Chapter Text
Mao Isara had a lot of plans for the summer after his first semester of University.
Seeing friends he hadn’t hung around with for a few months? Probably.
Spending some time with his family? Definitely.
Maybe even taking a trip somewhere if he had time and the weather was nice.
Mao Isara, however, did not expect to spend the summer dealing with a vampire.
But of course, that’s exactly what happened.
000
He’d noticed Ritsu had been clingy since he’d gotten back from school, but considering they hadn’t spent much time together since he’d gone away in April, that part of it wasn’t surprising.
In fact, part of him had wondered if Ritsu had even left his house at all, since the other boy…no, they were nearly adults now, so Ritsu wasn’t a boy anymore…looked more pale and sickly than ever.
The first time Mao had gone to visit they hadn’t even gotten out of his room, Ritsu all but dragging himself over and flopping on Mao only to promptly fall asleep again (Mao had noticed his brother hanging around and looking concerned but from what he could tell Rei always looked concerned about Ritsu so that wasn’t much of a hint as to how Ritsu was doing).
Even when night fell and Ritsu would normally get a burst of energy it had barely made a difference, his lethargy only leaving long enough for him to eat something and then collapse on Mao again, and it was seriously worrying.
He didn’t want to dote, since he’d promised himself before leaving for University that he couldn’t be expected to babysit Ritsu anymore and he wouldn’t feel guilty about not being there, but it was hard to see his friend like this.
The only way he was even able to get home that night was by bodily moving Ritsu off of him and slipping out while the other boy was still asleep, but when he came back the next morning it hardly seemed as if Ritsu had moved and the his skin was ice-cold to the touch.
After about three days, Mao was seriously considering taking Ritsu to get help because if anything he was getting worse. They hadn’t even really spoken to each other, in fact, and Mao had wondered if he shouldn’t talk to Rei about it before Ritsu had woken up with a start and looked at him, blood-red eyes almost seeming to glow in the semi-darkness.
“Ritsu?” he’d asked, not sure if Ritsu was really awake, and the next thing he knew there was a sharp sting on his neck.
Ritsu’s mouth was clamped there, a sound coming from his throat that was almost a growl, and Mao tried to push him off only to find that Ritsu had apparently gotten a lot stronger in the past few months because he wasn’t budging an inch.
“Ri-“ he’d started to protest before something came over his body and he fell back limp against the couch. It was like he couldn’t move, like all of his limbs had turned to jelly, and a few seconds later he realized he didn’t want to move because the feelings of shock and horror were turning to something far more pleasurable.
And that was the weirdest part of it, because even though the rational part of his brain knew that what was happening wasn’t good, he was wrapped in an almost euphoric sort of pleasure that overrode everything else.
It only lasted a few seconds (mostly because he’d blacked out after that) but it was what he remembered more than anything else after the fact because he’d never experienced anything like that before.
And, despite the fact that his lifeblood was draining out of his body, the thing he wanted the most was to feel like that again.
000
Well, at least until he woke up.
At that point he mostly just felt woozy and weak, though one glance around the room told him he was still at the Sakuma house.
He tried to sit up, abandoning that plan when his body still wouldn’t respond properly, and a tightness at his throat had him reaching up to find that it had been wrapped in bandages.
“Mao-kun?”
“Sakuma-sen…” he stopped, because they were both graduated now so there was no need for high-school formalities. “Rei,” he corrected himself. “What…”
“Forgive me,” Rei was seated beside the bed, his long hair tied back and a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose as he held a book in one hand. “I should have been keeping a closer watch on the two of you. I knew he would make a move soon, but I hadn’t suspected…” he sighed heavily and set the book aside. “Well, I reached you in time regardless, although you may feel weak for a few hours yet.”
“What happened?” Mao finally managed to both finish his question and push himself to a sitting position, though both of those things took a tremendous effort.
“What do you remember?” Rei asked softly and Mao furrowed his brow, trying to think back.
“Ritsu was…” he bit his lip and looked down at the blankets covering his legs. “He bit my neck. And then I felt…strange, like I was close to fainting but so happy I didn’t care.”
“It’s as I thought,” Rei murmured and went to stare out the window, a few loose strands of hair falling forward to frame his angular face. “In all honestly I’m surprised it took this long, but perhaps merely being around you was enough to curb the beast until now.”
“What are you talking about?” Mao blinked, more confused than ever. “What’s wrong with Ritsu?”
“Wrong?” Rei looked at him in surprise. “Nothing, young one. Ritsu’s exactly as he should be, though perhaps you returning home when you did was fortuitous as his strength had begun to wane of late.”
“I’m still confused,” Mao really wasn’t getting any answers and Rei gave him a smile then, his canine teeth extending past his lower lip a little and making it look more intimidating than reassuring.
“We’re vampires, Mao-kun. It’s only natural that, after so long apart, he’d need to feed,” he said it so matter-of-factly that Mao had to blink and process it for a few seconds.
“Don’t give me that, I know you’re not…” he stopped, because they couldn’t be…right? Rei just acted like he was really old because it was a quirk of his. They slept in coffins for fun. Both of them grew weak in sunlight and Ritsu didn’t like garlic because that was just how they were. They were only active at night because…
Well, fuck.
There were coincidences, and then there was making excuses to cover the truth, and looking at the long list of things he’d just run through his mind…he was doing the second one.
“I see you’ve pieced everything together,” Rei’s smile was more kindly now, and for the first time Mao could see the wisdom in his eyes and appreciate just how old they seemed. “Yes, Mao-kun, we’re vampires. ‘Real’ ones, as you might put it.”
“Fuck,” he said aloud this time, reaching to touch the bandages again. “Wait, if he bit me…”
“Don’t worry,” Rei shook his head. “The stories you hear have some shreds of truth to them, perhaps, but overall they’re greatly exaggerated. You can’t be turned into a vampire just because you’ve been bitten by one.”
“Oh,” Mao was relieved to hear that, but it still didn’t explain why Ritsu was biting him in the first place. “So what’s up with him?”
“Didn’t you ever find it odd that, despite us being neighbors since you were born, you didn’t meet Ritsu for several years?” he asked vaguely and Mao thought about that for a while, realizing that for the first several years of his life he’d merely assumed the rather oddly-styled home next to theirs had been vacant.
“But I met Ritsu as a kid,” he replied. “I mean, both of you looked like kids, so how….”
“Mao-kun,” Rei suddenly looked much older than his apparent age and Mao recoiled a little in surprise. “Do you think that, as ageless immortal beings, we can’t change our appearance at will? It’s possible for us to age naturally along with humans, at least for a time.”
“Oh,” he supposed that made sense, but it still didn’t explain one thing. “So why me? Why did he decide to do it for me?”
Rei shrugged one shoulder, the lines on his face and the streaks of silver in his dark hair melting away until he looked like a young man again. “That, I cannot say, and I suspect he won’t be able to tell you either. Every so often we find humans that we wish to bond with, and the pull is impossible to ignore. Ritsu had turned himself into a child and run out to meet you before I could even react,” he chuckled. “It was about the right time, though. The school knows about us, of course, but even so we need to be careful to not reveal ourselves more than once per generation so that those who live nearby won’t be suspicious.”
“That makes sense,” Mao nodded, since having immortal vampires for neighbors would become obvious pretty quickly. “Is that why Ritsu didn’t go to University?”
“There’s no point to continue education past high school, no,” Rei agreed. “And he mostly stayed there as an excuse to be near you, but I should thank you for taking care of him while I was…away,” he waved a hand vaguely. “Wanderlust, you see. He was here for you, but when I needed to seek somebody out, I had to go on my own.”
“So that’s why you were gone?” Mao leaned against the headboard, feeling at least a little more at ease now.
Okay, yeah, his best friend was a vampire, but it wasn’t like it changed anything about who he was, and Mao was at least getting the impression that Ritsu hadn’t been trying to kill him or anything.
“Mm. It took longer than expected which is why he came to resent me, but for as long as I can remember, it’s always been the two of us. I don’t truly know if we’re real brothers, but that hardly matters after hundreds of years of acting as such,” he chuckled.
“How old are you guys?” Mao narrowed his eyes, because he was amending his previous ‘nothing had changed’ statement now since Ritsu having lived for centuries was definitely different than Ritsu being a nineteen-year-old boy.
“You lose track after a while,” Rei admitted with a shake of his head. “Suffice to say that we’re much older than we appear.”
“Huh,” Mao was trying to process that, frowning as he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “So…what did you mean when you said he needed a human to bond with?”
“Well, as you can imagine, even undead creatures cannot sustain themselves indefinitely,” Rei sat down on the bed and Mao shifted a little to give him room. “Of course blood is the obvious answer to keeping our bodies from just disintegrating, but being able to…feed off of living creatures is just as effective. He wants your life-force, Mao-kun. Your energy and the spirit that makes you human, that’s what he was attracted to.”
“So…what does that mean?” Mao was a little suspicious now because that didn’t sound like a particularly good thing.
“It’s not dangerous to you,” Rei promised. “But being around a human that a vampire has felt bonded to will make them seem more human as well.”
“So when I left for University, he started to shut down because I wasn’t around?” Mao sat up a little more. “Why didn’t he tell me? What would happen if I didn’t come back?”
“He would go to sleep, eventually, and not wake up until the next time he felt the presence of a human he could bond with,” he murmured. “Which I’m liable to do if I don’t find one myself, soon, since the War…” his eyes darkened. “Well, let’s just say it took a lot out of me and my energy has been waning ever since.”
“Does anybody else know you guys are…y’know…” Mao asked.
“I suspect that Tsukinaga-kun might well know since he was the one who found me once when my energy was depleted, but for the most part we keep to ourselves since the general public’s perception of vampires isn’t exactly a positive one,” he pointed out.
Mao nodded, falling silent after that because this was a lot to take in, but he had one more question that was niggling at the back of his mind and it was the one he really wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to.
“So today…why did he bite me? And why did I feel…” he blushed, his hands curling into the blankets as he averted his eyes.
“Probably a combination of relief that you returned to him and being unable to deny his feelings any longer,” Rei replied, reaching to lay a hand on Mao’s knee through the sheet. “You see, Mao-kun, when a vampire bites the one they’ve bonded with, the recipient will feel…”
Mao nodded, closing his eyes and trying to hide.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Rei promised. “Ritsu’s felt that way about you since he met you, but I’m sure he thought it would be…inappropriate to make that kind of move before you were grown. As long as he was near you he could maintain enough energy to function, but I have a feeling he’s going to be much more energetic in the coming days,” he chuckled and Mao wanted to say something, but all he could think about was how his brain was screaming at him about how wrong this was.
“Rei, I’m not…that is…I don’t like guys,” Mao said quickly and Rei blinked at him, his mouth falling open a little.
“…I see. That could complicate matters,” he admitted. “Though, since Ritsu’s managed to be fine for this long with your relationship remaining platonic, it will probably work out.”
“But you said he’d have more energy and be able to function better if we were…” he mumbled. “D’you guys call it…mating? Or…”
“Mates, yes, that’s generally the word we use,” he nodded. “But don’t worry about it. You don’t need to force yourself to be something you aren’t for an immortal, and nothing bad will happen to him,” he said brightly, patting Mao’s knee again before withdrawing his hand. “I suspect he’ll want to see you, though, so do you feel up to that?”
“Yeah,” Mao said immediately, even though he really wasn’t sure if he was. Ritsu was…different, now, no matter how much Mao wanted to tell himself things were the same, and the thought of an immortal, undead being wanting to have…that sort of relationship with him was making him question a lot of things.
“Okay. I’ll go…”
Before he could get up, however, the door slammed open and Ritsu was standing there.
He looked demonic, eyes flashing and fangs bared (and oh, fuck, they were still tinted red and Mao knew it was his blood and he was starting to feel a little light-headed again). “Don’t keep me from him!”
“You need to calm down,” Rei stood up and suddenly he seemed…bigger than normal, the air around him shifting into something dark that Ritsu recoiled from. “You almost killed him because you were too hasty and couldn’t control yourself.”
“I’ve controlled myself for over ten years!” Ritsu protested, and the transformation Mao was seeing was rather amazing.
Gone was the sleepy, unaffected boy he’d known and in his place was somebody who looked older and incredibly alert, his voice no longer languid and lazy, and while it was still Ritsu it also…wasn’t.
“Ritchan?” he called out cautiously, causing Ritsu to look at him with wide eyes.
“Maa-kun,” he took a hesitant step forward and then, when Rei made no move to stop him, made his way over to the bed and clambered under the covers to cuddle up to Mao’s side. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled against Mao’s shoulder.
“It’s…I know,” Mao patted his back rather awkwardly. “Rei explained everything to me.”
Ritsu didn’t say anything in response, his breath coming in harsh pants against Mao’s neck. “I’d rather fade away than see you die because of me,” he whispered, and Mao wondered if that’s what happened to vampires when their time was up…whatever that meant, since Rei didn’t say anything about them even being able to die.
“I’m okay,” Mao promised, nuzzling his nose into Ritsu’s dark hair. “I’m okay, Ritchan, I promise.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Well, you always said you were a vampire, so that’s not really a lie,” Mao tried to lighten the mood a little but Ritsu didn’t seem appreciative since he didn’t react. “I probably wouldn’t have believed you, though.”
“I should have been able to control myself. I know you don’t…think of me that way,” Ritsu murmured, and Mao held him a little tighter.
“No,” he admitted. “But I do love you. You know that.”
Ritsu nodded, his arms wrapping around Mao as he clung to him like a child.
Except he wasn’t a child, Mao reminded himself. He was hundreds of years old, and Mao still wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“You should sleep more,” Ritsu said suddenly. “I took a lot of blood,” he reached to touch the bandages and Mao flinched involuntarily.
He saw the flash of hurt in Ritsu’s eyes before the vampire pulled away, and Mao grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“No, I hurt you and you have every right to not want me near you,” he stopped trying to get away, though, and settled onto the bed again.
“You could have hurt me for years and you controlled yourself, and I know it only happened because I was away for so long. I promise I won’t leave you like that again,” he took Ritsu’s hand and held it tightly.
“Okay,” Ritsu moved closer. “Do you want me to stay here while you rest?”
Mao nodded, because for some reason being around Ritsu still made him feel…safe…and he settled himself under the covers. Maybe he should have been warier, because…fuck, he’d almost died, and he was holding hands with the person responsible for it.
There was something fundamentally wrong with his sense of self-preservation, apparently, if he actually felt safe with a vampire in bed with him, but right then he couldn’t bring himself to care too much.
“Maa-kun,” Ritsu tugged on his sleeve and Mao looked over his shoulder. “I love you.”
“I know, Ritchan,” Mao smiled at him and turned around again, trying not to react when Ritsu curled around him from behind. He reached for Ritsu’s hand again anyway, letting their fingers tangle together. “So. Guess I’m stuck with a vampire, huh?”
“Maa-kun’s always been stuck with me,” Ritsu pointed out logically. “But now you know why.”
“Yeah. Guess I do,” Mao knew he still needed time to think and that things wouldn’t go back to normal right away…they couldn’t, really…but he was going to try his best not to take it out on Ritsu in the meantime.
“Sleep,” Ritsu kissed the back of his neck, the same way he’d done since they were kids, but suddenly there was so much more meaning behind it.
Yeah, Ritsu could have done something to him before…so many times…but he didn’t, and Mao knew that he wouldn’t again as long as Mao didn’t leave him for months at a time.
“I trust you, Ritchan,” he mumbled as his eyes closed. He wasn’t expecting to fall asleep right away, not with all of the questions still swirling around in his mind, but he must have truly still been exhausted from the blood loss because sleep came remarkably easily.
He knew Ritsu would still be there when he woke up.
He’d just have to talk to him then.