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“I can’t do this,” Mark chokes out. The syllables fall from his tongue like lead weights as he releases his grip on the girl’s wrist and averts his gaze. Moonlight pools silver in the cold puddles of stagnant water that litter the asphalt. It’s pretty, he supposes. Not that it matters.
“I don’t really think that’s an option.” Donghyuck’s voice comes from his left, stilted and awkward in the darkness.
“I’ll… I’ll make it work. I’ll find another way. But not this, it can’t be this.”
Donghyuck sighs audibly and buries his hands in the pockets of his coat.
“I’m sorry.” Mark brings his eyes back to the girl’s pale face. Tears stain her cheeks, and she’s shaking so violently her teeth have started to chatter. “I’m so sorry. Please just…” It ends on a frustrated sigh. He turns his eyes to the inky sky and swallows. “Please just go.”
She turns and runs in the opposite direction, splashing noisily as her feet catch in the puddles on the pockmarked street.
Mark lets out a shaky breath, but it’s more habit than necessity. A lot of habits like that had carried over, and they’re painful reminders that sit bitter on the back of his tongue. He flinches as the burning in his throat increases tenfold. It’s sharp as glass, knives, acid—he’s nearly run out of things to compare the pain to.
He turns to look at Donghyuck, who simply raises his eyebrows in response and says: “I guess we’re going home, then?”
“Yeah,” Mark whispers. “I guess we are.”
They drive home in silence, with the radio turned down and the heater on high. Mark can feel the warm air brush past his skin, but it doesn’t raise goosebumps like it used to. His fingers aren’t stiff with cold like they normally were on autumn nights like these. He swallows hard and watches bright neon signs flick past the window, reds and oranges smearing across the glass like spilled paint. Like spilled blood.
When Donghyuck parks near the curb and pulls the keys from the ignition, Mark pushes open the door and makes his way up the stairs without a word. Another frustrated sigh slips past his teeth when he remembers that his house key isn’t in his pocket. He stands idly in front of the apartment door, fingers curling and uncurling at the fire in his throat. Donghyuck pushes past him to unlock it, and the electricity that sparks in Mark’s veins is sudden and hot. The door swings open, and he rushes to the other side of the apartment, as far from Donghyuck as the space allows.
Donghyuck’s gaze travels from Mark’s eyes all the way down to his feet before he locks the door and shrugs off his coat. He drops his keys onto the tabletop with a clatter that rings in Mark’s ears.
Mark watches him walk into the kitchen and tries to bury the self-loathing that curls in the pit of his stomach like poison. He’s weak – he knows he is – and it’s pathetic. His hands shake at his sides, and there’s a dull ache that feels like it’s rooted in his toes but spreading through his chest. He can hear Donghyuck breathing from across the apartment and it’s so terrifyingly unnatural he wants to scream.
Donghyuck leaves the kitchen – Mark can hear his soft footfalls – and places two cups on the coffee table. He looks up at Mark with raised brows. “You’re not going to stand there all night, are you?”
“Maybe,” Mark whispers.
Donghyuck rolls his eyes and perches on the edge of a couch cushion. “Suit yourself.”
The silence that follows hangs heavy in the air like smoke. Mark can hear each of Donghyuck’s breaths, measured and even, with a steady heartbeat to match. He suddenly wishes he could cry.
“I can’t really go to bed with you acting like this,” Donghyuck says suddenly. “You might kill me in my sleep or something.”
Mark flinches. “Don’t say that.”
“Then drink, you fucking moron.”
Mark squeezes his eyes shut. “I can’t, Hyuck. I can’t hurt someone like that.”
“It probably doesn’t hurt that bad. And besides, aren’t humans supposed to like” – Donghyuck leans forward to grab his tea from the table – “enjoy it?”
There’s a beat of silence as Mark squints at him. “What?”
“You know.” Donghyuck glances at him over the rim of his cup, eyes dark and tawny hair tangled. “I heard it’s like a sexual thing.”
The pain in his throat responds to that, sharp as glass, and he coughs. “What the fuck--”
“Come off it, prude.” Donghyuck sniffs. “Do you remember Jaemin from college?”
Mark wipes his mouth with the back of a hand. He can vaguely recall Jaemin’s windswept hair and pretty smile in the back of their Phonology lectures, but he wasn’t someone Mark had known well. “Sort of?”
“I heard from Renjun that he had a thing going on with a vampire. Like a friends-with-benefits kind of thing because the blood drinking was that good.”
“Excuse me?”
Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Did I stutter?”
“You mean…” Mark swallows. “The vampire didn’t kill him?”
“Obviously not, you dumbass. Jaemin graduated with us, didn’t he?” Donghyuck tilts his head to the side, and Mark can see his pulse fluttering under the delicate golden skin. His muscles tense and there’s a dull ringing in his ears.
“How do you know Renjun wasn’t lying?” It comes out small and thin.
Donghyuck shrugs. “He might’ve been. Renjun lies about a lot of things.” He stands and stretches his arms high above his head with a groan. “It’s just food for thought, I guess.” With that, he strides down the hallway and closes his bedroom door softly behind him, leaving Mark alone in the living room with flames in his throat and two lukewarm cups of tea.
🌙
Mark doesn’t sleep – there’s no need anymore – and he feels stuffy and claustrophobic with his door closed and blackout curtains pulled over the window. He hears Donghyuck in the kitchen, pouring coffee and making breakfast before his shift at work, and he flinches as the pain in his throat racks ever higher. He finds himself wondering what it would feel like to let his teeth pierce delicate skin – any skin, anywhere –
He hears Donghyuck’s approaching footsteps before the knock echoes throughout his room. “Can I come in?”
“I guess.” It’s raspy, hoarse as if he’s caught a cold, and he tries to clear his throat to no avail.
The door swings open and the scent of Donghyuck’s blood rushes forward like water from a broken dam. Mark flinches as his fingers curl into the sheets. “You look like shit,” Donghyuck quips, shutting the door and leaning against the opposite wall.
“Thanks,” Mark chokes.
Donghyuck sighs. “It’s been a week. How long do you really think you can go without…drinking? Feeding? Whatever the fuck you want to call it.”
A pause. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a really bad liar.” Donghyuck takes a step forward, and Mark can feel the spike in his veins, the electricity hotwired into every muscle, the overwhelming urge to back him against the door and tear him apart—
He shrinks against the headboard and holds out both hands. “Stay there. Don’t come closer. Please.”
Donghyuck quirks a brow. “What’re you gonna do, bite me?”
“This isn’t funny, Donghyuck,” Mark hisses through his teeth.
There’s a soft sound, Donghyuck laughing quietly under his breath, before he takes a taunting step closer and spreads his arms wide. “You don’t have the guts, Mark Lee. I’d like to see you even try--”
And Mark is out of bed in the time it takes Donghyuck to blink. He has his hands wrapped around that pretty neck, hot under his icy fingers, and he hears Donghyuck let out a gasp as he pushes his back against the wall. “Do you think this is a joke?”
Donghyuck coughs, but one corner of his mouth turns upward in the ghost of a smile. “Kind of, yeah.”
“Tell me if this feels like a fucking joke.” Mark tightens his grip, and he can hear Donghyuck’s pulse quicken. The heat radiating from him is so intense it’s almost laughable – Mark half-expects smoke to curl from the places where his fingertips meet Donghyuck’s skin. He feels as if he’s swallowed glass, and his stomach lurches when he realizes just how close he is to remedying it. With Donghyuck here, trapped beneath his hands, nowhere to go—
“Do it, then,” Donghyuck breathes. There’s a challenge in his eyes, deep and dark and fierce. “I want you to.”
Mark flinches as his fangs extend at the invitation, digging into his bottom lip with an inescapable tenacity. He watches Donghyuck’s eyes widen briefly at the sight. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Mark gasps.
“Try me.”
And it would be so easy, really, to pierce Donghyuck’s skin and let the blood drip from his teeth and onto the floor. It would slake the thirst, it would end the terrifying electricity coursing through his every muscle—but for how long? “No,” Mark whispers, pushing himself away from Donghyuck on unsteady feet. “You’re my best friend, Hyuck--”
“So?”
“So,” Mark says with a huff, “what if it’s…like…”
“Sexual? Like the Jaemin thing?” Donghyuck’s eyes are dark.
Mark coughs. “I was going to say fatal, but thanks for making it fucking weird--” His fangs are still out, razor-sharp against the skin of his lip, and there’s lightning thrumming through his veins. Of course he’s thought about it – about how pretty Donghyuck’s moans would be in his ears and how it would feel to have his long fingers tangled tight in Mark’s hair. They had been friends since middle school, had shared a bed more times than he could count, and so what if he had sometimes marveled at how Donghyuck’s eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks when he was asleep –
“Do you remember that time…” Donghyuck’s voice is soft in the darkness. “At Xiaojun’s party in junior year?”
Mark’s throat goes impossibly drier. It had been his first college party, some raucous thing that Ten had forced him into as punishment for spending two years diligently studying, and he still tastes mango vodka on his tongue when he thinks about it. He still feels Donghyuck’s fingers tightening in the fabric of his hoodie and pressing him against the bathroom wall; still feels him mouthing at his neck and whispering little encouragements in a drunken slur— “W-we were drunk, Hyuck.”
Donghyuck folds his arms across his chest. “So?”
“So it didn’t mean anything. You said so yourself. Why—why the hell are we talking about this?”
“And your first kiss in middle school? That didn’t mean anything, either?”
He remembers that, too, of course. He had still had his gaming controller in his hands when he had kissed Donghyuck, wet and sloppy and inexperienced because he just wanted to try it once. They never talked about it again, and when Donghyuck had walked in on Mark making out with Jang Yeeun later that year, he hadn’t said anything. He frowns. “We were fourteen.”
“I don’t give a shit how old we were. Can’t you see my fucking point?”
“How am I supposed to see your stupid cryptic point, Donghyuck? None of that matters anymore—I’m not the same person I used to be; I can’t just flip a switch and become human again you fucking idiot--”
“You’re still my best friend!” It comes out as a shout, and Donghyuck’s fingers are curling into fists at his sides. “I don’t care if we’re fourteen, or drunk, or if you’re a goddamn vampire! We’ve been tiptoeing around each other for twelve years and if you don’t want it, at least say something because I’m tired of waiting!”
The room is hot – flames curl along Mark’s skin and make their way down his throat when he swallows. He can hear Donghyuck’s pulse, quick and agitated under his skin, and his fingers start to shake. And he isn’t stupid – he knew what he was doing when he was fourteen and he had paused their game of Mario Kart. He knew what he was doing at that college party, because three shots of vodka weren’t enough to make him lose his judgement. And he knows what he’s doing now, staring at Donghyuck in a darkened room with acid in his throat and a blatant need on the tips of his fingers. But their friendship is something so precious, delicate like glass and flower petals, and he can’t—
“I have to go to work,” Donghyuck whispers. “But I think I got the message.” He closes the bedroom door softly behind him, but when he leaves the apartment, the front door slams.
🌙
Mark doesn’t hear Donghyuck come home, and when he shuffles to the living room after the sun sets, he finds it cold and dark. There’s an empty glass on the kitchen counter and the blinds are pulled shut. It’s almost a relief that Donghyuck isn’t there – only almost, because Mark can still smell him in the apartment’s stagnant air and it’s torture.
He’s still standing idly in the middle of the living room when a key turns in the lock. Donghyuck pauses when he sees him, hand frozen on the doorknob, before dropping his gaze and letting the door fall shut.
“I just came back for something--”
He smells like autumn leaves and sunshine, and Mark doesn’t know if sunshine even has a smell at all, but if it does, it’s definitely the same as the blood singing in Donghyuck’s veins. He thinks of that golden skin underneath his fingers in that cramped dorm bathroom, Donghyuck’s breath on his neck and his whispers heavy as lead in his ears. He wonders how much better it will feel now, with his senses heightened to an inhuman degree. He wonders how it will feel after years of wanting and wanting and wanting. “Donghyuck.” His throat feels like sandpaper.
Donghyuck keeps his head low. “What?”
“I…” Mark swallows and it hurts. “I have to drink. I think… I think I can’t take it anymore.”
Donghyuck sniffs. “Drink, then. Seoul is full of walking blood bags.” He grabs a random item from the countertop – a pad of sticky notes, Mark notices, and he’s sure it isn’t what Donghyuck really came back for – before reaching for the door. Mark can hear his heartbeat pitter-pattering in the silence.
It happens instantly, or at least that’s how it feels. Mark doesn’t remember moving, but Donghyuck’s back is pressed against the door and Mark is gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise. He digs his fingers in just a little more, just enough to hear Donghyuck whimper, before he surrenders to the electricity in his every muscle. “You still want this, right?” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, low and colored dark with something almost frightening.
Donghyuck lets his head fall back against the door. “You’re a fucking asshole.” But Mark can hear his rapid pulse and uneven breaths.
Mark lets the tip of his nose skim along Donghyuck’s neck and it’s maddening—the scent, the heat, the proximity – and he doesn’t even realize his fangs are out until he feels them drag along Donghyuck’s skin.
“Shit,” Donghyuck gasps, and it’s shaky and breathy and small. The sticky notes in his hand fall to the floor.
“I don’t know if I can take that as a yes.” Mark thought he would feel nervous, pressed against Donghyuck like this, but all he feels is an all-encompassing thirst that makes him ache down to his bones. It clouds his thoughts, he’s filled with it, and he’s so close—
“It’s a yes, you idiot. Just do it.”
And that’s all it takes.
Mark feels himself snapping like a twig in a hurricane, and he lets his teeth sink into Donghyuck’s neck. Donghyuck flinches, and a soft “Jesus Christ” falls from his lips as his hands find purchase in Mark’s t-shirt.
And Mark has never done illicit drugs, but he imagines the rush of cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy combined would pale in comparison to this. Donghyuck’s blood is hot on his tongue, silky in a way he didn’t know blood could be, and the fire that had been screaming in his throat for days instantly cools to ashes. He feels his senses heighten one by one, and a primal energy steals through his veins in a potent wave. He’s invincible, he’s deadly, he’s positively lethal—
He feels a shudder crawl down Donghyuck’s spine, but it’s not enough, it will never be enough. His fingers tangle in Donghyuck’s hair, pulling his head back roughly until he whines, and he drinks with utter abandon. Donghyuck whispers “holy fuck” under his breath, and suddenly his hands are under Mark’s shirt and his fingernails are digging into the skin.
Mark pulls back at the feeling, just enough to see tracks of crimson blood staining Donghyuck’s neck and shirt collar. It seems like such a waste, really, so he trails his tongue along the skin and nearly melts at the taste. Donghyuck is so warm, so inviting, and he wants to drink from him until there’s nothing left.
“Again,” Donghyuck breathes. His fingers drop to Mark’s waist. “Bite me again.” He turns his head to the other side.
Mark is sure he’s running on pure instinct now, and he doesn’t even think twice before piercing the delicate skin and marveling at the way the hot blood drips down his chin. And he feels it suddenly, the pleasure thrumming under his own skin, and he presses his body harder against Donghyuck’s until he hears him let out the softest moan. It’s a million times prettier than he thought it would be, and he rakes his fingernails down Donghyuck’s back just so he can hear it again. It’s higher this time, breathy and loud, and Mark shudders. “You have a pretty voice,” he murmurs against Donghyuck’s throat. “I always thought so.”
“Let me,” Donghyuck gasps, “let me kiss you.”
Mark’s mouth stills against Donghyuck’s neck, and it’s almost comical how the thought of kissing Donghyuck like this seems to be crossing a line. He has his hands tangled in Donghyuck’s hair and his blood sweet and hot on his tongue, but it’s easy to convince himself that it’s pure necessity. He has a biological need that Donghyuck can meet, and it would be so much simpler to keep it that way. It doesn’t have to be real. It doesn’t have to run deeper than that.
But he sees a fourteen-year-old Donghyuck asleep next to him on his cramped twin mattress, the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling casting a green tint on his pretty features as he buries his face into Mark’s pillows.
He sees Donghyuck sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, elbow-deep in a can of Pringles while he shouts at an opposing player for killing Mark’s favorite mage. He’s always angrier than Mark is – every single time – and Mark finds it endearing but will never say so.
He sees Donghyuck in their college dorm room, moonwalking across the kitchen tile to a Michael Jackson song he must have heard at least three hundred times. He sings it at the top of his lungs every morning, and Mark really does think he has a pretty voice.
He sees Donghyuck’s hooded gaze in the dingy light of a bathroom as he stumbles against Mark and slurs that it doesn’t have to mean anything. Mark wants it to mean something. He always has.
“Don’t,” Mark whispers, trailing his lips along Donghyuck’s jawline and leaving a smear of blood in their wake, “don’t tell me it doesn’t mean anything.”
Donghyuck’s fingers dig into Mark’s waist. “It’s always meant something.” And he turns his head to catch Mark’s lips in a kiss that leaves him still and speechless. Donghyuck’s blood is still warm and metallic on his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to care. He kisses Mark in a way that feels desperate, parting his lips and sighing like he’s been waiting his entire life.
And Mark is suddenly starving.
He grabs Donghyuck by the hips and backs him against the kitchen counter. Donghyuck gasps and pulls back, his eyes glassy and his lips crimson with his own blood. Mark commits it to memory, doesn’t want to forget it for the entirety of his immortal existence, and lets his fingers slide under the fabric of Donghyuck’s sweater. They don’t break eye contact, and Mark pulls the sweater over Donghyuck’s head as gently as he can. He hears Donghyuck suck in a startled breath as his pulse quickens.
“Does it hurt?” Mark whispers. He trails his fingers through the blood on Donghyuck’s neck.
Donghyuck swallows. “More than I thought it would.”
Mark almost feels guilty, but then Donghyuck stares at him with dark, dark eyes and murmurs “but I like it and want you to do it again”, and the shudder that races down Mark’s spine is so intense he feels unsteady on his feet. He brings his lips to the space above Donghyuck’s collarbone. “Can I bite you here?” It’s barely audible, even to his own ears.
“Yes, please.”
“But what if I go too far?” Mark lets the tip of his tongue trace the skin. “I could kill you.”
“I trust you,” Donghyuck whispers back. His fingers find their way into Mark’s hair, and the sincerity in his voice is like thick honey. “I always have.”
And that’s more than enough.
Mark’s fangs pierce the skin like it’s paper, and Donghyuck is whimpering as he tightens his fingers in Mark’s hair. It’s bliss in every sense of the word, and Donghyuck’s whimpers devolve into moans that ring in Mark’s ears. He begs for more, there, please, and Mark wonders why he ever denied himself something so beautiful. Donghyuck is art, a study in warmth with crimson blood trailing down his sunshine skin, and Mark wants to see him like this again and again and again. Mark wants to break him, to tear him down to nothing just to put him back together with his own hands. Donghyuck’s skin, his blood, his stuttering breath—Mark wants to take it all and store it in the deepest parts of his memory, so he can use it to light up the gray patches in his impending immortality.
Because, sure, he might be bound to darkness for the rest of eternity—but that won’t stop him from holding the sun in his hands.