Chapter Text
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Hongjoong
The line between intent and instinct is almost non-existent in some people.
While others are the exact definition of only one of the words.
Hongjoong is intent.
He intends to forget about the thesis looming over his head. The bass thumps in his breastbone, stronger than his heartbeat, which is already pounding from the adrenaline of whatever had been in that blunt someone had placed in his mouth fifteen minutes ago. He blinks, rubbing his hand over his face as he leans against the wall.
Miri, the girl with the streak of red tinsel in her hair, had invited him, flashed an accompanying teasing smile, and Hongjoong realized that, while he had no intention of giving her his time at this party, he did want an outlet. Something to fill the void of monotonous campus life.
He usually spent his time smoking weed outside when he came to these things, which wasn’t often. His shoulders ache, the fabric of his jacket rubbing against them like sandpaper. That morning, he had gone for a run and forgotten sunblock. Now his neck and arms were radiating a heat that made his stomach churn. The tips of his ears too, just the friction of a piercing shifting reminded him of his stupidity.
His skin would be too tight in a couple days, scaly snakeskin until it peeled from his body and then he would go and burn it off again.
A couple, high and drunk, nearly crash into him as they passed. The girl’s eyes are so wide, her body soaked in sweat.
Hongjoong shifts out of their way, watching them go, feeling his own sweat plastering his shirt to his back. He had not even taken anything, just that blunt and the second hand smoke from either a cheap smoke machine or the drugs that were clearly laced in everything.
This isn’t the same type of party that he usually attended whenever he heard of them or was invited passively by someone he didn’t know.
His mouth is dry but the inside of his nostrils burn. Something deep in his gut said nothing here was safe to drink. Watching everyone else, girls especially, clearly getting group roofied by whoever the host was—or maybe it wasn’t the host. Maybe it was just mass ignorance.
Stupidity.
Hongjoong’s intention of simply escaping studying has quickly turned into every sense in him going off rapid fire.
He isn’t in danger. He could just leave. Go back to his tiny, cramped dorm, sleep all this off and pretend like it hadn’t happened, he hadn’t seen anything and if anyone asked about a party where they dealt out illegal drugs he could answer honestly.
He didn’t know what they were talking about.
Everything Hongjoong did was intentional. He kept his mind as clear as possible almost always, logging lights, sounds, body language, building exits.
Methodical, precise, but when he let himself go it was always creatively.
Unpredictable.
Professors hated him the moment they realized the quick thinking, analytical, “perfect” student never performed within the box they set for him.
Someone crashes into him. Sweat (he assumed it was sweat) flecks over his face from their hair as they stumbled to right themselves, hands gripping the front of Hongjoong’s jacket. Hongjoong helps them gain their balance. “You okay?”
The boy raises his head, pupils blown and the widest, half crazed smile splitting his face. “Yeah, man, I’m great,” came the slurred, breathy response.
“You sure? You’re high as fuck.”
“Oh good, mission accomplished.” The boy narrows his eyes. “Why aren’t you?”
“I think I’m at the wrong party.”
“You’re not!” the boy chortles, grabbing his arm and tugging him off the wall. “Join me, I’ll show you how to have fun.”
Everything in Hongjoong says No this isn’t safe, this isn’t right, who knows what’s in any of the stuff coursing through his veins right now.
The boy grabs Hongjoong’s jacket and pulls it off of him. Hongjoong bites back a yelp as his sunburn is aggravated. The jacket is tossed away and the boy shoves a paper cup into his hand.
“Who even are you?” Hongjoong yells, trying to hear himself over the music.
“Wooyoung”, the boy grins again. “Who are you?”
“Hongjoong.”
“Hongjoong, take the shot.” Wooyoung’s hand rests heavily on Hongjoong’s shoulder, tingling pain radiating through his body.
Hongjoong obeys.
If anything, alcohol and drugs would erase the sunburn and nausea.
Maybe he had sun poisoning again.
Wooyoung keeps the alcohol flowing, laughing and clinging to Hongjoong like he was his new best friend. Heat buds in Hongjoong’s belly from it, lightness finally lifting all thoughts of his pressing thesis.
The one you need to graduate.
Hongjoong laughs at something someone says, he isn’t even sure he had fully heard it but he assumes it is funny.
Everything is funny.
“Ever tried molly?” Wooyoung’s breath is hot and sticky on his neck as their bodies are shoved together.
“No.”
“Want to?” Wooyoung’s eyes are practically black, his pupils blown so wide.
“Is it safe?” The question leaves him out of habit.
Wooyoung giggles, reaching up and pushing Hongjoong’s hair off his sweaty forehead. His palm is clammy. “Did you come here for safe?”
He has a point.
“Hey open your mouth,” Wooyoung’s fingers pry at Hongjoong’s jaw.
He tips his head back and obeys, the action almost natural. Exposing his throat to someone, something that he shouldn’t.
Intention is slipping out the window and replaced with instincts he had buried in careful choices and consideration.
Wooyoung presses a tablet that instantly begins to dissolve, onto Hongjoong’s tongue. He almost gags at the taste and sensation but Wooyoung has another shot at the ready. Both go down easily and something in Hongjoong’s nervous system spikes.
Not from drugs, from that instinct.
The gnawing sensation that this isn’t right.
Wooyoung laughs, hands cradling Hongjoong’s face with a firmness that has him pinned there, staring into the other man’s eyes.
He goes easily, flowing in tandem with Wooyoung’s movements, both of them pulled and jostled, somehow still together. Hongjoong’s head tips back, his gaze going glassy.
All and everything coming together.
Wooyoung’s hand on the back of his neck, the way his head flops against his shoulder, the way he clings to him like he has known him his entire life when Hongjoong has no idea who he is.
It doesn’t matter.
Hongjoong’s body relies on him to stay upright just as much.
“Hey, I think I love you, man” Wooyoung shouts in his ear.
“Don’t,” Hongjoong shouts back and Wooyoung cackles.
This is fine.
This is fine.
Intent and instinct buried beneath the thrill of his brain finally turning off.
The music stutters, causing Wooyoung to lift his head off Hongjoong’s shoulder with a whine.
A beat later someone screams.
Hongjoong’s instinct rouses its head, strangled by the drugs in his system. He tries to shove Wooyoung off—it is easy.
The man stumbles away, swallowed by a sudden surge of confused bodies all moving in separate directions. Hongjoong is shoved, elbowed, unable to find any flow to follow.
It isn’t just one scream now, it is many. Panicked, delayed and lethargic, but real.
Hongjoong spins, trying to move in some sort of direction towards an exit.
Where are the exits?
He had calculated them earlier, he knows that, he knows that.
He can’t remember. Sweat slides down his temple, tickling his cheek. Bodies are smashed up against him, reeking of every scent known to man. He reaches out in the swath of too much physical contact, trying to find something solid that isn’t a drunk human.
Where is Wooyoung?
The kid had been glued to him since they met and now he is gone.
The snap of flesh tearing reaches him as he turns to go back.
Hongjoong blinks.
Unsure of what he is looking at? Looking for?
The room is spinning, people dropping like flies hit with bleach spray and Hongjoong is standing with shoes made of lead.
Blood pulsing in his ears.
Blood.
Blood is everywhere.
Screams are being cut off with throaty garbles, drowning in their own life source.
And Hongjoong just stands there.
Something is cutting through the mass of students like a knife. Several somethings.
People shove against him, jostling his body off balance. He stumbles over something wet and soft on the floor.
Looks down.
Blood.
Blood pouring from the ripped out remains of a girl’s abdomen. Her limbs bent at abnormal angles, mouth frozen agape, blood pouring from her throat.
Or where her throat should be.
Bile rises up in Hongjoong’s throat as his body heaves. An ice cold hand closes over his neck, angling his head up to stare into a face. The eyes blacker than night, the pupils red pinpricks in the center.
The bloody mouth stretches into a grin before he can’t see the face anymore. There is only the sensation of his throat being torn away. He stares at the ceiling, the hallucinogen in his brain a barrier between instinct and what is actually happening.
His body is dropped, crumpling to the floor like a rag doll. His head lolls to the side, blood soaking his hair, his cheek. Vomit drips out of his mouth.
Numb.
Cold.
He is floating.
Red rims his vision, flowing over it like water spreading across a floor.
His lips are tingling, his body going cold, life leaving him through his neck. He tries to lift his hand to catch it, scoop it back into his veins where it belongs, but his hand doesn’t respond immediately.
It takes all the strength he has left to roll over and sink his teeth into the arm of the gutted girl on the floor.
His vision blacks out, body frozen in place, ice needling over his veins.
Something in his back snaps and there’s an entity inside him now. Tearing through sinew, arteries, tendons.
Hongjoong’s last thought lingers behind his blank eyes, cold blood on his tongue.
I was supposed to finish that thesis.
His back snaps first, the vertebrae rippling against the hard floor, pushing the limp mass of his body into place. Blood rolls down his throat, unhindered.
Tendons mutating, muscles stretching, skin tearing, he writhes.
A dead man shifting, transforming.
The thing in him is remaking its home.
He can’t even watch; he doesn’t know it yet. Can’t feel what is being ripped from him and cast aside. Unneeded meat, unnecessary to living.
There is a scream in his ears, deafening, agonizing, helpless.
His body is not his anymore. It never will be again.
He exists in the narrow alley between life and death, twisted, malformed.
His jaw snaps back into place, teeth grinding, elongating,
A deep-seated wound sprouts in the center of his skull, a hunger, a rage, that thing that lives in him now.
The body is remade, reborn.
Hongjoong opens his eyes.
The first thing he feels is the cool wetness of blood in his hair, dried against his face and neck. He reaches up, fingers trembling, brushing over the slickness on his neck. Perfect, smooth skin over the column of his throat.
No torn arteries gushing. His esophagus where it’s supposed to be, not hanging out the side of his neck.
He swallows.
His mouth is dry.
Paper dry. Like he hasn’t drank in months. His tongue moves against his teeth and he freezes.
Does it again. The edge of his teeth are the same. Uneven, slightly ridged, but his canines…
He blinks, raising his hands to look at them. They’re brown with dried blood, black crusting around his cuticles.
The ceiling isn’t spinning like it was before.
Before.
Before what?
Hongjoong rolls over, his shirt sticking to the floor.
Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.
His arms are shaky but they push him up easily. He sways, crouches to catch his balance, buries his face in his blood blotched hands.
It’s then that the scent hits him.
Putrid and rotten, laced with the drug he was on.
What the fuck?
He glances around, staring at the carnage. The girl’s corpse is still there, completely gutted out. He can see clearly, he isn’t high anymore. Her entrails are strewn, her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
He stands slowly, face blank, taking it in.
Intentional. Calculated.
Bodies. Parts of bodies. What was once the crowd that jostled him, high and drunk, then screaming and trampling, they all lay in crumpled broken, strewn heaps.
Hongjoong scans for survivors.
He can’t be the only one, surely…
Panic builds like bile in his chest but he shoves it down.
There's something else building inside him but he doesn’t have a name for that.
His shoes slip on the still damp patches of blood pooled on the floor.
Movement in his peripheral.
He whirls, nearly slipping again. Meets the black, unsatiated eyes of a boy.
A man.
A creature.
Wooyoung.
His shirt is plastered to his lanky body, blood dripping from his hair as he trembles, trying to shove half of a corpse off of his legs. This one’s face is ripped off, jawbone unhinged and skin purple with burst veins.
Something primal bubbles up along the base of Hongjoong’s skull at the sight of Wooyoung.
He can hear, see, smell the blood coursing in his body. Somehow, there is no heartbeat, just blood sloshing through him.
It’s enough.
He’s at Wooyoung’s side a second later, pinning him to the ground, a growl caught between his teeth.
Wooyoung yelps, his eyes entirely black, pupils red like the last face Hongjoong saw before—
Before.
Before what?
He doesn’t think, pinning his hand against Wooyoung’s neck under his jaw, forcing him to expose the thick artery running along its length. Something in Wooyoung’s face cracks at the force Hongjoong’s hand has in its shove.
His teeth sink into the boy’s neck without a second thought.
Blood, lukewarm and mixed with the lingering taste of that tablet he had taken earlier. It’s sweet, slightly too sweet, like overripe fruit.
It tastes right, this feels right, natural.
Before he can swallow again, a hand yanks him by the hair, pulling him off Wooyoung’s neck, flesh tearing in the process.
Wooyoung shrieks, flailing, striking Hongjoong and grabbing his wrist, his own teeth biting down.
It was Wooyoung’s hand that had found his hair and the force to pull him away.
The ice that knifes through his arm as Wooyoung bites down sends another wave of primal fury through him and he twists free, his own flesh ripping as it’s left in Wooyoung’s teeth.
They stare at each other.
Twitch slightly at the same time.
The hunger gnawing through Hongjoong is identical to the look in Wooyoung’s eyes.
Wooyoung bares his teeth, bloodstained and remnants of Hongjoong’s flesh still in them. His canines are elongated and sharp, like an animal’s.
Hongjoong bares his own teeth back at him, the growl that’s been building in his throat finally released.
Wooyoung balks slightly, gaze heating with a rage.
They stay like that, crouched in the carnage like two dogs, fangs bared and when Hongjoong growls again, Wooyoung finally looks away.
It’s only for a split second, but it’s enough.
Hongjoong is satisfied.
Wooyoung pulls the bits of flesh from his teeth, spitting them into his palm. He blinks, black eyes clearing slightly. “What the fuck are we doing”, comes his raspy whisper.
Hongjoong licks Wooyoung’s blood off his upper lip, “I don’t know”, he croaks back.
Wooyoung sniffs the skin in his palm, then eats it carefully. “Huh”, he remarks as he chews carefully.
Hongjoong thinks he might finally retch at the bizarreness of this situation.
“What cologne do you wear?”
Hongjoong doesn’t answer him, watching the blood from his bite drip down Wooyoung’s exposed collarbone.
It smells good, it smells so good.
He creeps forward.
Wooyoung freezes. “No…”
“Hold fucking still,” Hongjoong orders.
Wooyoung obeys, a slight tremble at the edge of him. Hongjoong leans closer, dragging his tongue over Wooyoung’s skin, tasting the sweat, cologne and whatever is left of the drugs in his bloodstream. That overripe fruit taste.
Mango. Or something.
Wooyoung whimpers, the sound vibrating against his mouth.
He’s licking blood off a stranger’s neck.
He’s surrounded by mass murder carnage and he’s licking blood off of Wooyoung’s neck.
Hongjoong violently shoves away, slipping and landing hard on his ass before he scrambles to his feet. His chest is heaving, but the action of panicked breathing feels more like force of habit rather than necessity.
Wooyoung stares up at him, all the black bloodlust gone from his wide eyes.
“I have to get out of here”, Hongjoong stumbles away, mindlessly searching for his jacket to cover the blood soaking his shirt. It doesn’t occur to him that the jacket is most likely buried under someone’s gutted entrails.
He hears Wooyoung scramble to his feet behind him, hears the squishing of his wet shoes on the floor. Senses his hand reaching for his arm.
Hongjoong whirls, backhanding Wooyoung across the jaw. The man yelps, stumbling back.
“Do you have any fucking idea what has happened here?” Hongjoong growls. “What attacked us? What we are now?”
“…I think we’re vampires”, Wooyoung offers.
“Yeah, no shit!” His voice is shrill now and he hates it.
Instinct.
He lowers his tone, exhaling again but it does nothing to calm him. A passing realization: breathing exercises won’t work anymore.
“What happens when law enforcement shows up, sees this bloodbath, and we’re in the middle of it.”
“We’ll eat them,” Wooyoung says, eyes narrowing.
Eat them.
It sounds eerily natural, but something in him whines, shies away, panics.
Hongjoong once again ignores the statement, picking his way over bodies. He spots his jacket, half soaked in blood. He yanks it from under one of the less deformed corpses and shrugs it on, ignoring the pain in the skin stretching over his shoulders.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
That’s the only mantra in his head now. It’s louder than the hunger that claws the inside of his ribcage. He finds his way out of the building. He knows Wooyoung is following him.
As long as he obeys whatever Hongjoong tells him to do, he allows it.
The night air hits them both, clear and sweet, filled with faint scents of faraway takeout restaurants, the garbage bins in a nearby alleyway.
Numbness is beginning to creep around the edges of his brain, or whatever is left of it. The thing in him seems to have chewed it up and spit it out.
Hongjoong pauses on the sidewalk, eyes scanning everything. The cars lining the curb belonging to the dead people inside. He swallows hard and it’s less painful than before with Wooyoung’s blood still faintly lining his tongue.
He inhales, scenting the air. The sky is dark, but the shade of blue that says dawn is near.
Beside him, Wooyoung stands, shoulders close enough to touch if either of them moved a centimeter.
The air is chilly. Hongjoong notices that when Wooyoung exhales, he can’t see his breath.
Breath.
Funny. Hongjoong doesn’t need to breathe. He just does it because whatever part of him was still human doesn’t understand how to turn it off.
Something cold slips into his hand and he realizes it’s Wooyoung’s. The boy looks at him, eyes wide with uncertainty.
Hongjoong jerks away.
Wooyoung sidesteps, his expression falling like a kicked puppy.
“Come with me”, Hongjoong hears himself ordering before he really thought about it.
Instinct. To protect this other, clearly younger victim to whatever nightmare had decided to perch on them for eternity.
Before he can judge Wooyoung’s responding expression or listen to him question or thank him, Hongjoong starts off down the sidewalk. Wooyoung follows, feet light, just a pace or two behind him.
The old building fades from view as the two creatures melt through the darkness of the unfamiliar alleyways.
Wooyoung
Dead.
The word crawls up over his brain like the realization you’ve drunk too much the night before an important test that 50% of your grade relies on.
Wooyoung has not felt that kind of dread in years. Dropping out of college in his first month, he spent his days sleeping on the couch of an older friend who had opted not to go to college.
San.
San knew he was going out on a bender and would begin to worry in the next 48 hours.
Wooyoung snorts softly.
Itchiness crawls over his neck and he reaches up to scratch it. His lashes seem caked with dried tears as he struggles to gather his surroundings. He is on a carpeted floor, towels beneath him as if to protect it.
He rolls over, pushing himself up with sore arms. His shirt is crusted to his body, a faint brown tint to it and the smell of rot hanging in his nostrils.
Stale blood.
Wooyoung lightly runs his tongue over his teeth. Yep, still sharp. Like tiny little knives in his mouth. He wonders if that means his habit of biting his tongue accidentally is about to get really, really bad.
Or the fact that he chews his lips when nervous.
The room he’s in is unfamiliar. Dimly lit and smelling deeply of bergamot and cinnamon. Wooyoung settles on his knees, glancing around. The couch is a faded gray, heavily worn in spots. The walls painted a dull gray and so many posters from old metal and hair bands. They seem original, faded with the corners peeling.
Wooyoung squints, his head aching. He reaches up to where his neck had been bitten for the second time. Smooth, unscarred skin.
Just like the first time. He rubs the back of his neck, still feeling the phantom pain of the fangs that sank into his spinal cord, severing it from his brain, then the way the cold tongue had lapped at the open wound. He had felt it deep inside his skull.
Wooyoung shivers, digging his nails into his flesh, shoulders hunched. The hollowness in his ribcage is spreading and all he can think about is the violation of the creature that had tried to eat him and how badly he wanted to eat something else right back.
Someone’s shadow cuts through the light coming from the kitchen, falling over him like a curtain. Wooyoung looks up.
A young man stares down at him, curly black hair hanging over his forehead. His wire rimmed glasses are perched on the tip of his small nose, and his eyes are big and dark. He’s dressed in black sweats and an oversized patchwork tee.
Wooyoung can’t tear his eyes from him. Something primal and red lines his silhouette and he remembers.
Hongjoong.
The man from the party.
He had followed him…here, which he assumed was Hongjoong’s home.
“You’re awake.”
“Yeah,” he clears his throat, still rubbing the back of his neck to erase the feeling of teeth and tongue…
“You smell like rot.”
Wooyoung blinks. “Thank you. I happen to be a creature of it now.”
Hongjoong stiffens slightly. “Shower is down the hall. I put clothes in there for you.”
Wooyoung stands stiffly, looking down at his blood splattered body. “What about these?”
“I’m going to burn them.”
“Whoa hey,” Wooyoung steps back. “These boots were expensive.”
“They’re ruined,” Hongjoong responds, blankly.
“I know”, Wooyoung’s voice drops. “Just….they’re my shoes.”
“So try to salvage them.” Hongjoong points down the hall. “Shower. You smell awful.”
Wooyoung narrows his eyes. “Not what you acted like last night.”
Red flares in Hongjoong’s irises and something in Wooyoung wants to cower, but he just grins instead. “Yeah, you were all over me.”
Hongjoong raises an eyebrow, saying nothing, expression unreadable other than the bit of rage that had shown for only a moment.
Wooyoung suspects it isn’t because Hongjoong stopped being angry. Rather, he is covering it with blankness to remain less predictable.
Wooyoung fidgets, moving slowly around Hongjoong towards the hallway. “I’ll…shower now.”
Hongjoong jerks his chin slightly. Yeah, you better.
Wooyoung hates it.
Something in him is chewing on his brain. Out of habit, he turns the water hot but the moment he steps in, he shrieks, the water biting into his skin like lava.
He crumples to the linoleum floor, tears burning his eyes as his mouth forms a soundless cry. The bathroom door bangs open and Hongjoong crouches beside him. Not touching him.
“What happened?”
Wooyoung swallows a sob, his entire body shuddering, curling in on itself. Hongjoong’s hand is cold on his bare shoulder and he realizes that he is very much naked on the bathroom floor.
Albeit in the fetal position, but still. For once in his life, he actually cares about that.
“Water”, he manages to squeeze out between clenched teeth. “Hot.”
Hongjoong hums shortly. “Yeah, we can’t take scalding showers anymore.”
“No shit”, Wooyoung gasps. He tries to push himself up. Hongjoong’s hands are small and grasping as they firmly grip his arm and tug him upright. He hugs his knees to his chest, simultaneously trying to peek and look at his left leg and foot where he could feel the skin burning.
Hongjoong seems to be ahead of him, unbothered and collected as he examines it. “You’ll heal fast.”
Wooyoung swallows hard, his throat dry and sandpapery. “What else am I allergic to now?”
“Sunlight. I closed all the blinds and covered them with blankets.”
It is then that Wooyoung notices the blisters on Hongjoong’s hands, like a burn half healed.
“So….just assume all myths about vampires are true?”
“Myths?” Hongjoong looks up, black eyes sharp.
“I suppose they aren’t myths anymore”, Wooyoung shrugs.
Hongjoong stands, going to wash his hands in the sink. He only turns on the cold knob. Wooyoung’s self consciousness is quickly slipping away, the longer he is in Hongjoong’s presence.
The other man is precise, clean cut, clearly detached from the outside world in a way that has Wooyoung suspecting that he only speaks about 2% of his thoughts.
Which means that Wooyoung has nothing to worry about being naked in front of him. Not like Hongjoong would comment anyways.
He shifts to stand stiffly, carefully reaching into the shower and turning the water all the way to cold.
Hongjoong dries his hands and leaves the bathroom silently.
Okay then.
The water is a little too chilly, but somehow does not bother him like an extreme temperature like that should. He scrubs his body, trying to erase every trace of the night before. His hair is most definitely stained brown at this point.
Platinum had been a bad idea—not like he ever anticipated being part of a blood bath.
Blood.
It sounds so good.
He runs his tongue over the edge of his teeth, trying not to think of how Hongjoong’s had sunk into his neck so easily. How Hongjoong’s scent was intoxicating then, like a sweet drug he wanted to bury his face in.
He had tasted identical as well.
What the fuck?
Taste?
He is daydreaming about a man’s taste.
Wooyoung shudders, sticking his face directly under the stream of cold water and stays there.
He dresses slowly when he is done, Hongjoong’s spare shirt and sweats fitting him perfectly. But the mirror shows nothing. Just blankness where his face and arms should be.
Something in his chest twists violently.
This isn’t a trip, a dream, a hangover.
Right?
Dead.
He leans against the counter, pressing his face to the mirror. “Can you see me?” he whispers, closing his eyes.
The sensation of that cold tongue deep in his spinal cord, spreading through his entire nervous system.
Licking. Sucking. Chewing.
“How much fun are you going to have before you realize you’ve been dead all this time?”
San’s angry parting words to him before Wooyoung laughed angrily and flipped him off.
Left. Blocked his number.
I just didn’t want to feel anymore.
And being around San meant he felt everything.
Last night is too foreign a thought to dwell on. He doesn’t remember much. Just the music, the ecstasy, the way his body felt free for once.
And then something had happened.
People had panicked, he had panicked, and something had bitten him. It was black after that.
Even his encounter with Hongjoong when he came to is fuzzy. But he does remember the feeling of Hongjoong’s tongue on his skin, dragging up his neck and how he lapped at the open wound there.
Wooyoung reaches up and touches that spot gingerly. It is fully healed.
But the tongue.
Nothing like what had bitten him first.
Hongjoong’s mouth had been almost reverent, even as he had him pinned to the floor with merely an order.
He swallows hard.
Something about the other man makes him feel simultaneously safe but also like prey that is being led straight to slaughter. Every second of eye contact is torture. He can’t hold it for longer than a moment and he hates it.
He buries his face in his hands. This is stupid. He’s in shock, that is all.
Wooyoung ventures out of the bathroom carefully. Hongjoong is on the couch, legs tucked up and a laptop balanced on his knees. The screen glow reflects in his glasses.
“Watchin’ porn?”
Hongjoong’s eyes snap to him, confusion and horror spreading over his features.
“Kidding”, Wooyoung amends, lamely.
“So you’re like this while sober too.” It is a statement, not a question and Wooyoung internally winces.
“What?”
“Just”, Hongjoong pushes his glasses carefully further up the bridge of his nose, only for them to slip back. “I’m researching.”
Wooyoung flops onto the couch beside him, stretching out his legs. A mistake since now he can smell Hongjoong clearly. Faintly of soap, but the underlying thread of bergamot and cinnamon is stronger.
The scent he had awoken to.
“Researching what?”
“Vampires.”
“Ah. Have you found anything?”
Hongjoong shrugs, opening his mouth to respond but the words seem to die on his tongue. The black of his irises melt across the whole of his eyes, pupils sharpening to red.
It is then that Wooyoung catches the scent. Out in the hall, someone is arriving at their own apartment. Keys jingling as they fumble with them.
His world seems to slow, everything narrowing down to the rage of hunger that has been gnawing at him for what feels like forever.
Wooyoung beats Hongjoong to the door by a millimeter, flinging it open. The woman screams, whirling to face them.
He grabs her, fingernails digging into her flesh as he yanks her head to the side, teeth sinking into her neck. Her blood hits his tongue like an instant drug, her body limp in his arms.
It is good. So good, so natural. A heady euphoria settles over him—he has been starving and this is the only solution.
Someone’s hand grips his hair, pulling him off the woman’s neck. He growls, then cringes as his eyes meet Hongjoong’s still black and filled with just as much rage and want as Wooyoung feels.
“Hongjoong-ah”, he whines, blood trailing down his chin.
The man shoves him and the unconscious woman into his apartment. There is a split second of silence, Wooyoung still staring into Hongjoong’s eyes.
Please.
As the woman’s body hits the floor, they both go down with her, all sense of human reason and “morality” abandoned.
There is just the hunger and the ruling instinct to satiate it.
Wooyoung keeps waiting for the guilt to hit him. The whole “You just killed someone. You just ate someone.”
It never does.
Sure there is a tiny prick of pity for the poor woman who had probably just come home from work, but guilt?
Nothing.
He feels better now, the hunger is gone and strength has wrapped itself around his bones. He feels rejuvenated, remade, reborn.
It is better than any drug he has ever tried.
That feeling plummets the moment Hongjoong reenters the living room. “People will come looking for her.”
Wooyoung blinks. Oh. He hadn’t thought of that. “Are you sure?”
“She mentioned that her sister in law comes over frequently for wine and a movie.”
“Why would she volunteer that information?”
Hongjoong’s gaze shoots through him and the thing in Wooyoung’s chest freezes under it. “Because I helped her with her groceries once and I almost dropped the wine bottle.”
A painfully domestic type of situation. The idea of Hongjoong sweetly helping his neighbor who was now a drained corpse on the floor.
“Are you…mad at me?” Wooyoung asks tentatively. He still doesn’t feel guilty about killing her, but he doesn’t want the only person he has in this situation to hate him.
Hongjoong shrugs. “I’ll figure something out.”
Wooyoung lightly gnaws on his lip, finding that the flesh withstands his fangs better than before when his teeth were normal. He stands carefully from the spot he had retreated to after he finished feeding, watching Hongjoong continue to feed.
He felt like a puppy, being allowed to eat first. Hongjoong had met his gaze once and something sparked deep in his gut.
Wooyoung shoves down the memory. “How long do we have before people come snooping?”
“Who knows? Hours? Days?”
“We could just disappear,” Wooyoung offers.
Hongjoong narrows his eyes. “There’s a lot of we going on here.”
“You’re not gonna leave me out on my own, are you?” Wooyoung flashes a smile.
Hongjoong doesn’t answer.
The boy falters. “Right..?”
Another beat passes before Hongjoong shakes his head slowly. “I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself. I don’t know how to do this either.”
Wooyoung nods, relief surging through him. He steps closer, trying to hold himself steady under the other man’s dark gaze. “I…didn’t mean to kill her. And I don’t even feel sorry for it but I didn’t mean for it to happen….that doesn’t make sense.”
The corner of Hongjoong’s mouth quirks up. “It does to me. I didn’t mean to let you but…we both needed it.”
Hongjoong doesn’t feel any guilt either and he knew the woman.
Wooyoung rubs his hand over his hair. “I don’t know how long this will last.”
“This being…?”
“Full.”
Hongjoong purses his lips, not answering, eyes flicking to the prostrate form on his carpet.
They both know the answer is trial and error. Part of Wooyoung is the same.
Fuck it, we ball.
Made more intense by the sudden level of apathy he possesses.
But there is still that prey aspect to him. Running away. From everything, everyone.
The realization hits him harder than a left hook.
He isn’t human anymore.
In a world dominated by them, he had been born fitting in way more than he took for granted. And now…he is a predator. He needs the blood to live, but is he even alive?
Hongjoong’s face is stoic, eyes blank, but soft as he stares off, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Wooyoung notes the angry red burn marks where rings had been.
Silver probably.
He is glad he only wears cheap nickel jewelry, even if it does turn his skin green.
“Regardless of how long it is until then, what’re we gonna do when we do have to feed?”
For some reason it confuses Wooyoung that Hongjoong would ask the question.
This is his first day being a vampire too, idiot.
Hongjoong continues. “We both snapped when we smelled her. The desire is stronger than the self control…that has to change or we’re absolutely fucked.”
“We aren’t already?”
The other man snorts, eyeing him. “I don’t want to get into all the levels of this fuckery yet.”
Wooyoung chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah just….nevermind.”
Hongjoong looks like he wants to press—Wooyoung kinda hopes he will—but he doesn't.
“We’re going to get hungry again and….i spent all morning researching. We can’t eat normal food. Not even solid, raw meat.”
“Aishh,” Wooyoung grimaces. “I was hoping I could like….just raid a deli or something.”
“A deli run by…humans,” Hongjoong monotone stumbles on the last word. “We couldn’t control ourselves around one. I’m assuming whatever turned us also couldn’t control itself.”
Wooyoung falls silent. Control has never been his strong suit. The impulsivity has grown exponentially throughout the folds of his brain. The unbridled desire to consume.
Hongjoong says nothing else, watching him. Wooyoung looks away, the thing in his chest simply unable to meet his gaze.
He keeps his eyes on the floor as Hongjoong walks around him, settling back on the couch with his laptop.
Wooyoung paces, teeth biting down hard on his lip.
The flesh still doesn’t break.
The scent of fresh blood hangs in the air like campfire smoke on a humid night, clinging to his skin, his tongue, his throat. He isn’t hungry anymore, but the heady feeling is gone. As though devouring something had been a drug and now he is lost without it.
He pants softly, the action feeling useless. His lungs are decorations that fill his ribcage now. Flaccid and useless.
Hongjoong sighs softly through his nose in his concentration and something deep in Wooyoung whines. He quietly approaches the couch, moving like a cat that wants attention but doesn’t want you to know that.
Hongjoong doesn’t look up, so he eases down beside him. Hongjoong’s scent is stronger since he fed, almost intoxicating in the way it makes Wooyoung feel.
Like he wants to crawl inside Hongjoong’s skin and live there.
Nothing about the man outwardly says he is any sort of fighter, that he could remotely keep himself safe, let alone Wooyoung as well.
But his scent is comforting. Like coming home.
And Wooyoung has never felt this before for anyone, not even San. San was comforting but his love made Wooyoung feel guilty, itchy, like he wasn’t in his own skin.
Like he didn’t deserve it.
He certainly doesn’t now.
But Hongjoong is the same. Equally damned, equally shredded, equally bastardized by the creature that had torn out his humanity by the scruff of his neck and left him to bleed in the grey matter between heaven and hell.
Wooyoung curls up, hesitantly resting his head beside Hongjoong’s thigh. His eyes flutter shut in the expectation to be scolded, shoved away.
Neither happen.
Wooyoung nuzzles closer, inhaling just to smell him. To feel the safety closer to his useless heart. Hongjoong’s hand rests on the crown of his head, fingers softly toying with strands of bleach burnt hair.
Wooyoung settles, his bones easing into the cushions of the couch easier. Every sense is still on edge, pricked with the looming knowledge of how their latest meal had a life outside of these walls and that life would come looking for her.
He feels himself dozing off as Hongjoong’s fingers trail from his hair to his neck, tracing that artery he had torn out the night before.
“I don’t have to write that thesis anymore”, Hongjoong whispers.
Wooyoung didn’t know he could break further.
There is no going back to his old life. No more parties, hanging out with his friends, checking in with Sannie when he feels guilty that he hasn’t called in a few days.
Hongjoong’s fingers curl tightly into the other boy’s hair, nails lightly scraping his scalp. His next words wash over Wooyoung with a soft finality that terrifies and reassures him simultaneously.
We have to disappear.