Archive of Our Own

Tommy wakes up with a pounding headache and what feels like a blanket of poison ivy scratching his skin. His mouth is stale, dry, and unpleasant, his body’s heavy with sleep, and as he slowly blinks himself into awareness all he can see is shadow, the fabric of his sleeping mask scraping against his eyelashes.

As a staunchly anti-curtain individual – a lot of curtain hooks have iron in them, and he has no time for allergies in the morning – darkness only ever means one thing.

He woke up before his alarm again.

Tommy shuts his eyes with a disgruntled huff, edging into a whine. He has work today! He can’t just– what, not sleep.

And yet, despite his best efforts, with every second that passes him by, Tommy feels more and more alert.

He whines, grimacing as the movement jostles his arms. The poison ivy metaphor wasn’t an exaggeration. While he’s dealt with worse – far, far worse, in fact – he isn’t too Big of a Man to admit when it hurts. Because it does hurt. Or rather, it’s starting to. And it’s keeping him awake.

He can feel blisters beginning to form on his wrists, pulsing warmly whenever he tries to stretch the ache out of his fingers. His neck stings, his ear – just the one – stings more, and his ankles aren’t much better.

There’s nothing for it. If he wants to get any sleep, he needs to sort the itching out first.

With another ill-tempered huff, Tommy strains to roll over onto his side, wincing as his ear flares with pain. It’s tough. His limbs feel like they’re weighed down by lead and his blankets are almost too thick to move. To make matters worse, he can hear chains clinking somewhere nearby. Far too close for comfort.

Which makes no sense, because Tommy hasn’t had a… what do people call it? Hallucinations, right? Tommy hasn’t hallucinated chains in fucking years. He thought he’d put that shit firmly behind him.

Apparently not.

Even with everything working against him, however, the boy somehow manages to move. His heart thuds in his chest with the effort, and Tommy almost smiles at just how out-of-shape he is. It’s a good thing. Or it isn't, but it means good things – you don’t need to be in shape in a city, after all; not when you’re safe – but it’s a bit annoying. More than a bit.

…maybe he should get a gym membership, after all. They probably don’t actually pump iron in there.

Tommy blindly reaches out for the nightstand, the phantom sensation of manacles keeping his hands close together as he carefully feels out the lacquered wood. His fingers pause at the unexpected texture. Last time he checked, his nightstand was some kind of rustic steampunk abomination.

He’s quick to dismiss the thought as his ear flares again – he’s too tired to think about that right now. Chances are he just went shopping or something. Impulse-buying a fancy nightstand sounded like something he’d do.

Finally, Tommy touches something cool and glass-like. After gently tapping it with his nails, he finds it sounds glass-like, too. But as he wraps a hand around it, it feels more like a cup than the wide-bottomed bottle he was expecting; when he tries to find the bottle cork, there’s nothing but a wide lip.

He hesitates. A creeping sense of unease begins to pool in his gut.

A new nightstand is whatever – most of Tommy’s furniture was tricked out of some idiot on the side of the road – but Tommy takes good care of his shit. The best care. He doesn’t get new shit because he doesn’t replace old shit, and he doesn’t replace his old shit because none of it ever breaks. He’d had that bottle for fucking years at this point. It's his favourite. If he could, he would have glued it to his hip.

Tommy would remember if he got something new.

He doesn’t.

Tommy sets the glass (bottle?) down again and starts prying off his sleeping mask with a combination of his shoulder, his hands (still pressed oddly close together), and a generous helping of spite. Already adjusted to the dark, it doesn’t take long until shapes begin to reveal themselves through the inky gloom.

An unfamiliar rectangle rests on the nightstand before him, confirming his worst fears. He feels over the unfamiliar texture of the… blindfold.

Gingerly, he tugs his hands away from each other. He fails. His hands are tied together.

Tommy tries to pull apart his ankles.

He fails. They're also tied together.

Tommy tries to sit up. He doesn’t get any further than a foot from his pillow before he meets resistance, the chain attached to his fucking collar, too short. The iron clinks. He falls back. His ear screams in tender agony.

Suddenly, the itching makes a whole lot more sense.

He picks up the glass. He stares at it. Even though he can’t quite see the shadow of its contents, when he tilts it, he can feel the weight shift. Somehow, Tommy doubts he’d taste the magic of his anti-allergy mix if he tried to drink it. He sets it back down again.

His heart beats heavily for an entirely different reason, now.

Where the fuck is he?

Tommy can feel his breaths choke in his throat; he can hear the rasp of his voice as his lungs heave faster and faster. The itching gets worse, like there are a thousand spiders scuttling all over his body – through his body. His veins prickle, his eyes ache, his ear throbs, and he–

And he needs to stop freaking out.

He needs to– he needs to count or some shit. Like when he first moved into the city and everything was too much. Even with his potions on board, the sounds, the smells, the iron was everything he’d been told it would be, and worse. On his first day, he’d broken down in the middle of the street, bawling his eyes out like a fucking child. Luckily, someone was nearby to help calm him down. They aren’t here this time. Tommy doesn’t have anything defending him from the nightmares of his past.

Abstractly, he can hear himself repeating the person’s words, counting down from ten. The numbers are stuttering and wet and he’s pretty sure six is after seven, but he can almost feel–

He doesn’t. Feel it. Calm – he doesn’t feel calm. 

His breaths get raspier, the numbers disappear into choking sobs, and it isn’t. Fucking. Working.

His voice echoes throughout the foreign room, bouncing back at him like a funerary choir, and it still doesn’t fucking work.

He keeps trying. Failing. His eyes burn. Breathing is only getting harder the more he tries. Thinking is borderline impossible.

Shit.

The boy scrabbles for something – anything – to help. Not numbers. Numbers sound like a countdown to his fucking death. What else? Sheep? No, that’s just numbers again. Names aren’t going to help anything but his ego and he really doubts that will work. His senses? Taste, sight, touch– no, nope. Oh, fuck no. That just makes everything infinitely worse. What about– what about memories? He can't– wait. Yes. Memories. What was he doing last night?

His eyes scrunch up, limbs fighting against his restraints as he tries to curl in on himself, and he can feel his brain pounding in his ears. He thinks. He sobs. What was he doing last night?

Hunting.

Right, right, Tommy was– he was hunting. For vampires. For his vampire. The fucker hadn’t been outside for a few weeks, starving itself like an idiot. He was worried. No, not worried – not for a vampire, even if it is his – but… curious. Someone said his vampire was back, so he went out to look for it. As any good fae does. Half fae. Whatever.

Tommy’s breaths start slowing.

He remembers leaving a café, tip jar contents in his pockets and someone else’s name tag pinned to his shirt, to look for it. He remembers following along its usual route. He remembers hearing a scream – Tommy’s breaths slow further, recalling the relief he’d felt at the noise – and he remembers finding it. Seeing it.

He found his vampire.

And now he’s… here. Wherever here is.

Tommy takes one last long, deep breath to steady himself. He rolls his wrists around in their restraints, testing the give. There’s laughably little – barely enough to fit his nails under the gap, let alone his fingers – and the way he's been tied up means he can’t bend his hands as much as he needs to. But he was expecting that.

Instead, he pushes the cuffs as high up his arms as they can go and ignores the new rings of pain looping over his skin, gently running his lips over his wrists. He heard somewhere that lips are one of the most sensitive parts of a human’s body, and he hopes that holds true for his own.

He pauses at every tiny bump, trying to tell if the blisters are… well. If any of the blisters aren't blisters. But they are. Each of them stings, just as he’d expect an iron burn to sting. There are no odd divots, no new scars. No bites.

Tommy lets his arms relax. The cuffs slid back down; his hands spasm at the renewed pain. He ignores it. He’s been through worse. He needs to focus.

Gingerly, almost nervously, he moves his attention to his neck. Tommy tilts his head to the side, feeling for any new marks there. He hisses whenever his fingertips brush his collar or his manacles touch his jaw or when, at one distinct point, he finds out that the stinging in his ears is because they're pierced now, iron sizzling his skin in a way that is more incredibly uncomfortable than agonising as he's quick to pull away. But at last, once more, his search comes up empty.

No marks.

No bites.

That’s… he doesn’t really know how to feel about that. Something in him is distinctly relieved – he found his vampire, but his vampire didn’t find him, just as it’s meant to be.

On the other hand the darker, hungrier side of him is nothing but disappointed.

No bite means no blood. No blood means no fae food. No fae food means no vampire – it’s his but not his; his in every way except in the ways that matter. It also means his starving vampire isn't the culprit; it wouldn't have been able to resist a free meal, not after weeks of nothing.

He sighs.

Tommy has been kidnapped before – hell, he’s been tortured before – so none of this is exactly new. The cell is a bit bougie, sure, but not new. Whoever bought these chains didn't know anything about Tommy's heritage, as he can still feel a faint trace of magic in every twist of his heart, ready for the taking. Escape is going to be pretty simple if this is the best they've got.

The boy scans the room again. He’s far more adjusted to the darkness now, but that doesn’t mean much. Some shapes aren’t as blurry, some shapes are blurrier, and his mind taunts him with the imagined outlines of faces grinning back at him from the corners of his eyes.

He tugs on his wrists again, just to try it. No give. He stretches, sliding down the bed to test the collar’s chain length – it isn’t long enough to see when he turns around, at least, but he needs to know what he’s working with – and he… stops.

His brows furrow. Tommy shuffles his legs a bit. They move together, as expected, making a heavy, clunking noise. He tugs his manacles again – no sound. They’re too tight.

Tommy wouldn’t have been able to stop the laugh if he tried. It bubbles out of his chest, light and positively giddy, as he draws his knees up to his chest.

The shackles slip off.

Quick as a whip, Tommy sinks his magic into his joy and brandishes the emotion like a scythe, jerking as he feels it slamming through the chain anchoring his neck to the headboard, and he’s free.

Kind of.

He doesn’t bother trying to get his arms out of their restraints. There isn’t enough joy to try and break through them, already starting to fizzle out into that familiar peace. Fear won’t work either, far too chaotic to be worth the risk, and any other emotions he might be able to dredge up for a spell are either too weak or too dangerous. But it isn’t like he needs any magic, now.

The blankets don’t put up much of a fight when he slips out of them. Neither does the door. When he tries the handle, it swings outward on silent hinges to reveal even more darkness and some… very soft carpet.

Tommy pauses his escape, just for a moment, to luxuriate in the sensation.

In all the fuss, he hadn’t really noticed the finer details. The fluffy hair. The minty mouth. The clothes: too soft, too warm, too other. They’re strange. Nothing like the smooth, immaterial feel of faerie clothes, or even the clothing humans wear. The seams aren’t scratchy; the scent isn't quite right. It’s nice.

Which means whoever kidnapped him gave him a makeover and stole his stuff.

What a bitch.

With that, Tommy leaves. He doesn’t have time to think about luxury carpets, light, or theft right now. He’s got places to be, bitches to see, dickheads to not see, and a vampire – somewhere – who still needs to eat.

He’s as careful as he can be. He sticks to the middle of the hall, stopping at every sound no matter how minor, keeping his head on as straight as he can whenever his heart starts acting up again.

A floorboard creaks: Tommy holds still; silent. Listening.

It creaks again.

Down the hall, somewhere to his left, he can just make out the sound of some kind of instrument. Tommy strains his ears – a guitar? Is that a guitar?

He grimaces. What kind of kidnapper plays guitar?

But… he can use this. As weird as it is, it works in his favour. Tommy knows plenty of musicians, and if there’s one thing they all share it’s their terrible spatial awareness. And awareness in general. If the fucker’s strumming strings, they’ll be too busy stressing over notes to hear Tommy creeping past their door.

It’s perfect.

Or it would be perfect, if another door – just a little closer than the other one – didn’t open at that exact moment.

For a second, nothing happens. Dim, yellow light spills out of the room and into the hall, and Tommy blinks his eyes back into focus. A blond man stares at him in confusion. Tommy stares back. The stranger has glowing red eyes.

Oh.

Oh fuck, that’s not a man.

“Hey, mate–” the motherfucking vampire starts, stepping forward in confusion – “why are–?”

Tommy interrupts, shoving a jolt of fear from his spine into his legs and legging it. “Sorry no time gotta go bye!”

He leaps past the vampire, gunning it down the hall. He pays no mind to the bewildered noises at his back, growing quieter and quieter as he sprints away, and he only barely notices the sound of another door opening – another person, another vampire – and new sounds as two pairs of footsteps start trailing behind him.

But Tommy has experience with vampires. He knows how good their hearing is, their sense of smell, their sense of personal space, everything – running from two confused idiots is a fucking cake walk compared to stalking his vampire.

Slowly, walls start gaining colour, the carpet starts flushing a very pretty pale blue, and life begins to breathe around him. The halls get progressively lighter with every corner he takes. Towering floor lamps and tiny tables littered with scrap paper and pens start filling up the empty space. Windows, too – enormous things, covered by heavy curtains Tommy couldn’t open if he tried. Just looking at them makes his hair stand on end, and considering he’s still got an iron collar around his neck, he does not want to find out why.

Now is the time for fear – a bolt of uncontrolled energy sending him hurtling forwards and nowhere else, with no time to think. He tries to keep it as topped up as he can, even when his body starts to flag.

Whenever it runs too low and his breaths come in just a little too short, Tommy slows down and takes stock of his surroundings. Stopping – even if just for a little while – means his pursuers get just that little bit closer, his heart beats faster, and Tommy can last just that little while longer. But when he does, he doesn’t see anything… encouraging.

Encouraging, as in familiar. Encouraging, as in helpful. Encouraging, as in scary.

The doors are just regular doors. The walls are just regular walls. The windows are a little weird, but that’s only because they show off a forest outside and some very narrow iron bars. Because of course he had to be kidnapped by someone vaguely normal for a change.

Tommy pants harshly, eyes stinging despite himself, suddenly regretting how unfit he is. Magic can only get him so far – it’s starting to run low – and he’s tired. His bones ache, his heart aches, his head aches, and his paranoia is amping higher and higher and higher with every break he takes. But what can he do?

This isn’t an office, this isn’t a lab, this isn’t underground or a billion miles in the air. The bars aren’t prison bars so much as an overzealous proprietor’s security detail.

When Tommy runs, he runs on soft carpet. He passes fancy windows in fancy halls lit by fancy lamps, and despite how long this chase has been going on for, he only has two pursuers. It isn’t scary enough to keep up his pace.

What is scary enough, however, is the thought that he might be in the middle of their nest.

It would make sense.

The boy gives himself a moment to take that in. Then, when he doesn’t hear his hunters, he uses another moment to plan.

He needs to run, that much is obvious. But now he knows he needs to run even faster –  he needs to get out of here as soon as he can.

Chains, darkness, blindfolds, a luxurious bed and a glass of what he’s hoping was water? Yeah, no. Not a great sign, especially when paired up with his still-throbbing ear. He’s heard plenty of tales about vampires marking their claims in one way or another, and Tommy isn’t exactly a fan of the whole “freelance adoption” thing vampires have going on, particularly when it’s directed at him.

He’s a changeling – was a changeling, even; he isn’t a kid anymore – so there’s absolutely no way he’s gonna be a fledgeling, too. Piss off with that shit.

His heart flutters at the click of a door handle, magic pulsing in warning. And maybe it’s just the iron blisters, but Tommy’s skin burns. Almost like–

With an explosion of noise, one of the doors crash open and a vampire launches itself from its hiding place with a stream of expletives. It misses Tommy’s heel by bare inches, a wave of adrenaline-infused magic sparking down his spine in the nick of time as he kicks away.

Tommy scrabbles forward, desperate to just get away even as his emotions drain away from his brain like wine through a sieve. He kicks down on a lamp and sends it to the floor, pulling down a curtain with it as fear floods his body and a biting pain digs into his wrists – anything to propel him further. Faster.

“Get a tan, bloodsucker!” he cries. The vampire screeches in confusion; something shatters. Another curse. A bundle of hysteric giggles bursts free from the boy’s chest and he swears he can hear the thing hiss as he does.

“The fuck–?”

But Tommy’s too far away to hear the rest; too quick. And even if he wanted to, his wardrum heart jackrabbits between his ribs like thunder, racing almost as fast as his legs as he flies through the labyrinth. Hall after hall after hall, corner after corner, door after door, it’s more of the same no matter where he looks.

Eventually, Tommy’s convinced he’s running around in circles. He needs to try something new. The longer he runs the same course, the more time they have to set up a strap, a– an ambush. Tommy can run but he’s been running on fear; he’s primed for terror. Terror can’t help him escape a net. He isn’t making that kind of mistake again.

It’s with that thought that Tommy slows. Breathing hurts – everything hurts – and it’s only by the virtue of his bloodline that he’s been able to keep up the pace until now. He tries a door– it.

…opens?

The door opens. His paranoia peaks. Tommy dives into the room and closes the door as quietly as he possibly can, just in time for footsteps to pass him by.

This is, Tommy thinks, lungs screaming as he tries to wrestle with the power bubbling through his body, the longest he’s stopped.

He can feel it – by the gods, Tommy can feel it – but there’s nothing he can do about it.

He needs to get out. He needs a– a vent or a balcony or a window or something. His wrists are already slick with blood where the manacles have scraped his skin raw. He doesn’t care if he gets burned on the iron bars, he needs to get out. Now.

His eyes scan the room. It’s a… kitchen? This is a kitchen, yes. It’s huge, and in the mirror backsplash all he can see is his face. It’s eerily blank, all of his emotions being drained into his magic, but he’s visibly shaking. He tears his gaze away.

A knife block, a sink, too many fucking counters, stools, a door, a fridge, other kitchen stuff, it doesn’t matter. Tommy darts for the door, pushing down heavily on the handle. It gets stuck halfway – jammed. Or locked. He tries again, slamming his shoulder into the wood as he hears a voice in the hall. A new one. Oh, oh fuck. Three vampires. There’s three of them.

Tommy slams into the door again. Nothing. His fear’s back again, louder than ever, but it’s too much. He tries to wrestle with his magic and it slips through his fingers; he can’t breathe. He can’t think. Desperately, he tries to force the emotion into something manageable but it doesn’t listen. It doesn’t listen.

It doesn’t fucking listen.

A window. The idea returns to him in a flash. Tommy grabs a stool by the legs and hoists it over his shoulder like a potato sack, fumbling as the cuffs restrict his movements, painfully aware of the timer ticking down the seconds to his capture. To his loss.

The hall is ominously silent.

The boy doesn’t spare it a second thought. He aims, he swings, and he slams the stool into the glass pane. The window shatters into a million pieces and Tommy throws the stool back, behind him. He needs to get out. He needs to get out. He needs to get out.

Freedom is at his fingertips. Desperation froths in his gut and Tommy wrenches apart the iron bars. It’s slow progress. Too slow. But they’re moving. They’re burning him. It hurts. Glass shards bite into the skin of his knees and the thick stench of iron fills his nose as he bites his tongue at the pain. It hurts. It hurts so goddamn much and fuck composure, he’s–

Tommy dives for the grass outside – for freedom – as the bars finally give way.

A hand clasps tight around his foot.

Tommy’s eyes burn.

He thrashes wildly in the vampire’s hold, screaming, cursing, clawing, scrabbling for anything he can get close to his mouth to fucking tear. The next second, he can’t breathe; he can’t move. The vampire pins him to its chest and crushes his face against its collarbone, a bone-rattling growl rumbling throughout his entire body.

He whimpers. His captor is unrelenting.

There’s nothing Tommy can do as they step further and further away from the window. Nothing he can do as freedom slips through his fingers. Nothing.

“Hey, what–?” one of the vampires starts, but Tommy's captor starts growling again and the boy flinches back – he hadn’t even noticed it stopped. It growls louder. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! Jeez.”

Tommy whimpers as a snarl begins in its throat, shrinking in on himself as a low, serpentine hiss starts cutting through the air. A tear slips down his cheek, fear resolving itself into insurmountable despair. He hurts – he hurts so much.

“Leave him, Wil. Mate – call if you need me, alright?”

Two pairs of footsteps disappear into the distance; Tommy’s captor keeps walking, heedless. Silent, except for the grumbles it gives every time he so much as twitches.

Clutched tight, pressed close– Tommy doesn’t have a hope in hell of seeing what’s going on. He still tries. And every time he does, the arms constrict him tighter. Tighter and tighter and tighter until he can hardly breathe.

Tommy wants to be scared. He wants to be absolutely fucking petrified. But he’s– he’s tired. He’s so tired.

He stops struggling, eventually, and the halls get darker until at last, a door closes, and he knows he's back at the beginning. Faintly, a thread of hope starts worming its way up into his heart. If the vampire releases him, even for a second, he has a chance. Just a small one, but a chance nonetheless.

So Tommy allows himself to go limp in its arms, melting into the soothing purr that follows and hoping, praying, that it isn't too quick when it puts the chains back on.

The vampire doesn't put the chains back on.

Tommy yelps as it falls back onto the bed, the wind knocked out of his lungs as they land. In the second he takes to register the change, the vampire readjusts its grip and holds him even tighter, nosing into the crook of his shoulder.

“Hey, runt,” the vampire mutters. A huff of icy air fans over the back of Tommy's neck and sends shivers down his spine.

“Let go of me,” Tommy demanded, voice coming out at more of a whimper than the commanding tone he’d been aiming for. The vampire snorts.

“Never.”

“I said let go! Please? You don’t– I don’t–” he fumbles, searching for something he could use. What do vampires hate? Sunlight, garlic, being told ‘no’, other vampires– that’s it. “I’m already claimed.”

The tension skyrockets.

In an instant, he isn’t laying down on the thing’s chest anymore, but pinned to the bed. He gasps, arms folding under him awkwardly, and jerks away as the vampire dives its nose into his hair. Its dangerous claws hold him in place, curling through his hair whenever it feels like he’s breathing too much, and it takes deep breaths. Almost like it’s… smelling him.

“Liar.”

Tommy tenses. “I’m not! I’m not, he– the Blood God. C’mon, you– he’s gonna fucking kill you. With his hands tied behind his back,” he spits.

He wheezes at a sudden weight pressing into his back, another grumble reverberating through his bones.

Only, this time, it’s almost familiar.

“Am I meant to thank you or call you dumb, Thes?”

A cold wash of realisation rushes over his mind, making him pale. And flush. And want to bury his head in a sandpit and never come out.

“Tech,” he breathes, and the vampire – Technoblade; his vampire – curls up around him. He laughs, a little incredulous, trying to turn to face it. “Hey there, big man. What the fuck? Why’re you here? No, how’ve you been? What’s with the–”

“Shh,” Tech interrupts, squeezing him gently. “Sleep.”

“What? No!” Tommy struggles a little, exhaustion be damned.

“Yes,” his vampire insists, and this time, as if to reinforce its point, it tucks him close and buries them under the blankets. The remaining light snuffs out, cloaking them in darkness.

“I just wanna know what’s going on,” Tommy mutters, not sounding nearly as annoyed as he’d intended. “How’d I get here?”

Something dark and satisfied curls in his gut as Technoblade snorts disapproval, nudging aside Tommy’s collar with its face and brushing the boy’s neck with its fangs in a quiet warning. His heart flutters – in anticipation or fear, it doesn’t matter.

Technoblade stills.

Tommy feels its grasp on one of his wrists – when had it even gotten there? – tighten, thumbing some of the blisters peeking out from beneath the cuffs, smearing blood over his skin. A pause. Then the growl rumbles louder. Tommy can feel it buzzing in his teeth. It’s a really weird sensation, and he absolutely wouldn’t recommend it.

“What. Is this?”

“...blisters, bitch.” And what is it with his voice today? First he doesn’t sound as annoyed as he should, now he sounds like he’s about to cry. What the fuck?

Tech must think the same; the grip softens. “Why,” it murmurs, icy fangs pressing into his skin gently. Not quite enough to break through, yet, but nearly.

…he doesn’t really want to answer. He does, anyway.

“Allergies,” Tommy mutters, cheeks warming at the admission. 

“Allergies.”

“Uh-huh. And handcuffs. And being chased through a maze.”

Technoblade makes an oddly hurt noise at that. Tommy doesn’t really know what to make of it. “Does it hurt?”

Tommy shrugs. Or, he tries to, at least, only getting about a third of the way before Technoblade’s chin stops him dead in his tracks. “Nah. I’m a Big Man, I can take it.”

He doesn’t get a response.

“Seriously, Big T, what’s going on?”

“Brought you home.”

Yeah, no shit. The question is why. Though, if Tommy’s being honest with himself, he has a sneaking suspicion.

“Is it to do with the earring?”

“Nope,” the vampire lies. Tommy scoffs.

“C’mon I’m not an idiot. I’m in your nest, aren’t I? Cuffs, blindfolds, drugs. You’re not exactly subtle–”

“Listen, Tommy,” Technoblade interrupts, voice low and sincere, and Tommy quiets, “would I ever lie to you?”

“I– maybe?”

A small huff. “No, I wouldn’t,” it continues. "Honesty is important."

Tommy nods. He's heard as much before. 

"So, would I lie to you?"

"...no."

The boy is rewarded with another brush of fangs to his jugular and the unmistakable feeling of a smile being hidden in the skin of his neck. He flinches a little, trying to wriggle away from the ticklish feeling. He fails.

"But if you're–"

A hand takes Tommy by the chin and turns his head.

Red.

Tommy stops. His mouth shuts. Opens. Shuts again. His mind struggles to understand what he's seeing – or rather, what he isn't seeing – because there's nothing to see but red.

It almost feels like he's falling, weightless, the aches of his body fading away, but he can feel the arms wrapping around his body; the hand cupping his cheek. He shouldn't feel so warm. Vampires are cold. Techno is a vampire. Techno is holding him. Techno–

Red.

"That's it," Technoblade murmurs, voice sounding so much farther away than it has any right to. Tommy's thoughts drift away from him, snapping back every few moments as his magic tries to stir. "Just a little further, Thes. I've got you."

Red.

Tommy slowly, reluctantly, relaxes. It's the best feeling in the world.

"Good."

He doesn't notice the blankets slowly falling away. Even if he wasn't drowning in an endless abyss of red, the room is somehow even darker than before. Technoblade has no such issue. In less than a moment, something cold presses to Tommy's lips, clinking against his teeth. His brows furrow.

"Focus, Tommy. Focus on me. You trust me, remember?"

There's a click, and a small rush of cold curls around Tommy's neck as the collar falls away. Fingers brush over the blisters looping about his throat, almost reverent. He barely registers it.

Yes, he trusts Technoblade. With his life. It's the kind of trust he levels at things he understands, and there's nothing he understands more than his vampire.

His brows smoothen. His jaw relaxes. A cold liquid slowly pours into his mouth, little by little. The fingers turn into knuckles and run down his neck in slow, lazy sweeps, helping him swallow.

Technoblade talks to him between mouthfuls, voice low and rumbly and… almost sweet. Intoxicating. Tommy latches onto it eagerly, drinking in every word. His skin buzzes pleasantly, a lazy fog settling over his mind.

"You're not human, are you, treasure?"

Tommy doesn't answer. Technoblade doesn't need him to.

There's a distinctive click and Tommy's wrists feel freer. Light. He uses his newfound freedom to grasp onto the vampire's shirt, humming happily.

"No," Technoblade sighs, "I didn't think so." Tommy stops swallowing. Not because he wants to stop, but because there's no more liquid. His tongue swipes over his lips, trying to catch the last droplets.

A chuckle. Tommy leans into the sound, red disappearing from sight as his head meets something incredibly comfortable. 

"That's fine. We can make this work."

Tommy pushes himself closer weakly, "Mrrp?"

"Yup." Arms readjust. A chin slots over his shoulder. "Now sleep, alright? Trust me, you don't want to be awake for this."

Red returns, but it needn't have. He's tired. A combination of exhaustion, relief, and the weight in his stomach setting his mind adrift.

The world fades in tandem with two sharp pinpricks piercing his neck and a dark satisfaction that follows him to his dreams.