.
“Kyuhyun is fine,” a familiar voice told him. “Rest.”
He felt a pain on his arm, teeth. A calm swept him, and the darkness rolled over him.
***
Zhou Mi woke to an unfamiliar ceiling, nightmares clinging to the edges of his mind. Fire and blood. He flexed his fingertips, the only part of him that seemed not to hurt. In trying to clear his throat, what came out was a cross between a gurgle and a moan.
“Mr. Zhou? Oh, you’re awake. Wait one moment,” a pleasant female voice said.
He wasn’t sure what else he could do but wait. His mouth felt full of cotton, and swallowing make him nearly choke.
“Sorry, sir,” the woman said a moment later. “Here.”
Something wet and sweet and tasting faintly of lemon passed his lips from a spoon. It soothed him, but only partly.
“More,” he croaked, and would have drank until there was nothing left as spoon after spoon of liquid slid down his throat.
“Not too much, so he won’t be sick.” Zhou Mi sighed at the cool hand against his face. Calm settled him for a moment. Changmin. “The Euphoria is not yet gone from you. Rest more.”
He did not want to. The smell of ash haunted him, fear of strangling on his own blood. There had been something in what he drank, he thought, as the room seemed to spin. His eyelids lowered, as Changmin smoothed back his hair.
He dreamed of the bite - bitten on his arms and chest and neck. Kyuhyun watched from a corner, seated and comfortable.
Zhou Mi wept, begging for his help.
“Please don’t let them kill me. Make them stop biting me! Kyuhyun!”
His face was wet with tears that felt like fire as he slept, and dreamed of death.
***
When Zhou Mi woke again, broth wet his mouth and throat. A woman he had never seen before smiled at him.
“You are safe, sir,” she assured him.
The walls did not twist in front of his eyes, or ooze with blood, so his head relaxed into her hand. As he swallowed, he had questions, ones he could not put to words as he flexed his hands and his ankles.
“You’re awake again.”
Changmin entered Zhou Mi’s line of sight, looming over the bed as the woman let Zhou Mi’s head relax and moved so Changmin could sit next to him.
“Kyuhyun?”
“No. It’s Changmin
At least at that, Zhou Mi smiled, his face feeling frozen. And though he had to clear his throat, voice rusty, he spoke. “Yes, I know it’s you. Is Kyuhyun here?”
“No. He has asked after you, though. I’ve told him you are doing well.”
“This is your home.”
“Yes, it is. This is the room Jinyong stayed in as he was recovering.”
“You rescued both of us,” Zhou Mi said, hoping it sounded like a jest, but it came out more like a whisper. “How long have I been here?”
“Nearly two weeks. The nightmares started as you began to crave more blood,” Changmin said. “Your friend, Dr. Lee, drugged you deeply, and I fed from you as much as I dared to rid your system of it.”
“I feel so weak.”
“You were being fed broth, but you should be strong enough. I’ll have food brought up to you, if you are able to keep this down.”
And Zhou Mi had a terrible thought. “Is there any Euphoria left in me?”
“No. You were so deep in nightmares, I bit you longer than I did Jinyong, to make sure you were free of it. But you had more Euphoria in your blood than he did. I haven’t bitten you for several days. You were clean.”
Some of the sick fear in him relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said, and Changmin nodded. As much of an answer as he would get. “I’ll have more of the broth now.”
Changmin left him with the woman again, to feed, and to rest.
***
Zhou Mi slept again, woke, and tried to remember. He remembered the taste of the blood, of being dumped at Kyuhyun’s door. He remembered pain. Sickness, dizziness and nightmares. He was propped up in the bed, having just eaten, and full of questions.
“Kyuhyun found me.”
Changmin nodded. “His servants did, yes. You had nearly frozen to death, high on the Euphoria. You’d been beaten. You also had a nasty head cold for the first week, probably from being outside so long. You’re lucky to be alive and talking. Dr. Lee was afraid it would move into your lungs.”
Dr. Lee had been to see him. He only vaguely remembered that. But Dr. Lee he could find as soon as he was well enough. It was Kyuhyun where his concern was.
“Will Kyuhyun come here?”
“No, that is not advisable.”
“I remember him caring for me. He helped me into your carriage. He kissed me.”
“Or you kissed him,” Changmin said, staring at the wall instead of at Zhou Mi. “He has a kind heart, and you were quite clearly suffering.”
“He does not seem the type to be afraid-“
“You are a good man,” Changmin interrupted him. “It is safer for him this way. I respect what you are trying to do, that what you are doing is helping both vampires and humans. But Kyuhyun is beyond your reach, even as a friend.”
“You never explained why.”
“I’m sorry I cannot. I suspect in a few days you will be strong enough to move to your own home, and your own staff will be able to look after you since I taste no more vampire blood in you.”
“And it could take weeks to fully recover,” Zhou Mi said, resigned.
Perhaps longer. Most of his worry then was that he didn’t know how recovered he could get. If there were impairments, he could deal with them. His mind was the one thing he wanted most. He recited details of his life to himself, calculated simple mathematics, mapped portions of the city in his head. It seemed the Euphoria had not taken that from him. But it had left him with an un-waning tiredness. He woke to eat and relieve himself, to speak to a servant or answer Changmin’s questions of how he felt, and then he slept again.
He still had night terrors, nightmares. But they lessened, and followed him less into his waking moments.
But Changmin’s predictions were right. In two days, he was well enough to walk short distances with assistance, which allowed him to go to his own home. On the way, they passed the street he took to go to Kyuhyun’s home. It took all his strength, and all the strength he still had yet to gain back, to keep from ordering the carriage to turn and take him there.
***
Kyuhyun’s eyes were so heavy. He was so hungry. He hadn’t been able to focus for a day, maybe two if he was honest. Three. All he did was sit at his desk and stare at blank paper. If he picked up a pen, his hand shook. It took effort to climb the stairs to sleep, as though the sun was dragging him down. Even the thought of another human coming to try to feed from sent panic through him. Cold shivered through him as he remembered the bruises on Zhou Mi’s skin.
He wondered how close he’d come to losing Zhou Mi that night. A kick in another place, a blow to the head.
He wasn’t Kyuhyun’s to lose. That was said in Changmin’s voice, of course.
“Kyuhyun.”
“Hmm?” Zhou Mi’s face floated in front of him. “Oh. It’s you.”
“I’m waiting for you to bite me. Come to bed, Kyuhyun.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said, pushing up out of his chair. “What took you so long?”
“I was always here. Come find me. I want you.”
His eyes frantically took in the breadth of Zhou Mi’s shoulders as he walked toward him. “I want you. I can’t bite anyone else. You have to help me. I’ll give you anything.”
Kyuhyun tripped over a footstool, going down hard on his knees. He hissed at the sting, scrambling to his feet.
“Zhou Mi!”
But no one was there.
He raced for the hallway, nearly running into a footman.
“Zhou Mi. Where did he go?”
“Sir?”
“Zhou Mi was just here. You must have seen him. He just came out of the library.”
“No, sir. No one has been here all night. I’d have heard the door. Sir, are you all right?”
“Of course. He must have slipped in the servant’s entrance. I have to go to him. Have someone saddle my horse. He’ll be going home. I can’t delay, so-“
“Sir. No one has been here. Not by any entrance.”
“But I just saw him in the library.”
Another footman came up beside him. “No, sir. Mr. Zhou hasn’t been here since he left with Mr. Shim.”
“But I saw him. I saw him.” Kyuhyun faltered, feeling his head spin as another thought struck him. “Changmin told you to tell me that, didn’t he? He’s trying to keep us apart.”
“No, sir. Please, come sit, sir.”
He followed them, because he felt like he would fall otherwise. He’d seen Zhou Mi, he knew he had. Maybe if he sat still, and everyone left, Zhou Mi would come back. He was just hiding. It would be secret, just between them.
“Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun opened his eyes, but it was not the man he had hoped. Changmin.
“Zhou Mi?”
“At his home. Probably asleep.”
“Why are you here?”
“Your servants sent for me. Said you were acting strangely. Has it begun?”
Kyuhyun rested his head back. Maybe that was the explanation. Then Zhou Mi had never been there. It had been his mind playing tricks on him from the hunger, and the need.
“I thought I saw him,” Kyuhyun said.
“I know. I’m sorry. I think it’s time, before you think you see him again and ride off and get lost in the city calling for him.”
Kyuhyun snorted. “How pitiful would that be? I must have scared them.”
“A little,” Changmin agreed. “Let’s go then. I know everything I need to to keep your house running, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“Good.”
“Are you ready, then?”
Kyuhyun nodded, standing with the support of Changmin’s arm. “I’m ready.”
***
Into the basement of his home had been built a partition, accessed from a hidden staircase behind the library. Besides the stairs, it was empty but for a mattress on the floor, and a light overhead. There were no windows, nothing breakable that Kyuhyun would be able to hurt himself on. The door was reinforced so that while locked, no one could get out.
It was a precaution, and it was a necessity. A vampire that went too long without blood was a danger to himself and to others. It was the blood frenzy, when the body began to shut down, to try and regain control of itself. There were only two ways the blood frenzy ended. One was with patience, waiting for the raging need in the body to pass, until the vampire was too weak to fight it. It was in that time of weakness that another human might be substituted, letting the body adjust to feeding again.
The only other way was for the vampire to bite the last human they had bitten. It became fascination, obsession. And it was no simple bite. The human bitten in the blood frenzy was in danger from the vampire because of that loss of control. And it was not so much the danger, but the knowledge that the human had to know why the vampire was in such a state.
Kyuhyun pictured Zhou Mi there, seeing him horrible in need. Need in so many ways. Begging him to stay.
“Promise me you will not send for him,” Kyuhyun said, grasping Changmin’s shirt. “No matter how bad it gets for me down there, promise me you will not send for him.”
Changmin squeezed his elbows. “I promise.”
Of course. He should not have worried. Changmin had tried to protect him to begin with. If he’d listened to Changmin, he wouldn’t be on the edge of tipping into losing control.
There was nothing to do but wait. So he waited. Hungered. The hallucination of Zhou Mi did not come again, but he also didn’t invite it.
“I can’t bite him. I don’t need him. I don’t need. Don’t need.”
He repeated those words, and he paced, and he slept as the sun rose.
And when it set, he heard footsteps. Changmin. And with him…
Kyuhyun saw the man and stood, trembling. “Zhou Mi?”
“If you bite him, maybe you can head off the frenzy,” Changmin said.
Of course. Biting Zhou Mi was the only thing he’d wanted for weeks.
But the neck was wrong. It was a thin neck, not solid as Zhou Mi’s was. The curve was off. No mark at his shoulder. The face was wrong, blurring in his mind until the features resembled nothing like Zhou Mi.
“He’s only pretending!” Kyuhyun accused, reaching for the man’s neck until Changmin pushed him back.
“Kyuhyun. He’s human. You can feed from him even if he isn’t Zhou Mi.”
“But he’s not Zhou Mi.”
“Leave,” Changmin told the man, and turned back to Kyuhyun. “I know his feelings for you. What are yours?”
“I’m so hungry. He has a son now. No need for me.”
“You would have kept Zhou Mi?”
To keep. To own. To save. To bite.
Kyuhyun looked up at Changmin. “Where is he? He should be home by now. He loves me.”
Changmin looked so severe, that Kyuhyun worried. Perhaps Zhou Mi was ill again. Or- “He'd have stayed if you asked. Did I force you to this? Are you in love with him?”
In love with Zhou Mi.
“Where is he?” Kyuhyun repeated.
***
It was a piece of mail that sent Zhou Mi into action. That was what had him pounding on Kyuhyun’s door not long after the sun went down with a letter in his hand.
Kyuhyun’s staff was prompt, and there was still that moment of recognizing each other, the footman almost taking a step back to admit Zhou Mi, until he realized that Zhou Mi was no longer an immediate guest.
“Is Kyuhyun at home?”
The man paused. “He is. But he’s not seeing any visitors. Sir!”
“I got a letter on his letterhead informing me of vampire activities,” Zhou Mi said, hating that he had to all but force his way into the house. “But it was not in his handwriting, even though it was signed with his name. Where is he?”
Zhou Mi went to the library first, intent to see if he was being told the truth and Kyuhyun was at home. The letter was too strange, too odd an occurrence from a man who had not let even Zhou Mi touch his letterhead without his permission. Even then, Kyuhyun had always signed it himself.
Though he stopped, just past the doorway, when he saw Kyuhyun’s desk.
And Changmin sitting behind it.
“Were you invited in?” Changmin asked, his voice bland since he had to have heard the entire exchange.
“Where is Kyuhyun? Why- What’s going on? You wrote this letter?”
Something was terribly wrong, that was for certain. Scanning the room for signs that something was off yielded no clues, except for the obvious fact that Changmin was there, and Kyuhyun was not.
“Where Kyuhyun is is not your concern. And I did write that letter. No, I haven’t become Kyuhyun’s secretary, though I’ll let him do his own correspondence if it brings people irate to the door every time.”
“I’m not irate. I’m concerned. When a note arrives not in his handwriting, it is not too strange to wonder. I was told he was at home.”
“He is,” Changmin said. “But it is time for you to leave.”
“Not until you tell me what is wrong!”
“You do not belong here,” Changmin said, his voice very soft as he got close. Though if he’d intended to intimidate, he’d lost his ability after saving Zhou Mi’s life.
“I want to see Kyuhyun.”
“You can’t-“
Zhou Mi’s hand darted out, stopping Changmin’s words with a hand against his chest. He’d heard a shout, almost a bellow, like that of a man in pain. It had been quiet, not in the room, but close.
“What was that? Is that Kyuhyun?”
“You need to go.”
“I will not! Kyuhyun! Kyuhyun, answer me!” he shouted, pivoting back into the hall and down along the stairs. It had sounded like it had come from below them, not above.
But again, Changmin stopped him, yanking on his arm to the point of pain. “Stop. Stop this.”
“Was that Kyuhyun? It was. What aren’t you telling me? He’s a vampire. He doesn’t get ill.”
For a long moment, they glared at each other and Zhou Mi wondered if he would be able to find out more before Changmin and him forcibly thrown out. All of it was too strange, too frightening especially after all of his dreams of Kyuhyun dissolving in front of him. But Changmin’s scowl turned, and he looked away.
“He is ill. Follow me,” Changmin said, and led Zhou Mi to a barred door. “He is below us, locked in his basement until he recovers. It was not for you to know. It is not your concern.”
“Who is caring for him?” Zhou Mi asked, touching the door. He assumed Changmin, but then again, he could have been assuming very wrong.
“No one. It is not one of your human diseases where he must be coddled every moment. His illness will run its course.”
“But he is being fed.”
Changmin shook his head. “No. He will not feed until he recovers, either. It is a feeding disease. The Kyuhyun below is not the Kyuhyun you know. He’s in what we call a blood frenzy. He hasn’t eaten in weeks, and his body has to recover from it.”
Zhou Mi winced, pressing his hand against the boards as a ringing shriek sounded from below. “I don’t understand. Why he did not eat?”
“There is something very sacred among vampires. We call it ‘the stare of the soul.’ And Kyuhyun spent a month looking into yours.”
If Changmin had meant to enlighten him, he’d failed. Instead, he was even more confused.
“I don’t- Does he want to eat from me again?”
“You could say that. Or you could say, he won’t, can’t, eat from anyone else until his body has purged itself of your blood. He would have strangled a man I took down for him, had I not been there. Because he wasn’t you.”
Kyuhyun had not eaten since they had parted, was what Changmin seemed to be telling him. That was confusing enough, without the shouts from below. Every time the thought of Kyuhyun eating from someone else, taking someone else to his bed, Zhou Mi had put it from his mind with a flinch. It had not been a visual he had wanted.
“He is usually louder when he first wakes after the sun recedes. He will quiet soon. He would not want you to listen to him like this.”
Even if he could not hear it, did not mean he would not imagine it. Though the voice was without words, there was true pain in it. Zhou Mi could not even imagine the circumstances that had led Kyuhyun to that. To be locked in his own home, unable to eat. To have not eaten for weeks. It was worse than he could have imagined.
“If it is a feeding disease, is there something I can do? Perhaps he could feed from me. Bleed me, give him something.”
“I can’t let you go down. Are you even yet fully recovered from the Euphoria? There are things you don’t understand. Things I can’t tell you. If I let you down there, he could kill you. Maybe not with intent, but he could. If not with his teeth, then with his fists. Have you seen a ravenous dog on a carcass? You would fare no better. And he would sooner paint his body with blood if I sent it down in a vial. It’s not just your blood he wants.”
“My body? You said blood frenzy, not lust.”
Changmin shook his head.
“Then what! Tell me! Damn it, Changmin. I can’t make a decision if you’re being coy. What’s so horrible and secretive that he could do to me, if he did not kill me? Would he turn me into a vampire?”
“No,” Changmin scoffed.
“Will he recover if he doesn’t feed?”
“Of course. In a month or two.”
Zhou Mi pushed away from the door. “Then you can’t- I have to go down. If I can help him? You can’t stop-“
“I can stop you,” Changmin said, grabbing for Zhou Mi and gripping his collar. “You have no idea. If you go down there, you have no choice. He won’t ask you questions, and you can’t tell him no. He will recover with time. If you survive, you-“ And Changmin’s lips closed, biting off his words. “He would want you to have a choice. If you know anything about him, know that. I can’t.”
“You won’t. If I survive will it shorten my life?” And Changmin shook his head. “Would I be maimed, unable to survive on my own? Or would I recover and still able to work?”
“Most likely,” Changmin muttered. “But there is no guarantee. You have a son.”
Jinyong. If something happened to him, Jinyong would be alone.
“Kyuhyun would see that he was taken care of if I could not,” Zhou Mi said, and he could see he’d surprised Changmin. “In this, perhaps I know him better than you.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Especially if he believed your death was his fault,” Changmin said.
But those sorts of scare tactics could not phase him.
“Then the way I see it is that I have two choices,” Zhou Mi said, gripping Changmin’s arms and keeping him close. “I can choose to let him suffer, or I can choose to help. And it seems by what you say, me going down is dangerous to me, but it would help him. So you are giving me a choice. He is giving me a choice. And I choose him.”
Changmin’s eyebrows rose. “No matter the risk? You don’t even care if you live to see revenge carried out on the men who hurt you, hurt Kyuhyun and Jinyong.”
“In spite of the risk. There are people out there, people Kyuhyun helped me organize, fighting Euphoria every day.” Zhou Mi closed his eyes as another pained shout echoed up. “How can I walk away from him? He is…”
Zhou Mi rapped a fist against his own chest in a crude approximation of his own feelings. The emptiness he’d felt knowing Kyuhyun would no longer want to see him. Not even to talk, much less to feed, or hold. Those were things Changmin had told Zhou Mi himself.
Changmin was shaking his head at Zhou Mi, as though he were the slowest, lowest creature to function on the earth. “Perhaps I should’ve left a bit of the thrall in you. Maybe it would have made you make a better decision.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, unless Kyuhyun touched me.”
“I know. But maybe at least you’d have something to fear.”
Zhou Mi met Changmin’s eyes. “I do have something to fear. That he’s in pain. And that I can’t help.”
“Then you deserve each other.”
And it felt like a benediction.
***
Changmin stripped him of anything that could have been used to hurt him. Earrings that could be ripped from his ears, his glasses, his belt. All he had left were a thin pair of trousers, stripped even of his socks.
“If you think your life is in danger, call out for me. I’ll try to help. I doubt he will beat you, unless he is more delusional than I think. Your danger comes if he gluts himself. Too much blood, and there is nothing I can do to help you.”
“I understand. I’ll be cautious.”
But when he would have stepped forward, Changmin stopped him. “Promise me you understand. Promise me that no matter what happens, you will help him when he wakes. That you will make no rash decisions.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “I can promise you that.”
He would have promised almost anything if it got him to Kyuhyun quicker, but what Changmin asked him was not unusual. It did make him wonder what Changmin would expect, after Kyuhyun recovered. He’d half convinced himself that it was Changmin’s way of warning him not to accept another agreement with Kyuhyun, to not let Kyuhyun bite him again once he was safe.
Zhou Mi wasn’t sure he needed that warning. It was concern that had him standing until Changmin could unbar the door, and it was loyalty that had him grasping the wooden railing and padding down the stairs. He cared for Kyuhyun’s wellbeing, in the keening wails he’d heard from above. He heard mumbling, almost quiet chanting as he descended. His head dipped below ceiling level and he found Kyuhyun, crouched in a corner, rocking back and forth between walls with his eyes unfocused. But Zhou Mi kept his eyes on Kyuhyun, trying to see how he was. The room was illuminated, an electric light above their heads, and Zhou Mi was thankful for that. It would have been hard to imagine in the dark.
He’d nearly reached the bottom of the stairs when he jolted at a shout as Kyuhyun spotted him.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” Kyuhyun demanded, voice loud, almost frightened.
“It’s Zhou Mi,” he said, stepping out onto the hard packed dirt. “Kyuhyun, I’m here.”
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, vampire, smut, historical
Warnings: References to issues of consent (not in fic itself), fictional drug use
Summary: The streets of Zhou Mi's city are being contaminated with a new drug - Euphoria. Pure vampire blood, it causes a high unlike any other, but when the high fades, the nightmares begin. It is the spread of Euphoria that Zhou Mi fights, and in that fight he needs a partner to get him to places and people that only a vampire can.
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Epilogue
***
A/N: additional warnings for disturbing imagery in this chapter.
***
It was a fundraiser that he saw Zhou Mi at, for the first time after they had parted. A week just turning past almost to the second, from the moment Zhou Mi had left his house. Changmin had told him that there was no reason for him to go, and it was true. But vampires, he’d said, should show their support. Somehow he’d known that Changmin would insist on going with him. Some kind of bodyguard, a guarantee that if Kyuhyun were desperate that he wouldn’t try to proposition Zhou Mi, or something even more embarrassing.
Kyuhyun wondered how it would be. If there would be looks exchanged over the heads of people he cared nothing about, some hint of longing from Zhou Mi. Perhaps he missed being bitten, or the other delights found in Kyuhyun’s bed. Unless Zhou Mi was experiencing those with someone else, he knew he had to be. He was a man, and did not forget so lightly.
But he’d been in the room ten minutes, surreptitiously checking Zhou Mi’s position, before Zhou Mi spotted him. A polite nod was leveled his way, as Zhou Mi returned to speaking with patrons of the sanitarium. There was insipid music from a quartet in a corner, tables of finger food and drinks. He half wished a tumbler of alcohol would sooth the burning in his stomach.
“He seems to have moved on nicely,” Changmin murmured. And Kyuhyun resisted the urge to step on his foot.
But it was not by chance that Changmin moved closer to him, as Zhou Mi approached them. Solidarity, and warning both.
“Changmin, Kyuhyun. I’m glad you were able to make it.”
Zhou Mi very obviously did not extend a hand to Changmin, else he would have been obligated to extend one to Kyuhyun as well. That wouldn’t have done at all.
“I doubt we will be the entertainment of your party,” Changmin said. “Perhaps we should have worn red hats to distinguish ourselves from your human guests.”
“I know many people here would be interested in speaking with you,” Zhou Mi said. “I might not wish it on you, however.”
Kyuhyun only half swallowed the chuckle. “I’m sure Changmin will find someone with which to converse.”
“Of course. More people are arriving I should greet, but if there is anything else you need, the staff is here.” And Zhou Mi paused, drawing an envelope from the inside his crisp black jacket and looking to Kyuhyun. “I was commanded to give this to you. If you have a reply, you know where to forward it.”
The envelope was nondescript, so Kyuhyun had no true idea of what it could contain. But still he nodded, agreed.
“Thank you both for coming,” Zhou Mi said, and smiled at them both individually. It felt that he lingered longer at Kyuhyun, if only for a moment. He wasn’t sure what Zhou Mi saw. A vampire who couldn’t eat, a weakness that had been mutually created. He saw in Zhou Mi every inch the gracious gentleman and host, a careful reserve that he had not often shown.
It was a veneer that separated them, and voided any connection they might have had.
He’d watched Zhou Mi move around the room for half an hour already, and wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it. He wasn’t even sure what his body or mind was telling him. He could not drag Zhou Mi from the room and demand another contract, or demand that Zhou Mi tell him that his want was too great to be ignored. It was impossible even to stand there, as his mind blanked, too full of conversations he tried to replay, things he should have done. Too full of hunger.
“I find myself tired,” he said, hoping to find a way to leave.
And he more sensed than saw the sharp turn of Changmin’s head. “Tired. Are you eating? You told me you were trying.”
“I have been. I haven’t found someone yet to my taste.”
“Kyuhyun.” A hand grasped his arm hard, turning him. “We shouldn’t have come here. You cannot do this.”
“I’m not trying to. You know that. There is a human waiting for me at home. I will try again. Every day. Perhaps it would be easier away from that house.”
“I don’t think so.”
Changmin’s immediate dismissal rankled him.
“Maybe not. But if it happens, I am protected. We know what to expect. We’ve prepared for it. It won’t kill me.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about it at all. Damn it, Kyuhyun. If you’d just listened. If only I could show you Zhou Mi had found a new vampire to bargain with, maybe you’d see reason.”
“Has he?” Kyuhyun asked, his voice deceptively calm for the sickness that had twisted his stomach at the thought.
“No,” Changmin said, sullen. “He could not even do that for me.”
***
No, Zhou Mi could not have done that for Changmin. But when Kyuhyun sat in his library with the envelope Zhou Mi had given him, he did not know what to expect. He’d waited purposely until he was alone, though Changmin had sent stares at his coat where he’d tucked it. He’d known Changmin wondered what was in it. Some note hoping for a clandestine meeting, Changmin had probably imagined.
But it was not Zhou Mi’s elegant handwriting that he saw, but the scrawl of a child.
“Dear Mr. Cho (splotch)
I liked your cookie. There are books here. I like dogs.
(Illegible),
Jinyong”
The second page had no words at all, but the crude drawing of what Kyuhyun assumed to be a shark taking a bite from a massive cookie.
He laughed, feeling the tension drain from him. The letter had been perhaps to practice his writing, but the drawing was much more personal. It told him that Jinyong remembered that day, sitting with him and with Zhou Mi, and looking through books together. Simpler days.
But it also told him that Jinyong had sent his letter and picture to Zhou Mi, expecting that where Zhou Mi was, Kyuhyun would be as well. It took his delight, the fun of it, and squashed it flat. He would reply, of course. Jinyong deserved that. It would mean addressing an envelope and very polite letter to Zhou Mi, so that Zhou Mi could forward it along. Zhou Mi had been commanded to pass it along, he’d said. He could imagine.
Kyuhyun set the papers aside, and breathed deep. If he was strong enough to think those thoughts, they he would be strong enough to do what needed to be done.
So he opened his library door, addressed his servant, and waited until the woman who had been found for him to feed from entered. He nodded at the woman, nicely dressed. He could feel in his body some strange twist. Perhaps it was hunger, or perhaps something else. All he knew was that he had no choice but to eat. Changmin’s admonitions, a month and a half of them, swirled through his head. Zhou Mi was a threat. Zhou Mi was-
He’d sworn that wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. No matter what he had to do, he would make the change.
“How do you want me, sir?”
Kyuhyun wondered if he heard nervousness in her voice. He wondered if she were married, or engaged. Some highborn women enjoyed a bit of vampire fantasy, though without the danger. It was why they were in the library and not his bedroom.
“In the chair, the settee there is fine,” Kyuhyun said.
He could take her nerves away. She sat, very prim, waiting. And for some reason his mind went to Zhou Mi, the way he had stood so straight and proper to ask for Kyuhyun’s help.
Kyuhyun sat, slow and not too near so as not to alarm her. At the first touch of his hand, he could sense her relaxing. He encouraged that, until she looked at him and smiled.
“Have you done this before?”
“Several times, sir. My brother’s friend is a vampire, so he says vampires always need humans to feed from.”
“That’s true. It will not hurt, but you know that. And you will be fine. Just lean into me, yes like that.”
Her neck was supple, head angled up and away Perfect. A blank canvas in which to sink his teeth, unmarred by other marks.
Zhou Mi’s skin had borne the marks of past feedings, faint and healing fast, but not enough to escape Kyuhyun’s eyes. He could see where he had been, where he had fed.
Kyuhyun pressed his lips to her neck and tried to call down his teeth. He wondered if he could smell her blood, if-
He made the mistake of inhaling.
It was the faint scent of smoke, and some fragrance high and sweet. Vanilla or a flower essence.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi had said, humor in his voice and some damnable mystery in his eyes that even after a month he had not figured out.
Kyuhyun gagged.
He shoved himself up off of the settee and ran for his wastebasket. The feeling of sickness was strangling, forcing him to dry heave even as he gasped for air. He had nothing to vomit in him, no relief for his sickness.
“Sir? Are you all right?”
He hoped the sound he made was something like agreement. It sounded like more of a whine as he gripped the metal edge.
A glass of water was set down beside him. “In case you need it,” the woman told him.
He took a fortifying breath. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m not up to feed- To feed now. You may go.”
He retched again, and all vestiges of hunger, any illusions he had that he would find it, left with the woman. He had not given up, no. But he knew that the precautions he had to take in case he could not find a human he could bite could not be put off any longer.
***
“You are… You are the gentleman, yes? Sir. Mr. Zhou?”
Hat in hand, Zhou Mi paused on the path behind the sanitarium. He had only to round the corner to get to his horse, a long night’s work concluded after his fundraiser with his hands tired and back sore. He’d ridden over only to check and exult with Dr. Lee over the funds that had been promised, before going to a long night’s rest. It seemed that would be delayed. He did not recognize the man, but he had seen so many pass through.
“I am. May I help you?”
“I have a family member touched by the Euphoria. He’s in a wagon. I can’t pay. I heard you-“
“You do not need to pay here. If you have something to contribute, you can, but we turn no one away. If you would let me get a nurse, we can help your brother inside. The path here is wide, and you can drive your wagon here.”
“Bless you, sir. Please. Show me where I turn.”
Zhou Mi followed the man, concerned for how badly the man’s brother must be, at his relief.
But not stupid when he saw the wagon, the man holding the horses, and another at its bed.
There was no sick man there.
Zhou Mi spun and did not fall, racing back for the sanitarium entrance and the locks it held. With each step, his mind raced with him. There were no fighters there, but there was safety in numbers. He saw the light shining through the door. If they wished to rob him, or hold him for ransom, or-
A hard shove to his shoulder sent him sprawling, body scraping over the gravel. A foot on his back knocked the air from him and kept him from calling out.
He was pulled up, and he struck out, knuckles connecting with a face, and then groaning as his arms were pulled tight, painful, behind his back as he was half shoved, half carried to the wagon.
“Why are you doing this?” Zhou Mi gasped out as he was shoved against the wagon bed. “Money? I have money.”
“We want no money of yours. But your nose is liable to be lost, if you keep sticking it in places it should not go.”
“A little taste of your own medicine, Mr. Zhou,” a second man said. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Something hard was pressed against his lips. At first, he thought it would be water, that they meant to try and drown him, or poison him. But it was thicker, and the metallic taste as it flowed over his tongue had his eyes flying open. Blood.
No, not just blood. What the men had said finally made sense. Vampire blood. Euphoria. They were force-feeding him Euphoria.
His whole body convulsed as he gagged, feeling what he had involuntarily swallowed rise up his throat. But no matter how much he spit and choked, more flowed into his mouth until it was a choice of swallow or suffocate.
His vision began to blur, hands tingling as he sputtered. But even after they stopped pouring the blood into him, his head was held back so he couldn’t lean over and vomit.
“It’s a bigger dose than normal,” the man said, tucking a jar back into his coat. “We sell half what you spit out for more than you could imagine. But you’ll like it, I think. It’s blood that’s special to you.”
He was shoved into the back of the wagon, dropped there as his head spun. As the wagon began to move, he was sick for other reasons but the will was not in him to gag. The rattling of the wheels on hard ground shook him, undid him, as the Euphoria coursed through his body. If he could only get to Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun would know what to do. Dr. Lee. Changmin. Anyone. It was like liquid death, his heart racing and head spinning.
The worst was the the part of his mind still working, he knew it would not kill him. The terrors that came after the high and the feelings that others wanted for fun, and then needed more blood, and more, to keep those feelings and ward off the terrors - until there was not enough blood, or money, that could do it. He knew that. He feared it.
The wagon stopped, and Zhou Mi’s head rolled like a rag doll’s, until he was pulled by his legs until he half stood on trembling knees that could not keep his weight. Two men with their hands under his arms, dragged him up a set of steps. Even with his head spinning, he recognized them. Kyuhyun’s home. How ironic that they had brought him to the one place he’d wanted to be.
But with one man holding him down, covering his mouth, the other beat quick jabs into his ribs, into his gut, and then into his thigh with a foot.
“You both were trouble. Tell him hello from us, if you can,” the man at his head told him, and then pushed Zhou Mi’s skull hard into the stone.
The cold was overwhelming, the pain and dizziness from the blows. He opened his mouth to call for help, and only a tiny squeak emerged. His fingers flexed, the only vestige of movement as he thought of knocking upon the door to summon someone. The door could have been only a foot away, behind him, and might as well have been in another country.
Kyuhyun. He was so close. If they didn’t open the door, didn’t find him- The chill sank into his bones.
He stared at a pebble glistening with frost, until the darkness took him.
***
Kyuhyun locked himself in his library, ordering not to be disturbed, and he tried not to brood. He checked accounts, made out payments, and correspondence. For a while, he even tried to read, but the novel he selected held no interest for him. A ride might clear his mind, and he’d nearly decided upon it, when his ears pricked to a knock on the door, and commotion in the front hall.
Despite his order, and without any knock at all, a footman burst into the library.
Kyuhyun was on his feet, admonition almost on his lips, before the boy spoke.
“You must come quick, sir! It’s Mr. Zhou!”
The panic had him moving quickly, even as confusion washed over him. Why Zhou Mi would be there, causing such an uproar, he couldn’t know. He knew the staff had grown fond of Zhou Mi, but even an unexpected visit should not have caused a total breakdown of his orders. Zhou Mi should have been told he was not accepting visitors, and sent away.
“A passerby knocked on the door when they saw him. He was just lying on the front-“
Zhou Mi was pale, almost ashen, snow falling from his hair and clothes as Kyuhyun leaped forward to where he was being held up between two servants.
‘What happened?”
“I don’t know, sir. We found him on the stoop, sir. Just lying there. We don’t know for how long.”
Kyuhyun could see blood coming from Zhou Mi’s hairline, bruises on his face. His mouth looked ringed in blood, all over his chin and throat. But that wasn’t focus. It was the cold-pale skin that seemed half frozen against his hand, Zhou Mi barely stirring at the touch.
To the maid, he turned. “Have hot water taken to my bath immediately, as much as you can.” And to the footmen, “We’ll carry him up.”
It was quite obvious that Zhou Mi could not walk on his own. Zhou Mi was docile, but dead weight, and Kyuhyun got him over his shoulder, the footmen standing by to steady him if need be. Expediency was key. Whatever injuries Zhou Mi had, he needed to be warmed, quickly. The air outside was frigid, he knew that too well.
The bath was half full when Kyuhyun pushed through the door, the room a flurry of movement as maids brought up water by the bucket, steaming to be mixed with cool. Onto a stool, Zhou Mi was placed, and Kyuhyun undid the fine knot at Zhou Mi’s throat as fast as he was able - short of ripping or cutting it off. The clothes were stained with grass and dirt and blood, wet in places and cold. The skin of Zhou Mi’s chest was just as pale and cool and marked, with red blooming bruises as Kyuhyun steadied him as his trousers were stripped.
The bath was not yet full, but Kyuhyun couldn’t wait. He tested the water on his own skin, on one of the footmen as well, to make sure it wasn’t too hot. They could warm it further after he was in it. It would be painful enough, as warm as it was.
He took Zhou Mi’s torso, hefting Zhou Mi as the footmen helped, to lower him into the bath.
Zhou Mi arched, sound almost a keening pain as his body sank in the water. He was still mostly unconscious, but his body was moving of its own accord.
“Get back,” Kyuhyun told the footmen, supporting Zhou Mi himself. He didn’t want them to get kicked, or splashed, and he was the one Zhou Mi knew. If anyone could get Zhou Mi to calm, it was him. “Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi! Try to be still. We’re warming you up.”
The water was barely more than tepid, but far warmer than Zhou Mi’s skin.
“A cloth,” Kyuhyun demanded, and one was put into his hand. He ran the heated water over Zhou Mi’s face, shoulders, and chest. Each bucket of water that was added was warmed and mixed to his approval, until the water rose up Zhou Mi’s body. A bucket removed, and a warmer one added, warming the water, and Zhou Mi as well. A cloth, warmed at the heater, rested over the top of Zhou Mi’s head and over his ears.
And then the shakes began. Violent trembles as Zhou Mi’s body functioned, sought to warm itself.
“Another warm cloth,” Kyuhyun said, and changed the cloth on Zhou Mi’s head. Another warm bucket of water.
Warm, until Zhou Mi’s skin began to glow pink, instead of frozen white. Kyuhyun checked his fingers and toes for injury, but they were normal colored as well, warm as the rest of him.
“It looks like someone beat him, sir,” one of the footmen said, standing back in something like horror after he’d poured in the water.
It did. Bruises on Zhou Mi’s ribs, a scrape on his knees. The knuckles on his right hand were slightly swollen, skin broken, as though he’d fought back. He must have been attacked. There was no other explanation for it. How he had ended up at Kyuhyun’s home was a mystery. As warnings went, it made sense if they were still bound by contract. Those were answers only Zhou Mi could give, and he was still mostly unconscious.
It took three men to lift Zhou Mi safely, so he could be wrapped in robe and carried to Kyuhyun’s bed.
Kyuhyun warred with himself. They could call a doctor, but he did not know what good that would do. He had memories of his own chills as a child. All they could do was keep him warm, get something warm inside him, and hope.
“Zhou Mi,” Kyuhyun said, squeezing Zhou Mi’s shoulder. “Can you wake?”
It took almost a minute for Zhou Mi to truly rouse, his eyelids opening as though he were drunk, and eyes darting as though he were having trouble focusing.
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, his voice high and light.
“I’m here. Rest back for me.”
Zhou Mi murmured as Kyuhyun tucked his arm in, pulling the covers up to Zhou Mi’s shoulders. Odd how a man taller than Kyuhyun could seem so young and vulnerable. Like a child put to bed after a long day, and looking for approval. As long as Zhou Mi didn’t catch a fever, come down with something in his lungs, he’d undoubtedly recover. Right in Kyuhyun’s bed, until other arrangements could be made. Zhou Mi would likely not want to stay, given. And it would be dangerous to let him. Kyuhyun knew that. Temptation that ran too far. He needed a new human lined up, one he could bite. It made him jittery that he was looking at the man who was his reason for not having one yet.
“Who did this to you?” Kyuhyun asked, studying Zhou Mi’s face. It was possible that Zhou Mi was lucid enough to answer him. So Kyuhyun could start the wheels of justice.
“I don’t know. Kyuhyun.” Zhou Mi sighed, the sound almost ethereal, distant, unlike any sound Zhou Mi had ever made. “Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun reached for him, and Zhou Mi leaned into the hand against his cheek and smiled up at Kyuhyun. A smile of utter trust.
His pupils were wide, eyes glassy.
It wasn’t the beating, or the freezing weather. But cold slicked over Kyuhyun’s skin, chill and fear as Zhou Mi repeated his name again. Something he had never seen in Zhou Mi, had never expected to.
Zhou Mi was in thrall.
***
But it was not a normal thrall. It was the deepest thrall he had ever seen. Self preservation was normally forefront. He could not ask a human to slit their own throat, or throw themselves from a building. And the thrall did not induce them to do anything they were truly averse to - it was not a tool to relax, and coddle.
“Do you know what happened?”
Zhou Mi shook his head, grasping Kyuhyun’s hands to keep them on his face.
“Zhou Mi. How did you end up here?”
“Men. At the Sanitarium?” Zhou Mi hummed, nuzzling against Kyuhyun’s thumb. “Blood. They gave me blood.”
Just like Jinyong. There had been that warning. Horror swamped over him. Zhou Mi had been dosed with Euphoria. That had been the blood on his face, where he’d tried to spit it out, or else whoever had done it had very poor aim.
He left Zhou Mi there for only moments, finding the first servant he could to have them send for Changmin. Zhou Mi looked so normal there in his bed, until Kyuhyun touched him and he went pliant. It allowed him to get some warmed soup into Zhou Mi’s body.
“You’ll fight this,” Kyuhyun told him. “Jinyong is doing so much better. You’ll fight this, too.”
“Kyuhyun. I’m keeping your bed warm for you,” Zhou Mi whispered against his face.
“I know. Thank you. Rest. Sleep. Heal.”
He watched as Zhou Mi’s eyelids closed, the rise and fall of his chest. Maybe he’d dreamed of having Zhou Mi back in his bed, but it hadn’t been that way.
“You’re stronger than any vampire blood,” Kyuhyun whispered. “You’re stronger than me.”
He had no doubt that his struggles to eat were his and his alone. Zhou Mi would have gone back to his home, his bed, his food and friends without problem. It was why Changmin had warned him. He was the one in danger of opening part of himself, when Zhou Mi moved on. Zhou Mi would find a normal human, to have afternoon picnics and rides with. A human without any agreement, without anything held over him, who would help him willingly.
“Sir, Mr. Shim,” a servant said quietly.
Kyuhyun stood, careful not to jostle the bed as he went for the door. They wouldn’t speak where Zhou Mi could hear, and Changmin was waiting in the hallway.
“Zhou Mi is here?” Changmin asked, accusation in his voice.
“What do you want me to say? Yes, the human I was dallying with was brought to me, injured. Was I supposed to turn him away? He was beaten. And he’s in thrall so deeply, deeper than I have ever seen.”
“Perhaps he was angry for you casting him off.”
Kyuhyun laughed, the irony of it washing over him. “You saw how indifferently he treated me at that fundraiser. I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t serious. He did not beat himself. And he did not drink Euphoria of his own choosing.”
Changmin studied Kyuhyun’s face, but there was no joking in his words. “It’s an anomaly. A man who can sleep with you and know his own mind, and after be undone.”
“Yes. I suspect it has something to do with what we accomplished.”
“Kyuhyun?”
Kyuhyun turned, seeing Zhou Mi had gotten out of bed and was walking toward him. He stood still as Zhou Mi approached, and Zhou Mi’s head pressed against his shoulder.
“Kyuhyun.”
Changmin observed them, the way that Zhou Mi held Kyuhyun tight, stroked his face and kept him close.
“Kyuhyunloveyou.”
It was said all rushed together, so much so that Kyuhyun couldn’t even understand the words at first. But his eyes widened as Zhou Mi tried to hold him even closer.
“I knew of your feelings. You hadn’t told me he was in love with you,” Changmin accused.
“It is the thrall,” Kyuhyun said, pushing Zhou Mi back, gently.
“The thrall can do many things. But it can’t induce emotions like this.”
Kyuhyun closed his eyes as Zhou Mi pressed his face into Kyuhyun’s neck. “Then it’s the Euphoria itself, some hallucination. This is no thrall I’ve seen. This isn’t normal for him.”
It took little urging for Zhou Mi to follow him, Zhou Mi looking at him as though he were some sort of deity. He was so wound up in the effects of the Euphoria, as evidenced by his insistence even though weak and injured, as though nothing could hurt him. But when Kyuhyun touched him, it made him ill to see Zhou Mi’s reaction.
He stayed still, close, watching as Changmin sat on the bed beside Zhou Mi.
“You told Kyuhyun you were attacked?”
“Mm,” Zhou Mi agreed. “They gave me Euph…phor? Phoria. Euph. Phoria.” Zhou Mi laughed a little to himself, and looked up at Kyuhyun with concern. “They shouldn’t have?”
That Zhou Mi asked, as though he didn’t know made Kyuhyun’s jaw tighten. Zhou Mi was the one who was passionate, who knew everything there was about the evils that drinking vampire blood caused. It had been horrible to see Jinyong affected by the Euphoria and Kyuhyun’s connection to him had been peripheral at best. Zhou Mi, however, was something different entirely. He’d come to know many expressions on Zhou Mi’s face, his pride and dedication, and the person he saw in his bed was not the man he knew.
Nor did Zhou Mi react to Changmin’s touch as he did to Kyuhyun’s. There was a deepening of his pliancy, but he did not fall so deeply into the thrall.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Here, touch him again.”
Kyuhyun did as Changmin asked, taking Zhou Mi’s hand. The effect was instantaneous, Zhou Mi’s face raising.
“Kyuhyun.”
“Smile,” he told Zhou Mi, and got the silly look of adoration that Zhou Mi had shown him to begin with. “No. Smile for me, damn it.”
“He is smiling, Kyuhyun,” Changmin told, him, his hand on Kyuhyun’s arm.
“No. That’s not the way he smiles at me.”
It was different. The lopsided curl of his lips, the tease in his eyes. It was warmth, like a sunbeam on cold skin. Or on a cold soul. So genuine and perfect, it had made Kyuhyun’s fingers curl. The expression on Zhou Mi’s face right then was sincere, pleasant. But it wasn’t the same.
“Kyuhyun.”
“We have to fix him.”
“We will. He seems to be reacting to your presence as well as your touch. I’d imagine the only way he could be helped, would be like the others. A vampire can fix this. And it must be done quickly, too.”
Kyuhyun’s mouth thinned. The others had been bitten.
“But why so strongly to me? It can’t be because of any imagined feelings.”
“What if he was fed your blood?” Changmin wondered. “Zhou Mi, did they tell you whose blood they gave you?”
Zhou Mi shook his head, and disappointment shuddered through Kyuhyun. If they knew that, he wasn’t sure what they would be able to do with the information. But for his own knowledge, he wanted to know. Suspicions weren’t enough.
A squeeze to his hand had Kyuhyun looking down, and then meeting Zhou Mi’s eyes. “They said it was very special to me.”
Or perhaps he didn’t want to know.
“Fuck,” he whispered, letting go of Zhou Mi’s hand. “Then it was mine?”
“That’s what makes sense. Have you bitten him since he arrived? Kyuhyun, answer me.”
His hesitation was normal, he thought. They were only supposed to have had a month. Biting again after that time was highly inadvisable, encouraging a trend, something close to addiction.
“I nearly did. Not to feed, but to check,” he said, as though that made much difference.
Changmin looked at Kyuhyun with such a lack of patience. “I would think your bite is too close, so you could not help him anyway. Though if you had, I would have felt more relieved if you had bitten him only to feed. But that is a path that is a dangerous one.”
“It’s why you are here.”
“Then why did you look so angry at the thought of other vampires biting him?”
“Let a hundred vampires bite him!” Kyuhyun shot back, pacing away before whirling back. “Don’t look at me like that. I know what needs to be done. If I hadn’t, I would have gotten you. I could’ve kept him here as my little love slave until it drove him insane.”
“But he wouldn’t have been the man you wanted,” Changmin said, almost a little too smug.
No, the Zhou Mi who stared up at him then with soft and longing eyes was not the man he knew. The outward appearance was not so changed, but the give to Kyuhyun, the urge to be near, the lack of an emotional filter were very much different. Had it been Zhou Mi of a week previous standing in front of him, declaring his love and begging to stay, he couldn’t say what his stomach or his knees would have done in response. Much less his-
His heart. Because he had one, against all his better judgements.
***
Zhou Mi was able to walk down the stairs, supported by both of them. It was a bit like guiding a drunken cow, however, because Zhou Mi was so very pliant and eager and still hurt. He’d caught sight of the bruising on Zhou Mi’s chest and thighs again as they were wrapping him tight in trousers and double robes so he would stay warm. He didn’t think that Zhou Mi would appreciate the reference, but it was the truth for right then.
Kyuhyun wasn’t even sure what his plans were, as they helped Zhou Mi climb into the carriage. Rather than ask why, he just went, guided until he was sitting, stable. He could go with Changmin, Kyuhyun reasoned. Get Zhou Mi settled and then return. Zhou Mi would be calmer then, perhaps.
And then Changmin held him back.
“Stay here.”
“Changmin-“
“I’ll care for him. You know I will. If I need your thrall to calm him, I’ll send for you, but he is not deep in the Euphoria’s aftereffects.”
Kyuhyun frowned, but it urged him to say what he had begun to suspect. “I wonder if he resists some of that, like he does the thrall usually. If this deep thrall is his way of fighting it.”
“Perhaps. But he is not your concern now. He sent away Jinyong because it was best. Now it’s your turn.”
“If I were Zhou Mi, I’d say every human was my concern,” Kyuhyun muttered.
Changmin laughed, squeezing and shaking Kyuhyun’s shoulder. “But you’re not.”
“Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi called.
“I’ll say goodbye to him at least,” Kyuhyun said, and did not wait for Changmin’s approval. He got there before Zhou Mi could think about climbing out and back into the cold. He took Zhou Mi’s hand, leaning into the carriage.
“You need to go with Changmin now, so he can help you. You don’t have to be afraid. Changmin isn’t going to hurt you.” Besides the biting. But at least he knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Zhou Mi’s condition wouldn’t be taken advantage of.
“But I will see you,” Zhou Mi insisted.
“You will,” he said, not knowing how to deny it. But that was one thing he didn’t believe. “So behave.”
Zhou Mi urged him closer, eyes soft. “I will. I miss you. I love you, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes closed as Zhou Mi kissed him. He could’ve pushed Zhou Mi back, avoided it. The truth was he wanted it. Rationalized it as a goodbye. Rationalized that Zhou Mi needed it to calm himself. And he lost himself to it, as Zhou Mi sighed against his mouth, a rolling kiss where they never parted.
“Kyuhyun.”
Of course it was his name that Changmin called, and not Zhou Mi’s to make sure that they were going to be able to leave. It meant pulling away his face, and watching Zhou Mi’s eyes slowly open. To back away, and close the carriage door after Changmin.
The panic that shot through Zhou Mi’s eyes as the carriage rolled away stayed with him for long after.
***
They brought him a woman, a different one, only an hour after Zhou Mi had gone with Changmin. Kyuhyun was the one to suggest it. It was the worst time, but perhaps it was also the best time, when he was so determined, when his mind could not get in the way of feeding.
She was a prostitute, found as quickly as possible since the daylight hours were not far away.
“Thank you for coming,” he told her, standing and feeling his balance give slightly.
“Anything you pay for, sir.”
He stepped close, noting how small she was, a head shorter than him. Though Kyuhyun did not age, she looked older than him by at least ten years. He wondered how old she truly was.
He saw the sadness in her eyes , and sent her away with payment in full.
Changmin sent him a note the next night, that Zhou Mi was resting and healing. Changmin had bitten him, perhaps multiple times to start his body toward mending the damage the Euphoria had done. Kyuhyun did not like to contemplate it.
Nor any of the days after when Changmin thought to send him updates. The terrors had begun. Zhou Mi was sick. Zhou Mi had been sedated. He thought Changmin sent updates because he knew if he did not that Kyuhyun would be on his doorstep.
The hunger was weak, as his staff tried to persuade him. It made him ill, almost physically ill again, to think of biting a human. Male, female. No matter how pleasing aesthetically. They were pliant and full of thrall, and he thought of Zhou Mi so trusting, smiling at him with his eyes catching the light. The sweet smile he gave to Kyuhyun alone and the way those hands, broad palms, would catch the back of his head and hold him as he fed. Not because he feared, but because he wanted Kyuhyun at his neck, in his body. Kyuhyun made a strangled sound, shaking his head to rid himself of the images. No matter what Zhou Mi wanted, no matter what either of them wanted, they could not have it.
He would find his appetite, one way or another. Even if it meant leaving the city to do it. A change of scenery, a place where memories of Zhou Mi’s laughter were not. Some pretty village maid, or a farmer’s son with strong arms. Perhaps after Zhou Mi had recovered, when there was no danger left.
He thought of Zhou Mi’s hands against his face, mouth pressing gently to his, and shuddered. And alone in his chair, lifted his face for a kiss that was only in his mind.
***
Blood. There was so much blood in his dreams. Zhou Mi ran, as rabid dogs bit at him, dragged him down. He ran more, until he could not breathe - waking and choking and pleading for help.
He dreamed, Kyuhyun above him, face half in shadow. It was a moment of comfort, such familiar weight that he wanted to reach and hold. Then he opened his mouth and tasted the first drop of blood. He startled, watching as tears ran red down Kyuhyun’s face, dropping onto his skin. Kyuhyun’s lips parted and blood pulsed from it, sheets falling onto Zhou Mi’s neck. It was his blood. His blood from Kyuhyun, but he didn’t want it back-
He screamed as his skin went wet, Kyuhyun dissolving - drowning him, bathing him. It smelled of blood and death, and he knew that just as Kyuhyun was dying right in front of him, Zhou Mi would die with him.
He clawed at his own skin to get it off, to let him breathe, to save Kyuhyun-
People shouted at him, holding him down.
“Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun,” he sobbed.
“Kyuhyun is fine,” a familiar voice told him. “Rest.”
He felt a pain on his arm, teeth. A calm swept him, and the darkness rolled over him.
***
Zhou Mi woke to an unfamiliar ceiling, nightmares clinging to the edges of his mind. Fire and blood. He flexed his fingertips, the only part of him that seemed not to hurt. In trying to clear his throat, what came out was a cross between a gurgle and a moan.
“Mr. Zhou? Oh, you’re awake. Wait one moment,” a pleasant female voice said.
He wasn’t sure what else he could do but wait. His mouth felt full of cotton, and swallowing make him nearly choke.
“Sorry, sir,” the woman said a moment later. “Here.”
Something wet and sweet and tasting faintly of lemon passed his lips from a spoon. It soothed him, but only partly.
“More,” he croaked, and would have drank until there was nothing left as spoon after spoon of liquid slid down his throat.
“Not too much, so he won’t be sick.” Zhou Mi sighed at the cool hand against his face. Calm settled him for a moment. Changmin. “The Euphoria is not yet gone from you. Rest more.”
He did not want to. The smell of ash haunted him, fear of strangling on his own blood. There had been something in what he drank, he thought, as the room seemed to spin. His eyelids lowered, as Changmin smoothed back his hair.
He dreamed of the bite - bitten on his arms and chest and neck. Kyuhyun watched from a corner, seated and comfortable.
Zhou Mi wept, begging for his help.
“Please don’t let them kill me. Make them stop biting me! Kyuhyun!”
His face was wet with tears that felt like fire as he slept, and dreamed of death.
***
When Zhou Mi woke again, broth wet his mouth and throat. A woman he had never seen before smiled at him.
“You are safe, sir,” she assured him.
The walls did not twist in front of his eyes, or ooze with blood, so his head relaxed into her hand. As he swallowed, he had questions, ones he could not put to words as he flexed his hands and his ankles.
“You’re awake again.”
Changmin entered Zhou Mi’s line of sight, looming over the bed as the woman let Zhou Mi’s head relax and moved so Changmin could sit next to him.
“Kyuhyun?”
“No. It’s Changmin
At least at that, Zhou Mi smiled, his face feeling frozen. And though he had to clear his throat, voice rusty, he spoke. “Yes, I know it’s you. Is Kyuhyun here?”
“No. He has asked after you, though. I’ve told him you are doing well.”
“This is your home.”
“Yes, it is. This is the room Jinyong stayed in as he was recovering.”
“You rescued both of us,” Zhou Mi said, hoping it sounded like a jest, but it came out more like a whisper. “How long have I been here?”
“Nearly two weeks. The nightmares started as you began to crave more blood,” Changmin said. “Your friend, Dr. Lee, drugged you deeply, and I fed from you as much as I dared to rid your system of it.”
“I feel so weak.”
“You were being fed broth, but you should be strong enough. I’ll have food brought up to you, if you are able to keep this down.”
And Zhou Mi had a terrible thought. “Is there any Euphoria left in me?”
“No. You were so deep in nightmares, I bit you longer than I did Jinyong, to make sure you were free of it. But you had more Euphoria in your blood than he did. I haven’t bitten you for several days. You were clean.”
Some of the sick fear in him relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said, and Changmin nodded. As much of an answer as he would get. “I’ll have more of the broth now.”
Changmin left him with the woman again, to feed, and to rest.
***
Zhou Mi slept again, woke, and tried to remember. He remembered the taste of the blood, of being dumped at Kyuhyun’s door. He remembered pain. Sickness, dizziness and nightmares. He was propped up in the bed, having just eaten, and full of questions.
“Kyuhyun found me.”
Changmin nodded. “His servants did, yes. You had nearly frozen to death, high on the Euphoria. You’d been beaten. You also had a nasty head cold for the first week, probably from being outside so long. You’re lucky to be alive and talking. Dr. Lee was afraid it would move into your lungs.”
Dr. Lee had been to see him. He only vaguely remembered that. But Dr. Lee he could find as soon as he was well enough. It was Kyuhyun where his concern was.
“Will Kyuhyun come here?”
“No, that is not advisable.”
“I remember him caring for me. He helped me into your carriage. He kissed me.”
“Or you kissed him,” Changmin said, staring at the wall instead of at Zhou Mi. “He has a kind heart, and you were quite clearly suffering.”
“He does not seem the type to be afraid-“
“You are a good man,” Changmin interrupted him. “It is safer for him this way. I respect what you are trying to do, that what you are doing is helping both vampires and humans. But Kyuhyun is beyond your reach, even as a friend.”
“You never explained why.”
“I’m sorry I cannot. I suspect in a few days you will be strong enough to move to your own home, and your own staff will be able to look after you since I taste no more vampire blood in you.”
“And it could take weeks to fully recover,” Zhou Mi said, resigned.
Perhaps longer. Most of his worry then was that he didn’t know how recovered he could get. If there were impairments, he could deal with them. His mind was the one thing he wanted most. He recited details of his life to himself, calculated simple mathematics, mapped portions of the city in his head. It seemed the Euphoria had not taken that from him. But it had left him with an un-waning tiredness. He woke to eat and relieve himself, to speak to a servant or answer Changmin’s questions of how he felt, and then he slept again.
He still had night terrors, nightmares. But they lessened, and followed him less into his waking moments.
But Changmin’s predictions were right. In two days, he was well enough to walk short distances with assistance, which allowed him to go to his own home. On the way, they passed the street he took to go to Kyuhyun’s home. It took all his strength, and all the strength he still had yet to gain back, to keep from ordering the carriage to turn and take him there.
***
Kyuhyun’s eyes were so heavy. He was so hungry. He hadn’t been able to focus for a day, maybe two if he was honest. Three. All he did was sit at his desk and stare at blank paper. If he picked up a pen, his hand shook. It took effort to climb the stairs to sleep, as though the sun was dragging him down. Even the thought of another human coming to try to feed from sent panic through him. Cold shivered through him as he remembered the bruises on Zhou Mi’s skin.
He wondered how close he’d come to losing Zhou Mi that night. A kick in another place, a blow to the head.
He wasn’t Kyuhyun’s to lose. That was said in Changmin’s voice, of course.
“Kyuhyun.”
“Hmm?” Zhou Mi’s face floated in front of him. “Oh. It’s you.”
“I’m waiting for you to bite me. Come to bed, Kyuhyun.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said, pushing up out of his chair. “What took you so long?”
“I was always here. Come find me. I want you.”
His eyes frantically took in the breadth of Zhou Mi’s shoulders as he walked toward him. “I want you. I can’t bite anyone else. You have to help me. I’ll give you anything.”
Kyuhyun tripped over a footstool, going down hard on his knees. He hissed at the sting, scrambling to his feet.
“Zhou Mi!”
But no one was there.
He raced for the hallway, nearly running into a footman.
“Zhou Mi. Where did he go?”
“Sir?”
“Zhou Mi was just here. You must have seen him. He just came out of the library.”
“No, sir. No one has been here all night. I’d have heard the door. Sir, are you all right?”
“Of course. He must have slipped in the servant’s entrance. I have to go to him. Have someone saddle my horse. He’ll be going home. I can’t delay, so-“
“Sir. No one has been here. Not by any entrance.”
“But I just saw him in the library.”
Another footman came up beside him. “No, sir. Mr. Zhou hasn’t been here since he left with Mr. Shim.”
“But I saw him. I saw him.” Kyuhyun faltered, feeling his head spin as another thought struck him. “Changmin told you to tell me that, didn’t he? He’s trying to keep us apart.”
“No, sir. Please, come sit, sir.”
He followed them, because he felt like he would fall otherwise. He’d seen Zhou Mi, he knew he had. Maybe if he sat still, and everyone left, Zhou Mi would come back. He was just hiding. It would be secret, just between them.
“Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun opened his eyes, but it was not the man he had hoped. Changmin.
“Zhou Mi?”
“At his home. Probably asleep.”
“Why are you here?”
“Your servants sent for me. Said you were acting strangely. Has it begun?”
Kyuhyun rested his head back. Maybe that was the explanation. Then Zhou Mi had never been there. It had been his mind playing tricks on him from the hunger, and the need.
“I thought I saw him,” Kyuhyun said.
“I know. I’m sorry. I think it’s time, before you think you see him again and ride off and get lost in the city calling for him.”
Kyuhyun snorted. “How pitiful would that be? I must have scared them.”
“A little,” Changmin agreed. “Let’s go then. I know everything I need to to keep your house running, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“Good.”
“Are you ready, then?”
Kyuhyun nodded, standing with the support of Changmin’s arm. “I’m ready.”
***
Into the basement of his home had been built a partition, accessed from a hidden staircase behind the library. Besides the stairs, it was empty but for a mattress on the floor, and a light overhead. There were no windows, nothing breakable that Kyuhyun would be able to hurt himself on. The door was reinforced so that while locked, no one could get out.
It was a precaution, and it was a necessity. A vampire that went too long without blood was a danger to himself and to others. It was the blood frenzy, when the body began to shut down, to try and regain control of itself. There were only two ways the blood frenzy ended. One was with patience, waiting for the raging need in the body to pass, until the vampire was too weak to fight it. It was in that time of weakness that another human might be substituted, letting the body adjust to feeding again.
The only other way was for the vampire to bite the last human they had bitten. It became fascination, obsession. And it was no simple bite. The human bitten in the blood frenzy was in danger from the vampire because of that loss of control. And it was not so much the danger, but the knowledge that the human had to know why the vampire was in such a state.
Kyuhyun pictured Zhou Mi there, seeing him horrible in need. Need in so many ways. Begging him to stay.
“Promise me you will not send for him,” Kyuhyun said, grasping Changmin’s shirt. “No matter how bad it gets for me down there, promise me you will not send for him.”
Changmin squeezed his elbows. “I promise.”
Of course. He should not have worried. Changmin had tried to protect him to begin with. If he’d listened to Changmin, he wouldn’t be on the edge of tipping into losing control.
There was nothing to do but wait. So he waited. Hungered. The hallucination of Zhou Mi did not come again, but he also didn’t invite it.
“I can’t bite him. I don’t need him. I don’t need. Don’t need.”
He repeated those words, and he paced, and he slept as the sun rose.
And when it set, he heard footsteps. Changmin. And with him…
Kyuhyun saw the man and stood, trembling. “Zhou Mi?”
“If you bite him, maybe you can head off the frenzy,” Changmin said.
Of course. Biting Zhou Mi was the only thing he’d wanted for weeks.
But the neck was wrong. It was a thin neck, not solid as Zhou Mi’s was. The curve was off. No mark at his shoulder. The face was wrong, blurring in his mind until the features resembled nothing like Zhou Mi.
“He’s only pretending!” Kyuhyun accused, reaching for the man’s neck until Changmin pushed him back.
“Kyuhyun. He’s human. You can feed from him even if he isn’t Zhou Mi.”
“But he’s not Zhou Mi.”
“Leave,” Changmin told the man, and turned back to Kyuhyun. “I know his feelings for you. What are yours?”
“I’m so hungry. He has a son now. No need for me.”
“You would have kept Zhou Mi?”
To keep. To own. To save. To bite.
Kyuhyun looked up at Changmin. “Where is he? He should be home by now. He loves me.”
Changmin looked so severe, that Kyuhyun worried. Perhaps Zhou Mi was ill again. Or- “He'd have stayed if you asked. Did I force you to this? Are you in love with him?”
In love with Zhou Mi.
“Where is he?” Kyuhyun repeated.
***
It was a piece of mail that sent Zhou Mi into action. That was what had him pounding on Kyuhyun’s door not long after the sun went down with a letter in his hand.
Kyuhyun’s staff was prompt, and there was still that moment of recognizing each other, the footman almost taking a step back to admit Zhou Mi, until he realized that Zhou Mi was no longer an immediate guest.
“Is Kyuhyun at home?”
The man paused. “He is. But he’s not seeing any visitors. Sir!”
“I got a letter on his letterhead informing me of vampire activities,” Zhou Mi said, hating that he had to all but force his way into the house. “But it was not in his handwriting, even though it was signed with his name. Where is he?”
Zhou Mi went to the library first, intent to see if he was being told the truth and Kyuhyun was at home. The letter was too strange, too odd an occurrence from a man who had not let even Zhou Mi touch his letterhead without his permission. Even then, Kyuhyun had always signed it himself.
Though he stopped, just past the doorway, when he saw Kyuhyun’s desk.
And Changmin sitting behind it.
“Were you invited in?” Changmin asked, his voice bland since he had to have heard the entire exchange.
“Where is Kyuhyun? Why- What’s going on? You wrote this letter?”
Something was terribly wrong, that was for certain. Scanning the room for signs that something was off yielded no clues, except for the obvious fact that Changmin was there, and Kyuhyun was not.
“Where Kyuhyun is is not your concern. And I did write that letter. No, I haven’t become Kyuhyun’s secretary, though I’ll let him do his own correspondence if it brings people irate to the door every time.”
“I’m not irate. I’m concerned. When a note arrives not in his handwriting, it is not too strange to wonder. I was told he was at home.”
“He is,” Changmin said. “But it is time for you to leave.”
“Not until you tell me what is wrong!”
“You do not belong here,” Changmin said, his voice very soft as he got close. Though if he’d intended to intimidate, he’d lost his ability after saving Zhou Mi’s life.
“I want to see Kyuhyun.”
“You can’t-“
Zhou Mi’s hand darted out, stopping Changmin’s words with a hand against his chest. He’d heard a shout, almost a bellow, like that of a man in pain. It had been quiet, not in the room, but close.
“What was that? Is that Kyuhyun?”
“You need to go.”
“I will not! Kyuhyun! Kyuhyun, answer me!” he shouted, pivoting back into the hall and down along the stairs. It had sounded like it had come from below them, not above.
But again, Changmin stopped him, yanking on his arm to the point of pain. “Stop. Stop this.”
“Was that Kyuhyun? It was. What aren’t you telling me? He’s a vampire. He doesn’t get ill.”
For a long moment, they glared at each other and Zhou Mi wondered if he would be able to find out more before Changmin and him forcibly thrown out. All of it was too strange, too frightening especially after all of his dreams of Kyuhyun dissolving in front of him. But Changmin’s scowl turned, and he looked away.
“He is ill. Follow me,” Changmin said, and led Zhou Mi to a barred door. “He is below us, locked in his basement until he recovers. It was not for you to know. It is not your concern.”
“Who is caring for him?” Zhou Mi asked, touching the door. He assumed Changmin, but then again, he could have been assuming very wrong.
“No one. It is not one of your human diseases where he must be coddled every moment. His illness will run its course.”
“But he is being fed.”
Changmin shook his head. “No. He will not feed until he recovers, either. It is a feeding disease. The Kyuhyun below is not the Kyuhyun you know. He’s in what we call a blood frenzy. He hasn’t eaten in weeks, and his body has to recover from it.”
Zhou Mi winced, pressing his hand against the boards as a ringing shriek sounded from below. “I don’t understand. Why he did not eat?”
“There is something very sacred among vampires. We call it ‘the stare of the soul.’ And Kyuhyun spent a month looking into yours.”
If Changmin had meant to enlighten him, he’d failed. Instead, he was even more confused.
“I don’t- Does he want to eat from me again?”
“You could say that. Or you could say, he won’t, can’t, eat from anyone else until his body has purged itself of your blood. He would have strangled a man I took down for him, had I not been there. Because he wasn’t you.”
Kyuhyun had not eaten since they had parted, was what Changmin seemed to be telling him. That was confusing enough, without the shouts from below. Every time the thought of Kyuhyun eating from someone else, taking someone else to his bed, Zhou Mi had put it from his mind with a flinch. It had not been a visual he had wanted.
“He is usually louder when he first wakes after the sun recedes. He will quiet soon. He would not want you to listen to him like this.”
Even if he could not hear it, did not mean he would not imagine it. Though the voice was without words, there was true pain in it. Zhou Mi could not even imagine the circumstances that had led Kyuhyun to that. To be locked in his own home, unable to eat. To have not eaten for weeks. It was worse than he could have imagined.
“If it is a feeding disease, is there something I can do? Perhaps he could feed from me. Bleed me, give him something.”
“I can’t let you go down. Are you even yet fully recovered from the Euphoria? There are things you don’t understand. Things I can’t tell you. If I let you down there, he could kill you. Maybe not with intent, but he could. If not with his teeth, then with his fists. Have you seen a ravenous dog on a carcass? You would fare no better. And he would sooner paint his body with blood if I sent it down in a vial. It’s not just your blood he wants.”
“My body? You said blood frenzy, not lust.”
Changmin shook his head.
“Then what! Tell me! Damn it, Changmin. I can’t make a decision if you’re being coy. What’s so horrible and secretive that he could do to me, if he did not kill me? Would he turn me into a vampire?”
“No,” Changmin scoffed.
“Will he recover if he doesn’t feed?”
“Of course. In a month or two.”
Zhou Mi pushed away from the door. “Then you can’t- I have to go down. If I can help him? You can’t stop-“
“I can stop you,” Changmin said, grabbing for Zhou Mi and gripping his collar. “You have no idea. If you go down there, you have no choice. He won’t ask you questions, and you can’t tell him no. He will recover with time. If you survive, you-“ And Changmin’s lips closed, biting off his words. “He would want you to have a choice. If you know anything about him, know that. I can’t.”
“You won’t. If I survive will it shorten my life?” And Changmin shook his head. “Would I be maimed, unable to survive on my own? Or would I recover and still able to work?”
“Most likely,” Changmin muttered. “But there is no guarantee. You have a son.”
Jinyong. If something happened to him, Jinyong would be alone.
“Kyuhyun would see that he was taken care of if I could not,” Zhou Mi said, and he could see he’d surprised Changmin. “In this, perhaps I know him better than you.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Especially if he believed your death was his fault,” Changmin said.
But those sorts of scare tactics could not phase him.
“Then the way I see it is that I have two choices,” Zhou Mi said, gripping Changmin’s arms and keeping him close. “I can choose to let him suffer, or I can choose to help. And it seems by what you say, me going down is dangerous to me, but it would help him. So you are giving me a choice. He is giving me a choice. And I choose him.”
Changmin’s eyebrows rose. “No matter the risk? You don’t even care if you live to see revenge carried out on the men who hurt you, hurt Kyuhyun and Jinyong.”
“In spite of the risk. There are people out there, people Kyuhyun helped me organize, fighting Euphoria every day.” Zhou Mi closed his eyes as another pained shout echoed up. “How can I walk away from him? He is…”
Zhou Mi rapped a fist against his own chest in a crude approximation of his own feelings. The emptiness he’d felt knowing Kyuhyun would no longer want to see him. Not even to talk, much less to feed, or hold. Those were things Changmin had told Zhou Mi himself.
Changmin was shaking his head at Zhou Mi, as though he were the slowest, lowest creature to function on the earth. “Perhaps I should’ve left a bit of the thrall in you. Maybe it would have made you make a better decision.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, unless Kyuhyun touched me.”
“I know. But maybe at least you’d have something to fear.”
Zhou Mi met Changmin’s eyes. “I do have something to fear. That he’s in pain. And that I can’t help.”
“Then you deserve each other.”
And it felt like a benediction.
***
Changmin stripped him of anything that could have been used to hurt him. Earrings that could be ripped from his ears, his glasses, his belt. All he had left were a thin pair of trousers, stripped even of his socks.
“If you think your life is in danger, call out for me. I’ll try to help. I doubt he will beat you, unless he is more delusional than I think. Your danger comes if he gluts himself. Too much blood, and there is nothing I can do to help you.”
“I understand. I’ll be cautious.”
But when he would have stepped forward, Changmin stopped him. “Promise me you understand. Promise me that no matter what happens, you will help him when he wakes. That you will make no rash decisions.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “I can promise you that.”
He would have promised almost anything if it got him to Kyuhyun quicker, but what Changmin asked him was not unusual. It did make him wonder what Changmin would expect, after Kyuhyun recovered. He’d half convinced himself that it was Changmin’s way of warning him not to accept another agreement with Kyuhyun, to not let Kyuhyun bite him again once he was safe.
Zhou Mi wasn’t sure he needed that warning. It was concern that had him standing until Changmin could unbar the door, and it was loyalty that had him grasping the wooden railing and padding down the stairs. He cared for Kyuhyun’s wellbeing, in the keening wails he’d heard from above. He heard mumbling, almost quiet chanting as he descended. His head dipped below ceiling level and he found Kyuhyun, crouched in a corner, rocking back and forth between walls with his eyes unfocused. But Zhou Mi kept his eyes on Kyuhyun, trying to see how he was. The room was illuminated, an electric light above their heads, and Zhou Mi was thankful for that. It would have been hard to imagine in the dark.
He’d nearly reached the bottom of the stairs when he jolted at a shout as Kyuhyun spotted him.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” Kyuhyun demanded, voice loud, almost frightened.
“It’s Zhou Mi,” he said, stepping out onto the hard packed dirt. “Kyuhyun, I’m here.”
***