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It is late when Sunghoon drags his feet into the dorm. So late only a dim yellow lamp is on, weakly diffused over the living room, and his tired eyes don't realize there's anyone else until a firm hand is taking him by the shoulder and sitting him down at the couch. His vision spins and his body sinks and he groans, muscles unfurling in relief, eyes fluttering shut. When he opens them again, it's to a concerned Heeseung, eyes searching and impossibly wide. Fingers splay over his shoulder, prodding as if to test something, to feel for marks and signs and clues.
"Hoon-ah," says Heeseung, voice much gentler than usual, made quiet. "It's just hyung. Don't worry."
In a mumble, "Wasn't worried. I know you."
"But I was. Do you know how worried I was? You don't take care of yourself, Sunghoon. I thought--" Heeseung swallows, and Sunghoon is hit with a vague sense of guilt and unease, but it's drowned out by just how tired he feels. His body is too heavy, like his clothes are weighed by water, like he's slowly but surely descending into the depths of the ocean, and all he can hear is the deafened sound of bubbles and Heeseung's hazy voice above sea level.
He blinks rapidly in an attempt to clear the feeling, and only succeeds in seeing the full, agonizing fear in Heeseung's eyes.
"I wasn't gonna die." The thought makes him snort, in some sleepy, absent way. Heeseung sits down on the couch next to him, and Sunghoon naturally burrows himself further into his side, clutching weakly at the warmth he exudes. Heeseung is so tall, so full of life, golden, sun-kissed, blood pumping hot in his veins, that juncture between his neck and collarbone so strangely appealing. Heeseung is strong and reliable and older; his only real hyung, the only one he can fully surrender to, the only one who knows.
Of course, management does too, and they make their accommodations, you're not the first one we've had. So it is quite useless indeed to send him off to the hospital, when they know what happened, how to solve it, that it is just par for the course for someone like him. Now Sunghoon is just more tired than he had been before, and made the group needlessly worry, and is causing a fuss over things that can't be fixed anyway.
"You fainted. Twice. When was the last time you fed?" Heeseung tangles their fingers together, and Sunghoon imagines pressing his lips to his wrist and--
And recoils at the very thought, sick to his stomach, eyes wide and shoves Heeseung away, scrambling to find purchase on the far end of the sofa. He clears his throat. Shakes his head. Feels a sudden pounding in his head, blood rushing in a frenzy, stomach clawing in on itself as if to punish him. Punish Sunghoon for his greed.
Heeseung is quick on the uptake. He rights himself, leans forward- "Sunghoon."
"I don't need to feed, hyung," he bites out, very awake, hair on end, startled eyes watching his movements and inching backwards. Tries fruitlessly to rein in the animal, if only for another minute. "I'm fine. I'm just--I'm just hungry. Nutrients. Protein."
"Stop lying to me," says Heeseung sharply, and Sunghoon tenses at the sudden change, soft to harsh, fearful to angry. "You're not okay. Everyone knows it. You think it hasn't been hard for me, fending off everyone's questions? You think it hasn't been hard keeping your secret? You think it hasn't been hard watching you let yourself rot and waste away and dig your own grave?"
"I'm sorry," says Sunghoon quietly, sufficiently cowed, and the meek tone of his voice must startle Heeseung back out of his anger. He watches Sunghoon for a long moment, then sighs and pulls his legs together. A hand comes up to tug at his hair, dyed newly brown. Heeseung has always been too attractive for his own good, even miserable like this, sallow skin in the sickly yellow light.
"I'm sorry too. You know I'm just anxious. They're starting to suspect I'm keeping secrets. Jungwon especially." He gives Sunghoon a particularly meaningful look then. "You haven't thought about telling him yet?"
Jungwon is younger. He has enough responsibility. Sunghoon doesn't want anyone else to know who he is, because he's so terrified he'll lose the closest people in his life. Years and years of not trusting anyone enough to let them in, and then he joined a K-Pop group and landed with six.
Of course, he doesn't tell any of this to Heeseung. He shrugs a single shoulder, still hunched up on the other end of the couch, turning to face the dark kitchen. Heeseung follows his gaze, then sighs again, so brief he almost misses it.
"I'm going to make some ramen, alright? Nutrients and protein, all that. You can't have eaten much."
Heeseung gets up. Sunghoon's stomach claws, digs nails and pulls at flesh. His throat seems to crackle, parched, craving something more filling than water. His will gives way. His humanity surrenders to the primal beauty of Heeseung's skin and the hunger slowly killing him--as much as someone only partway-alive can die, anyway.
"Hyung," he whimpers, digging his own nails into the couch. His tongue brushes over elongated fangs. It comes away with the faint taste of his own blood. "Wait no. Hyung. I'm sorry. Please."
Heeseung is there in a flash, smoothing over his hair, hand clutched to his shoulder. His dark eyes shine. He is so impossibly selfless- "Hoon. Sunghoon. I'm here. Don't worry."
"Are you sure?" mumbles Sunghoon, but it takes an effort not to just--lean over, and sink his teeth into that spot at his nape, to puncture and suck blood straight from its source. He hasn't fed in months, months of pork blood soup and meat just a little raw, and it's disgusting. He's so hungry. "I'm so tired. I'm so tired, I don't know how much I'll take, it might be dangerous-"
"I trust you." He maneuvers them, Heeseung sat cross-legged on the couch, Sunghoon clutching his back, pulled dizzyingly close to his neck. "Stop acting like you haven't done this before, Sunghoon."
"Will anyone--will anyone come?" Sunghoon's voice is nearly swallowed up whole by his throat, words caught in soft membrane, prepared for blood. Heeseung understands him anyway, reaches over to flick the light off, and they're bathed in darkness all of a sudden. Sunghoon blinks, but there's no seeing Heeseung quite yet, only feeling him, his shirt, the broad, warm line of his back.
He comes easily into definition, Sunghoon's eyes well suited for the dark, but he shuts them again so he can't see. Phosphenes swim under his eyelids. He breathes in, one, two, feels his faint heartbeat quiver, the light-headedness, the vague, stirring, building nausea. "Okay. I'm doing it."
"Get it over with then," says Heeseung, trying to be jokey, trying to be nonchalant, but under Sunghoon's fingers he hears the rabbity thud of his pulse. He almost pulls back, almost tucks himself in for another month of blood by the bag, IV's dripping in what his body can't produce on its own. But his stomach gives a growl. Vampires are a hungry species. He has not quite perfected the art of self-control.
"I'm sorry," says Sunghoon into the silence, broken and desperate, and in a sudden motion, his head is at Heeseung's shoulder and his fangs sunk beneath skin, into flesh, stealing blood he doesn't have, taking Heeseung into himself to sustain a life that shouldn't exist. His vision blurs. Heeseung goes stiff beneath him, chest rising and falling in practiced, deliberate movements.
"Slowly," he says, Heeseung that is, voice so steady, firmly lodging itself into Sunghoon's conscience. "Slower, Sunghoon. You're starved."
How are you so calm? He thinks wildly, head spinning, having to grip at Heeseung's biceps to keep upright, but it feels good. It tastes good. Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word, because blood is--blood is like drinking warm metal, something coppery, something terrible, and normally he might hate the taste, might reject it for his humanity.
From Heeseung it's a lifeline. From Heeseung it's a delicacy. From Heeseung it's food and air and the force that keeps him rising above the undead. If it is metal, It must be solid gold.
It's heart-wrenching to pull away, but he does, still craving, hands stilled obediently on his knees, panting loudly in the dark, quiet living room. They sit there in the silence, human and half-vampire, breathing in tune. Sunghoon's heartbeat is so loud in his ears. He hasn't heard it this loud in so long. He hasn't felt so starkly alive, full and kicking. His lungs heave in air more forcefully, determined to work as hard as they can now that he exists again.
"Sunghoon," comes a soft whisper. Sunghoon raises his head, and Heeseung presses the warm, callused pads of his fingers to Sunghoon's cheeks. One by one, he brushes away silently dripping tears, holding his face in a gentle vice. "You did good. I'm proud of you."
"Why?" shoots Sunghoon back, the tears coming harder. "How can you--I'm a monster."
"No you're not."
"I'm taking someone else's blood for myself." His chest heaves with sobs. "I can't live unless I leech off someone else. Hyung."
The dam breaks, and Sunghoon drops with the full weight of his shame. Heeseung must be so tired, his shoulder must be killing him, that throbbing pain, the reminder, they haven't even thought about dance practice, but carefully he brings Sunghoon into his lap, head on his knee, salty tears soaking into the fabric of his sweatpants. He strokes at Sunghoon's coloured, flaky hair gently, fluffing up the strands. He hasn't had nice hair for a long time. He's all ruined.
"That bad, huh?" he murmurs, and Sunghoon babbles incoherently in response, muffled against fabric. "You could've told me I don't taste good."
"Shut up," Sunghoon chokes out with some difficulty, but it needs to be said. "You're so--your blood is so good I want to keep drinking it forever. I don't know why you keep letting me. I'm getting addicted to you, hyung. I think I already am."
Heeseung smiles, a sliver of a thing in the dark, but his teeth poke through and shine like the moon itself. "Then keep drinking from me, Sunghoon. You'll never starve again."