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"There is a wolf on the roads," a boy gossiped when Akashi passed, his bright red coat a pool around him where he kneeled on the floor by the fire to stoke it high and chase the chill from the stone around them. "I heard the huntsman say it so."
Akashi paused, his body hidden by the shadow of a late winter's eve. He had sharp ears to hear them with.
"Nonsense," another said, and he knew this voice, regal and smooth, speaking of sureties and facts, contradicted by an encyclopedic knowledge of myth and legend. "Wolves travel in packs. If we had a lone wolf on the roads, he would have passed on by now. There's no game here in winter when the huntsman catches every rabbit fool enough to venture from its burrow."
His hands waved impatiently, as if he could dismiss the rumour by waving it away. His face turned to an annoyed huff when the chatter of boys bored of living in the country (with little for gossip save for which tutor was favouring who) returned as if never interrupted.
"If we must travel, the huntsman says to stay on the roads, where the torches are lit," the first continued on, finally sparking flame in the hearth to bring the fire back to life, piling logs on it as quickly as possible. If the fire burned hot enough, there would be coals enough to fill the pans to heat all of their beds when they finally sought them out. He was a smart boy, not only for his thinking, but for his advice. "A wolf will hunt by dark, and give chase when prey runs."
"Nonsense," Midorima muttered again, and retrieved his book to ignore them more fully. Folk-tales from lands far from theirs. He would have been smarter to find something closer to home. Ah, well, all for better for Akashi. He gave them a moment, and righted his own clothes, making sure no mortar was catching on his own black jacket.
"Boys," he said, almost grinned, and watched their attention snap to him. "Time to snuff your candles and seek your beds."
Warily, Midorima eyed his teeth. Vaguely, his fresh, clean scent took on a tinge of fear, a tinge of desire. Exquisite.
-
"Someone will have to go after him!" he heard a week later, the raised voice catching his attention. The howling of a lone wolf had settled a cloak of anxious silence over the boarding school over the past few days, rumours flying of wolves, and werewolves, and the many guises they came under. The sound of a book closing, slamming on a table was even more startling than the sound of yelling, the sound of fabric chasing it. When he stepped forward, he almost collided with Midorima. It put Akashi at his neck, where it was covered by a hastily tied cravat. The tips of it brushed at the top button of Midorima's deep red dinner jacket, hidden quickly by his red cloak until it hid his face from view again under its red hood, his back turned when he rushed down the stone steps to the old wooden door that led off to the forests.
He stepped close enough to come in to the light, let concern wash over him, a dozen voices clamouring for his attention. He has run off to go home, he is scared of the wolf came first, then he has taken his coffers and run, and then, finally, Midorima has followed him.
"I will catch him," he soothed, nails brushed fabric when he ran soothing fingers down tense shoulders of boys crowding around him. Relief ran through them like a scent almost tangible, like a taste. Their hands and eyes slipped away when his dark black boots echoed on the stone steps, and the door scraped back closed.
The wind burned his lungs when he crouched lower, ran, and let his nose guide him. It was not fear that struck him, but terror, and he wanted to howl. When he finally stopped, the lights of the path ended at the school boundary to the neighbouring estates, and the path split in to two. Roses to one side, pines to the other.
"Which do you wish to take?" he asked, and could tell his voice startled. Amusement tickled at him, a chance to tease, and he added, "The path of thorns, or the path of needles?"
Midorima shot him a look full of questions, an unfamiliar hesitation in his slightly parted lips. It was not often he stemmed the unending flow of questions he had for Akashi; this book or that, the meaning of symbolism, his quick wit at taking information and turning it in to knowledge... if only he had centuries, he could be brilliant.
"The path of thorns," Midorima eventually said, testing the air. His breath ghosted to a cloud that tinged the edges of his glasses ever so slightly making his brows draw in irritation.
"Then I will take the path of needles," Akashi answered, and relished the lack of sound when he stepped to the plush carpet of moss and pine needles. "And meet you at the other end."
Out of sight, his body ached and heart pounded, the urge to shuck his clothes and give chase through the clouts of roses and thorns near overwhelming. By the end of the path he found their runaway student, cold, with a bag in one hand and an empty lantern in the other. He handed over his own, and listened for a rustle of autumn leaves crunching.
"Off with you," he demanded, and crossed his arms to wait when he was alone. The light of a bobbing lantern made him call out to Midorima; "I found him, safe but cold, and he returns to the manor posthaste."
He missed a beat of silence, where no breath was taken. He would have heard.
"Come, that we might walk together by the light of your lantern."
There was another beat of silence, this one broken by a shaky breath and a decision when the lantern was dropped and calm footsteps turned to the sound of fleeing; Midorima was smart enough to know they could not leave the forest to burn when his lantern set some leaves aflame. with a curse, Akashi stepped on them until they were well and truly doused with no ember left to light trouble in his absence.
Carefully, neatly, he shucked his clothing and knelt, his body roaring in pleasure as it stretched and broke, then remade itself entirely new. The night called to his skin as it rendered then sewed itself shut, and he let out a howl to return its greeting. Far off, a terrified noise met his howl, but it was not the one he wanted.
The one he wanted was further, the sounds only of laboured breathing and hands scrambling for purchase on the sides of small hills to climb over and past them. It grew louder and more frantic the closer he got, the louder his footfalls were allowed to fall, until he was upon a hot body and had a neck between his teeth, his jaw trembling with the urge to clamp down and bite. He drew back as his jaw grew smaller, the rest of him smaller too, and the body below him shifted cautiously.
"Undress," he ordered against the neck between his lips, his tongue brushing skin when it flicked out to lick wet his appetite.
"There is no fire where I might burn my cloak," Midorima could not resist; his sardonic tone a marking of all Akashi enjoyed about him.
"You will need them again," Akashi grinned, and drew back fully to allow him to turn over. His red cloak splayed out under him, arms askew and hands raised above his head. His lips pursed into a thin line. Akashi took matters to his own hands, divested him of trousers and discarded them to the dry orange leaves around them, then to Midorima's scrambling hands when they fought for something to grip during the onslaught of Akashi's mouth between his thighs, licking into intimate, forbidden places soon breached by Akashi's cock rather than his tongue, rutting like a wolf in heat, teeth marking along every bit of skin they could reach until they found their favourite at the point of his left clavicle. Inside him, Akashi paused, still hard, nails curled into his hips near painfully.
"Time to tie a string around my ankle?" Midorima asked on a humourless laugh, then seemed to smile at the way Akashi's lips quirked.
"Impractical," Akashi breathed against him, teeth nipping at him again. "Too easy to slip from."
"And this?"
"Permanent." Akashi shifted his hips, his need building like a roaring inferno. "For centuries."
The word seemed to spark a desire, a longing in Midorima's eyes, hovering there uncertainly until his fingers, long and lovely, tangled in Akashi's hair and pulled him closer, pushing his mouth to skin where he finally took what was his and bit, teeth sinking through skin, through blood, saliva working its way into his body to infect and turn. The way he cried out spurred Akashi on, his hips snapping harshly to drive him in over and over to completion, spilling his seed inside until his heart quieted and his body sated. He sat back, admired his mark of perfect indents, and Midorima's half-lidded eyes.
"I-" Midorima started, then paused, fingers touching to his bloody mark. "I supposed I should not have strayed from the path."
He laughed at his own jest, seemingly amused by it in the shock of it all. Akashi leaned in to clean the wound, relishing the flavour.
"Running, I think, was rather your bigger mistake," Akashi told him, and could not wait for the day Midorima basked in the chase.